Andy Ngo on Silence From LGBT Groups On Portland Assault: “I’m Not The Right Type of Victim”

At least three people were arrested and several others were reported injured, as members of Antifa and other leftist groups clashed with members of the Proud Boys and other conservatives around downtown Portland, Ore., on Saturday, police said. One of those injured was Andy Ngo, a conservative writer who appeared to have been attacked by Antifa members. (video here Warning Graphic Language) Ngo later posted a photo of himself from a hospital, with bruises, cuts and scratches on his face.
Some of the demonstrators turned violent, throwing milkshakes said to be mixed with quick-drying cement, raw eggs and pepper spray. The gatherings were deemed “civil disturbance and unlawful assembly” by the Portland Police Bureau and the perpetrators were believed to include members of both sides.
Fox News Radio Host Guy Benson spoke to Andy Ngo & his lawyer Harmeet Dhillion about what went down over the weekend. The details are chilling!
Watch Below:
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Full Transcript:
Guy Benson: BACK ON THE GUY BENSON show live in Washington D.C.. Thank you for listening. Guy Benson show dot.com. As you heard the podcast is free for the first hour every day and i tunes all the way to Listen A GUY BENSON show dot.com. So over the weekend I was on Twitter as I am want to do well hang out on Twitter usually from time to time. I try not to obsess over it when I’m trying to relax. But there were these videos coming out of Portland Oregon where an TFA was for some reason back on the march and wreaking havoc. They have these riots from time to time. And there was a particular snippet. That was getting a lot of attention. A reporter a journalist named Andy Ngo. Who does a lot of work exposing Antifa was identified by a PAC. Of these people who are wearing black clothing and in many cases masks shrouding their identities. They saw him. They recognized him. They came after him. They put various substances that they sprayed on him. And then they punched and kicked him. He was bloodied in the face and bruised. He went to the hospital. They stole his equipment. This was all in broad daylight in the middle of a major American city. With the police, God knows where they were. The city of Portland makes all sorts of concessions when it comes to enforcing the law to Antifa. Seems like a.. It kind of runs that place a lot of the time. It honestly looks like a hellhole. Portland Oregon. You could not pay me to go to Portland, Oregon right now especially seeing what they did. Antifa that is. Seemingly with impunity. To my next guest. Andy Ngo is a journalist working at Collette. His attorney is Harmeet Dhillon and they both join me on the Guy Benson show Andy and Harmeet. Thanks for doing this.
Harmeet Dhillon: Thanks Guy.
Guy Benson: Andy let’s start with you. Explain for our listeners your journalism and what you do in terms of covering. Groups like Antifa and how that led to what happened to you on the streets of Portland this weekend.
Andy Ngo: Thank you for having me on. Since last year I’ve been covering with regularity various anti protests and other fallouts radical events that happened in Portland. Portland is a monocultural progressive center so you have a lot of radicals and extremists and militants on the far left who come here and feel empowered to organize and riot and take over the streets with impunity. The police usually don’t do anything and if you are ever held to account for their criminal behavior.
Guy Benson: Including what happened to you on Saturday so it’s been fascinating Andy to watch on social media. A lot of blue checkmark verified people on the left who are willing in most cases to condemn a vicious physical assault against you. And then there’s always the comma and the but. But, Andy Ngo is you know are far right white supremacist or supports those ideas or he provoked this and brought this on himself. These are arguments being made by supposedly serious people in some cases. If you would if you would describe what your actions were that quote unquote provoked this violent attack against you. Fill us in on what was happening on the streets and when the beatings started.
Andy Ngo: So one of the geniuses of Antifa is in their propaganda they use doublespeak. So when they say things like provoke or we’re coming out for self-defense that actually doesn’t mean what most people want to sound those words to mean. So they did they organized this protest to run riot as a quote self-defense. And but really it was a premeditated planned day to bring physical confrontation to their opponent. And. Unfortunately Antifa has a lot of cheerleaders in the mainstream media who for whatever reason have some ideological alignment with them feel that their tactics of a doctrine of harassment of intimidation is OK and you know I think it’s pretty dangerous for journalists to accept the rationale or logic because of a writer whose columnists opinion that should open him or her to brutal beatings.
