Rep. Thomas Massie on AIPAC Attacks, Israel-Gaza, Ukraine, NSA Spying, & More—How AIPAC Weaponizes Antisemitism to Crush Israel Critics
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, smearing one's political opponents as racist and bigot is one of the most common tactics used by the Democratic Party in general, the Biden White House in particular, and especially its most loyal media allies.
Top Biden officials continue that tradition Today, by spending the day accusing Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky of being an anti-Semite, in part because Massie has cast several votes deviating from the overwhelming bipartisan consensus on U.S.
funding of Israel's wars, as well as Washington's attempts to have Congress implicitly regulate political speech by labeling Israel's most striding critics, quote, anti-Semitic.
Congressman Massey will be our guest tonight to talk about these attacks by the White House, similar and even more sustained attacks from the highly powerful American-Israel Political Action Committee, also known as AIPAC.
His general views on U.S.
funding of the wars of foreign countries, including Ukraine and Israel.
We'll also talk to him about related issues to curb political speech online in the West.
The ongoing attempt by the Biden White House to secure billions of dollars more for the war in Ukraine.
And the Biden administration's current demands for a full renewal with no changes of the NSA and FBI's domestic spying powers.
On last night's program, we examined a resolution that had just been introduced yesterday in the Congress to formally declare anti-Zionism, the ideology known as anti-Zionism, to be, quote, anti-Semitic, even though anti-Zionism is a view shared by millions of Americans, including many Jews and even many Israelis.
Regardless of one's views on the merits of whether this particular view is bigoted or not, we stress the bizarre notion that somehow it's the proper role of the U.S.
Congress to dictate to Americans which political views are and are not racist and bigoted.
An act that can create extreme levels of social scorn from expressing a particular political view that Congress has now officially declared anti-Semitic, but also one that could have concrete implications for the free speech rights of Americans by handing a good pretext to large corporations and universities to ban the expression of such views on the ground that our government has formally now declared them to be racist.
As I predicted last night, and predicting it hardly required a crystal ball, that resolution passed today with an overwhelming bipartisan majority.
Every Republican in the House except one voted yes, that lone no vote was from Congressman Massey, along with 95 House Democrats who voted yes, 92 more Democrats who cowardly voted present, and only 13 Democrats joining Congressman Massey in voting no.
Over the last six years, every crisis or reported crisis in the United States and the West, from the COVID pandemic to January 6, from Russiagate to the war in Ukraine, has been seized on by U.S.
and EU officials to justify ever new levels of censorship.
As we have repeatedly documented on this show, the same has been done ever since October 7th for this new Israeli war in Gaza.
So many measures of classic what's called cancel culture or even official censorship have been undertaken against Israel's critics.
And this attempt now to officially impose a congressional branding of anti-Semitism on any opponents of the ideology of Zionism is yet another erosion of this free speech right to the name of protecting this foreign country.
Now, there's nothing at all legal or immoral or unusual about AIPAC's use of its power and money.
It is only one of many powerful and well-financed lobbies in Washington.
You have the Big Tech Lobby, the Pharmaceutical Lobby, the Wall Street Lobby, the NRA, Planned Parenthood, and so many more.
But when AIPAC works in conjunction with the Biden White House and Congress to malign Israel critics as bigots, Before we get to our program, a few programming notes.
First of all, we are encouraging our audience to download the Rumble app, which works both on your smart TV and your telephone.
funding Israel, then it's worth taking a serious note.
And we'll do that tonight with Congress and Massey.
Before we get to our program, a few programming notes.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
One of the primary criticisms of the American right against American liberals and against the liberal corporate media is this tactic of branding all of their adversaries, white nationalist or racist or misogynist or transphobic or LGBT phobic or any number of other bigotries
The point of that is to smear critics of their views and to shut down debate to make debate impossible.
Who wants to stand up and take a position in a political debate if you know you're going to be widely branded As a bigot, no one wants that.
That, of course, is the exact tactic that has been used, although this time not only by the liberal left, but very often by the American right, who's now in unity with them on this new war, in order to vilify and demonize people who don't want the United States government funding Israel's wars, who think that Israel is using excessive force in Gaza.
They don't want to debate it, they just want to scream bigot and racist at everybody who disagrees.
And now we have Congress officially doing that in an overwhelming bipartisan vote today.
In a non-binding resolution, but nonetheless an official act of Congress.
We covered it last night on the show.
It's House Resolution 894.
And it's an official statement of the U.S.
Congress.
And one of the things it does in condemning anti-Semitism is it just flatly states that the House of Representatives clearly and firmly states that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
Now one of the leading defenders of Israel in the House of Representatives, Congressman Jerry Nadler, who himself is Jewish, an ardent pro-Israel voice, represents a lot of Jewish voters in Manhattan, came out last night and said he was going to oppose this bill on the grounds that a lot of Orthodox Jews are anti-Zionist.
