Jamie Raskin Asks Republicans: What If Biden Had Invited Holocaust Revisionist And Kanye West To Dinner?

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At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on antisemitism last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called out right-wing antisemitism.

Transcript

00:00And Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Schmidt,

00:04for his very thoughtful comments. And, you know, but I've noted that we've been here for a few

00:13hours and the three majority witnesses have not uttered a single word against anti-Semitic

00:21violence and rhetoric on the right. My colleague, Dan Goldman, said repeatedly, he, like all other

00:28Democrats denounce anti-Semitism on the extreme left, on the extreme right. And somehow there's

00:34this troubling silence, which emerges when it comes to that. And I want to try to get to the

00:40bottom of it. But I would go. The gentleman yield for five seconds. Sure. Thank you. I've clearly

00:45stated that when there is this kind of behavior on the right, I am opposed and I have called it out.

00:51And I heard that. And I thank you very much. And I was referring to the witnesses and not to you.

00:55I'm very pleased with everything I've heard from the dais today. I'm trying to figure out what's

01:00going on. You know, part of part of me thinks maybe this is just a partisan problem that they

01:07think that it somehow breaks from Republican ranks if they acknowledge right wing anti-Semitism in

01:14America or anywhere else on the world. But I mean, what if Joe Biden had invited a neo-Nazi

01:19Holocaust revisionist to come have dinner with him and Kanye West and then didn't apologize,

01:27say he would never do it again? But that's just accepted as a norm. What if Joe Biden had found

01:33very fine people on both sides of an anti-Semitic riot called that began with a march in front of

01:39a synagogue 15 minutes from where my sister lives in Charlottesville with people chanting,

01:45Jews will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. And Heather Heyer was killed. And all we hear

01:50from Donald Trump is they're very fine people on both sides. The worst anti-Semitic mass shooting

01:58in American history in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life synagogue done by apparently a lone ranger

02:06neo-Nazi. But we get dismissive language like from Mr. Schneider saying, well, we really shouldn't

02:11be worried about a couple of neo-Nazis living in the basement. I mean, my constituents are afraid

02:16to go to synagogue because of neo-Nazis living in the basement, not because of the American Federation

02:21of Teachers, not because of the AAUP, not because of the Associated Press. So somehow the people who

02:28have great anti-Semitism detectors in major media institutions can't see what it means to have neo-Nazis

02:36at large in America, threatening people's lives. And people are afraid. And it's costing Jewish

02:42institutions a lot of money to try to protect themselves against this. So Mr. Nosenchuk,

02:48you were working with the President Biden in the White House. I remember clearly the U.S. national

02:54strategy to counter anti-Semitism, actual real steps to move forward. And we couldn't get,

03:01forgive me, Mr. Chairman, it sounds like a partisan point. I'm not trying to make it a partisan point.

03:05We couldn't get bipartisan cooperation on doing all these things. I wonder if you would say

03:11a word about what's in there. But more importantly, why is it that some people just want to see

03:17anti-Semitism on one side, whether it's the extreme right or the extreme left? But I would go beyond

03:21that because there's anti-Semitism in the center, in the government. I mean, I don't know exactly what

03:26Elon Musk is, but that guy used a fascist salute. And when people protested about it, he sent out

03:33a text making fun of the whole thing. Some people, he's using Nazi war criminals to make a joke.

03:39Some people were Goebbels down anything. Stop goring your enemies. His pronouns would have been

03:45he, Himmler. Bet you did not see that coming. Okay. So it's a big joke to Elon Musk. How come we can't

03:53get across the board denunciation of that? Why must it be a partisan football? If you would take a few

03:59seconds on that, Mr. Nozenchuk? Sure. Thank you, Ranking Member Raskin. First, on the national

04:06strategy, what I'd like to say, and I brought it with me as well, because I had an opportunity to

04:09both have input into it before it was released in 2023 when I was outside of government, and then

04:15when I was inside of government following September of 2023, I was very much involved in

04:22implementing it. It contains more than a hundred recommendations for a whole-of-government approach

04:28to addressing the problem of anti-Semitism, and every agency in the federal government that had

04:33any stake in addressing the problem from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of

04:39Education to the Department of Defense to the Department of State all looked at what they could do

04:44to effectively address the problem of anti-Semitism. And to move forward, and let me intervene here just

04:50to ask you, why is it that groups that are at least nominally organized around anti-Semitism

04:56will not call out anti-Semitism in the government, like with Ed Martin, who embraces a neo-Nazi who wears

05:04a Hitler mustache, and he defends him? Why can we not get the groups who are nominally organized around

05:11this to say anything about it? Right. I mean, as somebody who was a non-profit leader in the Jewish

05:16community, I was very insistent on calling out anti-Semitism on the right or on the left,

05:20wherever it is. Or in the center, or in the government. Or in the center, for that matter,

05:23as well. And I also said that, you know, most of the domestic terror is originating from the

05:28anti-Semitism on the right. That is a fact. And when I was in New York, you know, we had instances

05:32where there were bomb thrusts that were foiled that were white supremacists who were coming into

05:37Manhattan to try to blow up a synagogue. And so it's critical to be even-handed, as Mr. Goldman said,

05:43and as others have said, about calling this out wherever it arises. All right. Thank you.

05:49Back to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from the great state of Texas,

05:56Mr. Gill.

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