Category: Politics

NEW YORK — Kamala Harris just gave the Democratic Party the most explicit sign yet she’ll run for president in 2028.

“Listen, I might, I might. I’m thinking about it,” Harris told the Rev. Al Sharpton at the National Action Network convention on Friday, when he asked her whether she will run again in 2028. “I’ll keep you posted,” she said as she walked off the stage, concluding a roughly 40-minute appearance that was peppered with cheers and a standing ovation from attendees.

The former vice presidenthas toyed with the idea before, but her comments Friday took on a new meaning in front of an audience full of Black lawmakers, influential power brokers and voters at what amounted to the first major cattle-call for the potential 2028 Democratic field.

“I know what the job is and what it requires,” she told Sharpton.

Harris was the sixth possible 2028 contender to take the stage at the conference for a fireside chat with Sharpton, a tacit acknowledgement that whether the hopefuls ultimately decide to run or not, they know they can’t skip this room. Black voters make up a huge chunk of the Democratic primary base and will play a major role in determining the party’s next presidential nominee.

Harris was received with the most enthusiasm from the audience compared to any of the Democrats who spoke earlier this week, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

At one point, the crowd in the packed ballroom repeatedly chanted, “Run again! Run again!”

Later, the cheers for Harris grew to such a tenor, Sharpton jokingly admonished the crowd: “This is a convention, not a revival.”

Harris repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump — on Iran, foreign policy and voting rights, among other topics — throughout her conversation with Sharpton.

But she also nodded to the influence Trump and the GOP had on certain voters of color in 2024, when a significant number of Black and Latino men decided to move away from the Democratic Party.

Democrats, she said, shouldn’t expect support because of longstanding relationships.

“I think we need to be transactional voters,” she said to scattered cheers in the room. “Here’s what I’m suggesting in addition: get yours. Vote and say, ‘I’m voting because I expect something out of this’…. I’m saying it’s okay to also give people permission to be transactional, and to say, if you will get my vote, this is what I expect. I expect to get something out of this.”

People close to Harris say she’s genuinely undecided and they’ve been urging her to take steps that preserve her ability to mount a campaign.

But her remarks before the packed convention hall mark one of several high-profile public appearances she’s planning as she reemerges — and tries to reintroduce herself — to voters. Harris said she’ll soon be traveling to South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Arkansas.

Harris leads several very early polls of Democrats’ top picks for president heading into 2028, likely bolstered by her name recognition from her two previous runs for the White House and her four-year tenure as vice president under former President Joe Biden.

The early leg-up Harris holds in the shadow presidential primary was evident even before her remarks on Friday morning. Unlike the event’s first two days, attendees shuffled through a security checkpoint at the entrance to the ballroom, akin to Secret Service protocols usually afforded to former office holders (Trump stripped Harris of her USSS detail in 2025). And the cavernous Midtown event space reached capacity over an hour before Harris walked onstage.

In some ways, Harris’ conversation with Sharpton felt much like a 2024 campaign appearance.

“Freedom,” Beyoncé’s 2016 hit that became the soundtrack of Harris’ 2024 campaign, played over the loudspeaker as attendees filed in, and a sizzle reel of footage showing Sharpton and Harris together projected onto the two screens that frame the main stage, something no other possible 2028 presidential contender’s attendance featured.

“I just really want to hear her point of view of everything, about what’s happening now in the presidency, and maybe what she would have done if she was here instead of Trump,” said 27-year-old Justina Pena, a New Yorker.

Chris Cadelago contributed. 

​Politics

Marjorie Taylor Greene unloads on Trump, Netanyahu and the future of MAGA

lead image

​Politics

PILGRIMAGE: The biggest names in politics are flying in from around the country to meet the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Governors Wes Moore from Maryland and JB Pritzker from Illinois and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) spoke with him today. Yesterday was Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro. Still up is former Vice President Kamala Harris, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

These potential 2028 presidential hopefuls — in town for the 35th convention of Sharpton’s National Action Network — know that one thing that’s true in New York extends to the whole country.

