Matt Walsh chided a Democratic Tennessee state lawmaker Monday over a tweet suggesting that he and other conservatives are creating a “vortex of evil” in the Volunteer State.
Democratic State Rep. Gloria Johnson included Walsh, as well as his Daily Wire colleagues Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, in a list bemoaning Tennessee becoming a hub for leaders within the conservative movement.
“If I am hearing this right, the following people now live in TN, please correct me if I’m wrong,” Johnson tweeted Monday night. “Betsy DeVos, Rebekah Mercer, Roger Stone, Tomi Lahren, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Candace Owens…who am I leaving out? It seems we are a testing ground for the vortex of evil.”
Walsh shot back with snark and a reference to legislation that would ban sex-change treatments on minors making its way through Tennessee’s Republican-led state legislature over the opposition of Democrats.
“Hi Gloria. I’m sorry that you won’t be able to castrate and sterilize children anymore. I know how much you enjoyed that. Unfortunately your deranged child-abusing lunacy is no longer welcomed in our state,” he tweeted.
Hi Gloria. I'm sorry that you won't be able to castrate and sterilize children anymore. I know how much you enjoyed that. Unfortunately your deranged child-abusing lunacy is no longer welcomed in our state. https://t.co/QeKG1jtKuE
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 21, 2023
In subsequent tweets, Johnson seemed to take swipes at Walsh, whose film “What is a Woman?” has helped drive the public debate on gender ideology. She referenced a hearing earlier this month in which Walsh clashed with Democratic lawmakers while testifying in favor of the legislation to prohibit so-called gender transition medications and surgeries on minors.
“Oh look, Mr. Litterbox has shown up with his ill informed army of ignorant misfit, misogynist trolls. However will I handle their middle school insults? If he’s sending his best…” she said in one tweet with “clown face” emojis.
“If you are going to claim that your bill to outlaw something a loud minority don’t agree with it, then you probably shouldn’t say it isn’t relevant that the majority of Tennesseans don’t agree with other things they pay for as taxpayers,” Johnson said in another tweet. “You killed your own argument.”
Walsh responded to the latter tweet. “Did you run this tweet through some kind of translation software to make the wording as convoluted and clunky as possible?” he asked. “By the way this person used to be a teacher. No surprise there,” Walsh quipped in a second tweet.