Amid the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed on his first day of office, one New York University parent saw an opportunity. 

Citing an anti-immigration order that included language targeting those who “provide aid, advocacy, or support for foreign terrorists,” Elizabeth Rand posted a call to action on January 21.

“We now have a signed executive order authorizing the deportation of foreign students who support Hamas,” Rand wrote in a post to a Facebook group called Mothers Against College Antisemitism, which she founded soon after the October 7 attacks. She shared a link to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and urged members to use it to file complaints against university students and faculty. “Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty who support Hamas.” 

It’s the latest effort by Rand and the group to push for crackdowns against college students — a campaign that, by her account, has been hugely influential, especially at NYU.

Rand launched the Facebook group, also known as MACA, after coming across news of campus protests at the colleges where her son was applying, she told the Times of Israel. Originally intended to be a place where college parents could “do something as a group other than just complaining about it on Facebook,” the group has grown to more than 62,000 members who regularly discuss campus protests and how to file complaints against individual students or faculty at universities.

Screenshots shared with The Intercept show Rand boasting of her group’s sway on NYU and its president, Linda Mills. Rand and MACA members have taken credit for convincing the school to crack down more aggressively on students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza and getting an NYU graduate student teacher suspended. Rand has also posted about convincing the school to drop a student conduct meeting involving her son. She has shared images of emails of her direct correspondence with Mills, who apologized for the inquiry into her son’s conduct and praised him for getting straight As.

Rand did not respond to a request for comment. It’s unknown if anyone has actually reported NYU students or faculty to ICE per Rand’s suggestions. Rand removed some of the posts after The Intercept reached out for comment. 

NYU said federal law prohibits discussing individual student records. The school did not respond to questions about the notion that Rand has any undue influence on its decision-making.

But some faculty are alarmed by what they see as special treatment going to a parent with access to the school’s top leaders.

In response to The Intercept’s reporting, the NYU chapter of the American Association of University Professors called for an immediate independent review of communications between Mills and Rand for possible violations of university policy and federal law under Title VI, which bars organizations that receive federal funding from discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin. 

“In addition to being hypocritical and grotesque, it appears to be evidence of actual discrimination at the administrative level at NYU,” said Zachary Samalin, an associate professor of English at NYU. “It shows that there is a different standard applied in the way that students are being punished.”

Earlier this month, NYU suspended 13 students who participated in a December protest at the campus library, where demonstrators staged a sit-in and called on the school to cut its financial ties to Israel. Students were notified of the suspensions on January 7 and given five days to appeal. 

In a post to the group last week, Rand played up her role in the suspensions. “I’ll take some credit for this one,” she wrote, and shared an article about the suspensions published on January 23.

Rand, an attorney in New York City, had been in contact with NYU President Linda Mills about the library protest, the screenshots show. In an email to Mills, the text of which Rand shared to her Facebook group, Rand said protesters had violated the school’s code of conduct by blocking building access and were intimidating students. “I just sent you $13,000 the other day. As a parent and a consumer I’m outraged,” she wrote to Mills.

Members of Rand’s group had attended counter-protests near the school’s campus and would return if the school did not intervene, she warned. “If this isn’t stopped, I’ll be happy to send them back,” Rand wrote. 

A staffer in Mills’s office assured Rand that NYU was handling the protests. “I am writing to let you know that we have cleared the disruption and that arrests were made,” wrote Ariel Ennis, a staffer who works under the president. “Best of luck to your son during his final exams and never hesitate to reach out in the future.”

NYU spokesperson John Beckman said the school could not comment on individual student disciplinary records but handles disciplinary proceedings based upon fact-finding efforts. Beckman did not respond to questions about whether Rand has influenced decision-making by NYU leaders.

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Members of the MACA group also took credit after NYU suspended a graduate student teacher, Linda Luu, who they claimed canceled a class during library protests last month and encouraged students to participate. In a post to the Facebook group on January 7, Rand notified members that she had a call with NYU about Luu. The group had previously sent an email to NYU professors complaining about Luu canceling class during the protest, which was what “sparked the call,” Rand wrote.

Rand said NYU told her Luu had been suspended after an investigation. “They are also aware that one of our members filed a complaint against them which is a good thing,” she wrote, adding that the NYU official “knew I had the attention of so many active members and wanted to fill me in” about other steps the school would announce in the near future.

One member of the Facebook group credited Rand for her work. “Simply awesome. And everyone one of us in this group knows that if you hadn’t put all this together, the prof would not have been suspended and NYU would not even be discussing any consequences. Nice work!!”

Rand has been vocal about NYU policy specifically when it pertains to her son.

Screenshots show Rand discussing a successful effort to convince the school to get her son a new roommate; other MACA members asked her to put in a word for their kids who were having roommate problems as well. “I did a deep dive into the person, saw they were fundraising for Gaza and got my kid switched out immediately,” Rand wrote.

Rand said she’d since gotten two emails from Mills and another NYU staffer asking her to let them know if her son had any issues or wanted anything. In another post, Rand shared an emoji laughing and crying and wrote, “And just like that,” her son “got his own room.” 

Beckman, the NYU spokesperson, said requests to change roommates are common, with more than 120 such changes happening prior to check-in this semester.

NYU notified Rand’s son in an email earlier this month that he had been called into a disciplinary conduct meeting in relation to the library protests, according to screenshots of the email posted to the Facebook group by Rand and shared with The Intercept. Rand’s posts suggest her son was filmed walking near the protest. NYU would not comment on individual student disciplinary proceedings.

After Rand emailed Mills to ask that the school apologize and drop the meeting, it did. 

Rand said her son would not participate in Gaza protests and reminded Mills that she could leverage her Facebook group to bring negative media attention to the school. “He has zero interest in protesting Gaza and zero sympathy for the obnoxious, loud, disillusioned, miserable individuals disturbing people who are there to get an education,” Rand wrote. “I’m completely outraged. Do you find this ironic? The 62,000 members of MACA do and they plan on giving this story media coverage to expose it for the farce that it is.” 

The president apologized in an email to Rand. “We are looking into it as we speak and rest assured that we understand that [Rand’s son] was not part of the protest,” Mills wrote on January 13. 

Shortly afterward, Mills emailed again to say the meeting had been canceled. “This request for a conversation has been dropped — again, I’m so sorry this happened. Please know that the team has taken this entire investigation very seriously,” Mills wrote. She concluded the note writing that Rand’s son “will receive confirmation that this has been dropped tomorrow. — L.”

“This is the power of MACA. Not the power of me, the power of us,” Rand wrote in a celebratory post sharing screenshots of her emails with Mills about her son. 

After Rand shared the exchange on the Facebook group, one member asked Rand for an update on the disciplinary meeting. “I told them that 62,000 people knew about this and they were about to get media coverage,” Rand replied. “A half hour later they emailed, apologized and he got something apologizing and removing it from his record.” 

Rand’s messages with Mills illustrate a fundamental problem at the highest levels of NYU leadership, said Rebecca E. Karl, immediate past president of AAUP-NYU and current member-at-large. 

“NYU’s administration has very clearly bypassed and thus undermined norms of academic freedom, faculty governance, and due process,” Karl, a history professor at NYU, said. “Mills’ interventions demonstrate a serious lack of judgement and a clear bias.” 

While Rand portrays herself as fighting antisemitism on campus, her online content is at times Islamophobic, the NYU professors who spoke with The Intercept said. “It’s truly offensive stuff,” Samalin said. 

