(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
I have to ask you a budget question.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Yep, go ahead.
SIMON: House has passed down to the Senate a bill that would avoid a government shutdown while spending more on the military. It does allow Elon Musk to continue to defund major pieces of the federal government. What do you think of this bill?
SCHUMER: Well, our caucus is going to get together today, and we will have a discussion.
SIMON: We're speaking on a Wednesday.
SCHUMER: Yeah.
SIMON: Yeah.
SCHUMER: So I'm going to wait for my caucus meeting to comment.
SIMON: So you don't know.
SCHUMER: I'm not commenting.
SIMON: The very next day, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backing that budget measure, a decision that's been controversial among many members of his own party. He's also broken with some members of his own New York Democratic delegation in criticizing Columbia University, alleging that it failed to adequately protect students during last year's protest over the war in Gaza. An August report by the school's task force on antisemitism said that Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia did suffer abuse and humiliation in classroom and student groups. Antisemitism is the subject of Senator Schumer's newest book, "Antisemitism In America: A Warning." The Senator is the highest ranking Jewish-elected official in U.S. history.
Let me begin with your first sentence. You write - I never thought I would write a book like this. What happened to change that?
SCHUMER: Here's what happened to change. I was born in 1950, and for the first 50 years, 1950 to 2000, the Jewish people called America the Golden Medina. It was the greatest country in the world. Never in the history, long travails of Jewish history, have Jewish people been doing better and treated better than that era. Everyone was on the way up. People came back from World War II. They got married - not just Jews, everybody. So it was a happy era, where if you asked people - do you think you'll be doing better 10 years from now, and will your kids be doing even better still? - they'd say, yes. Why? In part, 'cause America was advancing, but in part, because the shadow of the Holocaust hung over America. And people saw the horror of the Holocaust and realized that antisemitism was a vicious and nasty thing or could become one.
It started changing in 2001 with 9/11, where there were conspiracies that all the Jews vacated. It got worse in 2008 when the financial crisis - the international conspiracy - and they started using George Soros' picture. Forty years before they wouldn't have used a Jewish man's picture because of the sensitivities. But it really accelerated dramatically in 2017 in ways like we've never seen - Jewish students being punched because they had a yarmulke on or wore a Star of David, Jewish bakeries being - throwing rocks through their windows - a Zionist entity - all crossing the line between just political views and antisemitism.
SIMON: You were specifically critical of Columbia University in its treatment of Jewish students following the October 7...
SCHUMER: Yes.
SIMON: ...Attacks. You talk about a widespread failure to discipline both faculty and students who engaged in overtly antisemitic activities that made Jewish students feel unsafe. Trump administration's canceled $400 million in grants to Columbia - good idea?
SCHUMER: Look, the bottom line is, I've been very critical of Columbia as not doing enough against antisemitism, which was pretty rampant on their campus, and they still should do more. But, you know, the administration always uses a chainsaw approach. They just cut everything. So is this money cutting research that goes on at Columbia that could cure cancer, that could cure Alzheimer's disease and things like that? Is the money hurting students - ninety-five percent of the students who just want to get an education, haven't participated in protests one way or the other? That would be regrettable.
SIMON: And I have to ask about Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of those demonstrations, a Palestinian lawful permanent resident married to a U.S. citizen. He's been arrested at the direction of the Trump administration. They say he'll be deported. What do you think?
SCHUMER: Yeah. Look, I disagree, even abhor the views of Mahmoud Khalil, but we have free speech in America. And so if the administration can't prove that he broke a law, and he was just protesting and exercising his rights to free speech, they ought to drop the charges.
SIMON: You've been critical of the policies of the state of Israel, even calling for Prime Minister Netanyahu to step down.
SCHUMER: Yes. I gave a speech. You know, what I'm trying to do here is do what I think is good for Israel and good for Jewish people. And I gave that speech because I wanted to show both Jewish-Americans, who were feeling beleaguered, and people all over the world that you could still love Israel, support Israel, want Israel to have the necessary support so that it could defend itself against Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah but still be critical of the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu. And I know a lot of people got a lot of solace when they heard that speech.
SIMON: You suggest in this book that there are a number of people who begin to use the phrase Zionist as a kind of dog whistle.
