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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Did your neighborhood get sprayed with pesticides last night? On today's show, we'll discuss how New York is grappling with West Nile virus, a COVID spike, and the possible return of mpox, all at the same time. The spraying to kill mosquitoes that might carry West Nile was in Upper Manhattan. Tonight, it'll be in parts of Brooklyn. Did you hear, by the way, that Anthony Fauci was recently hospitalized with West Nile virus? We'll talk about that.

Also, two ways that amid all the talk of joy, freedom, and unity at the Democratic convention, some progressives have been left with questions about what kind of president Kamala Harris would be on two key issues. One of them is climate change. We'll talk about that later in the show. First, some of what was included and some of what was excluded from the Democratic convention has some progressive skeptics asking what kind of foreign policy president would Harris actually be. On the war in Gaza, as you probably know, the exclusion of any Palestinian from a speaking role became a public issue during the convention.

Also, her assertion in her acceptance speech that she and President Biden are working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire deal done, and her acknowledgment of so many innocent lives lost and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety over and over again, and that the scale of suffering is heartbreaking. All of those, as she put it, those are quotes from the Harris speech when she was talking about Gaza, that all of that was too timid a statement for advocates of an arms embargo on Israel to stop the bombing. Some progressives were also left wondering about this stretch of Harris' speech.

Vice President Kamala Harris: As vice president, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances, and engaged with our brave troops overseas. As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.

[crowd cheers]

Vice President Kamala Harris: I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families and I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice.

[crowd cheers]

Brian Lehrer: Democratic convention delegates cheering for the most lethal fighting force in the world, sounded unnecessarily militaristic to some. All this, of course, is the opposite of the criticism that Biden and Harris have been getting from the Trump campaign, which argues that it was their weakness on foreign policy that made Iran and its proxies, including Hamas as well as Vladimir Putin and others, think they could get away with the military violence they've launched in the last few years.

We'll get a take on the foreign policy discussion to the left of the Democratic Party mainstream now from journalist Ryan Grim, who covered the convention as a reporter and editor for the progressive-oriented Drop Site News. He's also a co-host of the podcasts Counter Points and Deconstructed, author of the books The Squad, We've Got People, and This Is Your Country on Drugs. As some of you may know, he has previously been Washington bureau chief for The Intercept and for HuffPost. Ryan, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC today.

Ryan Grim: Oh, thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Would you like to start by describing some of what you were reporting on at the DNC that watchers of the major television networks might not have seen? Everyone knows that pro-Palestinian protests were planned, but they didn't wind up with much visibility from what I could tell. What was your focus as a kind of alternative media reporter there last week?

Ryan Grim: Yes, there were multiple streams of protest and tactics and strategies from the different opponents of the US support for Israel's war in Gaza. The uncommitted delegates took a very insider approach. They were working behind the scenes with Kamala Harris with a small set of demands. The arms embargo was the broad demand, but they explicitly said they did not expect that one to be me.

That was the more aspirational one that they wanted to put on the table so that, down the road, that's something that they could achieve. Their specific goals for the convention were an official panel inside the DNC's program effectively. That included Palestinian speakers and a Palestinian speaker on the stage at the DNC. People familiar with the horrors of the genocide in Gaza probably hear that and think to themselves, "Those are the demands? A panel and one speaker?"

It's made that much more ludicrous by the fact that the speaker that they were offering is elected representative from Georgia, who also offered to have the speech vetted beginning to end. It would be just four or five paragraphs. It would include full-throated support for Kamala Harris for president and no criticism of Harris for the administration's role in what's happening in Gaza. We all know how that part of it worked out. They did not get that speaker. They did win the panel.

Then the other tactics where you had outside groups that were organizing protests that were not directly affiliated with the uncommitted movements, and then you had ceasefire delegates inside the convention who staged an attempt at a disruption on Monday evening during Biden's speech. I was nearby these protesters in the Florida delegation when they unfurled a huge banner that one of the women had snuck in under her dress that read, "Stop arming Israel."

