Martha McSally’s “Liberal Hack” Stunt Was Staged

Vox reports:

McSally’s stunt received praise from the MAGA media, including Fox News staple Mark Levin (“Kudos to Martha McSally! Love this!”) and Breitbart, who wrote that McSally “slammed a CNN reporter to his face — and it was glorious.”

McSally, for her part, leaned into the incident by posting video of it on her Twitter page. Within a couple hours of when it happened, the Trump campaign Twitter account rewarded her with a laudatory tweet (“THIS is how you handle FAKE NEWS @CNN”) that also included a link to her fundraising page.

That tweet seemed to give the game away. But if any doubt remained, it was resolved on Friday when Kyle Cheney of Politico reported that McSally registered the domain name “LiberalHack.com” shortly after the incident with Raju.

A little insight into how calculated this was.

McSally attacked Manu in the 10am hour. She had registered the domain name “https://t.co/YQW3ySFPna” by the 11am hour.

(16:24 UTC = 11:24 EST) pic.twitter.com/TkBHt8S2BZ

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 17, 2020

Wait…you actually green-lit this hostage video? https://t.co/2NpxlOw4v0

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) January 17, 2020

The GOP senator’s campaign began selling ‘liberal hack’ shirts hours after she attacked a CNN reporter ? https://t.co/ptGh8qyjsV

— The American Independent (@AmerIndependent) January 17, 2020

NEW SHIRT!! ?

I’m in the Senate to fight for all Arizonans, not play politics and games with the liberal hacks of the left-wing media! https://t.co/tNbKJa49JN

— McSally For Senate (@MarthaMcSally) January 17, 2020