Politics

Jake Tapper Implies GOP Senator Is Anti-Semitic Without Evidence

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CNN host Jake Tapper implied that Missouri Rep. Sen. Josh Hawley is anti-Semitic Tuesday because the congressman criticized an author who is Jewish.

Tapper joined in on a fight between Hawley and author and blogger Greg Sargent Tuesday after the congressman called the author a “smug, rich liberal elitist.” The CNN host implied that Hawley was anti-Semitic by tweeting that the congressman had used the phrase on “a Jewish journalist.”

Tapper, who is Jewish, did not include any specific examples of how Hawley is anti-Semitic.

The spat began when Hawley tweeted out a Washington Post perspective article Monday about how the Economic Research Service was moved to Missouri because the White House didn’t like the agency. Hawley wrote that it must be “a parody” because the article implied that “moving to Missouri is … punishment” and added that “nobody could be that condescending & elitist.”

Sargent then hit back at Hawley, tweeting that the congressman’s comment “unmasks the phony pastoral posturing that lies at its core.” Sargent also published an op-ed Monday evening for WaPo titled “Salt-of-the-earth GOP senator humiliates a ‘smug, rich liberal elitist.'”

What’s really “condescending” here is the sort of smarmy, smirking contempt for people’s intelligence that @HawleyMO is displaying. Coming from a leading intellectual light of the new “conservative nationalism,” this unmasks the phony pastoral posturing that lies at its core. https://t.co/tMHpkqS2LX

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 21, 2019

The Twitter fight continued with Hawley tweeting back at Sargent that “Only a smug, rich liberal elitist would say that defending your home is ‘phony pastoral posturing.'” This is when Tapper joined in and insinuated that Hawley was an anti-Semite.

In which ⁦@HawleyMO⁩ calls a Jewish journalist a “smug, rich liberal elitist” https://t.co/44Mh94mcnO

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 22, 2019

After Tapper made the implication, the congressman listed a slew of names that the “liberal media” called him “for defending my home state of Missouri.”

“But I don’t care what slurs they use, I will ALWAYS defend Missouri,” Hawley tweeted, including Tapper’s tweet implying he was an anti-Semite.

For defending my homestate of Missouri, liberal media have called me “phony,” “ugly,” “smarmy,” a racist and now an anti-Semite. All in 24 hrs. This is how they bully those who aren’t part of the DC club. But I don’t care what slurs they use, I will ALWAYS defend Missouri https://t.co/pfUGKEbcv5

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) October 22, 2019

Tapper received push back on social media for his tweet, with many writing that Sargent’s religion had nothing to do with Hawley’s tweets. Sargent himself did not appear to accuse Hawley of anti-Semitism in the published op-ed.

“I grew up surrounded by working class blacks and Hispanics (back then there were still working people in Manhattan) and gays at a time of their extreme marginalization,” Sargent wrote. “We went to Seders at my mother’s parents’ house in Queens — they were descended from Jewish immigrants — and also decorated an annual Christmas tree in keeping with my father’s Catholic upbringing. But there was no god in our house.”

Jake Tapper’s press contact did not immediately respond to a request for comment.