Tlaib says she's not endorsing Biden, or maybe anyone, for president

(JNS) — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on Monday that she would not endorse the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. In fact, it’s not clear that she will be endorsing any candidate at all.

“Residents come up to me and say, ‘Rashida, I don’t know. I hear Joe Biden this, Joe Biden that.’ I say, ‘Listen, do we need another four years of Trump? No. Then what I need you to do is go out there and focus on that,’ ” the congresswoman told Newsweek. “If the ultimate goal is to get rid of [U.S. President] Donald Trump, that doesn’t have to involve me actually endorsing Biden.”

“My constituents don’t need to be bogged down in, ‘Is he the best candidate?’ That’s not what you have to convince my residents,” said Tlaib. “They need to come out in droves and be inspired by something. And that is going to be a vote against Donald Trump.”

Since entering Congress in January 2019, Tlaib has been accused of peddling an anti-Israel and anti-Semitic agenda, starting with displaying a map in her congressional office with a note posted over Israel that reads “Palestine.”

Shortly thereafter, she attacked Republican lawmakers and opponents of the anti-Israel BDS movement by saying “they forgot what country they represent.”

Tlaib met with Hezbollah supporter Abbas Hamideh, who has said that Israel is a “terrorist entity,” even though the congresswoman said that “I do not agree with the statements brought to my attention.”

In May, she said that Palestinians enabled a “safe haven” for Jews after the Holocaust, thereby reiterating her support for a one-state solution.

During her keynote address at the American Muslims for Palestine conference in Chicago in December, Tlaib compared the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border to that of Gaza and Israel and said that she’s advocating for clean water in her Michigan district and “fighting for clean water in Gaza.”

AMP is an anti-Israel group that supports the BDS movement and was founded by Hatem Bazian, who co-founded Students for Justice in Palestine.

On Feb. 29, Tlaib addressed the annual gala as the guest of honor for the Missouri chapter of AMP. She was joined by the gala’s keynote speaker, AMP national policy director Osama Abuirshaid, who has expressed support for the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hamas and BDS.

In March, Tlaib was seen wearing a T-shirt of the State of Israel replaced with a Palestinian state and was displaying a then-newly released book by Linda Sarsour, who was removed from the leadership of the Women’s March movement for her anti-Semitic, anti-Israel rhetoric.