MSNBC Doubles Down on False 'Anti-Trans' Narrative Despite Axios News

November 23rd, 2022 11:51 AM

On Wednesday's MSNBC Reports, host Lindsey Reiser and guest Scott Mccoy of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center doubled down on the now-debunked leftist media narrative that conservatives wanting to protect children from drag shows and other forms of grooming are somehow responsible for the shooting that happened at the gay night club in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 

"After the shooting, far-right Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert whose previously labeled trans people and drag queens as groomers tweeted quote the news out of Colorado Springs is awful, this lawless violence needs to end and end quickly," Reiser said in an attempt to smear Boebert as hypocritical.  

Reiser then claimed Boebert changed her tune and went back to attacking "transgender" and "LGBTQ" people: "Boebert on a radio show this week vowing to continue her antitrans rhetoric and rejecting calls from critics to be accountable for her words. Saying quote it's absolutely disgusting to try to blame this on me and try to say I've had bad rhetoric about the LGBTQ community. That is completely false."

"You’d think after something like this, the rhetoric would cool off," she huffed. 

 

 

McCoy lectured that "you can't spend years and years and midterm elections and all this time demonizing LGBTQ people, working to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation federally and across the states, and then try to inoculate yourself against the charge that you're a part of this problem by simply tweeting oh this is a tragedy and it's terrible that it happened."

McCoy ended by demanding conservatives be held accountable for wanting to protect children from being sexualized: "we need to start thinking about, what are the accountability measures that we can take against these right-wing influencers to hold them accountable for their part in what's happened here." 

This segment on MSNBC was made possible by Verizon. Their information is linked so we can let them know about the biased news they fund. 

To read the relevant transcript click "expand":

MSNBC Reports
11/23/2022
11:11:56 a.m. Eastern

LINDSEY REISER: Scott, I want to talk to you about rhetoric. Because after the shooting, far-right Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert whose previously labeled trans people and drag queens as groomers tweeted quote the news out of Colorado Springs is awful, this lawless violence needs to end and end quickly. But then fast-forward to now and we have from our NBC affiliate in Denver, KUSA Boebert on a radio show this week vowing to continue her antitrans rhetoric and rejecting calls from critics to be accountable for her words. Saying quote it's absolutely disgusting to try to blame this on me and try to say I've had bad rhetoric about the LGBTQ community. That is completely false. You’d think after something like this, the rhetoric would cool off. But what are you actually seeing? 

SCOTT MCCOY (SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER): Yeah, unfortunately, that's not the case. In the end, you can't spend years and years and midterm elections and all this time demonizing LGBTQ people, working to pass anti-LGBTQ legislation federally and across the states, and then try to inoculate yourself against the charge that you're a part of this problem by simply tweeting oh this is a tragedy and it's terrible that it happened. 

Well, we've seen throughout the last year and even before and certainly in midterm elections is a concerted effort by right-wing people like her and other influencers to drum up anti-LGBTQ sentiment and motivate voters to go to the polls. 

And these right-wing influencers cannot just skate away and say, sorry not us. I mean that’s why they’re called influencers. They're attempting to influence the people that listen to them with their rhetoric and words and motivate them to do something. And so they should or -- they should know or they know or should know that their words and their rhetoric can have consequences. 

And I think no one should be surprised that when you throw that kind of vile -- vile rhetoric out into the world you can't just expect nothing to happen. And so it's great that we're going to have hate crimes and criminal prosecution for Aldrich, the actual perpetrator, but we need to start thinking about, what are the accountability measures that we can take against these right-wing influencers to hold them accountable for their part in what's happened here.