Rand has shared Instagram videos of herself confronting protesters and discussing Islamophobia. “What is Islamophobia?” Rand asked in one video posted to Instagram in September. “Is that the fear of planes flying into buildings? Is that the fear of being killed at a music festival? Is that the fear of violence and terror? Because if that’s what Islamophobia is, I have it.”

Rand removed the post after The Intercept reached out for comment. 

In a podcast episode last year, Rand suggested that there was a problem with the number of women wearing hijabs in New York City. Rand said she was “baffled” and scared. “I noticed that in New York, suddenly, there is this humongous amount of women in hijabs,” she said. “I feel constantly on edge. And I didn’t used to feel that way at all,” she said. “I didn’t really feel any anti-Muslim bias or anything. But lately I feel, I guess like, frightened. Not hatred or anything, just scared.” 

Beckman, the NYU spokesperson, said, “We do not monitor nor do we comment on the social media postings of the parents of the University’s 50,000+ students, though, naturally we hope that everyone connected to the University, even in the broadest sense, will embrace the University’s traditions of peaceful, respectful, reasoned dialogue.”

When news broke Wednesday of Trump’s plan to sign a more targeted executive order, Rand shared an article about the order to the MACA group. Members applauded the news: “YES!!!!!!!!” one person wrote. Another commented “Wow!” and a third person posted a personalized emoji of herself celebrating with the words “Woohoo!” 

The order, which Trump signed Wednesday, sets forth a policy “to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment violence.”

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The order directs the heads of executive departments or agencies to submit a report to the president within 60 days to identify “all civil and criminal authorities or actions” within their jurisdiction “that might be used to curb or combat anti-Semitism” on college campuses. It directs the attorney general to combat antisemitism using its relevant civil rights enforcement authorities, providing as an example the law prohibiting conspiracy against rights, under which violators are set to receive a fine or prison time. 

The order also directs the secretaries of state, education, and homeland security to work together to recommend that universities familiarize themselves with federal immigration law proscribing visas or entry into the U.S. so they can “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff.” The agencies are also tasked with recommending ways to best ensure that their reports lead, under applicable law, “to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.” 

When comparing NYU’s interactions with Rand to its reaction to students demonstrating against the war on Gaza, Samalin and Karl see a case of preferential treatment. NYU has disciplined and suspended pro-Palestine students, and issued “persona non grata” status to three faculty members last month, barring their access to campus buildings. Samalin also said its administrators have resisted meeting with members of its academic community who have been demanding NYU’s divestment from Israel since 2023, though the school entered into negotiations with protesters in April. At the same time, Mills has been personally corresponding with a parent over matters of discipline. 

“This question of access to her is itself bound up with questions about punishment and discrimination on campus,” Samalin said.

“There’s very little confidence in the disciplinary process at our school,” Samalin said. “And this could be the final straw because it’s just so obvious that there’s this double standard that applies.”

The post A Well-Connected NYU Parent Is Trying to Get Students Deported appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

A group at risk of losing federal funding under President Donald Trump said it has lost funding that the Biden administration originally denied over its support for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Biden administration withheld federal funding last year from the Climate Justice Alliance, a nonprofit climate organization, over its support for Palestine, The Intercept previously reported. That group will not receive funding under Trump, who signaled his plans to launch political attacks on nonprofits and reversed many climate-oriented policies on day one. 

By withholding funding promised to the Climate Justice Alliance, the Biden administration paved the way for Trump to more easily hobble those he considers political enemies, such as organizers in Indigenous and poor communities working on issues like climate change, said CJA political director Timmy Châu, who now goes by the name TR Rose. 

“The outgoing administration had months to ensure these communities most affected by harm would get this money directly,” Rose said. “And now that administration has paved the way to further the kind of carving away of critical public infrastructure and funds to the communities most impacted.”

The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles earlier this month show that effects of climate change are already here, Rose said. 

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Disasters Like the LA Fires Always Hit the Poor the Hardest. Trump Wants to Make It Worse.

“Communities, as we can see on the West Coast, have been put directly in the line of fire of the hollowing out of protections and resources to defend against the impacts of climate change,” he said. “The lack of this funding is an example of the ways that communities are forced to fight for so limited resources and support to survive the compounding political, economic and climate catastrophes that are impacting all of us daily.” 

Climate organizers were already concerned about Trump’s plans to draw back efforts to combat the climate crisis. Trump signed an executive order on Monday withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the international framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. 

Last month, Environmental Protection Agency staffers wrote an open letter demanding that the Biden administration release the funds to CJA and that the agency end its work with Israel. 

The group issued a statement on Monday denouncing Trump’s announcement of plans to declare an emergency at the border and roll back environmental protections.

“The true energy emergency is not about drilling on public lands for corporate profit — it’s about the deadly consequences of prioritizing polluters over people,” the statement said. “The right’s war on workers and the environment will harm us all, and it’s time we hold them accountable.”

The post Biden Attack on Nonprofit Over Palestine Stance Made Trump’s Job Easier appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

A group at risk of losing federal funding under President Donald Trump said it has lost funding that the Biden administration originally denied over its support for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Biden administration withheld federal funding last year from the Climate Justice Alliance, a nonprofit climate organization, over its support for Palestine, The Intercept previously reported. That group will not receive funding under Trump, who signaled his plans to launch political attacks on nonprofits and reversed many climate-oriented policies on day one. 

By withholding funding promised to the Climate Justice Alliance, the Biden administration paved the way for Trump to more easily hobble those he considers political enemies, such as organizers in Indigenous and poor communities working on issues like climate change, said CJA political director Timmy Châu, who now goes by the name TR Rose. 

“The outgoing administration had months to ensure these communities most affected by harm would get this money directly,” Rose said. “And now that administration has paved the way to further the kind of carving away of critical public infrastructure and funds to the communities most impacted.”

The wildfires that swept through Los Angeles earlier this month show that effects of climate change are already here, Rose said. 

Related

Disasters Like the LA Fires Always Hit the Poor the Hardest. Trump Wants to Make It Worse.

“Communities, as we can see on the West Coast, have been put directly in the line of fire of the hollowing out of protections and resources to defend against the impacts of climate change,” he said. “The lack of this funding is an example of the ways that communities are forced to fight for so limited resources and support to survive the compounding political, economic and climate catastrophes that are impacting all of us daily.” 

Climate organizers were already concerned about Trump’s plans to draw back efforts to combat the climate crisis. Trump signed an executive order on Monday withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the international framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. 

Last month, Environmental Protection Agency staffers wrote an open letter demanding that the Biden administration release the funds to CJA and that the agency end its work with Israel. 

The group issued a statement on Monday denouncing Trump’s announcement of plans to declare an emergency at the border and roll back environmental protections.

“The true energy emergency is not about drilling on public lands for corporate profit — it’s about the deadly consequences of prioritizing polluters over people,” the statement said. “The right’s war on workers and the environment will harm us all, and it’s time we hold them accountable.”

The post Biden Attack on Nonprofit Over Palestine Stance Made Trump’s Job Easier appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

One day before the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris made her first campaign visit to Reading, Pennsylvania — a majority Latino city just an hour outside of Philadelphia. Donald Trump’s campaign had been running outreach to Latino voters in the Berks County city since June, when the Republican National Committee opened a Latino Americans for Trump office as it ramped up its appeals to Latino voters across the state.

When votes were counted in Berks County, the gap between the campaigns was stark. As in 2020, Berks again went for Trump on Tuesday — this time up 4.6 percentage points to 58 percent. Harris received 43 percent of the vote, where President Joe Biden had won 45.2 percent in 2020. 

