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For Jews (And All Of Us), This Election Is A “Then They Came For Me” Moment

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Donald Trump Should Be Judged By The Anti-Semitic, And Otherwise Deplorable, Company He Keeps

There’s an old saying that a man is known by the company he keeps. Try as we might, we’re often defined by the people who surround us. We’ve all had moments growing up where we’ve chosen the wrong friends or found ourselves in the wrong crowd. For whatever reason, many of us are drawn to people who don’t help us to become our best selves. Some of us outgrow that need quickly while others take a bit more time. 

Donald Trump needs more time. 

A few months ago I wrote about the scary familiarity of Donald Trump’s rhetoric. His words and his policies sparked all kinds of comparisons to despotic world leaders of past days. At the time, we thought we were making hyperbolic statements to prove a point. In hindsight, that seems quaint.  

If you’ve been anywhere near Twitter these days, you’ve seen the anti-Semitic tweets that many Jewish reporters have gotten after covering the Trump campaign. They’re sending us email, they’re tracking us down, and they’re not letting go. 

Trump is incredibly popular with anti-Semitic people. He loves their attention. He even likes to make coded anti-Semitic statements himself and somehow wound up participating in some odd display of cultural appropriation while at a church.

It’s certainly not helping that Trump’s own son is helping bring most of these folks into the mainstream. (You’ll remember his gas chamber/Holocaust “joke” from the other week and of course his offensive Skittles analogy.)

It’s not hard to draw conclusions between these Trump supporters and Trump himself. It would be one thing if he were actively working to stop their influence and deny their legitimacy, but that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happening. Trump is playing right into their hands and he’s allowing their messages to move into the mainstream. 

This is the company he keeps.

I’m certainly not the only one to see it. Bend the Arc Jewish Action, a national Jewish organization aimed at “bringing together Jews from across the country to advocate for a more just and equal society,” has been working on a campaign called, “We’ve Seen This Before.”  

Among the centerpieces of the campaign is this video, “A Message from Grandma and Grandpa”:

In any other case, I’d agree with the many who say that a political candidate has no control over what his followers say and do. Yes, there are many folks who follow liberal politicians who are atrocious and disgusting. But here’s the difference: They’re usually the fringe. They’re the outsiders. They’re the folks who are so removed from the mainstream it’s beyond obvious they’re not worth noticing.

And it’s not like these folks are simply being acknowledged and disavowed — on the contrary, they’re being elevated by those in the innermost circle of the Trump campaign, like his chief advisor — who’s also his son. 

As long as Trump and his campaign continue to lift up these voices instead of working to tamp them down, a vote for Trump is a vote for anti-Semitism, in addition to many other bad things.

The news isn’t all bad, though. Longtime GOP-supporting Jews are backing (running?) away from Trump because of his distaste for religious liberty and his racism. FiveThirtyEight reports that the GOP’s Jewish donors are abandoning Trump.  

But it’s not enough for just the Jews to walk away — just like it’s not enough for any one group that’s being attacked to fight back. This is one of those times where what’s bad for some of us is bad for all of us. This is a “then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me” moment.

If a man is known by the company he keeps, then it’s not only true for Donald Trump, it’s true for all of us. Our vote is how we decide the company we keep. Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. It’s up to us to decide how we want to be known. 

Robbie Medwed is an Atlanta-based LGBT activist and educator. (He’s also one of them Jew-boys the people on Twitter like to harass so much.) You can harass him, too: @rjmedwed

 

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‘If It Is the Last Thing I Do’: Musk Vows to Unseat Lawmakers Voting for Budget Bill

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June 30, 2025

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Billionaire Elon Musk is threatening to target members of Congress for defeat if they support President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” after campaigning on promises to cut government spending. Although Musk did not specifically name a party, no Democrat is expected to back the budget measure.

“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” Musk wrote late Monday afternoon, as the Senate began voting on the legislation. “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”

Musk’s threat comes after his numerous attacks on the bill—which is critical to Trump’s agenda—based largely on its massive increases to the federal debt.

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“It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” Musk declared one hour earlier. “Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people.”

New York magazine’s Intelligencer reported on Monday that Musk is “not done” fighting Trump.

“How can you call yourself the Freedom Caucus if you vote for a DEBT SLAVERY bill with the biggest debt ceiling increase in history?” Musk also wrote, lashing out at the far-right caucus, and mentioning two Members by name: U.S. Reps. Andy Harris of Maryland, the group’s chairman, and Chip Roy of Texas.

On Saturday, Musk had warned, “The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

“Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party,” he also warned.

New York magazine noted that “Trump, presumably, isn’t thrilled about Musk’s last-minute attempt to sink his signature legislative package. But so far he’s refrained from hitting back.”

