AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in New Jersey, where Dr. Adam Hamawy beat a crowded field Tuesday to win the Democratic Party’s nomination in the race to succeed retiring Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. Dr. Hamawy had the endorsement of progressives including Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Hamawy is a former U.S. Army surgeon. Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, who also endorsed Dr. Hamawy, said he helped save her life after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, her legs blown off.

In 2024 and 2025, Dr. Adam Hamawy volunteered in Gaza, where he treated Palestinians injured there. In 2024, Hamawy spoke to Democracy Now! from Gaza.

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Most of my patients are children. My average patient is about 12 or 13 years old. They range from — the youngest one I’ve taken care of is about 4. And the age goes up to like mid-sixties or seventies. The people — since the invasion of Rafah, we’ve had a lot of the hospital personnel leave, because they are trying to get their families out of Rafah. Many of them have either moved there from other parts of Gaza, or they have, you know, lived there and are trying to flee.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dr. Adam Hamawy speaking from Gaza back in 2024.

On the campaign trail, Dr. Hamawy called for the U.S. to cut off arms sales to Israel and other countries that commit gross human rights violations. He also called for an end to apartheid in Israel.

This is Dr. Hamawy on Tuesday night after winning the Democratic congressional primary in New Jersey.

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: We have proved once and for all that there is no such thing as “progressive except for Palestine.” … I will fight for healthcare, not bombs, to abolish ICE and to unrig this economy once and for all.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Adam Hamawy joins us now from Princeton, New Jersey.

Congratulations on your victory Tuesday. Can you talk about, overall, your plank and what this means and what your victory says not only to the country, but to the Democratic Party, in particular?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Thank you very much for having me again.

Yes, I am — you know, I’m very happy about Tuesday. And I was running on something very simple, is that we should be spending on healthcare, not bombs. We should be spending on our communities here, you know, in New Jersey, in America, and not funding bombs overseas for, you know, atrocities and genocide. We should not be funding the endless wars that we’re seeing. We shouldn’t be funding ICE.

And this was a message that people wanted to hear, that people were waiting to hear, because we see the problems that we have at home that we are ignoring. You just went through your War and Peace Report, and we see that, you know, we need the billions of dollars that are being spent on these endless wars to fix our communities and to restore the democracy that seems to be being dismantled right in front of us.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Hamawy, what prompted you to move from being on the frontlines of medical treatment in many wars around the world to run for office?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: So, I’ve been working in war and disaster zones for the last 30 years. I volunteered, you know, two weeks a year, or sometimes longer, and then I’d come back feeling that I have given back. And I couldn’t do that after coming back from Gaza. I just couldn’t go back to life as usual, because what I witnessed there wasn’t a war. I witnessed a level of destruction I had never experienced before. What I witnessed was really a genocide. I was taking care of the victims of it, and I couldn’t stay silent. And with the restriction on foreign journalists from entering, I had a front-seat view, and I felt that I had to go to my lawmakers and say, “We are allowing, we are enabling this to happen as a country. We are using American tax dollars for this to happen.” And I started advocating and going to D.C., and I found that many doors were closed. People didn’t even want to hear what was happening. They wouldn’t even listen, whether they agreed or not.

And so, when this seat became open, when Bonnie Watson Coleman, our current congresswoman, said she was going to retire, I felt I had to run. I had to continue her legacy of fighting for the people, fighting for justice, and having the moral courage to stand up and make sure that we continue this fight. And, you know, as a surgeon, I don’t like just putting Band-Aids on issues; I go to the source. And currently many of the problems that we have here at home — with healthcare, with education, with our infrastructure, with housing — starts in Washington, and these endless wars start in Washington. So, this is where I’m going.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And yet, you’re running as the Democratic Party nominee, and the Democratic Party, when — especially when it comes to Gaza, to Palestinians and Israel, has really pretty much gone along with the imperial project of the United States and Israel. So, I’m wondering your concerns about the Democratic Party.

