California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna entered a restricted area during his recent visit to Israel and claimed he was stopped by armed civilians, who in turn were supported by the IDF and local police when they arrived. The reality was something quite different, however, and Charlie, on today’s edition of The Editors, ridicules Khanna and other politicians “who do this” because “they seem to think that we can’t see what they’re doing.”
Charlie agrees that “Republicans . . . behave like this as well,” but adds that “in recent years, we’ve seen quite a lot of this on the left. A politician will try to go to some restricted area, they’ll be turned away, and they’ll say, ‘Look at the Trump administration attacking a sitting congressman.'”
“Ro Khanna did this because he wants to run for president,” Charlie says. “He wasn’t even particularly subtle about that. . . . And he immediately said, in the tone of a bad actor, ‘Wow, this is the sort of thing that really has made me wonder if I should run for president.’ And he thinks we can’t see it.”
Charlie points out that while the event did happen — “the video is not AI” — it was staged. “He went to that area with that tour guide so that he could put out a press release about the inevitable consequences of going to that area with this tour guide so that when he comes back home, he can bolster his bona fides as the guy who hates Israel and then say, ‘Hmm, perhaps I should run for president.’ And he thinks we can’t see it. It’s so insulting.”
“If he wants to be the guy who doesn’t like Israel, then just be that guy. But don’t play two-bit tricks on the assumption that we can’t see what you’re doing.”
The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.