Dubious “political commentator” Tomi Lahren, who has the name and personality of the pledge master in a sorority movie, has made it her mission to fuel hatred and bigotry via her hot take-heavy Twitter account and her television appearances. Most recently, she attempted to slam the March For Our Lives and the Parkland shooting survivors, only to be shut down by Twitter users with basic reading skills.
Lahren rose to fame with her own show on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, a match made in alt-right heaven (or, as normal humans call it, hell), but was let go when she expressed pro-choice beliefs on The View. While that opinion may have surprised many of her fans, it’s been her only redeeming take since she became a household name. It wasn’t so long ago Lahren actually did seem to share liberal viewpoints, as evidenced by some of her old tweets. It’s unclear whether or not she actually is a liberal and is scamming conservative media for personal gain, or if she genuinely believes the things that come out of her mouth; either way, she’s trash.
While the increasingly authoritarian regime we’re living under has given more and more legitimacy to disturbing viewpoints like Lahren’s, at least there are people holding her accountable across her medium of choice: Twitter. She’s battled with everyone from Wale to the BeyHive on social media, losing miserably again and again—much to our delight.
Still, Lahren’s digital vitriol includes more than a handful of disturbing comments. Just last week she said she had to kick her dog “about five times during the show” while she was on Fox & Friends because her canine was chewing on its bone too loudly. She later claimed that the comment was a joke (because animal abuse is hilarious, of course). In a perfect world, this would be the worst thing a political commentator would say off-handedly, but as we know all too well, this is nowhere near the worst Lahren has to offer. Here are Tomi Lahren’s most controversial moments.
Lahren has made a career out of being a lightning rod and saying outlandish things that can easily be disputed, but this one might honestly take the cake. After Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that illegal immigrants will be separated from their children if they are caught crossing the border, Lahren took the opportunity to not only voice her support for this new measure, but to double down and list the reasons why she thinks immigrants shouldn't be allowed to cross the border into the United States.
"You don't just come into this country with low skills, low education, not understanding the language and come into our country because someone says it makes them feel nice. That's not what this country is based on," said Lahren on Fox News. In response to this, German journalist and genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn did some digging and found that Lahren's ancestors were immigrants—and they spoke German, not English.
Talk about sticking your foot in your mouth.
Lahren took her bigotry to new heights when she compared Black Lives Matter protesters with the KKK in an interview with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. While some people applauded Noah for engaging with Lahren and calling out her hypocrisy, others were critical of his decision to give her a platform that would lend exposure to nasty beliefs such as this one. As it turns out, they were right.
After the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida in 2018, which claimed 17 lives, hard-line conservatives and Second Amendment supporters attempted to pivot to mental health as the issue at hand, rather than gun control. Lahren fell in line with her pro-NRA party and suggested that “more God and more Jesus in society, more compassion, more virtues, more values” would prevent mass shootings. *Wale voice* OK, Tammy.
Lahren has made her disapproval of the Black Lives Matter movement more than clear, so no one was surprised when she criticized for Queen B’s Super Bowl performance, which paid homage to the Black Panther Party: “Now the Super Bowl halftime show has become a way to politicize and advance the notion that black lives matter more. Beyoncé, really? What is the political message here? What is it they are trying to convey here? A salute to what? A group that used violence and intimidation to advance, not racial equality, but an overthrow of white domination.” As expected, the BeyHive sprung into action with appropriately furious responses, even changing Lahren’s Wikipedia page to "#Beyhive bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."
In addition to lambasting Beyoncé for politicizing the Super Bowl, Lahren dragged Bey’s husband into it, saying, “Your husband was a drug dealer. For 14 years he sold crack cocaine. Talk about 'protecting black neighborhoods.' Start at home.” She targeted the rapper again when he called Trump a “superbug”; “As opposed to you who raps about bitches and sisters and brags about selling crack. Yeah...Trump is the problem...sure.” Lahren clearly didn’t do her research, or else she would have found that Jay has all but retired “Bitches & Sisters” from his catalog. Guess she doesn’t read Complex.
The BeyHive usually does more than enough to ward off any Beyoncé haters, but it’s always nice to see others get involved—the more the merrier, right? That’s why everyone was pleasantly surprised when Wale stepped up to support Jay Z. In response to her hateful tweets, Wale wrote, “Tammy he isn’t the president . Also weren’t you just “rapping” 21 Savage???.. go and sit down my friend.” Referring to Lahren by various incorrect names has now become a meme in and of itself; Wale’s #impact.
Hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens came together in over 800 demonstrations this month for March for Our Lives, demanding sensible gun control legislation. Lahren immediately lashed out against the protestors alongside other NRA-loving right-wingers. “Simply being anti-NRA is not a solution. March FOR something, not just against everything,” she tweeted, continuing, “Disarming the citizenry is the first step to oppression and tyranny. Kids, I suggest you crack open the history book and learn this pattern. #marchforourlives.”
Many were quick to point out that the March for Our Lives was actually, in fact, for something: protecting innocent people against gun violence. Tomi should pick up the history books again and note that a healthy democracy also protects the right to protest—and that the NRA is not mentioned anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.
Unsurprisingly, Lahren is not a fan of Colin Kaepernick. When Beyoncé presented Kaepernick with the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award for protesting police brutality with his decision to kneel during the national anthem, Lahren jumped at the opportunity to belittle Bey, Kaepernick, and anti-police brutality activism everywhere: “Police-hating Beyoncé presents police and America-hating Kappy with a “legacy” award. This is how far we’ve fallen. Wow.” This time, even Tina Knowles got involved, with a lengthy Instagram post about racism and complicity.
