Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said a fellow House Democrat once brushed aside concerns about antisemitism by suggesting it was no longer a serious problem because “all the Jews are rich.”
Balint made the claim in an interview with CNN, saying the remark came during a meeting of a bipartisan House antisemitism task force. She did not identify the lawmaker.
The Vermont Democrat said the exchange came back to her after she watched video of California state Sen. Scott Wiener being pushed out of a transgender rights event by protesters angry over his support for Israel. For Balint, the scene fit into a larger pattern she said she has seen in political spaces, where hostility toward Israel sometimes slips into hostility toward Jews more broadly.
She said the feeling was familiar. Balint compared it to moments when people dismiss homophobia, only to then question whether she is really a lesbian. She also pointed to accusations that Jewish politicians have divided loyalties, a long-running antisemitic trope often aimed at Jews in public life.
Then, she said, there was the comment from the unnamed House Democrat.
Balint recalled the colleague saying, “I didn’t really think there was any antisemitism anymore, because all the Jews are rich.”
CNN: Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) said a House Democratic colleague she wouldn’t name came to a bipartisan antisemitism taskforce meeting and said, “I didn’t really think there was any antisemitism anymore, because all the Jews are rich.” https://t.co/fz2x6Eil4V
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) July 7, 2026
The comment, as Balint described it, reflected a stereotype she believes still shapes how some people understand antisemitism. To her, the problem is not only open hatred, but the casual assumptions that make people dismiss it or fail to recognize it when it appears.
Balint also said she worries that some of her own supporters may eventually turn on her because she continues to defend Israel’s right to exist while also supporting a Palestinian state.
“I know at some point there will be a day of reckoning, because I still believe that Jews should have a homeland,” Balint told CNN. “There will be people, I think some of my own supporters, who will turn on me, because I still believe in a two-state solution. I still do. I still believe that Israel should be safe and secure. I believe that the Palestinians have been so ill-treated for so long and deserve a safe and secure homeland. I do not believe Israel should be dismantled.”
Her comments highlight a growing tension inside Democratic politics, especially among progressives, over how to talk about Israel, Palestinian rights, and antisemitism after months of intense debate over the war in Gaza.
Balint’s position is that the two concerns should not be treated as mutually exclusive. She argues that Palestinians deserve safety and self-determination, while Jews also have a right to a secure homeland. But she suggested that taking that position has become increasingly difficult in some activist and political circles, where support for Israel’s existence can quickly become a source of backlash.
For Balint, the issue is personal as well as political. As a Jewish lawmaker and a lesbian, she said she recognizes the way prejudice can be denied, minimized, or reframed until the people targeted by it are made to feel as though they are overreacting. The alleged remark from her colleague, she said, was one more example of that.