“If you want to go somewhere in the City of New York, in anything, whatever your profession is, you’ve got to come to the Dr. Rev. Al Sharpton,” Harlem Assemblymember Jordan Wright said.

Sharpton is spending the week basking in that clout. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Former mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani viewed him as a chaos agent and enemy. Now, the who’s-who of national and local politics are elbowing their way to see and be seen at his four-day convention.

“They’re showing up because he deserves the respect of everyone in this country,” Gov. Kathy Hochul told Playbook. “He’s been a close adviser a long time. I call him up. And in fact, I spoke to him the day I found out I was going to be governor, watching it on television. I called him up, and he said, ‘I’ll pray for you.’ I got down on my knees, and I prayed myself for wisdom and for justice.”

Sharpton’s influence, for instance, was on full display in New York last year when the field of mayoral candidates trekked to his House of Justice in Harlem — which will soon be relocated — to show deference as they aimed for City Hall. There, Sharpton spoke positively about Andrew Cuomo during the primary and even chided then-mayoral-candidate Zohran Mamdani for not endorsing former Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Black woman, in a high enough spot on his ranked-choice ballot.

“Somehow that politics ain’t progressive to me,” Sharpton said nine days before the primary.

Still, Mamdani chose to visit Sharpton at the House of Justice in his first public appearance after his win. That morning, Sharpton took Mamdani’s hand and raised it into the air, as if declaring him the winner by knockout in a boxing match.

Last week, Sharpton raised eyebrows when he told our colleagues in Washington he thinks Harris deserves a second look as a presidential candidate, attempting to thread the needle for Harris the same way he had for Adrienne Adams.

He clarified — and defended — those comments while speaking with us Wednesday night.

“I don’t know if she’s gonna run, but I see her [facing] a lot of sexism and racism,” Sharpton said. “Don’t dismiss her. Let her decide what she’s going to do. She got more votes than any presidential candidate in history, other than Donald Trump. She ought to be acknowledged for that.” — Jason Beeferman

From the Capitol

NOTHING IS OVER: State workers earned $1.6 billion in overtime in 2025, a 22.7 percent increase from the prior year, according to a report released Thursday morning by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office.

The findings come as unions are pressing to expand retirement benefits in the Tier 6 pension category — changes that would cost state and local governments up to $1.5 billion a year.

“State agencies need to carefully monitor overtime to ensure that its use is justified and that state services are provided safely and effectively,” the overtime report found. “The use of overtime can have a substantial impact on long-term pension costs.”

Read more from POLITICO Pro’s Nick Reisman.

PARTY RAIDS: Progressives in the Hudson Valley seem to have avoided the party raiding that’s been the norm in that corner of the state — but one candidate in Saratoga County is raising eyebrows.

It’s become increasingly common for allies of major party candidates to manipulate minor party nominations. Most prominently, a former Republican won the 2024 Working Families Party’s primary in Rep. Mike Lawler’s district after being supported by people who joined the WFP days before the deadline. That ensured the left would split its vote.

A comparable situation in area congressional or state legislative districts doesn’t appear to exist this year. The only candidate who submitted petitions to challenge Lawler on a minor line was the WFP-backed Democrat Effie Phillips-Staley.

Still, there was a curious registration in the Saratoga-area district held by Democratic Assemblymember Carrie Woerner.

The only candidate who submitted for the WFP line in that district was a Thomas Kenny. Attempts to figure out just who he is weren’t immediately successful — as of January, nobody with that name was registered to vote in that corner of the state. Woerner’s campaign believes he might have been a Conservative until recently, possibly living elsewhere.

There have been some electoral oddities in the county in the past. Dozens of individuals connected to the Saratoga Springs Police Department switched their registration from the Republican or Conservative Parties to the WFP in 2021, forcing a primary against the Democratic supervisor.

Saratoga GOP Chair Joe Suhrada said he didn’t know anything about the Kenny candidacy.

