Transcript of Israel, AIPAC and Difficult Questions for Democrats New

From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. In this year's midterm elections, AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, has spent a record amount of money, mostly in Democratic primaries, to either oust candidates or support candidates based on a changing definition of what it means to support Israel. Today, my colleague Jonathan Mahler explains how this has created a new litmus test for the left at a time, perhaps, when America's relationship with Israel has never faced more scrutiny. It's Wednesday, July 29th. Jonathan Mahler, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Jonathan, the relationship between the US and Israel has for years been a huge topic in American politics, but what's felt particularly new and notable to me at least is how much that relationship is being both questioned and criticized in this year's midterm elections. You have been studying this relationship and how it intersects with our politics for many years and covered it for The New York Times. And so we wanted to turn to you in this moment to understand how you are seeing and thinking about all of this?

Well, I have been covering the US-Israel relationship kind of in one form or another for decades. I'm almost embarrassed to say. And this looks to me like a very different moment in the US-Israel relationship. I mean, for the first time, you have a lot of politicians coming out very publicly and in some cases like aggressively putting distance between the US and Israel. I mean, that was for decades unheard of. That was political suicide for a politician. And that is is no longer the case, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle. I mean, it's true we've seen some on the right question and challenge the relationship, but the Republican Party is still really by and large pro-Israel. And that is not so much the case anymore on the Democratic side. And that is a huge paradigm shift. And it's a shift we're seeing in the halls of Congress, but also out on the campaign trail.

Just give us a couple examples of what you mean by that.

Yeah, so a couple of weeks ago in the House, something like 100 Democrats voted to end US military aid to Israel. That's like almost half of all House Democrats.

Mm-hmm.

The effort failed. I mean, only one Republican supported it. And so the aid's going to continue. But the vote was really unprecedented. I mean, we've never seen so many Democrats take a vote like that. And on top of that, we're seeing support for Israel become a major issue in Democratic primaries across the country. It's really become a key litmus test in all sorts of races from New York to Illinois to Michigan. And it's really manifested in a debate over AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It's the main lobbying group working in support of Israel in the U.S. And at this point, AIPAC has basically become synonymous with Israel, right?

When you see people talking or debating AIPAC, what they're essentially debating is U.S. support for Israel.

Exactly. AIPAC is seen as a proxy for Israel. And on top of that, it's also become a stand-in for this larger debate over big money in politics, because AIPAC really has become one of the biggest spenders this election cycle. It's poured huge amounts of money into primaries, trying to support candidates, but also to oust them really on the basis of their views toward Israel.

So just to bring this all together, what we're seeing happening right now is a few different forces colliding at the same time in these midterms via this debate over AIPAC. We're seeing both the U.S.-Israel relationship really become front and center and this debate about the role that money should play in our politics.

Exactly. It's really a remarkable political moment, and it's one that AIPAC helped create, probably unintentionally. It's really backed itself into a corner, which has forced Democrats to take a side in these big debates. And it's gotten to this point because of a series of key decisions that AIPAC made since its founding.

So I want to talk about the history of AIPAC and how we've gotten here. Let's go back to the beginning when AIPAC was formed. Sort of tell us about that origin story.

So AIPAC was founded really just a few years after the founding of the state of Israel back in 1948. And it really had a simple mission. The idea was to defend and protect and strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. Which was a fairly simple thing to do back then because we were in the aftermath of the Holocaust. You know, the state of Israel was created with the blessing of the United Nations. America was very much on Israel's side. And so AIPAC was born to kind of defend and protect that relationship on both sides of the political aisle.

Meaning it was supposed to be bipartisan.

Yes, it was supposed to be a bipartisan organization, and it very much was. But It is kind of interesting to note in its earliest incarnation, AIPAC reflected the politics of the state of Israel, which we have to remember was a socialist country. I mean, it was a Labor Zionist country. So Israel was very far left and so was AIPAC. You know, having said that, they very deliberately courted support on both sides of the political aisle. Both Republican and Democratic politicians would go on AIPAC-supported trips to Israel. They both received campaign contributions from AIPAC. So AIPAC, you know, now we think of them as this incredibly polarizing force in American politics. It's important to remember that they were once actually a really unifying force in American politics. AIPAC was something that both Republicans and Democrats could agree on. It was truly a bipartisan group.

