Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over their views on Israel Thursday, calling their positions “wrong” and saying they did not reflect congressional Democrats.
The two progressive Democrats were mentioned by “On Brand” podcast host Donny Deutsch, who asked Pelosi how he, as a Jewish man, could reconcile his support for the Democratic Party with politicians whose statements he considered antisemitic.
“When you say Israel doesn’t have the right to be a Jewish state, that’s antisemitic as far as I’m concerned with all that,” Deutsch said.
When Pelosi asked for examples, Deutsch named Mamdani and El-Sayed, calling their comments “concerning.”
“No, it’s more than concerning,” Pelosi responded. “It’s wrong. It’s wrong. And it isn’t a reflection of the Democrats in the Congress of the United States. This new person in Michigan, we’ll see if he gets elected to the Congress.
“But the mayor, bless his heart, I hope he succeeds as mayor, but I don’t agree with some of the things he has said. But in terms of our people in the House of Representatives, if somebody says that, the other members disassociate themselves from it.”
Before he was elected New York City mayor, Mamdani repeatedly dodged questions when asked if Israel should be a Jewish state. In a June 28 interview with ABC News, however, Mamdani said he supported Israel as a state with equal rights but declined to endorse it as a Jewish state.
“I think any state that privileges one religion over the other is one that I can’t tell you I support, whether it be Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else,” Mamdani said.
El-Sayed has repeatedly declined to affirm whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state.
In a May appearance with Jewish supporters, the candidate said he “struggled” to answer this question and suggested the idea of a Jewish state wasn’t consistent with the liberal values “we say we believe in here in the United States.”
Earlier in the interview with Deutsch, Pelosi initially denied that anyone in the Democratic Party was antisemitic.
“The fact is that I really do not know of anybody there on our side who is engaged in antisemitism. That may be what it appears to be or what they’re charged to be. But if they are, it’s only a few. If there are, I think sometimes they say things that they shouldn’t and can be interpreted that way,” Pelosi said.
Despite her concerns about Mamdani and El-Sayed’s comments, she dismissed their impact on the party as a whole.
“People represent their districts, and we have to respect that. The job description, job title is representative, but that doesn’t mean it has an impact on the consensus of the Democratic Party, and [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries has been very clear on that,” Pelosi said.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, acknowledged Pelosi “as one of the Jewish community’s best friends among House Democrats” but said it was alarming that she did not seem to recognize antisemitism among her colleagues.
“Pelosi claims she wants for those voices to be marginalized within her party, yet she demonstrates that she has turned a deaf ear, both to antisemitic expression from her colleagues and to the rabbis anxious to set her straight on the magnitude of the problem,” Menken told Fox News Digital.
“If she is indeed one of our best friends, should we not be scared by that?”
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