Right-wing commentator Bethany Mandel on Wednesday blamed “hot mic” remarks made by a left-leaning host for her now-infamous inability to define the word “woke” on live TV, claiming she was thrown off by “nasty” comments made about parents minutes earlier.
“Just before we went on air, Briahna Joy Gray was on a hot mic,” Mandel tweeted. “I heard her demeaning parenting in general in colorful and nasty terms, stating parents only have kids in order to perpetuate their own narcissism.”
She continued: “As a mom of six, including a newborn, this threw me off just a bit. Not an excuse, just a reality. I’m human!”
ADVERTISEMENT
Mandel, whose latest book is all about how “wokeness” is destroying and indoctrinating America’s youth, then insisted that she does indeed know what the term means.
“A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination,” Mandel wrote. “It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.”
During her appearance on The Hill’s online program Rising on Tuesday, the Stolen Youth author was pressed by Gray to give a definition of “woke,” a word conservatives have used as a catch-all pejorative to complain about all things vaguely liberal.
Completely freezing up, Mandel stammered while failing to outline a meaning for the term she based her entire book around. “This is going to be one of those moments that goes viral,” the conservative commentator presciently said at one point.
