Politics
‘It betrays our values’: Progressives grapple with deadly shooting
Progressives are grappling with the killing of two people who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington by a gunman who echoed a slogan that has become a rallying cry for many American liberals since the start of the war in Gaza.
After his arrest, the man suspected of killing the couple outside the Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday night exclaimed “free, free Palestine,” a phrase that has become ubiquitous at peaceful demonstrations and on social media over the past 18 months.
The attack brought renewed focus to a strain of violent radicalism on the left, even as progressives pointed out they share nothing with the gunman except his apparent support for Palestinian rights. What the attack did, they said, was hurt their cause.
“It betrays our values and hands more power to those already pushing authoritarian crackdowns,” said Layla Elabed, an organizer in Michigan and the leader of the Uncommitted National Movement, which arose in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s response to the Hamas attack launched on Oct. 7, 2023.
It’s also putting pressure on progressives to respond.
“Where’s our Martin Luther King today? I don’t know where that individual is. Who is that individual?” said a progressive strategist granted anonymity to speak freely. “We just don’t have big moral leaders in our society, period, let alone on the political front.”
A fringe, more radical wing of the pro-Palestinian movement has blinked in and out of national attention since the onset of the war in Gaza. Thousands of protesters have been arrested, including dozens who forcibly entered and occupied university buildings. And last year, POLITICO reported that an online network of pro-Palestinian activists in the U.S. included resources on how to “escalate” political actions beyond legal bounds, as well as pro-Hamas content.
Asked if members of the left are doing any soul searching, Kevin Rachlin — the Washington director of the Nexus Project, a left-leaning Jewish advocacy group — said, “I think they are.”
“This is more and more proof that we need to address antisemitism as a full society versus addressing [it] on the left or on the right,” Rachlin said.
Antisemitism historically and in recent years has more closely been associated with fringe groups on the alt-right, including most notably the 2017 “Unite the Right” neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia. President Donald Trump himself dined with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022.
Supporters of the pro-Palestinian movement, including liberal lawmakers, found themselves on the defensive after the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in a way that conservatives have had to respond to far-right violence in recent years.
Now, some pro-Palestinian activists worry the shooting, which federal authorities called a targeted act of antisemitism, could set back any progress they’ve made in their policy goals amid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and an expansion of Israel’s military operation in the decimated territory.
“We hope and caution against this vigilante violence being used to undermine the movement to end the genocide, a movement of hundreds of thousands of Americans calling for ceasefire and arms embargo,” said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the pro-Palestinian Adalah Justice Project.
Alex Pascal, a former Biden administration official who helped craft its strategy to combat antisemitism, said, “We cannot allow this violence to be weaponized by those who might exploit it to further degrade our democratic rights and freedoms.”
Trump and Republicans for years have cast the pro-Palestinian movement as a group of radical terrorist sympathizers. As the Trump administration has taken increasingly severe steps to suppress the movement and punish its leaders, Democrats and advocates have pushed back on that characterization, framing Republicans’ actions as an attack on free speech.
Pro-Palestinian lawmakers rushed Thursday to condemn the murders and call them acts of antisemitism. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he was “appalled” by the “heinous act.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) emphasized, “Absolutely nothing justifies the murder of innocents.”
Republicans were quick to paint the attacks as just part of broader extremism in the movement.
“The Palestinian cause is an evil one,” Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.” “The only end of the conflict is total surrender by those who support Muslim terror.”
As details about the attack emerged late Wednesday night, the Trump administration jumped into offense. Attorney General Pam Bondi and D.C.’s newly tapped interim U.S. attorney, Jeanine Pirro, visited the scene. And on Truth Social just after midnight, Trump wrote: “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.!”
The left has had to walk this line before. Earlier this year, when federal immigration agents detained and moved to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian green card holder and leader in last year’s pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, the Trump administration justified the arrest by claiming Khalil was a supporter of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Democrats have largely united around detained pro-Palestinian activists as victims of the Trump administration whose constitutionally protected political speech is under attack — but also hedged their statements by emphasizing they didn’t endorse Khalil’s opinions on the subject.
