Josh Riley Admits He Went On A Secret Lobbyist-Funded Trip To Israel
After constituents in New York’s 19th congressional district spent days demanding Josh Riley explain himself, Riley admitted that he was in Israel.
However, Josh Riley refused to talk about the lobbyists he took gifts from.
Full Transcript
In the last episode, I asked the question of whether Congressman Josh Riley had been to Israel on a trip funded by the lobbyist organization, APAC, which is affiliated with the foreign government of Israel.
A few days ago, we learned that, yes, in fact, Josh Riley did go on that trip, paid for by lobbyists, his housing, his his food, his transportation, the whole thing.
For days, Congressman Josh Riley evaded this issue after it surfaced, after people from across the district demanded that he talk about it. Josh Riley was silent.
Then, finally, a few days ago, Josh Riley issued a statement, and I want you to listen to what he had to say.
Last weekend, I visited Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza border, to see the situation for myself and to speak directly with leaders there, including the head of the UN World Food Program, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and senior intelligence officials. The history and politics of the region are complicated, but a few things are clear to me:
First, there is a severe and undeniable humanitarian crisis in Gaza. More food is now entering Gaza, but it still is not getting to those who need it most. I am demanding that the UN and Israeli government jointly develop an aggressive operation to surge aid to innocent civilians. I pressed President Herzog on this issue, making clear that it is both a moral and a strategic imperative.
Second, there can be no lasting peace for either Israelis or Palestinians so long as Iran continues to arm and finance terrorist proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Hamas is inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region–torturing hostages, depriving innocent Gazans of basic needs, terrorizing Israelis, and unnecessarily prolonging the war that it started on October 7. Hamas needs to release the hostages, surrender its arms, and cede control to leaders who put the Palestinian people ahead of the Iranian regime.
Third, I appreciate that so many of you feel so passionately about the war. As a dad to two little kids, it’s heartbreaking to see images from this war where so many children–Israeli and Palestinian–are caught in the middle. As Upstate New Yorkers, I hope we can give each other the benefit of the doubt and start from our shared values, knowing that we all want the suffering to end and none of us supports violence against anyone because of how they worship. And we should recognize that we can stand with our allies and their people when they are under attack while still speaking honestly (and critically) to their governments–just as we’d expect them to do with us.
What do you make of that statement? Ultimately, you have to make up your own mind. But here are just a few thoughts that I have about it.
First of all, it is good that Congressman Josh Riley has released this statement. What's disturbing is that it took him so long to do so.
Congressman Josh Riley went on this trip in secret and tried to keep it a secret from his own constituents for quite a long time, and he only made this statement after his constituents demanded that he do so, practically hounding him to give an explanation an answer of why he went on this trip to Israel.
Having our U.S. Representative engage in secret activities like this, it's just not respectful of the Democratic process, if Congressman Josh Riley is going to go to Israel while he ought to tell us what he's doing, especially if that trip is funded by a highly partisan right wing lobbying organization like APAC.
APAC is advocating for the continued sending of American military weaponry to the government of Israel and taking an extremely hard line, pro-Israel and anti-Palestine.
For Congressman Josh Riley to take money and to take a gift from that organization is highly unethical, and it makes this entire trip suspect.
We have no information from anyone that Congressman Josh Riley met with or spoke with other than the President of Israel Isaac Herzog, who has been strongly in favor of a complete takeover on Gaza by Israel, what is frankly a genocide there and is ethnic cleansing there?
The plan to clear all of the people out of Gaza , who have called that their home.
It's not because of their religion, as Josh Riley suggests. It's because of their ethnicity. Their ethnic identity. This is a war crime by the government of Israel.
It's really telling the language that Congressman Josh Riley uses in this statement. He uses to describe what's happening in Gaza a very passive voice. This is like what we heard from Bill Clinton back in the 1990s when he said, mistakes were made, not I made mistakes, but mistakes were made. Like, hey, mistakes were out there. What are you going to do?
Josh Riley said there is a severe and undeniable humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is that. But who's responsible for it? Josh Riley won't say. He won't say what the obvious truth is.
Now, there is shared responsibility. Hamas is definitely partly to blame.
I am not somebody who is going to tell you that the Palestinians are all in the right, and the Israelis are all in the wrong, because the situation, of course, is not that simple. It is complex. As Josh Riley says, it is.
However, the type of proportionate response and actual security action to deal with what happened on the attacks of October, that time has long, long gone by, and what Israel is doing is profoundly disproportionate.
What Congressman Josh Riley says about Hamas is quite different. Listen to the different phrasing, the different tone. He says, "Hamas is inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region."
