A Perfect Distillation of Trump's Anti-Semitism in Just One Minute
It’s glancingly rare that anyone actually on the left gets booked on a cable news show like CNN’s The Lead, but when it happens, they generally shake shit up and leave the other talking heads agog. Today’s case: Mehdi Hasan, host for Al Jazeera and columnist for the Intercept, distilling the whole Trump/anti-Semitism/Israel flap into its simplest form in just one minute.
Here are some of the best lines, with Hasan repeatedly making a strong case that Trump has always been an anti-Semite, punctuated by some of my favorite reaction shots of the other people on the panel, all of whom looked, at turns, absolutely stone-faced or deeply uncomfortable.
“I just think we need to deal with this very dangerous idea that says being pro-Jewish means you have to be pro-Israeli, or being pro-Israeli means you’re automatically pro-Jewish and you’re immunized from the charge of anti-Semitism,” Hasan said. “Lots of anti-Semites support Israel.”
“He’s always been an anti-Semite,” Hasan said about Trump, recalling instances of him making anti-Semitic remarks about his casinos, taking an anti-Semitic jab at Jon Stewart, and more. “This is not a controversial opinion.”
“It goes on, and on, and on, I don’t know how much more evidence we need that he’s an anti-Semite, and it’s amazing that not a single Republican today has called him out for it,” Hasan concluded.
Zero lies detected!