Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is refusing to condemn Elon Musk ‘s post endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, maintaining Sunday that he wasn’t familiar with the post despite it prompting major companies to pull advertising from the billionaire’s X social media platform.
“I did not see the comment,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And so, I know that Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter because I think he’s taking it in a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like.”
Musk has sparked outcry with a recent tweet responding to a user who accused Jews of hating white people and for professing a general indifference to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in a reply Wednesday.
IBM, Disney and other major advertisers have since pulled funding from X, a major blow as the platform formerly known as Twitter tries to win back big brands and their ad dollars that constitute its main source of revenue.
DeSantis announced his presidential bid on Musk’s platform, even as some research shows it has become a haven for hate speech since the billionaire took over the company last year. “State of the Union” put Musk’s post on the screen and host Jake Tapper read it to DeSantis before pressing him to condemn it — but the governor continued to demur.
“I know you tried to read it. I have no idea what the context is,” said DeSantis who was joining the show via videoconference . “I know Elon Musk. I have never seen him do anything. I think he’s a guy that believes in America. I have never seen him indulge in any of that. So it’s surprising, if that’s true, but I have not seen it. So I don’t want to sit there and pass judgment on the fly.”
The governor also said he opposes antisemitism “across the board,” no matter if it comes from the right or left of the ideological spectrum.
“It’s wrong no matter what,” DeSantis said.
The post has drawn criticism from the White House, where spokesperson Andrew Bates said last week that, “It is unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie behind the most fatal act of antisemitism in American history at any time, let alone one month after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
That referred to Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, which occurred on Oct. 7.
Appearing on Tapper’s show in person immediately after DeSantis, Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said it wasn’t credible to believe that someone running for president didn’t see Musk’s post: “This is four days later and he has not had a chance to read what Elon Musk wrote?”
“That is very hard for me to believe,” Raskin said. “In any event you showed it to him, and he still refused to condemn it.”
“If you’re serous about condemning and confronting antisemitism and racism and these bigotries, which are the gateways to destruction of liberal democracy, you’ve got to be explicit and open and full-throated about it,” Raskin added “and you’ve got to denounce the antisemitism and racism across the board.”
Raskin himself called the post “outrageous and dangerous,” and suggested that he and other members of the House planned to write to Musk “to ask him to renounce those comments and to clean up his act.”
(AP)
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16 Responses
I never said anything like that!!! lol
Governor Ron DeSantis is a tremendous oheiv yisroel, he loves the state of Israel and has done a lot for the yidden in his state of Florida. It’s indisputable. The fact that he’s saying that he wasn’t familiar with the post it’s obvious he doesn’t want to burn his bridges, he obviously has a great relationship with Elon Musk and wants to keep it that way and so he’s playing safe (and smart) and saying he hasn’t seen it. So everyone including theyeshivaworld.com should just relax..
If Ron was a democrat, the frum Jews would strongly condemn him. Alas, being that he’s a republican, we only hear crickets.
that post wasn’t anti semitic. You got to know the context. Listen to Ben Shapiros take on it. The issue was that the original post said jewish communities without specifying what that means. He should have clarified which he did later but that was too late. People made up their minds. But again you go understand the context
Using every AP article is not a sign of wisdom.
Desantis is 100% right.
First of all, why on earth should he have read what Musk wrote.
Second, he’s completely correct that just hearing Tapper read it to him, without the context, would not be enough for him to know how to react to it, so there’s no point in him listening to it.
Third, the truth is exactly as Desantis predicted. AP and the rest of the Democrat Party are outright lying about it. The user to whom Musk responded did NOT “accuse Jews of hating white people”. He wrote that Jewish communities have for decades been pushing the same anti-white poison that is now being used against the Jews. This is completely true of many Jewish communities, who have been at the forefront of the leftist “social justice” agenda (now called “woke”) and have pushed every leftist cause, from abortion and affirmative action to open borders and “trans” children, from supporting the communists in Vietnam to supporting the “Palestinians” and opposing “settlements”, from supporting 0bama to opposing Trump, and now they have suddenly woken up to the fact that the left hates the Jews.
