Jon Lovett, a former Obama White House aide and co-host of the “Pod Save America” podcast, says Jewish voters in Michigan have a “moral obligation” to support Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
On Tuesday’s episode of the podcast, Lovett responded to President Donald Trump’s remarks about El-Sayed at a recent rally for GOP candidate Mike Rogers. Trump had said any Jew would be ashamed to vote for El-Sayed, a comment Lovett rejected outright.
“So Donald Trump says there that any Jew would be ashamed to vote for Abdul, and there’s a debate among Jews in Michigan about whether to vote for Abdul. I just want to be very clear, Jews in Michigan have a moral obligation to support Abdul,” Lovett said. “They should do it to protect themselves from antisemitism and rising hatred in America.”
Lovett argued that antisemitism on the political left is real but minor compared to what he described as rising hatred on the right, which he said would ultimately threaten Jewish Americans.
“On the other, you have this kind of politics on the right where it is about dominance and hatreds and othering of people. It starts with Muslims,” he said. “He does it for trans people. He does it for immigrants. He does it for Haitians, eating the dogs and the cats. If you think that that doesn’t end with Jews, you are out of your f—ing minds.”
He continued: “A country where this kind of politics is rewarded is a country where Jews are less safe. And anyone who has allowed their own concerns and legitimate concerns about Abdul to cloud that ultimate larger point is missing the big picture here. For Jews in America, our safety is based around the idea that there’s a society in which we can have arguments and disagreements, but we respect those differences. Trump does not believe in that. And we need to have a check on Donald Trump in a Democratic Senate. And maybe Abdul is not your cup of tea. Maybe Abdul is is not — is going to be a reliable vote against Israel. Fine, we can handle that. But we cannot handle a continued slide to this hateful authoritarian right. It will be dangerous for us.”
The comments drew a sharp response from Jesse Arm, vice president of the Manhattan Institute and a Michigan native, who wrote to Fox News Digital.
“Jon Lovett is a bitterly partisan hack who backed a candidate in Maine with a literal Nazi symbol inked on his chest because he had a D next to his name. He’s in no position to lecture Jews about their moral obligations,” Arm said, an apparent reference to former Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who suspended his campaign in July after a sexual assault allegation he denied.
Arm also criticized El-Sayed’s handling of the March attack on Temple Israel, a synagogue in suburban Detroit, where El-Sayed reportedly said in part that “hurt people, hurt people.”
“His argument that Jews should vote for the guy who rationalized a terrorist attack targeting their children in a local synagogue preschool because Republicans might turn on them someday is both immoral and idiotic. The hard left is already in the disgraceful, bigoted place he imagines the right someday going,” Arm wrote.
Fox News Digital said it reached out to the Rogers and El-Sayed campaigns, as well as the RNC, and did not receive immediate replies.
