Jennings: ‘Free Palestine’ Is a Domestic Terror Org. Axelrod: What About Gun Control?

Perhaps we should start a recurring feature here called Non-Sequitur of the Week. The problem with that idea is that it will be tough to top the first winner, already destined for the Topic Change Hall of Fame.

Yesterday evening, Jake Tapper hosted both Scott Jennings and David Axelrod to discuss the terror attack in Boulder on peaceful elderly Jews silently demonstrating on behalf of hostages held by Hamas. A “Free Palestine” agitator attacked the demonstrators with Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower, seriously injuring a dozen Jewish participants, at least one of whom were in critical condition. Jennings made the same point I made yesterday about the nature of the “Free Palestine” and “Globalize the Intifada” movement, and warned that a failure to address these as domestic-terror groups would result in even more casualties:

What more do we need to see before we acknowledge this “free Palestine” movement is nothing more than a domestic terror organization?

We are in a FIGHT for the future of Western civilization and we need to come to grips with it — and fast. pic.twitter.com/cHgHTL2lM4

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) June 2, 2025

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, this is horrific. And what more do we need to see, Jake, before we realize this Free Palestine movement is nothing more than a domestic terror organization right now. I mean, we had the killings in Washington a couple of weeks ago. We had this issue in Colorado. We’ve seen, you know, the activities on college campuses now for months and months and months and months.

The rise of anti-Semitism in America, the rise in the number of people who have come to America who hold anti-American views, anti-Western views and anti-Semitic views and are now willing to act on it. It is absolutely outrageous. And I think as a society, we need to understand we are dealing with domestic terrorism. It’s growing more violent by the day.

And if we don’t deal with it, these kinds of things are going to keep happening in cities all over the place. It’s awful. And we need to come to grips with the fight that we’re in right now in America, a fight for the future of our country and the future of Western civilization, in my opinion.

Agree or not — and I obviously agree — Jennings left a lot to unpack for the discussion. We have seen more than a year of escalations, first on campuses, then in the surrounding communities, with violence increasing at each step. Thanks to a lack of serious consequences for the perpetrators in those cases, the Free Palestine/Globalize the Intifada pro-terrorist campaign has escalated into several murders, and likely more will come soon unless we put a sharp end to the entire enterprise. 

Did David Axelrod address any of that? In the very next breath, Tapper hands it off to the Democrat strategist, who immediately wins his award for Non Sequitur of the Week … the Month … the Year … and maybe a Lifetime Achievement Award In The Field Of Non Sequituring. This is not in the clip, but it comes immediately after Jennings’ observation:

TAPPER: David Axelrod?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. No, listen, Jake, I’m the son of a Jewish refugee who escaped, his home was blown up and he escaped from actually Ukraine back in the day and came here to seek refuge. And so, you know, I — I feel very, very deep. I’m not — I haven’t come to this lately. I feel very deeply about this issue. And I think questions will be asked about how this guy tried to get a gun.

Ahem. What in the world does gun control have to do with the attack in Boulder? Mohamed Soliman didn’t use a gun to attack Jews peacefully demonstrating in Boulder — he used gasoline and arson. Axelrod even admits that Soliman failed to get the gun, but refuses to address the issue of terrorism:

He was refused the gun because he was — he was not supposed to be in the country and nothing was done about that. I think that is a fair — a fair question to ask. But we also, you know, when we — when I was in the White House, it was the FBI who kept close tabs on all of this stuff. I don’t know why they failed there.

And I think — and I’m worried a little bit about what’s going on now because there’s a shift away from that work to other kinds of work. And I think it makes us more vulnerable. So there are serious — there are serious questions to be asked about this.

Double ahem. The Biden administration actually did keep track of Soliman to some degree; they allowed him to stay and work in the US even after his visa expired. They refused to deport him, because the Biden administration wanted to pander to the open-borders idiots who made it impossible to keep close tabs on practically any threat, having flooded the zone with thousands of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua organized-crime members and leaders. At the same time, the Biden administration refused to deal with the foreign “students” organizing the intimidation campaigns against Jews on college campuses and the expanding terrorist violence of the Free Palestine/Globalize the Intifada movement.

You know … the topic that Axelrod supposedly “care[s] very deeply about,” while refusing to acknowledge it at all. In that avoidance, Axelrod basically mirrors the Democrats’ own denial and topic-shifting when it comes to their responsibility for pandering to and enabling the Free Palestine/Globalize the Intifada domestic-terror operation.

Addendum: Be sure to read the transcript for yourself, especially for what follows Axelrod’s answer. Did Tapper follow up to pin Axelrod down on the real topic or point out that guns had nothing to do with the Boulder attack? No, Tapper instead sequed to the topic of his own book … Joe Biden. Journalism!