Nov 3, 2023
Far-right Republicans and Democrats, including Rep. Mikie Sherrill, speak out against newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson's risky power play pushing an Israel funding bill that is controversial for both sides. Rayyvana and Brett Erlich break it down on The Damage Report.
- 8 minutes
As this passed in the House,
this $14 billion aid package,
again full of poison pills,
Democrats were stuck deciding how they
were going to react to the legislation.
Of course, we know plenty of Democrats
who were always going to vote no
on it out of principle at their support
for the liberation of Palestinian people.
[00:00:18]
But there are a lot of Democrats
who always vote to fund Israel and
they had to make decision here.
So a lot of Democrats have called for
a ceasefire or a humanitarian pause,
which is nothing,
by the way, it's nothing.
[00:00:34]
But there are many who haven't.
These strong advocates for
Israel found themselves for
the first time in their political
careers voting against funding Israel,
including Brad Schneider, a Democrat from
Illinois, who put out this statement.
[00:00:50]
In my worst nightmares, I never
thought I would be asked to vote for
a bill cynically conditioning aid to
Israel on ceding to the partisan demands
of one party.
I also never thought that a day would come
that I would be asked to consider voting
against an aid package for Israel, our
most important ally in the Middle East and
[00:01:08]
maybe in the world.
And I don't think I could have rolled my
eyes harder than I did while reading that
statement just because any other issue
that they have to vote for in Congress,
of course you're gonna see
this type of partisan play.
It's interesting because this is something
that is almost never done with Israel,
[00:01:28]
it enjoys such bipartisan support.
But what you saw in that statement is the
talking points that we're gonna see coming
from the pro Israel Democrats,
which is politicizing the aid as well as
conditioning the aid, as I mentioned,
which isn't normally done.
[00:01:43]
Now, here's Representative Mikey Cheryl
on that as well,
as well as other necessary aid.
>> Speaker 2: This is certainly
showing the Speaker's inexperience and
I think lack of understanding of many of
the ways in which Congress really works.
[00:01:59]
So to have a, quote, pay for something
that he wants to pay for the bill with,
that actually adds $12 billion to
the deficit is pretty bewildering.
Furthermore, it also displays a lack
of understanding of how when you
[00:02:14]
are fighting a counterinsurgency,
you've really got to make sure you
are taking care of the civilians.
Our generals during Iraq and
Afghanistan spent an inordinate amount of
time worrying about how to get power
to populations, how to get food and
[00:02:30]
water to populations.
And so the humanitarian relief part
of this package is critical as well.
>> Speaker 1: And
that's why after the war in Iraq,
there was a million dead civilians, is
because of all of the care that they took.
[00:02:47]
I don't think that would
be the example I would use
when talking about taking care for
civilians.
But let's talk about changing perceptions,
because this poll was
recently released on American support for
weapons as well as aid to Gaza.
[00:03:03]
So this first, Republicans,
65% to 30% and Democrats,
49% to 43% support sending
more military aid to Israel.
Independents are divided with 46%
supporting it and 47 opposing it.
Voters, 71% to 24% overwhelmingly
support the United States
[00:03:21]
providing humanitarian assistance to
help Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Just a reminder, there was no provisions
for any humanitarian assistance
in what was passed,
the bill that was passed in the House.
There's also no aid to Ukraine.
[00:03:38]
So here's the percentages on support for
that.
Democrats, 77%-20% and
Independents 52%-44% support sending
more military aid to Ukraine while
Republicans, 63%-33% oppose it.
Republicans, 94%-4%, Independents 71%-24%
and Democrats 59%-34%, all support
[00:03:59]
providing more funds to help secure
the United States border with Mexico.
And I mean, one of the interesting things
I think that we're seeing play out here,
Bret, is that Mike Johnson's been very
clear so far until he was elected speaker
that he didn't want any support,
any military aid going to Ukraine and
[00:04:18]
now his party has passed
a bill not including that.
Of course he gave lip service to
supporting Ukrainians after he was
elected speaker and
he's saying that they will
be passing something in the next
few days to support Ukrainians.
[00:04:37]
He's getting attacked from
the far right of his party and
also from now the more moderate
wing of the Republican party.
I don't know how long this is gonna last.
>> Speaker 3: He's got
a razor thin margin.
[00:04:53]
I think the only thing that affects
any of his policy is whether he
keeps the government open or not.
I think that what Republicans want after
their battle internally with all their
politics is just not to do anything that's
gonna make people start hating them more.
[00:05:08]
And when they shut down the government
it reflects poorly on the Republicans
especially in this scenario.
There's a lot in there Israel and
Gaza stuff but yeah,
that's my take on that question.
[00:05:26]
>> Speaker 1: Did you wanna just give
final thoughts on the other subject.
>> I kinda said it earlier.
My position on the Israel Gaza stuff is,
you ask everybody,
they start yelling at each other.
The extremes of both parties are like
there should only be one state in my
[00:05:43]
opinion, that state should
be run by my people and
I just don't think that's tenable.
Then most people after they yell at each
other and argue what Free Palestine means,
they end up saying, yeah,
let's go back to 1967 borders.
Anybody who says that, but what about
the settlers who have a life there?
[00:06:00]
Well there were settlers in
the Sinai Peninsula after the war and
they lived there for
15 years and they left.
I just think that if you
were the Israeli government,
they caught with being completely
unaware and unprepared for
[00:06:19]
the incursion or for the attack or
whatever that happened.
And now they are overreacting in
a way where the way that it works for
people who aren't paying the attention and
they stir from their sleep
on this whole issue and
[00:06:37]
catch it with the side of their eye is,
wow, Gaza sucks, it sucks there.
It's the worst place on earth,
and it is run by Hamas.
And Hamas historically wants
to annihilate not just
[00:06:54]
every Jew in Israel, but
every Jew in the world.
But even with that ethos,
you just can't, the optics look so
horrible on you, Israel,
if Gaza is this horrible.
So what you do is the worst,
most callous not the worst, the worst,
[00:07:12]
most callous way to say it is like,
wipe out a certain an entire people.
But the most callous way to look at it
is like, all right, you got attacked.
The way to show your force in the area
is to kill more people on the other
side than killed you, and rely on
America to show up when you're like,
[00:07:31]
hold me back, and
then everything goes back to normal.
That is the callous way,
it has been for a very long time.
And that disproportionate
setup is the status quo.
And everybody needs to go back to
getting to a two state solution,
[00:07:48]
in my opinion, and do that now.
And the ceasefire, you did your thing,
and you're gonna lose any kind of
these numbers are just gonna get worse for
Israel if you keep this up.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're still seeing
members of the US government saying that
[00:08:05]
calling for a ceasefire is maybe the worst
thing you can be doing and repugnant.
So we'll see how much longer this is going
to go on before the United States does
eventually, I mean, I don't know,
before their hand is completely forced and
they have to do something,
I would hope sooner rather than later.
[00:08:20]
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The Damage Report: November 3, 2023
Hosts: Rayyvana Guests: Brett Erlich
- 7 minutes