Brian Lehrer: I just want to acknowledge, as I do when people use the word "genocide," that that is a controversial term and used it as a fact of the Israeli campaign in Gaza, other people would strongly disagree with that characterization. I'm just acknowledging that that's out there.

Ryan Grim: It is a [unintelligible 00:06:40] term.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you think that they did deny a Palestinian speaker from the stage given those constraints that you just described, having the copy vetted, no criticism of Harris in the context of an endorsement?

Ryan Grim: There were multiple theories that were thrown around. One person who's been involved in planning and prior conventions suggested that part of it is if you agree to a Palestinian speaker, do you then anger all of the other members of the coalition that fought to get a speaker and were themselves rejected? If that was the DNC's thinking, if that was the Harris campaign's thinking, then it suggests the context within which they view the ask for a Palestinian speaker, that it's just one more ask among many others that are coming from many parts of the coalition. Ultimately, they can reject it.

Like you said, given how transparently obvious it seems at the top that Democrats would want to take the opportunity to have a Palestinian speaker on the stage who supports Harris, doesn't criticize her, and encourages people to vote for it, creating the impression of a huge tent, it does raise the question of what on earth was going on behind the scenes that was so powerful that made it so, that what seems to be the pragmatic and, obviously, beneficial political thing for Democrats to do instead became something that they made a bunch of headlines and cable segments about not doing because I think it's very hard for people-- I don't even think the most diehard supporters of what Israel is doing in Gaza who are in the Democratic Party would say, "It is forbidden for us to hear from a Palestinian."

They might disagree with what the Palestinian might say, but the idea that you can't even hear them speak is I don't-- Now, there would certainly be supporters of what Israel's doing who are outside of the Democratic coalition who might say, "No, absolutely not. They don't deserve any spot anywhere." You have to think of people who are willing to vote for Democrats. Those are the kinds of people who are open to this sort of thing. There had to be some immense amount of pushback for this fairly obvious thing.

Brian Lehrer: Was there a certain person or a small group of people who they had in mind, who they were suggesting by name?

Ryan Grim: Yes, they had a doctor who has worked in Gaza for many years who was willing to speak. The one that they finally settled on and they think they got closest to, Ruwa Romman, who's a state representative in Georgia, elected Democrat, the kind of person that typically gives those one or two-minute speeches. She wrote a speech. You can find it at dropsitenews.com. You can find it elsewhere. It's a very short speech. It's direct and to the point.

It talks about her father, his love for the country, and her own love for the United States and for the big tent that is the Democratic Party. She deplores the suffering that's happening. It is, by no means, a fire-and-brimstone type of burn-it-down speech. People can go read it for themselves to see whether or not hearing those words said from the stage would have been so frightening to voters that it would have sent them running into the arms of Trump.

Brian Lehrer: Speaking of Trump, they were hoping to get a Palestinian-American speaker as we've been discussing. I want to play a clip that refers to Trump from one of your videos on Counter Points from the convention. You're interviewing a co-chair of the National Uncommitted Movement, Lexis Zeidan. Before I play it, well, they were hoping to get a Palestinian-American speaker, which she says just before this clip that it didn't look like that was going to happen, but they were still asking for it at that point. She also described something that they did get at the convention that you just referred to, that panel discussion, and the goals of the movement in being there vis-à-vis Trump. This runs one minute.

Lexis Zeidan: We additionally asked for some sort of panel as it relates to discussing Palestinian human rights within the Democratic Party, which we were able to land. It was a historic thing that was given and happened actually yesterday. They had quoted it as one of the most highly-attended events on the convention or within the convention yesterday as well. Those were really our demands coming into the convention.

Then in addition to those demands, just really uplifting this idea that we want VP Harris to listen to her base of anti-war voters, inclusive of people that are there to endorse her, because we are looking at an election in November where we have a very racist, fascist leader on the Republican side that nobody wants to see elected. What we're trying do is we're trying to get VP Harris, the Harris-Walz campaign, to see and understand that majority of Democrats want a ceasefire. They want an arms embargo. We're hoping that the public pressure that we're able to portray both outside the convention with our National Weekend of Action and inside the convention gets her to move on this policy change.

