I’ve noticed that Jessica Tarlov hasn’t been on The Five lately, but she was on Wednesday. True to form, she tried to pull the “both sides” argument on political violence, and Greg Gutfeld once again called her out in brutal fashion. I bet she wishes that she had sat this one out, too.
“You, your rationalization of ‘both sides’ is—” he snapped. When she interrupted with the predictable “I’m not rationalizing anything,” he didn’t flinch. “Since Kirk’s death there is no both sides anymore, Jessica,” he said plainly.
Tarlov attempted a counterpunch, pointing fingers at the Department of Justice for pulling a study on right-wing extremism. Gutfeld’s response exposed the thinness of her line: “What, what, what study was that? Which one, the one in The Economist that was sponsored by a group run by a guy in Antifa?”
He didn’t merely dismiss the study; he accused its compromised origins: “That study that has been discredited—” he said, and when Tarlov asked, “Antifa?” he answered with blunt certainty. “That study was authored by a project that was run by a guy who says he was in Antifa. That is why that whole thing has been scrubbed, okay? It’s real simple.”
The left’s habit of slapping labels like “fascist” or “Nazi” on its political opponents isn’t just name-calling; it’s a green light for violence. Gutfeld spelled it out with brutal clarity: “You label someone a fascist or a racist or a Nazi, it makes you free to attack them, and that has been the ideology from the start. It’s weird.”
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Tarlov tried to make the classic lefty maneuver: accusing conservatives of hypocrisy and demanding to know why it’s “okay” when Donald Trump or others use harsh rhetoric. “Is it okay when Donald Trump does it?” she asked.
Gutfeld answered with a line that should settle the debate for anyone paying attention to the realities of public life: “The left calls Trump a hatemonger. They have called me a hatemonger because I ridicule … the left, I ridicule protesters, I ridicule academia, Hollywood, the news media. I make fun of The View every day. I make fun of the UN. Guess what? No one acts on the things that I say because my side doesn’t do that.”
There’s a crucial distinction there. Gutfeld didn’t say that conservatives never use ugly words. He said that conservatives don’t weaponize that language into violence. “We say people are stupid, we say people are wrong, but we don’t say they’re evil,” he told her. That’s exactly the point too many on the left refuse to grasp: Rhetoric matters, but context and follow-through matter more.
He then moved to demolition mode and asked the questions Tarlov didn’t want to answer: “Who points them in that direction? Why pick ICE? Why pick Kirk? Why target TV stations and put bombs under Fox trucks, huh? Why, why vandalize memorials? Why kill kids in Catholic schools?” Those questions hit at a real pattern: Radical language rarely exists in a vacuum, and blaming lone actors without examining who radicalizes them never satisfies the victims.
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Gutfeld capped his pile-on with a sober, almost clinical observation about danger and culpability: “Two things can be true. A person could be mentally ill, and you can be guiding him to that place in his life. That is how brainwashing works.”
If you watch the exchange, what stands out isn’t just the rhetorical victory. It’s the intellectual clarity. Tarlov kept circling back to the same tired framing — studies, data, “both sides” — and Gutfeld kept exposing the gaps.
In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen case after case of left-wing violence, yet the left keeps wanting to gaslight us into thinking that this is a “both sides” problem. Democrats are always quick to blame “the right” or “both sides” but never their own side. That’s what makes Tarlov’s persistence in pretending that political violence is a “both sides” problem so aggravating and why Gutfeld was completely justified in exploding at her.
Tarlov’s excuse-making on political violence crashed hard against Gutfeld’s brutal facts on The Five. The left’s persistent gaslighting stops here. PJ Media fights to expose the truth others ignore every day. Join PJ Media VIP, and use the promo code FIGHT for 60% off, and gain exclusive perks like ad-free browsing and commenting. Support fearless journalism that puts America First — don’t miss out, join now!