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Sarah Rogers, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, raised eyebrows this week when she replied to a post on X from an account titled “National Socialists of TikTok.”
The exchange began when Rogers posted, “In the wake of the Cologne attacks, a German lawmaker faced official sanctions and was threatened with prison for tweeting the phrase ‘barbaric, gang-raping Muslim hordes.’ Germany then swiftly enacted yet another ‘hate speech’ law targeting social media.”
Rogers has been engaged in the “free speech” debate in the MAGA world about European crackdowns on hate speech and other content on social media. She warned earlier in the week that “nothing is off the table” if the British government follows through on its threat to ban Elon Musk’s X over AI-generated sexualized images on the platform.
The neo-Nazi account, which regularly posts pro-Hitler content, replied to Rogers, writing, “jews let the browns in.” Rogers then hit back, “Germany infamously retains very few Jews, yet imported barbarian rapist hordes (as an American, I’m allowed to call them that) under Merkel. Even today, Germany suppresses political opposition who point this out.” The top Trump official added:
You guys will say this is because of “Jewish” NGO tentacles or whine that Hitler (who destroyed his country) is treated too harshly by history. You will say this because you’re dumb trash who prefer to promote conspiracy theories rather than ascribe Germans (or anyone else) agency over their countries’ future.
Many pundits and observers shared the post and simply marveled at what had come from such a high-ranking U.S. diplomat. Wall Street Journal national security reporter Robbie Gramer shared it and wrote, “Trump’s Under Secretary of State for public diplomacy here.”
The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin added, “This is the State Dept official in charge of America’s public diplomacy? Sad.”
Other takes were much harder-hitting:
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