The problem was not that Berks had become a Republican stronghold, but that Democrats had ceded the territory long before Trump opened his campaign office this summer. It was a familiar story to progressive organizers across Pennsylvania, who have spent the last several campaign cycles trying to claw back voters Democrats have left on the table. 

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Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party Isn’t Ready For This Fight, but Its People Might Be

Democratic consultants in Pennsylvania had been caught on their heels in 2016, when Trump flipped the state red for the first time in three decades and won three counties that had voted twice for former President Barack Obama. When Biden won Pennsylvania back in 2020, analysts and organizers attributed the win to the work done in progressive cities like Philadelphia. But it wasn’t the Biden campaign doing the legwork, it was progressives and independents working within coalitions led by groups like Pennsylvania Stands Up, Make the Road Action Pennsylvania, the Working Families Party, and unions like Unite Here and Service Employees International Union.

Democrats’ reliance on progressive enclaves and local organizers to fill the gap they lost with Trump’s first win was never more clear than in the midnight hours heading into Wednesday, as Trump pulled away with electoral votes and Harris’s narrowing path to victory fell once again to voters in cities like Philadelphia.

While Biden won 13 Pennsylvania counties in 2020, Harris won just eight — with Trump flipping the counties of Bucks, Northampton, Erie, Monroe, and Centre. As the results solidified for Trump, mainstream media and Democratic pundits turned their fire not at the Harris campaign and the Democratic Party but in two other directions — at minority voters who had drifted, along with white men and women, toward Trump; and at progressives who had either stayed home or voted third party over Harris’s role in the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Such criticism was misguided, said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. Democrats, he said, had ceded turf to Republicans in states like Pennsylvania despite knowing they held the only key to winning the White House. 

“That coalition is fraying at the margin for a number of reasons,” Mitchell said Tuesday night at WFP’s watch party at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

People are asking basic questions of both parties, Mitchell said. “What concretely and materially are we gaining from this relationship? And they deserve answers.”

That the race was so close is raising a vital conversation about Democrats’ continued failure to build power outside of the four-year election cycle, said Philadelphia City Council minority whip Nicolas O’Rourke. “Voting is the last thing that we do in a functioning democracy.”

O’Rourke is one of two Working Families Party members on the city council. Local Democrats fought tooth and nail against the WFP, but the group’s wins ousted Republicans from the council in the heavily blue city for the first time in history with O’Rourke’s 2023 win. He said the focus on whether Black men had strayed from the Harris campaign missed the larger reason for demographic shifts.

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Democrats Blow Their Chance to Block Trump’s Resurgence

“The issue that I found, more often than not, was not an interest in Trump, it was a lack of interest in engagement. And that has been true beyond just this election season and cycle,” O’Rourke said. “I continue to believe that there is an opportunity to engage Black men. They feel forgotten, not seen. They don’t see the value in voting — some of them, not all. … There’s a lot to be said about engagement from the political parties actually connecting with Black men before you’re expecting them to turn out.” 

“That is something that every party should be paying attention to, whether it’s election season or not, because a functioning democracy would care about that.” 

A few hours before Harris made her first stop in Reading, Trump held a rally with thousands of people at the city’s downtown Santander Arena. 

While Trump made fewer stops in Pennsylvania than Harris — 22 to Harris’s 26 — Republican groundwork targeting voters in Latino, Black, and white working-class neighborhoods allowed him to outperform Democrats, who put much of their focus into persuading affluent voters in blue strongholds.

While Latino men and women supported Biden by 59 and 69 percent, exit polls from Tuesday show that 55 percent of Latino men voted for Trump. Latino women still overwhelmingly supported Harris, but by 6 percentage points less than they had in 2020. 

Latino voters in Reading are reachable — Democrats just haven’t put in the work, Reading’s first Latino mayor, Eddie Morán, told Politico Magazine earlier this month. Morán won his 2019 primary against a Democratic incumbent by doing one thing: talking to Latino voters in neighborhoods Democrats had forgotten. 

Democratic outreach to Latinos happened largely with the help of groups like Make the Road Action PA, which focuses on engaging Black and brown voters. The group knocked on more than 560,000 doors, made contact with 50,000 voters in eight counties, and had 413,000 conversations with Latino voters across the state. 

Issues like the cost of living and housing were prominent across those conversations, said Diana Robinson, co-deputy director of Make the Road Action Pennsylvania. “The rent is too high, people are struggling to pay their bills. That is something we think is unifying to folks across the board,” she said. “In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in 20+plus years.” 

Kandice Cabeza, a Harris voter in Northeast Philadelphia, said she came out to support the right to abortion but was not thrilled about either candidate. She’s originally from Baltimore but has lived in Philadelphia for 10 years. 

“What are you doing for the people? What’s changing with the cost of living, food, medical assistance, and things like that, medical bills? All those things matter too,” Cabeza said. “I really haven’t heard much about that from neither one of them. They’re kind of feuding over who’s gonna be number one. But what about us? It’s kind of like, fingers crossed that someone looks out for all of us and not just a certain group.” 

Independent groups are doing the work of courting working-class voters that the Democratic Party has stopped trying to reach, said WFP’s Mitchell. “It isn’t necessarily drifting to the right in the way that some political pundits talk about it. Our approach is to take seriously meeting working-class people where they’re at.” 

The working class is incredibly diverse, but a core set of issues unifies working people across ideology, Mitchell said. Three Working Families Party candidates flipped House seats in New York, where Democratic losses in the 2022 cycle cost the party the House. John Avlon and former Rep. Mondaire Jones, both Democratic candidates in New York who pivoted to the center, lost in swing districts. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., faced an AIPAC-backed Republican challenger in the Catskills and the mid-Hudson Valley. Ryan campaigned alongside progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in October. He won by 1 percentage point. 

“Basically, it’s class war, right? There’s a reason why Democrats sometimes talk about taxing billionaires. Because it’s hugely popular. We just think they need to say that a lot more,” Mitchell said. “This group of working-class voters of all races that have either dropped out of politics in general and are hugely skeptical of politics, or are looking for other politics and are finding populist politics, and sometimes that brings them to the populist right.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-V.T., blamed Harris’s loss on the party’s neglect of working-class voters. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders said. “Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

It’s unsurprising to see bumps in minority support for Trump, Mitchell explained. “When Black people are showing up for Democrats, it isn’t unbridled support and unquestioning support for a political party. It’s a strategic move,” he said. “I want more Black voters asking questions and the political parties recognizing that there’s a larger and larger component of the Black electorate that is persuadable.” 

The trends themselves aren’t disturbing, Mitchell said. “How you respond to those trends, I think, is critical. So if the Democratic Party doesn’t take those trends seriously, then I think they would be in trouble. We’re taking them seriously.”

The post Trump Didn’t Win Pennsylvania. Kamala Harris Lost It. appeared first on The Intercept.

This post was originally published on The Intercept.

One day before the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris made her first campaign visit to Reading, Pennsylvania — a majority Latino city just an hour outside of Philadelphia. Donald Trump’s campaign had been running outreach to Latino voters in the Berks County city since June, when the Republican National Committee opened a Latino Americans for Trump office as it ramped up its appeals to Latino voters across the state.

When votes were counted in Berks County, the gap between the campaigns was stark. As in 2020, Berks again went for Trump on Tuesday — this time up 4.6 percentage points to 58 percent. Harris received 43 percent of the vote, where President Joe Biden had won 45.2 percent in 2020. 

