Fox News contributor Kayleigh McEnany was left stunned after co-host, Ari Fleisher, revealed he doesn't support Canada's "Freedom Convoy," an ongoing protest led by Canadian truckers who've pushed back against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
The convoy, comprised of a minority of the country's truckers who've retaliated after the United States and Canada agreed to COVID-19 vaccine requirements for truckers to re-enter the country by land, has continued to garner headlines amid concerns that organizers and groups have been involved with white nationalist contingents, QAnon, and other far-right groups.
While Fox News has continued to provide favorable coverage of the protest, Fleischer's statements represented a striking break from the network consensus.
You can watch what happened in the video below.
Ari Fleischer stuns Fox News hosts by stomping on Canada's 'Freedom Convoy' youtu.be
It all began after McEnany, who previously served as the White House Press Secretary under former President Donald Trump, offered a defense of the convoy and criticized COVID-19 vaccine requirements that she characterized as "Orwellian":
"The facts are important."
"These guys were essential workers, they couldn't have a supply shortage, they're driving their trucks across the border then all the sudden on Jan. 15 there's this new Orwellian restriction put in place and they're looking around, saying, did the science change?"
"Why Jan. 15 do we suddenly -- we're no longer essential?"
Fleischer, the former White House Press Secretary under George W. Bush, expressed sympathy for the truckers but made clear that he disagreed with their tactics, which he compared to those of Occupy Wall Street:
"I have a different take on this."
"I've been caught in enough New York City traffic snarls where I couldn't move for two hours because Occupy Wall Street took over all the streets in New York City -- many of the streets in New York City in certain areas."
"You don't have the right no matter how good your cause is to do that to your fellow citizens. I do not support blocking traffic, interfering with the mobility of other people, which includes their getting health care, their carrying out the things they need in life to be on time for."
"And so I oppose it whether it's Occupy Wall Street or a group I'm sympathetic toward. Good goals but bad tactics. I think you alienate more people by doing this." ...
"But these tactics backfire and I don't like them being done by anybody. Stay off the streets. Don't shut down the rights of other people to go where they need to go."
McEnany appeared visibly stunned and did not offer Fleischer a response.
Their exchange soon went viral, with many criticizing Fox News's coverage as well as McEnany's support for a movement that almost two-thirds of Canadians have said they oppose.
Fleisher's remarks came after news outlets reported that a Manitoba man trying to get his sister to the emergency room was trapped on the highway for more than an hour after it was blocked by members of the convoy.
The man ultimately did make it to the emergency room and had his sister admitted but the incident turned what is normally a five-minute drive into a 75-minute ordeal.
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