The NPR Politics Podcast - How Israel's War In Gaza Impacts Congressional Races

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

As Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza enters its sixth month, Democratic members of Congress who are part of "the Squad" and have criticized Israel's actions are facing primary challengers backed by pro-Israel groups. It's a sign of further division in the party over present and future U.S. support of Israel. This podcast: political correspondents Sarah McCammon & Susan Davis, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Sophie in Syracuse, New York, and I'm about to submit and defend my undergraduate thesis on authoritarian regimes and their impact on queer erasure and resistance in Chile, so I can graduate with honors from Syracuse University in May. This podcast was recorded at 1.37 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will hopefully be less stressed and embracing the senioritis.

Okay, here's the show. Oh, built-in jingle there. Well, congratulations. Glad she's able to listen while having to do that. And I hope she passes. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.

I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, how Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza is shaping Democratic congressional primaries. Sue, you were on the road recently to visit a district in Pittsburgh represented by freshman Congresswoman Summer Lee. Now, she's become part of what's known as the squad, that group of more left-leaning

members of Congress. And her position on the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza has been drawing some criticism from some of her fellow Democrats. So who is Summer Lee and what has she been saying about the war? So she was first elected to Congress in 2022. She's a black woman. She's the first black woman to be sent to Congress from the state of Pennsylvania. And she ran and was sort of aligned with the Bernie wing of the party. She supported Bernie Sanders in 2020, obviously ultimately came around for Joe Biden. But when you think of the squad,

you think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. The squad is still pretty small. Depending on how you count them, there's probably only about seven or eight members. But she's a proud member of the squad. She does not shy from this identity. I think she embraces it. She sees it as critical to her victory in this district. taken some votes, largely on symbolic measures, things like a resolution in support of Israel after the October 7th attack that have distanced them from the rest of the Democratic Party. There was only nine Democrats that voted against this resolution. She was one of them that has given an opportunity for critics within the party to challenge her. And she's also made some political mistakes. Back in February, she canceled a scheduled appearance at an event with a Muslim advocacy group after it was revealed that some of the event speakers had made previously

anti-Semitic remarks. And she was criticized by people even like Governor Josh Shapiro, who's the Democratic governor from Pennsylvania, who's Jewish. So there's been a lot of political fodder for people to come at her in the primary. And she has a challenger in the upcoming April 23rd contest. Yeah. And this is 60-40 Biden district. So this is somewhere where what happens between the Democrats in this race is probably going to determine in all likelihood who the member of Congress is. Absolutely. And I want to be clear, she's pretty favored to win this race. She has more money. She has more organization. But it is the start of over the next couple of months of a series of Democratic primaries in which some of these very liberal members who have been critics of Israel are facing challenges from within the party funded by pro-Israel Democrats and in some cases Republican donors who are frankly just trying to force them out of the party. Well, in Lee's district, another factor is that that district has a substantial Jewish population. Sue, you know, you've been reporting on this.

What are you hearing from members of the Jewish community there about Lee's position on Israel? This is really important because her district, it encompasses most of the city of Pittsburgh and surrounding suburbs to the east of the city. But this is a district that includes the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, which is a historically Jewish neighborhood and sadly became the focus of national attention back in 2018 when there was a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue and 11 people were killed. This is symbolically where her primary opponent, Bhavani Patel, chose to headquarter her campaign. And what can you tell us about Patel, who's challenging Lee? You know, like Summer Lee, she's a woman of color.

She's an Indian American. She's young. She holds a local office. She sits on a small city council, borough city council in the district. She's run for office before. She said she was prompted to run in this race because she did not think that Summer Lee was a loyal enough Democrat. Patel supported Joe Biden in the 2020 race.

She thinks that the party needs to be in the state of Pennsylvania, fully unified behind Joe Biden to give him a chance to win in that state. And a lot of her argument just comes down to the fact that is like, I'll be a better Democrat for the party, that the Democratic leaders in Washington can rely on my vote and so can Joe Biden. They can't say the same about Summer Lee. It occurs to me that we're in kind of what, like maybe the third iteration now of the squad, that group that was very high profile when like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected. What does it mean to be a member of the squad now? And I guess maybe this is a silly question, but how does one become one?

