ADL criticizes Fox News for using antisemitic trope to describe Bloomberg

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.

Raymond Arroyo speaking at Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in 2018. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Raymond Arroyo speaking at Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in 2018.
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
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 antisemitic 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.”