Reactions from Republicans poured in after Hunter Biden was found guilty on all charges Tuesday morning in his historic criminal case focused on his purchase of a firearm in 2018. 

Last year, Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time for his felony gun charge. But that arrangement – dubbed a ‘sweetheart deal’ by Republicans – fell apart when it was revealed Biden is still under investigation for possible Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) crimes.

‘Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal was smoked out after scrutiny by a federal judge,’ House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement after Tuesday’s verdict. ‘Today’s verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden.’

In the months preceding Hunter Biden’s trial, Comer pledged to target President Biden, asserting ‘this was always about Joe Biden’ and vowed to continue investigating him in the subsequent stage of Biden’s impeachment inquiry. 

‘Remember, this is an investigation of Joe Biden,’ Comer said on Fox News’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ with Maria Bartiromo. ‘Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer – these are all witnesses in an investigation of Joe Biden. This was always about Joe Biden.’

Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to President Trump, said in a post on X following the verdict that the ‘DOJ is running election interference for Joe Biden – that’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption.’

‘Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE. DOJ is Joe’s election protection racket,’ he said.

In response, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said, ‘And yet Dems will now point to Hunter’s conviction as evidence that ‘there’s no lawfare.”

For his part, Rep. Matt Gatez, R-Fla., said on X, ‘The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.’

Other Republicans used news of the guilty verdict to circle back to concerns over Biden family business dealings.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said, ‘Biden DOJ is trying to distract Americans from the $20 million the Biden family raked in from China, Russia, Ukraine, etc.’ 

‘Can Joe Biden explain what the money was for?’

Hunter Biden has previously claimed he didn’t ‘stand to gain anything’ from his role on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma despite it leading to him making millions of dollars.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also posted his reaction to the verdict on X.

‘Never forget DOJ tried to avoid this trial & verdict by giving Hunter a sweetheart plea deal. Until the judge exposed them,’ he said.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told reporters he’ll ‘be very curious to see when they schedule the actual sentencing.’

‘That will be interesting because then you get to see if they’re going to do it before, after it impacts Joe Biden if he gives him a pardon.’

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., also posted on X: ‘GUILTY. Accountability for the Biden Crime Family at last?’

‘The Biden Crime Family is exposed again,’ Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on X. ‘No one, including Joe Biden’s son, is above the law. It’s time the DOJ takes action on Hunter Biden for using his father’s position to make millions of dollars from foreign influence peddling and even lying to Congress about it.’

‘In 2020, Blinken led 50 former intel officials in falsely claiming the Hunter laptop story was Russian disinfo,’ Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., wrote on X, referencing the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken. ‘Social media companies then silenced all who dissented including the New York Post. Now Joe Biden’s OWN DOJ is using that same laptop as evidence to prosecute Hunter.’

‘Today is the first step in delivering accountability for the Biden crime family,’ Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said to reporters Tuesday. ‘We must and we will continue as House Republicans to investigate the Biden crime family, for the corrupting influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden crime family members. So this is one step, but again, it goes back to the corruption of Joe Biden’s DOJ as they tried to negotiate a sweetheart plea deal.’

Hunter Biden faced a trial this month that lasted more than a week and included emotional testimony from members of his family, including daughter Naomi Biden, ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden. 

Prosecutors worked to prove that Hunter Biden lied on a federal firearm form, known as ATF Form 4473, in October 2018 when he ticked a box labeled ‘No’ when asked if he is an unlawful user of a firearm or addicted to controlled substances. Hunter Biden purchased the gun from a store called StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty in the case.

Hunter Biden has a well-documented history of drug abuse, most notably described in his 2021 memoir, ‘Beautiful Things,’ which walks readers through his previous need to smoke crack cocaine every 20 minutes, how his addiction was so prolific that he referred to himself as a ‘crack daddy’ to drug dealers, and anecdotes revolving around drug deals, such as a Washington, D.C., crack dealer Biden nicknamed ‘Bicycles.’

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

President Biden issued a heartfelt statement after his sole surviving son was convicted in federal court in Delaware.

‘I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,’ Biden said Tuesday minutes after Hunter Biden was found guilty by a federal jury on criminal gun charges.

