White House knocks Ron DeSantis over “so-called Islamophobia” remark at GOP debate

Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior politics reporter for NBC News.

As President Joe Biden seeks to reassure Muslim American voters amid the Israel-Hamas war, the White House knocked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for downplaying what he called 'so-called Islamophobia' at the GOP presidential debate Wednesday night. “In what is a heartbreaking crisis, violence and hateful rhetoric against Muslims and Arab Americans and Sikhs is spiking across our country,' White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said Thursday in a statement to NBC News.

'What is Biden doing? Not only is he not helping the Jewish students who are being persecuted, he is launching an initiative to combat so-called Islamophobia. No, it’s the antisemitism that’s spiraling out of control. That is what we have to confront,' DeSantis said. The White House on Thursday noted that Biden in May rolled out what was billed as the first-ever U.S. national strategy to fight antisemitism, months before he launched a similar effort to combat Islamophobia.

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