The hosts of the influential progressive podcast “Pod Save America” — all one-time aides to former US President Barack Obama — on Tuesday called on the future Democratic presidential nominee to cut all funding and military ties with Israel, urging party leaders to adopt a “total mindset change” in their relationship with the Jewish state. 

The trio of hosts — Tommy Vietor, Jon Lovett, and Jon Favreau — also said that Democrats should no longer accept money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), send Israel military aid, or block anti-Israel resolutions at the United Nations. The Obama administration alumni lambasted Israel for deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the Gaza strip and pursuing military action in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria. 

There has to be a total mindset change in the Democratic party. When the war ends, we are not going back to the pre-October 7 status quo. pic.twitter.com/Bow5zmYS2v

— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) July 29, 2025

“The things I want to see Democrats at least calling for is cutting off military assistance to Israel,” Vietor said. “I would like to see talk about sanctioning Israeli government officials that use genocidal rhetoric or talk about ethnic cleansing openly. We should support a ceasefire resolution at the UN.”

“When the war ends, we are not going back to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo,” he added, referring to the period before the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

Vietor argued that the Democratic Party should not develop close ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, decrying former US President Joe Biden’s decision to maintain a tight bond with the Israeli premier. He accused Netanyahu of continuing the war in Gaza for political purposes and said that he attacks Iran, Syria, and Lebanon “when he wants to.”

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization, pummeled northern Israel almost daily with barrages of missiles. The Lebanese Islamist movement fired over 10,000 projectiles at Israel in 2024. About 70,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes in northern Israel and flee to other parts of the country as a result. Israel responded with a blistering campaign targeting key command centers, military leaders, and weapons depots crippling Hezbollah’s military infrastructure.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, which the US intelligence community has for years identified as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.

“Especially if we are going to head into a primary, like, table stakes is going to be no more military aid for Israel,” Lovett added. 

The ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has divided the American political left. Polling suggests that commanding majorities of liberals now express greater empathy for Palestinians than Israelis, representing a massive shift from previous years. 

Seemingly in response to a shifting sentiment among liberal voters, the “Pod Save America” hosts have adopted a more adversarial posture against Israel in recent months.

Is a podcast guest in America permitted to call for the killing of Jews?

As far as I know, that’s incitement.

A random antisemitic female guest appeared on the Fresh and Fit Podcast with host Myron Gaines, whose real name is Amrou Fudl. The show has more than 1.5 million subscribers.

Gaines pretends to be an intellect, and he is not a very good actor. He is a coward and a fool.

Put aside that Gaines is the author of a book called, Why Women Deserve Less.

Gaines asked his guests: “What do you guys think about Hitler?”

Here’s how The Forward describes the now-deleted video:

The deleted video, from a segment titled “After Hours w/Girls,” included this exchange.

“What if the Jewish did something to the Germans that made them act a certain way, but nobody wants to talk about it? Like the Jews don’t want to take accountability,” said a woman on the six-person podcast panel, identified by Canary Mission as a recent high school grad named Suzette.

“They was up to something, so the Germans wanted to take them out. Like, it had to be something,” she continued.

“They started it,” another woman chimed in.

“How do we take them down?” co-host Walter Weekes asked.

“We gotta kill the motherf—ers,” responded a second woman, identified by Canary Mission as Kadriyanna James.

A clip of the guest calling on people to “kill the motherf—ers” can be found here. 

We also hear someone say Jews are “selfish.”

Sadly, many foolish people will think this is great content — and many will agree with it.

A few years ago, there would have been repercussions for a host having this kind of show. Now, there will be none.

What started with Kanye West and continued with Candace Owens spewing conspiracy theories has now flowed into new territory. Antisemitism is no longer simply normalized; it is welcomed to get clicks, and is seen as cool.

It is true that podcast hosts can have wild opinions, but this is simply beyond the pale. Gaines had to know where this was going.

A guest goes on to say “the Jews did something” — but of course she doesn’t say what they did, because she knows she will get attention just by spewing hate against Jews.

Sadly, many of the viewers might think she is correct, simply because the podcast has millions of listeners — many of whom are uninformed.

A male guest says, “How do we take them down?” This guy is asking how to “take down” the Jews.

Someone else said “kill the mother-f-ers.”

How does the host not speak out against that? No other group in America has a show saying that they should be killed — only Jews, in 2025.

America is built on free speech, but you cannot call for killing people.

Just when I thought things could not get lower, they do. And of the other guests who remained silent, almost nobody would sit quietly as someone called for the killing of any other minority group in America.

Ironically, the female guest, who is Black, was defending a man who referred to Black people as inferior and said they were infecting the white race. Perhaps she should pick up a copy of Mein Kampf before rationalizing Hitler’s actions.

Still, how many people who watch this podcast will think this idiotic guest is correct?

