Politics

Ocasio-Cortez Accuses Trump Of Anti-Semitism In Attacks Against Schiff

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New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused President Donald Trump of engaging in “targeted” anti-Semitism toward California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff in a Saturday tweet.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comments came after the president condemned the House Intelligence Committee chairman, who is Jewish, for fabricating part of his opening statement during a Sept. 26 hearing regarding Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s president.

“Understand that Trump is engaged in deliberate, atrocious, targeted antisemitism towards Chairman Schiff. Then ask yourself why no one cares to denounce it – esp when his accusation of it towards others drove full news cycles earlier this year,” the freshman Democrat tweeted along with an Intercept article.

“It’s wrong. It’s harmful. And his bigotry is reflective of the white supremacist base he relies on for political gain,” she continued in a reply tweet.

It’s wrong. It’s harmful. And his bigotry is reflective of the white supremacist base he relies on for political gain.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 5, 2019

The Friday article titled, “Fighting Calls for Impeachment, Trump Intensifies Anti-Semitic Rhetoric. We Cannot Ignore It,” accuses “Trump and his acolytes” of “banging their anti-Semitic drum in plain sight.”

The article links to a Sept. 28 Trump tweet in which he uses the word “savages” to describe Schiff, Ocasio-Cortez “Plus 3” — likely alluding to freshman Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — and others.

“Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like [New York Democratic Rep. Jerry] Nadler, Schiff, [Ocasio-Cortez] Plus 3, and many more, had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. Oh well, maybe next time!” he tweeted.

Can you imagine if these Do Nothing Democrat Savages, people like Nadler, Schiff, AOC Plus 3, and many more, had a Republican Party who would have done to Obama what the Do Nothings are doing to me. Oh well, maybe next time!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 28, 2019

The Intercept article brought up a quote from Trump in which he nicknamed the California Democratic representative “shifty Schiff.”

“The stereotype of Jews as ‘shifty,’ the suggestion that they are sneaky and manipulative, has a long and ignominious history. Trump — who ‘often plays on well-worn caricatures about cleverness, deviousness, and physical weakness’ when discussing Jews, to quote Peter Beinart — knows what he is doing when he gives Schiff this particular nickname; it is no accident or coincidence,” journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote in the article.

The Washington Post gave Schiff four “Pinocchios” — the Post’s falseness rating system — for a claim that neither he nor his staff spoke directly to a whistleblower before a complaint regarding the Ukraine call initiated a formal impeachment inquiry.