--- title: White House Scrambles to Clarify Comments on Paris Deli Attack description: Officials rushed to clarify Obama's recent remarks that many felt implied that anti-semitic attacks in Paris last month were "random." canonical: https://time.com/3703947/obama-paris-attack-anti-semitic/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-02-10T22:09:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:57.087Z article:section: Politics og:title: White House Scrambles to Clarify Comments on Paris Deli Attack og:description: It wasn't "random," as Obama said in an interview. og:url: https://time.com/3703947/obama-paris-attack-anti-semitic/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1ff1a80afe13351/698699fa1eebf767c9371ac4/josh-earnest.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4418 og:image:height: 2485 og:image:alt: Josh Earnest og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: White House Scrambles to Clarify Comments on Paris Deli Attack twitter:description: It wasn't "random," as Obama said in an interview. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1ff1a80afe13351/698699fa1eebf767c9371ac4/josh-earnest.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # White House Scrambles to Clarify Obama's Comments on Paris Attack > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Know Right Now: Paris Gunmen Killed, Hostages Freed [Watch (HLS stream): Know Right Now: Paris Gunmen Killed, Hostages Freed](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WZdnXsGV.m3u8) (1:03)  _Published 2015-01-07. Watch #knowrightnow to catch up on today's top story._  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 10, 2015 10:09 PM UTC  White House press secretary Josh Earnest speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House White House press secretary Josh Earnest speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House Pablo Martinez Monsivais—AP  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Feb 10, 2015 10:09 PM UTC Obama Administration officials rushed Tuesday to clarify President Obama’s recent remarks that many felt implied that anti-Semitic attacks in Paris last month were “random.” In an [interview with Vox](http://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-foreign-policy-transcript) posted Monday, Obama said, “It’s entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you’ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris,” referring to an attack on a Kosher deli on Jan. 9 that left four dead. At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, members of the media pushed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on the president’s use of the word “randomly” given the apparent anti-Semitic motivation for the killings. “I believe the point that the president was trying to make is that these individuals were not specifically targeted,” Earnest replied. “These were individuals who happened to randomly be in this deli and were shot while they were there.” Jen Psaki, spokesperson for the State Department, also took to Twitter to clarify: > [](https://twitter.com/statedeptspox/status/565251225508401154) In the briefing, Earnest said the controversy merely came down to sentence structure. “If you want to question the president’s placement of the adverb in the sentence, the adverb in this case being ‘randomly,’ you can,” he said. “But that’s the point the president was trying to make.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] France is shocked today. A shock of an attack. A terrorist attack, there's no doubt about that. [ MUSIC ] We're gonna use our resources to work with the French. To investigate exactly what happened. 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