• At last week’s Democratic National Convention, organizers tried to put unity on display by featuring speakers with a range of ideological viewpoints who support Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for president. But one major voice was missing. DNC leaders denied the request of the Uncommitted Movement, the Pro-Palestinian anti-war in Gaza coalition, to have a Palestinian American speak on stage at the convention. One of the people who the group suggested was Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, the state’s first Palestinian American elected to public office. She joins us on the show to talk about the message the DNC’s decision sends to voters opposed to U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
• And in headlines: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah traded fire with Israel on Sunday in the biggest flare-up of violence between the two in recent months, Republican Vice Presidential Nominee J.D. Vance says Donald Trump would veto a federal abortion ban if elected as president, and RFK Jr. threw his support behind Trump after suspending his independent bid for president.

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TRANSCRIPT

Tre’vell Anderson: It’s Monday, August 26th. I’m Tre’vell Anderson.

Josie Duffy Rice: And I am Josie Duffy Rice. And this is What a Day the show that wishes JD Vance would just stop talking. 

Tre’vell Anderson: He was on Meet the Press this weekend and said he doesn’t regret making the childless cat lady comment. He just wishes y’all had a better sense of humor. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah, he said, a lot of Democrats have willfully misinterpreted what he was saying, which is totally how I would suggest to get votes, tell people they’re not funny enough to get you. [laughter] [music break] On today’s show, we talked to Palestinian Georgia state Representative Ruwa Romman, who was denied the opportunity to speak at last week’s Democratic National Convention. 

Tre’vell Anderson: But first, we’re going to shake things up a bit and start the show with some headlines. 

[sung] Headlines. 

Tre’vell Anderson: On Sunday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, quote, “this is not the end of the story.” After the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah traded fire with Israel over the weekend, marking the biggest flare up in violence between the two in recent months. Hezbollah claims to have hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv with a barrage of rockets. Israel refuted that claim, saying that it had launched successful, quote unquote, “preemptive attacks” that destroyed some of Hezbollah’s rocket launchers. U.S. defense officials helped Israel by tracking Hezbollah strikes, but they say they didn’t deploy any weapons. Hezbollah’s attack is in response to Israel’s killing of one of its military commanders last month. Sunday’s violence heightened fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East. Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, signaled that the group could launch further attacks on Israel in the coming days. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And more from that Meet the Press interview with Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance. On Sunday. He told NBC’s Kristen Welker that Donald Trump would not support a federal law banning abortion if he were elected president again. Vance also claimed Trump would veto such legislation if it were to land on his desk. 

[clip of J.D. Vance] I think it’d be very clear, he would not support it [?] I mean he said that explicitly.

[clip of NBC’s Kristen Welker] But would he veto it? 

[clip of J.D. Vance] Yeah. I mean, if you’re not supporting it as the president of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it. 

[clip of NBC’s Kristen Welker] So he would veto a federal abortion ban? 

[clip of J.D. Vance] I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would. And and again, Lindsey, Lindsey– 

[clip of NBC’s Kristen Welker] I don’t ever think he’s said explicitly he would. 

Josie Duffy Rice: On Friday, Trump also promised on Truth Social that his administration would quote, “be great for women and their reproductive rights.” All the evidence points to the contrary, though, given that Trump also likes to brag that the Supreme Court justices he appointed during his first term helped overturn Roe v Wade. 

Tre’vell Anderson: They just lying in our faces, Josie. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Should we trust this guy? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Maybe not. [laughing]

Josie Duffy Rice: Maybe not. Maybe not. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr finally suspended his campaign on Friday. Take a listen to what he told reporters. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] I cannot in good conscience ask my staff and volunteers to keep working their long hours, or ask my donors to keep giving when I cannot honestly tell them that I have a real path to the White House. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Baby, you ain’t had a path in a minute. But when did you get said good conscience? 

Josie Duffy Rice: When did we–

[laugh] You know. 

Josie Duffy Rice: –get a good conscience, baby? [laughter]

Tre’vell Anderson: Kennedy also endorsed former President Donald Trump for the White House on Friday, and he told Fox News on Sunday that he would be actively campaigning for the former president, saying, quote, “I want to make America healthy again. And so does President Trump.” Even though polling suggests that Kennedy’s endorsement likely won’t have a huge impact on the race. We still have to give him credit for several memorable moments during this election cycle, between debating himself when he didn’t qualify for the actual presidential debate, and claiming that doctors found a dead worm in his brain. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Also remember when he puts the bear in the park? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Oh yes, [laugh] that one too. 

Josie Duffy Rice: It’s really just been hit after hit. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Hit after hit. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Depending on what you consider a hit to be. [laughter] And finally, two American astronauts who’ve been stuck in space for months will be extending their stay into next year. NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the International Space Station in early June. They were only supposed to be there for eight days as part of a test flight for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. But technical problems with the vessel had left their return date in limbo. And on Saturday, NASA announced that Williams and Wilmore would not be returning on Starliner and would instead return on a SpaceX vehicle in February. NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the decision was, quote, “the result of our commitment to safety.” 

