I have spoken out against anti-Muslim hate in the Michigan Senate race. I will speak out just as loudly when the target is Jewish people. Let me state a little-known fact: ISRAEL GETS LESS THAN 0.1 PERCENT OF THE FEDERAL BUDGET. That’s less than one tenth of a percent! But there is an ad running that tells voters they can’t afford groceries because the United States gives so much money to Israel. In reality, the United States spends money in and on countries all around the world – but this ad singles out the Jewish state. The ad is as dangerous as it is dishonest. You can disagree with how the United States spends money abroad. But telling hungry families that the Jewish state is the reason they are suffering is wrong and shameful. Blaming Jews for people’s problems is an old story. Anybody who has read the last century of history knows where it leads. It is a dark pathway. This ad is anti-Jewish hate and should come down immediately. Abdul El-Sayed should denounce it today.

You can disagree with any candidate on foreign policy. But when you express those concerns, you should never traffic in racist stereotypes — the way Donald Trump is doing. I agree with Abdul El-Sayed on many domestic policies. But I strongly disagree with him on foreign policy. I think his views are way too isolationist in general — and they are dangerously, un-strategically hostile to Israel in particular. His insistence that he doesn’t know whether Israel poses a greater threat to Americans than the terror state of Iran? That’s both ridiculous and outrageous. Those are fair points to debate. But President Trump is not debating those ideas or statements. He is just labeling him a “jihadist” and vomiting up all kinds of wild accusations — mainly rooted in family associations and the fact that he is a Muslim. And yet Muslim Americans are nurses and teachers and doctors and accountants and firefighters and neighbors. All fair-minded Americans know that. Broad brush attacks like Trump’s diatribes deeply offend a lot of sensible voters. That’s why I think this venom will backfire on Trump and the Republican Party. Abdul’s opponents would be much better served by focusing on his record, not his religion.

If this woman were black, the whole conversation would be about DEI. Funny how when white employees fail, nobody mentions THEIR race or ethnicity. And yet — how much of Trump’s administration is just affirmative action for nice-looking white people?

The president of the United States calling someone Muhammad — as if that’s an insult? GOP officials and ads suggesting that a Muslim candidate is a secret terrorist who wants to impose sharia law? All of this is totally out of bounds. It’s wrong. You can criticize a POLICY. You should never criticize a PEOPLE. My criticisms of Abdul El-Sayed’s foreign policy positions have nothing to do with his Muslim faith; there are people of all faiths (and no faith) who SHARE his views. And there are people of all faiths (and no faith) who OPPOSE them. We need to be debating important proposals on the merits — and not stooping to ad hominem attacks or fear-mongering. Let’s not forget: the Muslim community is a BLESSING to this country. Muslims have some of the lowest crime rates and lowest divorce rates in the USA — plus some of the highest business formation and education rates. Every profession in this country has outstanding Muslims who are advancing every field. It goes without saying that every ethnic group has bad apples, and every religion has its extremists. But if YOU don’t want to be judged by the worst people in your community, then please don’t paint other communities with that same broad brush. Attack the policy — or defend the policy. But leave the candidate’s faith out of it. We don’t want to see this stuff in our politics.

My work has me in a lot of different rooms. When I’m in a room full of wealthy people, almost everyone is slim. When I’m in a working-class neighborhood, that changes. This isn't a coincidence. For centuries, wealthy people struggled to lose weight just like everyone else. Then came GLP-1s. Now, access to a medical miracle is determined by your purchasing power. We can do better than this. It's time to close the health gap. Read on Substack: vanjones.substack.com/p/its-…

People always ask: "How do you argue with conservatives about politics without losing your mind?" Simple: I've been doing it my whole life. Meet my friend, Kenneth Hartley. We just had our 40th high school reunion. Kenny votes red – and always has. I vote blue – and always have. We debate. We learn from each other. We're better for knowing each other. We grew up figuring out how to make it work. We can still do that today – but it's up to each of us to make that choice. Voluntarily. Disagreement doesn't have to mean dehumanization. We have to choose connection over contempt. That's the only way this country works. Read the full story on my Substack - vanjones.substack.com/p/40-y…

This whole thing was a gross miscarriage of justice. Glad to see the UN taking notice. More people need to be talking about it.