“I abhor many of the opinions and policies that Mahmoud Khalil holds and supports,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at the time on X. But, he added: “If the administration cannot prove he has violated any criminal law to justify taking this severe action and is doing it for the opinions he has expressed, then that is wrong.”
Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.
Michigan Democrats’ scramble to unify after a brutal primary continued Friday with a preplanned rally that brought together the statewide ticket.
It also brought out Pete Buttigieg, a former and potentially future presidential candidate, whose presence helped underscore the stakes not just in November, but for 2028.
Holding the Michigan Senate seat is key to Democrats’ hopes of winning back the upper chamber. It is also a major battleground state that has now voted for President Donald Trump in two of the last three presidential elections, even as it sends Democrats like Elissa Slotkin to the Senate. Michigan is now poised to become an early presidential nominating state, giving it outsized influence on the 2028 contest.
Buttigieg laid out, in explicit terms, the broader stakes of a fractured Democratic coalition heading into the general election: “The stakes are high, and people from around the country, people from around the world, are watching the state of Michigan right now to see if we have the capability to put together that coalition to win.”
“We’re going to win because we know what it means to focus on what’s at stake, to lock arms as allies after a spirited primary, to pull together in common cause,” said Buttigieg, who stayed neutral in the state’s Senate primary, at the Michigan Democratic Party’s general election kickoff rally.
Abdul El-Sayed on Tuesday defeated Rep. Haley Stevens after a bruising primary that exposed ideological and demographic divisions within the party. He now faces Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the general election, and he has to figure out how to pull moderate and establishment Democrats back into the fold to hold the seat.
Republicans, seeing an opening with Black and Jewish voters who broke more for Stevens, are already trying to peel away parts of the Democratic coalition. They view Michigan as one of their best pickup opportunities this cycle.
Buttigieg, who represents the party’s more moderate flank, used his remarks Friday to explicitly appeal to Democrats across the spectrum — and even some Republicans.
“Wherever you sit, in this big tent of ours, and it is a big tent, but whatever corner of that tent you think of as home, there is a set of things, and I mean big, big things, where we agree with each other, we agree with most Michiganders, and Washington and Lansing Republicans disagree with us,” he said. “That’s what’s at stake right now, and it’s not all about left, right, and center, Democrat and Republican.”
Buttigieg’s remarks — and the early unification around El-Sayed in one of the nation’s most important battlegrounds — underscores the delicate balancing act party leaders have to contend with. After a string of progressive victories through the spring, establishment Democrats in particular are trying to rally behind their new nominees without necessarily embracing every part of the politics that carried them across the finish line.
That dance showed up subtly throughout the speeches on Friday night.
Buttigieg at one point framed El-Sayed’s position as wanting “to expand affordable health care and keep more money in your pocket,” whereas Rogers “voted against the Affordable Care Act.” Buttigieg notably did not use the phrase “Medicare for All” to address one of El-Sayed’s signature progressive positions.
El-Sayed, for his part, also made an explicit effort to turn the page.
“In the spirit of unity, in the spirit of the work, in the spirit of coming together, I want to thank both of my colleagues who ran, Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, for an incredible race,” he said. “Their incredible public service in the state of Michigan, and I cannot wait to see what both of them will do next.”
But he signaled that the progressive policy positions that powered his campaign would remain central to his general election stump. He reiterated his support for Medicare for All and railed against “the system of super PACs” and the millions of outside money flooding into politics.
And he sharply criticized Rogers, who, along with his fellow Republicans, have dramatically increased their attacks against El-Sayed since he won the primary, offering an early glimpse of what is likely to be a combative and divisive general election.
“They don’t know who we fight for,” El-Sayed said. “We fight for the families barely able to put their groceries in the cart and check out, we fight for the mom who’s worried about the child care she needs to be able to work a job that barely pays enough, we fight for the folks who are afraid about what happens if they get sick. We fight for each other, and we don’t back down.”
Tennessee GOP Rep. Andy Ogles was ousted by a Republican challenger on Thursday, a blow to President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson who tried to boost his campaign in the final days.
