CNN's Jake Tapper confronts GOP congressman over his controversial State of the Union guest

Tapper and Gaetz.
(Image credit: Screenshot/CNN)

In a segment Friday, CNN's Jake Tapper confronted Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) over his choice of State of the Union guests.

"You brought to the State of the Union … somebody who is a fairly notorious racist and Holocaust denier," Tapper said, referring to alt-right personality Chuck Johnson. Gaetz confirmed to The Daily Beast earlier this week that Johnson attended President Trump's address with a ticket from his office.

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"I don't agree with everything Mr. Johnson says," Gaetz insisted. "But I think that when ... we only talk to audiences or people that agree with us, I think we end up in a myopic state of politics."

Tapper did not press Gaetz on his response, ending the interview moments later. Shortly thereafter, however, he did tag Gaetz in a tweet linking to an old post Johnson wrote on Reddit, where he claimed that less than a million Jews died in the Holocaust and said "the Allied bombings of Germany were a war crime." Kelly O'Meara Morales

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.