First Draft: Chuck Schumer's Gotta Go
Mehdi on why the Senate minority leader is the wrong leader for this moment, when it comes to both Trump and Israel. Plus: can the new ceasefire in Lebanon hold? And what's happening over in Gaza?
On this day in 1961, 1,400 Cuban exiles landed in the Bay of Pigs in a doomed CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro. Sixty-five years later, and the US government still has regime change dreams for Cuba.
Good morning, Mehdi here. I have some good news: The kids are alright. I just finished a visiting fellowship at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics, where I held multiple discussion groups with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and I was delighted to discover a young generation that is politically engaged, morally conscious, and super smart. It’s the old folks in this country we should probably be more worried about…
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ why is an isolated, feckless, pro-Israel Chuck Schumer still in charge of the Senate Dems? Can the new ceasefire in Lebanon hold? And how on Earth did Pete Hegseth confuse Quentin Tarantino with… God?
The Case For Chucking Out Chuck
“I have many jobs as leader... and one is to fight for aid to Israel – all the aid that Israel needs. I will continue to fight for it,” Chuck Schumer told a gathering of Jewish groups at the Park East Synagogue in New York in February.
Schumer’s statement, delivered as Senate minority leader, managed to contain both a glaring falsehood and an uncomfortable truth.
Let’s start with the lie: It is plainly not the job of a Senate party leader to “fight for aid” to a foreign nation. One could even argue that framing one of the responsibilities of the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America as securing funding for the Jewish state veers into the territory of antisemitic tropes.
And yet, the truth is harder to dismiss.