A Media Fracas at the Convention

It’s been less than a week since the GOP Convention ended, but the fallout from one fracas hasn’t faded away.

One of the biggest stories to come out of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, beyond Melania Trump and Ted Cruz, was the near-throwdown between Infowars.com TV and radio host Alex Jones and Cenk Uygur, star of the political program The Young Turks (TYT).

Alex Jones of Infowars is known as a sometimes confrontational, sometimes irascible host who’s not afraid to ask tough questions, not afraid to get in people’s faces and not afraid to say what’s really on his mind. What’s on his mind usually are trending conservative topics such as illegal immigration, social justice movements, foreign conflicts and government overreach.

Cenk Uygur is known as an outspoken liberal television host whose show has on occasion gotten higher ratings than CNN. Uygur is often aggressive, loud and extremely opinionated, unafraid to use profanity on his broadcast.

It should be said that at the Republican convention, Jones was broadcasting from all over the place. He was in the parking lot nearby the convention where he met and briefly talked with CNN reporter Van Jones. He accosted/interviewed CBS news reporter Charlie Rose on the sidewalk outside the Quicken Loans Arena.

At one point he made his way to the convention’s media room, where he’d been invited by The Young Turks to share the small stage Uygur and TYT co-host Ana Kasparian were broadcasting from. However, it appears that the TYT’s informal invitation was spur-of-the-moment and not exactly planned.

Or was it?

Most video clips of the incident in question start with Jones and his camera crew, accompanied by Trump consultant and veteran GOP political strategist Roger Stone, walking through the Arena’s media room, a headquarters from which reporters and television news crews could set up stages and backgrounds to report from the convention hall.

Jones was speaking to some of his staff and stopping here and there to speak briefly with other people before one of his assistants got ahead of him and pointed out the TYT stage where Uygur was holding court with his show’s other commentators John Iadarola, Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure.

Jones walked over to Uygur and the two warmly greeted each other before Jones got behind the chair Shure was sitting in to shake the hand of Mankiewicz, seated to the right of Uygur.

At this point, out of nowhere, the screeching voice of stand-up comic and TYT guest host Jimmy Dore yelled from offstage, “ALEX JONES! IT’S ALEX JONES!”

Jones looked somewhat amused but took the moment to unfurl a t-shirt his assistant had handed him with the face of Bill Clinton on it and the word “Rape” written below in large capitals.

All of this was being broadcast live on the TYT feed, and at this action, Uygur started to get fed up with Jones and seized Jones’ microphone to tell the Infowars audience what he really thought about the shirt.

Jones asked Uygur if he believed Bill Clinton was a rapist, to which a fed-up Uygur responded that the person who was facing a rape charge in court was Donald Trump, not Bill Clinton.

If you haven’t heard of this it’s because the case Uygur is referring to has been widely held by the media to have no merit, as Trump’s accuser is anonymous and is connected to financial advisor Jeffrey Epstein and to Epstein’s own rape accuser Victoria Roberts, whose claims against Epstein, Prince Andrew of England and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, respectively, have resulted in a conviction, a denial, and a case dismissal.

What most of the media tends to leave out is that it was Bill Clinton — not Trump — who had infamously ridden aboard Epstein’s jet at least 26 times and had partied on Epstein’s “Orgy Island” with various celebrities from the academic and business worlds.

At this point, Uygur spotted Roger Stone within the TYT space and erupted at him for being there, to which Stone responded that Uygur was “a liar” and Uygur shouted back, “You’re a sick man!”

At this point, things began to become quite heated, as Stone and Uygur yelled at each other back and forth, with Stone shouting that Uygur should invite him on TYT to respond to Uygur’s claims of dishonesty and Uygur yelling that Stone was a “hatchet man” and that “I’m not going to debate this guy!”

TYT’s co-host Ana Kasparian (normally a convivial fount of political correctness) then started to yell at Alex Jones, telling him to, “Get off the stage, you fat f***! Get off the f***ing stage!”

Jones refused to comply and instead started telling Cenk Uygur that his show never discusses Saudi Arabia and asking Uygur if he was “anti-liberal.”

At this point, Uygur lost it and jumped up out of his seat, ready to hit Jones in the face, ripping off his earpiece and shouting, “WE’RE AGAINST SAUDI ARABIA, DUMBASS! WE TALK ABOUT THAT ALL THE TIME! YOU DON’T KNOW S***! GET THE F*** OFF MY STAGE!” Uygur’s co-hosts were holding him back, preventing the overheated Uygur from throwing a punch.

At this point, TYT host Jimmy Dore walked over to the fracas and spit some of his iced-tea drink at the face of an incredulous Jones, who asked in disbelief, “Did you just spit on me?”

Video of the events captured by multiple cameras show various members of TYT’s security and support staff attempting to block filming of the incident, and after a bit more shouting, Jones decided to exit the stage with his assistants as security officers for the Arena arrived to escort him out.

Jones then marched for another 100 feet or so with the security escort through the throngs of other media representatives and reporters who by now were crowding around with cameras out and following the Infowars host as he made his way toward the far end of the media area.

Before exiting, Jones sat down with Roger Stone at the desk of Tom Bauerle, an AM radio network host and told him incredulously what just happened, calling it “an ambush.” Roger Stone recounted his view of the events as Jones briefly joined Bauerle on the air.

The Infowars website had at least four stories about the incident on its homepage and claimed that Youtube had briefly taken down the channel’s clips of the event for no reason but then restored them hours later after user outcries.

What’s interesting about the incident is that Jones and Uygur are no strangers to each other. Jones has been a guest on TYT a number of occasions while Uygur has been a guest on Infowars, and the two have crossed paths before at various political events and campaign stops.

While Jones clearly disagrees with Uygur’s political perspectives, Uygur has often called Jones “a conspiracy theorist” and has made fun of him as a believer of British author David Icke’s controversial views holding that many of the world’s leaders are actually alien reptile beings.

Infowars as a media property is at least 20 years old and has been operated by Jones since its inception, while TYT is 14 years old and was originally founded by Uygur in its earliest days, adding Ana Kasparian in 2007 (presumably in an attempt to woo female viewers).

TYT leans notoriously left and progressive, representing the biggest (and loudest) media property to endorse Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, which it did in no uncertain terms in 2015, prior to the primary races.

The TYT audience skews left, college-educated and young. In fact, demographically speaking, there are almost no differences between TYT viewers and the youthful group of Sanders’ supporters; TYT’s endorsement of Sanders was pretty much a no-brainer for the progressive show.

TYT has repeatedly attacked Donald Trump with a vengeance, almost to the degree that they originally piled on Hillary Clinton. When Clinton beat Sanders for the Democratic nomination, Uygur infamously caved and grudgingly declared he would support her for the presidency and asked his followers to do the same, outraging a sizable portion of his show’s audience.

Jones of Infowars claims that TYT’s viewership has dropped lately and that this fracas was probably a stunt to generate PR for their show that they hope in turn will boost ratings. Certainly, there was no lack of media coverage of the event as it was heavily publicized on news outlets such as The Huffington Post, Hollywood Reporter, Raw Story and others.

If one watches video of the incident, it clearly looks like a preplanned provocation of Jones, proving once again that liberal news outlets cannot be trusted to play fair.

Cenk Uygur could certainly do with a lesson in manners as could his co-hosts, especially Ms. Kasparian, who now look like a big hypocrite on several fronts. Here’s hoping that Alex Jones does not back down from future media confrontations and that his courageous—albeit outrageous—reporting continues.


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