The Dictatorship
Democrats toe a line on Israel as AIPAC’s grip on Congress starts to slip
For decades, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee operated as the quiet enforcer of a bipartisan consensus: Politicians of both parties supported Israel — AIPAC made sure of it — and the U.S.-Israel relationship was widely understood to be a non-issue in campaigns.
That arrangement publicly ruptured this week with a House floor vote that split Democrats, including their leadership, on whether to cut off military aid to Israel over its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.
The amendment was symbolic. Lawmakers in both chambers have rejected similar versions for years, and this one, like the others, was never going to pass.
But the numbers voting in favor of such measures have surged in tandem with the mounting Democratic primary wins by candidates who built their campaigns on opposing Israel’s war in Gaza, often over AIPAC-backed opponents.
In May, a record 40 Senate Democrats voted against further military aid to Israel, a roll call that would have been unthinkable two cycles ago. On Wednesday, 103 out of 211 Democrats voted similarly on the House amendment.
Some of those voting against the amendment to cut $3.3 billion in security aid to Israel, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said they had concerns about its scope and political ramifications but agreed with its message.
Some of those voting in favor of cutting off aid, including Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said they didn’t actually want it to pass but cast their votes to mark the need for a fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.
“For the good of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people, it is clear that U.S. policy must change,” Pelosi said after her vote. “The United States must be a force for security and stability. The American people are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course.”
In April, a Pew Research Center survey found that 80% of Democrats now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 69% a year earlier and 53% in 2022. Those feelings are showing up at the ballot box in Democratic primaries:
- In New Jersey, progressive organizer Cries Mejia ran openly against AIPAC and won her February special election for a New Jersey congressional seat after AIPAC affiliates spent millions on attack ads targeting a relatively moderate candidateformer Rep. Tom Malinowski. Then in May, Army veteran and physician Adam Hamaviwho operated on children in Gaza, beat out a crowded field of candidates hoping to replace Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who announced her retirement last year. Hamawy had the backing of American Priorities, a new pro-Palestine super PAC founded to counter the power of AIPAC.
- In Illinois, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who is Jewish, won a House primary in March after explicitly criticizing AIPAC; the lobbying group spent at least $5 million trying to defeat him before dialing back its attacks in the final days, when it became clear his replacement could be a candidate still more critical of Israel.
- In Denver, attorney and first-time candidate Melat Kiros defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette, a progressive Democrat backed by AIPAC, by making Gaza advocacy a centerpiece of the campaign.
- In New York last month, a trio of House candidates endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani triumphed: Former city comptroller Brad Lander ousted Rep. Dan Goldman, a two-term Brooklyn Democrat endorsed by AIPAC, in a contest between two men who embrace the terms “liberal” and “Zionist.” Union organizer Claire Valdez snagged the nomination for an open seat encompassing parts of Queens and Brooklyn, saying “free Palestineorganize your union and join DSA” in her victory speech. And in Upper Manhattan, first-time candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier — a Gaza activist who attended a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square the day after Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people, the overwhelming majority of them Israeli — defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who was backed by an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC.
Asked about its recent losses in primaries, AIPAC referred MS NOW to the group’s statement from June: “While disappointed that some of our endorsed candidates did not prevail, our community is proud to support pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who stand for our values, and we are encouraged that voters in races across the country this primary season continue to choose serious, thoughtful leaders who support a strong U.S.-Israel partnership.”
The next major test comes in August, in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primarywhere AIPAC-backed Rep. Haley Stevens faces Abdul El-Sayed, a Mamdani-aligned progressive endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AIPAC has spent more than $49 million on Stevens’ behalf, while El-Sayed has repeatedly ruled out AIPAC money.
The Democratic referendum
For a generation of Democratic politicians, AIPAC’s endorsement was an asset and its opposition a campaign-ending threat. Criticism of the group or its mission risked being labeled antisemitic.