There's certainly an element of female and a woman of color identity that goes along with it. All of the members of the squad, except for Jamal Bowman, a black man from New York who is considered a member of the squad. So part of it is they're younger. They tend to be not white. They tend to be most progressive, think things Democratic Party, which are frankly outliers. They don't always tend to be the majoritarian view, but they are what I think they would argue more like the future of the Democratic Party, which is more diverse, less white and more liberal. Yeah, and they really haven't reflected the majority. It's interesting because Republicans try to frame Democrats as being all sort of descendant of the squad, and that all of everything that they believe is sort of these progressive beliefs.

But we've seen repeatedly, the infrastructure bill is one example where you had members of the squad, quote unquote, who were against certain parts of it, but then didn't really carry anybody else to their side. Now, as we've noted, Lee is far from the only member of the Democratic Party who's facing these primary challenges, in part because of their stances on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Who else is at risk? Absolutely. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota. She is facing another primary challenge. The two that a lot of these outside groups seem to be most laser focused on right now are Cori Bush, who is a Democrat from the state of Missouri, and Jamal Bowman, as I mentioned, who's a Democrat from New York.

Already, groups like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, their political arm, and another group called Democratic Majority for Israel have endorsed their primary opponents. This is the first time a group like the Democratic Majority for Israel has ever endorsed against sitting incumbents, which is a sign that escalation of tensions, you might say, within these forces in the party. These two, I think, are partly being targeted because they have other vulnerabilities. Bush is the focus of investigation into campaign spending. And Jamal Bowman is facing a new district, New York redistricted. So he has some parts of his district that are new to him and could provide an opportunity for a primary challenge. But their primary challenges are, yes, the divide over Israel is central to the question in these races. I think it's super interesting because the thing

that we've heard so much about up to this point is progressives pressuring Biden and the White House over his handling of Gaza. So this is a bit of an inversion of that. And, you know, I mean, the fact is, we still have these presidential primaries that are continuing, even though they don't really matter as to who the nominee is going to be at this point. But you're still seeing a degree to which progressives are trying to withhold their votes from Biden and to make a point on how the White House, how the administration is handling Gaza. OK, so you've said that these are, for the most part, pretty safe Democratic seats. So there's not a huge worry about these primary challenges, meaning a loss of seats for

Democrats. But could it weaken the party in other ways come November? I mean, might these challenges weaken some of these candidates in the eyes of some Democratic voters, especially some of the younger voters that Biden has been struggling with? This is Lee's point. And I think that Lee and the squad matters a lot because of where she comes from. Pennsylvania is obviously a swing state and very critical, not only to control of the Senate, but to the outcome of the presidential race. And her pushback argument to her own party on this is like, look, if we're seen as a party that is trying to force out progressives like herself, does it make the people who support her, younger people, Black voters, does it make them less likely to want to show up in November if it looks like the person that most aligns with their values doesn't have

a place in this party? And she talked about this idea of who's allowed inside the Democratic tent. You can't say that the Democratic Party is a big tent. And then in the same breasted that that tent is big enough for Joe Manchin, but that tent is not big enough for a Black progressive woman. And look, like progressives, they're not quiet. You have to you have to sort of give them credit for that. Like they are very willing to criticize their own party. Criticizing the state of Israel in the way they have is a very politically risky position to take sometimes in politics. And they've been willing to do that over and over and over again.

So it's not like they're going to go quietly in this fight. OK, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll have more on the groups who are backing these primary challengers. And we're back. Sue, as you mentioned, there's a familiar group backing several of these Democratic primary challengers. That group is AIPAC. What is AIPAC? And how is it involved in these races? Yeah, I mean, AIPAC is one of the longest and most established lobbying groups in Washington. It's essentially the pro-Israel lobby. And part of why I think this story has been so fascinating to me is, look, I've covered politics for a long time.

And for the duration of the time that I've covered politics, AIPAC had a much more benign and sort of innocuous reputation in Washington. One of the things they're best known for is sponsoring an annual trip for lawmakers to take to Israel every year to understand the politics of the region. And it's been hugely popular over the years, and both Republicans and Democrats have taken part. They have given tremendous amounts of money to both Republicans and Democrats, historically most often Democrats. One of the politicians that has received the most money from AIPAC is President Joe Biden. One of the existing highest recipients of money is the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries. So to suggest that this is sort of a Republican organization might not pass the smell test. But because they have become more engaged in this level of politics,

in this level of primary election, frankly, it has created a new enemy within the Democratic Party, and that would be the progressive left. And just last month, a coalition of progressive groups joined together to launch a new organization called Reject AIPAC. And the coalition is some of the most far left groups, people like the Democratic Socialists of America is one example. And I spoke to one of the member groups, Justice Democrats, and their spokesman, Usama Andrabi, had this really stark framing of how the next generation of progressives look at AIPAC as sort of the next NRA. As they became a right-wing Republican-aligned lobby against all gun safety legislation, no matter what sort of gun violence was the product.