Former Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher won the GOP primary for the 5th District after outraising Ogles, receiving a late endorsement from GOP Gov. Bill Lee and seeing a flood of outside money on his behalf from a renewable energy super PAC.
Ultimately, that spending, coupled with a newly redrawn district that forced Ogles to reach new voters, helped end his reelection bid. Ogles has also faced a number of controversies since he was first elected in 2022.
He deleted a homophobic social media post that was denounced by members of his own party in June, and he drew severe backlash for another post in which he said “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” In 2024, the FBI searched Ogles’ phone during an investigation into campaign finance records, which came after a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint into his use of campaign funds. And in 2023, he faced scrutiny for false claims about his resume.
Ogles’ loss makes him the second Trump-endorsed candidate to lose a primary this week, after a Michigan House candidate who had the president’s backing fell to a challenger who had already dropped out.
Hatcher will face the Democratic mayor of Columbia, Tennessee, Chaz Molder, in November. Molder has posted strong fundraising hauls, while Hatcher will basically be starting from scratch.
But Republicans redrew the seat to favor Trump by 23 points after the Supreme Court severely limited the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, leaving Hatcher as the front-runner.
HIDALGO, Texas — Bobby Pulido is learning that the bright lights of politics can be even harsher than music superstardom.
For the past several months, the Latin Grammy-winning singer and local megacelebrity has been the subject of a steady stream of national headlines scrutinizing his former professional relationship with a one-time bandmate who was imprisoned on child sex molestation charges. He’s also faced criticism for past social media posts that included racial, sexist and homophobic slurs and comments.
During a recent interview with Blue Light News — after a weeknight meet-and-greet with voters in the same stadium where he performed his final concert in November 2025 — Pulido struck a defensive tone about the scandals that have plagued his campaign.
“I apologize right now,” Pulido said, referring to the social media posts. “I’ll tell you right now, that way you’ll never ask me again. I apologize for everything that I’ve ever joked about that offended anybody. But I can’t continue to revisit every single one.”
Pulido also insisted he did nothing wrong in his working relationship with Frankie Caballero, maintaining he did not know about his former accordionist’s child molestation charges. He expects opponents to “keep dripping, dripping, dripping, dripping” new social media posts.
“I’ve been an open book for 30 years,” he said. “I was on Twitter way before I thought about running for office. They’re gonna keep going to old tweets, and there’s a lot of tweets in there that I’m embarrassed of. There’s jokes that I’ve told that I apologize for, and I’ve owned up to them. I’m like, man, that makes me cringe, and I’ve publicly apologized.”
Pulido is one of House Democrats’ prized battleground recruits and a key part of their plan to flip control of the lower chamber. The first-time candidate is widely known in Texas’ 15th District for his singing career, and he hopes to capitalize on voters’ anti-incumbency angst in his bid against GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in a newly redrawn district that President Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024.
Recent polling shows the race within the margin of error or Pulido leading, thanks in large part to his near-universal name ID. But while voters have shown a strong interest in political outsiders, those outsiders are also untested — and new revelations can swamp news cycles and potentially their chances.
The New York Post first reported in April on Pulido’s past relationship to Caballero, a registered sex offender who was imprisoned for indecent contact with an eight-year-old girl. Pulido told Blue Light News he first learned that Caballero was incarcerated on sex charges from the Post report, and Pulido’s campaign says the singer’s management company cut ties with Caballero after learning about a domestic abuse charge in 2021.
Pulido said he’d asked Caballero why he was in prison. “Transferring illegal aliens. That’s what he told me,” he told Blue Light News. “And I knew he had a lot of substance abuse issues, and he violated a lot of his paroles. Those were the things that he told me.” (Pulido’s campaign told the Texas Tribune in July that Pulido only knew Caballero struggled with addiction.)
In June, Axios reported Caballero performed with Pulido at a middle school benefit concert in 2018, where children were present, after being released from prison. When asked if he regretted having Caballero play there, Pulido said he did — knowing what he knows now.
