Dems Embracing of Antisemitism Is About to Backfire | Batya Ungar-Sargon

0:00This Monday.com ad was created by a team of people and AI agents. The agents wrote the copy and managed the timelines, while our human creative director made sure it all made sense. Easy. Create your own AI agent today on Monday.com. So for all these reasons, it made a lot of sense at the time for Jews to become Democrats. And of course, anti-Semitism back then, where it existed, was on the right. You fast forward to today, and the exact opposite is the case. The vast majority of today's anti-Jewish sentiment, I think, comes from the left, whereas the right is doing a really good job of kicking these people out.

0:36But at this point, Jews are extremely overrepresented in the kinds of people who become Democrats, who become leftists, which is over-credentialed, college-educated elites. They're just demographically programmed to end up on that side of the political aisle in a day and age when working-class Americans are on the right and the college-educated are on the left.

1:04All right, guys, it's Friday, June 12th, 2026. I'm Dave Rubin. This is The Rubin Report. And joining me today is the host of News Nation's Batya! Exclamation point. And the author of the newly released book, The Jews and the Left, my friend Batya Ungersargen. Batya, we started a second late here because there were some, we heard some police sirens in the background. You are in New York. Is this Nix related? General Jihad related? Are you OK? Are you OK? You know, I'm one of these people who's always like, guys, slowly roll. Like, I don't appreciate like very macho men coming in here and acting like New York.

1:42You got to be scared and stuff. As long as we got Jessica Tish, police commissioner, Jewess, proud Zionist in charge, you know, everything's going to be OK. Ever the optimist. That is why I like you. You're always smiling. even when you're saying things that I think are a little loopy. But I do adore you. And you are someone of the left. I think for the most part, you're trying to do something kind of similar in some sense to what Bill Maher is still trying to do. And Fetterman, show the Democrats that perhaps they could be a bit better or they've abandoned some of their principles. It's sort of what I was trying to do a while back.

2:17And I just don't, I personally just can't take it much more with these people. But let's focus on the book for the half hour because obviously we talk about the left a lot on this show. And unfortunately, I would say we talk about the Jews and or Israel more than I would like to. I'd rather not, unless there was something, you know, great to celebrate or something like that. But there's a lot of strange focus on the Jews lately. So I guess first, what made you want to write this book in the first place? I wanted to write it for non-Jews and for Jews for different reasons. I wanted to explain to non-Jews why Jews vote Democrat, especially conservatives and Republicans and Christians, because I'm sure you get this a lot, Dave, when I travel.

3:03It's the number one thing I get asked with, like, real pain. Christians know that they will always have Israel's back and will always have the back of the Jews, and they can see that the left has turned on the Jews. They want to understand why did Jews become Democrats and why do they stick with a party that hates them? So I wanted to write it for that audience and answer those two pieces of the question, why Jews became Democrats and why the left turned on them. But I also had a message for American Jews because I think a big part of why American Jews stick with the Democratic Party is because they see us as an oppressed minority in America.

3:39And of course, the Democrats claim to represent the oppressed. But we were never an oppressed minority in America. And this is a history that has been utterly lost, both to the Jewish community and to many in the non-Jewish community. There was 300 years of American Jewish history before Jews became Democrats, when they were seen as just a completely fundamental part of this country, foundational to what made America great. The founding fathers really saw Jews as partners in the creation of this great nation. And we just totally lost that history. And I wanted American Jews to remember what this country had done for us and to realize that our loyalty should not be to one party or the other.

4:22It should be to the great nation that is the United States of America. Right. So, OK, so there's a couple angles there. And of course, that's not to say, yes, there was obviously discrimination and Jews weren't allowed in certain schools and certain hospitals and had to build alternate institutions and all of those things. But your argument really is that fundamentally Jews have always been part of the fabric, which the founders, almost all of them wrote positive things about the Jews and about what eventually would become Israel. They understood the connection to the land and all that stuff. So first, let's talk about the part that you brought up initially, which is because I do get that a lot.

