Linda Sarsour Blasts Tapper As ‘Alt-Right’ In Twitter Spat
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Jake Tapper and Linda Sarsour got into a heated Twitter war, as the CNN anchor raised concerns about some of the Muslim civil rights activist’s previous statements — and she hit back by branding him part of the “alt-right.”
The controversy began after the anti-Trump Women’s March, of which Sarsour is a national co-chair, tweeted out a message celebrating Assata Shakur, a radical black activist convicted of murdering a New Jersey police officer.
Shakur is a cop-killer fugitive in Cuba. This, ugly sentiments from @lsarsour & @dykemarchchi …Any progressives out there condemning this? https://t.co/rXnHLgE2hR
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 18, 2017
She responded to Tapper’s tweet by asking him to give examples of her “ugly sentiments,” and he replied by citing her prior comment that Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-Muslim who suffered female genital mutilation, should have her “[vagina] taken away” and that she doesn’t “deserve to be [a woman].”
.@jaketapper please share my “ugly” sentiments? Unapologetically Muslim? Unapologetically Palestinian? Pro-immigrant? Pro-justice? Shame.
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) July 18, 2017
Your comment about @Ayaan for one.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 18, 2017
After that, Sarsour proceeded to call Tapper as a member of the “alt-right,” the group of white supremacists, white nationalists an fellow travelers that helped catapult President Trump to office.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
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