Rep. Raskin offered his unique perspective, speaking eloquently about how the truth is the best antidote to the rising hate, disinformation, and antisemitism in our politics. He also staunchly defended American support for democracy and human rights abroad.
Here’s a key Raskin quote regarding his January 6th Commission work:
“We have had more than 275 people now voluntarily appear before the Committee, render truthful testimony, give us extraordinary documents, eye-opening information about how all of this was organized and how the attack was perpetrated against us… I believe we are going to come back with an overwhelmingly fine-grained portrait of the causes of January 6th, what took place on that day all the way to the Oval Office, and what we need to do to stabilize and fortify American democracy for this century… We are actually focused on the goal here, and I think we will reach it in the new year.”
In dialogue with AJCongress President Jack Rosen and E.D. Joel Rubin, Rep. Raskin discussed the controversy generated by DC Sunrise Movement in late October when it called for the expulsion of Jewish and pro-Israel groups from a pro-democracy rally, stating:
“I was profoundly troubled by that. I couldn’t believe it… We were trying to get people to stand together for democracy and then there is a group in DC, the local DC Sunrise group, which says that we’re not gonna participate because there are pro-Israel groups there, and there are several things wrong with that. First of all, it defeats the whole idea of what a coalition is and what an alliance is of bringing people together. Secondly, a number of the groups they were talking about were not even explicitly pro-Israel groups, they were just Jewish groups. That’s an old antisemitic trope and canard.”
The full conversation with Rep. Raskin was on the record and is available on our Youtube channel. AJ Congress hosts Jewish Community Conversations on a monthly basis with speakers of national significant to the Jewish community.
