President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are receiving pushback from the media over their recent comments regarding the recent violence on Capitol Hill. Both Biden and Harris indicated that there was a double standard between how police treated protesters on Capitol Hill versus the so-called peaceful Black Lives Matter protests which occurred across the country over the summer.
Biden: "No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol. We all know that's true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable." pic.twitter.com/TfWa25VzEt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 7, 2021
.@KamalaHarris: "We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that let extremists storm the United States Capitol, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer…We know this is unacceptable. We know we should be better than this." pic.twitter.com/Uc1FC8aZKg
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 7, 2021
Fox News reports:
Critics slammed both Biden and Harris for pushing such a narrative, many noting their lack of condemnation of the violence that took place last year.
“Four people are dead after what happened yesterday. And you know what? People died last summer, too. Countless businesses destroyed. People’s livelihoods set on fire and stolen. You refused to condemn that violence. Yesterday was horrific, but you’ve lost your right to moralize,” National Review writer Alexandra DeSanctis scolded the incoming president.
“This is complete nonsense,” conservative writer A.G. Hamilton reacted to Biden’s remarks. “It’s gaslighting that requires ignoring what we actually witnessed on a nightly basis last summer.”
“They really just know how to make everything so much worse. This is untrue, divisive race-baiting, and absolutely no one in the media will call her out for this lie,” podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted in reaction to Harris. “This is the same woman who tweeted out a BAIL FUND for rioters who burned down Minneapolis.”
As someone who has covered many of the riots last year, I can say this narrative is simply false. Tear gas, pepper balls, pepper spray, and flashbangs were all used yesterday, just as they were used on rioters in 2020. https://t.co/WdjJXyfa6X
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) January 7, 2021
THEY DID USE TEAR GAS YESTERDAY.
Furthermore, 4 people died. We largely did not seen any death tolls like that all summer.
Again, these are Democrats IGNORING FACTS AND REALITY, and gaslighting America on race instead.
Didn't we have enough of a President doing that already? https://t.co/W4kXrcxPY0
— Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. (@neoavatara) January 7, 2021
This is complete nonsense. It's gaslighting that requires ignoring what we actually witnessed on a nightly basis last summer. https://t.co/ppeV3jIo44
— AG (@AGHamilton29) January 7, 2021