Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. have called on MSNBC anchor Joy Reid to apologize after she suggested Monday night that President Trump has radicalized his supporters in the same way that “Muslims act.”
“Leaders, let’s say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence, including on their own bodies, in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy,” Reid said on her new show “The ReidOut.”
“We in the U.S. media describe that as they are radicalizing those people — particularly when they’re radicalizing young people. That’s how we talk about the way Muslims act. When you see what Donald Trump is doing, is that any different from what we describe as radicalizing people?”
Her comments came in response to President Trump retweeting a video of a pro-Trump caravan which included a man who shot paintballs at protesters.
Omar tweeted that Reid’s remarks constituted “casual Islamophobia” and were “hurtful and dangerous.”
“Words matter,” Tlaib chimed in, “and these words feed into the harmful anti-Muslim rhetoric & actions that we continue to see in this country. It is even more painful to hear it from someone I admire. We deserve an apology.”
Reid did not mention the issue on her show Tuesday night, which prompted criticism from the civil rights organization Muslim Advocates.
“She spent much of the show discussing racism, however Reid failed to acknowledge the harm she caused, did not apologize for stereotyping Muslims as violent radicals and failed to address her history of anti-Muslim comments …” the group said in a statement. “By refusing to apologize and disavow her anti-Muslim comments, Reid is continuing to put Muslims in danger.
“Hate and bigotry should not have a home on MSNBC,” Muslim Advocates added. “Joy Reid and MSNBC must take responsibility for what they have unleashed by apologizing on air and agreeing to meet with Muslim leaders to ensure this does not happen again.
Social media users of all political stripes were taken aback by Reid’s comments.
Briahna Joy Gray, a former spokesperson for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, tweeted:”Nearly 1/4 of the world’s population acts how?”
“These remarks are pretty appalling,” tweeted Luke Savage of the left-wing Jacobin Magazine. “Joy Reid’s subtext is more or less that Trump is ‘radicalizing’ his supporters, just like barbarians abroad do – ‘the way Muslims act’ is racism plain and simple.”
“This is not good @JoyAnnReid,” liberal activist Linda Sarsour said.
“[T]his is, without a hint of sarcasm, LITERALLY Islamophobia,” The Washington Examiner’s Siraj Hashmi tweeted.
Matt Whitlock, a senior advisor with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, commented: “Might be tough for Joy to blame hackers for this one.”
He was referring to a previous controversy surrounding homophobic posts on Reid’s personal blog. After the comments first surfaced in 2017, Reid issued an apology, calling her remarks “insensitive, tone deaf and dumb” and vowed to “do better” going forward.
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However, after Mediaite found even more articles in April 2018, Reid claimed that an “unknown, external party accessed and manipulated material” on her old blog and “fabricated” the offensive entries and that she was working with a “cyber-security expert” and “notified federal law enforcement officials.”
MSNBC did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