The problem was not that Berks had become a Republican stronghold, but that Democrats had ceded the territory long before Trump opened his campaign office this summer. It was a familiar story to progressive organizers across Pennsylvania, who have spent the last several campaign cycles trying to claw back voters Democrats have left on the table. 

Related

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party Isn’t Ready For This Fight, but Its People Might Be

Democratic consultants in Pennsylvania had been caught on their heels in 2016, when Trump flipped the state red for the first time in three decades and won three counties that had voted twice for former President Barack Obama. When Biden won Pennsylvania back in 2020, analysts and organizers attributed the win to the work done in progressive cities like Philadelphia. But it wasn’t the Biden campaign doing the legwork, it was progressives and independents working within coalitions led by groups like Pennsylvania Stands Up, Make the Road Action Pennsylvania, the Working Families Party, and unions like Unite Here and Service Employees International Union.

Democrats’ reliance on progressive enclaves and local organizers to fill the gap they lost with Trump’s first win was never more clear than in the midnight hours heading into Wednesday, as Trump pulled away with electoral votes and Harris’s narrowing path to victory fell once again to voters in cities like Philadelphia.

While Biden won 13 Pennsylvania counties in 2020, Harris won just eight — with Trump flipping the counties of Bucks, Northampton, Erie, Monroe, and Centre. As the results solidified for Trump, mainstream media and Democratic pundits turned their fire not at the Harris campaign and the Democratic Party but in two other directions — at minority voters who had drifted, along with white men and women, toward Trump; and at progressives who had either stayed home or voted third party over Harris’s role in the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Such criticism was misguided, said Working Families Party National Director Maurice Mitchell. Democrats, he said, had ceded turf to Republicans in states like Pennsylvania despite knowing they held the only key to winning the White House. 

“That coalition is fraying at the margin for a number of reasons,” Mitchell said Tuesday night at WFP’s watch party at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

People are asking basic questions of both parties, Mitchell said. “What concretely and materially are we gaining from this relationship? And they deserve answers.”

That the race was so close is raising a vital conversation about Democrats’ continued failure to build power outside of the four-year election cycle, said Philadelphia City Council minority whip Nicolas O’Rourke. “Voting is the last thing that we do in a functioning democracy.”

O’Rourke is one of two Working Families Party members on the city council. Local Democrats fought tooth and nail against the WFP, but the group’s wins ousted Republicans from the council in the heavily blue city for the first time in history with O’Rourke’s 2023 win. He said the focus on whether Black men had strayed from the Harris campaign missed the larger reason for demographic shifts.

Related

Democrats Blow Their Chance to Block Trump’s Resurgence

“The issue that I found, more often than not, was not an interest in Trump, it was a lack of interest in engagement. And that has been true beyond just this election season and cycle,” O’Rourke said. “I continue to believe that there is an opportunity to engage Black men. They feel forgotten, not seen. They don’t see the value in voting — some of them, not all. … There’s a lot to be said about engagement from the political parties actually connecting with Black men before you’re expecting them to turn out.” 

“That is something that every party should be paying attention to, whether it’s election season or not, because a functioning democracy would care about that.” 

A few hours before Harris made her first stop in Reading, Trump held a rally with thousands of people at the city’s downtown Santander Arena. 

While Trump made fewer stops in Pennsylvania than Harris — 22 to Harris’s 26 — Republican groundwork targeting voters in Latino, Black, and white working-class neighborhoods allowed him to outperform Democrats, who put much of their focus into persuading affluent voters in blue strongholds.

While Latino men and women supported Biden by 59 and 69 percent, exit polls from Tuesday show that 55 percent of Latino men voted for Trump. Latino women still overwhelmingly supported Harris, but by 6 percentage points less than they had in 2020. 

Latino voters in Reading are reachable — Democrats just haven’t put in the work, Reading’s first Latino mayor, Eddie Morán, told Politico Magazine earlier this month. Morán won his 2019 primary against a Democratic incumbent by doing one thing: talking to Latino voters in neighborhoods Democrats had forgotten. 

Democratic outreach to Latinos happened largely with the help of groups like Make the Road Action PA, which focuses on engaging Black and brown voters. The group knocked on more than 560,000 doors, made contact with 50,000 voters in eight counties, and had 413,000 conversations with Latino voters across the state. 

Issues like the cost of living and housing were prominent across those conversations, said Diana Robinson, co-deputy director of Make the Road Action Pennsylvania. “The rent is too high, people are struggling to pay their bills. That is something we think is unifying to folks across the board,” she said. “In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in 20+plus years.” 

Kandice Cabeza, a Harris voter in Northeast Philadelphia, said she came out to support the right to abortion but was not thrilled about either candidate. She’s originally from Baltimore but has lived in Philadelphia for 10 years. 

“What are you doing for the people? What’s changing with the cost of living, food, medical assistance, and things like that, medical bills? All those things matter too,” Cabeza said. “I really haven’t heard much about that from neither one of them. They’re kind of feuding over who’s gonna be number one. But what about us? It’s kind of like, fingers crossed that someone looks out for all of us and not just a certain group.” 

Independent groups are doing the work of courting working-class voters that the Democratic Party has stopped trying to reach, said WFP’s Mitchell. “It isn’t necessarily drifting to the right in the way that some political pundits talk about it. Our approach is to take seriously meeting working-class people where they’re at.” 

The working class is incredibly diverse, but a core set of issues unifies working people across ideology, Mitchell said. Three Working Families Party candidates flipped House seats in New York, where Democratic losses in the 2022 cycle cost the party the House. John Avlon and former Rep. Mondaire Jones, both Democratic candidates in New York who pivoted to the center, lost in swing districts. Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., faced an AIPAC-backed Republican challenger in the Catskills and the mid-Hudson Valley. Ryan campaigned alongside progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in October. He won by 1 percentage point. 

“Basically, it’s class war, right? There’s a reason why Democrats sometimes talk about taxing billionaires. Because it’s hugely popular. We just think they need to say that a lot more,” Mitchell said. “This group of working-class voters of all races that have either dropped out of politics in general and are hugely skeptical of politics, or are looking for other politics and are finding populist politics, and sometimes that brings them to the populist right.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-V.T., blamed Harris’s loss on the party’s neglect of working-class voters. “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders said. “Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign? Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

It’s unsurprising to see bumps in minority support for Trump, Mitchell explained. “When Black people are showing up for Democrats, it isn’t unbridled support and unquestioning support for a political party. It’s a strategic move,” he said. “I want more Black voters asking questions and the political parties recognizing that there’s a larger and larger component of the Black electorate that is persuadable.” 

The trends themselves aren’t disturbing, Mitchell said. “How you respond to those trends, I think, is critical. So if the Democratic Party doesn’t take those trends seriously, then I think they would be in trouble. We’re taking them seriously.”

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For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had been an influential presence on Capitol Hill, working behind the scenes to lobby politicians and their staffers in support of Israel. But ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, AIPAC made a decision that would fundamentally alter its purpose and the contours of American politics. 

After 60 years of issues-based lobbying, AIPAC for the first time opted to spend directly on campaigns. Flush with millions of dollars from loyal donors, among them Republican billionaires and megadonors to former President Donald Trump, AIPAC embraced a new strategy. It would use its vast funds to oust progressive members of Congress who have criticized human rights abuses by Israel and the country’s receipt of billions of U.S. dollars in military funding. 

