Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on Wednesday snapped at CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings for labeling fellow "Squad" member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a "public relations agent for Hamas," The Hill reported.
"How on earth is this kind of blatant Islamophobia so casually accepted without pushback? This is shocking," Ocasio-Cortez posted on X.
She was responding to a comment made by the Republican strategist Tuesday on CNN's "NewsNight."
"I am surprised that in the year of our Lord 2024 there is a public relations agent for Hamas sitting in the United States Congress," Jennings said.
Mediaite reported that Jennings made the comment minutes after host Abby Phillip interviewed Omar.
During the interiew, Omar put the blame for the stalled Hamas-Israel cease-fire negotiations on Israel.
"It was Israel that refused to send negotiators to be at the table to carve out — you have to remember that a cease-fire is not something that happens magically," she said, according to The Hill.
In keeping with "squad" solidarity, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., posted, "Scott Jennings' comments are reminiscent of the anti-Muslim bigotry we saw in the George Bush post-9/11 era. It is disgusting and must not be normalized. CNN should denounce this hateful, dangerous and blatant Islamophobia immediately."
She was followed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., who chimed in with her own X post saying, "Blatant Islamophobia has no place in our society — let alone on primetime TV. It's dangerous, unacceptable, and cannot be normalized."
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