‘There’s No Freakin’ Way’: Moskowitz Mocks Republican Witness Who Told Him To Buy Her Book

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) had an incredible exchange with a Republican witness that culminated in the lawmaker telling her there is absolutely no way he will buy her book.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee convened for a hearing about the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group that monitors and brings legal actions against hate groups. In April, a federal grand jury indicted the organization after it was revealed the SPLC improperly paid informants via a scheme to infiltrate white supremacist groups. The organization had long been a target of conservatives, and has become even more so since the indictment.

During the hearing, Dr. Carol Swain, a Republican witness, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, and critic of the SPLC, told the committee that the organization has “drifted from its original mission of monitoring genuine hate groups — such as the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis — toward targeting mainstream conservatives.”

Moskowitz used his time to ask Swain about Neo-Nazi ideology and whether or not they are “supremacists”:

MOSKOWITZ: Are neo-Nazis supremacists?

SWAIN: It depends on which ones. They’re individuals–

MOSKOWITZ: I didn’t ask you which ones.

[CROSSTALK]

MOSKOWITZ: Ms. Swain, listen, I’m not reading your book if you literally can’t answer this question. Are Neo-Nazi supremacists?

SWAIN: They’re individuals. Some are and some may be just plain old anti-Semites.

MOSKOWITZ: No, no, Neo-Nazis are anti-Semites, ok? We’re gonna agree there. But they’re also supremacists, Ms. Swain.

SWAIN: Ok, if you–

MOSKOWITZ: No, no, you don’t have to take my word for it. Right? Like, they are. That’s the whole reason they exist.

SWAIN: But you all don’t say–

MOSKOWITZ: –because they believe they are supreme.

SWAIN: You all don’t seem to understand that a white supremacist–

MOSKOWITZ: Who’s they all?! I’m not a Neo-Nazi. Who’s they all? I’m a regular person asking another regular person if we can agree that Neo-Nazis are supremacists.

SWAIN: I will agree with you.

MOSKOWITZ: Ok, I don’t want you to be forced into it.

SWAIN: I would agree with you, but I suggest you all take the time and read my Cambridge University Press book that was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

MOSKOWITZ: Dr. Swain, I can promise you there’s no freakin’ way I’m buying your book when when it took two minutes for you to look at me and not and– and how to convince you that Neo-Nazis–

SWAIN: Because I don’t like the talking points.

Moskowitz then asked the other witnesses present whether Neo-Nazis are supremacists, and each responded in the affirmative.

“Dr. Swain, that wasn’t a trick question for them,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to trip them up.”

Watch above via the House Judiciary Committee.

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