Media Matters Defends Antifa in Andy Ngo Attack: Questions ‘Cement Milkshake’

Media Matters for America, the George Soros-funded left-wing pro-censorship organization, has defended Antifa from claims that it used “cement milkshakes” in the recent clashes in Portland in which rioters beat journalist Andy Ngo so severely that he had a brain hemorrhage.

Ngo, who works for Quillette, recounted the attack on Fox News on Monday evening, telling host Tucker Carlson that he was covering the Antifa event when he was attacked by as many as 20 people while local police did nothing.

(Last year, Portland’s Democratic mayor, Ted Wheeler, allegedly told local police not to intervene in a left-wing barricade that blocked access to the local office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).)

Media Matters published a blog post Monday in which it questioned reports — supported by the same local police that have shown excessive deference to left-wing groups — that Antifa were mixing cement into milkshakes to be thrown at conservatives, journalists, police, and bystanders.

Police have received information that some of the milkshakes thrown today during the demonstration contained quick-drying cement. We are encouraging anyone hit with a substance today to report it to police.

— Portland Police (@PortlandPolice) June 29, 2019

The substance being mixed into milkshakes, Media Matters argued, “was likely just a coconut milkshake.” Media Matters cited no evidence to back up that claim; it merely argued that conservatives had no basis for claiming that concrete milkshakes were being used, aside from the police warning. The author, Parker Molloy, added whimsially that people “drank the shakes without their internal organs turning to stone.”

Other left-wing outlets — including Mother Jones and the New York Times — have also published articles questioning the “cement milkshake” claim.

In the Media Matters post, titled “How conservative figures turned a flimsy rumor about ‘concrete milkshakes’ in Portland into a meme,” Molloy acknowledged that he had initially joked about Ngo being hit by a milkshake, but later apologized.

The post did condemn political violence — in the last few paragraphs, where it also suggested that those spreading reports about alleged cement milkshakes would be at least partly responsible for future violent escalations.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.