Conservative commentator Candace Owens testified at a House hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism on April 9, explaining that the many conservatives she’s met support black people.
Owens, communications director for Turning Point USA, was asked by Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) if she’s ever encountered hateful speech, bigotry, or racism during her encounters with conservatives.
“I speak in front of conservatives, probably three times a week. I jump on a stage and I say everything pro-black, and they [conservatives] are so supportive, and they applaud. All they want is for black Americans to realize that they are Americans first and foremost,” Owens said, reported the openly conservative Breitbart website.
“Conservatives are patriots, the president is a patriot, and I’m a patriot, and there is no skin color in patriotism,” Owens added. “I am willing to fall on a sword a thousand times for [black Americans] to wake up and realize that we are being lied to, abused, and used by the Democrat Party.”
“In the chairman’s opening statement, he said that you openly associate with purveyors of hate.”
Candace Owens: “‘Purveyors of hate’ by his definition is anyone that supports the President.” pic.twitter.com/WFsy8tjR7m
— The Hill (@thehill) April 10, 2019
Owens was asked why Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) claimed that Owens openly associates with “purveyors of hate” in his opening statement to the hearing, prompting Owens to note that Nadler and many Democratic lawmakers despise President Donald Trump.
“Purveyors of hate, by his definition, is anybody that supports the president,” answered Owens. “I support the president because he’s done a tremendous job in helping the black community, despite all of the rhetoric from the media and leftists that do not want him to be successful.”
Owens noted that the black unemployment rate declined considerably under Trump and that millions of people have dropped off food stamps as the economy has improved under the president.
Owens said that while the focus of the hearing was white nationalism and hate crimes perpetrated by white nationalists, there should be more focus on attacks against conservatives from Antifa and other violent far-left groups.
She concluded by saying, “My main thesis is that black people do not have to be Democrats, and we are not owned by the left.”
Candace Owens: “I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip…That was unbelievably dishonest…I’m deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me.” pic.twitter.com/UioMSZK93d
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 9, 2019
Tense Exchange
Owens later took offense when Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) played a partial video of her talking about Hitler that some on the left have seized upon to smear her.
A visibly perturbed Owens slammed Lieu, saying he “believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip.”
“That was unbelievably dishonest,” she said. “I’m deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip.”
When Nadler interjected and said that Owens could not call Lieu stupid, Owens said correctly that she had not done so. “You were not listening to me,” she told Nadler.
In the video that Lieu played, Owens was answering a question someone had asked her about Hitler.
“I actually don’t have any problem with the word ‘nationalism.’ I think the definition gets poisoned by elites that want globalism. Globalism is what I don’t want. When we say ‘nationalism,’ the first thing people think about—at least in America—is Hitler,” she said at the time. “You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK then, fine. The problem is, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everyone to be German.”
Owens said on Tuesday that Lieu twisted the video by not playing the question that prompted the remarks.
“You didn’t hear the question that was asked of me. He’s trying to present as if I was launching a defense of Hitler in Germany, when in fact the question that was presented to me was pertaining to whether I believed in nationalism, and that nationalism was bad,” she said.
“And what I responded is that I do not believe we should be characterizing Hitler as a nationalist,” Owens said. “He was a homicidal, psychopathic maniac that killed his own people. A nationalist would not kill their own people. … That was unbelievably dishonest, and he did not allow me to respond to it.”
She later turned to her grandfather, 75, seated behind her, remarking: “My grandfather grew up on a sharecropping farm in the segregated South. He grew up in an America where words like ‘racism’ and ‘white nationalism’ held real meaning.”
Lieu declined to apologize and later spread the clip of him playing the video on Twitter.