Let’s Check In on AIPAC’s Assault on the Squad

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2024

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the weeks after October 7, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee took aim at members of Congress who expressed vocal opposition to Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Focusing on the so-called Squad, the Israel lobby is spending millions to push out members of Congress they view as a threat to the U.S.–Israel relationship. But Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., among the Squad members who called for an early ceasefire and whom AIPAC had been hoping to take out, cruised to victory in April. Now the lobby group’s sights are set on Rep. Jamaal Bowman in New York’s 16th Congressional District and Rep. Cori Bush in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. This week on Deconstructed, Justice Democrats Usamah Andrabi and Alexandra Rojas join Ryan Grim to discuss their organizing efforts to counter campaigns taking aim at progressive members of Congress.

If you’d like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give, where your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference.

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. And please go and leave us a rating or a review — it helps people find the show. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at [email protected].

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Deconstruct it. I'm Ryan Grim. In the weeks after October 7th,
0:09.4	A-Pack declared that it was going to launch an assault on the so-called squad planning to wipe out what
0:15.1	they said was a growing threat to the US-Israel relationship inside Congress.
0:19.9	After spending millions in a failed effort to stop Summer Lee from winning her seat in
0:23.7	2022. They set their sights on her for removal in 2024. Yet last week she won in a
0:30.4	landslide. The group's next targets are Jamal Bowman in New York
0:35.0	and Corey Bush in St. Louis,
0:37.0	both of whom they've managed to recruit challengers against.
0:40.6	To talk about those races and also
0:42.2	how they manage to fend off the threat against Summer Lee
0:44.8	were joined by Alexandra Rojas, a founder of Justice Democrats and now its executive director
0:50.0	and Osama Andraubi, who was working very closely with the Summer League campaign throughout the race.
0:56.0	Usama and Alexandra, welcome to deconstructive.
0:59.0	Thanks so much for having us.
1:00.0	Alexandra, let's start with you.
1:02.0	I want to start with the Pacific race that got us talking about Justice Democrats push
1:08.7	back against AIPAC, and that's Somer Lee's recent victory.
1:12.7	Tell us who Summer Lee is and how you guys kind of first met Summer.
1:17.1	Yeah, I mean, Summer Lee has been a transformational leader
1:21.4	in Western Pennsylvania for over the past five years.
1:25.6	You know, we ended up recruiting her to run for Congress, but for years before that she
1:30.6	alongside so many organizations and fellow leaders in Western Pennsylvania
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Intercept, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Intercept and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.