ADL slams Fox News host for using ‘anti-Semitic trope’ to describe Bloomberg

Watchdog criticizes anchor who called former Democratic candidate a ‘puppet master,’ saying it plays into canards about Jewish power and money

JTA — The Anti-Defamation League criticized a Fox News host for calling Michael Bloomberg a “puppet master,” saying the comments play into stereotypes about Jewish power.

In a Thursday night broadcast, Fox News anchor Raymond Arroyo asserted that Bloomberg will be a “Biden puppet master.”

“What that means is that Mike Bloomberg is going to have more power than any ordinary American will in a Biden campaign,” Arroyo said.

In a letter to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO, said the term puppet master echoes longstanding anti-Semitic tropes.

“This charge, and the comments that followed about Bloomberg’s wealth and power, play into deep-seated anti-Semitic canards about Jewish power and money,” Greenblatt wrote. “The use of the term ‘puppet master’ specifically conjures up longstanding anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power and the notion of the Jewish puppeteer has figured in anti-Semitic imagery throughout modern history.”