CNN's Begala Calls Ivanka and Jared 'Cockroaches,' President Trump a 'Criminal'

Tuesday's edition of The Lead ended with a discussion about a new book that alleges that President Trump wanted his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared fired from their positions as senior advisors in his administration. When asked by host Jake Tapper if the book was a sign that “loyalty is preeminent with the Trumps," Democratic Strategist and CNN Political Commentator Paul Begala responded: "I don't think so...I think mediocrity is. And when you're too mediocre even for Donald Trump, you really got a problem. And of course they survived. I mean, cockroaches are going to survive a nuclear war." When pressed by Tapper if he was calling the Kushners cockroaches, he assured Tapper and the audience that he was "talking about a separate class of species." Considering the wide debate about anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party and the nation as a whole, Begala's comments could be interpreted as anti-Semitic since Kushner is Jewish and Ivanka is a convert to Judaism. Begala went even further off the rails when attempting to psychoanalyze the Kushners: "I know they both had difficult fathers, right, that's part of the book...one, a criminal, the other, Charlie Kushner, the New Jersey real estate developer."  A member of the "Facts First" network should know that the word "criminal" applies to Charles Kushner, who served time in prison for tax evasion and witness tampering, not President Trump. Begala did not face any pushback for calling the President of the United States a criminal.