The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on antisemitism that Rep. Eric Swalwell used to call out Jim Jordan’s antisemitic tweets.
Rep. Swalwell (D-CA) said:
On October 6th, Kanye, Elon, Trump, those five statements that I just read to you were from Kanye West, who had made a number of anti-Semitic statements before this tweet was put up and then made the DEFCON statement about a day after the tweet was put up. I, the chairman at the time, Chairman Nadler, and many people in the Jewish community asked the chairman, Chairman Jordan, to take this down.
And it wasn’t just members of Congress. It was nonpartisan Jewish organizations who said Kanye West is anti-Semitic, I don’t know what you’re doing, but please do not give him a platform by leaving this tweet up. It stayed up for months. Defiantly, the chairman kept this tweet up. So, Mr. Chairman, I want to be, just today, your accountability partner, your online accountability partner, and just go through your social media.
Because, if we’re going to have a hearing about antisemitism, We can’t allow a tweet like this to be posted on our side or your side. In 2019, Chairman Jordan also tweeted at Tom Steyer and used the dollar sign for Steyer to spell his name. Again, a known Jewish philanthropist playing into what Ms. Burdett mentioned earlier, tropes about Jewish people and money.
So, this committee should have a conversation and a hearing about antisemitism. But I would first insist that the chairman, I don’t know why he put this tweet up, either he believes it, which I hope is not the case, or he just wanted to own the libs. And if that’s what you’re doing, you’re hurting a lot of people by keeping that tweet up for so long, especially knowing what it represents.
And, if we’re talking about being your online accountability partner chairman, you still have a subpoena in your inbox that’s about 500 days old. And, with that, I’ll yield back.
Video:
House Republicans like Jim Jordan (R-OH) are making a show of pretending to support Israel, when in reality they are pushing antisemitism to appeal to Donald Trump and his followers. It is one of the most glaring hypocrisies of the current Republican Party and it was good of Rep. Swalwell not to allow it to pass unmentioned.
Rep. Jordan isn’t going to be Speaker of the House ever, and in a little more than a year, he will probably no longer be the chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
