Twitter suspended Fox New host Pete Hegseth on Saturday for showing a tweet from the alleged Saudi military official who went on a shooting spree at the Naval Air Station (NAS) in Pensacola, Florida, late last week.
In an Instagram post, Hegseth wrote: “Yesterday, I was BANNED from [Twitter] — because I posted a screen shot of the terrorist from Florida tweeting his Islamist motivations. That’s it, a screen shot of a terrorist in his own words. If they can ban me, they will ban anyone. We need to fight back. Heck, I posted the terrorist screen shot on this post too, so stay tune for [Instagram] banning me too. Big tech does the bidding of the Left, especially to include anyone who speaks truth about the threat of radical Islam.”
The tweet that Twitter demanded that Hegseth remove, stated: “Here’s the (now-blocked) tweet from the Saudi Islamist, [suspect’s name], who murdered 3 brave Americans in Florida. The coward posted it just hours before his terrorist attack. This is Islamist terror. No reason to ever mince words. Saudi Arabia must be held to account.”
Hegseth’s tweet included a screenshot of the alleged terrorist’s tweet, which is not shown in his Instagram post where he posted the screenshot of the message Twitter sent to him.
In a subsequent Instagram post, Hegseth showed the response he appeared to send to Twitter in his appeal over their decision to suspend him.
The message that he typed stated: “You blocked me b/c I shared the words — and motivation — of an Islamist terrorist. What are you afraid of? @FoxNews”
The terrorist opened fire at the base on Friday, killing three and wounding several others, including two police officers, before being killed by law enforcement officials.
Rachel Rojas, FBI special agent in charge, said, “We work, as we do with most active shooter investigations, with the presumption that this was an act of terrorism.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) highlighted the attacker’s social media posts, saying, “This guy was somebody who just had a deep-seated hatred for the United States. For us to be bringing in these foreign nationals, you have to take precautions to protect the country.”
FBI officials have detained nearly a dozen Saudis in response to the shooting, including several who were filming the attack, and are looking for several others after the attacker held a party the night before where he watched mass shooting videos.
President Donald Trump responded to the attack, tweeting: “King Salman of Saudi Arabia just called to express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack that took place in Pensacola, Florida. The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people.”
Trump’s tweet showed the magnitude of the situation because King Salman, not his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, picked up the phone to call Trump.
“Compared to Saudi Arabia’s often glacial standards, the 83-year-old monarch moved with remarkable speed to call Trump,” CNN reported. “The king quickly instructed his own security services to cooperate fully with US investigators into the shooting in which three people were killed at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida.”