(Video: Fox News)
There was a heated exchange over the Freedom Convoy Wednesday, as Tomi Lahren took on Geraldo Rivera, who called the Canadian truckers, “thuggish.”
The fiery duo appeared on Fox News’s “The Story” and verbally duked it out, as the protestors continue to occupy parts of Ottawa and block the Ambassador Bridge at the Windsor – Detroit border.
“I think we’re starting to see those actual essential workers stand up for rights and their freedoms, and these are people that are the forgotten Canadians and, also here in the United States, the forgotten Americans that normally just sit down, shut up, and do their job,” said Lahren of the spirited protestors. “These are the actual essential workers that can shut down Canada, can shut down the U.S.A., too — a new kind of shut down that the elites will not be able to ignore,” Lahren said.
Naturally, Geraldo disagreed as only Geraldo can.
“Their behavior has been nothing short of thuggish in Ottawa,” Rivera stated. “They’ve kept people in the neighborhood awake all night, revving their engines, blowing their horns. They deprived Ottawa businesses of tens of millions of dollars. Now they’re blockading the international bridges. They’re laying off people, cutting their shifts short in automotive assembly plants because they can’t get the parts from Canada to the United States. They used their crowbars to threaten cops who were going to tow their trucks away they were blocking.”
“To give them the mantle of freedom fighters is absolutely appallingly naïve,” he added.
It’s hard to reconcile Geraldo’s characterization of the protestors, especially with videos of lines of Canadian citizens, carrying gas cans to replace the fuel seized by Ottawa police so the truckers don’t freeze.
To many, these blue-collar, average working-class people, standing up to their government’s authoritarian mandates, are the very definition of “freedom fighters.”
They tried to smear them.
They tried to steal their fuel.But the people took to the streets with their jerry cans to give the fuel back to the truckers. That’s the story. But it’s the story that the media won’t report.#TruckersConvoy#FreedomConvoy
— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) February 9, 2022
Lahren made the point beautifully.
“Listen, the demonization of the working class, the blue collar folks that keep Canada and keep the United States and keep the world running has to end,” she said. “And this is part of the frustration. These are truckers out there that are standing for their rights and their freedoms. Are there a few bad apples in the group? I’m sure, as with any group. But I wonder what would Geraldo say to our Founding Fathers — those that fought for freedom and the inception of this nation who stood p for their rights and their freedom. Would he call them thugs? Would he call them degenerates?
“We’ve done this for two years now,” Lahren said. “The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. People want normalcy and they are demanding it.”
The debate continued, with Geraldo calling the truckers, “selfish.”
He then did his best to paint the truckers as destructive racists, despite the fact that it was the truckers themselves who identified the masked holder of the Confederate Flag and invited him to leave.
“We want this behind us,” Rivera said. “It’s been two years. I get that. But when you have protestors bring Confederate flags and swastikas, and then to paint them in the same portrait as you name our Founding Fathers, I mean, what the hell is that about? This is very destructive.”
But it was Lahren who drove the point of the protests home.
“Listen,” she told Geraldo flatly, “if you consider people honking their horns and making a convoy to stand up for their rights to be ‘thuggish,’ we have to have a broader discussion.”
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