The younger Biden was convicted on three counts tied to his October 2018 purchase and possession of a revolver while using illegal drugs. Federal prosecutors accused the president’s son of lying on a federal background check form when he claimed he was not using or addicted to illegal drugs.

While the case appears to be a personal and emotional distraction for the president, the big question moving forward is whether his son’s guilty verdicts will make any kind of political impact on Biden’s 2024 election rematch with former President Trump and whether it will influence persuadable voters.

‘Today’s conviction of Hunter Biden on all counts is unlikely to have much impact on the presidential campaign,’ veteran New Hampshire-based political scientist and New England College president Wayne Lesperance told Fox News.

Lesperance said that ‘while they share the same last name, Hunter is not Joe and voters will not hold the father accountable for the crimes of the son.’

Longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams agreed, saying, ‘It’s a deep personal blow to the president, but I don’t think it will have that much of an impact on the election. People aren’t going to vote for or against Joe Biden based on his son’s actions.’

The president, who has said he wouldn’t pardon his son if Hunter was convicted, emphasized in his post-verdict statement that ‘I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.’

Biden’s language stands in direct contrast with Trump, who repeatedly slammed his own recent trial as ‘rigged’ and a ‘sham.’

Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments during the 2016 election that he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Prosecutors in the case – which was the first trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history – argued that this amounted to illegally seeking to influence the 2016 election.

Trump repeatedly claimed, without providing concrete evidence, that the trial was a ‘political Witch Hunt’ orchestrated by the president and the Justice Department.

But Williams, a veteran of a handful of Republican presidential campaigns, said Hunter Biden’s convictions ‘undercut the argument that Trump makes that the Department of Justice is politically motivated against him and Republicans. Joe Biden’s Justice Department has convicted President Trump. It’s also convicted his own son.’

Lesperance agreed, saying the ‘verdict blunts GOP claims about a partisan judiciary targeting Republicans. It is difficult to imagine how Republicans can claim bias as they did following the Trump verdict when today’s conviction involved the son of the sitting Democratic president.’

Hunter Biden will likely be sentenced in the trial – which witnessed graphic testimony of his years-long struggle with drug addiction – just days before the November presidential election.

And he faces a second trial in California in September over his failure to pay taxes for several years.

The guilty verdicts could provide Trump and his allies with more ammunition as they aim to conflate the former president’s convictions with those of Hunter Biden.

The Trump campaign, reacting to the verdict, argued in a statement that ‘this trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine.’

Ryan said Tuesday’s verdicts ‘muddy the waters to some degree now that there are convictions on both sides.’

But seasoned Democratic operative Joe Caiazzo called the comparison ‘a false equivalent’ because ‘Hunter Biden is not on the ballot.’

‘The Trump campaign is going to try to use this as a political football, which is disturbing, disgusting and dishonest. Millions of Americans deal with substance issues on a daily basis,’ Caiazzo, a veteran of several Democratic presidential campaigns, said.

Former President Trump will be in the nation’s capital on Thursday visiting both House and Senate Republicans, Fox News Digital has learned.

Trump will be at the Capitol Hill Club that morning, a popular members-only haunt for House Republicans, three sources familiar with planning told Fox News Digital.

An invitation sent to senior House GOP aides on Tuesday morning and obtained by Fox News Digital shows that Trump is coming on a joint invitation from House leadership – Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.

Meanwhile, Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital on Monday evening that Trump will also be addressing Republicans in the upper chamber on Thursday.

‘I’ve invited President Trump to meet with members of our Republican Conference,’ Barrasso wrote to fellow Senate Republicans in a message obtained by Fox News Digital. ‘I believe it will be helpful to hear directly from President Trump about his plans for the summer and to also share our ideas for a strategic governing agenda in 2025.’

It’s not immediately clear when that meeting will take place, but a source familiar with planning told Fox News Digital it would be at the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters. 

Trump’s meeting location with House Republicans is traditionally their favored spot when discussing political issues.

House GOP leaders have been almost completely in lockstep with Trump since Johnson took the speaker’s gavel in late October, with multiple people previously telling Fox News Digital that Johnson keeps Trump in the loop before announcing major House agenda items.

