Who Is Fox News' Tomi Lahren and Why Is She Controversial?

Who is Tomi Lahren? Well, she has made the news in the last few days because of a very controversial comment that she made about Senator and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Note: as of April 2020, Kamala Harris is no longer running for President because she dropped out of the race.

I had been thinking of writing about her even though I don’t even watch Fox News. We will obviously address the recent controversy that she created with those comments but who really is she?

Actually that is why I decided to write about Tomi, the fact that she did make that controversial comment about Kamala that is all over the news. There could be a biography of Tomi Lahren written here but most people who have access to technology and the Internet in this modern era would know who she is. There will be a brief introduction to Tomi Lahren before we address those other comments that she made that almost cost her employment.

• She has a very diverse background, being mostly of German ancestry and she is 1/8 Norwegian and has small traces of Scotch-Irish ancestry as well.
• She is said to run 8 miles every morning before she goes to work.
• Tomi Lahren actually became a rising star in the conservative news media by the time she was just 24 years old. She was born August 11, 1992.
• In 2017, she had 4.3 million followers on social media.
• Although she describes herself as a constitutional conservative, she is in favor of same sex marriage and she believes that that the government should not tell women what to do with their bodies.

And now it is time to address the recent controversy that Tomi got herself into by just one tweet! Words, especially if they are typed on a social media platform have enormous power and Tomi did not use good judgement at all when she said during the Democratic Presidential debates on July 31, 2019: “Kamala, did you fight for ideal or did you just sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?” This comment received immediate backlash from a few of the employees over at Fox Nation especially Britt Mchenry who said the following: ”Do you have any idea how damaging this is to women who’ve actually been sexually harassed, assaulted or demeaned in the workplace? How much this weakens our own gender, regardless of partisanship. My goodness,” (Russo, 2019). Lahren eventually apologized for the remark on Twitter, calling it “a wrong choice of words.” With all the attention on President Trump these days, Tomi Lahren should be getting more attention as well. I address this recent controversy because not only was that initial remark a wrong choice of words but “how about wrong choice of thought,” (Cousins, 2019). News anchor Farron Cousins of the political talk show on YouTube The Ring of Fire asked that question. This kind of comment made anywhere especially during a time when campaign and debate season is starting is not a good idea. It is also not a good idea to bring people’s past history and personal lives into this. Did Tomi Lahren make that comment because she wanted to get extra recognition and fame? She already has millions of followers on social media and is a rising star so that comment was not necessary. That was a wrong choice of words by Tomi but also a wrong choice of thought and a bad use of judgement on her part. I am grateful that at least she had the decency to apologize for her mistake and save her job.

Works Cited

Cousins, F. (2019, August 2).

Russo, A. (2019, August 2). Tomi Lahren’s Fox News Colleagues Slam Her ‘Disgusting’ Attack On Kamala Harris. Retrieved from The Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tomi-lahren-fox-news-kamala-harris-attack_n_5d444a28e4b0aca3411cc759