Jake Tapper Seems to Imply Josh Hawley Is Antisemitic

CNN news anchor Jake Tapper attends the WarnerMedia Upfront at Madison Square Garden on We
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Sean Moran

CNN chief Washington, D.C. correspondent Jake Tapper seemed Tuesday to have implied that populist Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is an antisemite.

Sen. Hawley recently started arguing with Greg Sargent, a writer for the Washington Post’s The Plum Line blog, regarding an article that said D.C. bureaucrats reportedly consider it a “punishment” to move to Missouri.

The Missouri conservative contended he was merely defending his home state and that the left has engaged in “open contempt for the people of the heartland.”

Sen. Hawley said that “only a smug, rich liberal elitist would say that defending your home is ‘phony pastoral posturing.'”

Hawley asked rhetorically, “Want to know why Missouri voted for @realDonaldTrump by almost 20 points? This is why.”

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) echoed Sen. Hawley’s sentiment, saying that the “elitism of the Swamp is out of control.”

Ernst said that D.C. bureaucrats are “supposed to work for the American people– not the other way around.”

Sargent has written leftist pieces at the Washington Post for years. In March 2016, Sargent called then-candidate Donald Trump a “nightmare nominee,” saying that not even white men like Trump.

In March 2019, Sargent wrote that Trump is “likely emboldening hate groups through his rhetoric.”

The Post columnist asked in the wake of the New Zealand terrorist attack, “Are Trump’s words emboldening white nationalist and white supremacist activity at home and abroad?”

On Monday, Sargent said that the “we” should describe President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as a new “Axis of Autocracy.”

“New revelations show Trump is embracing illiberal autocrats abroad while corrupting our democracy at home,” he added.

In response to Hawley’s criticisms, Sargent went to his blog Monday night to accuse Hawley of racialist dog-whistles.

Sargent claimed:

Hawley often rails at elites who, he claims, have contempt for the “great American middle,” because it’s supposedly at odds with the elite cosmopolitan “consensus” favoring globalization and immigration.

 …

Indeed, as Will Wilkinson notes, Hawley’s “great American middle” is in reality code, an effort to recast the minoritarian America of “nonurban whites” who fundamentally reject this country’s “multiracial, multicultural national character” as the American mainstream.

This “great American middle” apparently does not include the large majorities who hold allegedly “elite” positions such as favoring the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants and opposing further immigration restrictions.

Tapper, citing Sargent’s piece, proceeds to tweet out Sargent’s inflammatory article, claiming that Hawley was calling a “Jewish journalist” a “smug, rich liberal elitist.”

Many conservatives came to Hawley’s defense, slamming Tapper’s attack on the Missouri senator.

Sen. Hawley said Monday night that the “liberal snobs” call living in Missouri a punishment, and they call Hawley a “secret racist” for “daring to disagree.”

“Then they wonder why the American middle feels disrespected,” he added.

Today, in response to Tapper’s attacks on him, Hawley said that he has been called an antisemite and a racist for “defending my home state.”

“This is how they bully those who are not part of the DC club. But I don’t care what slurs they use. I will ALWAYS defend Missouri,” Hawley said.

Tapper then claimed that he did not imply that Hawley was an antisemite.

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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