Race-Obsessed Wajahat Ali Waffles After His Guest Makes a Vile Hakeem Jeffries ‘Monkey’ Reference

Wajahat Ali with Rula Jebreal

For Wajahat Ali, it was a rough holiday weekend, as he labored to extricate himself from a controversy that erupted on his lightly viewed vidcast. (His words: I was not being dismissive.) He hosted Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian journalist who is also a visiting professor at the University of Miami, and she delivered some intolerant language.

In the course of their discussion, Democratic Party leader Hakeem Jeffries came up, and Jebreal delivered what we have been told over the years is entirely disqualifying language.

“He is…a bought-and-paid-for AIPAC monkey. With all due respect, and I don’t mean this in a racist way. He is basically an errand-boy.”

RACISM ALERT: @WajahatAli sits and nods along as Rula Jebreal calls Hakeem Jeffries a “monkey” and an “errand boy.” This type of racism and bigotry has NO place in our Party. Retweet if you agree. pic.twitter.com/D3lvrWG4R7

— Democrats For Mike Rogers (@DemsForMike) September 4, 2026

Just…damn! There is no way that anyone – ANY one – on the right could deliver that assessment and not be facing a swarm of shrieking outrage from the press. Apparently, as long as you say you do not intend any racial connotations, you are then exempted and can say deeply racist things, like “monkey”, and “errand boy” when referring to POC politicians.

Moments later, Wajahat, a former New York Times op-ed contributor, addressed her comments and swept them away because, as he explains, she caught herself and did not intend it in the way that could be interpreted as racist. Uh huh.

The man who accuses racism with aplomb towards anyone he disagrees with, regardless of whether they even said anything intolerant, was perfectly fine granting a get-out-of-bigotry-jail card to a Palestinian woman. It is a prime example of how Wajahat Ali uses the “racism” cudgel out of convenience, not genuine outrage.

If they were on the right, Jebreal would be hectored out of jobs, and Ali would be forced to deliver multiple episodes of condemnation and supplicant narratives to clear his name. Instead, they are mostly overlooked or ignored, due to their position on the political spectrum. Jebreal offered up a boilerplate apology, but only after first delivering more contempt towards Jefferies, to excuse her behavior.

That is not to say there has not been some backlash. Many on the right have scorched Ali, as he sat there and simply nodded at Jebreal’s words. He is one of the few who may challenge Joy Reid in being the most reflexively race-obsessed figure in the media, and yet he placidly absorbed this rant as normal discourse.

Oh, did I mention Joy there? Hang onto that; we’ll be circling back to her shortly.

Wajahat was not only receiving barbs from the right side of the property line. He was also taking in scorn from those on his side of the fence, as some Democrats also rightly called out this intolerance.

As a result, Mr. Ali felt the need to finally come forward and address the controversy, as it was coming from those he needed to appease. But he responded to those critics for whom he has disdain and attempted some very lame acrobatics to excuse this episode. He declared himself to be an insignificant source, not worthy of attention. Then, after that curious dodge, he resorted to the tired and desperate act of deflecting towards others.

Many of the folks who have smoke for me today, a small time podcast host who drives a minivan, somehow barely muster a few or zero words of condemnation against Laura Loomer, Randy Fine, Bill Maher, Fetterman and other racists and apologists for Israel’s genocide.

Interesting.…

— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) September 5, 2026

First, his shrug at the anger by positioning himself as a meager voice in the wilderness is something he will possibly regret. Going forward, that self-deprecation needs to be held onto for all future moments when he puffs out his chest and declares himself a person of import. “Oh, pipe down, Wajahat, and go sit in your Chrysler Pacifica and crank up Billie Eilish – the adults are speaking now.”

But you grasp how bad this was turning for him and Jula as they both needed to race over to, of all people, Joy Reid for some rehabilitation work. Just amazing. Two of the most reactionary voices, who spew “that’s racist” with absolute ease, get together to explain to the digital rabble how calling a black man a “monkey” is NOT racist. If ever there was a video channel in need of a laugh track, that would be Joy’s.

These are the pastures the desperate souls wander into when they are caught revealing their true sides, albeit in an unintentional fashion. You know you have screwed up royally when you need Joy Reid of all people to serve as your cleanup crew. It is like hiring guys from the last house on Frat Row to come and clean your domicile; at that stage you are best to just condemn the place.

But we should thank Wajahat Ali for delivering to us the very item needed to disqualify him from all discourse in the future. Any time he pipes up and tries to deliver condemnation of any sort, we simply need to point out that he is nothing more than a small-time host and drives a minivan. He is therefore muted with ease.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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