During an otherwise fawning interview on CBS for 60 Minutes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was sharply questioned for his refusal to be overtly critical of Israel over their conduct of the war against Hamas in the aftermath of the medieval and horrific attack of October 7th.
In the exchange, Norah O’Donnell sounded more like a Biden White House official trying to get Jeffries to fall in line than like a journalist on 60 Minutes.
We often use the term “Regime Media”, but here the media acted as part of the regime. Zero daylight between them both, which put Jeffries on the defensive and exposed him, even, as a leader seemingly out of step with the anti-Israel forces within the highest echelons of his own party.
O’Donnell even attempted to use Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s floor speech calling for the removal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an appeal to authority with which to get Jeffries to criticize Israel.
Jeffries refused the bait.
The interview was otherwise intended to be a fawn job- a mechanism with which to cast Jeffries in a most favorable light ahead of the 2024 election.
Topics ranged from basic biography- fitting for an introductory interview- to immigration and abortion, the defense of which he equates to the defense of Democracy itself.