Trump has a markedly different relationship with the Senate’s top Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose public relationship with Trump ruptured in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Like other GOP congressional leaders, however, McConnell is endorsing Trump for re-election this November.

Trump’s visit comes as he continues to both shape his own presidential re-election and GOP races across the country. 

After meeting with congressional Republicans on Thursday, Trump will have another sitdown with Johnson and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., on Monday, a source familiar with planning told Fox News Digital.

Johnson’s spokesman told Fox News Digital of the Thursday meeting, ‘The Speaker and the House GOP Leadership look forward to hosting President Trump on Thursday morning to discuss growing the House Republican majority and the 2025 legislative agenda.’

Fox News Digital also reached out to spokespeople for Trump and McConnell.

President Biden appeared to freeze during a Juneteenth celebration at the White House on Monday.

Biden, 81, was filmed standing still as stone while those around him, including Vice President Kamala Harris, clapped and danced to a concert featuring gospel singer Kirk Franklin. 

Video shows Biden staring blankly and not moving an inch for about 30 seconds before Philonise Floyd — the brother of George Floyd, whose murder triggered nationwide riots in 2020 — noticed the president and put his arm around him. Biden then smiles as Floyd leans in to say something, and they bump fists after exchanging a few words.

Republicans, who have sought to make the president’s advanced age an issue in the 2024 election, were quick to deride the president. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘Why isn’t Biden moving?’ the Republican National Committee’s rapid response account questioned on X. 

‘Lights are on but no one’s home,’ former President Trump’s campaign posted.

‘Who said Biden’s got no rhythm?’ quipped Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. 

The incident echoed two occasions last year when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. froze in front of reporters at the Capitol and at an event in Covington, Kentucky. McConnell, who was 81 at the time, later announced he would step down from leadership after the election and would not seek re-election when his current term expires in 2027.

Critics say Biden is declining in his old age and can’t handle the responsibilities of the presidency. Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a report detailing instances in which the president has demonstrated a lack of clarity in private meetings with staff and members of Congress.

But the White House and Cabinet members have vigorously pushed back against these claims, and defended the president’s mental acuity and ability to perform on the job.

‘Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,’ White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. ‘Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.’

Earlier this year, a report from Biden’s own Department of Justice’s special counsel called him an ‘elderly man with a poor memory’ at the end of an investigation into his mishandling of classified documents dating back to his Senate tenure, which ultimately saved him from having charges brought against him by Special Counsel Robert Hur.

Biden has been prone to gaffes going back to when he was vice president, but the frequency and nature of his verbal missteps in recent years appear to be more significant. 

In May, Biden seemed to have a break with reality when he confused the timing of the COVID pandemic by a factor of years when he said, ‘And when I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and, what happened was Barack said to me: ‘Go to Detroit — and help fix it.’’ The pandemic happened years after Biden’s time as vice president.

The president has, on several occasions, referenced dead people as being alive. In 2022, at a White House event, Biden called out former Rep. Jackie Walorski during a speech, ‘Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?’ Walorski had died in a car crash the previous month.

At a campaign rally in February, Biden told the audience, ‘Right after I was elected, I went to a G7 meeting in southern England. And I sat down and said, ‘America is back!’ and Mitterand from Germany — I mean France — looked at me and said, ‘How long you back for?” Mitterand was president from 1981 to 1995 and died in 1996.

In 2021, Biden claimed he had spoken with the late German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had died in 2017, while recalling past conversations during fundraising events.  

At 81, Biden is the oldest man to serve as president in U.S. history. If he is re-elected in November, he will be 86 when his second term ends. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, former President Trump, is just four years younger at 77. 

Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark and Matthew Richter contributed to this report.

A conservative activist group has released a new ad urging Senate Democrats, particularly those facing tough reelections in red states, to support a House bill aimed at preventing noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections. 

Building America’s Future announced in a press release that the ad is ‘urging Americans to tell Senate Democrats to pass HR 192 and stop illegal immigrants from voting in US elections.’

‘HR 192, which was advanced by the House in May, would nullify a Washington, DC law allowing noncitizens to vote in elections,’ the press release states.

Vulnerable Senate Democrats Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester are included in the ad that is running on digital platforms ‘as the latest spot in Building America’s Future’s ongoing ‘Chaos at the Border’ campaign.’