Tre’vell Anderson: Oh. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Look, I go somewhere for eight days and I’m there for nine months. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Mm hmm. Yeah. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Would you panic? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Not sure I signed up for that. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Would you panic? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Yes. Tre’vell Anderson would panic. But I think Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, they are patriots of the highest order. They trained for this. You know what I mean? 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah. You and I are not going to be in space to begin with. That’s a good point.

Tre’vell Anderson: Oh, listen.

Josie Duffy Rice: Like, of course we’re going to panic because we’re not space people. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Not space people. Okay. 

Josie Duffy Rice: We’re not space people. 

Tre’vell Anderson: I’m barely Earth people. Okay? 

Josie Duffy Rice: I’m barely Earth people.

Tre’vell Anderson: And now you want me to be space? Come on now. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Like, I get on a plane and I’m like, listen, you want me to jet into the atmosphere? And those are the headlines. [music break] 

Josie Duffy Rice: Last week’s Democratic National Convention was an opportunity for the party to unify behind presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. And the enthusiasm on display during the convention was overwhelming. 

Tre’vell Anderson: But while the DNC made time on the main stage for Harris supporters from a wide range of backgrounds and ideological viewpoints, there was one notable omission. DNC leaders denied the request of the uncommitted movement to have a Palestinian-American speak on stage at the convention. The Uncommitted Movement is a coalition of delegates representing the more than half a million people who voted uncommitted, or the equivalent on their primary ballots, to object to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. 

Josie Duffy Rice: One of the people who the uncommitted movement suggested as a speaker at the DNC was Georgia state representative, Ruwa Romman, the first Palestinian American elected to public office in Georgia. Here she is reading part of the speech that she wanted to make onstage. 

[clip of Ruwa Romman] But in this pain, I’ve witnessed something profound. A beautiful, multi-faith, multiracial and multigenerational coalition rising from despair within our Democratic Party. For 320 days, we’ve stood together, demanding to enforce our laws on friend and foe alike to reach a ceasefire and the killing of Palestinians, free all the Israeli and Palestinian hostages, and to begin the difficult work of building a path to collective peace and safety. That’s why we are here. Members of this Democratic Party committed to equal rights and dignity for all. What we do hear echoes around the world. 

Josie Duffy Rice: For more on the DNC’s decision and the message that it sends to voters opposed to the US’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. I spoke with Representative Romman, and she started by telling me more about what she had hoped to say during her DNC speech. 

Ruwa Romman: The speech itself was focused on a few things. One, I really wanted to share my personal story to give people an idea of who are Palestinians? What does our history look like? Those kinds of things. I wanted to be able to talk about how and not just talk about, but also show how Trump is not an acceptable choice. He uses me and my identity as a slur. And last but not least, about how even though federally, our party has not fully caught up with the base, that there is this beautiful, multi-faith, multi-religious, multigenerational coalition that has emerged and how that coalition can absolutely create the kind of world where we do prioritize funding schools instead of war. We do prioritize feeding the hungry. We do prioritize restoring access to abortions. And, you know, it’s a little bit of unity and a little bit of what could the future look like? And obviously support for Vice President Harris. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Yeah. So it seems like a pretty reasonable speech. 

Ruwa Romman: Yeah, it was super watered down like we took out. Yeah. Anything that could be controversial. This was really meant to be a good faith gesture and unite the party. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Right. And you said that before, right? Like you said, that you were kind of giving a relatively sanitized speech to make it more palatable. What are some of the things that you would have said in a non sanitized speech? 

Ruwa Romman: I mean, you know, this is like politics. You could say the same thing five different ways. What’s happening in Gaza is awful. It’s a massacre. But the reality situation is that we have had international court systems that say that there was a threat of genocide as early as January if the following conditions are not met. And now that those conditions have not been met, it’s pretty safe to assume that is what’s going on. But I also recognize that legally, our country hasn’t come to that conclusion just yet. And, you know, I probably would have gone a little bit deeper into sort of how what my family went through was ethnic cleansing, the violence that they had experienced. But again, there was never an intention to, quote unquote, “bring the vibes down.” It really was trying to sort of capture the promise of this moment. 

Josie Duffy Rice: What message is the DNC sending by refusing to allow you or any other Palestinian speaker time to speak?

Ruwa Romman: Again, just like this was meant to be a symbolic gesture, the symbolism is that there is no room for Palestinians or their allies in the party. The reality is that if you could not get yourself to give any singular Palestinian a place on that stage, it’s just such an awful, awful, awful symbolic thing to say and do. But also what people don’t realize is that Wednesday night, when we saw the parents of an Israeli hostage on the stage, we actually got really excited. We thought in that moment, the party was going to take this very seriously, that this was a moment to really highlight both the devastation, but again, that we could really lead on this in a way that protects everybody and cares for everybody. So I was with one of the uncommitted folks when they got the call, and I remember sort of this excitement of, all right, like, this is it, we’re about to get this call. And the call ended up being a final no. They’ve been in negotiations. They were told that as long as the DNC doesn’t say no, this is a good thing. Keep sending us names, keep working with us. Let’s keep going. Let’s keep going. And so when we got the call, I think it was about an hour-ish after the hostage parents had gone up there. And I remember like the excitement. And then suddenly that excitement was no longer there. 