So it's very strange, he said, to condemn Orthodox Jews who don't believe in the state of Israel, don't believe that their religion calls for an ethnostate in Israel to be anti-Semitic.
That's clearly not their motive.
And a lot of other people just oppose the idea of ethnostates in general, regardless of who it's for.
Repose the idea that a minority should rule over a majority who don't have legal rights, as happened in South Africa.
There are a lot of top Israeli officials we've shown you before, including Netanyahu's chosen head of the Mossad.
And who he appointed in 2015 who in September said Israel has now become an apartheid state because of the fact that the Arabs who live in that region in the Gaza and the West Bank and who are 20% of Israel don't have equal rights.
Now again, I'm sure a lot of you don't agree with anti-Zionism.
I have no doubt about that.
It's a minority view for sure.
But in what possible world is it the role of the U.S.
Congress to start dictating to Americans and formally declaring which political views are racist and bigoted and which ones aren't?
That's not the role of the United States Congress to do, even if you happen to agree with their opinion in this particular case.
Now, as predicted, the bill overwhelmingly passed.
It had only one no vote among Republicans, 13 no votes among Democrats, another 92 Democrats who just voted present.
And as I said, one of those no votes was Jerry Nadler who gave a speech on the House floor describing what I just said.
Congressman Thomas Massie took this Jerry Nadler speech and also said on Twitter yesterday, this week I will vote against House Resolution 894.
Anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism.
The resolution states that all anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism that is either intellectually disingenuous or just factually wrong, quoting the most senior Jewish member of the House, which was Jerry Nadler.
Now, here you see the House vote on the screen.
Every single bill that is deemed pro-Israel in the United States, every single one, passes by overwhelming bipartisan majorities.
Go look at UN votes on this war that Israel is conducting in Gaza, the bombardment of first northern Gaza, now southern Gaza.
The death of 16,000 people, thousands of whom have been documented to be children, not just by Hamas, as is often stated, even though Hamas statistics have proven to be accurate with prior Israeli bombing campaigns, but by UN investigations.
by the Red Cross, all kinds of people reporting the vast, huge number of Palestinian children being killed.
And it just stands to reason the Gaza Strip is a tiny little strip of land.
There is no safe place in Israel.
Israel has been using 2,000 pound bombs provided to it by the United States.
Of course, you're going to kill thousands and thousands of children, which is 50% of the population in Gaza.
No honest person can doubt that.
And yet, every time there's a bill in the U.S.
Congress, despite the fact that so many people in the world, so many governments, are condemning Israel.
In the United States, it's the most pro-Israel country by far.
It passes overwhelmingly.
The Republicans and Democrats unite, as they've done on China, as they've done on Ukraine, as they did on Iraq, as they're doing now with Israel.
And the bills pass overwhelmingly.
I mean, they barely get 10 no votes.
This time, They were able to get 14 no votes total on this resolution.
A lot of people could have just stood up and said, I'm voting no just on principle.
I don't think the Congress should be declaring what view is and isn't racist.
That's for the American people to decide.
It's not a role to officially characterize certain political views as racist and bigoted.
And some Democrats, 92 of them, cowardly voted present because they thought it was a stunt, but they weren't willing to vote no.
So it was up to 13 House Democrats, one House Republican, including Thomas Massie, who we're about to talk to, who voted no.
And of course, AIPAC has been launching an absolute war against Congress from Massie.
Here is a tweet they posted on October 30th.
When he also voted no on a House resolution to stand with Israel.
And along with Massie, it was Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Jamal Bowman, and Summer Lee.
Who voted no, and here you see a few more of those names.
Andre Carson, Al Green, there were a few Democrats who voted President, and then Thomas Massie was the one House Republican, and he explained his reasons.
That he doesn't think the United States should be funding this foreign war, just like he didn't think the United States should be funding the war in Ukraine.
And here's AIPAC saying instead of standing with Israel, Congress and Massie voted with the Squad.
And he opposed supporting Israel, opposed condemning Hamas.
Now here, the Obama, or rather the Biden White House today, claimed that Thomas Massie was an anti-Semite.
He posted this meme, the Congressman did, where Congress is essentially saying, I'm not interested in American patriotism, but when it comes to Zionism, I'm incredibly all ears.
I'm willing to go to bat for it.
And it is noticeable that Remember when Mike Johnson was the newly elected House Speaker, he ascended to the Tribune.
He had an opportunity as for only one as the newly elected House Speaker to say what his priorities would be of the speakership.
And he said the very first thing we're going to do as a newly constituted House is pass a bill supporting our good friend Israel.