Just two years after it started pouring money into campaigns, AIPAC has become one of the largest outside spenders in congressional elections. The Intercept has chronicled AIPAC’s power through coverage of individual races, but never before has AIPAC’s massive outflow of money been analyzed in sum. This project uses records from the Federal Election Commission — submitted by the lobbying group’s federal political action committee, AIPAC PAC, and its super PAC, United Democracy Project — to map how much money has been spent on behalf of Israel, where these groups are doling out money, and what impact those funds are having on the balance of power in Congress.

AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.

After each of its wins this cycle, AIPAC posted to X: “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics!”

While it’s true that AIPAC won the overwhelming majority of races it waded into, the picture that emerges from AIPAC’s paper trail is more complex.

The Big Picture

When it rolled out its new strategy in the 2022 election cycle, AIPAC found immediate success. The lobbying group and another pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, defeated Reps. Andy Levin, D-Mich., and Marie Newman, D-Ill., who were outspoken in their criticism of unconditional U.S. military funding for Israel. The campaign to defeat Levin marked a significant push from AIPAC to repress criticism of Israel even from Jewish members of Congress.

Ahead of the 2024 cycle and amid growing public outrage over Israel’s war on Gaza, AIPAC made a bold pronouncement: Through its United Democracy Project arm and AIPAC PAC, it would spend $100 million on elections, about one-sixth of what outside groups spent on the 2020 presidential election.

There are few congressional races that AIPAC sat out this year. Of the 469 seats up for reelection this year, AIPAC has spent money on more than 80 percent: 389 races in total. AIPAC has sought influence over 363 seats in the House and 26 in the Senate. 

Of the 389 candidates AIPAC funded, 57 did not face a primary. Of the primary elections that did take place, 88 candidates had no opponent.

The size of AIPAC’s war chest means it can pick and choose the races in which it is most likely to succeed — boosting its image as a kingmaker and its influence among candidates and members, while simultaneously hiking up the cost of criticizing U.S. policy toward Israel.

Funding Both Parties

AIPAC’s approach to electoral spending is bipartisan. The group has funded Republican, Democrat, and independent candidates alike. AIPAC PAC supported 233 Republicans with a total of more than $17 million in funds, 152 Democrats who received more than $28 million in sum, and three independents: Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and Angus King of Maine, who got just under $300,000 between them. (Spending not covered in this analysis includes AIPAC PAC contributions that were refunded in 2023 or 2024 or those that went to other PACs and political organizations, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee or the centrist Democratic nonprofit fundraising platform Democracy Engine.)

AIPAC PAC also gave more than $3 million to party committees and organizations on both sides of the aisle including the NRSC, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Jeffries Majority Fund, and Democracy Engine.

AIPAC spent this year on races in every state except Ohio (although the group funded several Ohio candidates in 2023). Among the places it spent most were New York and California, predictable big-money locations with two of the largest delegations in Congress. But outliers like Missouri and Maryland came into play this cycle as United Democracy Project funneled cash to back its preferred candidates. Missouri, where AIPAC spent the second-most on races this cycle, has only eight congressional seats but received more than $11.7 million in spending on just one race in which AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell ran against Rep. Cori Bush Bush, D-Mo. In Maryland, which also has just eight congressional seats, AIPAC-backed candidate Sarah Elfreth drew $4.2 million in AIPAC money this cycle.

So far, the spending has had its desired effect. The number of members of Congress willing to support conditioning aid to Israel or criticizing human rights abuses has shrunk as AIPAC has increased its electoral spending and put it to work targeting progressive candidates and lawmakers. 

Key Races

While AIPAC supported more Republicans than Democrats, it spent more on its favored Democratic candidates — mostly on Bell and George Latimer, run by AIPAC in primaries against outspoken progressives and Squad members Bush and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. 

AIPAC-backed candidates are generally pro-Israel, but their staunchness varies from lawmakers like Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., a major AIPAC recipient and one of the most vocal pro-Israel voices in Congress, to Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., who proposed a bill to “deport” Palestinians from the U.S. On the other end of the spectrum are less vocal candidates like the AIPAC and UDP-backed Elfreth, who won the Democratic primary in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District where the topic of Israel — and Elfreth’s stance on it — barely came up in the race.

Through an additional $41.9 million in spending on independent expenditures like ads and get-out-the-vote measures by its super PAC, United Democracy Project, AIPAC made major investments in two additional House races. UDP spent just under half a million dollars against Democratic candidate Kina Collins in her third primary against three-decade incumbent Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill. The super PAC did not spend for Davis or any other candidate in the race.

UDP also spent $167,000 against Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and did not back another candidate in the Republican primary. Massie won with 76 percent of the vote and is running unopposed in November. 

One of AIPAC’s only losses this cycle came after it poured out $5.1 million in a bid to defeat California congressional candidate Dave Min in a race in which Israel was hardly a major issue. After he won the race, Democratic Majority for Israel PAC endorsed Min in September.

Strategy and Allies

AIPAC’s strategy is more than just spending to boost its preferred candidates. A major part of AIPAC’s approach is spending big against candidates it wants out of Congress. In the two highest-profile cases this cycle, AIPAC spent $30 million on ousting two members of the progressive Squad — Bowman and Bush — leading to two of the most expensive Democratic House primaries in history. 

Its embrace of this tactic dates back to the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, when an offshoot, Democratic Majority for Israel, led by former AIPAC consultant and longtime Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, first went negative against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. AIPAC helped fund Democratic Majority for Israel ads attacking Sanders, after the Jewish senator and strong critic of Israel’s human rights abuses called for conditioning military funding to Israel.

The groups share commonalities beyond their mutual focus on Israel. Both AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel have shared donor rolls; 11 of DMFI’s board members have worked with, addressed or donated to AIPAC; and Mellman has consulted for at least two other AIPAC-affiliated groups. In a statement to The Intercept, Democratic Majority for Israel spokesperson Rachel Rosen said the group “is completely separate from, and independent of, AIPAC and any other organization. We have our own Board, leadership and staff, none of whom overlap with AIPAC. We advocate for different policies.” 

Rosen distanced DMFI from the Israeli government and said the group had been critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “For example, we support a two-state solution, and we have been critical of the Netanyahu government’s actions including on settlements, judicial reform and the composition of its coalition. Our sister organization, DMFI PAC, only supports Democrats, and has endorsed different and opposing candidates in the current election cycle.” 

AIPAC’s debut in direct political spending during the 2022 cycle coincided with an increase in other pro-Israel spending from groups with close AIPAC ties. Mainstream Democrats PAC, the super PAC backed by top Democratic donor and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, ramped up spending, thanks in part to support from DMFI PAC. 

AIPAC, DMFI PAC, and Mainstream Democrats PAC were also instrumental in defeating Democratic Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner’s congressional bid that cycle. 

What Next?

AIPAC spent broadly in the 2024 cycle, but it also had very specific aims — among them recruiting and backing candidates to run against Bush and Bowman. The lobbying group also tried and failed to recruit a challenger to Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., The Intercept reported, and she easily won her primary election in April. 

AIPAC’s attacks on Bowman and Bush ultimately proved successful, with both losing in two of the most expensive House Democratic primary elections in history to candidates bankrolled by more than $29 million in AIPAC dollars.

AIPAC has proven that it can direct huge sums of of money to oust insurgent members of Congress and candidates — removing from the halls of power politicians who aren’t merely critics of U.S. policy toward Israel, but are also supporters of economic, policing, health care, and labor policies that are at odds with the interests of the lobbying group’s wealthy donors. AIPAC has shown that it has the power to reach almost every seat in Congress — and when it takes a shot, it seldom misses. So what comes next?

