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Rep. Ted Lieu pulls out phone and plays Candace Owens’ comments on Hitler during White nationalism hearing

The House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on hate crimes and the rise of White nationalism escalated when Democratic lawmaker Ted Lieu held his phone to his microphone and played controversial remarks made by conservative commentator Candace Owens, reports CNN.

Rep. Lieu showed his discontent for the GOP’s decision to pick Owens as one of eight witnesses by showing Owens’ contentious response to nationalism and Hitler, reports Business Insider.

“Of all the people that Republicans could have selected, they picked Candace Owens,” Lieu said. “I don’t know Ms. Owens. I’m not going to characterize her. I’m going to let her own words do the talking.”

Owens, who is the communications director for the right-wing group Turning Point USA, can be heard in the video clip saying that she has “no problem with nationalism” and accepted Adolf Hilter for his nationalist agenda to “to make Germany run great and run well.”  

Rep. Lieu asked Eileen Hershenov, who works at an organization focused on combatting anti-Semitism, if people’s attempts to “legitimize” Hitler fell into “white nationalist ideology.”

“It does, Mr. Lieu,” Hershenov responded.

When GOP Rep. Guy Reschenthaler asked if Owens had a response to the clip, she accused Rep. Lieu’s of undermining Black people by showing a shortened clip. Chairman Nadler misinterpreted – or misheard – Owens’ response, accusing her of calling Lieu “stupid.” A recording of the event confirms that she was criticizing Lieu’s use of an abbreviated sound bite.

“I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that Black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety,” said Owens, before committee Chairman Jerry Nadler intervened. “He [Rep. Lieu] intentionally presented an extracted clip.”

Rep. Lieu later retweeted a longer video of Owens. In the minute-long clip, she clarifies her position on nationalism and Hitler’s motives.

“The problem is that he wanted — he had dreams outside of Germany,” Owens says in the clip. “He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. That’s not, to me, that’s not nationalism. So in thinking about how we could go bad down the line, I don’t really have an issue with nationalism. I really don’t. I think that it’s OK.”

This isn’t the first time politicians and activists have criticized some of Owens’ opinions. Hollywood movie director Ava Duvernay refuted Owens’ false claim made at the hearing that Republicans’ “Southern Strategy”– a political strategy to garner votes of white Southerners by appealing racist attitudes toward Black people – never happened.

Duvernay tweeted out her documentary on racism and systematic disenfranchisement with the following words: “Let me go ahead and leave this right here for folks confused about the uninformed mess that someone named Candace Owens is trying to pass off as truth. In fact, it’s just White nationalist revisionist garbage. The Southern Strategy goes as follows. And the marathon continues.”

She later posted the a second tweet saying the Southern Strategy displayed itself through Owens – “Black woman spouting revisionist history about pain suffered by Black people, suggesting the Strategy never existed.”

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1 COMMENT

  1. RE: Rep Ted Lieu pulls out phone and plays Candace Owens’ comments on Hitler during White nationalism hearing: She is stupid. Doesn’t she realize that Hitler murdered half black childern as well as disable people and European Jews. And he refused to shake Jesse Owens hand when he won his races in the Olympics. She is a broken black woman who is lost and confused. Doesn’t she understand that the Nationalist want to ship her back to Africa????

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