‘They Would Never Treat a New York Times Reporter Like That’: Matt Taibbi Calls Out ‘Outrageous’ Democrat Conduct At Twitter Hearing

In his first TV interview since testifying before the House this week, journalist Matt Taibbi talked to Fox News host Dan Bongino and slammed Democrats over their conduct and “outrageous” accusations directed at him and his work.

At the hearing, Democrats including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Rep. Stacey Plaskett insulted and berated Taibbi and fellow witness Michael Shellenberger, impugning their motives and ethics, called them a “threat“, implied they were being paid to be at the hearing, and a lot more at a hearing that was essentially about government pressure and intimidation.

The enmity stems mainly from the fact that the two are among those who have been releasing the Twitter Files documents obtained under Elon Musk ownership of the company that cover a wide array of controversial and questionable actions by politicians and government officials over several years, focusing on the policing of speech, banning of individuals and groups, censoring of topics and information, and most infamously, both the initial silencing of news about Hunter Biden‘s laptop and the ultimate banning of Donald Trump after January 6.

Bongino played some clips from the hearing which he described as “disgusting” and saying to Taibbi, “that had to bother you, personally.”

“Well, I expected that,” Taibbi replied. “But I think the thing that’s extraordinary about what happened to both me and to Michael Shellenberger, the other witness, is they would never treat a New York Times reporter like that or a Washington Post reporter like that, and suggest that it was somehow, you know, wrong for a reporter to make money, which was, came out during the hearing.”

“They asked me if I’ve been paid to testify, which was totally outrageous,” Taibbi said. “They called us a direct threat.”

Taibbi noted a dark undertone in the treatment he received from Democrats over his reporting.

“That’s very ominous language for the government to talk about with regard to journalists,” he said. “And again, they would never do that with somebody they considered one of their own, which, you know, a typical mainstream reporter.”

“I think that was very, very disturbing what happened yesterday,” Taibbi said.