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Van Hollen Says Democratic Party Must End Whitewashing, Admit ‘Complicity’ in Gaza Genocide
"Primary voters won’t trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record of moral and strategic clarity on these issues."
May 26, 2026
A senior Senate Democrat said his party needs to own up to its "complicity" in Israel's genocide in Gaza and attacks on Palestinians, and warned against reinstating the foreign policy officials from the Biden administration who have enabled them.
In a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)—a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has visited the occupied Palestinian territories multiple times since October 7, 2023—wrote that "Democrats need to face a hard truth," that their party "has provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments, even as their actions have increasingly undermined American interests and values."
Seeming to recognize the overwhelming shift in opinion against Israel among the US public, and especially Democratic voters, over the last two-plus years, the senator said Americans “do not want to be complicit in ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, or what human rights organizations and scholars have determined to be genocide in Gaza.”
The things he witnessed firsthand while visiting the region—the ruins of Gaza left behind by US-provided bombs, the "apartheid system" in the West Bank, and the accelerating forced displacement of Palestinians by violent West Bank settlers—he said, were the responsibility of "both Republican and Democratic administrations."
While noting President Donald Trump's role in legitimizing Israel's expansionist project during his first term, Van Hollen said former President Joe Biden "failed to reverse most of these actions, even as Israel elected the most extremist government in its history" and after October 7, "failed to use US leverage as Israel imposed devastating collective punishment on the people of Gaza."
He said Democrats must pursue a “last-gasp effort” to revive the idea of a “two-state solution,” which he acknowledged Israel’s gradual annexation of the West Bank has made increasingly untenable.
"Presidents have paid lip service to that goal even as Israeli settlements stretched into the West Bank. This time must be different. The United States must draw a red line against Palestinian displacement, and we must enforce it," Van Hollen said, calling for the US to restrict “offensive” weapons to Israel until it agrees to a plan to end the occupation of Palestinian territory and one for a two-state solution.
Van Hollen said “Democrats must stand firm against... headwinds” like the powerful influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has used its vast resources to target candidates who criticize Israel.
"Primary voters won’t trust any Democratic presidential candidate who does not have a record of moral and strategic clarity on these issues, especially if, as a legislator, he or she voted to send [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu bombs even as his government imposed a total blockade on Gaza," Van Hollen said. "Nor will they support a candidate who plans to re-enlist the senior Democratic decision makers who whitewashed the truth during the Biden administration and refuse to acknowledge their complicity."
"Democrats failed to meet the moment in 2024," he concluded. "Americans were rightly fed up with Democratic hypocrisy and complicity in the gross violation of the values we profess to hold dear. That, in turn, hurt our credibility with voters. We cannot let that happen again."
Van Hollen’s message comes as many of the senior figures who architected Biden’s “blank check” policy toward Netanyahu attempt to rehabilitate their images in a Democratic Party where Israel is now persona non grata.
As Harrison Mann—an ex-intelligence professional who resigned in protest over Gaza—recently wrote, these officials are “popping up everywhere” in the second Trump era with words of measured contrition.
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged in March during a speech at Harvard that the US “maybe” could have acted more quickly to force Israel to accept a ceasefire, "such that the suffering the people endured, the loss of the children, so many others, could have been averted." Jake Sullivan, Biden's former national security adviser, now says that the US should withhold weapons from Israel, a policy he opposed during his time in the White House.
Prior to Van Hollen, another top Democrat, Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii), the caucus’s chief deputy whip, made a similar plea—without naming names—that the next Democratic presidential administration cannot simply invite these same establishment figures back into positions of authority.
"I’m not into black listing anyone from future work in their area of expertise, but I do think it’s fair to want a whole new crop of foreign policy staffers in the next democratic administration," Schatz wrote on social media Sunday. "It’s not like the same 120 people are the only people who know anything."
Van Hollen has previously been more pointed in saying that figures in both parties who supported the genocide "should be held accountable for US complicity in the man-made humanitarian disaster, indiscriminate killings, and massive destruction we have witnessed in Gaza."
Adam Johnson, a journalist at The Intercept who recently wrote a book about the role of the media and the Biden administration in "selling" the genocide to the American public, criticized Van Hollen for refusing to use the term directly (instead defaulting to the less explicit phrase "ethnic cleansing").
However, Johnson said it was a good sign [that] this is becoming more and more conventional wisdom.“ He said the ”next step“ was to ”name names and make specific commitments" regarding the policies the party should and should not promote in Israel and Palestine.
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Trump Aide Claims Americans ‘Spending More Money on Everything’ Shows They're ‘Optimistic’ About Economy
Multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.
May 26, 2026
For the second time in a month, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Tuesday claimed that Americans spending more money on gasoline and other goods is a sign of strength for the US economy—rather than evidence of the Trump administration's inflationary policy decisions.
During an interview with Fox Business, Hassett tried to counter recent data showing US consumer sentiment hitting all-time lows during President Donald Trump's second term.
"The thing that I've seen when I look at credit card data," Hassett said, "is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they've been spending more money on everything else, which means that they're still very, very optimistic about the state of the economy, and they should be."
