Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has slammed the White House for denouncing Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) after the Missouri lawmaker was defeated by a historic spending blitz by pro-Israel lobbyists seeking to oust any dissent on Israel’s genocide and apartheid from Congress.
On social media on Wednesday, Tlaib pointed out that the very lobbyists behind Bush’s defeat are responsible for helping to boost right-wing sentiment and elect Donald Trump backers to Congress, suggesting that the White House would bend so far backward to capitulate to pro-Israel groups that they would go back on their own supposed principles elsewhere.
During her concession speech on Tuesday, a fiery Bush told the crowd, “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down. And let me put all of these corporations on notice: I’m coming after you too. But I’m not coming by myself. I’m coming with all the people that’s in here, that’s doing the work.”
Bush and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) were successfully unseated by AIPAC in their primaries, with the organization’s PAC spending nearly $25 million on the two primaries; the group’s spending made Bowman’s election the most expensive House primary in history. The spending dumps have, to many, highlighted corruption within the U.S. election system and the ability of deep-pocketed interests to buy the election results they want.
In a press briefing, rather than denounce the influence of money in politics in unseating a Democratic incumbent, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized Bush — and went so far as to accuse Bush of inciting violence, conflating it with the right wing’s years-long practice of calling for violence against the left.
“The president has always been very clear — and very recently, after the assassination attempt of the last president — about lowering rhetoric,” said Jean-Pierre. “This kind of rhetoric is inflammatory and divisive and incredibly unhelpful. And, look, we’re going to continue to condemn any type of political rhetoric in that way, in that vein.”
“You know what’s not helpful? Sending bombs to be used for war crimes and killing thousands of children,” said Tlaib. “You know what’s not helpful? Attacking a sitting U.S. Congressmember, while the org you are defending is funding anti-abortion and insurrectionists candidates.”
As Tlaib suggested, Jean-Pierre’s comment betrays the White House’s loyalties, showing that it would throw its own incumbent candidates under the bus in order to fight for a right-wing lobbying group that is serving as a major vehicle for funneling GOP donors’ money into Democratic primaries in efforts to push the party to the right.
It also suggests that the White House views AIPAC, one of the U.S.’s most powerful lobbying groups, as a person that can experience violence — unlike the Biden administration’s seeming views toward Palestinians, who the administration has dehumanized at every turn.
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