Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., responded on Tuesday to an assertion Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., made late Monday night that she needs to talk like a grade schooler when she talks about the Holocaust so that ‘“racist idiots” can understand her.
“I think most fourth graders know what the Holocaust was. She apparently doesn’t,” Cheney said during an appearance on “Fox and Friends.” “You had a column this morning with a reporter who was noting that what Tlaib is doing isn’t holocaust denial but very close.”
Cheney and Tlaib have been trading verbal blows since Sunday after Tlaib made controversial comments about the history of Israel and the Holocaust that critics have deemed anti-Semitic.
[Opinion: Rashida Tlaib attributes furor over her historically ignorant Holocaust remarks to ‘racist idiots’]
“There’s always kind of a calming feeling, I tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, have been wiped out, and some people’s passports,” Tlaib said during a sit-down with the Yahoo News podcast “Skullduggery.”
Cheney, the daughter of a former vice president who is eyeing a Senate run for an open seat in Wyoming in 2020, called on House Democratic leadership to condemn Tlaib’s remarks.
“Surely now @SpeakerPelosi & @LeaderHoyer will finally take action against vile Antisemitism in their ranks,” Cheney tweeted. “This must cross the line, even for them. Rashida Tlaib says thinking of the Holocaust provides her a ‘calming feeling.'”
President Trump also weighed in on the Michigan representative’s comments saying: “Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says?”
Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust. She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 13, 2019
Tlaib has refused to apologize, instead blaming the president and other conservatives chastising her as purposefully singling out a Muslim woman of color.
Her political allies in Congress have been quick to defend Tlaib as well.
“Give it up, we all know you never met a Muslim you didn’t want to vilify!” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded to Cheney on Monday. Omar has also invited intense scrutiny from the president and Republicans on Capitol Hill with anti-Semitic comments of her own.
Give it up, we all know you never met a Muslim you didn’t want to vilify!
Your deep seeded hate and Islamophobia might be a tool to rally your base, but won’t get rid your colleagues. You just have to deal ??♀️ https://t.co/hMvvxLnmp5
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 13, 2019
Cheney says the anti-Israel rhetoric espoused by Tlaib and Omar has a corrosive effect on the national conversation about anti-Semitism and is hypocritical of two women who regularly pledge to “Take On Hate.”
“It just completely goes to delegitimize the notion that there were Jewish people in Israel prior for thousands of years,” Cheney said. “It’s absolutely despicable and it has to stop.”
