After coming under a great deal of criticism for threatening Beto O’Rourke on Twitter, State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-TX) got a big dose of Republican Rehab from Fox News host Brian Kilmeade.
In case you missed it, Cain tweeted, “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis," in response to O’Rourke’s statement during the last debate, “"Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47." O’Rourke, a former Congressman from El Paso, has been particularly emphatic about gun control and banning assault weapons since the mass shooting there. However, he was talking about a mandatory buy-back program, not just a seizure. Kilmeade could not be bothered to tell that to viewers.
Guest hosting for Tucker Carlson last night, Kilmeade set the tone before Cain opened his mouth by characterizing O’Rourke as a whiner out to get Cain.
Kilmeade sneered, “Really?” after playing a clip of O’Rourke on CNN saying he thought Twitter had removed Cain’s tweet “because you have somebody with a weapon of war, threatening to use it against somebody who is talking about gun violence in this country. That’s exactly why Briscoe Cain should not have an AR-15.”
If Kilmeade thought Cain's tweet was threatening, he either kept it to himself or tacitly approved.
A Fox News producer did his or her part for the Republican Rehab by posting a lower-third banner distorting O'Rourke's comment as, "we will take your guns away."
In his first statement, Cain suggested that he was merely defending himself from some kind of life-threatening aggression:
He has threatened to trespass on my property and the property of others in order to kick down our door and take from us. You know, what I wrote really is just another way of saying, “Come and take it.”
[…]
And it's just amazing because really, he is the one making the threat, right? And all we’re saying is that if someone wants to take it from us, they’re going to have to, right, do it. Maybe we could say, from our cold dead hands.
Cain worked in a pitch for donations to his website, too.
Kilmeade was just fine with that kind of rhetoric. He even wanted more. After Cain made the predictable argument that it’s the shooter, not the weapon that should be held accountable, he and Kilmeade suggested that it’s the guy seeking gun control who’s the biggest threat.
It’s safer and I know you know that and your listeners know it as well that of course, it’s the guy—and you know what, it’s the driver. Remember, Beto’s DWI, when he when he tried to flee from police. We should be taking his license away and not the guns from law-abiding citizens.
KILMEADE: So you’re saying if you look at some of his writings in high school, and if you see his track record, maybe he would be—fall under the Red Flag Law.
That was too much even for Cain, who said he doesn’t like Red Flag laws so wouldn’t wish one on O’Rourke. Instead, Cain painted himself as the Big Beto Victim. Kilmeade was there to help amplify the victimhood.
KILMEADE: Your family is under death threats? You’ve gotten death threats?
CAIN: Yes, yes all—all-day long. Very disgusting things and being doxxed. I was doxxed. My business partners were doxxed. People are calling and contacting my wife and messaging her and making threats against her and my children and family. It’s so—they are so tolerant the left, right? Of course, not.
KILMEADE: I get the sarcasm. Well, Briscoe, he says he didn’t know your name before this. Briscoe Cain, he knows your name now. Thanks so much.
Watch Kilmeade’s disgustingly selective concern for death threats above, from the September 13, 2019, Tucker Carlson Tonight.
(Transcript excerpts via Fox News)
Published with permission from News Hounds.