Even now, these Jewish organizations, particularly the ADL, are dedicated to smearing Musk and trying to bring him down. They’re still playing the leftist game, even while they’re on the tumbrils, much like the Yevsektzia and the Bundists kept on praising “Chaver Stalin” even as he was wiping them out one by one.
He didn’t endorse an antisemitic conspiracy. Get context besides liberal AP feeds.
DeSantis is a smart man that knows better than taking whatever MSN is portraying as facts as what they say it is. It just happens that in this case they are telling the truth but who can believed them after crying wolf daily for 10 years
Elon Musk is no antisemite, and his comments were not antisemitic.
He in fact is very pro-Jewish, pro-Israel and anti Hamas.
Just because the AP (and all the other news outlets) says it doesn’t make it so.
See Ben Shapiro’s explanation of Elon’s comments:
https://x.com/stillgray/status/1725224334070071524?s=20
Did you actually read what Elon Musk was responding to?
He was agreeing to a statement that was calling out the liberal left wing yidden that are doing the exact thing they’re being accused of. Desantis and Elon Musk actually appear to be on the yidden’s side!!!
So the title of this piece should be read:
TROUBLING: TheYeshivaworld.com offers reporting which is not based on research or in the interest of klal yisroel. Yeshiva World defends Misyavnim in the month of Kislev and openly condemns one of the most “powerful” Yid defending goyim in the velt.
I don’t understand why this is an article posted by Yeshiva World. Elon Musk clearly clarified his initial statement. As well, Ron DeSantis is clearly very pro the Jewish community. Why would this publication post an article quoting Jamie Raskin of all people and CNN to besmirch two individuals who have been such proponents of our community. It’s simply sensational journalism. I expect better.
IBM advertises something somewhere and is a major advertiser as per the AP? Really? But, maybe you know more than I, because I see left-wingers pushing this narrative constantly, and I also haven’t a clue how to decipher the posts. While those who push it on me ignore blunt antisemitism from everyone else. I’m suspect of the messenger (AP and others).
Ah yes, DeSantis who is probably the biggest supporter of Jews in the country is all of a sudden an antisemite. YWN parroting Democrat talking points with their dumb opinion.
The comments show that it’s only permissible to criticize a democrat who says something stupid that can be interpreted as antisemitic.
I actually agree with the commenters that it’s ridiculous to label someone antisemite for making a stupid comment and then backtracking/”explaining themselves” etc.
My issue is that most of the commenters would gladly call out a democrat who said the exact same thing and retracted.
Ben Shapiro defends Elon ONLY because he’s on the Right. No question.
Why are Jews celebrating that he’s talking about the “other Jews”?
Does it really make sense for the Jewish community (whether frum or not frum) to be called out and generalized as antiwhite? Is that not antisemitic? It doesn’t matter if it’s statistically true. The question is: What’s the difference if the supporters of the Left are more proportionately Jewish or not? What does their ethnicity have to do with their opinions?
Again, one stupid tweet isn’t a reason to brand anyone as an antisemite. ANYONE.
It is a stupid game of gotcha to need to respond to foolish or anti-semitic thing someone says. If you like having enemies, that is the way to go. DeSantis is right and there is no reason he should have to comment. We should be focused on our real enemies and not trying to make new ones by trying to trip up our friends. I don’t know whether Musk is a friend, but condemning him for a stupid tweet would help to make him an enemy. Sometimes you have to know how to be quiet.
adar29, it doesn’t so happen that in this case the habitual liars are telling the truth. In this case they’re lying too, exactly as Desantis expected.
Menachem, “the Jewish community” was NOT called out and generalized as antiwhite. Certain communities were, because it’s true, they ARE anti-white. And Democrats don’t deserve defending because they are not just making careless errors, they are saying the quiet part out loud. They are saying what they really believe.
But more than that, NOBODY WOULD EVER MAKE SUCH A DEMAND OF A DEMOCRAT. The very fact that you say no Democrat would be defended from such a charge is dishonest, because you know no such charge would ever be made against one. Nobody would ever expect that a Democrat was familiar with what some completely unrelated person had said, and demand that he condemn it, or that he accept their characterization of what it was.