Consider This from NPR - Biden's Support of Israel Could Cost Him Votes in 2024

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

There's a very real possibility that the 2024 presidential election could come down to a few thousand votes in a few pivotal states.One of those states is Michigan, which is home to a large Arab American community — with some two hundred thousand registered voters. Many of those voters say that the White House has disproportionately supported Israel, while doing little to protect the lives of Palestinians. And that position could cost President Biden their votes.Meanwhile, the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll shows how the Israel-Hamas War has divided Americans along racial and generational lines.NPR National Political Correspondent Don Gonyea reports from Detroit on the concerns of Arab American voters. And Host Scott Detrow speaks with NPR Senior Political Editor and Correspondent Domenico Montanaro about what the latest polling tells us about Americans' changing views on Biden's support of Israel. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Politicians disagree, obviously, even with members of their own party. It's not that unusual. But the words that Democrats are throwing back and forth at each other right now are striking. What is wrong with you? How is this possible? That's Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's message to President Biden at a press conference last month calling for a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza. Where is your humanity? Where is your outrage? Where is your care?

And listen to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at a presser a few days after the October 7th Hamas attacks that killed some 1,200 Israelis. She'd been asked about Democrats who had condemned Israel's treatment of Palestinians and had called for the U.S. to cut funding to the country. What is the president's message to members of Congress who seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel? Look, here's the thing.

And which congressional members? Well, there have been some members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire and they have not gone as far as backing the administration's call for support for Israel. So look, I've seen some of those statements this weekend, and we're going to continue to be very clear. We believe they're wrong. We believe they're repugnant and we believe they're disgraceful. So far, President Biden has remained steadfast in his support for Israel and its campaign against Hamas, despite the civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian health officials have said more than 11,000 people have now been killed in Gaza. Biden maintains Israel has a right to defend itself and an obligation to protect its citizens from terrorism. And he has pointedly not called for a ceasefire. There are no signs of the gulf between Biden and progressive Democrats getting any smaller. Both frame the conflict in Israel and Gaza as a moral issue without a middle ground. And that could be a problem for Biden in next year's presidential election. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who's Palestinian-American, posted a video to X recently accusing Biden of supporting genocide.

It includes a warning to the president. We will remember in 2024. Consider this. President Biden's policy toward Israel is costing him support from the same voters who helped him win in 2020. Ahead, we'll look at how Arab Americans are working to make their voices heard. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Wednesday, November 15th. Hey, it's Scott. Before we get back to the episode, I want to tell you about another podcast that I also host.

It's brand new. It's called Trump's Trials. It's a weekly show, and the goal is to tell you everything you need to know about what happened that week and all of the sprawling civil and criminal cases that Donald Trump is facing as he runs for president again. The plea deals, the testimony, the gag orders. What you need to know about all of it in about 15 minutes. Trump's trials. Find it and follow the show for new episodes each Saturday.

All right, thanks. Now back to today's episode of Consider This. It's Consider This from NPR. There is a very real possibility that the 2024 presidential election could come down to a few thousand votes in a few pivotal states. One of those states is Michigan. It's home to a large Arab American community with 200,000 registered voters. And many of those voters say the White House has disproportionately supported Israel while doing little to protect the lives of Palestinians. And that position could cost President Biden their votes.

NPR's Don Gagne has more from Detroit. In 2020, Arab Americans turned out big for the Democratic nominee Joe Biden. That's one of the reasons he carried Michigan on his way to winning the presidency. Now, three years later, it's a very different world for Biden and for those voters. This was at a recent rally downtown on Detroit's riverfront. That chant and loud calls for an immediate ceasefire were common, but so was this. Biden, Biden, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide. Thousands attended the rally. Speaker after speaker decried American military support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. There's anger over a U.S. veto of a United Nations resolution calling for a ceasefire, which the U.S. and Israel say will give Hamas time to regroup. Democratic State Representative

Abraham Ayyash, who is the majority floor leader in the Michigan House, spoke and cited the Declaration of Independence. America, you promised the world that all men and women are created equal. Yet somehow we find billions of dollars to dehumanize Palestinians. Watching nearby was longtime Arab-American business owner and civil rights activist Nasser Beydoun. He used even stronger language in describing President Biden. Where's his humanity? You know, is he that much of a Zionist that Palestinian lives don't matter to him? Beydoun says he's a former Republicanocrat who supported Biden in 2020 and who's currently running for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat. He supported Biden in 2020 but says Democrats are failing Arab Americans.

