Fox News host Geraldo Rivera defended comments he made on The O’Reilly Factor Thursday night, accusing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz of anti-semitism.
“I think he’s going to get routed in New York and deservedly so,” Rivera told Bill O’Reilly. “Aside from the stinking anti-semitic implications that I see in that whole ‘New York values’ money and media coded message that he put out there.”
“Look, Rivera,” O’Reilly pushed back, “if he says New York values to a bunch of evangelicals, it’s not anti-semitic. He’s pointing to de Blasio, to Cuomo, to the progressive crew.”
But on Fox & Friends Friday morning, Rivera refused to walk back the anti-semitism charge, insisting Cruz had deliberately sent a “coded message” in Iowa and was now rushing to escape it as he visited a matzoh factory in Brooklyn ahead of the New York primary.
“This was designed to bring to the heartland the negative impression of greedy New Yorkers trying to take money out of people’s pockets, and I think the association is indelible and undeniable…I know a coded message when I see one.”
CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin agreed, telling Wolf Blitzer Thursday that Cruz’s message was clear–and offensive:
“Everyone in New York, everyone in the whole country understands what he was saying. And that’s a big problem once you get to New York, not just among Jewish voters, but among people who don’t appreciate those kinds of stereotypes. Trump is going to hammer away on it. And Cruz can try to explain it away, but you can’t explain what you said when its meaning is obvious.”