CNN host Jake Tapper called out a Trumpy senator when his partisan rhetoric didn’t add up.
During Wednesday evening’s episode of The Lead with Jake Tapper, Tapper spoke with Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson about President Donald Trump’s Truth Social attack against Democratic Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from earlier in the day.
Johnson, 70, used the talking point to target Democrats, whom he called “sourpusses,” and implied that they didn’t care about murder victims like Laken Riley or Iryna Zarutska.
Democrats “wouldn’t stand as we were expressing sympathy and support for the mother of a Ukrainian young woman who was brutally murdered on a train by an illegal immigrant,” he said, noting the moment Trump brought Zarutska’s mother, Anna, as his guest to his State of the Union address.
Tapper took the opportunity to fact-check the senator.
“I don’t think that the woman killed in North Carolina was killed by an immigrant,” he told the senator. “It’s a horrible story, but I don’t think that’s an example of the illegal immigration criminal issue.”
Zarutska, 23, was fatally stabbed on a light-rail train in North Carolina last year. Her accused killer, DeCarlos Brown Jr., was born in Charlotte and has a driver’s license, according to the Assembly, citing court records.
Johnson attempted to recenter his argument by implying the media unfairly covered the fatal shootings of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti more than victims like Laken Riley or Rachel Morin.
“You know, Jake? There are so many others—Laken Riley, Rachel Morin—so many, many, many others that the news media never focused on," the senator said. “They just focused on the two martyrs that were encouraged to put themselves into harm’s way, knowing that they were probably going to get hurt.”
“The news media covers those; they don’t cover all the victims of illegal immigrants,” Johnson added.
The killers of both Riley and Morin were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The federal officers who shot and killed both Good and Pretti have yet to be formally charged in their deaths.
“Well, we certainly have covered Laken Riley and others,” Tapper replied. “I mean, I don’t think either Renee Good or Alex Pretti thought that they were risking their lives when they were doing what they were doing.”
During Trump’s record-long 108-minute State of the Union address on Tuesday, Democratic Reps. Tlaib and Omar jeered the president with shouts as he attacked Somalis and immigrants.
The president responded in typical unhinged fashion the next day, saying the congresswomen should be sent “back from where they came.”
“When you watch Low IQ Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as they screamed uncontrollably last night at the very elegant State of the Union, such an important and beautiful event, they had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized,” Trump wrote in his 237-word Truth Social screed Wednesday morning.