“Twenty years ago, everybody acknowledged how powerful AIPAC was and hardly anyone was willing to take it on or defy what it wanted. There was even something of a taboo talking about it,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.”
Now, for a growing share of the party’s electorate, that calculus has reversed. For some Democratic voters, AIPAC’s involvement in a race is itself a reason to vote against the candidate it backs. A candidate’s public opposition to both AIPAC and to Israel’s policies, on the other hand, is seen by some as a sign of “moral clarity and moral courage,” said Usamah Andrabi, communications director at Justice Democrats, the progressive PAC that helped elect Ocasio-Cortez.
AIPAC remains influential, but “it’s no longer an unchallengeable leviathan,” Walt said, likening it to any other domestic lobby, such as the National Rifle Association.
“It’s pretty open now to ask serious questions about the nature of the U.S. relationship with Israel, the amount of support that we give it — both military aid and diplomatic backing,” said Walt, who has had to defend his work against criticism from pro-Israel groups.
For Democrats, the reckoning began in 2024, when President Joe Biden’s campaign was dogged by protesters pressing his administration to push for a ceasefire in Gaza and an embargo on sending arms to Israel.
The human toll of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack — which killed more than 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza within the first three months, a toll that has since reached at least 73,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry — spurred the creation of the Uncommitted movement, which sought to register disapproval of Biden’s Middle East policies by urging Democratic voters to support “uncommitted” rather than Biden on their primary ballots. After he withdrew from the presidential race, many in the movement carried their opposition forward in declining to support Vice President Kamala Harris.
Then came Mamdani, who built his 2025 New York mayoral campaign in part on open support for Palestinians and opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel. He did not flinch from calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and went from polling at 1% to winning by 9 points in the city with the largest Jewish population in the country.
Mamdani’s win was more than a long shot victory. It was evidence that a pro-Palestinian message could be an asset rather than a liability in a Democratic primary. The message for the rest of the party was hard to miss: On Israel, the primary electorate had begun rewarding the candidates willing to criticize its policies, and punishing those who wouldn’t.
That pressure has reshaped how some Democratic elected officials talk, even those closer to the ideological center. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a prominent 2028 White House prospect, has been visibly recalibrating. In a March “Pod Save America” interview, he likened Israel to an “apartheid” state and said the U.S. had no choice but to reconsider military support.
Weeks later, he told Politico he regretted the word and drew a line many in the party, like Pelosi, are trying to draw: “I revere the state of Israel. I’m proud to support the state of Israel. I deeply, deeply oppose Bibi Netanyahu’s leadership.” On accepting AIPAC money, he was unequivocal: “Never have and never will.”
There are still plenty of Democrats who proudly accept AIPAC’s support and win with it. Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio raked in $593,169 from AIPAC-affiliated groups and individuals this cycle. His primary opponent tried to tag him “Genocide Greg” for his full-throated support of Israel; Landsman carried 68% of the vote.
Although Landsman speaks passionately about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which he calls “awful,” his voting record reflects continued support for Israel.
“I just think it’s really important for Israel to maintain its ability to defend itself. And sometimes it means getting in front of issues as opposed to sitting there and waiting for people to attack you,” Landsman told MS NOW.
But he too pointed to Netanyahu rather than Israel itself as the problem, and agreed that “there should be a debate” about what the U.S.-Israel “partnership looks like.”
The Republican shift
The change has not been confined to the left. A month ago in Kentucky, Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary to Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL who was backed by Trump and was the beneficiary of more than $9 million in AIPAC-affiliated spending. Massie — a seven-term incumbent and one of the few Republicans willing to break publicly with Trump — wanted everyone to know who he blamed.
Facing his supporters on primary night, Massie opened with a joke about the man who had just defeated him. “I would have come out sooner,” the Kentuckian said, “but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv.”
The line drew laughs. But it also touched on an old and ugly insinuation — that a rival’s true loyalties lie abroad — even as it captured something real about a fault line now running through the Republican coalition.
