CNN panelists descended into a shouting match Monday night as senior political commentator Scott Jennings defended tech mogul Elon Musk against the recent scrutiny against him.
Musk has come under fire for telling Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party that the country has “too much focus on past guilt,” and critics have also falsely accused the tech mogul of using a Nazi salute at the Jan. 20 inaugural parade. Jennings said the left-wing critics who have developed “Elon Derangement Syndrome” have little to say about the antisemitism committed by their own side.
“We’ve moved on from Trump Derangement Syndrome to Elon Derangement Syndrome,” Jennings said, prompting immediate disruption from Washington Post opinion columnist Catherine Rampbell. “[Musk] has a long record of supporting the Jewish people, number one. Number two, anybody who is asserting the thing he did on the stage the other day was a sieg heil, which I just heard you say, well lawyer up, maybe. Because [that’s an] absolutely ridiculous thing to say under no circumstances was he doing anything other than expressing enthusiastically his appreciation for the crowd.”
“The Nazis in Germany thought it was a sieg heil,” Rampbell said. “Why don’t you do it on TV right now?”
WATCH:
Left-wingers opposed to Musk falsely accused him of doing the Nazi salute during the Jan. 20 inaugural parade in Washington D.C. The tech mogul put his right hand on his heart and extended his arm while telling the crowd that his “heart goes out to you.”
Jennings further argued that Americans ought to remember the “atrocities” committed against Jews in modern day America, notably the pro-Palestine activists who attempted to occupy college campuses and exclaim explicit antisemitic chants, such as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan associated with the destruction of Israel. The anti-Israel demonstrations led many Jewish students to flee campuses for their own safety.
“The people who are most concerned and are all over Elon Musk today have had nary a word for the Nazis on college campuses who’ve gone crazy for the past year-and-a-half,” Jennings said.
“That is bull, that is bull!” Rampbell yelled. “I am a Jew who has criticized the people on college campuses for saying antisemitic things. I will go on the record saying that. I am also criticizing this man who a day or two before Holocaust Remembrance Day, makes light of this moment, this horrific moment in German history.”
Musk has defended himself against the repeated antisemitism allegations, writing in a Jan. 20 statement on X that the “‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tired.” He later argued that the unproven Nazi salute accusations will be “another nail in the coffin of legacy media.”
“It was astonishing how insanely hard legacy media tried to cancel me for saying ‘my heart goes out to you’ and moving my hand from my heart to the audience. In the end, this deception will just be another nail in the coffin of legacy media,” Musk said in a Jan. 24 statement on X.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