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Well, you know, the party leadership has become disassociated with what the people want. We’ve seen over the last several years, as people become aware of what’s happening in the Middle East, of what’s happening in Israel, and our role in enabling this for decades, and the Israeli lobby’s influence on our government with AIPAC, people are becoming more aware. And if the Democratic Party doesn’t start paying attention to what’s happening on the ground, they’re going to continue to lose elections.

And I think that was one of the reasons for my success, is because, you know, the people in the district are sick and tired of this. And it’s not just here, but it’s around the country. We want a country where we use our resources, our tax dollars, these billions of dollars that we are spending on the Department of War, a trillion dollars a year — we need to be spending some of that right here at home to restore our nation, to, you know, fund universal healthcare, like Medicare for All, to fund tuition-free public college, to rebuild our roads and bridges, to address the housing crisis. We’re always told that we can’t afford all these things, but we always could afford more bombs and more money for war.

AMY GOODMAN: And what do you make of the autopsy report that the head of the Democratic National Committee tried to suppress, but then, after outcry, was forced to release it, and there wasn’t any mention of Israel, no mention of Gaza. And yet, at the Democratic National Convention — I’m going to also put this question to Hasan Piker in the segment we do with him — we know what a major issue this was, just at the convention alone, with delegates outside holding a sit-in for over 24 hours demanding a Palestinian American voice in the convention. Then, when the autopsy comes out, it’s not just that they dealt with Israel and Gaza, the Occupied Territories in a certain way, but they didn’t mention it at all.

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Well, Israel is the third rail of American politics. You can’t criticize Israel, or else. And that has been, you know, the norm for decades. And that’s falling apart now. And this is why we see these — you know, these frantic gestures to try to restore it.

But the reason we lost the 2024 elections is not because more people came out to vote for Trump. It was because less people came out to vote for Harris, for the Democratic Party, because it’s ignoring these issues. And this autopsy report, that needs an autopsy report, as well, as how was such a big issue ignored? You know, AIPAC still has a huge influence on our politics, and we need to address that, or else we are not going to be able to move forward, and the party is not going to succeed and is going to continue losing elections, like I said.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Hamawy, I’d like to ask you about some of your — the issues that you’ve been addressing in your campaign. You’ve called for tuition-free public colleges and universities. Why is this so important, and how would it be paid for? And also, your view on a big issue that’s arising in many communities around the United States, the proliferation of AI data centers?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Well, we’re the — we are the richest country in the history of the world, you know, and we are the only developed country that doesn’t have universal medical care, that can’t provide basic education for our youth. And, you know, we keep spending a trillion dollars on war and defense, and yet, you know, when we have poor education, when we have poor health and bad infrastructure, I mean, these are security issues in itself. And so, it seems that our focus really isn’t on security. Our focus is really on profits, profits for the corporations, and that’s the the military-industrial complex, all these defense contractors that are making money and profiting off of war, and the billionaires who seem to be getting wealthier and wealthier.

And we’re told that, “How are we going to afford all this?” Well, if we just took a fraction of what we are spending on war and spent it on these issues that we need at home, we’re going to be able to fund it. You know, we’re spending a trillion dollars, and we are spending more than the next nine countries combined. If we took 20%, 30% from that budget and started spending it here at home, here in New Jersey, here around the country, we’d still be number one. So, we have the money; we’re just not making the choices. It’s a lack of political will. And it’s because of all the influence that we — the corrupt influence that we have in Congress.