Freedom of speech doesn’t extend to saying people should be killed. But of course the government won’t act — because Jews are the target.

Gaines will likely face few repercussions — who knows, it could even help his career. It’s utterly disgusting and disgraceful.

The author is a writer based in New York.

Twenty five nations signed a declaration this week, condemning Israel’s war of self defense in Gaza — while staying utterly silent on the Syrian government’s massacre of its ethnic minorities and about a dozen other global tragedies.

I’ve made this point before, but it’s worth saying again: This may be the first “genocide” in history in which the population grew larger.

The Palestinian population in Gaza grew significantly since October 7, 2023, according to data from the CIA World Factbook.

This population growth includes the time period of Israel’s defensive war against the Hamas terror organization, which terror apologists (falsely) call a “genocide.”

Published by America’s Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA World Factbook shows a population in Gaza over the past three years of: 2022: 1,997,328; 2023: 2,098,389; and 2024: 2,141,643. This indicates a growth rate in Gaza over the past year of 2.06%, which is more than double the US growth rate during the same period, at only 0.98%.

How is it possible that Gaza’s population grew so much over that year?

Quite simply because Israel has been so incredibly cautious in its defensive military campaign against Hamas, and has provided such an overwhelming amount of humanitarian aid, that the number of people who died in Gaza was actually less than the number of new babies born

These numbers stand in stark contrast to misleading claims of “mass starvation” and “genocide,” all of which are not only untrue, but make no logical sense given the uncontested reality on the ground

Q&A:

Here are some arguments that (believe it or not) I have actually received on this topic, along with the accompanying answers, based in actual reality.

Argument: These figures are just Israeli propaganda.

Reality: The data on Gaza’s massive population growth comes from the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America.

Argument: The CIA figures are just projections and therefore not accurate.

Reality: This assertion is based on an unsupported claim from an agenda driven article on the Polifact website. (Instead of evidence, Polifact quoted a conjecture by an employee of the US Census Bureau, who does not work for the CIA or have actual knowledge of CIA methodology.) Furthermore, the Polifact article addressed early CIA figures from December 2024, whereas our article is based on the updated CIA figures from May 7, 2025.

Argument: The vast majority of casualties in Gaza are women and children.

Reality: No. Hamas used to claim that most casualties were women and children, and a number of international bodies continue to repeat that claim without independent investigation, even though it is now supported by neither Israeli intelligence nor even by Hamas’ own, revised figures.

As a rule, Hamas never distinguishes between civilians and combatants. Hamas’s “Gaza Ministry of Health” frequently makes dramatic press announcements and then later revises its figures retroactively, often removing thousands of names, or changing the relevant demographic information. One manual count of Hamas’ figures indicates that most of Gaza’s casualties were actually men of military age.

Argument: More than 50,000 people died in Gaza, making it one of the most deadly conflicts in history.

Reality: The Hamas terror organization, which is notoriously unreliable, claims a figure around that scale. Even if accurate, that number is far less than other conflicts in the region, such as Syria (over 650,000), Yemen (over 230,0000), and Afghanistan (over 270,000). In fact, the number of casualties in Gaza is so low that it is less than Gaza’s birth rate during the same period. Indeed, the civilian to combatant casualty ratio in Gaza is the among the lowest in human history for a conflict of this type, nine times less than the UN published global average, and experts note that Israel has set an entirely new standard for the level of care that is possible in urban warfare.

Argument: The death toll in Gaza is similar to the Holocaust on a per capita basis.

Answer: No. Throughout the six years between 1939 and 1945 the Jewish population of Europe decreased by over 60% and now, nearly a century later, the world Jewish population still has not fully recovered. (The global Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust in 1939 stood at 16.9 million, versus today, at only 15.8 million.) By contrast, the Palestinian population in Gaza is growing.

Argument: The attacks of October 7 were the equivalent to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and an example of “resistance” which is permitted under international law.

Answer: No. Though we have written this numerous times in the past, it bears repeating: October 7, 2023, saw the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust, as the Hamas terror organization, along with Palestinian civilians and UN staff, invaded Israel, killed over 1,200 people in approximately six hours, and took 251 hostage, all while committing mass torture, beheadings, and mass rape.

The pace of murder in that six hour period is hard to comprehend: had Hamas continued to kill at that rate (as it had intended), then by today, the death toll in Israel would would have reached over 3.1 million — an even faster pace of killing than that achieved by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

An estimated 50 Israeli hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, with approximately 20 of them believed to still be alive, enduring starvation and torture.

Nothing in international law permits such acts by any person or organization, under any circumstances, for any reason. The only thing comparable to the Holocaust in Gaza is the attempt by Hamas and other terror organizations to annihilate the Jewish people from the Earth, along with their astonishing capacity to simultaneously lie about it to the world.

Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.