Defunding Israel
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The president has a new favorite word maybe you've heard. Communism. Communism's easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin.
And it's contagious. He's got Marco Rubio using it. Communism does not sound good in theory. He's got Speaker Johnson using it. Communism and this philosophy has led to the murder of tens of millions of innocent people. Easy, buddy. The president and his pals are intentionally conflating communism with democratic socialism. And they're doing it because the democratic socialists are winning. And they're winning on Israel.
Israel is a country that has been accused of apartheid and occupation for decades now.
Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in the Hague.
This genocide happens with our tax dollars and we must stand up and say, not on our dime.
Democrats in Congress just had to draw lines on Israel with a big funding vote. So we're going to talk about defunding Israel on Today Explained from Box.
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The House will be in order. The clerk may call the roll. Today, yay.
Explained, yay. I'm Riley Rogerson. I'm a House leadership reporter for Politico.
And Riley, last week there was a big vote in the House to defund Israel. Was it ever going to pass?
I don't think it was ever going to pass. There is still very strong support for Israel among many, many House Democrats. But what was shocking about this vote is that over 100 House Democrats voted to block aid to Israel. This was a seismic shift in the party's support for Israel and was pretty crazy to watch as a reporter.
Tell me what the expectations were going in. What was the prologue of this vote?
Going into this vote, we knew as reporters that House Democrats were going to be split on this issue. The amendment was a discussion among House Democrats for about two or three weeks. It was introduced by Republican Congressman Thomas Massey, you know, an isolationist renegade.
Why did House Democrats hold a dramatic vote to cut aid to Israel?
He's usually pretty out of step with his party, but he put this forward. They knew it was going to come up eventually.
Madam Chair, my amendment is simple. It strikes $3.3 billion of foreign aid to the country of Israel from the State Department funding bill.
So there were two pretty lengthy closed-door meetings where House Democrats were like, we need to find a way to hash out this issue. We know that it's divisive. We have to talk about it.
The situation relative to the United States' relationship with Israel, the Palestinian people, and policy in the Middle East has to change because the current status quo is unsustainable.
So there was an opportunity behind closed doors for Democrats to pretty openly debate and disagree what they were going to do. And as reporters standing outside, you know, one of those meetings, people were coming out on both sides of the issue. So we knew this was going to be a big split. We didn't know that 100 members were going to vote to cut Israel aid. That was pretty shocking because in 2024, there was a similar vote to cut Israel aid and just 37 House Democrats voted for that measure. So this was a pretty market shift.
So, yeah, what accounts for the uptick for what you're calling a seismic shift now?
There's a couple of theories of the case here.
Music
So one is that this is political and House Democrats are looking at what's happening on the campaign trail. Incumbent after incumbent has lost to pretty hard left candidates. I'm thinking in New York City.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:01
2
Why did House Democrats hold a dramatic vote to cut aid to Israel?
3:01–15:13
3
What was the background and origin of Thomas Massey’s amendment to defund Israel?
15:13–20:16
4
How surprising was the number of Democrats who voted to block Israel aid compared to 2024?
20:16–21:52
5
What political and electoral factors explain the surge in Democratic defections on Israel aid?
21:52–28:39