4:55People say to me, Dave, Dave, you know, conservative people, meaning well, will say, why do the Jews vote Democrat? Democrat, mostly my answer, my bumper sticker answer, if I don't have time to sit down, is something like a lot of secular Jews have traded their religion for liberalism. That's like my bumper sticker version. I'm sure you addressed some of that. Yeah. Definitely the fact that they're not religious has a lot to do with it. And there's a real irony there to that because part of what made Jews so precious to the founding fathers and to the early Americans is that they saw them as the kind of living, breathing embodiment of the source material for the civilization they were building here, right?

5:39Like they saw them as the protectors of the Torah for 2 ,000 years, which was the source of all of the fundamental rights that we have as Americans and the view that our rights are imbued in us by our creator. They're not a gift from some government. They thought that that was an idea that a human could never arrive at on their own. God implanted that idea in us, gave us the Torah as a guide, and the Jews were, you know, the stewards of that text for so many years. But what's ironic is that, you know, as you know, Dave, being a religious Jew is a very heavy lift. We're, you know, the people of the law.

6:14There's a lot of laws, as, you know, Ben Shapiro and I know are Orthodox. And when Jews would get here, they would become so enamored of the freedom that was in the air here. The first thing they would do is stop being religious. And so they kind of gave up the very thing that was so unbelievably precious to the people around them. Of course, they were also admired for other things, like they were always, you know, capitalistic and a country that was building itself on the idea of, you know, you give someone a penny and tomorrow you come back, there's two pennies. They would talk about Jews this way, that they were so upwardly mobile.

6:47They were so entrepreneurial. All of these things that were stigmas in Europe were seen as reasons to admire Jews here. I think the reason they became Democrats, it actually makes a lot of sense. There was a massive migration from Russia, from Jews, you know, running away from pogroms. About a million Jews came here at the turn of the century and they were overwhelmingly working class and they were being unbelievably exploited in the needle trades on the Lower East Side, mostly by other Jews who had gotten here like five years before them, managed to like save a bunch of money, open a sweatshop.

7:22Right. And so they created the labor movement and introduced all sorts of things that people today, every American left and right, would recognize as objectively good things like the five-day work week, you know, the idea that you should treat workers with respect. The problem was the Jewish proletariat was a very short-lived affair. You know, within five, ten years, they would make some money, take advantage of the capitalism here, be upwardly mobile, and then end up in the ownership class. They would end up, you know, being capitalists. And so they were looking for a movement that was both pro-labor and pro-capitalism, and they found that in FDR's New Deal.

7:58And then, of course, you fast forward to the civil rights movement, which was very dear to most American Jews' hearts, although not for the reason most American Jews think today. They think today that it was like some sort of intersectional thing, right? Like the same people oppressing blacks are oppressing Jews. At the time, they thought the opposite. They felt extremely attached to equality for blacks because we had never been oppressed here. So for all these reasons, it made a lot of sense at the time for Jews to become Democrats. And of course, anti-Semitism back then where it existed was on the right.

8:30You fast forward to today and the exact opposite is the case. The vast majority of today's anti-Jewish sentiment, I think, comes from the left, whereas the right is doing a really good job of kicking these people out. But at this point, Jews are extremely overrepresented in the kinds of people who become Democrats, who become leftists, which is over credentialed college educated elites. They're just demographically programmed to end up on that side of the political aisle in a day and age when working class Americans are on the right and the college educated are on the left. Father's Day is coming, guys.

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9:39Go to chefiq.com and use promo code Rubin. That's chefiq.com promo code Rubin for 40 % off site-wide. Okay, so there's a lot to do here. And unfortunately, for today's purposes, we only have a half hour, but we'll obviously pick a lot of this up. So let me flash all the way forward to these last few years where it seems like it's really gone off the rails with the left. A, how off the rails do you think it has gone? And B, is there any way to put it back on the rails? And then we'll do a little bit on what you mentioned regarding the right as well. It's very off the rails right now. Like anti-Zionism is the most important litmus test to, you know, be a member in good standing on the left today.