Guy Benson: Yeah they’re pretending like you’re not a journalist. That’s one of the big critiques I’ve seen of you. Oh well we can say this is not good. But he’s not really a journalist and he was there to provoke. You were filming them correct? I was watching the one video taken by another journalist. You were filming what was going on you were just walking along the street. Someone starts calling you out by name Andy. They recognize you. And that’s when this attack began. Describe the attack.
Andy Ngo: Yeah so this is the anarchy of Portland. It’s considered a provocation for citizens to record activities that happen in public so they viewed it keep provoking them because simply I walked around the demonstration with the camera. This didn’t just happen in a major American city we were a stone’s throw away from the major institutions of the rule of law for the city courthouses the central police precinct the sheriff’s office. I could actually see these buildings while I was getting beaten by this mob. What happened as they were marching in front of the organ in front of the Justice Center. And then somebody ran from behind and bashed me in the back of my head. I don’t know why. It was very hard. As soon as I sort of got my footing before I could even realize what had happened. Then the hits just kept coming to the front to the back. I lost control of I was holding my GoPro in my hand and my phone and my camera equipment was stolen. In that moment somebody who was dressed head to toe in black. I thought the worst of it was over. It wasn’t. So what happened next. The so-called peaceful milkshake protest. The people who were came with milkshakes throwing that out in the hurling it directly in my face so I couldn’t even see which way to walk out. And then more people charged in to punch me to kick me. They were particularly targeting my head in my eye and I stumbled away. There was absolutely no police. So I just kept walking in a direction as the laughing behind me got quieter and you know I kept thinking about one of the last things I heard the crowd chanting just before the attacks started. Was “no hate no fear”.
Guy Benson: Yes which is deeply ironic. We played some of that audio earlier in the show and when you finally stumbled away dazed and battered they started cheering like they had won. There are allegations that there was some sort of chemical substance in the milkshake. There was good be like instant concrete that would start to harden. You could see in the video that you immediately filmed bruising and bleeding on the face. You were in the hospital. Was there a a brain bleed is that correct?
Andy Ngo: Yes. So I was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital where I received a C.T. scan and it confirmed a brain hemorrhage. So I was keeping a close monitoring of the hospital because of a brain injury.
Guy Benson: So I mean this is a very very serious assault. That word applies completely to what happened and it’s happening as I said in a major city in the middle of daylight hours. And there are no cops anywhere. So Harmeet, Harmeet Dillon is the attorney for Andy, let’s bring you in here. Your client is getting beaten up badly in the street. These riots happen frequently from Antifa. We see this type of violence frequently from Antifa. Where on earth is law enforcement Harmeet? What is happening in Portland?
Harmeet Dhillon: I mean this is something that we’ve actually seen Guy in other major American cities since 2016 including San Jose and some others where police are given an order by the mayor or city council to not take action in the event of these type of political protest and they are given rules of engagement that say that unless you see somebody about to lose their life you are not to step in. The result of that is obviously that criminals are emboldened by this. We’ve seen it in multiple cases and this is one and they plan on a part of their part of their riot plan is that police are not going to do anything they do this with impunity. It is amazing to me and chilling I think as you as well probably looking at the fact that some of these people were masked but some of them weren’t masked. They didn’t bother to masked themselves because they know nothing is going to happen. And that is what what happens when you when you allow it you get more of it. And so it’s troubling. And these cities hide behind a legal doctrine that has developed developed over the years to say that in general the police don’t have a duty to protect you. However you know there are legal doctrines like police putting people in harm’s way or discriminatory enforcement of the law based on the First Amendment. These could be potential causes of action against the city. So we have not reached any conclusions about what we’re going to do here. But we are definitely actively considering legal action against all parties possible who contributed to Andy’s harm and not just Andy. I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of a couple of other older gentleman who were.
Guy Benson: Yeah there’s an elderly man who was beaten know like bleeding from his head.
Harmeet Dhillon: I mean there’s a crowbar and the guy who did that didn’t hide its face. We actually have seen multiple images of this person who’s identified. So I don’t believe he’s arrested yet.