When there is a problem in Gaza, Congressman Josh Riley just refers to it as a humanitarian crisis. A humanitarian crisis might be something that happens if there's a flood or a hurricane in people have their homes destroyed. It's just like, hey, things happen, right?
When he talks about Hamas, he says Hamas is inflicting that unimaginable suffering. He never acknowledges that Israel is actually inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region as well.
The government of Israel, who indirectly, let's face it, is what APAC is representing, it's that side that Congressman Josh Riley went on this trip.
I want to point out another thing. Congressman Josh Riley says that, you know, we should all just give each other the benefit of the doubt. On this issue and start with our shared values.
It's not at all clear that we do have shared values on this issue with Josh Riley.
Josh Riley has been strongly aligned with Israel and has turned his eyes away from what's happening in Gaza, from what the government of Israel is doing there, the ethnic cleansing, the assassination of reporters, journalists, and the government of Israel admits that it's doing this, the targeting of doctors and of hospitals, the shooting of people who are doing nothing other than standing in line for food, the starving of huge numbers of children, and starving adults too.
Does Josh Riley share the values of the Democratic Party? In a recent poll, only 8% of Democratic voters supported the violence by Israel against Gaza. Josh Riley doesn't share our values on this issue.
Should we just give him the benefit of the doubt?
I want you to take a look at what's been happening in this year, 2025, and it's only the middle of August so far, the amount of completely despicable activity in our national government that's been going on, sometimes Josh Riley has been standing with Donald Trump on that, like with the Lake and Riley Act, his very first vote in Congress, his second vote in Congress, to cripple the International Criminal Court and to protect war criminals from fair and just prosecution.
That's how Congressman Josh Riley started out his term in office. Then, he voted against environmental regulations, and then he helped Donald Trump to keep on accepting hundreds of millions of dollars of outright bribes in the form of cryptocurrency.
When we have leaders doing that kind of thing, just giving these elected officials the benefit of the doubt doesn't seem appropriate.
We are not in a situation where citizens in the United States of America , where voters should just trust that their leaders are doing the right thing, and presume that everything is okay and presume that everything is on the up and up. If that's what you believe is going on in the United States of America right now, I really don't know why what to say to you because I don't think you're paying attention.
Congressman Josh Riley needs to understand that he has to be accountable to us because he is working for us. He is working for the voters.
He does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. He deserves our scrutiny and our criticism always. When he does the wrong thing. He needs to be watched, and that's what this podcast is all about and will continue to be.
There are just a couple of other things that I want to bring up in terms of this statement by Congressman Josh Riley.
Congressman Riley calls upon Hamas to unilaterally disarm and just to surrender to Israel. I think that Hamas should lay down its arms. However, we also need to think about the government of Israel.
The government of Israel has proven to be extremely untrustworthy in its treatment of Palestinians. It has not just over the last couple of years, but for decades, brutalized, assaulted, assassinated, done all kinds of terrible things to Palestinians.
Right now, there are plans to divide the West Bank, which had nothing to do with any kind of assault by Hamas upon Israel, but to divide it in two, to give land over to Israeli settlers. To have Hamas unilaterally disarm at the very same time that the government of Israel is saying that it is going to completely eradicate the people of Gaza from that land to force them to flee and to take that land over for itself , it seems like the recipe for a bloodbath.
Furthermore, we need to think about what the American role is in this. The American role in this is that we are funders and providers of Israel's weaponry. Israel would have practically no military at all if it was not for the United States of America continually sending them more and more billions and billions of dollars worth of weaponry year after year after year.
Providing that weaponry has not provided peace to the people of Israel or Palestine. Congressman Josh Riley never calls upon the government of Israel to stop its attacks, never calls upon Israel to lay down its weapons.
There is a profound imbalance in Congressman Josh Riley's policy on Israel, always giving Israel the benefit of the doubt and never intervening even when the worst war crimes are taking place. To this day, we have no public statements from Josh Riley condemning Israel's actions that have resulted in, I mean, we've all seen the photographs, emaciated babies, children, men, women, people dying.
The other thing that Josh Riley does not speak out about is his role in accepting a gift from a lobbyist organization that is affiliated with a foreign government.
That is a serious breach of ethics that he has not explained, and he has not promised to stop that relationship.
Congressman Josh Riley will tell you he's not going to take corporate PAC money, but listen to the details when he says that, because there are a lot of political action committees, a lot of lobbyists out there that are not directly associated with any corporation. We should listen to that omission, and we should listen to whether Josh Riley is going to make a pledge to stop taking lobbyists' money, full stop, to stop taking the gifts from AIPAC, a free trip halfway around the world that in any decent government would be considered to be a bribe.
Congressman Josh Riley needs to do better.