On the white supremacist murder case, Spicer says all hate should be called out, but people are too quick to criticize “people on the right” pic.twitter.com/snyqcltSpw
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 27, 2017
Press Secretary Sean Spicer couldn’t bring himself to admit the stabbing of a New York City Black man was a hate crime, so instead he got defensive over Republicans being blamed for recent anti-Semitic threats.
American Urban Radio journalist April Ryan asked about white supremacist James Jackson’s statement to the New York Daily News that he wished 66-year-old Timothy Caughman had been a “young thug” during a Monday, March 27 press briefing. Rather than addressing the issue head-on, Spicer relied on Donald Trump’s general condemnation of racial and gender discrimination, saying, “Hate crimes and anti-Semitic crimes of any nature should be called out.”
Spicer leaped at the chance to put down the idea that conservatives were to blame for the recent bomb threats against Jewish community centers across the country.
“There was an immediate jump to criticize folks on the right and to denounce us,” Spicer said. “And It turns out that it wasn’t someone on the right — and the president from the get-go had said, ‘I bet you it’s not someone [on the right]’ — and he was right.”
Michael Kayda, a 19-year-old with dual American and Israeli citizenship, was responsible for making the threatening calls.
