A Hispanic lawmaker in Florida has accused The Washington Post of racism.
Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said her recent profile contained errors, according to Fox News.
“How terrible it is [The Washington Post] treatment[s] A minority and the truth is, the undertone of their article was incredibly racist. They tried to belittle my Hispanic heritage. They even talked to my mom and reported a lot of what she was posting. So, the Washington Post composts, and they should do better,” he said during a Friday appearance on the Fox News show “Jesse Waters Primetime.”
“My story was something they didn’t want to believe was true. Again, I grew up in the welfare system. I went to six high schools. My parents never married. And I also think a crazy claim that they’re trying to make is that I wasn’t raised as a Messianic Jew,” Luna said.
Luna said the errors were part of the post’s intent to attack him.
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“As I’ve said before, and as the Washington Post has clearly shown, anyone who is a conservative minority is a threat to left-wing control,” Luna said, according to Fox News. “They may try to discredit me, but unfortunately for them the facts completely blow their story out of the water.”
Part of the Post story said, “Luna’s sharp turn to the right, her account of an isolated and impoverished childhood and her embrace of her Hispanic heritage have come as a surprise to some friends and family who knew her before she ascended to the U.S. home this year.”
The Post claims Luna “registered to vote as a Democrat in Washington state” in 2017. It later amended that claim and stood by that section as a whole
“We have corrected a portion of factual information based on a database error. Rip. This deeply reported story about Luna’s biography includes a wealth of perspectives from people who have known her throughout her life,” said Shani George, Washington Post vice president of communications, according to Fox.
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Although the Post said it found no evidence that Luna’s father, George Mayerhofer, was ever in jail, Fox News said Lunar was able to verify that her father was shown in and out of jail.
Eddie Heipel, Luna’s director of communications, said the story was designed to hurt Luna.
“No conservative outlet would stand a chance if they dared say someone wasn’t ‘Hispanic enough,’ yet that’s the main narrative WAPO is trying to spin,” Heipel said.
“Because Anna is a conservative, somehow WAPO believes the fact that both sides of her family are descended from Mexican immigrants is not valid. This article has very racist undertones and The Washington Post knowingly omitted information from multiple sources that refuted their lies and narrative,” Heipel said.
The Post account included sources that Luna was a liberal and supporter of former President Barack Obama when he served at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.
However, Lamar Carson, who worked with Luna at Whiteman for two years and spoke to the Post — but was not quoted in the report — saw things differently.
“He’s the same now as he was back then,” he said.
“We never got into many political conversations. As I told the Washington Post, we support and defend the Constitution of the United States, then and now our job. It wasn’t something we got,” Carson said.
This article was originally published in the Western Journal.