Yet another aide from the office of Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has been terminated from their job in the wake of the press secretary resigning while attempting to deal with the fallout due to highly controversial tweets that seemingly suggested violence be carried out against “transphobes.”
In the coming week, the replacement for the governor’s director of communications, Murphy Hebert, is slated to be announced, as reported in a recent press release about an ongoing “reorganization” of leadership roles within the administration of the Democrat Governor.
As Hobbs’s chief of staff, Alli Bones reportedly claimed it had not yet been decided whether or not Hebert would stay within the administration, just under an other separate role, and openly denied that such a move had anything at all to do with the recent resignation of Josselyn Berry, who was the press secretary to Hobbs.
“This review has been going on for the past couple of weeks and…has been in the works for a while,” explained Hobb’s Chief of Staff, Alli Bones, to the Arizona Mirror. “These things don’t happen overnight.”
Berry has been forced to deal with extreme levels of backlash due to people taking note of a tweet made this past Monday that contained an image of Actress Gena Rowlands from the 1980 film “Glorida” brandishing a pair of guns captioned with the message: “Us when we see transphobes.”
This particularly bad take tweet was made just a scant few hours in the wake of the shooting taking place at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, which ended in the deaths of three faculty and three children. Law enforcement who were the first to respond to the carnage at the private Christian school ended up taking down the shooter, a biological woman who identified as a transgender. Though investigators have not yet spoken out with a possible motive, police did state that the shooter had targeted this school in particular.
Hobbs, who took office as governor earlier this year, posted about the horrid attacks this past Tuesday.
“As flags across our state and our country are lowered for the six victims of school gun violence in Nashville, we mourn their loss, along with all others killed by gun violence,” stated Hobbs. “Our schools should be safe places for students and teachers, this could have and should have been prevented.”
Despite this, most of the focus found its way to Berry’s tweet. Podcaster Matt Walsh was quick to call for Hobbs to terminate Berry over the insane post.
“Really? This is what your press secretary thinks about this tragedy. Fire her immediately. No other answer will be acceptable,” he exclaimed while responding to the tweet from Hobbs.
Really? This is what your press secretary thinks about this tragedy. Fire her immediately. No other answer will be acceptable. pic.twitter.com/cAW3pdROsS
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) March 29, 2023
A response was quickly released by the governor’s office announcing the full resignation of Berry.
“The Governor does not condone violence in any form,” explained the statement. “This administration holds mutual respect at the forefront of how we engage with one another.””
“The post by the Press Secretary is not reflective of the values of the administration,” concluded the statement. “The Governor has received and accepted the resignation of the Press Secretary.”