“I don’t know him and I’m not sure who he is,” Suhrada said. He theorized the candidate — unknown to Democrats and the WFP alike — might be a leftist. “There are so many people who decry the Democrats as supposedly not standing up to Trump enough … That could be the case here.” — Bill Mahoney

FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

CALLING IT QUITS: Just hours before tonight’s Democratic debate to take on Lawler in NY-17, tech executive and local government official Peter Chatzky ended his bid. Chatzky, who loaned himself a whopping $5 million, was set to take the stage with Army veteran Cait Conley, Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson and Phillips-Staley.

In a statement, Chatzky criticized the “machinery of the Democratic party” and said that if he continued his campaign, “the party establishment and my competitors would need to spend significant effort and money to defeat me, resources that would be better used to defeat Mike Lawler.”

Chatzky had been vying to claim the progressive lane, which Working Families Party-backed Phillips-Staley is also pushing for. Last month, Phillips-Staley was the only candidate to call on Chatzky to drop out after reports of his bawdy online posts emerged. (Chatzky did not mention those incidents in his statement, though he has made the rounds in local media explaining his sense of humor.) Conley and Davidson are taking a more moderate approach to their candidacies.

Chatzky did not immediately endorse an opponent upon dropping out.

That leaves five candidates in the running for the Democratic nomination: Conley, Davidson and Phillips-Staley, along with former TV reporter Mike Sacks and Air Force veteran John Cappello. The latter two were not invited to participate in tonight’s debate and have largely flown under the radar. — Madison Fernandez 

HOCHUL DOUBLES DOWN ON NY-21: Hochul isn’t backing down from her bet that Rep. Elise Stefanik’s deep-red seat could actually turn blue.

Speaking with reporters today at an unrelated event, Hochul said she’s spent time listening to New Yorkers of all stripes during her trips to the North Country and thinks Democrats could flip the district.

“Conservative, Republican farmers [are] telling me they are ‘had it’ with the tariffs, they are ‘had it’ with this ICE raids on their farms,” Hochul said. “I heard a lot of anger. I was reflecting on that as a place that people would not expect us to have an opportunity to win, where I believe we do. People are rejecting the policies that are driving up costs and making their lives miserable.”

Hochul told Young Democrats last month that she’s “so optimistic about our chances this year, I believe we can even take Elise Stefanik’s seat.”

Stefanik, who is not seeking reelection, won her seat in a general election by 24 points. Assemblymember Robert Smullen and Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino are running as Republicans to replace her. Democrat Blake Gendebien is running for the seat. — Jason Beeferman

IN OTHER NEWS

— CHILLING EFFECT?: According to the Rent Guidelines Board, landlord costs rose by 5.3 percent over the last year, an increase that could undermine Mamdani’s efforts to freeze rents for the city’s rent-stabilized apartments. (POLITICO Pro)

— FULL-TIME TOTS: Mamdani announces full-day, year-round care for New York City’s 2-K program with the first 2,000 seats opening this fall with extended-hours. (New York Daily News)

— NOT BRAGG, BUT…: Housing groups are pushing for new tenant harassment protections in the state budget that would create criminal penalties for harassing rent-stabilized apartment dwellers. (amNY)

Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.

​Politics

Democrats are, once again, punting on what to do about Israel.

DNC members rejected a symbolic resolution to limit the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and dark-money corporate groups in Democratic primaries — an unsurprising result that is nevertheless a blow to those within the party that have been infuriated by the pro-Israel group’s recent interventions.

They also punted on a pair of sweeping resolutions concerning conflicts in the Middle East that pushed the party to support conditioning military aid to Israel. The measures were referred to the party’s nascent Middle East Working Group, which is meeting for the fourth time this week and has been slow to coalesce around an agenda.

While the resolutions were not expected to pass, the outcomes reflect a party establishment still grappling with how to respond to the increasingly thorny politics around Israel and AIPAC — and their base’s sharp turn away from the longtime U.S. ally.