Not help the deindustrialized Midwest, not help people who are facing unemployment or fentanyl crises in their neighborhoods, overdoses and suicides and all those deaths from despair.
No, that was not going to be the first thing that Congress was going to do.
It was going to be instead, in his words, to help our good friend Israel.
And this is what Congressman Massie was criticizing, this mindset that we're going to send Another $14 billion to Israel on top of the $4 billion they get per year.
Biden's requesting another $60 billion for Ukraine while all these needs at home go unmet.
That's a perfectly valid and legitimate argument for a congressman to make.
And yet here you have Andrew Bates He is the White House Deputy Press Secretary and the Senior Communications Advisor, who went on to Twitter today and essentially accused Congressman Massie of being an anti-Semite.
He changed the meme to Thomas Massie, not interested in acceptable behavior, meaning funding Israel's wars.
Ah, but anti-Semitism, I'm very receptive to that.
And there was another senior White House official, Herbie Ziskind, the White House Deputy Communications Director, who works for Andrew Bates, who said all Americans, including House GOP leadership, should condemn this virulent anti-Semitism from a sitting member of Congress.
This is what the White House always does to its political opponents.
Calls them racist, calls them bigots, calls them misogynist, calls them white nationalists, calls them transphobic, homophobic, and now people who are opposed to their policy of funding Israel's war are deemed anti-semitic.
It's the same tactic.
Now, the fact that AIPAC is so Devoted to removing anyone who's voting no on any of these Israel bills.
The handful of people who are they announced they're gonna spend a hundred million dollars to try and remove these dissident members of Congress is notable because of how much money AIPAC spreads around Washington.
Here is a tweet from Lawrence Borstein on December 2nd where he notes APAC money went to 368 Republicans and Democratic candidates for 535 seats in Congress, so they spread money around to more than half of the people running, or who assumed a seat in Congress.
The pro-Israel lobby went to Joe Biden $4,200,000 as a senator and $3.7 million more as a presidential candidate.
That is a total of $8 million to Joe Biden over the course of his career.
That, of course, increases the comfort level with thousands of Palestinian casualties.
He's including there in his number, the people who have died and the people who have been injured.
Now, The Guardian has its own article entitled, Pro-Israel Groups Target U.S.
Lawmakers Critical of Israel's War Ahead of the Primaries.
Rashida Tlaib and other Democratic squad members and one Republican are targets of attack ads as critics support opponents.
During the last 10 days, groups that support Israel have launched ads in at least seven districts, targeting those who have been particularly vocal in calling attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, opposing Israeli military aid, or criticizing Israel's government.
The groups will probably pump tens of millions of dollars into primaries this cycle to back its candidates.
While most of the targets are members of the Squad, one of them is a Libertarian Republican who opposes foreign spending in general.
Quote, I don't think the pro-Israel lobby can beat me, and they definitely can't beat me with this topic, said Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, referring to his recent vote against military aid for Israel.
A group of super PACs and dark money non-profit groups, most notably groups such as AIPAC and the Democratic Majority for Israel, tied to Israeli interests, contributed about $43 million to U.S.
campaigns during the last cycle, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.
Now, again, AIPAC is free to do that.
There are a lot of lobbying groups that operate this way.
They say, either you support our agenda, Or we're going to spend a lot of money to destroy you.
And they've succeeded in removing members of Congress before.
And AIPAC has among the best track record, meaning the most number of heads on a pike, for defying its agenda.
The issue here though is, the question is, Does the United States have to fund a foreign country's war?
A war that is causing harm to American national security?
Since this war began, since the Biden administration embraced Netanyahu and promised unlimited funding for Israel and for whatever it wanted, There have been several travel advisory warnings issued by the State Department warning American citizens that they face the heightened risk of violent attack or anti-American attack or terrorist attack if they're traveling anywhere in the world.
It's a global advisory warning.
Of course it's the right of members of Congress to stand up and question whether this policy is beneficial to the United States.
Or to question whether we are enabling, we are arming and funding a war that most of the world regards as heinous.
Obviously that's going to affect our standing in all sorts of ways.
The Biden White House has been attacking mostly members of its own party from the very beginning.
For doing nothing more than calling for a ceasefire.
We've shown you before, people in media and politics got fired for doing nothing more than signing petitions advocating a ceasefire in Gaza.
And early on, there were several House Democrats who advocated a ceasefire, and a reporter went on October 11th and asked Corinne Jean-Pierre what she thought about that, what the White House thought about calls for a ceasefire coming from their own party, and this is what they said.
What is the President's message to... Okay, the pool should start leaving and then we're going to take this last question.
Thank you.
What is the President's message to members of Congress who seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel?
Say that one more time.
Everybody's moving around.
I apologize.