“AIPAC — like every other corporate super PAC — represents the most broken parts of our campaign finance system that gives a handful of billionaires a vehicle to advance their interests at the expense of millions of everyday people,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which has recruited and backed candidates against AIPAC attacks. “If we want to stop rising costs, protect our communities, and prevent another endless war abroad then we need to take big money out of politics once and for all.”

Data visualizations: Fei Liu

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One year since she introduced a resolution for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said she hasn’t seen any indication that a Kamala Harris presidency would result in a different U.S policy toward Israel. 

“I have not seen anything different than, we continue to send the weapons to facilitate the violence,” Bush told The Intercept. “As long as we are continuing to send the weapons and the funding to bomb people, to destroy, to exterminate a whole people, then everything else is just talk.”

Amid growing public outrage over U.S. support for Israel’s war, President Joe Biden has reportedly used tough language with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in one instance, paused a weapons shipment. Yet there has been no fundamental shift in policy: the U.S. has sent $17.9 billion to Israel over the last year, and even as the administration this week warned Israel that its failure to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza could affect U.S. military aid, a White House spokesperson said the letter was “not meant as a threat.” 

For Bush, the White House’s admonishments ring hollow so long as the military aid keeps flowing. “I hear the stern words,” she said. “We can’t say that we want the violence to stop, and then we help hand over the weapons that cause the violence.” 

Related

Tlaib and Bush Called to End Violence in Israel and Gaza. Then Fellow Democrats Attacked.

Bush, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was one of the earliest congressional proponents for a ceasefire in Gaza — a position that was seen as a third rail in Washington. During a White House press conference, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described calls for a ceasefire as “repugnant,” “disgraceful,” and “wrong,” while congressional Democrats piled on Tlaib. Since then, Israel has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza and expanded its war into Lebanon, where it has also killed thousands of people. 

“We had foresight at that time,” Bush said. “Had the administration listened then, where would we be now?” 

With diplomacy all but stalled as the war widens, the calls for a ceasefire have evolved into a stronger policy demand. “What we need is for the Biden administration to take action to end the violence, not enable it,” Bush said. “What we need is the arms embargo.” 

Playing With Words

A year after the White House publicly disparaged calls for a ceasefire, Harris and Biden have now at least rhetorically adopted that same demand. Harris first called for a ceasefire in March, before Biden did so and before she became the party’s presidential nominee. At the August Democratic National Convention, the vice president repeated the call to the sound of raucous applause. And Biden has repeatedly made similar comments. But activists argue that without an arms embargo, the language coming out of the administration feels hollow.

“For all of their rhetoric of being appalled at the level of violence,” said Samer Araabi, a member of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, a Bay Area advocacy organization. “Not a single material action has backed those feelings of concern.”

Araabi said a ceasefire has always been the goal, but it’s now crystal clear that an arms embargo is the best shot to get there. “The only thing that the U.S. has done to bring Israel to bear has been leveraging military aid,” said Araabi. 

Activist organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace Action and IMEU Policy Project, are rallying around a new resolution from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would block the latest $20 billion weapons sale to Israel.

“We are over a year into a genocide and the U.S. has spent over $17.9 billion dollars on the Israeli military and on sending weapons to the Israeli military,” said Beth Miller, political director at JVP Action. “The only way that this regional war stops, the only way that this genocide stops is when the U.S. stops sending weapons.” 

In the month since Israel intensified its assault on Lebanon, at least 1.2 million Lebanese nationals have been displaced by Israel’s bombing campaign. And just this week, the United States deployed 100 troops and an air missile defense system to Israel. 

“I don’t think we’re any closer to a ceasefire than we were a year ago,” said Sumaya Awad, a Palestinian writer and the director of strategy at Adalah Justice Project. “In some ways, I think we’re even further away because we’re now in a place where the U.S. government is entering into a war that could have been stopped with a ceasefire a month ago, two months ago, certainly a year ago. Instead, we just get this hollow rhetoric from our government about the importance of pushing toward a ceasefire and humanitarian aid — while they actively send the arms and the bombs that are going into Gaza and now Lebanon.” 

The “forefronting” of the ask for an arms embargo is an important part of the strategy going forward, argued Awad, who is also a member of New York City Democratic Socialists of America, which is advocating for an immediate ceasefire. “An arms embargo and ceasefire at this point now go hand in hand,” she said. ”If you say ceasefire but you’re not saying we’re going to stop sending you weapons, then you’re not actually pushing for a ceasefire, you’re just playing with words.”   

A Generational Shift

While more than 90 members of Congress have now called for a ceasefire in Gaza — although with conditions or caveats that rendered many such calls empty — most have not signed onto the only piece of legislation in Congress calling for one. 

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Some Politicians Calling for a “Ceasefire” Are Not Actually Calling for a Ceasefire

Since Bush first introduced the resolution with 12 original co-sponsors, six other members have signed on. Another resolution denouncing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, introduced in March by Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., meanwhile, has 18 co-sponsors.

The issue has also greatly motivated political donors. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions to oust Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who was an original co-sponsor on Bush’s ceasefire resolution. AIPAC and its super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent more than $100 million on primaries this cycle, making Bush and Bowman’s races two of the most expensive House Democratic primaries in history. The group has targeted members of Congress who have highlighted human rights violations in Israel and called on the U.S. to place conditions on military aid. 

Bush worries that AIPAC’s influence will have a chilling effect on legislators moving forward. “With the attacks from AIPAC, I don’t know what that’s gonna look like in the new Congress. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like when new resolutions are brought forward, after Jamaal and I are gone, as people are thinking about their next elections. I don’t know how that changes. I’m just hoping that people make the decision that it has to be people over their campaign coffers, it has to be human lives over our positions.” 

Despite the movement’s setbacks in Congress, activists like Araabi argue that something fundamental has shifted among Democrats on the Hill. The broad popular consensus among both parties over Israel has shifted, he said, “in ways we probably haven’t seen in a generation in politics.” 

Miller, of JVP Action, noted that the movement’s demands are showing up even in the center of U.S. politics. “We’re seeing for example New York Times op-eds by people like [Nicholas] Kristof that are talking about how Biden has become the arms supplier for the flattening of Gaza,” she said. “That is the moment when we as movements need to double down on the demand and organize even harder, because we’re finally starting to break through.” 

The lack of policy change from the Biden administration is not a knock on the movement, Miller said. People speaking out against the war in Gaza have faced repression across college campuses, in workplaces, the courts, and in the media. “State power is operating with this brute force of repression because they are unable to argue with or undercut the moral clarity of what our movements are saying,” Miller said. “It’s a sign that what we are saying is catching on.” 

When Congress reconvenes in November, the Senate will take up the Sanders resolution to block the $20 billion weapons sale proposed in August. Bush said a vote on the legislation is an important next step for Congress. “I do think that that is a critical move when we’re looking at what all we can do to end this cycle of violence,” Bush said, “and sending this clear message that the U.S. can’t continue to fund military action.”

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With the Democratic primary season winding down, members of the Squad are speaking more directly than ever about the role that the pro-Israel lobby played in silencing critics of Israel’s human rights abuses in Congress, as well as Democrats’ complicity. 

As the Democratic National Convention entered its final day in Chicago, the topic of the war on Gaza and the role of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in elections had been largely absent from the main stage. No Palestinian speakers got time on the dais, despite the protest efforts from the “Uncommitted” movement this week.

Instead, the conversation among Democrats about pushing for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel, and the party’s role in allowing AIPAC to shape its primaries has been taking place outside the United Center, where progressives held protests to hold convention delegates’ feet to the fire.

