Nov 9, 2023
MORE Lawmakers, Staffers Demand Ceasefire As The AIPAC Dam Breaks
Dem. Representative Joaquin Castro admitted he's starting to be uncomfortable with the civilian death toll in Gaza.
- 12 minutes
Characterize the prioritization
of the Israel Defense Forces,
what they what their operations in Gaza
are intended to dismantle
the military infrastructure of Hamas
that made it possible to perpetrate an
attack like the world saw on October 7th.
[00:00:15]
And I want to be clear,
I think they should be able to protect
themselves against a similar attack.
We have long supported them
in their ability to do that.
But they also directly
struck an ambulance.
- They struck refugee shelters 2 or 3 times.
- That was incredible.
[00:00:31]
Mostly because statements like that
are rare in the United States Congress.
That was Democratic Representative
Joaquin Castro,
and I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Israel should defend itself
and should go after Hamas.
But the way in which they're doing it
has led to an insanely high
[00:00:47]
civilian death toll in Gaza.
Innocent Palestinians
are dying as a result, and I love
that he brought that up in this context.
Now, not everyone is willing to sit back
and accept anything and everything that
the Israeli government wants to carry out.
As you just saw,
Joaquin Castro is one of them.
[00:01:04]
So let's get to a little more video, and
then we'll talk about how congressional
staffers are also taking a stand.
- Let's watch.
- So we take votes for support.
You know, as we as we try to assess the
situation, I think just as the world is
[00:01:22]
aghast at the barbarity of what happened
on October 7th, the world also looks
at that and asks the question about why an
ambulance, why 30 something members
of the press have been killed, why 4
or 5000 children have already been killed.
[00:01:39]
Now there are growing calls
for a cease fire.
And just today,
President Joe Biden was asked,
what are the chances of a cease fire?
And he said, no, none. So Israel has agreed
to daily four hour humanitarian pauses.
[00:01:59]
So the people who are dealing with
the aerial bombardment in northern Gaza
can flee to southern Gaza, which is
also dealing with an aerial bombardment.
So, Jake, before we get to the
congressional staffers, your thoughts
on what Castro said there, what is the
likelihood that AIPAC and the Democratic
[00:02:17]
majority for Israel will heavily fund
whoever his primary challenger might be?
- Yeah.
- No, no, the dam is breaking.
And this is a really important
development, guys.
So Castro is borderline progressive.
I wouldn't call him a progressive,
but he's progressive adjacent.
[00:02:35]
But my point there is
that he's not a diehard left winger.
So he's a little bit more
establishment wing of the party.
So for him to come out and say no,
I am questioning Israel
and they're killing a lot of civilians
and I'm not comfortable with it.
[00:02:52]
That means that the tide is turning.
And just a couple of days ago,
Mark Pocan, who is a progressive
and who is the head of for a while,
the head of the Progressive caucus, came
out swinging against AIPAC in a way that I
have never seen in American politics.
[00:03:09]
He's like, he started he cursed them out
and he said, come for me.
I know how much money
you guys spend, but you know what?
You guys are right wingers.
You mainly support Republicans,
and you support the Republican traitors
who try to overthrow our democracy.
And basically and it's
not a tough guy, right?
[00:03:27]
But he was so mad that he was like,
you're not coming for me.
I'm coming for you.
Now, there's in this great strength
that AIPAC had.
And I remember talking about this with Ari
Berman, who wrote a piece about it
in the Nation, like over a decade ago.
And he made a great point.
[00:03:42]
He's like, they actually don't have
that much money
compared to the giant industries
like the drug companies, the banks.
ET cetera.
But they concentrate their money on races
in a way that is so flamboyant, right,
that it gets everybody's attention.
Hey, we're going to defeat
Nina Turner in Cleveland, and we're going
[00:03:59]
to find this hack, this nobody.
And we're just going to hand her
the election by spending 4 to $6 million
to make sure she wins.
She's a nobody.
She only raised her hand to say,
I'm willing to be the most corrupt,
and that's why we're giving it to her,
in essence, through the ads.
And so when people see that,
they they panic.
[00:04:15]
Even the legendary populist
John Fetterman panicked and he said, okay,
okay, okay, whatever Israel wants.
And he's still saying it to this day.
So that is how they use people
as an example.
And it was actually
it's a brilliant tactic.
It's a tactic I'd like to use at Wolf Pack
to ironically target
[00:04:31]
all the corrupt congresspeople.
Okay, now having said that, it's not
working anymore because now there's two.
The dam is broken and there's too many
Democrats going, oh yeah, I'm against you,
I'm against you, I'm against you.
What are you going to do now?
You don't have to save money
that the drug companies have
and the oil companies have.
[00:04:47]
ET cetera. Yeah.
You can't come for all of us.
So this is a really important moment
in American politics
where they have begun to defy one of
the most important lobbies in my lifetime.
That's a really interesting perspective.
And.
I am curious to see
how that all plays out.
I think you're making a good point.
[00:05:03]
The one thing I will say is that they have
directed their ire toward Rashida Tlaib.
And so there are ads playing
in Michigan right now.
They blasted out an email that basically
has her face superimposed on images of
[00:05:19]
what Hamas did on October 7th, essentially
spreading a message that Rashida
Tlaib is supportive of what Hamas did.
So if they're going to target anyone,
it's clear to me that they're going
to focus their energy on Rashida Tlaib.
And look, I don't do this ever
on the show, but please show Rashida Tlaib
[00:05:38]
your support,
because what she is doing in calling out
the brutality in Gaza is important.
The fact that she got censured
for speaking out about that
is pretty gross, to say the least.
And so if you can support her
through donating to her campaign,
[00:05:56]
even showing her support on social media,
I think that would go a long way.
Go ahead Jake.
