‘Latino Rebels’ group smears Southern GOP rep as racist after he cracks commonly used ‘dad joke’

Anders Hagstrom, DCNF

The media outlet Latino Rebels made the bogus claim last week that Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers made fun of another representative’s Puerto Rican accent.

Why is @RepMikeRogersAL saying the following, “It’s refreshing to finally have a witness that doesn’t have an accent before this committee,” right after @RepJenniffer of #PuertoRico speaks. And Rogers has a F-ING ACCENT! #NoMames pic.twitter.com/3LfCzdLPuh

— Latino Rebels (@latinorebels) March 20, 2018

Latino Rebels tried to make it seem as though the Republican’s comment was directed at GOP Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón of Puerto Rico, but it wasn’t. Rogers clearly addressed FEMA representative Brock Long, who shares Rogers’ thick Alabama accent and was testifying about hurricane relief efforts. Rogers’ comment only joked about how rare it was to interview a witness who shared his southern drawl.

González-Colón even defended Rogers, saying she didn’t think he was making fun of her accent.

What @RepMikeRogersAL was clearly referring to was @FEMA_Brock ’s enunciation, which like https://t.co/Y0I9RDTh5G’, is considered by many people to be a Southern drawl. It was a light-hearted bit of humor and I appreciated it. Rep. Rogers was not being negative about any accent

— Jenniffer González (@RepJenniffer) March 20, 2018

Politico initially ran with Latino Rebels’ story as well, but eventually took it down because it was fake news.

Rogers’ office said that his quip about accents is a “dad joke” that he makes several times a week. As evidence, his staff provided The Daily Caller News Foundation with a partial transcript of remarks Rogers made at a Washington, D.C., conference on nuclear deterrence in 2015.

“I’m going to be the first speaker without an accent this morning,” he teased in his speech.

The conference was co-hosted by a delegation from North Dakota (the state is home to Minot Air Force Base, which maintains part of the U.S. nuclear arsenal). As a result, most of the speakers who came before Rogers were from North Dakota.

“When I came here I didn’t know they were going to have foreign language speakers before me,” he joked.

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