Josie Duffy Rice: We will be back with more of my conversation with Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman. 

Tre’vell Anderson: And if you like our show, make sure to subscribe and share it with your friends. We’ll be back after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Josie Duffy Rice: And we are back with the rest of my conversation with Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman. I asked her about what the DNC missed out on by denying Palestinian Americans a space at the convention, considering that the vast majority of Democrats oppose Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. 

Ruwa Romman: We got a no without a single explanation. To this day, and I’ve asked, I’ve gone back and I’ve asked people over and over and over and over again, and I, nobody will tell me why there was not a single speaker on that stage. And I want to be clear, I was the Hail Mary. Me and [?] were like the final push because we could at least deal with sort of the public scrutiny. We were already kind of in the public eye and so we could handle it, unlike some of the other suggested speakers who were going to speak because they just had family in Gaza. They were, you know, your typical average, everyday person who hadn’t really been in the spotlight and was kind of scared about being in the spotlight this way. But what was really fascinating to me was that they would not have a single one. And to your point, this was a gift. We offered a gift, and not only was it just any generic gift. I’m an elected Palestinian in a swing state. I’ve had people texting me saying that if I had seen you on that stage, I could have at least put aside all of my disappointment at the lack of policy that has changed, let alone commitments to any policy changes, and would have been willing to come around. Right. They said I would be willing to come around. Instead, it reinforced for so many people who I’ve been working so hard to win over, and who had a rekindled sense of hope when Vice President Harris stepped up to become the nominee, trying to kindle that hope, and instead it just ended up going completely haywire. 

Josie Duffy Rice: So what was your reaction to the statement that Vice President Harris made about Gaza and Israel during her DNC speech? 

Ruwa Romman: I mean, again, she did not say anything different during her speech compared to even as early as George Bush. The reality of the situation is that the ask for us originally was not another bomb, meaning an arms embargo. We understand that the word arms embargo is a very loaded term. We understand that for most people they don’t even know what that means. So then the question becomes, why could she not say something like, I commit to enforcing our laws or, you know, humanitarian laws on friend and foe alike? 

Josie Duffy Rice: I mean, what steps do you think that the Harris Walz campaign needs to take in order to earn your support in the coming months and the support of other Palestinian Americans who, you know, were disappointed by the speech and by Palestinians not getting a platform at the DNC. And I just want to say other people. You know anybody? 

Ruwa Romman: Yeah, 100%. And I love that you’re clarifying that because, again, this has not been just Arabs, just Palestinians, just Muslims that care about this. There’s a multi-faith, multigenerational, multiracial coalition that emerged that really, genuinely, like I said, saved my life. And those are the people who made up the majority of uncommitted voters. And to win them back, they want a cease fire. But the reason that, quote unquote, “calling for a cease fire” is not enough is because if you keep sending the bombs to somebody and they keep dropping those bombs on innocent Palestinians preventing a cease fire, then it doesn’t matter how many times you say the word cease fire, it’s just not going to work. You have to apply pressure. You have to apply, you know, consequences to people breaking our laws. Because again, I mean, we talk a lot about how we are a leader on the world stage. And, you know, we’ve got one of the mightiest militaries in the world. And you’re telling me that we cannot get a country to do what we are asking them to do? How in the world is this a dynamic that we exist in? It genuinely baffles my mind that we are begging and groveling this fascist man to please stop killing innocent people and simultaneously just handing him more bombs. It genuinely doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s incomprehensible. And so that’s what people are asking for. They’re asking for her to commit to enforcing our laws, to applying this pressure to doing the right thing, because saying the word cease fire just isn’t enough. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That was my conversation with Georgia State Representative Ruwa Romman. Tre’vell, as Representative Romman mentioned, we are only a couple months away from the election and Democrats really, truly, truly, truly have their work cut out for them with uncommitted voters right now. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Absolutely. They can’t take anyone’s vote for granted at this point. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Mm mm. Absolutely not. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Tre’vell Anderson: That is all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, send some positive vibes to the International Space Station and tell your friends to listen. 

Josie Duffy Rice: And if you are into reading and not just Representative Romman’s entire speech like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter, so check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe! I’m Josie Duffy Rice. 

Tre’vell Anderson: I’m Tre’vell Anderson. 

[spoken together] And can’t y’all take a joke? 

Tre’vell Anderson: Apparently not. 

Josie Duffy Rice: Apparently not or maybe the messenger isn’t that good at telling jokes. [laugh] Look, if nobody likes your joke. 

Tre’vell Anderson: Maybe you just not funny, beloved. And that’s okay too. Everybody’s not a comedian. 

Josie Duffy Rice: That’s okay. Know your strengths. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Bill Lancz. Our associate producer is Raven Yamamoto. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our showrunner is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.