Leftist Reporter Offers Apology After Endorsing Anti-DeSantis 'Grifter': 'I Screwed Up Royally'
When even someone from “The Young Turks” is apologizing for promoting a so-called “whistleblower” and calling her a “grifter,” you can tell the game is up.
In a video posted Thursday, Ana Kasparian, co-host of the far-left political show, apologized for her role in promoting Rebekah Jones — a former Florida Department of Health data analyst once considered a hero and a whistleblower for accusing GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration of trying to get her to alter COVID-19 data in the state.
A report by Florida’s inspector general later found those claims to be untrue — and her colleagues said she didn’t even have access to the data she accused DeSantis-ites of asking her to alter.
Furthermore, she was in the headlines again this week after her son was arrested for threats of school violence; she claimed he was “kidnapped” by police for nothing but mere memes … and then tried to fundraise off her son’s arrest.
This was apparently the final straw for Kasparian, whose show was one of many left-wing outlets to give Jones’ accusations air when they first surfaced in 2020.
Kasparian, who is also the executive producer of the show, said she “screwed up royally” in Jones’ case.
“Part of the reason why I screwed up is because I had all these biases, of course, against Ron DeSantis,” she said in the mea culpa video, adding she was “blind[ed]” by the fact she doesn’t think the Florida governor has done a good job. She added “I don’t really feel bad about” being biased, just “by allowing someone who might be a grifter” to use her.
“I should’ve done my due diligence, I failed to do so. And by failing to do so, I feel like I misled the audience into thinking that Rebekah Jones is some sort of hero,” Kasparian said.
However, she blamed the “mainstream media” for also buying into Jones’ anti-DeSantis narrative, noting that “independent” news sources like “The Young Turks” would find themselves repeating the same errors that those doing original reporting were.
Ana Kasparian admits that TYT didn’t fact check the Rebekah Jones nonsense due to her not liking DeSantis & wanting to get him. She acknowledges this was the reason the media ran with the claims as well. She apologizes to audience members who donated to her scam GoFundMe as well pic.twitter.com/cPCbBLi78H
— Sean Fitzgerald (Actual Justice Warrior) (@IamSean90) April 13, 2023
The apology came after Jones’ viral claims that DeSantis’ “fascist” state was involved in “kidnapping” her son didn’t actually add up to the available evidence.
Jones’ 13-year-old son was arrested, according to the Pensacola News Journal, after sending messages to his friends saying things such as, “I want to shoot up the school,” “If I get a gun I’m gonna shoot up hnms lol,” and “I’m getting a wrath and natural selection shirt so maybe but I don’t think many ppl know what the columbine shooters look like.”
“Okay so it’s been like 3-4 weeks since I got on my new antidepressants and they aren’t working but they’re suppose to by now so I have no hope in getting better so why not kill the losers at school,” he said in another missive.
“I spoke to students from [Holley Navarre Middle School] and was able to obtain screenshots of (the teen’s) Snapchat post containing threats,” the warrant report for his arrest read. “… The screen shots were a meme that shows a brain, with the brain saying, ‘reach for the officer’s gun,’ and underneath was a caption which said, ‘me every time I see school security.’”
While he had recently been a student at the school, the report states, he had since departed and was being homeschooled.
Jones went on Twitter on April 5 and claimed her son was “kidnapped” on the “orders” of “the state.”
Two weeks later, bringing us to earlier today, an officer told me the state issued a warrant for my son’s arrest for “digital threats of terrorism.”
I asked on whose orders. The officer said it was the state.
They aren’t letting him come home tonight. They kidnapped my son.
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) April 6, 2023
And, of course, she also used the opportunity to fundraise. Because of course she did.
If you want to help, make your voice heard wherever people will listen.
I don’t have a fund going yet specifically for this, but my whistleblower fundraiser is up if that’s how you feel you can help most. https://t.co/G4kADzdqw1
— Rebekah Jones (@GeoRebekah) April 6, 2023
While she doesn’t have a fundraiser specifically for her son’s cause, she did ask people to donate to her original “whistleblower” fundraiser, which has raised over $23,000 for her on GoFundMe already.
As you will not be surprised to learn, video that was allegedly of Jones turning her son in to police — which, you know, doesn’t qualify as kidnapping — quickly emerged on the internet.
Despite the fact that she regularly appeared on cable news and shows like “The Young Turks” before the inspector general’s report last summer — which “found no evidence that the [Florida Department of Health] misrepresented or otherwise misled the public regarding how positivity rates were calculated” and noted that Jones only had access to the online dashboard which displayed the data, not the raw internal numbers which the dashboard could be checked against — she was nowhere to be found after the latest round of allegations against DeSantis.
In fact, if she was being covered by the left-wing media, it was only because of the fact that the allegations were so outlandish that only the blindly partisan would believe them. Enter The Daily Beast, certainly a left-wing publication if there ever was one, where senior columnist Matt Lewis penned a piece with this title: “Rebekah Jones and the Dangers of DeSantis Derangement Syndrome.”
“Anyone who is a parent can (somewhat) sympathize with Jones’ defense of her son. I was once pulled into a meeting because my then-young son was alleged to have made threats against the school,” he wrote. “After being bullied by a student, he said something to the effect of, ‘I want to fire the school.’ He meant that he wanted to terminate their employment. They initially interpreted ‘fire the school’ in a more incendiary way.
“While it’s tough being a parent, it’s even tougher to give Jones the benefit of the doubt in this particular situation. Her son’s comments are hard to misinterpret, and the danger of ignoring blaring warning signs — look no further than the recent school shooting in Nashville — certainly outweighs the danger of intervention.
“Moreover, the notion that Jones’ son was ‘kidnapped’ — her wording in a viral tweet — is undermined by the fact that she surrendered her son to the sheriff’s office last Wednesday,” he continued. “There is also the unseemliness of Jones using this incident to raise money for her Whistleblower Go Fund Me.”
You don’t say.
The fact that Rebekah Jones was a transparent fraud was evident from day one, just like doubting the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop or the sham Steele dossier. But, this is what happens when ideology “blinds” one to the facts.
At least Kasparian and The Daily Beast admit it now — long after it really mattered. What a surprise.
Now, maybe they should do Trump Derangement Syndrome, as well.
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