News/Commentary

‘You tripled down!’ CNN analyst smacked with snark after walking back call to ‘hurt’ freedom truckers

February 11, 2022 | | Print Article

Harvard professor and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem is learning a difficult lesson: Think before you tweet.

After a tweet Thursday, in which she ostensibly called for folks to vandalize and forcibly move the trucks of Canada’s Freedom Convoy protestors from the Ambassador Bridge, she has spent the last 24 hours moonwalking her comments back, denying that she is a vigilante, and staving off snarks about her Harvard education.

It started with what Kayyem must have believed was a righteous virtue signal to those who would paint the protests against authoritarian mandates as a “fringe minority.”

“The convoy protest, applauded by right wing media as a ‘freedom protest,’ is an economic and security issue now,” Kayyem tweeted Thursday. “The Ambassador Bridge link constitutes 28% of annual trade movement between US and Canada”

But then, Kayyem got carried away.

“Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks,” she proudly incited.

And Kayyem didn’t stop there. Caught up in a moment of her own creation, she doubled down, calling the protestors “irrational.”

“The notion that these are rational people that will change if asked is long gone. 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. The borders are open b/c of the vaccination requirement. Truckers have work. This disruption is an irrational gang and, again, we should stop being so nice,” she tweeted.

 

And then she went for the hat trick, gleefully telling Twitter that she had an endless list of ways she could make the convoy suffer.

“Trust me,” she tweeted, “I will not run out of ways to make this hurt: cancel their insurance; suspend their drivers licenses; prohibit any future regulatory certification for truckers, etc.”

“Have we learned nothing?” she asked. “These things fester when there are no consequences.”

Ohhhh, the irony.

And Twitter didn’t disappoint.

Stargate SG-1 Executive Producer/Writer Joseph Mallozzi asked, “Who’s going to move the stranded trucks with the slashed tires and empty gas tanks? The Transformers?”

Journalist Marc Thiessen wondered, “Can you imagine if she said this about racial justice protesters?”

And author Chad Felix Greene tweeted simply, “This is who they are.”

It was all too much for Kayyem, who decided a passive-aggressive retreat was in order.

“Earlier today, I tweeted something that has been used by others to suggest I was promoting vigilantism,” Kayyem tweeted. “I was not. People have the freedom to protest. Governments have the responsibility to protect public safety. That was what I intended to say.”

Again, Juliette: Think before you tweet.

“Funny,” replied Jason Jones, with a screenshot of her earlier tweet.  “It looked a lot like you said this.”

“I think what’s most scary about this chick is that this is the kind of person that Obama and Biden selected to be part of their government,” he added in a follow-up tweet. “Part of the team at @DHgov. Solid hire.”

“You doubled and tripled down,” tweeted Epoch Times reporter Jeff Carlson, adding, “You were perfectly clear.”

And from RealClearPolitics co-founder and president Tom Bevan came the ultimate, understated smackdown of Kayyem’s reimagined rant: “Bless her heart.”

Melissa Fine
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