He lost a constituent that voted overwhelmingly for him in Michigan. And if he wants to see re-election, he needs Michigan. And right now, he doesn't have it, and I don't think he'll ever come back from it. Michigan State University political scientist Najita Lajavarde, whose research includes Muslim American public opinion, sees skyrocketing disapproval of Biden since the start of the war. And Lajevardi hears how that and increased anxiety over treatment of the community affects people's political choices. Muslims in the U.S., they are very much aware of how Democrats are not to be leaned on, and I think they know what it's like to be ostracized and have no allies on either side

of the aisle. Also at Michigan State, student Yusuf Abbas, whose family is Palestinian, says he's never been quick to talk politics. He always let others start those conversations. But he says the ongoing tragedy has prompted him to be more public. If someone is open-minded, we can sit down and discuss what's going on, because if you're Jewish or you're Israeli or if you're Palestinian or Muslim or Arab, it hurts both of us. But Abbas, a Democratic voter, says he doesn't hold out any real hope that Biden will bring meaningful change in the Middle East. Saba Saad is also a student at Michigan State. She was born in the West Bank and spent the first half of her life there. I've never really trusted the American government system, especially when it comes to Palestine, because they failed us so many times. But I never thought in my life that it would be

this bad, this awful, this, the, the, like. That sense of hopelessness is pervasive in the arab american community so michigan house majority leader abraham ayash says he's using the skills he learned working on barack obama's 2008 presidential campaign to organize to force biden to act we do have political power we do have the ability to influence an election. And if you are not going to take that into consideration, simply using platitudes while your policies perpetuate violence and harm, we will not stand by it. And Michigan, with some 200,000 Arab American voters, will be a high-stakes test of that power a year from now. That's NPR's Don Gagne in Detroit. The stakes are particularly high in Michigan, but the war between Israel and Hamas isn't only dividing voters in that swing state. The latest NPR-PBS NewsHour Marist poll shows the war is

dividing Americans all over. NPR's senior editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro knows all about the details of this poll. Hey, Domenico. Hey, Scott. So I guess it's not too surprising, but Democrats are the most likely to think that Israel has gone too far. How has this opinion shifted? Yeah, I mean, now a majority of Democrats, 56% think that Israel has gone too far in its response. And that's a change from a month ago when we polled just after the war began. We're seeing Democrats here have jumped 21 points in feeling this way. Wow. I mean, so much of the conversation about how this is viewed in America has to do with age, right? How do opinions break down across not just age, but also race and gender. Well, we've seen huge age and racial divides in these polls since this war began. And, you know, almost half of non-whites and people under 45 think Israel's response has been too much. In fact, whites are 16 points more likely to side with Israel than non-whites. And it's a

similar split with those who are younger than 45. The movement isn't entirely Democrats, though, I have to say. You know, independents also jumped 14 points in saying Israel is going too far. They're now evenly split 42-42 on whether Israel's response has been too much or if it's been about right. A slim majority of Republicans here say the response has been about right. But we've also seen a shift among them from saying Israel was doing too little a month ago to now being about right. There's certainly a bigger trend among Democrats that's largely because, again, of younger voters and non-whites. They were far more likely in this survey to say that their sympathies lie with Palestinians in this conflict than with Israel. And that presents a challenge to President Biden, who's seen a 17

point drop over the last month among Democrats on how he's handling the war. Younger voters, voters of color, a Democrat is not going to be elected to the White House if he or she is having huge problems with these two key demographics. I mean, you can see the serious political risk for Biden here. Have you seen him change his stance at all? I mean, he came into this as such a steadfast supporter of Israel here, even flying to Israel for that dramatic wants to maintain a degree of influence with Israel, and he feels like he can't do that if he's going to come out and criticize someone like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Just behind the scenes, I mean, if you think about some of the tactics Israel has taken, it's not exactly how the U.S. military would do it. So in order to maintain some of this influence, Biden really feels like he needs to be able

to publicly support Israel. Nevertheless, Israel is the U.S.'s biggest ally in the Middle East, and support for them is fundamental to Biden's worldview. He's really tried to remind people of the atrocities of the Holocaust, for example. He doesn't want people to forget how Jewish people have been targeted for centuries. And politically, there are lots of Jewish Democrats who expect that strong support for Israel. Remember, about two-thirds of Jewish voters in this country have traditionally cast their ballots for the Democratic presidential candidate. On one hand, the general election is about a year away, a little less than

that. On the other hand, the people who feel strongly about this issue really feel strongly about this issue. This is not something that they're going to forget about in several months. How serious of a political challenge is this for President Biden right now? Yeah, I think you're right. This is a very sensitive issue. And it's really tough to say how it's going to play politically in a year. You know, right now, Biden certainly has to work to reassemble this, what was really an anti-Trump coalition. You heard from Don, you know, the disappointment with Biden in a state like Michigan that he only won by about two and a half points, just over 150,000 votes. But remember, in 2016, Trump won it by just over 10,000 votes. Young voters are everywhere. Right now, they're not thrilled with Biden. And in our poll,

just 39% of those under 45 approved of the job that Biden was doing. That's not great news for him. But there is a big difference between registering frustrations with a president who's in office currently a year before an election and deciding not to vote for him. But there is a big difference between registering frustrations with a president who's in office currently a year before an election and deciding not to vote for him, especially if the choice is between Biden and former President Trump. That is NPR political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Thanks, Domenico. Happy to do it. And a reminder that you can hear Domenico and me every week in another new podcast called Trump's Trials. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.