Guy Benson: Harmeet I’m trying to figure this out because they’re trying to say well it’s not necessarily the job of the cops to protect people I thought police the whole thing was protect and serve. And if you have riots in the streets where innocent people particularly journalists or anyone else are being beaten bloody by a group of thugs for the cops not to be around or not intervening I think is just a complete dereliction. I understand that it might be coming from the top. What is the update. Can you give us any update on the perpetrators have they identified people has anyone been arrested?
Harmeet Dhillon: I would say the cops came to the hospital to take Andy’s statement on Saturday evening many hours after he was assaulted and many hours after he was the subject of international news attention they weren’t particularly motivated to you know do some of the things that we think are necessary. Am I’m going to get into the details, but they haven’t arrested anybody as yet that we’re aware of they haven’t even communicated with us again since that. I mean we’ve seen a lot of crowdsourcing of identification of the person who threw milkshake number two at Andy has been identified by public sources and I think pretty confidently we don’t believe that person has been arrested. It’s a transgender person. There have been multiple videos online giving clearer images of some of the other attackers. We do not believe any arrests have been made at this time. I wonder what type of investigation they’re doing. We have no visibility into that Guy.
Guy Benson: Andy, one of the excuses from the apologists who will mouth a few words of denunciation and then come after you almost as if you were asking for it. They say you’re a sympathizer of white supremacy is that true?
Andy Ngo: Absolutely not. This is what I mean when they’re adopting the rhetoric tactics of Antifa it’s to demonize your ideological opponents of quote unquote Nazis or fascists. So then they have the moral legitimacy to attack you and get praised for it in the public.
Guy Benson: You are a person of color yourself correct.
Andy Ngo: Yes I am
Guy Benson: You also happen to be gay. I am as well. It was pride month and then World Pride this past weekend. I know it doesn’t seem like you were attacked because of your sexuality I just wonder Andy if an LGBT journalist had been attacked in the streets by a right wing mob. On Pride weekend. Might that have gotten some attention from gay rights groups have you heard from any mainstream gay rights groups standing up for you and your rights.
Andy Ngo: I’ve seen quite the contrary. One of the staff people with the Human Rights Campaign actually put out a tweet that was diminishing what had happened to me. We all know that of course this was a progressive journalists who even received a fraction of what I hate saying about the whole machine of the progressive system would go into overdrive to bring attention to that. I mean you see them do that to. Obviously dubious allegations of hate crimes and then they that turned out to be hoaxes. They’ve gone quite quiet. so. It’s disappointing, but not surprising. I’m not the right type of victim.
Guy Benson: Right. The ideology of the victim and the perpetrators in this case it seems like for some people and activists that matters more than the facts of the case which is another example I think of really toxic identity politics. Harmeet, last question here in the few moments we have left. You mentioned that you guys are looking at various avenues of legal action against anyone or everyone who might be responsible. There have been calls Ambassador Richard Grenell the U.S. ambassador to Germany he’s denounced this publicly said that the Justice Department should step in. Similar comments from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. If Portland Oregon is unwilling to defend innocent people is it something that the federal government ought to look at sort of coming in and taking control of a city that refuses to control itself.
Harmeet Dhillon: Well I don’t know about taking control of the city but it is absolutely the place for the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and criminal division to go in where a city is refusing to prosecute blatant civil rights violations like the Klan act like First Amendment violations. Like many others that they can step in and enforce those laws and they have done it in cases of violence against homosexuals of bussing of many other cases of discrimination against African-Americans in the south where law enforcement do their job. Federal law enforcement can step in and do it. They should and I have to say I’m deeply disappointed at the lack of response so far on these types of issues. But maybe they can redeem themselves and do something in this case.
Guy Benson: Yeah look I have to say the video was sickening. The apologies were in some ways even more sickening from certain people who are mainstream. Harmeet Dhillon I hope you guys stay on this. I know you on behalf of your client and Andy all say for now is I hope that you feel better very soon and we really appreciate it’s been a tough few days. Thank you for making some time for us.
Harmeet Dhillon: Thank you Guy.
Andy Ngo: Thank you.
Guy Benson: All right we’re going to step aside. It’s an unbelievable story. The video makes it worse. We’ll be right back.