The AIPAC resolution called for the DNC to condemn “the growing influence of dark money” in Democratic elections, including from the pro-Israel group that has pumped tens of millions of dollars into recent primaries in Illinois and New Jersey.

Several members of the DNC’s resolutions committee said they voted it down because they had passed a resolution earlier in their meeting broadly condemning the influence of dark money in the midterms without calling out individual groups. Committee members similarly struck language from the catchall dark-money resolution that had singled out the glut of spending from AI- and cryptocurrency-aligned PACs.

DNC Chair Ken Martin amplified that messageon X: “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation,” he said. “I have made my position on this clear from day one: We must end the influence of dark money in our politics and restore power back to the people.”

Pro-Israel groups applauded the DNC for quashing the nonbinding resolution.

“The DNC made clear today that all Democrats, including millions who are AIPAC members, have the right to participate fully in the democratic process. And we plan to do just that,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa said in a statement.

Halie Soifer, a former Kamala Harris adviser and CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, suggested that the votes show the party hasn’t shifted on Israel as much as it seems.

“There are misconceptions because there is a vocal, far-left faction of our party, but they are in no way leading here,” Soifer said. “The DNC as a whole has not shifted from where it has been … which is an organization that is inclusive of Jewish Americans and is supportive of the U.S.-Israel security relationship, as well as Israel’s future as a Jewish and Democratic state.”

But Florida Democrat Allison Minnerly, who introduced the AIPAC resolution, argued there’s “merit to calling out different PACs with intention” given their individual efforts to influence the party’s elections. She said in an interview after the vote that she was unsurprised but disappointed by the result.

DNC leadership “really does not want to continue having this conversation … but our voters, our base, does,” she said. “These are hard questions on a local and national level, but the DNC ultimately has to not just kick things down the road but address things head on because people are tired of waiting.”

A Pew Research survey released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.

The DNC has struggled for years with how to address the shift within its base — a challenge that has returned to the fore with Israel’s involvement in the unpopular U.S. operation in Iran. That’s being compounded by tensions over AIPAC after the historically bipartisan group intervened in a series of hotly contested primaries.

In a sign of how sensitive — and politically treacherous — both issues are for the party, one DNC member told POLITICO they had received calls about the resolutions from two potential 2028 presidential contenders.

Martin established a working group last summer to guide the party’s Middle East policy. It has yet to begin its work in earnest and has been plagued with internal dysfunction, with some members lamenting that the panel lacks heft within the broader party machine.

Some on the eight-member working group hoped by bringing the resolutions to a larger committee they could force discussion on issues around Israel. But the resolutions committee members sent the measures back to the working group — even as they raised concerns about its pace and progress.

Progressive activists and pro-Palestinian groups bristled at the DNC refusing to directly call out AIPAC and deferring action on measures that included recognizing the “State of Palestine” and pausing or conditioning military aid to Israel.

“Today’s vote once again showed that Democratic leadership is asleep at the wheel when it comes to one of the biggest existential threats to the party,” said Margaret DeReus, the head of the IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian group that had lobbied members to approve the resolutions. “Party leadership needs to wake up.”

​Politics

Democrats’ internal feud over Israel is rearing its head on the party’s biggest stage — again.

Critics of Israel’s military actions and the pro-Israel lobby’s interference in recent Democratic primaries are setting up thorny test votes at the Democratic National Committee’s spring meeting in New Orleans on Thursday, where members will debate resolutions recognizing a Palestinian state, conditioning military aid to Israel and condemning the “growing influence” of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other dark-money groups.

The measures before the DNC’s resolutions committee are unlikely to pass and are nonbinding even if they do. But they are the latest public clash that will pit more pro-Israel party brass against a base whose views on Israel have turned sharply negative and progressive activists who are increasingly incensed by the glut of special-interest spending in Democratic primaries that is often directed against their candidates.