What is the President's message to members of Congress who seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel?
Look, here's the thing, and which congressional members?
Well, there have been some members of Congress who have called for a ceasefire, and they have not gone as far as backing the administration's call for support for Israel.
So look, I've seen some of those statements this weekend, and we're going to continue to be very clear.
We believe they're wrong.
She has this tick where she's trying to find her script.
She can't speak without her script.
And so she just always says, look, look.
She has no idea what she's talking about.
She's like madly flipping for what she's supposed to say.
So the question was, there are members of your own party who don't support your policy of funding Israel's wars.
What do you have to say about that?
And this was her answer.
I've seen some of those statements this weekend, and we're going to continue to be very clear.
We believe they're wrong.
We believe they're repugnant, and we believe they're disgraceful.
Repugnant and disgraceful.
They weren't yet ready to call members of Congress who don't support their policy racist or anti-semitic, though they got around to that today.
But all these members were saying was, It's harmful to U.S.
national security.
What the Israelis are doing in Gaza constitutes a huge attack on civilian life, that they're war crimes, they're violations of international law.
You don't have to agree.
But repugnant and disgraceful?
That is the attempt to try and create a climate where nobody can dissent from White House policy on Ukraine.
And when you start escalating that to AIPAC, Trying to remove members of Congress who question U.S.
foreign policy to protect this foreign government, and even worse, vilifying people as anti-Semites for dissenting on these wars, that escalates it to an entire new level of debate repression and creating a climate where people are essentially forced and coerced if they want to keep their careers.
To go along.
Now, one of the people who has been most attacked by these tactics by the Biden White House and by AIPAC is going to be with us in just a moment.
He's Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
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Thomas Massey is a Republican congressman representing Kentucky's fourth congressional district since 2012.
He was originally part of the Tea Party movement and has long identified as more of a libertarian Republican.
When he ran first for Congress, he was endorsed by Ron Paul, among others, and there's a lot of things to talk to him about.
We are thrilled to have him here, Congressman Massie.
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us tonight.
Oh, I'm excited to be on your show, Glenn.
We've been waiting for this for a while, and I doubt we'll get through all the material tonight.
So you start with what you want to talk about.
Absolutely.
We only have a limited time, which we, of course, want to respect.
So let's delve in, and then we'll harass you to come back on and have a broader conversation.
So let me start with this.
Israel is the country that, over the last several decades, has received more U.S.
aid by far than any other country.
It gets $4 billion a year.
Every time it has a new war, the Congress, the President, want the U.S.
to pay for it, and the U.S.
does.
What is your view on the overall U.S.
support for Israel in terms of money, and what's your view specifically of President Biden's new request for $14 billion More, at least to start with, to fund this new war.
Well, let me be clear.
I don't single out any country with my ideology.
I don't support foreign aid.
My position is that we are almost $34 trillion in debt.
We can't afford to help other countries.
A lot of times, foreign aid is taken from the middle class in one country and giving it to the rich in another country.
And in the case of Israel, their debt to GDP is in a better position than our debt to GDP.
Particularly with respect to Israel, I don't understand why we have to send them money from my constituents in Kentucky.
But I'm not singling them out.
Another position that I've taken where I don't single out Israel or any country is I don't support sanctions.
I don't think they work.
I think they do punish the people in the country that you're trying to sanction, and they're a prelude to war.
Also, when we write sanctions bills here in the United States, we're creating crimes for Americans to commit.
You can't go prosecute somebody in a foreign country for violating our sanctions.
You're talking about prosecuting Americans for engaging in business.
By the way, I'm talking about isolationism.
I've been described as an isolationist.
I'm talking about the anti-isolationist position, which is when you do trade with other countries.
And finally, I guess this would be the America First version for reason for not voting for sanctions, is they drive up the price of goods here in the United States and limit our options.
So, I've been called to task, sorry, just to wire through sanctions in there.
That kind of goes along with the same basket of votes that I've been criticized on with respect to Israel.
Speaking of just applying this general principle, not specific at Israel, but to United States foreign policy in general, you were one of many people in the House who opposed the Biden administration's policy of fueling and funding The war in Ukraine.
There were five dozen other House Republicans who also did the same.
I interviewed several of them on my show about their reasons for opposing that, and they said things exactly like you just said.
The United States is drowning in debt.
We can't take care of our own people.
We can't secure our own border.
We don't have the money to go around financing wars.
It's not a good thing if we do so.
Ukraine's not the 51st American state.
It's not our responsibility to pay for their wars.
And yet, All of them that I'm talking about who were on my show opposing U.S.
funding of the war in Ukraine suddenly turned around and now are in favor of the Biden administration's request to send another 14 billion dollars to Israel.
