Justice Democrats spokesman Waleed Shahid called out Democratic congressional leaders for what he described as their failure to defend the progressive freshman members of the party during an appearance with Chris Hayes on Thursday night.
Shahid’s comments were a response to the criticism Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has faced following her saying, “some people did something,” as a way to describe the terror attacks that occurred on 9/11.
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“There’s a 200-miles-per-hour ideological right-wing war machine coming after Ilhan Omar, and also Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. My question is where is the Democratic Party leadership on this?” Shahid said. “You didn’t see that many comments from candidates today running for president in 2020, you didn’t see that many comments from Nancy Pelosi, or Steny Hoyer or Chuck Schumer for that matter.”
“What we’ve seen is a pattern of the Democratic Party leadership trying to distance themselves away from these three women instead of seeing these women as the rising leaders in the party who you have to fight for,” he continued. “When you are faced with this war machine, you’ve got to fight back and you’ve got to defend people in your party.”
“I think we need a Democratic Party that actually fights for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib against these attacks because they can’t keep running away from it and make fun of them at AIPAC, like Schumer and Hoyer did, or pile on the attacks,” Shahid concluded.
The New York Post furthered the fight by publishing her quote Thursday with the infamous photo of the second plane going into the World Trade Center on the paper’s front page. (RELATED: Rashida Tlaib Defends Ilhan Omar’s 9/11 Comments: This is ‘Racist’)
“Rupert Murdoch inciting more fear and hatred of @IlhanMN and Muslims in the New York Post this morning,” Shahid tweeted. “Disgusting and dangerous.”