Stalwart liberal Van Jones says Abdul El-Sayed's positions on Israel 'are insane'

CNN pundit Van Jones.

Van Jones, the longtime liberal stalwart and CNN pundit, appeared on a podcast recently and leveled some harsh criticism at Abdul El-Sayed, his own party's senate nominee in Michigan who's going up against Republican Mike Rogers. 

Jones' remarks were made on the Ask Haviv Anything podcast hosted by Haviv Rettig Gur, a journalist for The Times of Israel. Jones' criticism was made a few weeks ago, but began going viral on social media early this week, and centered primarily on El-Sayed's controversial statements on Israel and U.S. support of Israel. 

"Abdul, who you know I work with at CNN, I know Abdul. His positions on Israel and foreign policy are insane," Jones said in response to a question from a viewer who'd asked which Democrat might step up to call out anti-Jewish hatred being espoused by the likes of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, El-Sayed and others in the party.

"They're not reasonable reactions to anything," Jones continued. "Look, some Democrats are going to say that we should condition military aid. Um that, you know, Israel's gone too far in Gaza and in the West Bank and in Lebanon. We're going to put some conditions on you. I think that's a defensible position if you're a Democrat. That's not Abdul's position."

"Abdul's position," Jones said, "is a total and complete arms embargo against the state of Israel, including defensive weapons. That's an insane position that says: If Israel wants to pay for interceptors to stop a rocket coming from Iran or coming from Hezbollah or coming from Hamas ... we should deny them the right to buy the interceptors to knock down rockets going at Israeli children, women, men, babies. That's an insane position."

Jones went on to say that El-Sayed's stance on Israel runs far left of even former President Obama. "Barack Obama thought that the Israeli people were in such a tough neighborhood, they needed to be able to knock down rockets. So, you're telling me you're smarter than Barack Obama. You have better ideas about foreign policy than Barack Obama and you want to deplug and defund and take away Israel's -- half the world's Jews' -- ability to defend themselves? That's an insane position."

El-Sayed in recent days has been trying to court Jewish voters are are understandably unsettled by his rhetoric, but he has so far refused to back away from his relationship with Hasan Piker, the extremist and openly anti-Semitic podcast host, who has said the U.S. deserved the 9/11 terror attacks. Meanwhile, El-Sayed's on controversial comments about 9/11, which he scrubbed from Twitter, have resurfaced in recent days. 

Watch a highlight of Van Jones' remarks below and see the full interview with him here.