Democratic congressional candidate Valerie Plame on Sunday attempted to downplay an anti-Semitic article she shared on Twitter back in 2017 by saying she did not read the full article, but her now-deleted tweets said, "Read the entire article" and "put aside your biases and think clearly."
Activist and ex-CIA operative Plame, who is running for New Mexico's open 3rd Congressional District seat in 2020, appeared on MSNBC's Kasie DC, where she was asked about a recent National Review article resurfacing a tweet she wrote less than two years ago.
Plame tweeted an article from the fringe site UNZ Review in Sept. 2017, accusing "American Jews" of "driving America's wars." While she would go on to acknowledge she "messed up," the Washington Examiner reported she posted nine UNZ articles over the course of three years, including one titled "Why I Still Dislike Israel" and another about "Dancing Israelis" on 9/11.
"You got some criticism for this because the article that you linked to said America's Jews are driving America's wars and I know you later backtracked saying you messed up," anchor Kasie Hunt said. "How much of a campaign issue do you think this is potentially going to be for you? And is there anything you would like to say to correct the record now?"
"Let me be clear. It's not who I am and it's not what I believe. It was extremely painful. I had not read the whole article all the way through and when I realized what it was, it was embarrassing and hurtful, so I apologize deeply and sincerely, and I've done it multiple times both privately and publicly," Plame said. "It's -- it was really just a very painful period, but I want to move forward. That's not who I am and of course there is always going to be people that no matter what I would say are not going to like me, are going to hate me, are going to twist my words and I can't do anything about that.
She went on to say, "We all make mistakes" and that sharing the article was a "doozy."
After receiving backlash for sharing the article in 2017, Plame initially defended herself against criticism, saying, "many neocon hawks ARE Jewish" and that her critics need to "read the entire article and try, just for a moment, to put aside your biases and think clearly."