Brian Lehrer: It's open to question whether a majority of Democrats nationally support an arms embargo, but that was her assertion. Can you explain who she was referring to there as the ceasefire delegates who nonetheless support Harris?

Ryan Grim: Yes, so the uncommitted movement took the lead in organizing people who were Biden delegates and then became Harris delegates and basically just called them ceasefire delegates. What they meant by that was these are delegates who wanted to proudly and publicly sign on a dotted line that they support an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. They ended up organizing over 220 delegates. Some of them would wear T-shirts that specified that they were ceasefire delegates so that the media would make it-- not just the media, but the rest of the public within the convention would know who they were and be able to engage in conversation with them.

The idea was to show that there was significant support for a permanent ceasefire beyond just the uncommitted delegates and that it was a position that wasn't risky for Harris to take. Harris does say that she's working for a ceasefire and supports a ceasefire. They're trying to, I think, use that frame to say, "We're with you. Just push harder and make it actually happen."

Brian Lehrer: Right. I guess on the issue, Biden and I assume Harris would argue that they have a sensible ceasefire proposal on the table that both Israel and Hamas are refusing to accept. The US has placed an embargo on the biggest, most destructive bombs, but negotiation with both sides is the only way you get to a ceasefire where both Israel and Hamas stop their attacks and the only way they get hostages released at the same time. Why isn't that enough for the people wearing ceasefire T-shirts? They weren't wearing arms embargo T-shirts.

Ryan Grim: Right. Most of those embargoes have been lifted and the shipments of weapons have continued moving. That is their problem. Ilhan Omar, I think, put it most succinctly where she said, "It's not reasonable to say that you are 'working tirelessly' for a ceasefire when the fire is being done with weapons that you are sending." If you genuinely support a ceasefire, stop sending the weapons that they fire.

To go back to the point about both sides refusing to agree to the proposal, the Netanyahu government put forward a ceasefire proposal that it was approved by its cabinet, that the Biden administration has made public and said that it supports. Hamas has said that it supports that proposal. In the current negotiations, the Israeli government has gone back on that and said, "Actually, in fact, we want to add particular conditions to the deal that we already agreed to."

The main condition that they want is that they basically control the border between Egypt and Gaza. One of the things that is, call it whatever you want, causing the mass death, mass slaughter of people inside Gaza is malnutrition, starvation, hunger. That is a result of food not being able to get in and get distributed throughout Gaza. For the Netanyahu government to come forward and say, "Well, actually, we want to continue to control, basically, the movement of food in and out and the movement of humanitarian supplies and humanitarian workers in and out," is to say that you're going to continue a key element of the thing that is causing so much of the suffering and death.

While it would be good if the bombing and the shooting stops, as long as the starvation continues, you can imagine why the Palestinians would say, "No, we support the ceasefire proposal that the Israeli government made in July and that the Biden administration has endorsed. What we would like is for the international community, led by the United States, to just enforce this deal." Israel is effectively what they call a client state of the United States. This idea that the US can work tirelessly toward a ceasefire deal that Israel already says it has agreed to, yet can't get it done, is not taken seriously by these delegates. These delegates are seeing through this and saying, "None of this is believable. If you say that you support this, just get it done."

Brian Lehrer: A ceasefire is hard when Israel doesn't want Hamas to even exist and Hamas doesn't even want Israel to exist. The US position, I think, on the state of the negotiations is different than what you just described. I think Secretary Blinken, other people in the administration are saying it's really Hamas that's standing in the way of the deal for their own reasons. Maybe everything you just said about internal Israeli politics is true, but Hamas is the one equally as much or more standing in the way of this deal or any deal, according to the United States, which I think says Hamas keeps changing its position. Fair enough also?

Ryan Grim: Yes, the US does now say that. It's a totally mind-bending thing to cover as a journalist because we're asked to pretend that Joe Biden never had the press conference where he said, "Here is the Israeli government's proposal for a ceasefire that I am making public." We're also supposed to pretend that we haven't read the statements from Hamas saying, "We accept the proposal as laid out by President Biden, as approved by the Israeli government, and we would like the implementation of that agreement to begin now."

