Speaker McCarthy Blasts Jayapal for ‘Anti-Semitic Remarks,’ Defends Republicans Inviting RFK Jr. to Testify

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) blasted Democrats for continuing to make “anti-semitic remarks” while defending the GOP for inviting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Capitol Hill following his own offensive comments.

McCarthy spoke to reporters in the Capitol Rotunda on Monday where he first condemned recent statements made by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, (D-WA), who asserted at a conference that Israel is a “racist state.” Her comments were quickly condemned by House Democratic leadership, but McCarthy said the party now needs to “prove” they’re not anti-semitic.

“This isn’t the first person in the Democratic conference that has continued to make anti-semitic comments,” McCarthy said, also calling out Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Betty McCullum (D-MN) for past remarks.

“I think if the Democrats want to believe that they do not have a conference that continues to make anti-semitic remarks, they need to do something about it,” McCarthy continued. “Because they’ve defended these individuals time and again. The only time action has ever been taken, is when [the GOP] had to take the action. I think this is a role for the leader, Hakeem [Jeffries] to prove that, no, they’re not anti-semitic. And they cannot allow their members what they have continued to say in the past.”

McCarthy suggested that Jayapal’s comments were particularly egregious because they occurred during the week when the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, will be speaking to a joint session of Congress on the 75th anniversary of Israel’s creation.

After condemning Jayapal, McCarthy defended the GOP for scheduling Kennedy to testify on censorship in America. The Democrats had called on Congress to disinvite the conspiracy theorist and presidential candidate for declaring on camera that COVID was “ethnically targeted” toward “Caucasians and Black people,” while sparing “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” House Democratic leadership condemned his remarks as employing a “technique” used by Hitler to portray Jews as a “lesser form of humanity.”

“Your question about RFK; I disagree with everything he said,” McCarthy told reporters. “The hearing that we have this week is about censorship. I don’t think that censoring somebody is actually the answer here. I think if you’re going to look at censorship in America, your first action to censor him probably plays into some of the problems we have.”

Watch the clip above via C-Span.