And victims of AIPAC’s political campaigns were on hand to add their voices to the demonstrations.

“Their role in my primary was egregious,” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who was unseated amid an onslaught of millions of dollars from AIPAC, told The Intercept during an interview at the DNC. “It was largely deceptive, because they were trying to hide their affiliation as far as the reason they needed to run someone against me. But after my opponent won, they wanted to boast the win.” 

AIPAC spent more than $25 million to unseat Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in primaries this cycle. The outside spending from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups made the two races the most expensive Democratic House primaries in history. 

AIPAC’s attack ads against Bush concealed the group’s sole policy priority is Israel, Bush said. 

“Not one ad spoke about Israel. Not one ad spoke about Palestine,” she said. “Not one ad spoke about antisemitism.”

“They were bigoted, they were racist, and it was allowed.”

The pro-Israel campaigning against members of the Squad has largley focused on Black members of Congress. Bush, Bowman, and Reps. Summer Lee, D-Pa., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., had all emerged as targets of pro-Israel spending, though AIPAC itself begged out of the latter races. In Bush’s race, AIPAC’s super PAC aired an ad that distorted her features by elongating her face — a distortion Bush characterized as racist.

“They were bigoted, they were racist, and it was allowed,” Bush said. “If you’re not racist, don’t do racist things. They have shown themselves to be racist.” 

She pushed back against the idea that the group can’t carry out racist campaigning because it backed a Black opponent — St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell — in her race and a number of other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. 

“To switch out a voice speaking truth to power,” Bush said, “for someone who is more palatable is what they’re doing.” 

“The person who ran against me was OK with the lies,” she went on, referring to Bell. “He should have run on who he is, what he plans to do, and the difference between us. But instead, he did not do that. What he did was deceive the people of the 1st District of Missouri.” (Bell did not respond to a request for comment.)

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Progressives on AIPAC’s Defeat of Bowman: “Now We Know How Much It Costs to Buy an Election”

Democrats should be concerned about AIPAC’s role in the party’s primaries, Bush said. 

“That was just my race,” she said, “but what will they do next? Because what they’re ultimately trying to do is move Democrats further to the right.” 

“I want Democrats to realize, it was Jamaal and I this time, but who is it going to be in two years?” 

Scared AIPAC Will “Jamaal” Them

Bush was not the only member of Congress to speak out against AIPAC at the DNC. Lee and Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., gave remarks criticizing the pro-Israel lobby at a Wednesday evening documentary screening about Gaza. Both Lee and Ramirez told The Intercept that it was time for the party to realize the spending by outside groups was a threat to all members, not just progressives.

The event took place at the historic Grace Episcopal Church, as programming started across town at the United Center and delegates and convention attendees awaited speeches from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, former President Bill Clinton, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Inside the film screening, audience members cried while watching a Fault Lines documentary that recounted the stories of Palestinian families trapped in Gaza. The Rajabs had seven members of their family, including their 6-year-old daughter Hind, killed by Israeli forces after being trapped in a car for hours.

Ramirez told the audience that shortly after Bowman’s loss, her colleagues in Congress voted for a bill that negated the numbers of civilian deaths coming out of Gaza. Ramirez said one colleague told her they voted for the bill because they didn’t want outside groups “to Jamaal” them. 

After the event, Ramirez told The Intercept that the party should be worried about the influence AIPAC is having on its primary elections. 

“Every single Democrat should be concerned that one or two super PACs were able to concentrate $18 million to take out a Democrat, and that so much of that money came from Republicans,” Ramirez said. “You put $18 million against Leader Jeffries” — Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat — “he’s in trouble. Every one of us is in trouble,” she said. “What AIPAC did should be criminal.” 

Speaking out, however, can come with a cost: incurring the wrath of AIPAC and its millions. “It puts a lot of us in a really tough position,” Ramirez said. “It makes me wonder: How much do I have to raise before I even start collecting signatures again? Because they will do everything they possibly can to make us vulnerable.”

On an evening stroll after the screening, Lee warned of the influence of big money, in general. “Money in politics, whoever is putting it in, is never your friend,” she told The Intercept. AIPAC spent $4 million against Lee in 2022 and failed to recruit at least two people to run against her this cycle, The Intercept reported. 

“The same people who are funding AIPAC are the same people who are behind any other corporate interest, any other interest that’s against the will of working class people, of marginalized people.”

“When we think about why Cori or Jamaal were actually targeted — why me or anyone else, why we’re actually targeted — it’s not just about foreign policy,” she said. “This is less about foreign policy and more about the fact that there is a concerted effort to keep power, to keep influence, to keep democracy out of the hands of communities that have been historically disenfranchised.” 

“AIPAC isn’t coming into this district and supporting a member because they want them to be able to advance the causes of Black people,” Lee said. AIPAC has targeted Jewish members of Congress in previous cycles, like former Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.; the group also targeted former Rep. Marie Newman, D-Ill., whose husband is Jewish. This cycle, AIPAC’s main targets have been Black members. 

“They’re giving money to a politician who will still do their will, who will still advance their policy. So at the end of the day, yes, if you are keeping Black districts, Black communities from being able to self-determine who they want to represent them, what issues they want at the forefront, then that is racism,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether you have a Black friend. Having a Black friend does not make you anti-racist.” 

“It’s AIPAC today, it’s whoever else tomorrow. There will always be another super PAC tomorrow.”

Black districts don’t have the money to fight AIPAC’s war chest, Lee said. “What AIPAC knows is that the Bronx or the Mon Valley where I’m from, or St. Louis and Ferguson, those communities don’t have $20 million sitting in them. They know that, and that’s the reason why they come into those districts.”

The threat facing Democrats isn’t just coming from AIPAC, Lee said. “It’s an arms race,’ she said. “It’s AIPAC today, it’s whoever else tomorrow. There will always be another super PAC tomorrow, because once you create the blueprint, once you pull out the gun, you can’t put it back in the holster.” 

Lee said Democrats needed to pick a side. “If we don’t put a stop to this, if we don’t lead people in a different direction, we will lose our democracy — not because of Trumpism and MAGA-ism. We’ll lose our democracy because none of us were courageous enough to stand up to the influences that are undemocratic.”

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Democratic National Convention officials rejected a request to allow Palestinian Americans to speak from the conference’s main stage. In protest of that decision, a group of “Uncommitted” delegates critical of the party’s stance on the war, staged a sit-in in front of the United Center Wednesday evening as party leaders continued speaking inside.

At an impromptu press conference announcing the protest, Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan and a leader with the Uncommitted movement, phoned the Kamala Harris campaign. “Tell the Vice President that I’m sitting outside, I’m not going anywhere, I hope she changes her mind – the Palestinian children need to be heard,” Alawieh said before hanging up and taking a seat on the pavement.

As the convention’s programming ended late Wednesday evening, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who blasted President Joe Biden’s administration earlier in the day for “refusing to recognize the genocidal war in Gaza,” joined in the sit-in.

DNC organizers did not comment on the record on their decision to exclude Palestinian American speakers from the main stage at the four-day convention. 

Delegates with the Uncommitted movement and political leaders, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, had urged DNC officials throughout the convention to include two Palestinian American speakers on the convention’s main stage to address the ongoing war on Gaza. 

Earlier this month, they had suggested as a speaker Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician who most recently treated patients in Gaza with the nonprofit Medical Aid for Palestinians. Delegates also proposed a number of Palestinian American elected officials to DNC officials. Until Wednesday, Uncommitted members had expressed that negotiations with the DNC had proceeded in good faith. 