And just tell us at a very high level, what was the pitch that AIPAC was making to the US? Like, what was the rationale for the bipartisan support they were trying to curry at the time?

I mean, it was honestly a pretty easy pitch. AIPAC could say and did say that America's interests and Israel's interests are perfectly aligned. Israel is the one real democracy in the Middle East. So Israel shares your democratic values. And AIPAC could also say that Israel is a vital strategic ally, particularly during the Cold War, when a number of the Arab nations were aligned with the Soviet Union and Israel was aligned with the United States, and it had a very powerful military and intelligence operation that was really useful to the United States. So AIPAC could sort of lean on all of that to make its case to both Democrats and Republicans. And to say nothing of the fact that there are a lot of Jews living in America, a lot of American Jews who were Zionists, who felt strongly about the existence and protection of the state of Israel. And American Jews, you know, of course, had some degree of influence in American politics.

And in turn, what is AIPAC able to achieve for Israel through all of this bipartisan lobbying?

Yeah, I mean, over time it's meant billions of dollars in military aid. In fact, Israel has long been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, period. It's allowed them to buy fighter jets, their Iron Dome defense system. So much of the Israeli military apparatus is in part a product of that U.S. aid. But it's also been political support on the world stage, with the U.S. really firmly backing Israel for decades and decades.

So it's very interesting to note that AIPAC started as a bipartisan organization. Obviously, that is not the case anymore. When did we when did we start seeing that shift? Like, what was the first big inflection point?

You know, of course, no relationship is perfect. So over the years, there would be minor dust-ups between Israel and the United States, and AIPAC would have to manage those moments. They were always a bit tricky when there was a little bit of tension between the two countries, but nothing really major, nothing enduring until 2015. In 2015, something really kind of seismic happened for the US-Israel relationship and in turn for AIPAC. And that is Today, after 2 years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not. President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

Today, President Obama announced an agreement that he says will keep an atomic bomb out of Iranian hands for more than a decade. Critics say it will do the opposite.

Which Israel was furious about. Prime Minister Netanyahu really did not want to happen, but Obama was going ahead with it anyway. And so in this moment, the Republicans in Congress—

The speaker has invited the Israeli prime minister to address a joint session of Congress.

Invite Bibi to come speak before Congress.

The general protocol for this kind of thing is for Congress to consult with the White House. Our understanding is that that was not done on a real poke in the eye to Obama.

A real poke in the eye to Obama, who said that he did not want this to happen. But Bibi accepts the invitation.

Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the Prime Minister of Israel, His Excellency Benjamin Netanyahu.

He comes to Congress.

My friends, for over a year, we've been told that no deal A bad deal is better than a bad deal.

He uses that moment to inveigh against this nuclear deal.

That the only alternative to this bad deal is war. That's just not true. The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal.

And that moment put AIPAC in a really difficult situation because now they're faced with the prime minister of Israel, the leader of a country that they're here to defend, really going after the president of the United States, really undermining him. And they have to make a choice. I mean, are we going to side with Israel or are we going to side with the president? And they chose Israel. They agreed with Bibi's take on it and they tried to defeat it.

So I understand that Netanyahu was invited by Republicans. It was an insult in some way to the president at the time, Barack Obama. But What are we seeing coming out of this?

Yeah, what we're seeing is that there had never been a moment like this when the United States went forward with a major policy shift that was going to have a major impact on Israel that Israel was opposed to. So for AIPAC, which had always been able to support both Israel and the United States because Israel and the United States interests always seemed to be perfectly cleanly aligned, suddenly America and Israel's interests seemed to diverge. They split, and AIPAC had to line up with one side or the other, and they lined up with Israel.

Hmm.

So that was the first big inflection point in 2015. The next one came in 2018 when we saw the election of the Squad.

Sure.

So this was AOC.

What people are starting to see, at least in the occupation of —Palestine is increasing crisis of humanitarian condition. This was Rashida Tlaib.

Will you vote against U.S.

military aid for Israel? Absolutely. For me, U.S. aid should be leverage.

This was Ilhan Omar.

We think of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, and as such, we have to make sure we're holding it to that standard.