Massie, who sponsored the most recent amendment to cut off aid to Israel, drew the ire of AIPAC, which denounced him as a troublemaker seeking to undermine U.S .-Israeli relations.
“We are deeply appreciative of the 314 Republicans and Democrats who voted to reject Thomas Massie’s latest anti-Israel effort and are disappointed by the 103 Democrats who voted with Massie to weaken America and our ally Israel,” AIPAC posted. “This so-called messaging vote on Israel’s security sends a dangerous signal to both our allies and our enemies around the world.”
Some of the conditions that produced the New York sweep are also contributing to this: a Republican electorate that, while still broadly supportive of Israel, is fracturing at its generational edges. That same Pew Research Center survey from April found that 57% of Republicans under 50 now view Israel unfavorably, up from 50% the year before; in both parties, majorities of voters under 50 now rate Israel negatively.
A bloc of prominent MAGA figures — former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene among them — have broken with Trump in his second term. Among the reasons, by their own account, is that they no longer believe the U.S. should support Israel unconditionally.
There are notable differences in the forces reshaping the two parties, however.
Democrats are responding to a base that increasingly views the war in Gaza as a moral failure; Republicans are splintering along generational lines and around a MAGA media ecosystem newly willing to question the alliance.
But the two currents converge on the same institution: For decades, AIPAC helped set the boundaries of acceptable debate over Israel in American politics. Those boundaries are now being tested from both sides at once — and increasingly, they are not holding.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is endorsing Michigan Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed, MS NOW has learned.
“He’s growing a movement of working people all across Michigan,” Warren says of El-Sayed in a video announcing the pick. “Michiganders deserve a senator who will fight for you, not for special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat.”
The announcement makes Warren the latest high-profile progressive leader to pick a side in the El-Sayed versus Rep. Haley Stevens race that is both a marquee primary battle for a must-win seat ahead of November, and one that’s increasingly framed as a test of establishment versus outsider with big implications for the Democratic Party’s future.
The primary has seen millions pour in already — with pro-Stevens groups having a multimillion-dollar advantage on the airwaves.
Warren and El-Sayed are set to make two stops in the Mitten State next weekend — one week before Election Day and one week after Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, D-N.Y., barnstormed the state for El-Sayed.
“Eventually, we have to ask ourselves: Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?” the New York congresswoman asked a crowd in Detroit over the weekend.
For Warren, it’s a change of heart, after initially backing State Sen. Mallory McMorrow in the primary. McMorrow dropped her bid earlier this month and is not expected to endorse in the primary.
“Senator Warren’s vision for our future — one where corporations can’t buy politicians and people can afford to put food on the table — speaks to Americans everywhere,” El-Sayed told MS of Warren’s endorsement, calling her “a generational voice for Americans who are tired of the status quo.”
The primary is August 4th.
Ali Vitali is MS NOW’s senior congressional correspondent and the host of “Way Too Early.” She is the author of “Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet.”
The Dictatorship
‘It’s a circus’: Republicans have big doubts about their newest reconciliation bill
With just four legislative days until the House breaks for its long August recess, Republicans are racing against the clock to advance their latest reconciliation bill this week. Lawmakers are skeptical they can get it done.
In the House, Republicans are struggling to unite their razor-thin majority on such a tight timeline. In the Senate, the questions about whether the GOP can pass this reconciliation bill are more like doubts.
On both sides of the Capitol, Republicans are naming their price for supporting the package — spending cuts, a stronger version of the SAVE America Act, provisions to defund Planned Parenthood and plenty of parochial asks — making an already difficult effort even harder.
“I do not think it’s likely to get done by next week, but we’ll see,” one House Republican told MS NOW, requesting anonymity to discuss the internal deliberations. “I really don’t think it’s going to happen by next week. I’d be very surprised.”
This lawmaker said Republicans are being pulled in multiple directions.
