Conservative writer confronts Tomi Lahren: ‘I consider you an enabler of the alt-right’

Conservative firebrand Tomi Lahren faced off with RedState editor Ben Howe this Monday night, asking him why he would throw his lot in with the #NeverTrump movement at the risk of electing Hillary Clinton.

At the outset of the segment, Lahren couldn’t understand why Howe thinks Donald Trump is more dangerous than Clinton as a candidate.

“I think that he’s an unstable person,” Howe explained. “I think they’re both corrupt, but I think that he’s unstable. I don’t trust him. And I don’t know if you know who John Noonan is — he used to be… he was a key turner for nuclear weapons — and even he was concerned about the way that Donald Trump was approaching nuclear-first policies. Specifically because, even as a candidate, he’s sending messages to nuclear powers all over the world that are very dangerous.”

When Lahren asked if Howe was selling out Republican primary voters who chose, Howe, he responded that there were a lot of voters in this year’s GOP primary that he doesn’t actually want as part of the party, particularly members of the “alt-right” which has been aligned with white supremacist movements.

“What bothers me about this argument is that everyone likes to speculate on the instability of Donald Trump,” Lahren said. “They like to look and say, ‘We really don’t trust him, we don’t like his tweets, we don’t like what he says off the cuff… What about the millions of Americans out there — the millions of Republicans out there that came out of the woodwork and chose Donald Trump as our nominee? Is the NeverTrump movement in any way kind of a spit in the face of those folks that really do believe he’s our candidate of choice and that voted for him to be so?”

“To me, when it comes to the millions of people who came out to vote for the first time, a lot of those people, as far as I can tell, are not folks that I’m comfortable being in the Republican party,” Howe shot back. “So, we had the most primary voters for any candidate in primary history, the most votes ever in a primary for Donald Trump.”

“So much of what I’ve interacted with, what I’ve seen — and I’m not just speaking as somebody who’s just been on Twitter,” Howe continued. “I’ve gone and I’ve talked to people in public, I’ve been working on a documentary where we’ve actually gone out and spoken to people at the rallies, and I’m really concerned not only with the way Donald Trump has channeled what used to be conservative policies to appeal to this alt-right group, but I’m concerned that that’s going to be the mainstay of conservatism in the years to come, especially if he wins. If he loses, I think it’s going to be a struggle and we’re going to have to fight elements that are within our party now that helped raise him up… If I’m spitting in their face, I’m happy to. I want to spit in their face.”

Howe then directly accused Lahren of being an “enabler” of the Alt-Right and lamented the years where he pushed “hyper-partisan politics,” suggesting that he’s contributed to the extreme partisan divide in politics today.

“What I learned from pushing hyper-partisan politics is what you do is, you create a class of people who are outraged,” he explained. “And sometimes that outrage can do good things, but sometimes it does destructive things. And right now, we are reaping the rewards of years of hyper-partisan politics.”

Watch the video below:

Sky Palma

Before launching DeadState back in 2012, Sky Palma has been blogging about politics, social issues and religion for over a decade. He lives in Los Angeles and also enjoys Brazilian jiu jitsu, chess, music and art.

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