Citation From the February 3, 2021, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
BILL HEMMER (ANCHOR): Let's pick up on the Ilhan Omar tit-for-tat.
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JOSH HOLMES (FORMER CHIEF-OF-STAFF TO SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL): It's so absurd, Dana, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it. I mean, the things this woman has said over the last two years while she's been campaigning, let alone beyond that, go way beyond the pale. But to respond to what Juan [Williams] was saying, I think the difference between Republicans and Democrats in Congress is that when extremism threatens to define their party, you've watched time and again Republicans step forward and say no thank you, we'll define ourselves. And that goes all the way back to congressman McCarthy talking about Steve King, if you remember. On the racist comments he had, McCarthy moved very quickly to strip him of his committee assignments. They are considering doing the same thing with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Conversely, you watch Nancy Pelosi do absolutely nothing about Ilhan Omar and, in fact, embrace her and put her on plum committee assignments. So look I think extremism can go on both sides and the vast majority of Americans would agree with that. But there's only one party that is taking acknowledgement of it.
HEMMER: How about that, Juan?
JUAN WILLIAMS (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, I think we have to define what we consider to be extremism. I think attacks on Israel that are unfounded are political. I don't know that I would say they were extreme. I think threatening to shoot the speaker of the House in the head --
HEMMER: Well a lot of people take it to be anti-Semitic, as you know.
WILLIAMS: We can agree on that if you want, but I'm just saying it is not shooting somebody in the head. It's not suggesting that somehow the Jewish community was involved in paying for a laser to start the wildfires in California. To me, that is something that is disinformation and it tears, again, at the fabric of a society. We can have arguments over Israel and we can even say that we think some of them are anti-Semitic. And we can have repercussions, and I think there are justified repercussions for anti-Semitic statements. But what she is doing is of a whole different kettle of fish.
[CROSSTALK]
HEMMER: Well let’s be clear, let’s be clear. One might be weird and kooky, Josh, the other is seen as racist.
HOLMES: Yeah, but we're talking about just whataboutism, right? How about all of it go? I mean, I don’t understand why it is that we have to look at one side or the other and put our jerseys on and understand that like OK, I got to defend the indefensible here because they wear, you know, a Republican shirt. No thank you. Marjorie Taylor Greene, no thank you. Ilhan Omar, no thank you. Let's call it a day.