National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman Dana Loesch was fired up on Thursday speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) annual event.
Just hours after she was roasted by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Loesch went on a right-wing diatribe where she blasted the media, condemned the FBI, and even co-opted the “we call B.S.” slogan used by students in the wake of last week’s shooting.
Much of the rhetoric seemed to mirror the more incendiary tone her NRATV ads have taken recently–specifically against the media.
Here are some of the more wild moments from Loesch’s speech and reactions to them.
1) The media loves mass shootings
“I’m going to say something that some people are going to say is ‘controversial,'” she said. “Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. I’m not saying you love the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold… And notice I said crying white mothers because there are thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend and you don’t see town halls for them do you?”
If any one saw @DLoesch last night and doubts for one second how despicable Dana Loesch really is, I give you this: “Many in legacy media love mass shootings… Crying white mothers are ratings gold.”
— Andrew Mossberg (@aemossberg) February 22, 2018
— NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, quoted by the Washington Post, speaking at CPAC.
At CPAC, Dana Loesch is making the disgusting claim that journalists love children being slaughtered because it makes good TV ratings. A year ago, Trump called the press “the enemy of the people” at CPAC. Authoritarian attitudes in Trump’s Republican Party are real & are growing. https://t.co/H8TlJQNuS9
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) February 22, 2018
2) Co-opting the Parkland survivors tagline
“I call B.S.” “We call B.S.”
For those of you not watching CPAC, Dana Loesch just plagiarized Emma Gonzalez (@Emma4Change)'s words in saying "We call B.S.". Not only this, but she did it in order to call for less restrictions on guns! What type of person does this a week after 17 people were murdered?
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) February 22, 2018
CPAC Clearly Emma Gonzales has gotten under NRA's skin…so far her "I call it BS" has been brought up by both Dana Loesch and Wayne LaPierre. All this BS is simply proving Emma's point.
— JudyB (@judme) February 22, 2018
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/966688100285124610
3) Missing the obvious common denominator: guns
“Washington Navy Yard; Garland, Texas; Ft. Hood; Charleston; Boston; San Bernandino; Orlando; Parkland–do you know what all of these mass tragedy incidents involved? FBI dropped the ball. They dropped the ball.”
https://twitter.com/spelman73/status/966711605324075014
Dana Loesch was just finger pointing. Yes, the FBI dropped the ball BIG TIME, but she wasn’t focusing on the big picture. Stoneman Douglas is one of several incidents. The nation wants to know why this keeps happening. Not who’s fault it was that 17 kids just got gunned down.
— Cristian Moreno (@Cristian_2321) February 22, 2018
Wow! Dana Loesch Of the NRA blames the media @TheDemocrats and the @FBI for mass shootings! She is just sick! She works for a company which distributes assault rifles and she blames others for these massacres! How does she live with herself, or sleep at night?
— Amit Divecha (@AmitDivecha1) February 22, 2018
4) People screaming ‘burn her’
“I wanna make the super obvious point. The government has proven they cannot keep you safe, and yet some people want all of us to disarm. You heard that town hall last night–they cheered the confiscation of fire arms, and it was 5,000 people. I had to have a security detail to get out. I wouldn’t have been able to exit that if I did not have a security detail. There were people rushing the stage and screaming ‘burn her.'”
“They cheered the confiscation of firearms last night at the CNN Town Hall. All 5,000 of them,” @NRA lobbyist Dana Loesch at #CPAC right now introducing Wayne LaPierre.
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 22, 2018
She’s upset gun violence survivors jeered the NRA. Really…
At CPAC Dana Loesch currently whining that she was in physical danger at CNN town hall. Couldn’t she just have stood her ground?
— Bruce Fulton @dbfulton@mastodon.social (@dbfulton) February 22, 2018
5) Repeating the anti-FBI rhetoric of the right
“In Charleston this murderer was able to pass a background check even though he was prohibited possessor because as former FBI Director James Comey said they made a mistake, it was a paperwork error,” she said, later adding: “My condemnation is for those at the FBI… who dropped the ball eight separate times with catastrophic consequences. You know, James Comey, when he wasn’t busy taking directions from Loretta Lynch as to what to call Hillary Clinton’s investigation or writing his self aggrandizing memoirs, you know he said they made a mistake, maybe if he politicized your agency less and your job more we wouldn’t have these problems.”
https://twitter.com/Rich8198/status/966699756595662848
Dana Loesch, speaking at CPAC, makes school shootings, etc. a matter of lax enforcement, FBI failings, not guns. Said former FBI director James Comey failed in his job, spent too much time on self-promotion and not investigating Hillary.
— Garland Bradshaw (@gar_brad) February 22, 2018
My word. Dana Loesch showing her true self at CPAC this morning. Attacking the FBI to cheers, and even invoking Hillary Clinton's (and Robert Byrd's) name to run interference on the Parkland shooting. A week since classroom's ran with blood.
— Old Rant Dump (@TrumpinTheShark) February 22, 2018
America is so, so fucked up.
6) Bashing the libs
“They also call Trump a tyrant, but they then say they want the president to confiscate our firearms. Try and figure that one out.”
Dana Loesch is telling bald-faced lies at CPAC. Nobody given the mic last night said they wanted to disarm society or confiscate weapons.
— DBraden (@MecCoffee) February 22, 2018
I see Dana Loesch is spewing the usual propaganda at CPAC that most want to take away all guns. Few, if any, have ever proposed this. But many are calling for a ban on assault weapons and for universal background checks, two common sense actions to reduce massacres. #GunReformNow
— Susan Benton (@slynn47) February 22, 2018
You can watch Loesch’s speech here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4glpsLOl-s