CBS ‘The Talk’ Host Aisha Tyler Falsely Charges: ‘Tea Partiers Pledged to Assassinate Obama’

Actress Aisha Tyler, host of the CBS daytime gabfest The Talk, jumped to Twitter Sunday to make the claim that Tea Party supporters “flooded” Washington D.C. in 2009 and 2013 to protest Obama’s inauguration. She also claimed they burned him in effigy and “pledged to assassinate” him. This despite the fact that the Tea Party movement didn’t even start until after Obama first won the White House.

In her December 18 tweet, Tyler responded to a tweet by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who had remarked that Tea Partiers didn’t riot during Obama’s inaugurations.

“Remember when mobs of gun-toting Tea Partiers flooded DC, pledged to assassinate Obama & burned him in effigy on the mall?” Tyler wrote. “Yeah, me too.”

Of course, this never happened. There were never any Tea Party supporters “flooding” Washington to target either of Barack Obama’s inaugural events. Indeed, there was no Tea Party at all during his first inaugural in 2009, as the spark that started the tea Party movement didn’t occur until February of 2009, the month after he took the oath of office.

That spark, “the rant heard around the world,” was delivered by CNBC financial reporter Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February 19, 2009. It was the first step in building the Tea Party movement and predated the first Tea Party event, which was held on February 27, just over a month after Obama took his January 20 oath of office.

As for his second inaugural, it too was also free of any Tea Party “flooding” of Washington D.C.

Granted, there may have been events here and there where “effigies” were burned and mean or even racist signs were seen, but such actions at Tea Party events were largely the exception, rather than the rule. Furthermore, there were few calls for any “assassination” of Obama during the five or six years the Tea Party was active. The Tea Party largely eschewed such violent rhetoric. Lastly, there were never any riots, physical assaults, nor property damage during any Tea Party events, which stands in stark contrast to Black Lives Matter and other Democrat-sponsored protests.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.