I know you can't speak for your colleagues, I'm not asking you to, but why does the climate seem to become so different when the question is funding Israel's wars as opposed to other countries?
Well, I think there's, you know, just to lay it all out there, I think there's a religious attachment to Israel that you don't see with Ukraine.
Or, gee, I hate to question motives, which is what you're asking me to do.
In Ukraine, it's a war between two sets of white people, for the most part, and it's different in the Middle East.
I don't mean to question motives, but it's It seems to be a double standard to me.
What you're pointing out is there's a double standard.
I can't speak for all of them why they would support a war in the Middle East and not the war in Ukraine.
Here's one of the things that distinguishes Israel.
And this is something you've talked about and we've covered on our show and people have written books about, is you have a very, very powerful lobby.
And as I said in the intro, I don't know if you heard, but there's a lot of powerful lobbies in Washington.
It's totally legal to be a powerful lobby.
You have the pharmaceutical lobby, the Wall Street lobby, the NRA.
You know, Planned Parenthood, lots of powerful lobbies in Washington, but one of them is this pro-Israel lobby led by AIPAC.
And AIPAC has succeeded before in removing members of Congress by financing their primary opponents or financing their general election opponents, people who they perceived as insufficiently supportive of Israel.
AIPAC has directly been criticizing you in pretty Direct ways, and you have been responding in pretty assertive ways as well.
Why are you willing to incur the wrath of AIPAC over this issue?
Well, you know, I think it is debatable as to whether a foreign country, and I know there are ostensibly Americans who are here that are part of AIPAC, but you can still be an American and be working on behalf of a foreign government.
And those people we require to register when they interfere in American politics.
So I actually won't accept the premise that AIPAC has the right to interfere in an American election on behalf of a foreign country.
And if they do, we have guidelines and guardrails for that, which they seem to be exempt from.
And I know they have all sorts of reasons for that.
Now, back to my particular case.
So there have been, as of today, 18 votes in Congress since Speaker Mike Johnson was elected.
I'm not picking on Speaker Mike Johnson, but I'm just pointing out that's been a short period of time, six weeks.
We've had 18 votes on the subject of Israel.
We've voted on Israel more times than we've named post offices.
Congress' favorite thing is to name post offices.
The first vote was a vote in support of Israel, and it was just a resolution.
It wasn't a conveyance of money.
And I voted against it because once you read into this resolution, it supported sanctions on Iran.
I don't support sanctions, as I've already told you.
I don't support expanding the conflict.
The American response immediately to this conflict between You know, Hamas and the government of Israel was to expand it to Iran and I think that's the opposite of what we need to do.
We need to constrain it geographically, hopefully.
And the resolution, it also did other things like open-ended support of military assistance without saying that excludes boots on the ground.
If you read this with a critical eye, it was hard to vote for, so I didn't vote for it.
I was the only Republican who didn't vote for it.
Subsequently, one of the next votes was a vote on $14.3 billion to send to Israel, and I didn't vote for that.
At that point, AIPAC started running ads in my district.
And to your point, it's politics.
I'm not complaining that they're running ads.
They want to do it, let them do it.
They're wasting somebody's money.
They spent $90,000 for two weeks.
They put ads on Fox.
News, which is, you know, what my primary electorate watches largely.
So they're targeting my primary voters.
And then they put that on $50,000 of ads on conservative talk radio shows in my district.
Then they did some Facebook, you know, social media stuff.
And they were criticizing me for not being supportive enough of Israel.
I think it was a waste of their money.
But then there have been more votes since then, and they've attacked me on social media.
That's fine.
They've called me anti-Semitic for merely not voting for the foreign aid.
I said in a tweet that I put America first, and they said that invoked some trope, and so that I was anti-Semitic, which I disagree with.
Recently, we had Well, last week we had a vote on something that supports Israel's right to exist, which I do support Israel's right to exist.
Look, Glenn, if you want to form an island in the Pacific and create your own country, I'll recognize your right to exist.
Countries have rights to exist, okay?
The problem with that resolution is that they said it's anti-Semitic if you don't recognize their right to exist, which I disagree with.
And there are Jewish people who disagree with that.
Hundreds of thousands of Jewish people disagree with that.
And I said you can't equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
You know, there may be a strong overlap between those people, but they're not the same thing.
We have different words for them for a reason.
And then they said, well, you're saying Israel's right to exist and you're equating that with Zionism.
And he said, that's not exactly what the bill says.
Well, this week they pass a bill or resolution that says anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
Like they put it in even more clear words.
And I found it ironic or not, Not too ironic.
I actually wondered where some of these Democrats were for a while.
But Gerald Nadler, of all people, gave an impassioned speech about why you can't equate those two terms.
