Ocasio-Cortez attacks President Trump with charges of 'deliberate, atrocious' anti-Semitism

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) made an astonishing claim about President Donald Trump on Saturday: that he is an anti-Semite.

The controversial freshman lawmaker claimed the president's attacks on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) constitute "deliberate, atrocious, targeted" anti-Semitism.

"Understand that Trump is engaged in deliberate, atrocious, targeted antisemitism towards Chairman Schiff," Ocasio-Cortez claimed. "Then ask yourself why no one cares to denounce it - esp when his accusation of it towards others drove full news cycles earlier this year."

"It's wrong. It's harmful," she added in a separate tweet. "And his bigotry is reflective of the white supremacist base he relies on for political gain."

Ocasio-Cortez linked her tweet to an article from the Intercept that claims Trump is engaging in anti-Semitic rhetoric amid the push by House Democrats to impeach him.

The article centers on comments in which Trump attacks House Democrats by name on social media:

To be clear: More than 200 House Democrats have signed onto an impeachment inquiry and yet the president chose to target only three of them by name, two of whom are Jewish: Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler, chairs of the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees. The third target was — surprise! — a woman of color, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Shamefully, he attacked all of them as "savages."

How is such rhetoric not racist?

On October 2, Trump escalated his brazenly anti-Semitic attack on Schiff. "We don't call him 'Shifty Schiff' for nothing," the president told reporters in the Oval Office. "He's a shifty, dishonest guy."

The stereotype of Jews as "shifty," the suggestion that they are sneaky and manipulative, has a long and ignominious history.

The article also claims that Trump is engaging in rhetoric that abides by a Neo-Nazi "style guide" and that "Trump's anti-Semitism is nothing new."

However, what the article does not point out is that Schiff and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Calif.) chair two of the committees — the House Intelligence Committee and the House Judiciary Committee — leading the impeachment inquiry against him.

Indeed, Trump has an extensive track-record of nicknaming his political enemies by modifying their name, so it was not surprising to see Trump mock Schiff by slightly altering his last name.

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez has yet to rebuke her Democratic colleagues — Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Minn.) — for routinely engaging in anti-Semitic rhetoric this year.