Hassett: "The thing I've seen is that while people have been spending more money at gas stations, they've been spending more money on everything else, which means they're still very very optimistic about the state of the economy"
(Consumer sentiment is actually at an all time… pic.twitter.com/oyWfsCGy8O
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026
In fact, multiple consumer surveys have shown that Americans have never been more pessimistic about the state of the economy.
Last week, the University of Michigan's latest Surveys of Consumers showed consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level ever, driven primarily by concerns about the cost of living.
Gallup last week published new data showing that Americans’ economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.
Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked Hassett about these surveys, and he said they should be dismissed because they only show negative sentiment from Democrats and independents, who combined make up the majority of US voters.
"They call it 'consumer sentiment' but I don't think those words mean what they think they mean anymore," Hassett said. "We find that basically the consumer sentiment indicator at the University of Michigan, it's just a political survey. And in fact, what the correlation between what Democrats say and what independents say... it's almost exactly perfectly correlated."
BARTIROMO: Consumer sentiment is a record low. What's the most important messaging you can put out there to help sentiment?
HASSETT: They call it 'consumer sentiment' but I don't think those words mean what they think they mean anymore. The correlation between what independents… pic.twitter.com/kAM3JyWUjD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 26, 2026
In fact, consumer sentiment surveys taken during President Joe Biden's administration showed that independents joined with Republican voters to rate the economy significantly more poorly than Democratic voters, indicating that independents' views of the economy are not in lockstep with Democrats'.
Polling averages calculated by elections analyst Nate Silver currently show Trump's approval rating on his handling to the economy to be just 34%, with disapproval standing at 63%.
The numbers are even worse when it comes to the president's handling of inflation, where an average of 28% of Americans approve and 69% disapprove.
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‘What I Witnessed and Experienced Today Was Shameful,‘ Says US Senator Pepper Sprayed by ICE
Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey said federal immigration agents "poured gasoline on the fire" as protesters condemned appalling conditions inside the Delaney Hall detention facility.
May 26, 2026
A sitting US senator was pepper sprayed by federal immigration agents on Monday during a demonstration outside of the notorious Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, New Jersey, where migrants are engaged in a hunger strike to highlight deplorable conditions inside the facility and demand their release.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said he rushed to the migrant detention center—which was reopened by the Trump administration last year—after learning of the hunger strike, which began late last week. Following Monday's protest, Kim wrote on social media that he saw "chaos" and "more of the same lawlessness we've see elsewhere around the country," alluding to horrific—and sometimes deadly—abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents (ICE) in Minnesota, Georgia, Texas, and elsewhere.
"Instead of engaging with me and others about the poor conditions, ICE sent in an armored vehicle and a line of armed agents that only poured gasoline on the fire. Civilians were tackled and restrained, and agents fired pepper balls and spray into the crowd," said Kim. "Our country deserves accountability. Our country deserves the humane treatment of every person here. In fact, our Constitution demands this. What I witnessed and experienced today was shameful."
"Delaney Hall is a failure; it’s this administration’s failure," Kim added. "The only way to make this right for our communities is to shut it down and make sure the failures we’ve seen never happen again."
NJ.com reported that Kim, who was visiting the facility along with other New Jersey representatives including Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill, "initially tried to broker a temporary agreement between the demonstrators and federal agents, in which the agents would scale back tactical teams and immigrant advocates could inspect cars leaving the facility to see if detainees were inside."
Demonstrators had earlier expressed concern that ICE was planning to secretly transfer hunger strike participants to other detention facilities.
"But in the meantime, agents began pushing the crowd backward, firing less-lethal rounds containing an irritant toward the protesters and making several arrests," NJ.com continued. "At times, Kim stepped between the protestors and agents putting his arms up in a 'stop' motion as the scene grew chaotic. Later, Kim was among those who received first aid after being exposed to pepper spray."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, issued a statement characterizing protesters as "dangerous rioters" and claiming that "no individuals were directly struck by pepper ball projectiles."
DISGRACEFUL: ICE agents tear-gassed U.S. Senator Andy Kim at Delaney Hall detention facility in NJ today!
Kim was supporting hunger-striking detainees protesting spoiled food, no medical care & extreme heat when federal agents unleashed tear gas & pepper spray. Kim struggled to… pic.twitter.com/CyPQJCkW50
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) May 26, 2026
Delaney Hall is run by the private prison corporation GEO Group under a $1 billion, 15-year contract with ICE.
The families of people detained at Delaney Hall have decried "dangerous conditions" inside the facility, alleging "medical neglect, lack of air conditioning, and lack of food—including rotten and spoiled meals." The ACLU of New Jersey noted earlier this year that "when food is provided—as it is not often supplied—people have reported that it is frozen or otherwise inedible, in small portions, and distributed at odd hours, which is particularly harmful for people who are diabetic and trying to maintain a stable blood sugar level."
After seeing the inside of the facility over the weekend, Kim wrote that "our government should focus on helping Americans afford their lives, not lock people up in for-profit detention centers where corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic make billions."
"No profiting off of human misery," Kim added.
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