It’s not Israel. It’s the teachers union.
Contrary to congressional candidate Claire Valdez’s speculation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not behind Real Fight NYC, a recently formed super PAC that has now spent $650,000 on ads boosting Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s congressional run. Instead, the group is backed by unions that have endorsed Reynoso – with the American Federation of Teachers providing a significant donation.
Read more Who’s who in Zohran Mamdani’s administration?
“We’re a part of Real Fight NYC,” AFT President Randi Weingarten confirmed to City & State on Tuesday. News of the AFT’s involvement in Real Fight NYC was first reported by Drop Site’s Ryan Grim.
Weingarten, a liberal Zionist, repeatedly emphasized that she and AFT would never collaborate with AIPAC under any circumstances. “There would be no way anyone on my team anywhere would do anything with AIPAC. We do not support AIPAC. We do not play with AIPAC.”
Weingarten said that the AFT opposes dark money and believes that super PACs should disclose their donors and the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision should be overturned. But in the meantime, she said, they’re funding a dark money super PAC because the support for reform “doesn’t mean we will take a paperclip to a knife fight.”
The trouble started last week, when City & State’s Heard Around Town newsletter broke the news that a newly formed super PAC called Real Fight NYC planned to spend up to a million dollars on a pair of ads boosting Reynoso. One of the ads highlights Reynoso’s role in passing a City Council bill that removed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from Rikers Island. The other ad touts his proposal to tax wealth over $50 million. Both also include light criticism of Valdez’s relative inexperience.
Since the super PAC was only registered with the Federal Elections Commission earlier this month, it does not need to disclose its donors until after the June 23 primary. Valdez, Reynoso’s DSA-backed opponent, denounced Real Fight NYC as dark money and called on it to disclose its donors. On Monday, she “just asked questions” about whether AIPAC might even be behind the mysterious super PAC – an idea that Valdez campaign consultant Morris Katz, a top political adviser to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, later amplified.
It wasn’t the craziest theory. AIPAC has been known to use shell super PACs to disguise its support for candidates in other races, only taking credit for that spending after the fact. But in this case, Valdez had no proof – and she was wrong.
A spokesperson for AIPAC’s main super PAC told Politico on Monday that the pro-Israel group has no connection to Real Fight NYC. But many Valdez supporters didn’t believe him.
Read more Editor’s note: Woke 1 was crazyyyy
Meanwhile, the AFT was left scrambling as false rumors spread that the super PAC they helped fund was secretly controlled by AIPAC. “We were frankly shocked when there were these rumors,” Weingarten said. “Because of that, we wanted to step up and say: ‘No, it was us.’ But we are not the entire vehicle. This was a vehicle that was already established.”
Asked whether she thought it was irresponsible of Valdez’s campaign to suggest with no evidence that AIPAC was behind the pro-Reynoso ads, she demurred. “I think they should have asked people first,” she said. “Claire is a good person. She knows that the UFT and NYSUT are supporting Reynoso, who is also a good person,” she added, referring to the state and city teachers unions, which have both endorsed Reynoso. “I’m glad it’s been clarified now. It’s a hard-fought campaign. Campaigns say what campaigns say, and I hope they realize that we will not deal with AIPAC.”
But Reynoso’s campaign seized on the issue. “Where was Claire? Lying,” campaign manager Annabel Lasally wrote in a press release, playing on Valdez’s popular campaign slogan “Claire was there.”
The Valdez campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Weingarten said she isn’t involved in the AFT’s independent expenditure side – she authorizes the overall amount that’s paid to IEs and then often promotes the resulting ads once they’re public, but otherwise doesn’t have any say in how the money is used. But she said the AFT generally tries to disclose its super PAC spending. For instance, an ad supporting Rep. Adriano Espaillat is funded by the super PAC “AFT Solidarity” – which makes it pretty clear who’s paying for it.
Weingarten said the union’s support for Real Fight NYC grew out of work it was already doing with a different independent expenditure committee called Progressive Unity Fund, which was raising money to fund fieldwork for Espaillat. When Real Fight NYC was created to make ad buys promoting Reynoso, AFT agreed to help fund it rather than spinning up their own separate IE.
The AFT donated close to $200,000 to Real Fight NYC, according to two people familiar with the situation. A spokesperson for Real Fight NYC declined to disclose any of its other donors.
But Weingarten said her team followed up with the super PAC this week to confirm that one group in particular is definitely not funding Real Fight NYC.
Read more ‘Now, everyone talks about housing’
“There’s not an AIPAC dime involved in that,” she said.