S6 Ep49: Tommy Vietor: Democrats’ Way Forward on Israel
The Focus Group Podcast
The Bulwark
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many Democratic primaries in 2026 have been hashing out America’s relationship with Israel, because Democratic voters' opinions of Israel have taken a nosedive the last three years. Pod Save America and Pod Save the World co-host Tommy Vietor joins Sarah to discuss the role Israel-related politics has played in the 2026 midterms, and the role it may play in the next presidential primaries.
There are more tickets to see Sarah and JVL on September 8 in NYC! We are about to sell out the orchestra section—but we want to sell out the balcony, too. It’s a point of pride. Come hang with us. Tickets are here.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Maybe someday we can do a focus group on a topic where you don't feel like you're on a high wire for 45 minutes. |
| 0:05.2 | Did you feel that way? |
| 0:11.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast. |
| 0:13.9 | I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. |
| 0:16.1 | And this week, we're covering a key wedge issue that's emerged in the Democratic Party in the last couple of years. |
| 0:21.8 | I'm talking about America's relationship with Israel. Israel has become a lightning rod in primaries |
| 0:27.5 | across the country, including in the last few weeks. And I want to pull apart how and why it has |
| 0:33.0 | happened that Israel is now such a big issue in the Democratic Party. And look, there's been an obvious |
| 0:41.4 | shift among Democrats since Israel and Hamas have been at war since 2023. According to Pew Research, |
| 0:47.4 | 55% of Democrats held an unfavorable view of Israel in 2022, and that number was up to 69% |
| 0:53.0 | in 2025. There was a similar bump among |
| 0:55.9 | Republicans during that time. It went from 27% unfavorable up to 37% driven almost entirely by |
| 1:02.3 | young people. I think most of the Democrats you're going to hear in today's focus groups |
| 1:06.5 | would register in that poll as having an unfavorable view towards Israel. |
| 1:11.1 | So almost universal opinion. |
| 1:13.2 | But that does not mean that your mental caricature of the media and Democrat should be a college-aged protester. |
| 1:20.5 | People are a bit more nuanced than that. |
| 1:23.0 | My guest today is Tommy Vitor, co-host of Pod Save America and Pod Save the World and Kenyan |
| 1:28.8 | alum, just like me. Hey, man. Great to see you. Great to see you. You know, I got a note the other |
| 1:34.3 | day from a Kenyan math teacher saying that she loved the bulwark. And I was like, Kenyan math |
| 1:40.5 | teacher, what was that? I didn't know they had you guys there. Yeah, for listeners, |
| 1:45.5 | one of the great things about Kenyon is you didn't have to take math. You didn't have to do a lot |
... |
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