House Democratic leaders condemn Texas candidate for antisemitic comments

Top House Democrats are condemning a Texas Democratic candidate days after she took to social media to say she’d turn an immigration detention center into a “prison for American Zionists” if she won.

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Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign arm, lambasted Maureen Galindo as her past comments gained steam on social media.

“This vile language by her is disqualifying and has no place in American politics, and certainly not in the Democratic Party,” the two Democrats said in a statement released Tuesday night.

Galindo, a therapist, finished with the most votes in the March primary in the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, a new district that state Republican lawmakers drew to be friendlier to the GOP this fall. She’s running in a runoff against Johnny Garcia, who previously worked in the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office.

Galindo has made a string of controversial comments during her campaign. She wrote last week on Instagram that she’d turn an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center “into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking,” going on to claim that many Zionists are “pedophiles.”

Galindo didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Jeffries and DelBene also referred to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in spending by a shadowy group, Lead Left PAC, that has been spending to boost Galindo. They accused Republicans of trying to meddle in the race by elevating a seemingly toxic candidate who has raised hardly any money.

“To embrace and uplift a fringe candidate with antisemitic — and extremely dangerous — rhetoric and views in order to win an election is beyond the pale,” they said. “MAGA extremists should be ashamed of themselves.”

Lead Left PAC is a brand-new organization with little online footprint that has recently started spending to boost primary candidates who are running against Democrats seen as the preferred picks of the party’s establishment.

It’s unclear who is funding the effort, as it hasn’t yet been required to disclose its fundraising under campaign finance laws. Punchbowl News reported this month that metadata for the group’s website linked to a GOP fundraising platform, prompting speculation that Republicans could be looking to boost Galindo to help them win the seat in the fall.

The winner of Tuesday’s Democratic runoff will face the winner of the Republican runoff between the Trump-backed Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz and state Rep. John Lujan, whose backers include Gov. Greg Abbott.

Other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle put out comments condemning Galindo’s comments.

“This is absolutely disgusting. This bigoted garbage and antisemitism should be nowhere near our politics,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement on social media that also criticized alleged Republican involvement in boosting Galindo’s candidacy.

Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., argued in his own social media post : “If a Republican candidate proposed putting Jews in work camps it would be a national media story for days.”

“There is no version of America where rhetoric like this is acceptable,” he added.