Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal used a racial slur to describe House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on a left-wing podcast, and Black lawmakers rejected her claim that she didn't mean it "in a racist way."
Jebreal appeared on Wajahat Ali's "The Left Hook" podcast on Friday and tore into Jeffries, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, over his support for Israel and his relationship with the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. She called the New York Democrat "a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey" and added, "With all due respect, and I don't mean it in a racist way." She also labeled him "just basically an errand boy" and declared, "we're done and tired."
The Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Ritchie Torres, a fellow Black Democrat from New York, condemned the remarks within hours. Jebreal later posted what she called an unconditional apology on X, but opened it by accusing Jeffries of complicity in what she termed genocide. Jeffries' office did not respond to the New York Post's request for comment.
Before the backlash forced her to apologize, Jebreal attempted a mid-podcast cleanup. She invoked the old "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" figurines, saying, "There are these three monkeys, one, I cannot hear, I cannot see, I cannot speak, it reminds me of these three monkeys." The pivot did not land. Calling a Black man a "monkey" in any context carries an unmistakable history, and her attempt to reframe the slur as a metaphor about willful ignorance only underscored how casually she had deployed it.
Ali, the podcast host and a self-described critic of Israel, offered Jebreal a partial life raft. He acknowledged on air that the word carries "terrible racial connotations" but suggested she had "caught yourself and said you didn't mean it with any racial animosity." He did not challenge her further or ask her to retract the remark during the episode.
That soft treatment from Ali drew its own share of criticism. Jeffries has faced no shortage of attacks from inside his own party lately, some Democrats have even called on him to step aside, but the willingness of a left-wing media figure to let a racial slur slide on air added a new dimension to the pile-on.
The CBC posted a pointed response on X that left no room for Jebreal's reinterpretation. The caucus wrote:
"To be clear, there isn't a non-racist way to call Leader Jeffries, a Black man, a 'monkey' or 'errand boy.'"
The caucus went further, connecting the episode to a broader erosion of standards in political speech. In the same post, the CBC stated that "this is what happens when we hold ourselves to such low standards for what's allowable in our discourse, people get comfortable being openly bigoted." The caucus called on the public to "stop platforming and trafficking in anti-Black racism, whether it's on the political right or the left."
That last line is worth reading twice. The CBC was not accusing a right-wing provocateur or a MAGA rally speaker. It was pointing the finger at two figures firmly planted on the progressive left, a Palestinian journalist and a commentator who has built a career criticizing Israel and conservative politics. The caucus felt compelled to remind its own ideological allies that anti-Black racism does not get a pass just because it comes wrapped in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Jeffries, for his part, has been navigating a turbulent stretch as minority leader. More than 100 House Democrats recently voted to strip billions in Israel aid in defiance of his position, a sign of how deep the rift over Middle East policy runs within the party he is supposed to lead.
Rep. Ritchie Torres did not mince words. The Bronx Democrat posted on X that "calling a Black man a 'monkey' is racist. Full stop." Then he aimed directly at the political convenience that let the slur linger without a broader outcry from progressives:
"If Wajahat Ali and Rula Jebreal were on the far right, no one on the far left would have any trouble condemning them for dehumanizing a Black man in racist terms. The silence is deafening."
Torres identified something that conservatives have observed for years: the left's anti-racism apparatus operates selectively. When a right-of-center figure uses language that can be construed as racially charged, even ambiguously, the condemnation is immediate, wall-to-wall, and career-ending. When the offender shares the left's foreign-policy commitments, the machinery grinds to a halt. Torres, a Democrat, said so himself.
The minority leader's troubles extend well beyond this episode. Democratic defectors have rescued the GOP agenda on procedural votes, leaving Jeffries scrambling to hold his caucus together on basic party-line matters. And veteran Democratic strategists have publicly unloaded on him for a secret meeting with Jared Kushner, a move that infuriated the party's progressive wing. Jebreal's slur landed on a leader already absorbing blows from every direction inside his own coalition.
Jebreal's apology, posted on X later Friday, read in full: "I am disgusted and horrified that Hakeem Jeffries is taking money from AIPAC amidst Israel's genocide in Palestine. That said, a term that I used to describe him was inappropriate and offensive and should never have been used. I apologize unconditionally."
Start with the word "unconditionally" and work backward. Before she reached the apology, Jebreal restated the very accusation that prompted the slur in the first place, that Jeffries is financially beholden to AIPAC. She embedded an allegation of genocide, a characterization she offered without evidence in the post. The apology amounted to: "I still believe everything I said about him, but I regret the specific word I chose to say it." That is not contrition. It is reputation management dressed up in the language of remorse.
No dollar figures, no documentation, and no specifics accompanied Jebreal's claim that Jeffries is "taking money from AIPAC." She offered a serious financial allegation against a sitting congressional leader and left it entirely unsupported.
Jebreal also tried to soften the blow during the podcast itself by noting that Jeffries' first name, Hakeem, is Arabic for "healer." She said, "He's not a healer, he's a divider." The etymological aside did not change what followed it, a racial slur directed at a Black man by a public figure who, by her own telling, knew exactly what she was doing and chose to do it anyway, adding the disclaimer in real time.
Jeffries has threatened "serious" consequences for members of his own caucus who break ranks on votes. Whether he or his allies will demand any accountability from a media figure who used a racial slur against him on a national podcast remains an open question.
If the roles were reversed, if a conservative commentator had called any Black Democratic leader a "monkey" on a podcast and then claimed it was really about a set of figurines, every major newsroom in the country would treat it as a five-alarm story. The fact that this episode will likely fade without lasting consequence tells you everything about which side of the aisle gets held to the standard and which side gets to set it.
