U.S. Representatives Ted Deutch (FL-22) and Elaine Luria (VA-02) joined 22 U.S. Representatives in a letter to the White House demanding that it deny TruNews press credentials and access to Administration officials.
After Deutch and Luria sent an initial letter on December 10, 2019, the White House stated that TruNews is "not credentialed to cover the White House." However TruNews founder Rick Wiles confirmed to the New York Times that it received an invitation from the White House to attend the World Economic Forum in January.
Mr. Wiles has a record of attacking Jews on his show and repeating deeply offensive and dangerous stereotypes against the Jewish community, as well as offensive derogatory statements about other minorities.
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The co-signers of the letter include Representatives Karen Bass, André Carson, Joaquin Castro, Emanuel Cleaver, II, Val Demings, Eliot L. Engel, Ruben Gallego, Alcee L. Hastings, Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr., Joe Kennedy, Rick Larsen, Nita M. Lowey, James P. McGovern, Grace Meng, Jamie Raskin, Kathleen Rice, Bobby L. Rush, Bradley S. Schneider, Jackie Speier, David Trone, Nydia Velázquez, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The letter can be read below or accessed here.
Dear Mr. Mulvaney,
On December 10, 2019, Representative Ted Deutch and Representative Elaine Luria wrote to you to inquire why staff of the TruNews website were granted White House access and what steps were taken to ensure this anti-Semitic purveyor of hate and other such outlets are denied access to the White House and Administration officials in the future.
By the time President Trump traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Members of Congress had not received a response. Yet TruNews founder Rick Wiles confirmed to the New York Times that he received an invitation from the White House to join the press corps attending in Davos. In addition, Mr. Wiles’ colleague was allowed to ask a question of Senior Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump. As Mr. Wiles stated, “We want to thank President Trump and the White House for extending the invitation to be here.”
Mr. Wiles has a record of attacking Jews on his show and repeating deeply offensive and dangerous stereotypes against the Jewish community.
On November 22, 2019, Rick Wiles stated, "That's the way the Jews work. They are deceivers. They plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda. This impeach Trump movement is a Jew coup. And the American people better wake up to it really fast.”
Mr. Wiles has also repeated anti-Semitic conspiracy theories used by centuries of anti-Semites to ostracize and even kill Jews, saying “You have been taken over by a Jewish cabal, a Bolshevik revolution, and I’m going to tell you, the church of Jesus Christ, you’re next... They’re coming for you…There will be a purge. That's the next thing that happens when Jews take over a country. They kill millions of Christians…”
Mr. Wiles also confirmed for the reporter that he coined the phrase “Jew coup” as a way to bring attention to the religious faith of individuals involved in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
Since the December 10 letter, more tragedy has befallen the American Jewish community. On the same day the letter was sent, shooters stormed a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey and killed four people. On December 28, a man entered a Rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York and stabbed community members as they gathered to celebrate Chanukah. In addition, daily anti-Semitism in New York City and around the country has become far too commonplace.
TruNews has a long history of making offensive derogatory statements about other minorities as well, including:
• On January 29, Mr. Wiles claimed that the Coronavirus “plague” was sent by god to “purge a lot of sin off this planet,” such as “vile, disgusting people in this country now, transgendering little children, perverting them.”
• In 2018, after YouTube suspended Mr. Wiles’ page for violating their guidelines, he responded that “America is on the verge of a French Revolution-style upheaval during which leftist mobs will seek to execute Christians and conservatives in order to purge American society.”
• In 2018, Mr. Wiles asserted that the United States has “a brown invasion that has come in” and is “pushing the white Europeans off the land.”
• In 2017, Mr. Wiles claimed that “if God sent angels to this country, homosexuals would attempt to rape them.” He continued, “if angels arrived in some major cities in this country, men would seek to rape them. We have become that wicked.”
• In 2017, following the devastation Hurricane Harvey caused to Houston, Mr. Wiles connected the destruction to the city’s LGBTQ policies by saying, “Here’s a city that has boasted of its LGBT devotion, it’s affinity for the sexual perversion movement in America. They’re underwater.”
• In 2014, Mr. Wiles stated that “We are on the edge of World War III and this time the United States of America does not have divine protection because we’ve become a nation of homosexuals and atheists and lesbians and God-haters.”
• In 2014, amid the Ebola epidemic, Mr. Wiles argued that “Ebola could solve America’s problems with atheism, homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, pornography and abortion.”
We reiterate our demand that the White House deny TruNews and other purveyors of hate access to the White House and Administration officials. Please share with us what steps will be taken to ensure extremist websites are not included on official White House press lists or invited to future White House events. President Trump and White House leaders should condemn these offensive statements and make clear that those who spread hateful messages will not be tolerated or welcomed by this Administration.
Sincerely,
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