Who is very pro-Israel and with a leading, or I think the most senior Jewish member of the House, but also somebody very pro-Israel.
And yeah, he came out and said, you have Orthodox Jews, many of them, sects of them, who oppose Zionism on the grounds that it's incompatible with Judaism.
But let me ask you, independent of whether you agree with that statement or not, that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, just on the principle, is it the proper role of the U.S.
Congress to go around dictating to Americans which views that they might or might not hold that are racist or bigoted or anti-Semitic?
Why is that even a proper function for the U.S.
Congress at all?
It's not.
The irony is, you know, we're in the Judiciary Committee and we're uncovering all these infringements on the First Amendment that were done at the urging of the government, you know, through the Twitter files and Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi.
And we're, you know, on my Weaponization of Government Committee.
We've been uncovering that, yet I think that's exactly what this is.
This is an attempt to squelch speech.
Now, the First Amendment covers the speech you don't like.
It covers hateful speech.
There are some clearly delineated examples of speech that's not protected, but anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, those are actually protected speech.
I don't support either of those positions.
But those are protected forms of speech.
Yet some of these resolutions, one of them sought to basically censure Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat representative, censuring her for words that she said.
And then another one of these resolutions were sought to go to universities.
And two of the resolutions or amendments said that we were going to defund universities that had anything to do with allowing anti-Semitic speech to occur on their campuses.
So I do believe that's a First Amendment violation when you have the federal government conditioning money based on political positions or allowing certain types of speech.
That's been held up in the Supreme Court.
That is a violation of First Amendment.
For sure.
I want to ask you about the political component in your district because you've been saying AIPAC can run all the ads they want.
I don't think it's going to work in my district.
This is not new for you that you're casting loan votes or votes as part of a very small minority when it comes to Israel back in 2014.
Congress wanted to condemn the boycott of Israel movement.
I think it's very ironic that people now say the Palestinians are using violence against Israel.
Well they tried for a lot of years to use anti non-violent means like the boycott of Israel and the West in Europe made it illegal to advocate that boycott.
In the United States there were some even attempts to ban it.
You were one of the no votes to declare the boycott movement of Israel anti-semitic or al-Flemish.
You've had other votes like that as well over the years.
And you referred earlier, when I asked you what's different about Israel politically, to some religious views.
And I think some people, when they hear that, assume you mean Jewish Americans, but there's also a pretty healthy dose of Christian Zionism in the United States, a kind of belief that Christianity calls for Israel to be strong.
So I'm just wondering, over the years, as you've gone back to Kentucky, as you stay in touch with your voters, as you've been re-elected six times, I think, since you were first elected, Have people in your district been raising this issue?
Is this a priority for them, whether the U.S.
funds the Wars of Israel or not, or weighs in on these debates formally as part of resolutions?
You know, it's interesting, before I answer that, let me speak to your first statement about the 2014 vote on the BDS movement.
The reason I voted no on that, and I'm surprised I remember this, this was nine years ago, was what they were trying to do is tell people privately, companies and individuals, where they could and couldn't invest.
Now, if that resolution had said, we're not going to use the Postal Workers Pension Fund to participate in the BDS movement, I could have voted for that.
You know, that's a judgment call on where you invest the federal money.
But that vote was actually about private money.
And so that was an easy vote, actually.
So when I go back home to Kentucky, You know, my district is sort of, I would describe it as being in the Bible Belt.
There's some evangelicals who are very strong supporters of Israel.
There's a group that's associated with AIPAC called Christians United for Israel, and I would say they are more active in my district than AIPAC is, but they're basically part of the same organization.
I think they may have shared staff or executive directors or things like that.
Yeah, absolutely.
And forgive me if I'm wrong about that, but I think I'm right.
And so they work through churches and then they try to get the pastors of the church to lobby me, for instance.
Emma, are you still getting my feed? - Yeah, absolutely.
Yep, we hear you great. - Okay, 'cause my camera froze up on this end.
OK, as long as you can hear me.
So back in my district, though, if I do a poll and I say, what's the most important thing to you?
And I give them a set of things.
They're going to pick jobs in the economy, taxes and spending, immigration, the Second Amendment, abortion is an issue in my district, We're going to go down that list, and my position with respect to Israel is not in their top five.
I don't think it's in their top ten.
Now, if they watch it on Fox News every minute, and that's all that Fox shows, then it can bubble up into the top three, but it's usually just not there.
It's not the issue.
So what AIPAC does, no doubt, they're punching above their weight class.
Right.
This is not an issue that motivates voters.
I've seen this in the Democrats that they beat.
I've watched some Democrat ads when they run their Super PAC ads.
They use issues like abortion.
They don't bring Israel into it when it's Democrat on Democrat crime.