I have been in rooms with the leaders of the biggest A.I. companies on earth. I have been in rooms with top level government officials. Nobody in either room knows what to do about this runaway train of AI. Despite what you might hear online, this is not some scheme to scare you. Inside these labs, researchers are watching AI agents act in ways that defy their training and threaten society. The ethicists who work there are quitting, running out of the building, pointing back at it and waving their arms. We should take that VERY seriously. A.I. founders are asking Washington to step in. But Washington isn’t ready. Neither the Department of Justice nor the Securities and Exchange Commission have up-to-date tools to deter bad actors or hold anyone accountable if this goes wrong. The good news is that serious people are already doing the homework. @VogelMiriam is the President and CEO of @ai_equal, a former Associate Deputy Attorney General at the DOJ. She is the chair of the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee. Miriam and her team have laid out sober, practical steps the government can take to start building accountability. They are awesome, and I am a fan. EqualAI's mission is to help "companies, policymakers, and institutions implement effective AI governance frameworks that foster innovation and enable broader AI adoption by building trust in these powerful technologies." In Miriam's words: "Innovation is going at an unprecedented pace; the problem is governance is not matching that pace." I believe the solution to managing A.I. is NOT mainly to slow down the technology, but accelerate humanity. But that’s easier said than done. People need to listen to my friend Miriam and policy nerds like her if they want to solve this problem— in time!

There were a bunch of idiots out there yesterday protesting NYC Mayor Mamdani on the 25th Anniversary of 9/11. Not because of his policies. Not because of his agenda. Not because of his actions. Not because of ANYTHING he has ever said or done, but simply because of who he is: a Muslim — in a city struck by Islamic terrorists a quarter century ago. This protest was one of the stupidest, most UN-American things anyone could ever take part in. It was a despicable act of anti-Muslim bigotry — plain and simple. And it had no place in NYC — yesterday or ever. Let me say this: the fact that — 25 years after 9/11 — New Yorkers elected a young Muslim to lead their city is something everyone in this country should be PROUD of. Not because everyone should embrace his policies — but because of what his victory suggests about this country. Regardless of how anyone felt about Mamdani’s policy proposals, prejudice against his faith did not stop a majority of NY voters from giving him a chance to lead the city. That’s a GOOD thing. His victory is proof that hate did not win. If you want to “make America great,” start by honoring the fact that only a great city in a great nation could rise above knee-jerk prejudice and elect a young Muslim within living memory of that attack. That fact is something we can all be proud of. It should enhance and elevate our commemorations. The bigots who protested Mamdani did carry American flags. But they were not American patriots. True patriots don’t just love “America” in the abstract. They also love AMERICANS in the real world — regardless of their race, religion or creed. If you despise or distrust a fellow American SOLELY because of how they pray, then you should leave Old Glory at home when you attend your next rally. A Nazi flag is the more appropriate banner for you.

Trump never learned how to deal with shame. Now we’re watching that pattern get projected outward. A whole country ordered to feel proud of the wrong thing, because the man at the top cannot tolerate feeling ashamed of anything. Congress ordered Arlington's Confederate Memorial removed. Trump is reinstalling it, and the sign explaining how the monument sanitizes slavery is gone. Some things in our country's history are a source of shame. The horrors in America's past are not something to be proud of. The honest response to shame — as a country or as an individual — is to learn from it. But when the President dodges the shame, the country stops learning AND Trump throws out the honor owed to the people who lost their lives ending slavery. The people who died fighting the Civil War are the names worth putting on a base, a bridge, a statue, a school. But a President who cannot face a hard truth about himself will never lead a country through the hard truth about itself.

Gloria Steinem leaves a world that better recognizes women's power — and organizations that will help more women run for office, vote and organize. Gloria Steinem said she learned feminism disproportionately from Black women, and built real partnership with Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Shirley Chisholm and Fannie Lou Hamer. Political change is not automatic. Gloria Steinem gave a lifetime to it, and the future we are living in carries those fingerprints. Rest well.

Parenting gets MORE important in the A.I. age, not less. Last week, I asked Bill Gates about how his mother shaped him. If young Bill had locked himself away talking only to chatbots 60 years ago, we wouldn’t have the same Bill Gates. I was also a shy kid. I wrote a lot of poems, drew a lot of cartoons and kept my nose in comic books and novels. But my parents — especially my mom — worked hard on me to develop more social skills. A.I. will never push children in the same way a mother or father can. Bill and I both see what's at stake: artificial intelligence threatens to erase the very friction that is a key part of every human childhood. A.I. can teach your child almost anything. But it cannot teach them to become human. Only we can do that. Watch our full conversation — and maybe send it to some parents you love! vanjones.substack.com/p/my-b…

The most disruptive innovator of the last tech revolution says the world needs a much better gameplan for the next one. @BillGates published an essay this week calling for a global framework to manage artificial intelligence. He came on my Substack to explain why now. Bill told me he worries about children growing up with four or five best friends — all of whom are bots and none of whom are human. He warned that the same AI tools that could cure any disease could also create any pathogen — so global regulation is needed. He told me what it would take to get Washington and Beijing moving together — a shorter list than you would guess. And he shared with me what his own mother did for him — something no chatbot will ever do. In May, I wrote that A.I. Needs A New Deal between humanity and the technology industry. This week the biggest name in technology came off the sidelines and made the case in his own words. My BILL GATES Interview: On A.I., Global Risk & Parenting Tricks From His Mom - vanjones.substack.com/p/my-b…