This was a group of progressive lawmakers who were willing to say things about about Israel, critical things about Israel.

They support the movement known as BDS, which calls for a boycott of Israel until property is returned to Palestinians.

And to sort of begin to try to redefine the American-Israel relationship. I mean, no one had ever gone there in this way before. Hmm. You'd had isolated critics of Israel elected to Congress before, but you definitely never had a bloc of them in Congress, and especially ones who were young, popular, and progressive. This was going to be a problem for AIPAC. And so the question becomes, what is AIPAC going to do about the arrival in Congress of this bloc of outspoken critics of Israel? And what if this is just the beginning?

So what does AIPAC decide to do? Because at this point in the story, it sounds like AIPAC has basically identified both a near-term problem with these new lawmakers, but also it's identified maybe a longer-term issue that the Squad might be foreshadowing, just this general shift of opinions on Israel. So how do they respond after these folks are elected to Congress?

Yeah, so up until this point, AIPAC had been steadfast in its approach to U.S. elections, which was basically to encourage its members to make individual donations to candidates who supported Israel on both sides of the aisle. And those donations were limited by law to roughly a few thousand dollars per cycle.

So relatively small amounts.

Yeah, I mean, they can add up, but we're still talking about limited amounts of money. But then, as I said, the Squad is elected in 2018, and then a couple more members are elected in 2020, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, who join in the criticism of Israel. And so AIPAC sees this new threat and it decides that the gloves have to come off, like small donations are not enough anymore. So what happens is a few years later, before the 2022 midterms, AIPAC makes a huge, really important decision, and that is that they decide they are going to create their own super PAC, which they call the United Democracy Project.

Not clearly pro-Israel, just to say, in that name. Right.

The name does not communicate that it is a pro-Israel PAC. And this is significant because this will allow them to steer really unlimited amounts of money into local races, into congressional races. And the political context here is really important because we are now in the post-Citizens United decision era, when suddenly it has become possible through these super PACs to give unlimited sums to political campaigns. And it APAC, if it wants to continue to be a powerful force in American politics as it has always been, and if it wants to deal with what it sees as this coming threat of a real anti-Israel current in Congress, they need to get into this game. They need to get into the big money game. And so they set up this PAC before the 2022 midterms, and they got to work spending money.

So tell us what that means, Jonathan. Like, how do we see that playing out in elections? Yeah.

So in 2022, they sort of dip their toes in. They spend $26 million to support pro-Israel candidates and to oppose anti-Israel ones. But there's also the dark money side of it, which is you can give this money and you can pay for ads that actually don't have anything to do with the issue your group is interested in. So, you know, in the case of AIPAC, what we have seen is that they can target an anti-Israel candidate or target a pro-Israel candidate they want to support, and they can dump money into advertising that has absolutely nothing to do with Israel.

They're taking away our rights. Kevin Mullen is fighting back.

You would see in 2022 an ad that endorsed a Democratic candidate or credited a Democratic candidate, for instance, with supporting reproductive rights.

Kevin Mullen will work to guarantee all women have the —to make their own medical decisions.

A pro-choice ad, and you would have no idea that it was paid for by AIPAC's super PAC. To guarantee the right to choose, to vote, to earn a livable wage. Fighting for our democratic values. Adam Ollier for Congress. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad. Importantly, they did something else in the 2022 midterms that really kind of helped fuel our perception of AIPAC as a polarizing force in politics. And what they did is they endorsed more than 100 candidates who had supported Trump's effort to overturn the election in 2020. So this was really a slap in the face to a lot of Democratic American Jews. People who had always felt aligned with Israel, and therefore with AIPAC, suddenly felt like, "Whoa, you are choosing what you perceive to be Israel's interests over American democracy." That was a kind of a shocking, single-issue position that AIPAC took that really earned them them a lot of critics and future enemies.

And how did AIPAC justify this at the time?

Well, you know, to AIPAC, their whole raison d'être, the whole reason why they exist, is to defend the American-Israel relationship, to protect America's relationship with Israel. And their view of the matter was it didn't matter how these politicians treated the election. What mattered is what would they do in Congress when a vote came up that was relevant to Israel, would they vote in Israel's interests or not? And they determined that they would vote in Israel's interests and therefore they were going to support them regardless.

