AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at how key members of the media have participated in a smear campaign against the only Palestinian American in Congress, a vocal critic of Israel, Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib. She recently criticized Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, over charges Nessel filed against 11 mostly students and alumni who were involved in a pro-Palestine encampment at the University of Michigan.

The Detroit Metro Times reported the comments by Tlaib from an exclusive interview Friday, September 13th, saying Nessel’s move was, quote, “going to set a precedent, and it’s unfortunate that a Democrat made that move. … We’ve had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We’ve done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement, for Black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs,” Tlaib told the Detroit Metro Times.

Well, the Michigan district attorney general — the Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel responded in a post on X that also referred to a recent Detroit News cartoon that was widely condemned as racist and Islamophobic for showing Congressmember Tlaib next to an exploding pager, implying she was part of Hezbollah. Nessel wrote, quote, “Rashida’s religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she’s a terrorist. It’s Islamophobic and wrong. Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong,” unquote.

After this, the Metro Times published a fact-check Monday noting Tlaib, quote, “never once mentioned Nessel’s religion or Judaism,” even though the newspaper had pointed out in its own reporting that Nessel is Jewish.

Meanwhile, the smear campaign was picked up over the weekend by CNN’s Jake Tapper. This is Tapper interviewing the Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.

JAKE TAPPER: Do you think Attorney General Nessel is not doing her job, because Congresswoman Tlaib is suggesting that she shouldn’t be prosecuting these individuals that Nessel says broke the law, and that she’s only doing it because she’s Jewish and the protesters are not? That’s quite, quite an accusation. Do you think it’s true?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER: Like I said, Jake, I’m not going to get in the middle of this.

AMY GOODMAN: Even as Governor Whitmer refused to take the bait, CNN correspondent Dana Bash also accused Congressmember Rashida Tlaib of antisemitism.

For more, we’re joined by two guests. In Washington, D.C., Prem Thakker is with us, political correspondent, columnist for Zeteo News, whose recent piece is headlined “Anatomy of a Smear Campaign Against Rashida Tlaib.” And in Detroit, we’re joined by Steve Neavling, investigative reporter at Detroit Metro Times, who wrote the story this week headlined “Fact-check: Tlaib did not say Nessel charged pro-Palestinian protesters because she’s Jewish.”

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Steve Neavling, let’s begin with you, since that’s where it started. Talk about your initial interview with Rashida Tlaib and then how it was characterized, and the fact-check you’ve tried to do since then.

STEVE NEAVLING: Well, yeah, I wanted to talk to Rashida Tlaib as the only Palestinian American in Congress, and I wanted to find out what she thought of Dana Nessel’s decision to arrest or to charge these 11 protesters, because it was so unusual. And we talked for about 20 minutes in a phone interview, and it was very clear to me during our discussion that she was talking about — when she was talking about a bias in the Attorney General’s Office, she was talking about an anti-Palestinian bias. What she pointed out was something that’s very common across many institutions in America, many of which aren’t led by Jewish people.

So, she wasn’t ever making this sort of issue of what Dana Nessel’s religion was. She was just saying that there’s this anti-Palestinian bias, and pointed out that in the six years that Dana Nessel has been attorney general, she has never once charged a protester for anything. And I’ve been to dozens of protests in the last six years. A lot of them had civil disobedience that was a lot more severe than what we saw at the University of Michigan. So it was very bizarre. And I wanted to find out what Rashida Tlaib thought about that. And we had the interview, and I thought it went well. I wrote the story. And then, the next thing we know, it ends up getting misinterpreted, and lies are peddled, and it gets out of control.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, talk about how that happened. Talk about the interviews on CNN, and then what you tried to do with your tweets, with your articles.

STEVE NEAVLING: Yeah, I started seeing messages from Jewish groups, from ADL, from a state lawmaker, from people saying this was antisemitic. She’s saying — that Rashida Tlaib is saying that Dana Nessel is only doing this because she’s Jewish. And then CNN picked it up, and Jake Tapper was saying, you know, that this actually happened, this is what she said. And she never said it.

So, I felt an obligation, and I felt somewhat of a responsibility, because my story was being misinterpreted. And Rashida Tlaib, as a result, was getting labeled as an antisemite. So I thought it was my responsibility to let CNN know, to let all these other people know that this is not at all what happened. She’s talking about an anti-Palestinian bias. And I went on Twitter, on Jake Tapper’s page and on some of the other reporters’ pages and said, “This is what happened.” We wrote a fact-check saying this is not at all what happened.

And it took a good 24 hours after that before CNN decided to say, “OK, yeah, we made an error.” But by then, the damage had already been done. You have Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, getting accused of being an antisemite, which really diminishes what she says about this war. So, I mean, it was a very unusual, surreal experience for me as a journalist to see so many lies being peddled about an interview that I witnessed and people saying that something happened that I know didn’t happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Prem Thakker of Zeteo, can you take it from there on a national level, watching this story unfold, with the reporter himself trying to correct the record, saying that the congressmember who he interviewed never mentioned what CNN and others said she did, and then trying to bring the Governor Gretchen Whitmer into this?

