'AIPAC Babysitters': Thomas Massie Reveals Israel Influence Op — Breaking Points
The viral fifteen-minute interview where Massie said the words "AIPAC babysitters" — describing how the Israel lobby assigns minders to incoming members of Congress. Watched over four hundred thousand times.
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- let's turn to Republican Congressman Thomas Massie who you guys probably know him but just for those of you who don't follow these things closely he's libertarian and he's one of the few uh
- in Congress and especially one of the few on the Republican side who's willing to go against the grain and he has voted against you know how they've been passing all of these Israel resolutions
- condemning anti-Semitism standing up for this standing up for that and also obviously tons of uh money that they
- just voted on to ship to Israel as well and he will be frequently one of the lone voices on the Republican side one of the lone votes against a number of
- those Provisions that has of course made him a huge Target of APAC well uh Congressman Massie was recently on with
- Tucker Carlson and uh this subject of APAC and how this all works in Congress came up and his comments are very interesting take a listen is there any
- other Republican who has your views on this well I have Republicans who come to me on the floor and say I wish I could vote with you
- today yours is the right vote but I would just take too much flak back home and I have Republicans who come to me
- and say that's wrong what APAC is doing to you let me talk to my APAC person by the way everybody but me has an APAC
- person what does that mean an APAC person it's like your babysitter your APAC babysitter who uh is always talking to you for APAC they're probably a
- constitu ENT in your District but they are you know firmly embedded in APAC and every member has something like this
- every I don't know how it works on the Democrat side um but that's how it works on the Republican side and when they and when they come to DC you go have lunch
- with them and they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them so I've had like that's absolutely crazy I've had four members of Congress
- say I'll talk to my APAC person person and it's Cally what we call them my APAC guy I'll talk to my Apec guy and see if
- I can get him to you know dial Those ads back why have I never heard this before it doesn't benefit anybody why would
- they want to tell their constituents that they've basically got a buddy system with somebody who's representing a foreign
- country it doesn't benefit the congressman for people to know that so they're not going to tell you that it's it's in have you seen any other country do anything like this like Russia Russia
- obviously determines the outcome of our elections we keep hearing that do does anyone have a Putin guy that they talk to not only do they not have a Putin guy
- look they don't they they don't have a Britain guy they don't have an Australian guy they you know they don't have a Germany dude
- like it's the only country that does this that has somebody that like uniformly I guarantee there's some spreadsheet at APAC where where you know
- the the APAC dude is who's matched up with the congressman is there and then all the congressman's votes on the issue oh has the congressman been to Israel
- they they pay for trips for congressmen and their spouses to go to Israel I may be I mean I don't I'm not the only Republican who hasn't taken the APAC
- trip to Israel but I'm probably one of a dozen that hasn't taken that trip and the other ones just haven't got around to it a babysitter by the way that thing
- about the trips that they pay for it's not just for politicians it's also for any number of uh prominent people and media figures in fact I don't know if I
- talked about it this here or somewhere else but when I started MSNBC got an email asking if I wanted to go on the APAC trip to Israel I said no
- but um you know that's part of what they do because then they can take you to Israel and they can show it to you through their lens and have a chance to
- you know subtly and not so subtly propagandize you and plus just create this human sense of like oh I owe this person something because they took me on this great trip and I had a great time
- you know so I like them they're friends they're friends with me like I should listen to what they have to say it's very intelligent in terms of influence pedaling but I think you know a lot of
- Americans are very shocked to learn that this is how this all works AER I I mean yeah it is as you said it's almost funny because it is common knowledge here I also been offered many free trips to
- Israel my only trip to Israel by the way paid on my own dime thank for that I don't take free trips from anybody and that's the issue let's put this up there on the screen what you have very clearly
- here quote bipartisanship or republican meddling APAC is the biggest source of GOP donations in the Democratic primaries it says APAC SE support for