“Without me knowing, it’s hard for me to say that,” he said. “Me, that I know now, yes. I wish I wouldn’t have taken him there.”
Caballero could not be reached for comment.
Pulido’s past social media posts have also come back to haunt the singer-turned-politician. In Twitter posts between 2013 and 2018, Pulido used homophobic and sexist Spanish-language slurs which translate to “f-g,” “f—-t” and “p—y.” In several other posts, he used the word “prieto,” a term referring to dark-skinned individuals many view as pejorative. The posts were first reported by NBC News and reviewed by Blue Light News. In another 2013 Spanish-language post reviewed by Blue Light News, Pulido joked that Mexican actor Mauricio Islas “isn’t a f-g, respect him. His boyfriend is.”
Islas, whose partner is a woman, did not respond to a request for comment.
Pulido told Blue Light News some of the remarks were made in jest toward personal friends. “That’s how we joke. I would never tell a stranger that,” he said.
He defended his use of the racial term as a cultural misunderstanding. “In our culture, we call each other that. It’s like Black people calling each other the n-word,” he said. “Would somebody that called another Black person the n-word be accused of racism? But they want to come and translate what I said to this guy, which is how we say it and we’re joking, they wanted to make it seem like I’m telling some complete stranger that. That’s not what it is.”
“I’m not making excuses,” Pulido added. “Would you have to apologize to your friend that you joke like that with, that doesn’t have a problem with anything you say? I don’t feel like I should have to apologize to them because they’re my friends.”
This isn’t the first time he’s flashed irritation when asked about his past posts, saying they distract from issues like affordability and immigration that voters care about. Pulido let loose on the New York Post when the paper reached out for comment about some other controversial social media posts. “We’ve been getting the same recycled tabloid nonsense since last October,” he said in a July video posted to his social media channels.
“And for whatever reporter that wants to keep asking,” he said in Spanish, “que no mamen, Kool-Aids. Now go translate that.” The colloquial phrase translates roughly to “don’t be jerks, assholes” or “don’t be stupid, assholes.”
De La Cruz’s campaign hopes to make hay out of the issues. In a statement, James Shook, the representative’s campaign manager, said Pulido is a “product of the corrupt compadre system that looks out for itself and everybody else is expected to look away.”
In press releases, De La Cruz’s campaign has pointed out apparent inconsistencies in Pulido’s statements. They note that Pulido told The Monitor he fired Caballero in 1996, but Caballero appears on two of Pulido’s albums through 1999. In a 2019 podcast, Pulido suggested he got Caballero out of jail; he told Bloomberg this year that was “hyperbolic” and he “misspoke.”
“Bobby Pulido walked a man convicted of molesting an eight-year-old girl onto a middle school event in this community, and hid his sex offender status from parents,” Shook said. “This is someone he toured with for years and is on tape bragging he personally bailed him out of jail. The only question left is why he thought he would get away with it.”
But there are signs that voters have become increasingly desensitized to scandal. A new Blue Light News Poll found a significant share of voters — both Republican and Democrat — say they would stick with their preferred candidate even if they were caught accepting gifts from lobbyists, exploiting tax loopholes or making antisemitic posts. Democrats drew a harsher line when it came to accusations of sexual violence and sexual assault. Voters were not polled on past use of homophobic or gender slurs on social media, or on relationships with sex offenders.
Some of Pulido’s supporters who know his family largely shrug off the headlines.
Esmeralda Knapp, a hairstylist in McAllen, said she will vote for Pulido solely because his uncle, a former county judge, helped secure Knapp’s brother’s release from prison many years ago. Bob Villarreal, a retired teacher in Edinburg, reminisced about the time Pulido’s father, a musician himself, substitute-taught his sixth-grade orchestra class. Maria Dominguez, who runs a wellness club in McAllen, said Pulido is “a good person” because she knows his family: “His family are working people, good people and raised in the valley.”
Villarreal brushed off Pulido’s relationship with Caballero. “It wasn’t Bobby,” he said. “I guess it’s important for some people, but for me, I mean, it’s somebody else.”
“It’s guilt by association,” said Patricia Villarreal, his wife.
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