Obviously, they're trying to be more pro-choice than the other one, and so AIPAC will get involved in that issue.
Use this issue if they were trying to beat me in an election.
And by the way, I believe right now they're trying to recruit somebody in my district, which is interesting.
You know, there's people outside of my district.
They may be Americans, but they're representing a foreign country, and they're trying to recruit somebody to run against me, even though I win by large margins historically in the primary and the general, based on my voting record, which I go to great pains to explain.
Yeah, it's amazing that clearly their issue is this foreign country.
There are, of course, times when Israeli interests and American interests conflict.
Every general has said that.
Every national security official has said that.
And yet, just for pointing it out, they will not only try to move you from Congress, but destroy your reputation as an anti-Semite.
In the time we have left, and your camera froze a little bit, so we're as we fix that or try and get that work, but your audio is perfect, so it's fine.
I just want to switch gears a little bit.
And as you know, one of the topics I've reported on the most in my career of journalism is the spying powers of the NSA and the FBI to spy domestically on American citizens, often without warrants.
And one of the bases for those spying powers is Section 702 of the Five Amendments Act.
It has to be renewed every four years.
In 2018, under President Trump, it was renewed with no changes as a result of a coalition between House Republicans and even Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff.
I always thought that was strange that while they were calling Trump Hitler, they were voting to give the executive branch more power It's now up for renewal.
I've heard many Democrats, many Republicans expressing concern about how the FBI, how the NSA, the executive branch are using these spying powers.
Do you think there's a chance, a real plausible chance, that either it won't pass or that it will only pass with meaningful reforms?
Well, I don't think there's a chance it won't pass.
Congress has been lobbied hard by the executive branch.
And when I say executive branch, I'm talking about people in the executive branch who are there regardless of who the president is.
And they're convinced that this program is essential.
But I do think we've got a great chance of meaningful reforms, and I'll tell you why.
Jim Jordan is the chair of the Judiciary Committee, and I sit on the Judiciary Committee with Jim Jordan.
And for the first time now, we have a chairman who cares about this issue.
He's motivated to change it.
You know, we have a dual jurisdiction over FISA with the Intel Committee.
Now, the Intel Committee has a different view of this program, and they don't think the violations are that great, or they think that internal changes in the way the program has been run have been fixed and we're okay.
We have a disagreement here, and right now we're ironing that out.
Tomorrow in my committee, we're going to have a marathon markup session where we will write the new FISA bill, and it will have reforms in it, and it will have requirements such as a warrant.
If you want to go snooping in that giant database of information that was collected on foreigners, which may have American persons information in it, if you want to go searching in that database for American persons identifiers, you're going to have to have a warrant if the Judiciary Committee bill makes it out of our committee tomorrow and passes on the floor.
So I think we have a good chance.
And there are significant other reforms like private right of action where you could sue the government and also criminal penalties for the people in the organizations that run FISA if they violate your civil liberties.
So there will be some good reforms in there.
The question, though, is are we going to get the judiciary version?
Are we going to get the intel version?
Are we going to get some amalgamation of the two?
Or will we just get a clean reauthorization at the last second that they try to jam through?
And what will the Senate put on the floor?
It's an interesting time and you're right, this opportunity only comes up every four years.
There's some people in the Senate that want to renew this thing for like 12 years.
We're obviously against that because who knows what's going to happen in the next four years.
We need to be ready to go back in and fix it again in four years if we see it's not really been fixed.
Just the last question before we have to let you go.
I remember very well after the Snowden reporting and the kind of anti-spying sentiment that emerged in the United States and the West and in Congress, there seemed like there was going to be this bill passed that was co-sponsored by the then Republican Justin Amash from Michigan, the then Democrat and longtime civil libertarian from Michigan John Conyers.
It was getting A lot of support at the last minute.
The Obama White House intervened, got Nancy Pelosi to whip enough Democratic no votes to defeat it.
And I remember this headline in Foreign Policy, the journal saying how Nancy Pelosi saved the NSA.
Is there a meaningful chunk of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the House Democratic Caucus who are with you on some or all of these reforms?
Yes, particularly in the Judiciary Committee.
I'm sure when we look at the entirety of Congress, there will be some Democrats who are for perpetuating FISA without reforms.
But almost unanimously, there may be one or two exceptions in the Judiciary Committee.
The Democrats are on board with the reforms that we're going to mark up tomorrow.
And that's a big chunk.
It's not just the squad.
There are a few Very progressive Democrats who are good on this issue, who are on the Judiciary Committee.
But there's, you know, I will say like Jayapal is one of them, or Zoe Lofgren, who's worked with me and Justin Amash over the years to try and amend this thing, try to nibble it up around the edges.
I feel good about the coalition of Republicans and Democrats on this issue.
