Donald Trump’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission — a panel that includes right-wing zealots seeking to blur constitutional separations between church and state — broke out into a fit of infighting on Monday during a hearing on antisemitism.
The past several months have exposed growing divisions among conservatives over the issue of antisemitism, in particular. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts sent tremors throughout the MAGA movement late last year when he initially refused to rebuke a chummy conversation between former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. And those tremors appeared to have roiled Monday’s meeting as panelists on the commission took turns sniping at one another over accusations of antisemitism within the MAGA ranks.
A clip from the hearing shows commission member Carrie Prejean Boller and Seth Dillon, the CEO of the conservative Christian satire site Babylon Bee, descend into an argument over Carlson, whether conservative influencer Candace Owens is antisemitic (as evidence overwhelmingly suggests) and whether the phrase “Christ is King” has been weaponized to attack Jewish people (which it has).
“I have not heard one thing out of her mouth that I would say is antisemitic,” Boller said of Owens during the spat. She evidently didn’t hear Owens’ diatribe about a Jewish “gang” in Hollywood committing “horrific” acts on people.
Another clip shows Boller getting into it with some Jewish people at the commission meeting over the definition of antisemitism, with Boller garnering boos at one point for condemning Islamophobic rhetoric and going on to say she’s Catholic and “Catholics do not embrace Zionism.”
In the time since Monday’s hearing, some right-wingers — such as Trump ally Laura Loomer — have called for Boller to be removed from the commission for her comments if she won’t step down willfully. Boller said Tuesday that she would not resign. This level of animus within the GOP was totally predictable following the Carlson-Fuentes interview, particularly to anyone who watched footage of the Heritage Foundation’s internal meeting amid the fallout and noted simmering tensions in some Christian speakers’ comments about Judaism, or their discomfort with abiding by its traditions. That MAGA world is engaged in this kind of circular firing squad over antisemitism is no surprise and, one might argue, the natural outcome for a political movement fueled by bigotry of varying sorts.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. 
