On Thursday night, CNN gave 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet a town hall. Moderator Dana Bash, remarked about the tragic history of Bennett’s mother and grandparents, who lived through the Holocaust in Poland.
Bash then asked Bennet about what he thinks of the rise of anti-Semitism in America:
Senator, I had covered you for ten years in the Senate. I had no idea that your mother and grandparents were Jewish and survived the Holocaust in Poland. And I was surprised to learn that about you, and I'm just curious about how that plays into what you think as you see the rise in anti-Semitism in this country, obviously given what happened in Pittsburgh and in Poway, California.
Curiously, she never mentioned the rhetoric of Democratic congresswomen like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib who assists in the normalization of anti-Semitism in our politics. Omar has accused Jews of having dual loyalties and said “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” and accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of paying Republicans in exchange for supporting Israel.
As for Tlaib, she has suggested that Republicans have more loyalty for Israel than the U.S. after the Combating BDS Act of 2019 was proposed to try to fight the anti-Semitic organization that encourages citizens to “boycott, divest, and sanction” the state of Israel.
In his response, Bennet correctly made note of how we must not forget about history. Leftist media outlets have been quick to forget the anti-Semitic rhetoric spewing dynamic duo, and this was only showed further when Bash wasn’t willing to ask Bennett about it in his town hall. Maybe they should remember that the normalization of these ideas will only lead this country down a dark path, regardless of where they come from.
Read the relevant transcript here:
Michael Bennet: CNN Town Hall
05/31/19
10:31 AM EST
DANA BASH: Welcome back. We're live in Atlanta with presidential candidate Senator Michael Bennet. Senator, I had covered you for ten years in the Senate. I had no idea that your mother and grandparents were Jewish and survived the holocaust in Poland. And I was surprised to learn that about you, and I'm just curious about how that plays into what you think as you see the rise in anti-Semitism in this country, obviously given what happened in Pittsburgh and in Poway, California.
MICHAEL BENNET: It makes me deeply worried about it and especially when I know people are forgetting the history and forgetting what the holocaust was all about. When I grew up all of that was very present in my house. As you said my mom and her parents were Polish Jews. They survived the holocaust in Poland. They went from Warsaw, after the war was over, they lived there for two years, and then went to Stockholm where they spent a year, and then they went, this is interesting in the world of Donald Trump, they went to Mexico City who was willing to take them in and then after spending a year there, made it to New York where they could rebuild their shattered lives in the only country that they could. And my grandparents to this day, and I live in a state with a lot of immigrants -- to this day my grandparents had the strongest accents of anybody I have ever known. And they had great sadness because of what had happened to their family because of what anti-Semitism had done to them. And -- but they also at the same time had sheer joy of what it meant to be an American citizen. Unadulterated joy, a daily joy about being an American. And part of being an American was knowing you lived in a place where something like anti-Semitism would not be allowed to rear its ugly head. And once you got here you were an American. No matter what your religion was, no matter where your parents came from, no matter what language you spoke. And that is who we have been over generations. And I think we can't allow President Trump's bizarre view of all that color our pride in what we are as a country, a pluralistic place that accepts everybody, no matter who they are.
BASH: Let’s get back to the audience --
BENNET: By the way, it's also troubling, Dana, to know that in a lot of European countries there's a rise of anti-Semitism too that also tends to attract these autocratic regimes that are – that are trying to overtake democracies in those places as well. These things often go hand in hand.
