This week on the Sunday news shows: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) refused to condemn Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani, retired Army general David Petraeus said President Donald Trump's decision to kill Soleimani may deter future attacks against American assets, and New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss said the national media have "absolutely" been slow in their coverage of anti-Semitism.
Warren Refuses to Criticize Soleimani
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) on Sunday conspicuously refused to condemn Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani, the deceased military leader responsible for hundreds of American deaths.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Warren described Soleimani, the leader of a designated terrorist organization, as "a high-ranking military official" and "government official."
"Look, it was a targeted attack on a government official, a high-ranking military official for the government of Iran, and what it has done has moved this country closer to war," Warren said. "We are not safer today than we were before Donald Trump acted."
The Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate further questioned the timing of the U.S. attack on Soleimani, prompting Tapper to ask whether she was suggesting this was a distraction from impeachment.
"I think that people are reasonably asking about the timing, and why it is that the administration seems to have all kinds of different answers," Warren said.
Petraeus: Killing of Soleimani Reinforced 'Element of Deterrence' Against Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-riaX9_-zyE&feature=youtu.be
Retired Army general David Petraeus on Sunday defended the Trump administration's decision to kill terror master Qassem Soleimani, saying he believes it helped restore the United States's posture of deterrence after repeated provocation by Iran.
"Our $130 million drone was shot down. We did nothing significant in response. Five percent of the world's oil production taken out of operation, numerous attacks on shipping, and then attacks on our forces ultimately, of course, killing an American and wounding four of our soldiers," Petraeus said during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation. "So, ultimately, the president appears to have decided that it was necessary to take an action to shore up deterrence, to show that we were not going to accept this."
Petraeus told Foreign Policy Magazine on Friday that he believes the killing of Soleimani, who led efforts to consolidate Iranian power throughout the Middle East and was indirectly responsible for hundreds of American deaths, is "more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden or even the death of [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi."
Weiss: Jews Do Not Cause Anti-Semitism
New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss on Sunday said the national media have "absolutely" been slow in their coverage of the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.
Weiss spoke to CNN's Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter during the Jewish Solidarity March in Brooklyn. She told Stelter that mainstream media coverage of the recent wave of anti-Semitic attacks in New York City has been marred by analysis which, in search of nuance, veers dangerously toward blaming Jews for the violence.
"It is not complicated. Jews do not cause Jew hatred, and I don't care if those Jews wear funny hats. Jews never cause Jew hatred," Weiss said.
Weiss in particular criticized the media's slowness to cover anti-Semitism by individuals prominently connected to Democrats or liberal causes. She noted that it "took two years for the mainstream press" to cover the ties between Linda Sarsour—a former leader of the Women's March and surrogate for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.)—and Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam and an infamous anti-Semite. She also criticized the blind eye turned towards Democrats' involvement with MSNBC host Al Sharpton, who infamously helped incite an anti-Semitic riot in Crown Heights in 1991.