PHILADELPHIA — Jenna Ellis, the senior legal adviser to Doug Mastriano’s Republican bid for Pennsylvania, serves in that role primarily to stir his deeply conservative base and to agita…
By Chris Brennan | The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Josh Shapiro is at best a secular Jew in the same way Joe Biden is a secular Catholic,” tweeted Ellis to her 887,000 followers, calling both Democrats “extremists” on abortion and transgender issues.The pushback was swift, driven in part by Mastriano’s previous working relationship with the social media platform Gab, which is rife with antisemitism and other forms of bigotry.
Mastriano, an evangelical Christian, weaves talk of his religion into just about every campaign stop and ends many interviews with right-wing broadcasters by saying “Bless you.” She did not respond to a request for comment but spent the hours after her tweet defending it. She dismissed the controversy she created in one tweet this way: “It’s a clown world attempt to distract from the real issue: Shapiro’s extreme policy positions.”