10:22You cannot be a progressive candidate and be a Zionist. Can you, for someone that's watching this that just hears that word all the time, how would you define Zionist? because it's also the way they're using the word that everyone had put to bed. The word was largely put to bed because Israel exists. So it's only post-October 7th that suddenly they figured out, oh, we don't have to say Jew, we can say Zionist. Yeah. Zionist to me is like, do you think planet earth should have a single Jewish state on the ancestral homeland of the Jews, right? It's a very minimum proposition. Amazingly though, Zoran Mamdani is not a Zionist, right?

10:57So, you know, So but Zoro and Mamdani can go and visit with Trump and bend the knee to Trump on immigration and still be a rising star because he's an anti-Zionist. So it's the thing that cleanses you of all other evils. It's the most important thing. It's the one thing that's utterly non-negotiable. You know, like someone like Ro Khanna can go around and say, yeah, Trump's right about reindustrializing the heartland, right? Because he's aggressively against Israel right now. So it's the litmus test, which is utterly shocking given this history of how Jews built the left up. But I do think that – here's the thing, Dave.

11:35The vast majority of Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish, are Zionists. So it is a big deal on the left right now, but it has a ceiling. And I think it's really hit that ceiling. And I think in 2028, the Democrats are going to realize right now, like if they run Grand Platten or if they run Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and they lose big time to Republicans in states they could have won and should have won this cycle, they're going to do a 180 because there's nothing Democrats hate worse than losing. I feel like Republicans are very comfortable losing, like they never expect to win and they never quite know what to do when they do.

12:08But Democrats are the opposite. Like they feel that power is their birthright and they just don't even think they're supposed to have to compete anymore. What if that doesn't happen, though? So what if those guys, because yes, the unifying principle right now is as long as you are just against the state of Israel, then you're good to go. It doesn't matter what your economic policy is or anything else. That seems to be the unifier. But what if Plattner and Abdul Syed and there are others? What if they win? Then where are we at? Because then they'll feel pretty damn emboldened. They will, but I think there will be a revolt from the populace.

12:42I really think most Democratic voters are still Zionists. They feel really disgusted at anti-Semitism. And you can see this in Thomas Massey's humiliating loss. He made the whole election about Israel and Kentucky was like, what the heck are you doing? We like Jews, actually. You know, like, so I feel really sanguine about this. You know, you see Tucker Carlson is underwater with Republican voters. Why is he seven points underwater with Republicans? Why is that? It's because he turned on the Jews. I feel you cannot go full anti-Semite in America. This is the message of the book and succeed in the mainstream.

13:19So what do you think most of these people are doing? Because you see like, you know, like little strange hints around it. people who don't have particularly impassioned feelings about Israel or Jews, they start, I've seen this with so many people, they just start dancing with this or poking it a little bit. And then next thing you know, you are Thomas Massey putting out the craziest conspiracy nonsense and everything else. But Dave, I've seen the opposite as well. Like people who said to me like two years ago, three years ago, like, yeah, I'm not trying to Zionist, who've seen like how like just insane the anti-Israel people are and how gross they are and been like, I don't want anything to do with that.

13:57Like if those are the people who hate Israel, it's probably doing something right. And I've seen a lot of that on both sides. What do you make of, I'm scribbling 20 different things around here. What do you make about how much of this or how much would you prescribe is related to just confusion about the history of Israel. I mean, almost everyone that I see talking about the modern state of Israel on the left is lying about everything from the founding to years before the founding, to the Battle of the Declaration, to the Peel Commission. I mean, the whole damn thing. Like, almost everything is an outright lie.

14:33There is a lot of lies. I just feel that, like, the American people, I don't know, this is something I uncovered writing the book that really surprised me, but it was like, something in the soil just rejects hatred of Jews. So to me, this is very much an elite phenomenon, both the left and the right. You know, you've got these people on the right who like their number one issue is the USS Liberty, Thomas Massey taking to the halls of Congress, you know, to read out the names of the victims of, Dave, you know, the only instance of friendly fire in the history of humanity, you know, the USS Liberty.