So look, Rashida Tlaib is has certainly
been imperfect in this entire situation.
Like, I hate the term
from the river to the sea.
Agreed.
[00:06:11]
And so I wish she hadn't used
that in the ad.
And in early days,
I didn't love the response.
ET cetera. That's not the point, guys.
And if you want to be mad
at her for that, no problem.
Okay.
But trying to eliminate her
and censure her and all of these things
for her standing up, largely 90% of what
she did was stand up for Palestinians,
[00:06:29]
which in my lifetime
before Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
And to be fair, Keith Ellison before them,
no one ever stood up for Palestinians
in the United States Congress.
Then later, Bernie Sanders
was also heroic in that regard.
So but when they go to target her and say,
okay, if you disagree with this lobby,
[00:06:48]
we are going to eliminate you, we're going
to lie about you, we're going to put
your face on terrorist pictures, etcetera.
No, that's when people have
to rally and go, not on our watch.
We're tired of this.
We're tired of you eliminating
every politician
that dares to disagree with you.
So I totally support what Anne is saying.
And one more thing.
[00:07:06]
Remember, in the censure vote,
22 Democrats joined the Republicans.
And and what happened to unity?
Even Pramila Jayapal, who does not have
a record of strength, let's be honest.
Yes.
Agreed, came out and said
that those people had betrayed the party
and had really strong language.
[00:07:22]
And thank you for saying that.
Credit where credit is due because they
never believed in party unity.
It was always a gimmick
to get progressive votes.
And any time a progressive is on the line,
they immediately attack them.
But remember, in the old days,
all of the Democrats would have joined the
[00:07:40]
Republicans in censuring Rashida Tlaib.
So it's a new day and the dam is breaking.
So there's hope there.
There's also hope in the fact that four
Republicans voted no on censuring Talib.
Guys, this is beyond Israel and Palestine.
The wings are getting realigned.
[00:07:59]
Yes, there's a political realignment here,
and I don't know where it ends
and what the final results will be.
But there is now and this is not
this is a good development.
There is now Republicans
and Democrats voting with each other
that you would never expect
from the opposite ends of the spectrum,
[00:08:15]
and not because of the old bipartisanship,
which is, oh, hey, your corporate donor
agrees with my corporate donor.
Okay.
That used to be bipartisanship
in Washington.
Now there's a bipartisanship
where they're going,
I'm just going to vote my conscience.
I don't care if the right wing
or the left wing agrees.
I don't care what.
And a lot of times it's it's.
[00:08:32]
And some of those Republicans,
we disagree vehemently
with so many of what they stand for.
But as long as they're not corrupt and
they're being honest and they're actually
voting out of principle, fantastic.
I think there's also some likelihood that
voters have become far more politicized
[00:08:49]
and far more politically active.
There are far more protests happening
all across the country for various issues.
And so I don't know if it's equalizing
things among voters versus corporate
money, because, look, the whole point
of the corporate money is to fund
[00:09:05]
the campaign so they can run the ads
and win their reelection bid.
But if you are angering
your own constituents,
that money's not going to help you out.
And so now I go
to the congressional staffers because this
is where I it really does warm my heart
because this was a bipartisan effort,
[00:09:23]
a real bipartisan effort.
So congressional staffers, 100 of them
from both political parties, Republicans
and Democrats, staged a walkout yesterday
on Wednesday to call for lawmakers
that they work for to endorse a ceasefire.
[00:09:38]
Okay, so HuffPost reports
that gathered on the US Capitol steps.
The staffers held a moment of silence
and led prayers for the 1400 Israelis
killed by Hamas in its October 7th attack
and the more than 10,000 Palestinians
killed by the US backed Israeli force
in its retaliatory bombardment of Gaza.
[00:09:59]
The group of congressional staffers
also read this statement
prior to their moment of silence.
Let's take a look.
We are congressional staffers
on Capitol Hill, and we are no
longer comfortable being silent.
We were horrified
by the brutal October 7th.
[00:10:16]
Attacks on Israeli civilians,
and we are horrified by the overwhelming
response by the Israeli government
that has killed thousands of innocent
Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Our constituents are pleading
for a ceasefire,
[00:10:33]
and we are the staffers answering.
Their calls every day.
Most of our bosses on Capitol Hill are not
listening to the people they represent.
We demand our leaders speak up.
Call for a ceasefire,
a release of all hostages
[00:10:50]
and an immediate de-escalation now.
We are gathered here today
to mourn the loss of every
single beautiful and innocent life.
We now, in a moment of silence
in interfaith prayer for those.
[00:11:07]
Could we have lost?
I should also note that they have
the American people behind them.
There are 80% of Democrats,
Democratic voters, who want a cease fire,
and 66% of voters overall
are calling for a cease fire.
And so I love what they're doing.
[00:11:23]
If you want to support what they're doing
in calling for a cease fire,
let's go to graphic six real quick.
You can go to Ceasefire TODAY.com.
That's Ceasefire TODAY.com.
Any final words? Yeah.
So in my book I talk about
several different studies that show
that politicians, including Democratic
politicians, are far more conservative
[00:11:40]
than their voters, than the average voter,
not even just the Democratic voter.
And every study shows this.
It's in the book justice is coming.
But the staffers in the past would have
never protested their own representatives.
Unheard of the fact
that over 100 of them are out there going,
[00:11:59]
no, the people that we work for are wrong,
and they are way more conservative
than the average American voter,
including most Republicans.
They're more the Democrats.
A lot of times
the Democratic congresspeople are more
conservative than the Republican voters.
[00:12:15]
And so this is a this is another
interesting realignment situation.
There's a rebellion afoot.
I think people are sick of this system
overall, and they're starting
to hear the voice of the American people.
If you enjoyed this video,
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