Fox host Neil Cavuto attacked Rabbi David Paskin for boycotting Donald Trump’s speech at AIPAC today and demanded that he boycott Hillary Clinton as well.
Paskin tried, in between interruptions, to explain to Cavuto why he thought Trump should be boycotted.
PASKIN: Mr. Trump has really embodied the Jewish idea of sinat chinam, senseless hatred, and I believe that politics and our country and …the American-Israel relationship needs to be grounded in values, not in hatred, and that he’s had nine months to show us that he’s a serious presidential candidate, and he’s had nine months to give us policies and policy suggestions and it’s enough. All we’ve heard from him is hate and bigotry and misogyny, xenophobia, and according to the rabbi’s teachings, silence is consent. So I cannot sit in this room and consent to this kind of hatred.
But Cavuto tried to discredit Paskin for not walking out on Hillary Clinton.
CAVUTO: So why did you stay there for Hillary Clinton’s speech when she worked for a president who, many in your organization feel, all but abandoned Israel, and she as Secretary of State was certainly instrumental in that?”
Paskin tried to explain that his objections to Trump were about his rhetoric, not his policy. But Cavuto refused to see the difference.
PASKIN: Because this isn’t about policy, this isn’t about politics. I’m not suggesting that Mr. Trump’s policies on Israel or anything else for that matter are bad or problematic. I’m suggesting that the tone and the rhetoric that he has used to talk about those policies, that is not based in the values that built our country.
CAVUTO (interrupting): And Hillary Clinton, and you’ve been OK with Hillary Clinton’s tone or other candidates’ tone? Why single Donald Trump out? Why not give him the benefit of a fair hearing? You, as a rabbi, I think would honor that wouldn’t you?
PASKIN: I absolutely do honor that. He’s had nine months of a fair hearing, and time after time after time. Trump has resorted –
CAVUTO (interrupting): Well, give him one day. Give him one day. “Let’s see how you do tonight, Mr. Trump. We understand you’ve got a written speech.” Hear him out.
PASKIN: If I thought that there was any chance that he would offer something other than the ugliness that he’s offered, then I might be willing to do that.
CAVUTO (interrupting): Have you seen his speech, Rabbi?
PASKIN: No, I haven’t and I have to tell you, Neil, that there comes a point where we have to listen, and then there comes a point where we have to say no more. There’s a time for everything under the sun the Bible tells us. We’ve had our time for listening, now it’s time for us to say this is not what we stand for, that Mr. Trump can make his suggestions, he can run for office, he can win the office, and he can do so with respect and with dignity. He does not have to degrade and debase other people to do that. I’m open to him doing that.
CAVUTO: “But Rabbi, [what] you cited in him, many could interpret you’re doing in return. He gets ready to speak - you and I don’t know how many others walk out, wouldn’t he go back at you and say, “And, boy, you think I’m childish?”
PASKIN: You know what? He would come back at me and say that whether I walked out or not because that’s what he says to everyone. He calls people names and he attacks them.
But look, Neil, I have to tell you. This really isn’t about Mr. Trump. OK? This is about something much bigger, and that is that there’s a wave of anger and ugliness and hatred that is sweeping this country in large part because some of the rhetoric that Mr. Trump is using.
CAVUTO (interrupting): Do you think that’s fair?
Obviously, Cavuto was the one who thought it unfair. He insisted that Trump is boycotting the show and that “I have no horse in this race.” But Cavuto refused to listen to Paskin’s explanation that being good or bad to Israel, as Clinton’s policy may be, is not at all the same as spreading the kind of hate and bigotry that Trump does.
And really, why would a Fox News host care about a Trump boycott or try so hard to discredit a boycott unless there’s some kind of agenda afoot?
Watch it below, from the March 21 Your World.