White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre falsely stated during a Friday press briefing that Daily Wire host Michael Knowles called for the “eradication of transgender people” during a speech at CPAC.
During her comments to reporters, Jean-Pierre referenced Knowles’ speech last Saturday when he called for the “eradication” of radical gender ideology. Several left-wing media outlets which initially claimed, as Jean-Pierre did, that Knowles called for “eradication” of people, not an ideology, later corrected their reporting. But Jean-Pierre, in misrepresenting Knowles’ words, said the White House must “call out the shameful, hateful, and dangerous attacks that we have been seeing on the LGBTQI community.”
“Look, it started with a speaker at a conservative conference calling for the eradication of transgender people; language that not a single national Republican leader has condemned,” Jean-Pierre claimed.
Jean-Pierre claims @michaeljknowles was "calling for the eradication of transgender people" at CPAC pic.twitter.com/uvjcmQvTjK
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 10, 2023
Knowles responded on Twitter asking Jean-Pierre, “why are you lying about what I said?”
.@PressSec, why are you lying about what I said? pic.twitter.com/xxhCeoPRHA
— Michael Knowles, falsehood eradicator (@michaeljknowles) March 10, 2023
During the CPAC speech, Knowles argued that gender ideology was built on false premises about the human condition and that it could not be imposed or indulged in any context without granting those premises, which he said undermines the foundations of society itself.
“For the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology — at every level,” Knowles said.
Left-wing outlets and Democrat politicians quickly reacted in outrage to Knowles’ speech, misconstruing his comments as targeting individuals, not an ideology. The Daily Wire promptly demanded retractions and apologies from Rolling Stone, Yahoo News, Huffington Post, and The Daily Beast over their coverage of his speech.
The Daily Beast edited its original headline, which stated Knowles called for the “transgender community” to be eradicated to reflect that the podcast host called for eradicating “transgenderism,” not people who believe they are transgender. Rolling Stone made a similar update.
Knowles told Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Monday night that he was surprised by the media headlines, and a California lawmaker who accused him of calling for “genocide.”
“I have been called all sorts of nasty things by the liberal press, Tucker, so I tend to expect everything,” Knowles began, conceding, “But I have to admit being accused of genocide did take me by surprise.”