Politics - News Analysis

Donald Trump Jr. Accuses Jake Tapper of Being a Homophobe for Roger Stone Prison Remark

Donald Trump Jr. launched an attack against CNN anchor Jake Tapper, falsely accusing him of making a “flagrantly homophobic” remark on the air.

On Sunday, Trump Jr. retweeted a clip from Friday’s edition of CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, and remarked “Let’s play the ‘Imagine the fury if a conservative said something this flagrantly homophobic’.”

In the clip, former Obama senior adviser Jen Psaki remarks that “The truth is, no one’s going to cry if Roger Stone goes to jail, or when he goes to jail…”

“He might like it,” Tapper jokes, to which Psaki replies “He might, who knows?”

Other conservatives leapt on the eight-second clip to profess outrage, without explaining how, exactly, the remark was “homophobic.”

There are any number of ways to interpret such a joke, but based on Stone’s history and the context of the segment, the most reasonable would be that Stone would enjoy the attention.

Seconds before his joke, Tapper played a clip of Stone telling reporters “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

And Stone himself posted a video last year literally daring Special Counsel Robert Mueller to arrest him.

Tapper’s segment also included discussions of the substance of Stone’s indictment, which included threats against both humans and at least one dog. A second likely interpretation would be that Stone would enjoy the company of other criminals in a prison setting.

Trump Jr.’s interpretation could have more to do with his own anxieties and prejudices than anything else. Remember when he shared this transphobic meme on Instagram:

Also, Donald Trump, who is Don Jr.’s father, has spent almost a year trying to ban transgender people from serving in the military, a ban that the Supreme Court recently ruled can take effect while it’s still working its way through the courts.

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