GOP Congressman in 2012: Remember When You Could Call Women Sluts?

Before Republican Congressman Jason Lewis won a close race in 2016 to represent Minnesota's Second District, he was the host of a syndicated radio program where he said a lot of offensive shit.

After reviewing raw audio files of the show, CNN's KFile found segments where Lewis talked about the "Hispanic problem" and made disparaging comments against women, including one bit in 2012 where he complained that you couldn't call women "sluts" anymore.

The origins of his remarks go back to conservative radio personality and famed misogynist Rush Limbaugh calling women's rights activist Sandra Fluke a "slut" earlier that year in response to her testimony to a Democratic congressional panel about how more women should have low-cost or free access to contraception.

Here's Lewis's take on all that, via CNN's Wednesday story:

If you're demanding that the taxpayers pay for your contraception, you must use a lot of them and therefore, ergo, you're very sexually active and in the old days, what we used to call people who were in college or even graduate school who were sexually active, we called them sluts.

But have we really got to the point where you can't refer to Madonna as a slut without being sued? I mean, Madonna has had a series of lovers, as have many in Hollywood. Now in the old days, what did we call this? Madonna dresses up in these sorts of prostitute-like outfits on stage, and she goes there and she sings and she shows half of her body. What did we call those people? 30 years ago? 40 years ago? 50 years ago? You can't do that today, it's too politically incorrect?

According to CNN, these comments mostly flew under the radar at the time—Lewis was several years away from running for Congress, after all.

Lewis's past as a radio shock jock was widely known before his election to Congress. In 2016, the Atlantic called him "Minnesota's mini-Trump," noting he had claimed that taxing the rich was the modern-day equivalent of "targeting black folks" during "the time of slavery." The Atlantic reported that Democrats were relatively confident they could beat him with their candidate, former healthcare executive Angie Craig. But Lewis instead eked out a close victory, winning by less than 7,000 votes.

Following the CNN story, Craig, the frontrunner in a Democratic primary to challenge Lewis this fall, attacked him on Twitter:

Lewis was already one of the Republicans being targeted by Democrats as they attempt to take back Congress. The "slut" comments aren't likely to make his life any easier.

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