15:07Like, it's so dumb, you know, but I think on the left as well, this is very much an elite phenomenon. It's very Twitterverse coded. And there's just an ironclad law in American politics today. And it's that the less online campaign will always win. What do you make of the amount of attention that is paid to this small amount of people and this obscenely tiny country? I mean, there are 52 or 53 Muslim nations. Every single one of them is in effect practicing apartheid or is kicked out or killed every minority. There are 2 million Muslim Arabs that live in Israel as equal citizens. But again, it's a confusion about reality.

15:49But just the attention part. Well, I think that's the answer is like there are 200 billion Muslims or 200, you know, what is it? 2 billion Muslims like on the Internet who are desperate for like high quality anti-Israel content. China is like deeply invested in this right now. We're in a new Cold War with China. And just like in the old Cold War, Israel was our ally, you know, and the Arabs were on the side of the Russians. Today, it's like they're on the side of China. And that's totally fine. You know what I mean? They're using information warfare and we have to make sure that our people are educated.

16:19But they have this like unbelievable strength, which is their love of their fellow Americans. You know, there's this narrative that America is a white supremacist. We are the least racist country to ever exist in the history of humanity ever, ever. And that's just a superpower. And I think that that acts as a real bomb against, you know, it's almost like an antidote to any of this stuff. Yeah. You know, it's funny. When I listen to you, I think there are, you obviously say a lot of things that make sense to me. And yet I feel the left is just so far gone. Not that a certain set of people won't bounce backward.

16:56I agree. The average person, I don't even know that they love Jews or like Jews or anything else, but they just think they're part of America, just like every other ethnic group. group and it is what it is. And yet this base is so damn rabid. And I think you do have to give the devil his due. Like they've been able to destroy a lot. So how much of this is that they are just dedicated to destruction? Where generally speaking, you sort of hinted at this earlier, Jews are dedicated to building. I mean, the history of Israel is building, taking the, you know, the sand and building a beautiful green nation.

17:26Jews in general, you get a bunch of Jews going somewhere, they're going to do something versus there's a movement just to destroy everything. Here's the question to ask yourself. Do they hate Jews more than they hate white people? Do they hate Jews more than they hate Christians? Do they hate Israel more than they hate America? The answer to all those questions is no. There's like a real intensification of hatred against Israel and Jews because it was in the news. But they have put us in the white camp. They've put us in the conservatives camp. Now, the ADL wants to say, how dare you? We're an oppressed minority like blacks.

17:59Put us in the black camp. Put us in the trans camp. I think that's disgusting. We are not oppressed. We have never been oppressed. The fact that there's rising anti-Semitism on the left does not make us oppressed. They are not oppressing us because we are one with this nation. And we should be proud to stand with the other people that they hate. We should be proud to be put in the bucket of the American working class who will always have our back. So in that you don't think the right has gone off the rails the way that the left has, do you think there's more the right could do so that next time someone says to you, hey, why don't you vote Republican more, you could give them a more cohesive answer?

18:42I was just, I just did a podcast with a leftist Jew about my book and he went, well you said Elon Musk did not do a Heil Hitler and yet here you are giving Graham Platner a problem for having a Nazi tattoo aren't you being inconsistent and I was like no because one of them has an actual Nazi tattoo and the other one did not do a Heil Hitler and he was like this is the problem people only want to see it on one side like this is the level of discourse it's so sad to me, but I do think a lot of American Jews, they'll say to me, like, I feel politically homeless because the left is a no-go zone for Zionists.

19:25But the right, I'm a liberal. Like, I don't see my way there. I'm not quite there yet. And I kind of want to, like, have, like, a map with, like, a timeline and be like, you know, like, I was here once. Now I'm here. You are here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's that famous meme. We can put an image of it up that Elon has tweeted out many times. I think it's from Colin Wright. Yeah. I didn't move, but the whole, but so, so how do you convince those people? I don't know that you fully want to convince those people. I want to convince those people, vote Republican and just be more on the, what I consider myself.