“Moderates want one thing. The budget hawks want another. And then you have the independent ones that are kind of just everywhere in between,” this GOP lawmaker said. “And it makes it a lot harder with such a slim majority.”
Senate Republicans were even blunter. Asked if there was a good chance the GOP could get the package done with the little time they have left in Washington, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wasn’t very hopeful.
“Nope,” she said, making it clear she’s “not a fan” of what Republicans are currently considering.
The House kicked off the effort last week, unveiling a $95 billion budget resolution aimed at funding the Iran war, implementing parts of the SAVE America Act and addressing some affordability concerns nationwide.
It’s the party’s latest attempt at passing the GOP voting bill after the measure twice failed to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster and the Senate parliamentarian ruled that its current language isn’t compliant with the strict reconciliation rules.
The next hurdle is getting the budget resolution passed on the House floor, where Republican opposition is already mounting.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who frequently breaks from the GOP, told MS NOW last week he’s “probably a no,” raising concerns that the ultimate package would become “a slush fund for funding the war in Iran.” And Rep. Kevin Kiley of California, who left the GOP to become an Independent earlier this year, told MS NOW that Republicans shouldn’t count on his vote.
“I’m very skeptical of this approach,” he said.
If all Democrats vote against the budget resolution, as expected, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes and still adopt the measure, assuming full attendance. With two of those spots likely already accounted for, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will need to keep the rest of his conference on board.
The White House, for its part, is running a full-court press to get the reconciliation package to President Donald Trump’s desk. Vice President JD Vance met with House Republicans last week to discuss the effort, relaying that the president supports the package and urging lawmakers to get as much of the SAVE America Act passed as possible, according to three members at the meeting.
Even if Republicans clear the House, they would still have to pass a Senate budget resolution, draft legislation, survive another review by the Senate parliamentarian and assemble a majority in the chamber before sending the package back to the House for final approval.
With just about 20 legislative days planned for the House and Senate before the midterms, Republicans are fairly pessimistic about their chances of passing the package.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do — it’s a pretty significant lift.” Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., told MS NOW. “We’ve got a lot of convincing to do on our side for a lot of reasons.”
Another House Republican put the odds of this third reconciliation bill passing at 50-50.
“It’s just doing a lot,” the lawmaker said. “The fiscal conservatives are concerned, some people are concerned about the war… So that combination, I think, will prove to be difficult.”
Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he needs the spending in the reconciliation bill to be offset by cuts, which is not part of House GOP leadership’s current plan.
Burlison was less optimistic about the bill’s odds.
“I would say probably it’s a 40% chance,” he told MS NOW.
Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has been cautious. When MS NOW asked him how realistic it is to get the bill passed, he said, “If I had to handicap it on a scale of one to 10, I don’t know what to say at this point.”
His members have been even more frank about their gripes with reconciliation 3.0.
After it was reported that House GOP leadership wasn’t planning to include cuts in the bill, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the package “should be fully paid for,” pointing to the ballooning debt.
“Our national debt is a runaway train,” he wrote on X.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told reporters “there needs to be a ban on funding for Planned Parenthood” in the final product, while also saying he didn’t want to see “any federal taxpayer money go to transgender treatment, surgeries, hormone therapies, etc., for minor children.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., meanwhile, took aim at the proposal potentially including language pertaining to the SAVE America Act. If the package includes any language related to the voting bill, Tillis told reporters he’ll “absolutely” vote against it.
“And I’ll slow other things down, too,” he said. “It’s a waste of time. It’s an exercise in futility, and those are the only positive things I can think of to say about it.”
The inclusion of the SAVE America Act is causing problems for other Republicans — just for a different reason.
After the Senate parliamentarian ruled against including the SAVE America Act in reconciliation, Johnson floated a workaround. He proposed creating a federal fund that states could draw from to implement voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements.
To some Republicans, however, that’s not a suitable option.
“If it’s really gonna be language that just is bribing the states, like with a few million bucks, I don’t think that’s strong enough,” Burlison told reporters.
