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I'm so glad to be joined today by Michael Blake.

You know him as the candidate running against Richie Torres in New York's 15th district.

We spoke earlier in the year, or maybe it was last year, to another candidate

DeLorne who has since dropped out of the race. I want to hear all the updates that we've missed in

the intervening time. Michael, welcome to the podcast. Great to be with you and appreciate everything

you've been doing. You've been creating space for so many people, so it's a blessing. Well, I feel the same way we've been playing email tag for a while, so I have a lot of questions. I'm very, very eager to hear from you. Let's start off top with, I think, the question that is front of mind for a lot of viewers. The reason why so many people are excited to see Richie Torres have a challenger is because he is known

as perhaps the most vocally pro-Israel candidate in Congress. He has made it very much a central

part of his identity despite the fact that he represents what I understand to be one of the poorest,

if not the poorest district in the United States, at least with respect to certain statistics around child poverty,

and the disconnect between what his ostensible political focus has been

and what the needs of his community are glaring and gross.

That being said, people want some clarity as to your own history relationship with the state of Israel, if in fact they want to

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