Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, warned of growing extreme sentiment on the left, as evidenced by what “Life, Liberty & Levin” host Mark Levin described as the “Marxism” of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the physical and political “embrace” by President Joe Biden of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich. – the latter a member of the far-left “Squad.”
“Look at Bernie Sanders. Nobody dares to seriously question Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is a Marxist,” said Levin. “If you were to ask Black Lives Matter members or leaders if they support any politician, it would be Bernie Sanders.”
Levin told Jasser that Sanders has yet to be pressed on the supporter of his who targeted Republican members of Congress at an Alexandria, Va., baseball diamond – a mass shooting that nearly killed House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
He contrasted the relative silence in the media and those in Washington about shooter James Hodgkinson and his vocal support for Sanders with the treatment of “every single Trump supporter as a White Supremacist” in the time since right-wing activists broke into the U.S. Capitol and assaulted law enforcement on January 6.
“When there’s violence done by Bernie Sanders supporters, the media basically squelch it … [but Attorney General Merrick Garland then] gives this outrageous speech [this week] where he draws in the media to his own employees at the Department of Justice, where I was once chief of staff,” said Levin, who worked in that role under Attorney General Ed Meese.
“There’s a lot going on in this country in terms of a movement towards tyranny that concerns me greatly. Do you agree or disagree with that?”
Jasser said such a disparate dynamic “starts with Biden from the top.”
“He had a tarmac staged embrace of Rashida Tlaib in what he called her a fighter, called her courageous. And she is no different than [Palestinian Leader Mahmoud] Abbas’s Fatah in her secularism and her embrace of Hamas.”
Jasser also described fellow far-left “Squad” member Ilhan Omar of Minneapolis as “basically a Hamas supporter.”
“At the end of the day, the Democratic Party is embracing them. You see now sort of an unleashing of jihadis,” he said, pointing to Hamas’ terrorism in the Middle East.
On the regional level, Jasser said this emergence of extremism was evidenced earlier this month when Fairfax County, Va., school board member Abrar Omeish gave an incendiary speech to the graduates
The president of the student government introduced her, noting that she campaigned for presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and that her father, Esam Omeish, was a “leader and board member of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center” – the namesake of a mosque attended by two 9/11 hijackers in 2001, the radical imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, and Nidal Hasan — the 2009 Fort Hood shooter.
At another point in the address, Omeish, 24, told the students in Arabic to remember their “jihad.”
When asked by Levin why Democrats are embracing these types of individuals, Jasser replied that they are ideologically “collectivist.”
“They’re anti-American. They really don’t appreciate or love the institutions. But in America, which is based on our founding fathers, our constitutionalism, our classic liberalism of liberty, if you will, but at the end of the day, Mark, they’re afraid of them.”
Fox News’ Joshua Nelson contributed to this report.