19:57I am on the more liberal side of MAGA, but the, but it's obvious to me that there is move, there is a, um, there is a home for say more classically liberal people within MAGA. I think that's actually what Trump is himself. And it's also what brought over Bobby and Tulsi and a whole bunch of other people. Well, yeah, the point of my book, I don't want to, I don't want, the point of my book is not for Jews to become Republicans. It's for Jews to realize that our loyalty is to the United States of America. I understand. I'm nudging you a little bit. Yeah, I know. I'm just nudging you. Right. But what I would say is I know a lot of Jews who would very happily vote for Marco Rubio, like a lot of Democratic Jews who would very happily vote for Marco Rubio.

20:38I know, by the way, a lot of Republicans who would not vote for J.D. Vance, something I've said before. But I think if the Republicans are smart and if this is an important issue for them, there are people on the right who will have a much better chance than Trump did and then many of the other people on the right as well. Yeah. In terms of the infighting on the right and the right pushing some of this away, and again, I know this isn't exactly what the topic of the book is, I found it pretty freaking inspiring because watching people push away the bad ideas. I was part of the left and one of the early people screaming, hey, you guys are not acting liberally.

21:16This whole thing is going to fall apart. So when I've now come over to the right to see, oh, there's a group of people pushing against the lunacy of Tucker Carlson and some of these other people, it's been quite inspiring and it's – well, it's what America really is actually. I totally agree. I mean, the courage, the bravery, the willingness to alienate potential constituencies, the knowledge that those are not real constituencies, the confidence in the electorate and in the American people to say, Carlson, out. Fuentes, out. We don't need you. Like, we don't need you. And that's not the price we're willing to pay.

21:56It's the exact opposite of what you're seeing on the left, literally embracing a Nazi because they think he's going to win them a Senate seat. How much of this do you think just boils down to actual anti-Americanism? Like, to me, it's something like, well, if you could dislodge the Jews from America. Yeah, Jews have been dislodged before. It never ends well for the place that dislodges them. But what it would really be is an assault on the 250-year history of this country. Because once the Jews are out, they're coming for everybody. you can't dislodge Jews from what this country was because the founding fathers saw us as foundational partners to the creation of this great nation.

22:37And it is an absolute tragedy that most American Jews don't know that, that they act like they could be dislodged. You just can't. Like America would not be America without us. We were heritage Americans. And it's just, it's appalling that this is not part of the discourse. And it's part of why I wrote the book. It's our 250th birthday. We have to remember this. And I keep saying to people, like, you know, they're like, oh, you know, well, you could always move to Israel. No, you will take this country from my cold, dead hands. Like that. And that should be how every Jewish American feels. Yeah.

23:12Well, that should be how every American feels, really, in essence. Do you owe back taxes or have unfiled returns? No matter how it started, the problem's only going to get worse. Penalties grow, interest adds up, and the IRS is already taking action through wage garnishments, bank levies, and more. That's where Tax Network USA can help. With over 15 years of experience, they specialize in resolving back taxes and unfiled returns. They've handled thousands of cases and resolved over$1 billion in tax debt nationwide. Right now, they're offering a free investigation call with the IRS to review your situation and create a clear path to get you back on track.

23:50Don't wait for another IRS notice or worse. Call 866-685-6604. That's 866-685-6604 or visit tnusa.com slash Dave. How is it that you do what we do and you're always smiling? I mean, I'm pretty, you know, I'm pretty glass half full. I always describe myself. I'm sort of a world-weary optimist. But I would say you are almost relentlessly smiley despite all of this nonsense. I mean, it's a pretty upsetting thing to have to write about, you know, your people being pushed out of a movement that you care about, in essence. And you talk about these things all the time with a smile on your face. I'm wondering where that comes from.