Larry Hamm, a former Newark school board member and a Democratic candidate for Senate, says he would have opposed the $26 billion aid for Israel passed by Congress last week, while Congressman Andy Kim defended his vote for spending American taxpayer money to finance the brutal war in Gaza that has killed more than 13,000 children.
The clash occurred during an hour-long conversation featuring Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Kim, Patricia Campos-Medina and Hamm, who talked about the top issues facing New Jersey and the nation.
“I would have voted no against the bill with the other Congress people who also voted no,” said Hamm. “I’m opposed to any more military aid to Israel. More than that, I think we should be putting economic sanctions on Israel as we did against apartheid South Africa because of the genocidal war that’s going on there.”
“Well look, I respectfully disagree with Mr. Hamm here,” said Kim, a former national security aide who was an adviser in Afghanistan to disgraced former General David Petraeus.
“I have to say that stability abroad, addressing these security issues abroad are so vital to our ability to be able to provide for our communities, for our state,” said Kim. “We’ve seen how economic turmoil abroad or conflicts abroad affect us in the same way it did during the pandemic, affected our economy, affected our supply chain.”
“And you know, this is something that I think is very important for us to recognize and draw that link,” said Kim. “So I agree, you know, I want to make sure that we have resources for our schools, our communities, that we make sure we are addressing affordability for our families. But we have to also be able to make sure that we’re addressing the global security, which does affect us here at home.”
“I think it’s time now for the United States to exercise its influence to bring about a diplomatic solution,” said Hamm, speaking about the war in Ukraine.
Campos-Medina donated $2500 to Senator Bob Menendez on April 19, 2018, and echoed the sentiments expressed by Hamm, who is the only current contender that did not support the corrupt lawmaker’s last re-election. Kim was Menendez’s running mate in the Third Congressional District that year when nearly four of ten Democratic primary voters cast their ballot for his progressive challenger.
“I’m opposed to any more to aid for increasing tensions in the Pacific,” said Hamm. “I just don’t know why we just want more and more war. We can’t take care of our domestic needs here in this country. I think that money could be better spent on housing, education, health care, employment, and needs of the people here in the United States.”
Kim launched into a rambling diatribe.
“I think it’s so critically important right now, especially on Ukraine, to be able to stand up for our partners and our allies. This was a blatant violation of their sovereignty by Russia, by Vladimir Putin, and that is something that we need to stand up against,” said Kim. “I still believe America can be a force for freedom and protecting democracies around the world. And this was a case where we absolutely have to stand up, show what American leadership means in the 21st century, and have their backs. In the same way that we would hope that people would have our backs if we had threats faced towards us. And which we did, you know, I remember after September 11th, it was NATO, it was a lot of our European partners and allies that came to our aid. It’s important for us to be able to do that back to them.”
“How many times do we have to go through this? We spent $6 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Hamm. “Will this adventure in Ukraine be another Afghanistan? How many trillions will we spend in Ukraine? How long will we put nuclear weapons? Will we establish a military base in Ukraine? Will we be in Ukraine for 60 years as we’ve been in Korea? I mean, how many times do we have to do this? The United States does not have infinite resources. We cannot continue to spend on the military. We’re almost at a trillion dollars now on the military budget. And at home, we can’t fund our schools. We’re closing our hospitals. We can’t even fix our roads. So what are we doing?
Hamm also slammed Kim for voting in Congress to reauthorize a program that allows government agencies to conduct unwarranted spying on American citizens.
“Some people are for ‘ceasefire’ in word and ‘war’ in deed,” said Hamm. “What it means is that people are appropriating the language of ceasefire but they’re not concretely doing anything to make a ceasefire happen. I mean look at this last aid bill that Congressman Kim voted for, more billions to Israel for a genocidal war in Gaza while at the same time part of that bill was a provision to not fund UNRWA, the United Nations Refugee agency, to help the people of Gaza who are facing genocide.”
“Thirty-four thousand people have been killed, 14,000 children, 10,000 women, 19,000 orphans, more than 1 million people displaced, and we continue,” said Hamm. “Congressmen, why are we continuing to send billions for war? If you want a ceasefire, then President Biden should call up and say either Israel (agrees) or we’re going to cut off aid. Other presidents have done that in the past. It’s nothing new but we continue to cater to the needs of the military-industrial complex because that’s what this is all about. Getting billions for Lockheed and the other armament companies.”
Kim deflected and blamed the “extremist Republican majority” but his votes for war and military adventurism have matched those of such ultra-conservative members of the House of Representatives including Speaker Mike Johnson, Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
“What we were able to do, you know, still given the fact that we have an extremist Republican majority despite everything, they’re trying to do to block aid to Ukraine or get rid of all humanitarian assistance,” said Kim. “We were able to use our leverage to get $9.2 billion do in humanitarian assistance, not just for Gaza, but for 9 million displaced people in Sudan and and crises all across this world. And you know that’s that’s meaningful.”
“Again it’s it’s not perfect, but you know the role of a legislator, you know having done this work now for nearly six years, yes we we try to make that progress and we can still work hard to try to address these needs and end this violence,” said Kim. “But there has to be a recognition of just what we’re dealing with with such a troublesome and extremist majority.”
Hamm fired back, “We are not progress making progress. We’re killing people. We’re not making progress. We’re not moving toward peace.”
“I absolutely agree that people have the right to be able to protest but we have to be very careful here,” said Kim, defending his vote to equate anti-war protesting with anti-semitism.
Hamm said America needs to reform immigration policy to prevent Latin Americans from leaving their home countries.
“We have three million pending immigration cases as a country only 680 some federal judges it would take 10 years for them to just get through the the cases that are there right now,” said Kim.
“I would ask Congressman Kim if he would call on President Biden to declare a national emergency at the border so that Congress could appropriate emergency funds that could in fact be appropriated to our cities to help our cities AB because we have to see this as a multi-dimensional problem absolutely do immigrants help the economy yes they do but also there’s an issue of how do we absorb new populations provide housing Education Health Care and other things there’s a tremendous burden being placed on our cities and if the federal government does not provide adequate resources then it will cause problems
“This country is rich enough to provide a free college education to all of its young people and then it’s not just putting them through college it’s the aftermath it’s graduating with $50,000 or $100,000 worth of loans—or if they go to law school or graduate school $150,000—if we can bail out banks and corporations to the tune of trillions of dollars we can abolish all student debt in the United States of America,” said Hamm.
Kim countered that he opposed the initial push to encourage President Biden to erase college debt because he wants to enact legislation that would prevent the Supreme Court from reversing loan forgiveness, in what appears to be a contradiction to his remarks about Republican obstructionism, or at least a practical impossibility because if that.
“Congressman Kim’s for a ceasefire. He wasn’t for a ceasefire in October,” said Hamm. He wasn’t for a ceasefire in November. He wasn’t for ceasefire in December. He wasn’t for a ceasefire in January. He wasn’t for a ceasefire when the killing was going on,” said Hamm, who insisted that the Democratic “Party has to lead it can’t just follow we have to lead on these issues.”
Kim attempted to interject that he supported a ceasefire in November, but that is simply not true.
“After securing New Jersey Senate nomination, Andy Kim calls for permanent cease-fire,” was the title of an April 2, 2024 story by Jewish Insider Congressional correspondent Marc Rod. “The Senate candidate had previously rejected such calls as he courted support from Jewish and pro-Israel voters, many of whom favored Bob Menendez and Tammy Murphy.”
“As recently as February, Kim had remained supportive of Israel’s efforts to defend itself,” according to Rod.
“We turned our back on the war on poverty,” said Hamm, who declared that America has the wealth to eliminate poverty.
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