In a sign of the heightened sensitivity around the politics of Israel, one DNC member who was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations said they had received direct calls about the resolutions from two presidential aspirants who would have to answer for the DNC’s positions on Israel and AIPAC if they run. The resolutions are also highlighting sharp divisions within the task force DNC Chair Ken Martin established last year to set the party’s strategy on the Middle East — a committee that remains in early stages and is far from formalizing an agenda.

James Zogby — a longtime DNC member and critic of Israel who is president of the Arab American Institute and who sits on Martin’s Middle East Working Group — said the party needs to wake up to voters’ shifting views on Israel.

“Public opinion has shifted. Democrats have clearly shifted. Candidates have shifted. And we’re not where we were five years ago even,” Zogby said. “We have to avoid the mistakes that we’ve been making, which simply show us to be unwilling to accept or unable to accept the political realities.”

A Pew Research survey released this week showed 80 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents hold unfavorable views of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022. A NBC News poll conducted in late February and early March, meanwhile, found that 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic change from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023.

“The Democratic Party, time and time again, is presented with absolutely winning issues,” said Allison Minnerly, a DNC member from Florida who submitted the resolution criticizing AIPAC and corporate-aligned spending, and who unsuccessfully pushed another last year calling for an arms embargo on Israel. “People 1) hate corporate money and 2) do not want to be involved in further conflict in the Middle East.”

But Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which is against the current measures, said the increasing critiques of the Israeli government by prominent elected officials “doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a wholesale shift in support for Israel’s security or its right to exist as a Jewish state.” Soifer, a former Kamala Harris adviser whose group has opposed similar efforts before the DNC in the past, cast the latest batch of foreign-policy resolutions as a “distraction” for a party that’s showing early success in the midterms by honing in on domestic issues.

The DNC and a spokesperson for AIPAC declined to comment.

Democrats have been here before. Staffers working on the party’s 2024 autopsy found its approach to Gaza hurt the top of the ticket. But it’s unclear whether that made it into the report that the DNC decided not to release.

At the party’s meeting in Minneapolis last summer, Minnerly’s weapons ban failed, while Martin yanked his measure calling for “unrestricted” aid to Gaza and a two-state solution after it passed in favor of creating the task force to advance “solutions” to the party’s divide.

The Middle East Working Group is slated for its fourth meeting this week in New Orleans. Some members lamented to POLITICO that the group lacked structure and any real institutional power. And they disagree on how best to approach their mission.

Joe Salas, a member of the working group from California, believes that Gaza was “one of the things that lost us the White House” in 2024 and is urging the party to adjust its response. He put forward the resolution recognizing the “State of Palestine” and pausing or conditioning weapons transfers to “any military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law or obstruction of humanitarian assistance,” telling POLITICO he hoped it would serve as a guidepost for the task force.

But Andrew Lachman, another task force member and the past president of the California Jewish Democrats, said he doesn’t want to see members of the group trying to “undermine the work of the commission” by pushing catchall resolutions that could bigfoot its efforts.

“It would be much better for us to try to find ways for us to work together as a party, to stand together against these wars, than engaging in this kind of approach,” he said.

The resolutions have also set off a fresh round of lobbying among interest groups. IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian group, sent members a memo on Wednesday urging them to pass the measures.

“The signs are growing that the gap between Democratic leadership and their voters on this issue will be a liability in 2026 unless serious action is taken,” the group warned in its memo, a copy of which was shared with POLITICO.

​Politics

Chris Taylor, a liberal Wisconsin judge, won a seat on the state Supreme Court on Tuesday in the latest strong election for liberals since President Donald Trump’s return to office.

Taylor, a former Democratic state representative and current state appellate judge, defeated conservative appeals court judge Maria Lazar in the race for the ten-year term. Her win expands liberals’ majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to a 5-2 split.

Her win comes amid a string of special election victories for Democrats that suggests a difficult political environment for the GOP heading into November’s midterms.