‘They’re killing Americans,’ the ad says before showing a photo of Jose Ibarra, the illegal immigrant who allegedly killed Georgia nursing student Laken Riley earlier this year.

‘They’re targeting our military,’ the ad continues with a reference to the two foreign nationals who were recently arrested after attempting to breach a Marine Corps base in Virginia.

‘And now Democrats want to give illegal immigrants the right to vote in our elections. But Speaker Johnson and House Republicans are holding the line and defending democracy. Passing common sense legislation that safeguards our elections from illegals,’ the ad says. 

‘Voting is our right as Americans. Tell Senate Democrats: Pass HR 192 and keep illegals out of our elections.’

The ad closes with photos of Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who are both Democratic senators facing tough re-election campaigns in states Republicans hope they can flip to take back control of the Senate.

Fox News Digital reached out to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., whose image is also featured in the ad along with Tester and Brown, but did not receive a response.

‘Jon Tester believes you should have to be a U.S. citizen to vote,’ a spokesperson for Tester’s campaign told Fox News Digital. 

Building America’s Future has previously run ads hitting Democrats on immigration, including an ad slamming President Biden over Riley’s murder that bracketed the president’s State of the Union address earlier this year. 

The results of the European Parliament elections saw voters – in Germany and France, especially – largely reject socialism and left-wing policies. 

Experts who weighed in on the election told Fox News Digital the results should put President Biden’s administration on notice. Both European and American voters largely care about the same issues, namely mass migration and border security, they said, and the EU elections showed voters taking a stand against leftist agendas that have come to rise on both sides of the Atlantic. 

‘Firstly, the elections were a political earthquake in Europe,’ Dr. Nile Gardiner, director of conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, told Fox News Digital. ‘They were a massive rejection of open borders, mass migration, the far left, green agenda that is being pushed by many European governments. It was also a statement against a growing centralization also of the European Union. And it was an emphatic, euroskeptic, vote in many, many European countries. And so, voters across Europe rejected the ruling socialist or progressive liberal elites from Germany to France to Spain … to Belgium, to the Netherlands. And so this was one of the most significant electoral outcomes in recent European history.’ 

‘I think the Biden White House should be very nervous about what’s happening across the Atlantic because Europeans are voting on exactly the same issues American voters are voting on as well. The biggest single issue in Europe right now is mass migration and the lack of border security. It’s the number one issue in America,’ Gardiner said. ‘What you saw in Europe is an effective rejection of liberal left-wing ruling elites, exemplified, of course, by the Biden White House. And so Biden is very similar to Chancellor Schultz in Germany, very similar to Emmanual Macron in France. Biden is a, you know, liberal, progressive, elitist, out of touch with the vast majority of ordinary people. And so, Joe Biden should be a very nervous man right now watching what’s happening in Europe.’ 

When looking at the European election results, Dr. Alan Mendoza, founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital it was ‘indeed much more, say, a rejection of the left wing parties, versus should we say, you know, an enthusiastic rush to the far right.’ He argued it’s actually the center right that’s holding the most in terms of positioning within the EU. 

Gardiner appeared to agree.

‘I didn’t like the designation of far right. Because if you look at voter concerns in Europe, and you know, support for parties on the right and across the Atlantic, these are exactly the same concerns that U.S. voters have as well,’ Gardiner said. ‘European voters who are rejecting open borders are rejecting the extreme green agenda, rejecting wokeism, they don’t want high crime. They don’t like the Islamification of Europe. You know, at the end of the day, the vast majority of Europeans who voted for parties on the right, they’re not extremists. They simply just want things changed at home. They don’t like, you know, the left wing socialist agenda.’ 

In Germany, the governing coalition – Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats – fell into third place behind the main conservative bloc, which came out on top, and the country’s far-right party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which came in second place. 

‘So what it shows you is that the left is falling and failing to provide answers for what European citizens are looking for. And I think the main area here is obviously, in terms of, you know, immigration. I think that’s such a big issue on the European continent these days that there has been sort of a loss of faith in what the left wing can provide,’ Mendoza said. ‘I think the answer has been that … it is right wing parties that are going to provide these answers in the coming years.’ 