Another House Republican said the SAVE America Act provisions were “100% snake oil.”
“Nothing in the bill is enforceable when it comes to the SAVE Act,” the lawmaker said. “It’s a complete falsehood. It’s very troubling.”
Beyond the policy, some Republicans have gripes with the process.
Murkowski, who said there’s little chance Republicans get the bill passed, said she’s not in favor of “multiple reconciliations.” (The GOP has passed two other party-line bills in the past year.)
Murkowski also took issue with Republicans seeming to subvert the normal appropriations process through these party-line bills.
“I don’t like to appropriate through reconciliation,” Murkowski said. “That’s the direction that we’re going here.”
Still, there are some Republicans who are optimistic.
Asked by MS NOW last week if he was confident this latest reconciliation bill would pass, Johnson gave a definitive “Yes.”
And other members are backing him up.
“It’s more likely than not,” a House Republican said. “There are plenty of issues to still iron out, but people kind of said we couldn’t get the first reconciliation package done as well. Now, in hindsight, it seems inevitable.”
But the pessimism within the Republican ranks seems to be outweighing the optimism. From the tight legislative timeline and competing policy demands to the razor-thin majorities and difficult Senate rules, the GOP’s luck on reconciliation bills may have finally run out.
Asked about the reconciliation push, one member summed it up this way: “It’s a circus.”
Jack Fitzpatrick and Nora McKee contributed to this report.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
The Dictatorship
3 U.S. troops killed in Middle East and 1 missing after Iranian attacks, CENTCOM says
Three American service members — two in Jordan and one in Iraq — were killed in action and one remains missing after Iranian attacks over the past few days, U.S. Central Command said.
The U.S. military on Sunday carried out new airstrikes in response to “swiftly punish” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The names of the killed service members were being withheld until 24 hours after their families were notified, CENTCOM said. Four others were taken to hospitals and have since been discharged, according to CENTCOM. Others were evaluated for minor injuries and have returned to duty. Another service member was wounded and continues to receive medical treatment for a minor injury.
CENTCOM announced on Sunday that a third U.S. service member in northern Iraq was killed in action July 18 following an attempt to detonate unexploded ordnance from an Iranian drone.
The latest fatalities bring the United States’ combat death toll related to the Iran war to 17. In addition, a soldier died from a noncombat-related incident in Kuwait. Hundreds of other troops have been injured.
In a social media post on Saturday afternoon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote, “Godspeed, heroes,” adding: “Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve.”
The U.S. and Iran have traded strikes for the past week, with Iran hitting neighboring nations where American military bases are located. Iran has again closed the Strait of Hormuz — access to which has been a major factor in the war — and the U.S. restored its blockade on Iranian ports.
At least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 injured in Iran since the U.S. resumed its bombing campaign, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health.
A senior Iranian government official told MS NOW on Saturday that the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran is “no longer valid” after days of fighting. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss sensitive issues, said the U.S. had consistently breached the ceasefire and added that Iran had no plans to negotiate while it’s under attack.
A senior foreign diplomat inside Tehran who is linked to Iran-U.S. negotiations told MS NOW that “there is no hope of peace in the near future.” The diplomat, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the topic, said it would “take a miracle” to return to negotiations.
The renewed hostilities threaten to upend the fast-deteriorating agreement that the two countries signed last month. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV that Iran is suspending its commitments to the memorandum of understanding with the U.S., The Associated Press reported Saturdayaccusing the U.S. of violating its own commitments under the deal.
It’s unclear where mediation efforts stand at the moment. Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said in a statement Saturday that the U.S. violation of the MoU proved the “worthlessness and invalidity” of President Donald Trump’s signature and warned of heavy repercussions for the U.S., state broadcaster IRIB reported.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Inzamam Rashid is a MS NOW contributor and Monocle’s Gulf Correspondent based in Dubai. He has previously reported for Sky News and the BBC
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