Yesterday, Fox’s Andrea Tantaros took the right-wing talking point that cigarette taxes are to blame for Eric Garner’s death and made it a twofer by using it to smear New York City’s Democratic mayor, Bill de Blasio. While she was at it, Tantaros took a swipe at progressives, too.
Tantaros, while feigning fairness in criticizing the police for killing Garner, nonetheless deflected the conversation to suit her political purposes.
Tantaros: Bill de Blasio created a lot of these situations. Remember, he hikes up the tax on cigarettes, he’s creating this black market. I mean, what’s next? Chokeholds for Big Gulps? So he hates tobacco, he hates this kind of thing. But the de Blasios of the world, the progressives, Bill, they don’t want the police to even be able to question anybody. Michael Brown should have just kept walking in that street. And if you question him, then you are a racist.
Watch it below, from the December 4 The O’Reilly Factor show, via Media Matters.