READ MORE: Despite Bill’s $1T Cut Trump Official Insists ‘We’re Not Taking Away Anybody’s Medicaid’

 

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‘Stunning Incoherence’: Fox Host Mocked for Spinning Trump’s Work Visa Flip-Flop

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18 hours ago

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June 30, 2025

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Fox News host Maria Bartiromo is facing criticism for calling President Donald Trump’s latest reversal on undocumented immigrant workers “big news,” after the President floated creating “temporary passes.”

Earlier this month, Trump announced ICE would back off from detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants working on farms and in hotels, only to announce just days later an apparent reversal to that policy, by declaring he would enact “the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.”

Bartiromo, in a White House interview on Sunday (video below), told Trump that he had “said, let’s ease up on, you know, taking in people that are working hardworking, like, in farms and hotels,” while ignoring his statement from days later.

“I don’t back away,” Trump insisted. “What I do, I cherish our farmers, and when we go into a farm and we take away people that have been working there for 15 and 20 years who who are good, who possibly came in incorrectly, and what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do something for farmers where we can let the farmers sort of be in charge.”

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“The farmer knows, he’s not gonna hire a murderer, but, you know, when you go into a farmer and he’s had somebody working with him for nine years doing this kind of work, which is hard work to do, and a lot of people aren’t gonna do it, and you end up destroying a farmer because you took all the people away,” Trump explained. “It’s a problem.”

Trump announced the White House is “gonna work it so that,” there is “some kind of a temporary pass, where people pay taxes, with a farmer can have a little control as opposed to you walk in and take everybody away.”

On social media, Bartiromo trumpeted: “Big news on the border from my interview @realDonaldTrump is working on a ‘temporary pass’ for workers on farms and in hotels where they pay taxes but it’s up to the farmer for a temporary pass even if they came into the country ‘incorrectly.'”

What Trump described sounds similar to the existing H-2A temporary visa program for agricultural workers.

“The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

READ MORE: American Pride Plunges to New Low, Again, Again Under Trump

Critics mocked the Fox News host.

“So a work permit?” snarked U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ).

“They just invented the work visa,” mocked retired intelligence officer Travis Akers.

“But wait,” urged former Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, “we were told Americans would be doing these jobs and that everyone who came into this country illegally would be deported. What could have possibly changed?”

“Donald Trump has no idea what his immigration policy is,” noted Democratic strategist Max Burns.

“Stunning incoherence on his signature policy issue,” observed Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Democratic Reps Say FEMA Cuts Are Leading to Hurricane Katrina-Level Disaster

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Despite Bill’s $1T Cut Trump Official Insists ‘We’re Not Taking Away Anybody’s Medicaid’

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21 hours ago

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June 30, 2025

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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the Senate Republicans’ budget bill will slash $1 trillion from Medicaid, but according to Kevin Hassett, the White House Director of the National Economic Council, no one’s Medicaid is being taken away.

The CBO projects the current Republican Senate budget bill will cut $930 billion from Medicaid, but an amendment from Florida GOP Senator Rick Scott would make additional cuts of $313 billion, for a total of $1.24 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, according to The Hill.

But according to the White House’s Kevin Hassett, “we’re not taking away anybody’s Medicaid.”

After Fox News host Bill Hemmer told Hassett on Monday that the White House is “getting hammered on these Medicaid cuts,” Hassett, chuckling, said: “The bottom line is that we’re just, we’re not taking away anybody’s Medicaid. We’re definitely not taking away anybody’s Medicare.”

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Hassett insisted that Republicans are merely “going after waste, fraud, and abuse,” and claimed “there’s a heck of a lot of it out there.”

Some experts put the waste, fraud, and abuse numbers—which can include improper payments and errors—at about five percent of Medicaid spending.

Hassett appears to disagree.

“A lot of budget savings have been found by people really in the House, in the Senate—not just conservatives—moderates agree that there’s a lot of money that can be saved. And the bottom line is that we’re, in the end going to balance this budget, and we’ve got to balance this budget by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, and we’re going to do it.”

The Congressional Budget Office, according to KFF, has also estimated that by 2034 there will be an additional 16 million more uninsured people if the bill is signed into law.

READ MORE: Democratic Reps Say FEMA Cuts Are Leading to Hurricane Katrina-Level Disaster

“The scale of the proposed reductions in Medicaid is unprecedented in the history of the program, which has tended to expand coverage over time since its creation in 1965,” The New York Times reports.

Calling the cuts “savings,” the Times reports the bill in part “would establish a new, strict national work requirement for some people on the program, who would need to demonstrate they had worked at least 80 hours the month before they sign up, or qualified for an exemption.”

More cuts to Medicaid in the bill could be coming. The Times also reports that U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sunday “told reporters that he would propose an amendment that would cut Medicaid even further.”

Watch the video below or at this link.


READ MORE: Ketanji Brown Jackson Compares SCOTUS Planned Parenthood Ruling to Jim Crow in Dissent

 

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