‘He’s a clown’: Sen. Chris Murphy rips Alex Jones and the culture behind Infowars
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joins Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast to discuss the jury decision ordering Infowars founder Alex Jones to pay $965 million in damages to the families of eight Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims and to an FBI agent for falsely claiming that the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Conn., was staged. “Alex Jones is still a celebrity in the political right,” said Murphy. “The culpability here is on Jones, but it is also much more broadly on the Republican Party that continues to celebrate Alex Jones.”
Video Transcript
DANIEL KLAIDMAN: I'm curious about someone like Alex Jones. If you had an opportunity to say something to him or if you were in a room alone with him, what would you do? How would you react to Alex Jones?
CHRIS MURPHY: I mean, Alex Jones is a clown. He's a performer, right? And he's doing this because it makes him money. I mean, I can't understand what goes on inside the brain of somebody like that. I can't understand how any human being would delight in torturing the parents of dead children. I don't know how you sort of live with yourself if that's what you do every day.
But I guess I'd want the focus to be much more broadly than on Alex Jones. Alex Jones is still a celebrity in the political right. I mean, there's a new documentary out about Alex Jones. And every single young conservative is abuzz about it. He still gets defended by mainstream Republicans, right?
JD Vance, who is asking to be a United States Senator from one of the most important states in the union, still has a tweet up in which he calls Alex Jones a credible source of information, one who should be elevated in the American political dialogue.
So you know, I'm not going to change Alex Jones's business model. But man, why aren't there more Republicans out there condemning this guy? Why is he still invited to all of these conservative conferences?
Until the political right decides that these conspiracy theorists, these Sandy Hook harassers are going to be purged from the right, somebody will replace Alex Jones because there's a market there for it. So the culpability here is on Jones, but it is also much more broadly on the Republican Party that continues to celebrate Alex Jones.
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