Even if that means supporting election deniers. Exactly. I just want to point out that feels like a very different strategy than AIPAC had used before.

Yeah, they're assuming a fully partisan, aggressive, money-based posture. I mean, they're throwing their weight around, they're throwing money around, and they're influencing American politics in a much more direct way. And they're having a lot of success getting pro-Israel candidates elected. And then, of course, something world-changing happens, and that is October 7th, 2023.

Right. And I think a lot of people remember that after October 7th, when Hamas led an attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people, there was a brief moment of bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. Yes, there was.

And for a little while, it was almost like we were back where we once were. We were kind of back in time when there was widespread support and sympathy for Israel. Israel was again the victim, I guess you might say, because the narrative in preceding years had started to shift. And that's because Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, especially in the West Bank, had been attracting a growing chorus of criticism. So in the eyes of some Americans, they started to become the perpetrator rather than the victim. And after October 7th, they were the victims again. But we all know what happens next. Israel goes into Gaza. They cause a lot of destruction. They kill tens of thousands of people, including civilians. And popular opinion starts to turn again. Against Israel. And so for AIPAC, this is a new kind of threat and not only a new threat, I mean, a really kind of urgent one because there really was a degree of animosity toward Israel in America, in American politics that we really hadn't seen before. And it is in many ways the manifestation of what they had feared back in 2018 when the Squad first arrived in Congress.

They had feared that there was going to be a kind of a building anti-Israel movement in Washington. Well, now we seem to be getting all of the signs that that was indeed coming.

We'll be right back. So Jonathan, once it becomes clear that the tide is turning against Israel, how does AIPAC decide to respond?

Yeah, so AIPAC goes into complete overdrive. Jamal Bowman voted against condemning Hamas's brutal attack. He supported a resolution calling the founding of Israel a catastrophe. They spend $120 million in the 2024 election cycle, a staggering amount of money.

When Biden really needs her, Kori Bush just isn't there. The facts. Kori Bush has her own agenda, and it's hurting St. Louis. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad.

And they rack up two big wins. They defeat Kori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, both members of the Squad. And, you know, to AIPAC, the Squad really is kind of ground zero for anti-Israel sentiment in Washington. And of course, that doesn't go unnoticed by the candidates who are unseated by AIPAC. We should be outraged.

Outraged when a super PAC of dark money can spend $20 million to brainwash people into believing something that isn't true. We should be outraged about that.

They're furious, and they call out AIPAC very explicitly in their concession speeches. And let me say this: AIPAC, I'm coming to tear your kingdom down! And I think it's at this moment when you really begin to see some Democrats on the left try and paint AIPAC as this boogeyman in American politics.

I think I want to pause for a second because I think it is important that we address an elephant in the room, or perhaps several elephants in the room, which is that even talking about AIPAC and its support for pro-Israel candidates has brought up in the course of this conversation a lot of topics that I think are fodder for well-known antisemitic tropes. Like we are talking about Jewish people and money. We're talking about Jewish people exerting political power. We're talking about an idea that there's a group of Jewish people who prioritize foreign interests over the interests of the United States. So I'm wondering how all of that has played out as AIPAC has really tried to show its muscle in these different election cycles.

Yeah, you're right to bring it up, and it's a really complicated and sensitive issue. I think there's no question that AIPAC is wielding a lot of influence in American politics, like full stop.

It's measurable. It's measurable with the money they're spending.

It is indeed measurable with dollar signs. At the same time, there is also no question that AIPAC's role in American politics has drawn a lot more criticism than the role of plenty of other advocacy groups. It is also clear to me anyway, that there is a degree of antisemitism behind at least some of the criticism of AIPAC, that there are certain obvious tropes here of Jews and money and political influence that go to the core of the sort of antisemitic ideology going back centuries. And you see this unfolding on the left. You also see it unfolding on the right. With Tucker Carlson and other AIPAC critics, you know, who talk about foreign influence in American politics, which often feels like a dog whistle for Jewish influence in American politics. And so this is really difficult stuff to kind of untangle, but it's really important. And it's particularly important because this is all happening at a moment when antisemitism is unequivocally rising all around the world in really, like, dangerous and scary ways. So when the conversation in America begins to tip into, like, all the Jewish influence in American politics, there is real reason for concern.

