Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed Politico Magazine for antisemitic images in its publication and in tweets about presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), calling him a spendthrift despite his status as a millionaire and doctoring photos of Sanders to show him juggling his three homes and standing next to a tree covered with $100 bills.
“Bernie Sanders may still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor,” the Politico Magazine tweet said.
“Bernie Sanders has three homes and a net worth approaching at least $2 million,” the magazine tweeted. “In a strict, bottom-line sense, he has become one of those rich people whom he has so unrelentingly railed.”
“Can @politico explain to us how photoshopping money trees next to the only Jewish candidate for president and talking about how “cheap” and rich he is *isn’t* antisemitic?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
“Or are they just letting this happen because he’s a progressive politician they don’t like?” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
And Sanders’ adviser and speechwriter David Sirota also weighed in on Twitter about Politico’s tweets, while at the same time attacking President Donald Trump for a long-discredited claim that the president called white supremacists and neo-Nazis “very fine people.”
“So, @Politico deleted its wildly anti-semitic tweet, but it’s important for everyone to not forget this episode. At a moment when we have a president who called Nazis “very fine people,” this newspaper promoted the “cheap Jew” trope against that president’s opponent. Disgusting,” Sirota tweeted.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) also tweeted about Politico Magazine‘s take on Sanders.
“The Anti-Defamation League weighed in, tweeting, ‘In this dangerous climate of rising #anti-Semitism, all media organizations have a responsibility to be careful not to perpetuate #anti-Semitic tropes, such as those about Jews and wealth,” Haaretz reported.
“Sanders over the weekend held his first home state rally of his 2020 campaign, telling a large crowd on the Vermont Statehouse lawn that his ideas that seemed radical to some in the last presidential election — such as health care for all and raising the minimum wage — are not so radical today,” Haaretz reported.
Ocasio-Cortez has, however, defended Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her antisemitic remarks and social media posts, including when Omar accused pro-Israel U.S. lawmakers as having an “allegiance to a foreign country.”
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