- Israel is bipartisan and its donors come from both parties its practice of sending money from GOP donors into Democratic races quote enraged progresses but I mean one of the
- flagship cases here Crystal I'm sure you've been tracking is uh mandere Jones who has effectively disavowed all of his former Progressive positions has been
- basically what has he been doing he's been keeping them not only at arms length and he's been a huge beneficiary well he endorsed against Jamal Bowman's
- primary opponent and Bowman Bowman is under Fire he's been very courageous on Israel he deserves a lot of credit and his district has a significant Jewish
- population although you know it doesn't cut the way that people necessar think that it's going to because I'll show you some numbers in just a minute but you
- know the APAC donor base it's not like your average working class Jewish American or even average like Jewish professional American it is the elite it
- is very very wealthy predominantly like CEOs and Executives who cut big checks to APAC so it's not like they're reflective of the Jewish community at
- large and in fact there was polling that was done in Jamal Bowman's District that found found a very significant majority of Voters in his district which again
- has a significant Jewish population said they would be much more likely to support a candidate who backs a ceasefire which Jamal Bowman does however mandere Jones who's desperately
- you know trying to win his congressional seat back feels that Jamal Bowman positioning himself as an Israel critic
- has been damaging for him too and he feels afraid that that's going to be a problem for him if his Congressional race so he's made this very cynical
- political move to back Jamal Bowman's primary opponent and basically disavow progressivism altogether it's just incredibly Craven um and the APAC money
- is a huge huge part of that I want people to think about this you know the the piece about how APAC is the source of the largest number of Republican
- donations into Democratic primary races like imagine if it was a George Soros backed organ ization that was being
- incredibly significant the largest player in Republican primaries conservatives would be outraged at that they would think that was completely
- outrageous and so progressives really feel that way about APAC which gets a significant you know about uh more than a majority of their money from
- Republican donors but it's not just that as well um here's a quote from the piece just giving you a sense of the scale of their efforts here they say competitive
- Democratic primaries are are the biggest targets for apac's Affiliated Super PAC which is called the United democracy project which has already spent almost
- 20 million dollar in the race this year in Democratic primary races this year including almost 10 million in that Jamal Bowman George ladimer race that
- makes it by far the biggest outside group in Democratic primaries with more money flowing from that apack super pack
- then the next 10 biggest Spenders combined so the biggest player in Democratic primaries is a group that
- isn't even about American electoral issues at all it's about the interests of a foreign government funded by uh largely a lot of conservatives playing
- in Democratic primaries I mean it really is quite uh quite extraordinary quite astonishing and the money has a huge impact both in terms of who wins these
- races and also in terms of politicians look at this and they're like I don't them playing in my race so I'm just going to do whatever they want me to do and that's something that Ryan Grim has
- done the best reporting on the way that they have served as a a check on Democratic candidates who might otherwise have some level of criticism
- of Israel that is reportedly again according to Ryan the sort of origin story for John fedman being the most like embarrassingly pro-israel like
- Israel no matter what guy who's out there it wasn't that he cared about it that much before but he asked his basically APAC Guy where should be to
- keep them out of his Democratic primary race and he just took that and ran with it yeah you're absolutely right and uh to your point about how American Jews are not the monolith that apparently uh
- all media and Congress wants them to be let's put this up there on the screen from Michael Tracy because what you see from this survey is that just 23% of
- American Jews plan to vote for Trump down from 30% in 2020 despite Trump and a lot of Republican donors saying
- well you know basic what do they say you're basically if you vote for Biden basically you're not aw absolutely astounding you can see here very clearly if the presidential
- election were held today who would you most likely vote for Biden 61% Trump 23 10% actually say someone else will not vote a six which of the two party
- candidates for president would be better for the US Israel relationship you've got 50% there who say Joe Biden so I mean this is a American Jewish Coalition
- survey nonpartisan organization basically from what we can see here this is a pretty representative sample of American Jews it turns out that American
