Exclusive: Bernie Sanders holds anti-Israel legislation until after the election, following pressure from White House and Senate Democrats

Senate Democrats' meetings, leaked exclusively to the Washington Reporter, show that Sen. Bernie Sanders is delaying anti-Israel measures until after the election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) caved to pressure from the White House and Senate Democrats who urged him to delay his latest attack on Israel until after the election — in exchange for more Democratic votes, multiple sources confirmed to the Washington Reporter.

Sanders’s latest publicity stunts have taken the form of a series of Joint Resolutions of Disapproval of recent arms shipments to Israel; they have been signed onto by only three other anti-Israel Senators: Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii), Jeff Merkeley (D., Ore.), and Peter Welch (D., Vt.); not all signed onto every Sanders measure. 

The Vermont lawmaker introduced these measures as Congress was poised to recess before the election, leaving insufficient time for a vote. The primary arms sale that Sanders and his colleagues are objecting to was notified to Congress over two weeks before theirs measure was introduced, further suggesting that politics were at play in when they timed their Joint Resolution of Disapproval’s drop. Sanders waited over a week after its notification to announce his “intention” to push back against the arms sales. 

Sanders’s plan is to wait until after the election to move the measures so that more Democrats can side with the anti-Israel crowd, one Senate Democrat said. Rather than receive a vote during the politically-sensitive closing weeks of the 2024 elections, the symbolic legislation will likely see action during the lame duck period. 

Other Democrats, like Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.) who is up for reelection, have signaled that they intend to sign with Sanders, but are not currently signing onto any of his Joint Resolutions of Disapproval. “I will vote to oppose transfers of weapons that are primarily offensive in nature,” Kaine said recently. 

Several other Democratic Senators have confirmed the plan, according to those briefed by them. Another Democratic senator further added that the White House leaned on Sanders to delay until after November, fearing political repercussions that Democrats could suffer.

Some Democrats in the Senate estimate that, by waiting, Sanders can convince at least ten Senate Democrats to sign on.

Joint Resolutions of Disapproval are “used almost exclusively by people like Bernie who just weaponize them for attention,” a Senate GOP source noted to the Reporter, who added that it’s “very likely” that Sanders caved to pressure from Democrats to hold his horses until the Senate reconvenes.