Conservatives haven’t notched a Wisconsin Supreme Court victory since a narrow 6,000-vote win in 2019. In the years since, liberal judges Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz, Susan Crawford — and now Taylor — have romped to easy wins in a Wisconsin spring electorate trending firmly to the left.

Assuming every justice finishes out their terms, the win locks in a liberal court majority until at least 2030.

Taylor’s win doesn’t come as a surprise. In the days before the Tuesday election, Wisconsin Republicans conceded Lazar stood little chance of victory, with GOP donors refraining from pulling out their checkbooks and the majority not at stake in this election.

The election attracted far less attention than last year’s race, where Crawford beat her conservative opponent by over 10 points. That race saw Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and a Republican megadonor — pour millions into an effort to defeat Crawford, arguing the fate of “Western civilization” was at stake in the race.

The court’s liberals have made use of their majority in recent years. In 2023, the court ordered new legislative maps in Wisconsin, effectively ending a GOP gerrymander that had lasted for over a decade. And last July, the panel overturned Wisconsin’s 176-year-old abortion ban by a 4-3 majority.

Also last year, the court ruled that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers could use his veto pen to lock in a 400-year increase in funding for schools.

Neither party expects the fall governor’s race to follow the same exact path as this spring Supreme Court campaign, with November elections in the battleground state routinely decided by slim margins.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes are the top Democrats running for the right to face Trump-endorsed Rep. Tom Tiffany for governor in November.

​Politics

Republicans held onto former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s House seat on Tuesday.

Republican Clay Fuller defeated Democrat Shawn Harris in a special runoff election in the state’s 14th Congressional District, giving the GOP another vote for their narrow House majority.

The northwest Georgia district is the reddest House seat in the Peach State, and Democrats never had a serious chance of flipping the seat.

But Republicans took no chances. GOP-aligned outside groups, combined with Fuller’s campaign, spent more than $1.2 million on the runoff, according to AdImpact, while Harris didn’t receive any air support from national Democratic groups and spent just $300,000. In the short term, Fuller’s win is a boon for Speaker Mike Johnson, who will gain a safe vote for the GOP caucus.

Fuller, who had Trump’s endorsement, came in second behind Harris in March’s first round of voting, but that was in large part due to a crowded GOP field that split votes.

​Politics

East Lansing, Michigan — Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed declined during a campaign stop Tuesday to denounce Hasan Piker’s past comments and defended the popular far-left streamer’s place in the Democratic Party amid attacks from the center-left.

In an interview with POLITICO while standing next to Piker, El-Sayed said he believes it’s “critical” that Democrats embrace Piker, who has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans over his comments about Israel and U.S. foreign policy — including from El-Sayed’s two most formidable opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

In 2019, Piker said on his livestream that “America deserved 9/11,” though he later apologized for the remark. In the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Piker strongly condemned the Israeli response in Gaza and has disparaged the government in terms some Jews and supporters of Israel have labeled antisemitic.

Asked if he would disavow any of Piker’s views, El-Sayed said attempts to pin Piker’s past comments to him amounted to a “gotcha game.”

“I’m not here to disavow people’s views,” El-Sayed said. “This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture — I thought we were over it.”

El-Sayed’s comments quickly drew attention from Republicans, who circulated video of his remark online while noting Piker’s divisive past.

El-Sayed defended the decision to appear with Piker on the campaign trail, where the two spoke to a room of about 400 people at Michigan State University, and said hesitancy to engage with left-wing surrogates like him is “exactly why Democrats too often fail to get our message out to everybody.”

El-Sayed and Piker also campaigned at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday.

Piker downplayed attacks from other Democrats, including the center-left think tank Third Way and some potential 2028 presidential candidates, suggesting they were delivering “talking points that someone else has given them.”

“It is a heinous smear at the end of the day, and it’s one that many of these groups actually apply, because they can’t have a conversation about Israel’s influence over American foreign policy on moral terms,” Piker said. “So instead of attacking the message, they attack the messenger.”

​Politics