We're just asked to believe that none of those things happen, but we still have Google. Anybody can go and google up the Biden press conference and they can find it on C-SPAN. They can watch it for themselves. It's not easy to find the Hamas statements in the American public. You can find them on dropsitenews.com. With enough googling, you'll find them. These are just facts. The Israeli government has since added new conditions. They want to continue to control the border, but it's just a fact that Israel proposed these ceasefire terms. Biden elevated them publicly and said the US supported them. Hamas said that they support them and would like to see them implemented.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls and texts. Some are coming in already. We've been hearing from many of you over the last week, definitely moved by the Harris convention, and infused with the spirit of joy and freedom fighting and progressive patriotism that we heard from the stage. Now, we're talking about the tension between Harris and some parts of what is presumably the Democratic coalition, the uncommitted movement. We can take your comments and questions on any side of that.

Our guest is Ryan Grim from the progressive-oriented news site Drop Site News, plus his podcast, former Washington bureau chief for HuffPost and for The Intercept as we get his perspective on this largely representing, obviously, those who were in the uncommitted movement in Chicago last week, either on the floor as uncommitted or ceasefire delegates or outside. 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692.

Here's a text that came in with a question, Ryan. It asks, "How disappointed would uncommitted people have reacted to the speech your guest has described?" This goes back to something we were discussing a few minutes ago. For listeners who didn't hear it, you were saying the demand for a Palestinian speaker had the limitations that the person would also-- whatever they said about Israel and Gaza, they would endorse Harris and they wouldn't be critical of Harris. The listener asks, "How disappointed would uncommitted people have been to hear a speech with those limitations?"

Ryan Grim: It's a really astute question. I think the uncommitted voters are a spectrum of people. I think you would obviously have some who would say, "Look--" Sorry about that. My dog is getting excited. You'd have some that say, "This is great. We're a big tent. I can see myself in this party. Now, I can take this position that I have within the party and I can fight for a better outcome."

You would have others that would say, "This was a complete and total capitulation, shameful, and we're embarrassed that this was the speaker and this was the message put up in our name." In that case, you might have ended up having a bunch of infighting within the uncommitted movement rather than what you got instead, which was everyone within that coalition and spectrum just utterly appalled at the idea that the request for a short speaker giving a vetted speech was just summarily rejected.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener writes from a different point of view, "While I support a ceasefire and recognize Israel's punitive war must end, I think it needs to be said that the ceasefire protests are not united behind that singular cause. Many notable pro-Palestinian leaders in the protests have essentially endorsed Hamas' actions on October 7th." Based on your reporting, Ryan, of the protest movement at the convention, including outside the convention, how much would you say that's the case?

Ryan Grim: That also is a spectrum, I think, within the convention, which includes activists who have enough connection to the Democratic Party that they're able to get credentials to come in, plus delegates. You have virtually none of that element. Outside in the street, you had thousands. Maybe in some cases, slightly over 10,000 protesters. Certainly, within a group that large, you're going to have some people who wouldn't even qualify as ceasefire supporters who they support the violence continuing as long as their faction is the one winning or whatever. That is a fairly marginal position, non-existent basically, within the Democratic tent and then probably marginal within the protest movement itself, but not non-existent by any stretch.

Brian Lehrer: We're also getting a few callers who want to push back on your assertion that the insistence on keeping the border with Egypt closed at that spot is primarily about food. Here's Anat in Roslyn with one of those calls. Anat, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Anat: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Love your show and the depth you present. I just wanted to mention. I've been in the streets for years now against Netanyahu and his policies, specifically in Gaza. I can't wait for the moment where Gaza is rebuilt and hostages returned. I have to say that the point cannot be presented so shallow as if foods are coming from Egypt and Netanyahu is blocking that. He has nothing to gain by starving whoever is left and trying to survive in Gaza.

The reason to keep that border under control of Israeli army is because that's the main way the militants, Hamas and jihad, are getting older supplies. Israel has lost 700 soldiers since this started and 1,400 civilians. By opening that border, you're basically saying, "We're going to roll back everything to the way it was on October 6th." No one wants that. Certainly, the civilians in Gaza do not want that. Securing that border with Egypt is problematic.