And AIPAC, you know, which of course is the first to say that criticizing AIPAC is antisemitic, is not always wrong. I mean, there is clearly a kind of a degree of antisemitic sentiment behind at least some criticisms of AIPAC.

It sounds like a few things can kind of be true at once here. Like, AIPAC is having a significant impact on American elections with with big donations. And it is also perhaps under more scrutiny than other influential donors and single interest groups. And the war in Gaza, the changing political tides, has opened the door to criticism of Israel that perhaps was a nonstarter before, and also opened the door to a lot of antisemitic rhetoric that has become normalized. I think that's exactly right.

I mean, AIPAC's actions, and right or wrong, their actions have provided an opening, honestly, for bad actors. But in particular, in a sort of worrying sense, for people who are not just criticizing Israel, but who are criticizing Jews and Jewish influence.

You know, I think, Jonathan, it would be helpful just to understand whether that argument has any merit to it, to compare the spending and influence of AIPAC to perhaps other single-issue super PACs. So in other words, does AIPAC actually give more money than other single-issue super PACs?

Yeah, that's a really important point. I mean, AIPAC is definitely up there, but it actually gives comparable amounts to the crypto lobby and the AI lobby. And we're seeing some backlash against those PACs in some recent election cycles. But AIPAC definitely gets the majority of the heat. Mm.

So I think that brings us to this year and the 2026 midterms. Talk to us, Jonathan, about the role that we've seen AIPAC play so far and what the response to their role has been.

Yeah. So what's happened in 2026 has really been kind of fascinating because AIPAC has again gone out and decided to spend big in various races. But what has happened is that AIPAC has had to shift its strategy. And what they've had to do in 2026 is because so many moderate Democrats are now starting to question America's unconditional support for Israel, AIPAC has had to, or has at least decided to, target moderate Democrats, moderate Democrats who in many cases consider themselves to be supporters of Israel, consider themselves to be pro-Israel. And that has made AIPAC even more polarizing.

But why alienate people who have expressed a lot of support for Israel, especially at a time when that support is waning? Like, what is the thinking behind that strategy?

Yeah, I mean, AIPAC has created what is essentially a kind of a basic litmus test for what it means to be pro-Israel. And that litmus test is if you question unconditional American military support for Israel, you are not pro-Israel enough.

So in creating this very strict litmus test, it sounds like AIPAC has actually expanded the pool of lawmakers that it's spending against. So where have we seen that dynamic play out so far in these midterms?

Yeah, the first race that AIPAC really got involved in in this cycle was the Democratic primary for a House seat in New Jersey. And they targeted a representative there named Tom Malinowski. And Tom Malinowski is like by no means a Squad member. He is by no means a progressive.

I believe in Israel's right to exist and defend itself as a Jewish and democratic state, particularly after the atrocity of October 7th.

He also is a believer in defending America's commitment to defend Israel's security.

I had a perfect pro-Israel voting record in Congress.

In fact, he had angered some people by refusing to call Israel's war in Gaza a genocide. He would not use the G word. But he also has been very critical of Israel's response to October 7th, and he thinks that the U.S. should be making kind of case-by-case decisions on military aid to Israel.

So no longer unconditional.

That sounds very key here. Exactly. He wants to place conditions. He wants to consider every allocation that the United States makes to Israel's military.

Tom Malinowski says members of Congress shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks, but in Congress, he cashed in on COVID-related stocks.

So AIPAC's super PAC spent over $2 million, I think over $2.3 million, to defeat him. ISIS deportation force is out of control.

Tom Malinowski voted with Trump to increase funding.

And they did so by running ads that were not explicitly about Israel, but by attacking Malinowski on other issues that they thought would be disqualifying in the eyes of Democratic primary voters.

We just can't trust Tom Malinowski. UDP is responsible for the content of this ad.

Malinowski was completely outraged by this, especially the ICE ad, which landed right at the time that two American citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minnesota.

I'm here at an anti-ICE rally where I just finished giving a speech, and we just found out, believe it or not, that a dark money group has put an ad on television accusing me of supporting ICE.

And he let his voters know what was going on.

