CNN’s Jake Tapper mocked President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for scolding Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) after she was accused of peddling anti-Semitic tropes when criticizing pro-Israel lobbying groups.
Omar, one of the first Muslim women voted into Congress, apologized this week for controversial tweets she sent on Sunday that colleagues on both sides of the aisle called anti-Semitic. Omar suggested that politicians support Israel because of money from lobbyists, later naming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee specifically. Trump called for Omar’s resignation while Pence suggested that she should “face consequences.”
“Anti-Semitism has no place in the United States Congress, much less the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Pence tweeted.
Tapper, however, pointed out the obvious hypocrisy in the White House’s response.
“There is nothing that this White House finds more offensive than a politician feeding into stereotypes about Jews and Jewish money and controlling politicians,” Tapper said mockingly before playing a clip of Trump speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 while campaigning for the presidency.
“I know why you’re not going to support me,” Trump said at the time. “Because I don’t want your money ... you want to control your own politician, that’s fine.”
Tapper jokingly insisted he wanted producers to air a clip of Omar — not of Trump — making anti-Semitic comments, but each time the segment cut to tape, the control room aired another example of Trump peddling an anti-Semitic trope.
The CNN host capped off the segment by re-airing Trump’s remark that there were “very fine people” marching among neo-Nazis and white supremacists at a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“I’m sorry, we’re going to take a quick break,” Tapper said, feigning frustration with his producers. “We’re having some issues here sorting which anti-Semitic tropes are offensive and which ones are not.”
Take a look at the full segment in the video above.