Topline
The White House denounced Fox News and its “Life, Liberty & Levin” host Mark Levin on Friday after Levin said CNN was “filled with a lot of self-hating Jews” and called the network “pro-Hamas” — marking the second time this week that the Biden administration has publicly rebuked Fox for controversial statements its hosts made in coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer on the 35th annual ‘March of the Living’ in Oswiecim, Poland, in April. The … [+]
Key Facts
Levin, who is also Jewish, attacked CNN host Wolf Blitzer and the network’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, calling Blitzer an “old man . . . who has a hearing problem and an IQ problem” and “wants Israel to die,” he said Wednesday on “The Mark Levin Show,” a syndicated radio program by Westwood One.
Levin went on to falsely claim Blitzer’s parents “weren’t victims in one way or another of the Holocaust” (Blitzer’s parents both survived Nazi-era concentration camps and all four of his grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust, history he has repeatedly publicly discussed).
Levin also said CNN was “filled with a lot of self-hating Jews,” a term he used in October to refer to CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who is Jewish.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates accused Fox of “aligning with those who fan the flames of hate” and “paying their salaries” in a statement Friday that noted “it isn’t even the first time this week that a Fox host chose to abuse their platform and spread hate,” referring to Fox News host Jesse Watters’ comments about Arab Americans and the Muslim community.
CNN fired back at Levin on Thursday, calling his statements “wildly uninformed, inappropriate and shameful” and accusing him of “antisemitic rhetoric” that is “dangerous, offensive and should be universally denounced.”
Fox pointed to Levin’s response to CNN on his radio show when asked about the White House’s criticism of his statements.
Crucial Quote
“Lying to insult the pain that families suffered in the Holocaust has absolutely no place in America. None,” Bates said. “Sadly, this is not the first time in recent months that a Fox News host made sickening remarks about the Holocaust.”
Key Background
The White House demanded an apology from Fox on Thursday for Watters’ controversial comments made in a segment about protesters who have ripped down posters of hostages held by Hamas in a series of heavily publicized incidents. Watters said in a segment on “The Five,” “I want to say something about Arab Americans and about the Muslim world,” before ranting about how “the West and Western technology have created the Middle East” through the West’s role in oil production and military defense. “We’ve had it, we’ve had it with them,” Watters said—remarks the White House interpreted as directed at Arab Americans and the Muslim community. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates called the comments “unacceptable” and a “sickening attack on the rights and dignity” of Arab and Muslim Americans in a statement and said, “Fox News owes an apology to every single viewer.” The White House also rebuked Fox in July after host Greg Gutfeld referenced a book written by a concentration camp survivor, psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, in a conversation about Florida’s controversial new public school curriculum that suggests slavery taught useful skills: “Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful . . . Utility, utility kept you alive,” Gutfeld said.
Further Reading
White House blasts Fox’s Watters over comments on Middle East (The Hill)
White House Says Fox News Should Apologize Over Jesse Watters Comments About Arab Americans (Deadline)
Biden refers to Fox News correspondent as a “stupid son of a bitch” (CBS)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/11/03/white-house-condemns-fox-news-host-mark-levin-for-sickening-comments-about-jewish-cnn-anchors/