Jewish Group

Minnesota GOP chair Hann apologizes for antisemitic image, MPR News Staff May 19, 2022

... The chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota apologized Thursday for an image that was projected at the party's state convention of George Soros manipulating the strings of puppets with the faces of two prominent Jewish Democrats. The image was contained in a video shown by secretary of state candidate Kim Crockett. The faces on the puppets were DFL elections attorney Marc Elias and Secretary of State Steve Simon. Soros is also Jewish.

... Crockett, who won the party endorsement at the convention, has not spoken publicly about the video, but [Minnesota GOP chair] Hann said he talked to her.

... “I have concluded after talking with Ms. Crockett that the depiction of Mr. Soros was not intended as antisemitic, and that neither Ms. Crockett nor her creative team were aware that the depiction of a puppet-master invokes an old but persistent antisemitic trope,” Hann said.

... [DFL Party Chair Ken] Martin also pointed to an earlier incident when Crockett was suspended from the think tank the Center of the American Experiment for making a racist remark about Somalis in Minnesota.

Crockett apologized for that remark at the time, but was captured on video during this year's campaign saying that she would say the same thing today.