French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and called a snap legislative election after his Renaissance party suffered a heavy defeat in the EU elections to the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen. That move was a gamble, Mendoza said, as the EU elections are seen more as a ‘protest vote’ and now Macron is calling a national election supposing people think he is better for France versus Le Pen’s party. 

‘Political changes in Europe can have a significant impact on America as well. You look at the Brexit vote in 2016, in the UK ahead of, you know, Donald Trump’s election victory that year. What happens in Europe does matter in America as well, because at the end of the day, European and American electorates are not vastly different in terms of what they care about,’ Gardiner observed. ‘They overwhelmingly do not like, you know, the radical, you know, green agenda. And they don’t like, you know, wokeism and the left’s attempt to subvert Western culture and civilization.’ 

Matt Mowers, a founding board member of the EU-US Forum, said the non-profit conducted a survey in May that found a majority of EU voters ‘do not think the EU headed in the right direction under its current left wing leadership.’ The survey also found ‘that Europeans have serious concerns about illegal immigration, skyrocketing cost of living, increased government censorship, and excessive regulations,’ he said. 

‘The EU election results prove our data was right on the money,’ Mowers, who served informer President Trump’s administration, told Fox News Digital. ‘Europeans are tired of the status quo at the EU. Voters have sent a decisive message to the globalist elites in Brussels: Europeans do not want the far-Left agenda pushed on them for decades. Change is coming.’

‘Europe is waking up and wants change at the EU,’ he added. ‘Voters decisively rejected the far-left ideology at the EU in the recent European parliamentary elections. This should frighten the American left and put them on notice. In November, American voters will also reject the push for open borders, reckless spending, and unfettered regulation that leftists have been pushing in the US.’

‘The right wing has risen across Europe, after years of left wing rule,’ Thomas Corbet-Dillon, a former adviser to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told Fox News Digital. ‘President Macron suspended parliament in a panic after the majority of France voted for so-called ‘far right’ parties, in a clear rebuff to his leftist agenda of uncontrolled immigration.’ 

‘In the UK, we see Nigel Farage leading the charge against the Conservative Party and Geert Wilders is leading the fight in the Netherlands,’ Corbet-Dillon added. Though, notably, the United Kingdom left the EU. 

‘The right wing is rising across Europe and today has shown they have the support of the people,’ he said. ‘The left wing media continue to refer to the true conservative movement as far right, when in reality, everyday men and women who are patriots and believe in a future for their nation keep getting labeled far right. The current governments in Europe should be labeled far left for what they have allowed to happen to Europe.’ 

Fox News’ Ben Evansky contributed to this report. 

The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Trump has denied a motion to dismiss some of the charges in the indictment. 

Trump’s legal team had sought to throw out more than a half dozen of the 41 counts in the indictment, which accuses the former commander in chief of illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency and conspiring with others to conceal sensitive files from the federal government. 

The defendants had challenged counts related to obstruction and false statements, but U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order Monday saying that ‘the identified deficiencies, even if generating some arguable confusion, are either permitted by law, raise evidentiary challenges not appropriate for disposition at this juncture, and/or do not require dismissal even if technically deficient, so long as the jury is instructed appropriately and presented with adequate verdict forms as to each Defendants’ alleged conduct.’

Cannon did, however, agree to strike down a paragraph from the indictment that defense lawyers argued was prejudicial information that was not essential to the underlying charges.

Cannon has rejected multiple other motions already to dismiss the case, including one that suggested that the Presidential Records Act authorized Trump to keep the documents with him after he left the White House and to designate them as his personal files.

Monday’s motion to dismiss the half dozen counts in the indictment is one of multiple pretrial requests and disputes that for months have piled up before Cannon, slowing the progress of the case and delaying the trial. 

Additional arguments are scheduled for later this month.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said during an online discussion she hosted on Monday that ‘false accusations of antisemitism are wielded against people of color.’

The ‘Squad’ member hosted an online livestream titled ‘Antisemitism and the Fight for Democracy’ on X, admitting that the rise in antisemitism and attacks against Jews since Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel – where about 1,200 people were killed and approximately 250 others were taken as hostages into Gaza – ‘undermined’ the progressive movement.

