On the official establishment cable mouthpiece of the American left, the talking heads aren’t even hiding the fact that the Democrats live and die by the anti-Semitic crowd in 2026 — and will in 2028, too.
In a discussion late Tuesday on CNN, several pundits weighed in on whom the Democratic Party will pick as its presidential nominee next time around, especially in light of Democratic socialists taking several key House primary races.
All of the DSA-backed candidates have one thing in common, aside from having not a whit of economic common sense: They don’t like Israel or its supporters, for reasons one can reasonably guess at. Sure, like most Jew-haters, they hide behind a veneer of “anti-Zionism,” but the base these candidates count on certainly seems to excuse violence by thugs who take their rage out on innocent Jews, while excoriating Jewish Democrats, even those who are mostly pro-Palestinian in outlook.
During the discussion, according to a transcript of “The Story Is with Elex Michaelson,” host Elex Michaelson said that “some of the of the fringes of the DSA, not everybody in the DSA, are certainly pretty close to anti-Semitism, if not anti-Semitism.” It’s a development he called “a little scary.”
The talk then switched to several other races, including that of decidedly non-DSA Sen. Jon Ossoff — who’s still pretty far left, Jewish, and in a contentious race in the state of Georgia for his Senate seat.
Strangely enough, despite the fact that he might not win re-election, he’s considered a potential favorite for the 2028 presidential race if he does pull it off, even by a narrow margin. Political commentator Eric Messersmith said that if he wins “by a fairly comfortable margin in a race that Republicans really targeted aggressively in Georgia, that gives you a pretty strong case heading into 2028.”
“There’s a reason he’s now second in the betting odds behind Governor Gavin Newsom to be the Democratic nominee,” Messersmith added.
According to the prediction market Kalshi, this was very briefly true in the hours before the show was recorded, but Ossoff was still neck-and-neck with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York for second place. Weirdly, you have to look all the way down to No. 7 to find Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was in the running for Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024 and has been a relatively popular governor who’ll have no problems with re-election in a swing state.
Shapiro has actually done things, too; As the one Republican on the panel, Roxanne Beckford Hoge of the Los Angeles Republican Party, pointed out, the only thing that Ossoff did before seeking elected office was a brief career as a “documentary filmmaker with his family’s millions.” Given that his main campaign message seems to be that President Donald Trump and his family are benefiting from the office, she noted that “if you want to talk about nepotism,” Ossoff probably isn’t the guy you want to put forth.
However, Messersmith said the magic words: “Because [Ossoff] is — I was going to say, he is Jewish. He might be the Democrat that can thread the needle. Because even though he’s Jewish, he’s very critical of the Israeli government, very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu. He has credibility on that issue. So, it’s possible that, I think, he could fill that lane in between the two extremes of the Democratic Party.”
A-ha. Yes, host Michaelson was more than willing to fill in a few more blanks about what “that lane” doth entail.
Pointing to himself, apparently to indicate his own ethnicity, Michaelson said, “As a Jew, some people read a little more Jewish than other people. And Jon Ossoff may not read as Jewish as Josh Shapiro does, for whatever that’s worth,” he said.
Very disturbing that “how Jewish someone reads” is being discussed as a liability for the Democrat party in the year 2026. pic.twitter.com/tGIREyMpHM
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) July 2, 2026
It is rare and disheartening when a real news anchor puts you mind of a fictive one, particularly on a sitcom. But in this case, the comparison to Kent Brockman on “The Simpsons” was inescapable: “And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords,” you could almost hear Michaelson saying.
It didn’t get any better for the CNN man when the inevitable blowback came and forced him to apologize, both on the air and on social media.
Here’s a sampling of the comments:
Replace ‘Jew’ with ‘Black person’ https://t.co/xYFxTas4I5
— Lizzy Savetsky (@LizzySavetsky) July 2, 2026
In other words, Shapiro is an obviously Jewish name whereas Ossoff is not. Great work @cnn and @democrats.
— JHP2 (@jhp2) July 2, 2026
That this is even an approved discussion on a legacy media channel is mind blowing! Could you BE any more racist CNN?
— Danny & Debbie (@Hinson84647) July 2, 2026
About 10 minutes into his show on Thursday, Michaelson came out with, “Earlier this week, I made a comment in a different panel discussion about Jewish identity politics,” according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, the British-based publication that puts an emphasis on covering American politics.
“The remark that I made was offensive, and I apologize for that.”
I apologize. I made a comment that was offensive. Going forward, I’ll do better.
— Elex Michaelson (@Elex_Michaelson) July 2, 2026
By all measurable accounts, this shouldn’t even be a question: Josh Shapiro is more accomplished, more driven, and more on the ball than Ossoff has been or likely will ever be. But his Jewishness was likely what kept him off the ticket as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024.
His criticism of the Palestinian people — written when Shapiro was in college — became a political football three decades later. And it almost certainly “reads Jewish” at a time when the far left of the party seems ready to initiate political pogroms.
Zohran Mamdani’s embrace of “globalize the intifada,” on the other hand, didn’t hurt him. Then, it didn’t hurt the candidates he supported in New York’s congressional primaries, who were more radical than he is.
Finally, it didn’t hurt another DSA extremist, Melat Kiros — a barista who was fired from her law firm for an anti-Semitic open letter issued after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and who has described herself as a “recovering lawyer” on the campaign trail. Kiros upset a Democrat with nearly 30 years in the U.S. House in Colorado’s primaries last week.
These people may not represent the majority of the Democratic Party, but that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that they’ve cowed the rest of the party, including its establishmentarian voices on CNN, into talking about who “reads Jewish.”
When that’s the kind of rhetoric you’re hearing about how our next Democratic presidential nominee might well be decided, it’s time for sane people to flee a sinking ship of hate.
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