In an interview on The View, Lahren stated that she is pro-choice, because of her conservative ideology: "I'm pro-choice and here's why. I am a constitutional, you know, someone that loves the Constitution. I am someone that's for limited government, so I can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government but I think that the government should decide what women do with their bodies. I can sit here and say that as a Republican, and I can say, you know what? I'm for limited government, so stay out of my guns and you can stay out of my body, as well." Although this isn’t necessarily controversial to anyone who believes in reproductive rights, her bosses at The Blaze found it controversial and eventually fired her.
With Lahren, it seems that the limits of hypocrisy just do not exist. When Notre Dame students staged a walkout during Vice President Mike Pence’s graduation speech last year, Lahren tweeted, “Snowflakes think this kind of crap will fly in the real world? Good luck holding a job, kids!” As many people pointed out, not only does protesting have nothing to do with holding down a job, Lahren herself had just been fired from The Blaze. Good luck, Tanya!
One would think that to be a political commentator, you need to be educated on the world issues of our time. But just as Donald Trump can be president, Lahren can be a political commentator, despite clearly knowing nothing about the Iraq war or the current demographics of the military. This was made clear when she took the time to tweet, “As I watch millennial men struggle to lift their bags into the overhead bin I am reminded how f'd we are if there's a draft.” Thankfully, Twitter users called her out for insulting a whole generation and reminded her that many of the people serving in the military currently are millennials.
Like her fellow conservatives, Lahren has made her distaste for Obamacare very clear. But unlike the other haters in her camp, the political commentator was actually a beneficiary of the Affordable Care Act. Under the ACA, if a person’s insurance covers children, they are allowed to keep their children on their health insurance policy until they turn 26 years old (previously, the cutoff was 19, unless the child was in college). Lahren made an interesting admission while debating the ACA with Chelsea Handler at Politicon: “Luckily, I am 24, so I am still on my parents’ plan.” Interesting.
After Democratic representative Joseph P. Kennedy III criticized Trump’s first State of the Union address, Lahren posted two Instagram stories calling him a “nasty little ginger” and a “little limp dick.” She also incorporated transphobia into her tirade, posting a photo of Kennedy next to Caitlyn Jenner and writing, “Is it just me or does Joe Kennedy III look a helluva lot like pre-Caitlyn Bruce Jenner? I’m not wrong.” She later deleted the picture and apologized for “getting too upset.”
During a deep dive into Lahren’s old tweets, Twitter users discovered clips from her appearances on UNLV-TV in which she appears to hold some liberal views, including saying that climate change was "agreed-upon consensus." The question is, has Lahren really lost her marbles in recent years, or is she just pandering to an alt-right audience to fill her pockets? If the latter is true, she should still be held accountable for her vitriol, which has real-world implications for people of color and other marginalized groups. This is one hustle we can knock.
Remember the “Thanks, Obama” meme, in which Internet users mocked conservatives for blaming literally everything on President Obama? Lahren has either never seen the meme or has zero self-awareness (maybe both), because she found a way to blame liberals for the Tide Pod challenge popular among teens. “Now the left, which dictates popular culture, brainwashes young people into believing they live in a world where 64 gender options are up for selection, everything is free, Beyoncé is a god-queen, and eating detergent is funny.” To be fair, gender is fake and Beyoncé is a goddess.
For someone who claims to love America as much Lahren, you’d think she’d be aware of how seriously many people take the desecration of the country's flag. But last October,, the political commentator showed her own hypocrisy (and technically broke federal law) when she wore the American flag as a cape along with a MAGA onesie. She posted a picture of her costume with the caption, “"Oh LA get ready to find your safe spaces! Well if you're a conservative, I'm American AF. If you're a lib, I'm "offensive." Let's go. #halloween #MAGA #Merica #makeHalloweenGreatAgain" Certainly one of the scarier Halloween costumes we’ve seen.
Hot 97 host Peter Rosenberg angrily took to Twitter when a picture circulated of Lahren and Charlamagne Tha God on an outing together, writing, “the devil dosen't [sic] always wear horns and a shirt that says devil guys...sometimes he wears promo t-shirts and light foundation.” While Charlamagne has had beef with many people over the years, Lahren’s infiltration helped him sink to a new low. Fans interpreted their apparent friendship as Charlamagne’s stamp of approval, and they were not happy.
Like most racists, Lahren doesn’t believe that institutional racism exists. So when Lil Wayne told Skip Bayless in an interview that he has never been on the receiving end of racism, Lahren said in a video, "I never thought I would say this, but I have a newfound respect for Lil Wayne. Even when he was race baited by Skip Bayless, given a shot to claim victimhood and throw down that poor-me, Kaepernick, Beyoncé, Jesse Williams, Jada Pinkett Smith race card, he chose to speak his truth." Wonder how many times she’s Googled “black celebrities” before firing off a hot take.
In a recent Instagram Story, Lahren claimed she had to repeatedly kick her dog to keep the pup quiet during an interview with Fox & Friends. When asked by TMZ about the animal cruelty, she said "I don't think everyone's upset: I think people are pretty logical and they understand it was a joke.” She obviously wasn’t looking at Twitter.
Lahren has decided that she’s Trump’s ride or die on every issue, whether it’s his white nationalist agenda or the cover up of his relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels, who is currently tied up in a legal battle over leaking the details about an alleged affair with the president. Lahren told TMZ that the scandal is an attempt by the media to slander the commander-in-chief with “porn garbage.” The $130,000 Daniels received from Trump’s lawyer smells a lot more like solid porn gold.
Back in 2015, she tweeted, “They call it "climate change," I call it weather,” echoing the opinions of many climate-change-denying conservatives, including her beloved Donald Trump. Unfortunately, this take has essentially been normalized by the current administration and is barely considered controversial anymore, but we refuse to accept this absolute ignorance.
