White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday repeatedly refused to say whether President Donald Trump really thinks Democrats “hate” Jewish people.
Before Trump left the White House on Friday for his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, he said: “The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party,” and condemned the party’s “disgraceful” reaction to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic comments.
Later in the day, Trump told Republican National Committee donors that Democrats “hate” Jewish people, according to a person who heard the remarks but spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the president’s comments at a private event.
“The president has been an unwavering and committed ally to Israel and the Jewish people and, frankly, the remarks that have been made by a number of Democrats and failed to be called out by Democrat leadership is frankly abhorrent and it’s sad,” she said.
“It’s something that should be called by name. It shouldn’t be put in a watered-down resolution. It should be done the way the Republicans did it when Steve King made terrible comments,” Sanders said. “We called it out by name. We stripped him of his committee memberships and we’d like to see Democrats follow suit.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta rushed to defend Democrats, saying it’s “patently untrue” that they hate Jews.
In January, the House approved a Democratic measure disapproving of comments that Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, made about white supremacy. King had a long history of controversial rhetoric about immigrants, but it wasn’t until he defended white supremacy in an interview with The New York Times that Republicans in Congress moved to strip him of committee assignments and called for his resignation.
In August 2017, after violence erupted at a white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said “both sides” were to blame, a comment some saw as a refusal to condemn racism.
“The president has been incredibly clear and has consistently and repeatedly condemned hatred, bigotry, racism in all of its forms whether it’s in America or anywhere else,” Sanders said Monday.
Nancy Pelosi defended Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism by saying she “has a different experience in the use of words” while speaking at the Economic Club in D.C. on 03/08/2019.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) refused to call Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks anti-Semitic when asked about the comments during a town hall on CNN on 3/10/19.
Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) complains to CNN’s Chris Cuomo that a resolution condemning anti-Semitism is a distraction from “the issues.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) refused to condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic comments on MSNBC, instead saying that “everything we say can be viewed in a certain way.”
2018 Democratic nominee for Florida governor Andrew Gillum repeatedly defended Rep. Ilhan Omar on CNN, calling her recent anti-Semitic comments “appropriate” and “legitimate.”
Sen. Cory Booker refused to answer questions about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitism at a press conference on 03/07/2019.
When asked about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to condemn her directly and said she did not think Rep. Omar “intended” her comments to be anti-Semitic at a press conference on 03/07/2019.
(YWN / AP)
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3 Responses
It may not be a surprise democrats do not want to call out omar as anti semitic because i am sure many will not clearly condemn fahrakhan either!? This is a wake up call to jewish progressives and jewish democrats! The dems do not consider how it looks to veteran jewish democrats when a black moslem rep says pro israel reps have dual loyalty and are paid the dem leaders stand with the accuser! So called progressives are not “morally” progressive unless progressively loose in sexual orientations and gender definition and pot smoking and abortion upto birth means the new and improved american! Progressives like ocasio who freely calls israeli soldiers trying to contain fanatical thousands of rioters from breaking through their border fense a massacre and admitting in an interview shes not really familiar with the issues! Probably just repeating anti semitic vibes about jews and israel she grew up with. This reminds us of the obama era when pres obama refused to say there was a awr with militant islam though we were fighting al qeda. The taliban and isis! Sadly veteran jewish dems probably feel betrayed!
So if they don’t hate Jews – why not condemn??????
No, Democrats dont really hate Jews, they just act like they wouldnt be bothered by another Holocaust.