‘Antisemitism, hate and violence against Jews because of their identity is real, and it is dangerous. It is also important to say here in this moment and during that conversation that criticism of the Israeli government is not inherently antisemitic and criticism of Zionism is not automatically antisemitic,’ Ocasio-Cortez said.

‘That being true does not mean that we should not recognize that criticism and when that criticism crosses a line into real harm against our Jewish community,’ she continued. ‘Antisemitism is an assault on our values as Americans and especially as progressives. Antisemitism is also a threat to a community that is a vital partner in our struggles against injustice. So, when the Jewish community is threatened, the progressive movement is undermined. That is why we reject it as fiercely as we reject and look for misogyny, Islamophobia or any form of bigotry or discrimination in any space that we occupy. Right now, antisemitism is on the rise in America and across the world. Acknowledging that fact does not take away from fights for liberation, it actually advances them.’

‘At the same time, it is also true that accusations and false accusations of antisemitism are wielded against people of color and women of color by bad-faith political actors,’ Ocasio-Cortez said. ‘And weaponizing antisemitism is used to divide us and create a false choice between the fight for Jewish safety and the calls for Palestinian self-determination. Defending and standing for the rights of Palestinians is not antisemitic, and we must be able to identify when bad-faith political actors make accusations simply to divide us. People can disagree bitterly about Israel and Gaza, but it has felt that we’ve been at a point where even coming together to acknowledge and discuss any antisemitism at all can feel impossible.’

People who have represented both sides of the political spectrum slammed Ocasio-Cortez for saying that there are false claims of antisemitism aimed at people of color.

‘She is one of the most dangerous people because people are fooled by her,’ former Democrat New York State Assembly member Dov Hikind told Fox News Digital in reaction to the congresswoman’s discussion. 

‘She’s part of the radical extremists of the Democratic Party,’ Hikind, who joined the GOP last year, continued. ‘It’s why so many people are leaving the Democratic Party. It’s why so many people are not going to vote for the Democratic Party, for Biden or anyone else. I am convinced of that, that this will be an historic year in terms of Jews moving away from the Democratic Party, historic. People like Ocasio-Cortez, she contributes to the hate. She makes things more dangerous – really, really sad.’

‘By the way, I’ve never met antisemites who didn’t say they were against antisemitism,’ added Hikind, who founded the organization Americans Against Antisemitism. ‘And she’s full of it. She’s absolutely full of it.’

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) also reacted to Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘AOC’s ‘Squad’ includes the most noxious antisemites in Congress,’ wrote Sam Markstein, RJC national political director. ‘And across the board, Democrats have shamefully refused to hold the Hamas Caucus of their party accountable. It is shocking that the Democratic Party has this much difficulty calling out antisemitism – instead of despicable race-baiting, AOC should focus on fighting bigotry in her own ranks.’

For the discussion, the congresswoman brought in two speakers, Stacy Burdett, a Jewish community advocate against antisemitism and bigotry, and Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. 

At one point, Burdett spoke about the ‘conspiracy frame’ of antisemitic rhetoric, pointing to differences between criticizing Israeli policies or decisions and being antisemitic. She specifically warned viewers that when discussing the Israel-Hamas war, comments that seem to allege ‘evil control of government policy by Jewish billionaires or Zionist donors’ perpetuate dangerous antisemitic stereotypes.

‘So, if your criticism of Israel is trafficking stereotypes, you’re really in the bigotry zone,’ Burdett said. ‘I mean, stereotypes kill. That’s how the Nazis got the German people to live with this so-called Final Solution. And so we do the work all the time to avoid words that correlate with negative stereotypes. And we need to do that here. Second, you know, empathy and care and inclusion cannot be limited only to Jews who reject Zionism.’

While Burdett warned against using stereotypes dealing with Zionist donors in the discussion hosted by Ocasio-Cortez, the congresswoman herself made an incendiary remark of her own just a day earlier.

‘Hmm it’s almost like AIPAC functions as a political slush fund for Republican billionaires and should not have influence in the Democratic Party, let alone our primaries,’ Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X on Sunday, referencing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose goal is to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship and works with members of both parties.

Hikind said AIPAC is a ‘legitimate organization’ that follows the law and supports both Democrats and Republicans.