The DNC scheduled a panel discussion on Palestinian human rights on Monday, but delegates said that discussion was no substitute for their speaker demand. Uncommitted delegates said they were seeking equal treatment and representation at the convention, considering speaker slots had been granted to family members of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7.

“This was a simple ask,” said Rima Mohammad, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan whose grandparents survived the 1948 Nakba. “Abbas worked tirelessly for a simple ask – to be heard, to share the stories of the Palestinian people, my people, that are struggling in Gaza, that are struggling in Israel, that are struggling in the West Bank.”

Three miles away from the United Center, a group gathered at Grace Episcopal Church on Wednesday evening for a screening of a Fault Lines documentary following three families in Gaza whose relatives were victims of executions by Israeli forces. Reps. Summer Lee, D-Penn., and Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., gave remarks.

“The reality is that we are on day three of the Democratic National Convention and we have not heard most of the speakers ever talk about the rise of Islamophobia in this country and the world,” Ramirez said. “But we’ve heard the rise of other kinds of hates over and over and over and over.”

Ramirez added that the convention was taking place in the heart of one of the biggest Palestinian populations in the country. Her district is just outside the convention site. 

“At the minimum, we should have a Muslim Palestinian leader on that stage for seven or eight minutes. We’ve had families of hostages. We’ve had a number of Jewish leaders. That’s great,” she said. “And we should also have a Palestinian leader.”

“You can’t say you hear me and you see me if you’re unwilling to actually see me and give me a space to be heard,” Ramirez said.

In a Twitter post Wednesday night, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Miss., said the DNC’s decision was “disgraceful.”

“When a majority of voters are demanding a ceasefire & an end to the genocide, it is completely out of touch & disgraceful for the DNC to deny Palestinian Americans a voice at the convention,” Bush wrote. “Michelle Obama implored us all to do something. I’m imploring our party to do better.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also criticized the DNC’s decision, calling on the convention to “change course and affirm our shared humanity.” Ocasio-Cortez also received backlash from other progressive members of the party for her praise of Harris’ apparent push for a ceasefire during her own DNC speech

“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment,” she wrote. “To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians.”

The Uncommitted movement emerged as a protest against Biden’s policy on Gaza, including sending unconditional military aid to Israel, when hundreds of thousands of Democratic voters marked “uncommitted” during primary elections. The Biden administration approved a $20 billion weapons package for Israel last week. 

As the party coalesced support around Harris in recent months, delegates committed to Harris also joined the Uncommitted movement’s push for a ceasefire and change in Israel policy. At least 200 Harris delegates signed a pledge pushing the administration to secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Harris has called for a ceasefire and the protection of civilians in Gaza, though it’s not yet clear whether her administration would adopt a policy toward Israel that differs from Biden’s. 

Among the Harris delegates opposing U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza were several who unfurled a banner during Biden’s speech on Monday with the message, “Stop Arming Israel.” Other delegates seated around them responded by hitting and blocking them with “We Love Joe” signs and eventually snatched the banner away. Delegate Nadia Ahmad filed a complaint with Chicago Police on Wednesday alleging that she was the victim of simple battery.

At the start of the sit-in, Alawieh said he did not intend to stay overnight and hoped the Harris campaign would call before then.

“As soon as I get a call [from the Vice President] saying they’ll allow a Palestinian American speaker from this stage … then I want to go home,” Alawieh said.  “Until then, we’ll be right here — my phone is charged.”

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Photojournalist Josh Pacheco recalled a hectic scene after a swarm of Chicago police officers ordered a crowd of protesters and journalists to disperse from a march in front of the Israeli Consulate on Tuesday. 

“Nobody understood the dispersal order, nobody knew exactly where to go,” Pacheco told The Intercept, adding that they had been walking away, trying to leave the area with other journalists. “And that is when I was arrested, I was pulled off of the sidewalk.”

Pacheco — a freelance journalist who has worked with the New York Times, PBS, and Forbes — was one of at least three credentialed journalists arrested amid protests on the second day of the Democratic National Convention. 

During their arrest, Pacheco, who was carrying their photography equipment with media credentials hanging around their neck, said they had identified themself as a journalist to officers. But Pacheco said an officer responded by snatching away their credentials.

“I did alert them that I was press,” Pacheco recalled. “It was very visible that I had my press pass.” 

Pacheco spent the next nine hours in police custody. Also arrested in the same march were photojournalists Sinna Nasseri and Olga Federova, who shared on social media that they had been released by early Wednesday morning.

Nasseri, whose photography has been featured in the New York Times and the New Yorker, wrote on Instagram that he was arrested while “documenting the protest tonight from a public sidewalk.” He shared video of himself standing in handcuffs next to several officers with his camera still hanging around his neck.

Police charged the three journalists with misdemeanor disorderly conduct, said Steven Baron, the Chicago-based attorney representing the journalists. He declined to share specifics of their cases but alleged the city violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights. 

“The journalists were charged … for simply doing their jobs as reporters,” Baron said in an emailed statement.  “We are disappointed that the City of Chicago chose to sweep the First Amendment under the rug with its heavy-handed tactics against working journalists.”

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling acknowledged the three arrests in a daily press conference on Wednesday morning and scolded the actions of journalists at the demonstration.

“If you’re not moving, if you’re not complying with our orders at that time, you may be breaking the law yourselves,” Snelling said, before blaming journalists for being “so close” to protesters, which he said had obstructed officers’ ability to move about.

Snelling refused to recognize Tuesday’s rally as a demonstration and said participants had “the intent on fighting with the police, destroying things, burning flags.” Snelling did not provide evidence to substantiate the alleged intent of those who attended the rally but vaguely referred to verbal threats aimed at officers.

“Last night wasn’t a protest — to call last night a protest would be disrespectful to people who have actually protested for things that have moved societies forward across the county,” said Deputy Mayor of Community Safety Garien Gatewood at the press conference. “What we had is people who came down to the city to cause harm, to wreak havoc.” 

The Chicago Police Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Related

More Than 70 DNC Protesters Arrested, Including Several Journalists

Police said they had arrested around 50 people on Tuesday, but the National Lawyers Guild Chicago, a nonprofit legal support organization, reported arrests of at least 70 protesters. The lawyers guild said the tally was incomplete since attorneys were having trouble locating arrested protesters in police custody.

At the march, a small group of protesters had gathered in front of the consulate in downtown Chicago as Democratic officials took the convention’s main stage at the United Center. They carried signs that read “Democrats drop bombs and faux promises” and a large banner with “Shut Down the DNC for Gaza.”

After a series of speeches in which organizers spoke of solidarity with Palestinians, demonstrators marched away from the consulate toward Madison Street, where they were met with several lines of officers who immediately stopped the march and pushed the group backward, according to video and live broadcasts from the rally posted on social media. 

The lawyers guild said in a statement that police “provoked confrontations, rushed the crowd, indiscriminately arrested people on the sidewalk, and entrapped groups in order to carry out mass arrests.”

Pacheco was released from police custody around 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. By the evening, they had returned to work, covering a much larger pro-Palestine demonstration in Union Park, which included speakers such as former presidential candidate Jill Stein. Pacheco posted footage on social media showing a large law enforcement presence with officers mounted on bikes, wielding batons, surrounding the park. 

Within an hour, they shared a separate video, this time showing a group of Chicago police officers on a train platform, detaining two women who were taking part in the march. 

The post “I Was Pulled Off of the Sidewalk”: At Least 3 Journalists Arrested Covering DNC Protests appeared first on The Intercept.

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