PREM THAKKER: Thank you, Amy. And, Steve, it’s a pleasure to be here with you, too.

It’s — yeah, I mean, seeing it from the D.C. perspective, it was remarkable to watch the timeline and events unfold sequentially. This started out actually a day before Steve’s interview, when Representative Tlaib appeared at a Black-Palestine solidarity panel, when the charges by Nessel were announced minutes before this panel. So, during the panel, Representative Rashida Tlaib speaks out against them. She sort of criticizes Dana Nessel for not bringing to charges — charges against those involved with the Flint water crisis, but nevertheless choosing to do so here, as Steve mentions, also contrasting that with other civil disobedience and other civil actions where people were not charged. Notably, too, is that, as I believe Steve noted, too, that Representative Tlaib was also suggesting that perhaps there might have been pressure from the university. And so, over and over again, it seemed that Representative Tlaib was referring to broader, systematic forces that are, as Steve says, anti-Palestinian.

But again, the timeline itself is also quite striking. So, there’s the panel on the 12th, where Representative Tlaib makes these comments condemning the charges. On the 13th is when Steve’s story comes out with Representative Tlaib. On the 20th, a week later, is when the cartoon is out, when Dana Nessel tweets condemning the cartoon, but also condemning the possibility that — or, suggestion that she is only making these actions against these pro-Palestine protesters because of her Jewish identity. A few days after — actually, that same day is when Jake Tapper then asks Governor Whitmer about the situation and starts peddling this false accusation against Representative Rashida Tlaib. And then you see Jewish Insider report on that exchange. And then the Anti-Defamation League peddled the defamatory claim about Representative Tlaib. Then you see Steve putting out his fact-check as more and more anchors and reporters continue to peddle this lie. And you just see this sort of unfold and evolve in real time, as I can only imagine Steve’s experience as someone who witnessed this, seeing the story be misappropriated and taken out of his own hands as someone who wrote the story. It’s very remarkable.

And though some reporters have backtracked, some others, including the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, have sort of continued on with sort of pushing the suggestion that somehow Rashida Tlaib was criticizing these charges on the basis of Dana Nessel’s identity and not the anti-Palestinian bias that Steve speaks to, not potential broad or systematic forces that are anti-Palestinian in nature.

AMY GOODMAN: Prem, before we end the show, I wanted to ask you about a story you’ve been following closely. Last month, your story was headlined “200 Days and Still No Justice for Hind.” It featured a video of the many times you’ve tried to ask the State Department for an update on the status of the Hind Rajab investigation. That’s 6-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, killed on January 29th in an Israeli attack along with six members of her family. They were in a car. They were desperately calling to the Red Crescent and saying that they were under attack in a car. Two paramedics got permission to go to try to help them. They also were killed in the Israeli second strike, what the experts say may amount to a war crime. This is you questioning State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel.

PREM THAKKER: So, has the Biden-Harris administration followed up on this
alleged — alleged lie by the Israel government or sought to confirm any of Israel’s claims on the half-year-old killing now of this girl and her family?

VEDANT PATEL: So, we are in touch with our partners in Israel around the clock on a variety of issues. I don’t have any specifics to read out as it relates to this conversation. I’m happy to check if there have been any additional updates. But to my understanding, this investigation is still ongoing. And I will leave it to them to speak to the details of it.

PREM THAKKER: So, I have reached out to the Israeli government, as well, and while I was reaching out to the Red Crescent, they said they would get back to me with an answer. And they did not, after we reported the Red Crescent said that the Israeli government [inaudible] —

VEDANT PATEL: Well, it’s really — 

PREM THAKKER: I’m just wondering — 

VEDANT PATEL: I’m not a spokesperson —

PREM THAKKER: No, right, of course.

VEDANT PATEL: — for the responsiveness of another foreign ministry.

PREM THAKKER: Just given that, you know, this government gives them billions of dollars in aid, I imagine that such claims want to be fact-checked.

VEDANT PATEL: So, we will continue to engage with our partners in Israel. We ask them for additional information. We ask questions when we see incidents unfold. And we’ll continue to do that. As it relates to this incident, I’m not aware of any updates, and I believe this investigation is ongoing.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel being continually questioned many times, over weeks, months, about the investigation into Hind Rajab. You have 15 seconds, Prem. Have you gotten an answer yet?

PREM THAKKER: I have not gotten an answer. It’s been over 240 days of me and other press colleagues continuing to ask about the killing of Hind Rajab, her family members, the medics sent to save her, as well as several other human rights violations. And we have not yet gotten an answer.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Prem Thakker of Zeteo News and Steve Neavling of the Detroit Metro Times. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.