We have seen the exact same thing happen with AIPAC, who has moved farther and further right with the extremism of the Israeli government that it demands its endorsers unconditionally support and further and further right as its donor base has gotten larger and larger shares of Republican mega donors. Them's are fighting words in politics. That's a really provocative idea. And I think that tells you that like, this is a fissure that is going to widen and not come back together. I don't think that this is a disagreement among friends in this election. It feels like this is a new chapter in which the progressive left and the pro-Israel lobby are seen as political enemies, frankly. And there isn't a lot of compromise in that.

Exactly. This is a very strongly coalesced group that is not what you've traditionally seen from the Democratic Party, especially in Pennsylvania, honestly, where it's a state that is a bit more purple. But even there, a lot of the districts have become a lot more red or blue. And, you know, it's not just you said AIPAC has traditionally given more to Democratic candidates, but Sue, from your reporting, there are also some Republican donors getting involved in these Democratic primaries. Tell me more about that. Sure. And this is part of what progressive activists will point to as part of their opposition to AIPAC. Look, AIPAC takes money from big donors, and there are big

Democratic Jewish donors, and there are big Republican Jewish donors, and they take all of their money. And AIPAC has started a super PAC, which can spend much bigger sums in elections. And some of the people that have given money to their political forces are people like Paul Singer or Bernie Marcus. These are two Republican billionaires who have given a ton of money to both Republican causes, but also have a long history of supporting pro-Israel causes. But progressives and Democrats will look at that and say, look, this organization is using Republican billionaires to divide Democrats in Democratic primaries. If you flip it on its head, think about if big Democratic donors, someone like a Michael Bloomberg or a

Tom Steyer, was funding money to a super PAC that was then investing in Republican House Freedom Caucus primaries, that would raise some opposition and some concern among conservatives. So it has just given fodder for the progressive left to say, look, this is an organization that we can't trust and that we should never align with. The other point that they would make, and I say this only to underscore how much I think that this is a divide that it will be very hard to heal within the party, is they are also framing AIPAC as an anti-democratic, small d, organization because they have also endorsed Republicans who voted for things like to not certify the 2020 presidential election or for Republicans who oppose abortion rights, which progressives would say are central to their democratic ideals. What AIPAC will tell you, and I talked to AIPAC for the story, is they say the sole criteria they use in their endorsements is how strongly a member supports the U.S.-Israel relationship. Period. End of list. There is no other issues or litmus test for them.

But obviously the progressives on the left in this reject AIPAC movement is trying to redefine who this group is and what they stand for. That's literally what an interest group does, right? I mean, they push for the thing, the one thing in a lot of cases that they are very interested in. Yeah, this is good old-fashioned politics. There's nothing illegal happening here. There's nothing unusual happening here. But it is a it's a new turn in democratic politics. And the sort of idea of how much tolerance is there going to be in the party for people who are willing to question the US relationship with Israel in any capacity? I mean, we keep talking about this fissure in the Democratic Party. I mean, big picture. What can we say at this point about what this means for the party,

especially in an election year? I mean, I think Sue is right that it definitely points to the future. It might not be this presidential election cycle, or this house cycle, but it definitely points to the future. And, you know, the White House and Biden, the Biden re-election team have to be careful that they don't alienate progressives, which make up, you know, a lot of the ideology of younger voters, especially ones who are currently not really that thrilled with Biden in the first place. I mean, in our latest NPR, PBS NewsHour, Marist poll, for example, you have 61% of voters 18 to 29 disapproving of the job that Biden is doing. So it's a huge flashing warning sign for the White House. One little political grain of grain of sand I'll leave on this is that I have talked to Democratic strategists who say there is a component here to think about in November that

progressives might not like to hear is that having Democratic candidates like Joe Biden or like Bob Casey, who's the senator running for reelection in Pennsylvania, being seen as strong supporters of Israel, get more swing voters. So like, yes, maybe some progressives on the left are disappointed in you, but a strong backing of Israel, the swing independent voter likes that position more. So for maybe one progressive vote you lose, you gain a swing vote. And that's sort of the alchemy that we're going to see play out in November. And we just frankly don't know which way it swings just yet. That's a tough balance. We're going to leave it there for today,

but we will be back in your feeds tomorrow. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.