Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) made a hard-to-follow segue during an interview on Fox Business Network Thursday in order to criticize billionaire George Soros, calling him a traitor to his fellow Jews due to his stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a false right-wing smear.
Gohmert pivoted from talking about censorship with the awkwardly forced transition: “it reminds me of another George,” pirouetting off of author George Orwell. His following statements on Soros were completely divorced from the conversation he was previously having with Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney.
“George Soros is supposed to be Jewish, but you wouldn’t know it from the damage he inflicted on Israel and the fact that he turned on fellow Jews helped take the property that they owned,” Gohmert said.
Varney disavowed the statement later in the show. “In the last hour one of our guests, Congressman Louie Gohmert, for some reason went out of his way to bring up George Soros and made unsubstantiated and false allegations against him,” he said. “I want to make clear those views are not shared by me, this program or anyone at Fox Business.”
The right-wing talking point that Soros took property from Jews during the Nazi occupation is a false conspiracy theory that has spread to larger platforms during the Trump administration. Read a thorough debunking here.
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) December 6, 2018