Brian Lehrer: Anat, let me ask you a follow-up question. As someone who sounds like you follow these developments closely, is it your understanding that what Ryan said earlier is true or not true, that that was not part of the Israeli ceasefire proposal that was officially put on the table, but then they added it when it looked like Hamas was going to say yes?

Anat: Well, Netanyahu has done everything in his power to not accept a hostage deal. There is no doubt in my mind. I belong to a group that's called NYC for Kaplan. We basically support people in Israel who are marching against him. No doubt in my mind that he is trying to avoid a hostage deal. It would not make him look good. He wants to appear to be a strong leader.

We know that under his rule, the biggest atrocity ever to happen to Jews happened. He does not want a deal. There's no question about that. Can we force him to have a deal? I don't know. Can America force him to have a deal? I don't know. The issue of the border has to be understood in the context of guns and ammunition and restoring power to jihad and Hamas, which nobody wants.

We have a saying when we chant, "Free Gaza from Hamas and free Israel from Netanyahu." I believe those two elements are never going to come to the table with an agreement. I don't think that pressure from any American government saying, "We're not going to give you arms," or whatever, to me, it's childish. It's not going to happen. At this point, Israel is still the only democracy in the Middle East. It's worth preserving, worth fighting for.

Brian Lehrer: Though limited as a democracy when it comes to the Palestinians. Anat, thank you very much for your call. There's some of the complexity between what you've said, Ryan, and what she said. I don't know that we need to go further down that road unless there's a particular thing you want to respond to there. I want to come back to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who you were talking about her post earlier. I know that Omar, and you reported on this, was critical of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another member of the squad. You wrote a book about the squad that AOC was so supportive in her speech of Harris' tireless efforts.

I think she put it at trying for a ceasefire that that wasn't enough clearly for Ilhan Omar, and yet I saw on Congresswoman Omar's Instagram that she posted, "Filled with joy to see Vice President Kamala Harris and our Minnesota governor," she's from Minnesota, "and our Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, accept their nominations." Even as she went on in that post, Ryan, to call for conditioning aid to Israel, Omar too joined in the chorus that endorsed Harris and used the word "joy." I'm curious how you see that in political context of the uncommitted movement.

Ryan Grim: Sure, these are not just members of the Democratic Party. These are people like Ilhan Omar, diehard opponents of Donald Trump. She does not want to see Donald Trump return to the White House. I think her point is that the comments that you make about Harris, they don't need to serve to unfairly undercut her, but they shouldn't run cover at the same time and describe ceasefire efforts in ways that are giving them too much credit because then the administration may feel like, "All right. Well, by convening these talks in Doha and regularly giving out press statements saying that a deal is close, that's enough." What Omar is saying is, "No, that isn't enough. You need to actually get it done." That doesn't mean that she wants Trump back in the White House, but it also means she's not going to mislead her public when it comes to that question.

Brian Lehrer: Rosie in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Ryan Grim. Hi, Rosie.

Rosie: Hi. Thanks so much for taking my call. I tried to call yesterday to speak about the uncommitted movement when you're talking about it, but I'm glad I'm here today. I am calling for a few reasons. The first one I wanted to bring up, as you were talking about, the reasons to not include a Palestinian speaker. I think one that's very relevant perhaps is the Israel lobby, including AIPAC, and its influence on the Democratic Party, including Kamala Harris. I'd be curious to hear what the guest has to say about that.

Then the other reason I wanted to call is that the margins of victory in swing states are extremely small and were in 2020 as well, especially in Michigan, where there were over 100,000 uncommitted votes. It seems like it would be more of an issue for the Harris campaign than they're taking on. I really do not think that the way the Harris campaign is presenting the issue that people whose communities are being displaced and murdered by weapons from the US that Harris supports are going to change their vote and vote for her.

Brian Lehrer: Rosie, let me leave it there for time. You want to throw in a third one real quick? Can you do it in just a few seconds?

Rosie: Just that I could be excited to vote for Harris and this issue is the reason that I will likely be voting uncommitted.

