During an otherwise fawning interview on CBS for 60 Minutes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was sharply questioned for his refusal to be overtly critical of Israel over their conduct of the war against Hamas in the aftermath of the medieval and horrific attack of October 7th.
Watch this exchange, in which CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell pokes Jeffries time and again, as aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday, May 5th, 2024:
NORAH O’DONNELL: But isn't it also true that, while retaliating and going after Hamas terrorists, that Israel has been indiscriminate in its bombing?
HAKEEM JEFFRIES: I would not say that they've been indiscriminate. I do think what we'd like to see moving forward is the execution of the new phases of this conflict with surgical precision.
O’DONNELL: You could still be a strong supporter of Israel and Americans' defense of Israel and be critical of their approach about how they wage this war in Gaza.
JEFFRIES: That's correct.
O’DONNELL: But you seem reluctant to criticize Israel at all?
JEFFRIES: I'm dealing with the facts on the ground.
O’DONNELL: The facts are, according to the U.N.- half of Gaza's 2.2 million people are on the verge of famine. Has Israel done enough to get food and aid into Gaza?
JEFFRIES: Israel clearly needs to do more, as they have recently acknowledged through their actions, to surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The other thing that I think is important…
O’DONNELL: Only after they killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen.
JEFFRIES: Correct. And that was horrific, including one American. Now, in terms of the loss of innocent Palestinian life in this tough theater of war, that is deeply disturbing, tragic, and should be painful for anyone who has a shred of humanity in their body.
In this exchange, O’Donnell sounded more like a Biden White House official trying to get Jeffries to fall in line than like a journalist on 60 Minutes. We often use the term “Regime Media”, but here the media acted as part of the regime. Zero daylight between them both, which put Jeffries on the defensive and exposed him, even, as a leader seemingly out of step with the anti-Israel forces within the highest echelons of his own party.
O’Donnell even attempted to use Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s floor speech calling for the removal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an appeal to authority with which to get Jeffries to criticize Israel. Jeffries refused the bait.
The interview was otherwise intended to be a fawn job- a mechanism with which to cast Jeffries in a most favorable light ahead of the 2024 election. Topics ranged from basic biography- fitting for an introductory interview- to immigration and abortion, the defense of which he equates to the defense of Democracy itself.
WATCH: House Dem Leader Hakeem Jeffries equates abortion to DEMOCRACY itself pic.twitter.com/V98w3PRUo5
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 6, 2024
The interview closes with a brutal exchange on the economy, in which Jeffries dismisses voter perceptions of the economy being better under former President Donald Trump, and admits that Democrats have not made that case to the American voter.
"Well, that's just not the case", says Hakeem Jeffries when confronted with 2/3 of voters believing the economy was better under Trump. Brutal exchange on the economy to close his interview with Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes pic.twitter.com/dIb0eQ1j75
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 6, 2024
Jeffries received infinitesimal to no pushback on these points as he struggled to make them, which tells you everything you need to know about how the Regime Media will cover this election. Buckle up.