- Jews are just like everybody else they're stratified uh a lot of them uh who are and wanting to vote for Joe Biden are doing so for multifaceted
- reasons Israel not necessarily being the number one issue maybe it's a little bit higher than many people who might vote for Biden or for Trump but they're just like the rest of us and that's been the
- most annoying and uh you know thing about this is Jewish students unsafe from protest who are also sometimes Jewish um Zionism you know if without
- the thing I think the most disgusting thing that Biden has said throughout this entire conflict just for me is if it weren't for Israel not a Jew in the
- world would be safe because it undermines the theory of America itself it would be like saying you know for me as a person of Indian descent that if it
- weren't for India's existence I would not be safe in the United States no my passport says United States of America on it and there's nothing else the
- passport that I have unlike many people in Israel by the way who are a dual citizen so it's just uh it undermines the theory of the nation state for a
- select group of people which is antithetical to the very idea of what it even means to be American and and and clearly many and most Jews see it that
- way too yeah that's what it's like who are you Mr Irish Catholic to be litigating what that means for everybody else yeah not to go too deep into the
- history here but it's worth mentioning that you know the founding of the state of Israel there's sort of a corrupt bargain between Western powers that you
- know wanted to basically wanted to remain you know with their image of like oh we're on the side of the Jews and we're like you know interested in
- protecting them Etc but they didn't actually want to like take in Jewish refugees themselves and zionists who really found it to be a threat the idea
- that Jews could be integrated into America or the UK or France or anywhere else they they saw that as a direct threat to their project you can
- understand why because if you have a safe Jewish diaspora that's integrated into their communities then there's less of an incentive to move to Israel so
- there was sort of this corrupt bargain at the beginning that has continued to exist is reflected in those comments from Joe Biden but if we can go to B3 um
- our friend Bronco Marc teach to a very interesting analysis of apack donors versus donors to the squad um and he
- writes here in this tweet where he um you know tweeted out his analysis he says he looked at more than 500 donors to apac's Super PAC which is United
- democracy project that's the one we were just talking about it shows nearly 60% are top level Executives nearly half of whom work in the fire sector which is uh
- finance and real estate the average donation was nearly $90,000 so not exactly you're like average person shelling out 90k put the
- next one up on the screen because he put together some great charts that really illustrate the the difference here so you can see on the left uh he says United do democracy project again that's
- apack Super PAC Wall Street B you can see how many of their donors what percentage come from Finance Insurance real estate are retired probably from
- one of those Industries miscellaneous business lawyers and lobbyists and everything else is like pretty small and then you look at their donors versus
- donors to the squad who have been the primary targets of APAC you have 20% of APAC donors are CEOs significant
- percentage who are owners or Founders another 39% who are top Executives that little yellow bar you see there that's working people on the other hand the donors to Squad members 60% of them are
- working people and basically none of them from CEOs Founders top Executives Etc so it just shows you you know part
- of why the discourse in the media I mean there's a there's a whole plethora of reasons why but part of why the discourse in the media just assumes that
- all Jewish Americans have the same perspective is because there is a class divide even within the Jewish Community about how they view these issues and how they prioritize these issues as well so
- I thought Bronco really got to the heart of um some of that class divide and why you shouldn't assume that the position of APAC is reflected of broader Jewish
- American sentiment which I think has been you know consistently the cas and this is the same for all ethnic groups I see this stuff all the time Indian Americans against it I'm like hey shut
- shut up all right I'll keep it kind you know on this one I'm like you don't speak for us you speak for yourselves and your friends and I don't ever presume to speak quote unquote on behalf
- of the community because who's elected me as representative somehow though in this ethnic group that's uh considered
- not only okay but Canon and then widely accepted by a bunch of Evangelical and Catholic Christians to be Canon for what
- they presume to speak on behalf of so totally ridiculous it's always a class story here in America which means that really it's about something totally different than what is being presented
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