Brian Lehrer: Rosie, thank you very much. On the AIPAC question, what's your take, Ryan, on how influential it is on the Harris campaign? One of the headlines about the Harris campaign since she got in, certainly at the end of the convention, was that she's raised $540 million, more than $500 million just since getting in the race. One could argue that whatever AIPAC is donating, I believe they are donating to the campaign, correct me if I'm wrong, is not going to be determinative of her policy.

Ryan Grim: Yes. Certainly, AIPAC members are donating to the campaign. No question about that. You're right that the avalanche of money coming from rank-and-file Democrats across the country giving in 25, 50, 100 and up contributions has led to a situation where tens of millions of dollars from AIPAC isn't going to move the needle in the way that it would in a congressional race or a Senate race.

AIPAC's power in politics, both Republican Party and Democratic Party, comes from decades of grassroots organizing, regional directors, local directors, well-organized constituencies in basically every congressional district. About half of my book that you mentioned on the squad is about the pushback from AIPAC and its super PAC and the related super PAC, Democratic majority for Israel against the rise of the squad.

There is this kind of fierce struggle going on inside the party that turned into a battle between the squad and squad adjacent members of Congress and AIPAC and DMFI, which launched a super PAC in 2022 after having never in the past gotten into the super PAC game. They innovated in response to the rise of the squad, which represented to them a rise in pro-Palestinian voice inside Congress.

Brian Lehrer: We certainly saw that in the Jamaal Bowman primary defeat in the New York suburbs, but you're saying probably less so in terms of how much they can influence Harris. Then the other part of the caller's question was on the political analysis. I'm sure they're crunching these numbers. I've seen reporting before Harris got into the race, before Biden dropped out that said the Biden campaign had decided to, more or less, dismiss the uncommitted movement as marginal to their path to victory against Trump, that it's obviously there.

The hundred-thousand uncommitted votes in the Michigan primary was real. As a national factor in political analysis, the number of people who would actually stay home and let Trump cruise that more easily to the nomination was really, really small. Do you have reporting that indicates that's not the case? They could even win without Michigan if they win Pennsylvania and a few other states.

Ryan Grim: There would be a path without Michigan. The polls seem to have them ahead in Michigan at this point. I think the caller's point that this very likely could be decided by just tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states means that everything does matter. I think that they ignore any votes at their peril.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, I played the clip at the beginning of the segment and I want to at least get one comment from you on this. Let me find the text again. That clip in which Harris said that she was going to make sure that we have the most lethal military in the world. Some people were reacting to that as surprisingly militaristic coming from her at the Democratic convention. Have you heard any response to that other than a little murmuring, "Oh yes, I don't like that she said that. I guess she has to say that," or something like that?

Ryan Grim: There isn't a very well-organized anti-war faction right now within the Democratic Party. I think that's one reason she felt comfortable giving such a saber-rattling speech. Some of the context of that is that consultants have long believed that the biggest hurdle for a woman being elected president is that voters have a hard time seeing them as commander-in-chief. As you heard in that clip, she used the phrase "commander-in-chief" right next to "most lethal." You saw some of this from Hillary Clinton too, not just her support of the Iraq war.

In general, there was this kind of overcompensation for what they thought is some misogynistic inability of voters to see them as a "commander-in-chief." On the other hand, the Democratic Party, despite Trump saying that they're a bunch of weaklings, is engaged in proxy wars around the world, saber-rattling with China. Her aggressive posture towards Iran was noteworthy too, given that that's a break from the Obama administration, which was trying to normalize relations in that direction. It seems like Democrats are all in on the pursuit of robust American hegemony come what may.

Brian Lehrer: There, folks, is our take on the foreign policy discussion to the left of the Democratic Party mainstream from journalist Ryan Grim, who covered the convention as a reporter and editor for the progressive-oriented Drop Site News. He's also a co-host of the podcasts Counter Points and Deconstructed, author of the books The Squad, We've Got People, and This is Your Country on Drugs. He has previously been Washington bureau chief for The Intercept and HuffPost. Listeners, thank you for your calls and texts from multiple points of view as we do. Ryan, thanks for coming on with us. I really appreciate it.

Ryan Grim: Yes, my pleasure.

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