STUART VARNEY (HOST): Our next guest is really getting slammed for tweeting this about the #MeToo movement. Here it is: “The entire premise of #MeToo is that women are stupid, weak, and inconsequential. Too stupid to know what men might want if you come to their hotel room late at night. Too weak to turn around. Too inconsequential to realize this.” Who wrote that? Candace Owens, who joins us now, Turning Point USA communications director. You are getting slammed for what you wrote there. Do you want to roll it back a little, walk it back a little, or reinforce it? Which way you want to go here?
CANDACE OWENS (COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TURNING POINTS USA): Well look Stuart, I'm constantly getting slammed for my tweets. I'm an unapologetically pro-Trump Black woman who has been tremendously effective in getting Black people to reconsider their political alliances so they're constantly looking at my tweets and trying to build straw man arguments. I'm not the first person that has said this. Condoleezza Rice came out and said that the #MeToo movement is creating snowflakes, that she was concerned that men were having discussions behind closed doors and ultimately talking about how they just didn't want to hire women. I'm hearing the exact same thing from men, so it's very important that strong women speak out and start to say, is this movement more harmful, ultimately, or in the end, for women? And I think that right now, if we don't start differentiating between sexual assault and rape and simple flirting, it is ultimately going to be harmful.
VARNEY: Why are conservatives slamming you for what you said?
OWENS: Eh, it wasn't too many conservatives here. There were a few, and these are people, that I believe, I have -- wouldn't be upset if my platform diminished tomorrow. But the majority of women support me. As we know the mob is loud, the majority is silent. So I got so many messages of support saying, thank you, I've been saying this for a long time. In the comments, there were rape victims that said that they felt that the #MeToo movement diminished their rapes because everything was being considered sexual assault. So it's a conversation that needs to be had. I'm really happy that I'm in a position where I can open the dialogue. There are men that would like to be a part of the discussion but they're fearful that even discussing #MeToo will get them #MeToo'd.