This is the first time they've gone after someone who has mainstream views on Israel, and the ad itself is a despicable and unforgivable lie.

But in this instance, AIPAC's efforts completely backfired. They did succeed in defeating Malinowski, but their candidate, you know, the candidate they were backing, also lost. And instead, the nominee was a progressive candidate who was way to Malinowski's left on Israel. Wow.

So they got a candidate that was even more hostile to the cause they were trying to champion in this race. Exactly. Which makes me wonder why AIPAC would even take that kind of risk to begin with. Like, I understand that Malinowski didn't pass this new litmus test, but it still seems really risky to go after moderate Democrats. Yeah.

Well, in many ways, you can see someone like Tom Malinowski as a bigger threat to AIPAC than a member of the Squad because he's a moderate Democrat. Democrat who is still, yes, supportive of Israel, but is starting to very openly question America's unconditional support for Israel. So when you have moderates, and he's by no means the only one, who are beginning to look critically at the US-Israel relationship, something that was really unheard of not that many years ago, that is a sign that things are actually like getting serious for AIPAC, that they really have to watch out because this is not just a phenomenon on the far left. This is becoming a phenomenon among moderate Democrats. And so it's almost a bigger threat to AIPAC that moderate Democrats are starting to sound much more critical of Israel than they had in the past. Mm-hmm. And so they need to do everything they can to keep them out of office.

Give us another example, Jonathan, of how you've seen this play out.

Yeah, well, another kind of amazing example, which sort of speaks to the role that AIPAC is trying to play in this election and the ways that it's backfiring, is a House race that was in the suburbs of Chicago where AIPAC targeted a guy named Daniel Biss, who had been the mayor of the city of Evanston. Biss, like Malinowski, is a sort of more moderate Democrat who has raised some questions about America's unconditional support for Israel, but is still, you know, not far left by any means and certainly not anti-Israel and is in fact the grandson of Holocaust survivors. Biss has strong connections to Israel, has family in Israel, and he got kind of a whiff of the fact that AIPAC was potentially going to get involved in his race in Illinois. And so, you know, he went to AIPAC and said, listen, Listen, don't do this. I am willing to speak to you guys anytime if I'm, if I'm elected, my door is always open to AIPAC. We can discuss any Israel-related issue. And AIPAC said to him, what we need you to do if you want us to back out of this race or to not get involved in your race is to support unrestricted military aid for Israel.

And Biss said, I'm not going to do that. And so it became clear to him at that moment that AIPAC was going to get involved in his race to try to defeat him. To try to defeat him. And so what he did at that point is that he polled voters in his district and asked them how they felt about AIPAC. And the numbers that came back were 51% of those polled said they viewed AIPAC unfavorably, and only 17% said they viewed AIPAC favorably.

I'm Daniel Biss, and I'm running for Congress in the 9th District of Illinois.

So armed with that information, Biss decides to actually campaign on the fact that he's being attacked by AIPAC. APAC. That he was, in other words, like the anti-APAC candidate.

They're calling me anti-Israel because I don't think starvation should be used as a weapon of war, because I don't think the US should have been bankrolling the bombs that Bibi was dropping on Palestinian civilians.

And he really leans into his Jewish identity as part of this.

They want to scare Jewish people like me out of criticizing the Israeli government. They want to silence us. But listen, I criticize the Israeli government exactly because Israel is so important to me. Israel was a safe haven for my grandparents after they survived the Holocaust.

I think it gives him an opportunity to both kind of demonize AIPAC in a sense, but also speak to voters about his own evolving understanding of Israel and the American-Israel relationship.

AIPAC and their allies know that it's exactly my connection to Israel that makes me so dangerous to their hardline right-wing agenda.

And so that was successful for Biss. He wins the Democratic primary. So there was a kind of a growing recognition that it was good politics to publicly distance yourself from AIPAC and even potentially tar your opponent as being supported by AIPAC. Right.

Well, to that point, the next big test of this coming up is next week in Michigan, the Democratic primary for the Senate seat there. So just tell us, what are you paying attention to in that race?

