On Saturday night, conservative Twitter pounced on President Biden's interview with Jonathan Capehart for MSNBC. The interview began with Capehart sweetly praising the president for his State of the Union speech, except for that one apparently abhorrent moment when he seemed to repeat Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene by describing the suspected killer of college student Laken Riley in Georgia as an "illegal."
Obviously, leftists -- including leftist journalists -- were furious over this gaffe. "No person is illegal!" Even murderers deserve ethnically sensitive descriptions! Biden quickly expressed his regrets, he should have said "undocumented person." MSNBC doesn't press Biden for letting criminals in. They press him for using the wrong word for the criminal.
MSNBC host (PBS pundit) Jonathan Capehart gushes over Biden's speech, but presses him on calling Laken Riley's suspected killer an "illegal." Should have said "undocumented person," the president says.
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 9, 2024
Media bias is often language policing. pic.twitter.com/UfdDbIARpG
Some might say this wasn't a softball interview, since Capehart was pressing Biden into trying to explain his gaffes. Capehart also asked him about speaking to the Jewish leader of Israel about a "come to Jesus" meeting.
Jonathan Capehart asked Biden about the hot-mic moment where Biden said he told Netanyahu "we're going to have a Come to Jesus meeting." Biden (half-joking?) said "it's an expression used in the "southern part of my state." Like southern Delaware is Dixie? "He knew what I meant!" pic.twitter.com/PhKBFYBF8R
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 9, 2024
Most of the Capehart interview during his Saturday Show focused on Israel and its war with Hamas. Capehart turned brutal, actually quoting a leader of the radical Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with actual terrorist ties, accusing Biden of overseeing a genocide. He cited black columnist Charles Blow of The New York Times, but not who it was that Blow was promoting:
Earlier, I had put the same question to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter, who said that for most Muslims, anything short of Biden “resurrecting 29,000 dead Palestinians like Jesus” would mean that they will never vote for him again….
Walid said that in a lesser-of-two-evils debate, Trump was, in some ways, the lesser. As he put it, “As bad as Mr. Trump’s rhetoric was, and him putting a travel ban on five Muslim countries, he wasn’t overseeing and actively arming a genocide.” It’s a view that echoes the sentiment expressed in the headline of an October opinion essay for Al Jazeera by Haidar Eid, an associate professor at Al Aqsa University in Gaza: “In dehumanizing the Palestinians, Biden had surpassed Trump.”
Capehart said CAIR's "Genocide Joe" opinion is "widely shared." Biden didn't agree with that at all, and wouldn't agree to cut aid to Israel off.
THIS is a hardball! Genocide Joe BS from the CAIR folks (literally). Noting the "Uncommitted" vote, Capehart quotes: "As bad as Mr. Trump’s rhetoric was, and him putting a travel ban on five Muslim countries, he wasn’t overseeing and actively arming a genocide.” Joe pushes back. pic.twitter.com/VDyVsiiLoK
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) March 9, 2024
If we could interview Capehart, it would be interesting to ask why he and MSNBC would suggest the pro-Hamas viewpoint is not only respectable, but "widely shared"? These people are much more hostile to nonviolent white grandmas from Indiana who strolled around the Capitol on January 6.