SCHUMER: Yeah, definitely. You Zionist - when they say, you Zionist pig, they mean you Jewish pig. There was an incidence (ph), for instance, on the subway in New York. Some pro-Palestinian people came in. One got up. Who's ever on this subway car as a Zionist, raise your hand. They didn't mean a Zionist. They meant a Jew. And what's happened is and what's so alarming is that things have shaded over into direct antisemitism. And the one - if I can talk for a second, the one that bothers me the most is genocide, accusing the Jewish people or Israel of genocide. Genocide means you want to wipe...
SIMON: Because of Israel's policies in Gaza...
SCHUMER: Yeah...
SIMON: ...Most recently, yes.
SCHUMER: ...Right. Right. Right.
SIMON: Which have...
SCHUMER: Which can be legitimately criticized as...
SIMON: Yeah.
SCHUMER: ...Even I have done. But genocide is to want to wipe out a whole people. If Israel, unprovoked, invaded Gaza and started shooting at innocent Palestinian civilians, that would be genocide. But that's not what's happened. What's happened is that Hamas has waged a very, very tough war. They went into Israel. They were vicious, almost to inspire - inspire - a tough retaliatory attack.
SIMON: You're tough on the left - your own political source of support in many ways...
SCHUMER: Yes.
SIMON: ...In this book. What about antisemitism you see on the right?
SCHUMER: It's just as frightening and just as bad. It's overt. In other words, when I was in - I - when January 6 occurred, I was within 30 feet of these - you know, these hooligans. They're not demonstrators. They were insurrectionists, and one of them shouted, there's the big Jew. Let's get him. They were wearing sweatshirts, some of them - 6 million wasn't enough. Antisemitism on the right is very damaging, and it's very overt. It's a little more subtle but real on antisemitism on the left. Each is equally disturbing to me. And here's - Scott, here's what I worry about the most - it's almost a pincer. If you have it on the right, and you have it on the left, the Jews feel alone and surrounded. And somehow, at least in history, antisemites of different political persuasions all too often get together and do very bad things to the Jews. So I have a whole chapter on antisemitism on the right and a whole chapter on antisemitism on the left.
SIMON: For all your disagreements, has President Trump been friendly and respectful...
SCHUMER: To me?
SIMON: ...To Jewish citizens of America?
SCHUMER: To the citizens of America, no.
SIMON: Jewish citizens. Jews, specifically.
SIMON: Look, I would regard this with everybody. When he cuts the kinds of things he's cutting - when he cuts Social Security office and chops 7,000 people out of Social Security, and Elon Musk says it's a Ponzi scheme, and Trump ridicules Social Security in the State of the Union, and then they drastically cut Social Security employees, that hurts everybody - Jews, Christians, Muslims, everybody.
SIMON: Do you get antisemitic japes...
SCHUMER: All the time.
SIMON: ...From certain media?
SCHUMER: Right and left. So advances in technology have always - have advanced society dramatically, and we wouldn't want to do without them. But anytime society advances, antisemitism sort of finds a new way to spread. So when Gutenberg invented the printing press, for the next hundred years, these papers that were printed about antisemitic tropes were all over Europe and antisem (ph) increased. Social media has some real disadvantages in terms of dealing with antisemitism, making sure anti - that encourages antisemitism or antisemites four ways. A, it's very broad, OK? B, there are no editors. So anyone can put any antisemitic thing online, and it gets there. Third, it's anonymous. A lot of people wouldn't say these things that are antisemitic, you know, most of them directed at me. I don't know who they are. You know, they're Mr. ABC XYZ. And fourth, it allows antisemites to sort of congregate, to come together. You know, it used to be if you were antisemitic, you sit in a room and curse the Jews, but you were all alone, and you felt you shouldn't do it. Online, you can get together with a thousand others, and you feel, oh, there are a lot of us. Let's do more.
SIMON: Weren't those kinds of things supposed to be past in America, though?
SCHUMER: Well, obviously, with the great increase of antisemitism since October 7, it's not past. And we have to make sure we have to be vigilant and push against it, fight against it all the way.
SIMON: Senator Chuck Schumer - his new book, "Antisemitism In America: A Warning." Thanks so much for being with us, Senator.
SCHUMER: Great to be here. Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