Yeah, I mean, we're seeing there in Michigan a race where AIPAC is spending more money than they have ever spent before in a single race, something approaching $30 million, which they have spent supporting Hailey Stevens, who is a moderate blue-collar, pro-manufacturing Democrat, a kind of old-school Michigan Democrat who is running against Abdul El-Sayed, who is the son of Egyptian immigrants, far to the left, very opposed to US aid to Israel, very vocal about what he describes as a genocide in Gaza, has really turned Israel into a kind of a central plank of his campaign there. And has also seized, not just on the Israel side of this, but the kind of corrupting influence of money and dark money in American politics, and sort of turning AIPAC into a symbol of the kind of corrupting influence of money in politics.

And how is Hailey Stevens approaching the fact that she is getting so much support from AIPAC? Like, is she trying to run against that, given the other examples that you've laid out?

Yeah, no, she's, she's taken a different approach toward AIPAC and really even toward Israel. I mean, she has criticized Netanyahu in the past, but she has embraced AIPAC. She considers herself and speaks of herself as being a proud supporter of Israel, though she's not Jewish. But I think in general, you can sort of see her as more of an exception to the rule that's come to define many of these Democratic primaries. And if El-Sayed wins the primary, I mean, he has a chance of winning the seat in the general election in November for sure. And if he does, he'll be a sitting U.S. Democratic senator calling for the end of U.S. aid to Israel, which is definitely not something we've ever seen before.

What is so interesting about this, Jonathan, is that we are arriving in this moment not just because of October 7th, not just because of our hyperpartisan time, but also because of a series of decisions that AIPAC has made over the years that has helped to lead us to where we are today. This organization that started as a bipartisan organization to support U.S.-Israel relations, it has now become one of the causes for that relationship deteriorating. And so I wonder, where do you think that leaves AIPAC? Like, it doesn't seem like these dynamics are going away anytime soon. So what are the options for it going forward?

So AIPAC is really at a crossroads right now. What it could do, and, um, you know, what it might do is begin to recognize that there isn't necessarily a single litmus test for being pro-Israel. That there should be room in the kind of pro-Israel tent for politicians on on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, who are willing to criticize Israel, have real questions about this Israeli government, about the actions of the Israeli government, and want to scrutinize the military and financial support we give the state of Israel, but still support Israel. In other words, AIPAC could come to a place where they begin to recognize that they can't stop this. They cannot prevent the shifting of the tides that's happening right now. They have to acknowledge You know, and the reality is that the way things are moving right now in American politics, if they want to remain relevant, AIPAC may not really have a choice because this same shift that we've been talking about on the left is also happening, albeit a lot more slowly and with very different dynamics on the right. It is not hard to imagine that in the future there could be a race with two candidates who are both critics of Israel.

And AIPAC is going to have to, if it wants to remain relevant, is going to have to reconsider what it means to be pro-Israel.

Jonathan Mahler, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

This week, President Trump appeared to lose his patience with Israel and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who met with the president at the White House on Tuesday. Ahead of that meeting, Trump told reporters that without his support for the war against Iran, Israel would not have survived. "If I didn't get involved," Trump claimed, "Israel would have been terminated." We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

He was a man who gave America the full measure of his good and mighty heart until that heart itself just gave out.

President Trump eulogized South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in a memorial service at the National Cathedral on Tuesday, hailing Graham, who died this month at the age of 71, as, quote, one of the great figures in Senate history.

He went out at the peak of his career, the top of his game, as a legend that every one of us, many of us here today, blessed to know him and a friend that none of us will ever forget.

The two men didn't always agree on policy, which the president referenced in his remarks, particularly when it came to foreign affairs.

He was extremely hawkish. I will tell you, he never saw a war that he he didn't like.

The Fox News host Sean Hannity also spoke, saying that Graham was often unfairly characterized as a warmonger.

Lindsey desperately wanted and talked to the president about a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Some of the foreign dignitaries whose causes Graham championed as a senator were in attendance, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. And emergency workers raced to find survivors of a powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake in southwestern Japan on Tuesday. The quake, which hit around 4:30 PM local time, ignited fires and damaged buildings. At least one person has been confirmed dead and dozens more are injured or missing. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Novetski and by Chris Benderev, with help from Olivia Nat. It was edited by Rachel Quester, with help from Patricia Willans, and contains music by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, Rohini Misto, and Alicia Baetubbe. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.