The question, though, Glenn, is are there more Democrats for the intel version of the FISA program that could come out of the House, or are there more Democrats for the judiciary version?
And we're working hard to get strong reforms in there and keep a larger constituency within Congress for our judiciary bill than they will have for the House Intel bill or for a clean re-auth.
Well, Congressman, as you predicted at the beginning, our limited time means that we didn't get to delve into all the topics I was hoping to talk to you about.
So as I promised you, we will be harassing you and your staff for you to come back and have a more in-depth conversation.
But I super appreciate the amount of time that you gave us tonight.
It was a great conversation, as you knew it would be.
And I hope to see you again shortly.
Yeah, looking forward to it.
I see my profile picture there.
I look pretty stern.
I want people to know I'm kind of more friendly than that picture would indicate.
I think it was taken right after the Jamal Bowman screaming match.
The one-sided screaming match.
Thanks, Glenn.
I'll come on any time.
Thank you.
Alright, great to see you.
See you, thanks.
Bye.
So, this is a final story that we wanted to cover because it happened shortly before we came on the air and it was something that I find quite remarkable.
Just kind of a stop and check on things going on in the West that things that were once unthinkable that have now become normalized.
I saw a lot of support for what happened here from a lot of people on the American right who have been waving the free speech banner for some time.
So here is the Metropolitan Police, which is the police force in the city of London.
And there was a lot of pressure on the Metropolitan Police by British officials inside the government, the Tory government.
to demand that they arrest everybody who is participating in pro-Palestinian protests.
London has seen massive marches, up to 800,000 people, and it's a weekly march against what Israel is doing in Gaza.
And there were calls from, we've covered this, from British officials, from British journalists saying they've had enough, there should be no more marches.
And the Home Secretary of the government came out and said, these pro-Palestinian protesters are terrorist advocates and they should not be allowed to protest.
Even though, as is true for all these pro-Palestinian protests in the West, many of them were Jews.
There were a lot of Jewish groups for Palestine, Jewish groups critical of Israel.
She ended up having to resign from the government as a result of some statements she made about these protesters that were a bridge too far, even for British politics.
But the chief of police of the Metropolitan Police said, we are not going to just arrest people.
for showing up at a protest.
If they start to engage in violence or threatening people, that's one thing.
But when you have the civil liberties of your country being protected in the last instance by the chief of police, you know that's a bad sign.
And they've been pressured and pressured and criticized and attacked for not doing more to curb these pro-Palestinian protests.
And so here the Metropolitan Police announced today there was a Banner put up in Regents Park, in Park Square near Regents Park, on a building that said, Globalize Infantada.
There you see the political banner with that phrase, Globalize Infantada.
Now, a lot of people like to assume that the word infantada is inherently violent.
There were infantadas in Sorry, intifada.
There were intifadas in the West Bank that used violence, and so people assume it inherently means that, like jihad.
The word, though, is really just an uprising, and it can be a political uprising or a nonviolent uprising.
But either way, in the United States, this would obviously be protected speech.
And so this Was put up there non-violently and the Metropolitan Police came and said officers have removed the manor from the building in Park Square near Regents Park.
A number of people have been arrested.
We remain at the scene and will share further details later.
We can confirm nine people were arrested under Section 18 of the Public Order Act.
Officers have now secured the property which is being used by squatters.
We will continue to have a presence in the area to respond to any further incidents.
Now this is part of what Congressman Massey was talking about.
There is an absolute attempt to replicate this in the United States.
There have been pro-Palestinian student groups banned, one in the University of Florida system by order of Governor DeSantis, claiming that their views somehow constitute material support for terrorism, even though courts have ruled that you can't violate the material support for terrorism statute or give material support simply through political speech.
Columbia University has banned pro-Palestinian teach-ins.
They suspended two pro-Palestinian groups, including one that was a Jewish group, a group of Jewish students, again, defending Palestinian views.
And we've covered all the firings and cancellations and other forms to restrict free speech in the United States, but definitely in the West generally, especially in a country like the UK, where there's no free speech.
Protections in the Constitution.
So here you have a political sultan calling for intifada.
And they decided this was criminalized and arrested the people responsible for putting up the flag on all kinds of people who usually pretend to be in favor of free speech.
Suddenly, because the issue is Israel, our pro-Palestinian protesters were happy about it.
Just like people were cheering when France banned all pro-Palestinian protests nationwide when Germany did the same.
These are the kinds of incursions on free speech that if you don't object to, or worse, if you support, You never have any business calling yourself a free speech defender in the future.
And the thing that concerns me the most is to see free speech in the West, Americans' free speech rights being eroded in defense of this other country, this foreign country on the other side of the world.
And that's exactly what all of this is designed to do.
That concludes our show for this evening.
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