Democrats Already Jostling to Oppose Trump’s War on Iran
Donald Trump’s abrupt war of aggression against Iran, carried out in concert with Israel, has thrown a metaphorical bomb directly into multiple Democratic Party primaries. One such election will be held in North Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District on Tuesday, where Durham County Board of Commissioners member Nida Allam, who is challenging incumbent Rep. Valerie Foushee, made her opposition to the war her closing pitch to voters in an ad.
“President Trump just used our taxpayer dollars to bomb a school in Iran, killing over a hundred elementary-school children and starting another endless war abroad. This is reprehensible, and I strongly condemn it, as should every elected official,” Allam says in the ad.
“As Election Day approaches you will see nearly $2 million of ads for my opponent, funded by AI-backed super PACs—the same AI corporation who powered Trump’s attacks on Iran,” she adds, referencing the company Anthropic, whose super PAC has donated to Foushee, and whose AI model Claude was reportedly used during the attack. “So I wanted you to hear it from me personally: I will never take a dime from defense contractors or the pro-Israel lobby. I have opposed these forever wars my entire career.”
To be fair, Foushee also strongly condemned Trump’s war. In a statement posted on social media, she said: “Trump’s attack on Iran is an unconstitutional escalation that risks dragging the United States into another catastrophic and endless war in the Middle East … I oppose this unlawful attack and demand that Congress reconvene immediately to pass the bipartisan War Powers Resolution to stop this administration and hold it accountable.”
Allam’s criticism of Foushee over her support from Anthropic also leaves out some important context. As my colleague David Dayen reported, the company’s PAC did support her to the tune of $700,000, and it has worked with the military until a few days ago, but it is now in a high-stakes confrontation with the Trump administration.
The Defense Department is attempting to renege on a contract it previously signed with Anthropic that stipulated that the military would not use its AI model Claude to conduct mass surveillance on Americans or make autonomous decisions to use lethal force. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei categorically refused to alter the contract to permit such uses, and in retaliation Trump canceled its contract and forbade the entire government from using it (though apparently it will take some six months to disentangle it from Pentagon systems). Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also declared the company a supply chain risk—a designation that forbids any U.S. company that does business with the military from working with it, which would likely bankrupt Anthropic if not rescinded—and threatened to force the company to cooperate by invoking the Defense Production Act.
The Anthropic-Pentagon dispute is something of an ancillary topic when it comes to this Tuesday’s primary, but given how vanishingly few corporations have resisted Trump in any way—nearly every other one, from Facebook to Apple to Paramount, has instead been stuffing his pockets with bribes—it’s worth mentioning.
But ultimately, if this primary is going to turn on opposition to Trump’s lunatic imperialist wars, and both candidates are saying almost exactly the same thing, the fundamental question will be about credibility. And there is just no question that Allam has stronger bona fides in this department.
It is unquestionably true that Foushee was supported by millions of dollars in AIPAC spending in 2022, and that she is currently being supported by a company that had a large military contract until a few days ago.
It is also true that Allam is the first Muslim American elected to political office in North Carolina history, and if elected in November would be one of a small handful of Muslim members of Congress. That matters particularly when top Trump, uh, courtiers like Laura Loomer are outright calling for Muslim genocide. If you want the most reliable possible vote against American support for Israel and Trump’s murderous foreign policy, the choice is clear.
Even if Foushee manages to pull out a victory on Tuesday night, it still will have required a remarkable amount of backtracking. Even before a joint Trump-Israeli attack ended up blowing up dozens of schoolgirls, she had forsworn all AIPAC support, even in the disguised form that has become necessary as Israel has become radioactive in Democratic Party politics. Now Foushee is fervently against Israel’s latest collaboration with Trump. In such a blue district, it could hardly be otherwise. Look at the numbers: Right when a war is launched, before the inevitable complications and blowbacks hit, that war is usually at its peak of popularity. Not this one. A recent CNN poll registered 59 percent opposition across all Americans, with 82 percent of Democrats in opposition.
There is less space every day for fervent Zionists like Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who every day sounds more like Trump himself, in today’s Democratic Party. They will either change their tune (or party) or they will have to leave office, sooner or later.
The post Democrats Already Jostling to Oppose Trump’s War on Iran appeared first on The American Prospect.