A CNN guest apologized on Monday shortly after claiming on air that President Donald Trump has radicalized more people than ISIS.
Julia Ioffe, a correspondent for GQ Magazine, made the claim during “The Lead with Jake Tapper” and experienced no pushback from the host.
Ioffe’s comments were immediately called out and highlighted by Twitter users, including the Republican National Committee’s Steve Guest, who said it was “one of the most ridiculous things ever said on @CNN.”
This might be one of the most ridiculous things ever said on @CNN.@GQMagazine‘s @juliaioffe just claimed @realDonaldTrump has “radicalized so more people than ISIS ever did.”
Sheer lunacy.
And oh by the way, no push-back from @jaketapper. pic.twitter.com/suFC2WKHya
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 29, 2018
When the show returned from another segment, Tapper acknowledged the criticism and gave Ioffe a chance to apologize.
“We have a little bit of house cleaning because the Republican National Committee is jumping on your comments — you said earlier in the show said that Donald Trump has radicalized more people than ISIS … you wanted to clarify,” Tapper said.
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Ioffe blamed the controversial comment on being “emotional.”
“I think I spoke in the heat of the moment,” Ioffe said. “This has been a very emotional and personally painful time for me. I think I exaggerated and I apologize for that.”
“The point I was trying ham-fistedly [sic] to make is that its not a coincidence that, according to the ADL, the number of anti-Semitic attacks has jumped by nearly 60 percent in the first year that Donald Trump was in office,” she added. “But I do apologize for that heated rhetoric … it was not factual.”