And we need to start addressing these directly. And, you know, this is what I’ve done. I mean, I’ve, you know, said I’m not going to take any corporate PAC money, not going to take any money from AIPAC — as if they would offer me anything. And we need more lawmakers that make that commitment and answer to the people, answer to constituents, and start taking care of their needs rather than these corporate interests.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, Dr. Hamawy, about your response to the right-wing attacks on your campaign, as you move into the general election for Congress. You were called as a defense witness in the case, the trial of cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was sentenced to a life sentence in prison for seditious conspiracy for a plot to blow up New York landmarks. Can you explain what happened in that trial?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: You know, my patriotism is clear. I have had decades of service for this country, in and out of uniform. And, you know, this is just an attempt to distract from everything that I’ve done, and bring up, really, that — you know, over 30 years ago, there was very few religious figures in New Jersey-New York area. I was, you know, in a last-minute carpool and was asked to testify about the events that happened during that ride. And I was called as a witness, and I testified under oath. I was in the military at the time, before that and afterwards. You know, I swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and I believe in the system of laws and justice. So I went and testified about the events. I was never accused or implicated or, you know, even thought of to be any — like, involved in any crime at all. The reason I was such a good witness is because I was completely not involved and was never a problem at the time. I was a medical student. I went and testified in like 15 or 20 minutes in a trial that took weeks on end, and went back to class the next day.

The fact that they are trying to use this to make a story just shows how desperate they are and that they have nothing else to talk about. They’re ignoring my service. They’re ignoring that I’m a 9/11 first responder and that I’ve been fighting terrorism and war my entire life and saving lives. These are the same people that are advocating for war. These are the same people who are funding ethnic cleansing and genocide. These are the same people who are, you know, funding the dismantling of our democracy, and, you know, this is all they have to argue with.

AMY GOODMAN: Doctor, in 2024, Senator Tammy Duckworth appeared on NBC News and advocated for your evacuation from Gaza at the time.

SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH: I’m alive because of Dr. Hamawy and the doctors and medical folks who saved me in Iraq. He was there. He took care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. But this is what he does, and this is what so many of these doctors are doing. He and his colleagues are in there providing aid, everything that they can do to help save lives there at the — I think he’s in the European Hospital. But again, this is happening. We’ve been helping other groups of doctors, like MedGlobal, get in and out and continue to provide aid. But he certainly is very near and dear to my heart, because he saved my life 20 years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Senator Tammy Duckworth, who had both her legs blown off in Iraq, where she served. Dr. Hamawy, could you describe what happened that day? What were you doing, and how did you help to save her?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: I was a U.S. Army combat surgeon in Baghdad. And, you know, that November of 2004, a Black Hawk was shot down by an RPG. The whole crew was brought in. It was a mass casualty event. And I was one of the surgeons in the trauma bay when she came in. She was the pilot. She was the most seriously injured person in the crew, and awake, and yet, still, all she was asking for was about her crew, how was her crew doing, showing the type of leadership that she had had and still has in Congress. And I spent several hours operating, trying to stabilize her, and also, you know, try to save as much as I can from her — you know, she also had other injuries besides her legs. And a few hours after surgery, she was evacuated, and I lost touch with her for many years, until I saw that she was running for Congress.

And many years later, a couple years ago, in 2024, when my team was trapped while on a humanitarian mission in Gaza, she was able to pressure Israel and use the State Department and our government to be able to evacuate my team safely. So, she was able to return the favor. And she was one of the first people I talked to when I decided that I wanted to run for Congress, and she encouraged and said, “We need more people like you.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Hamawy, I wanted to ask you about another doctor whose situation you’re familiar with, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza. The Israelis have been holding him in detention. They just extended his detention. He’s in Negev Prison under harsh conditions and without — being denied his medication. Your concern about his fate and that of other disappeared doctors from Gaza?

DR. ADAM HAMAWY: Again, this is, you know, an example of the Israeli crimes. I mean, they’ve targeted him. They’ve targeted other healthcare workers. They’ve shot surgeons in the operating room because they wouldn’t leave their patients. And yet, we continue to allow this to happen. We continue to defend it, defend Israel, despite these war crimes that are occurring.

And so, what, you know, I demand, we all should be demanding, is access to these prisoners. We should have the Red Cross, we should have a third party be able to go in there, inspect their conditions, make sure that, you know, international human rights laws and the laws of war are being respected and enforced. And yet, Israel has continued to deny this. They continue to make claims about, you know, the, quote, “war” they’re conducting. And yet, a genocide continues, and everyone is just asking to allow third-party monitors to go on the ground and see what’s going on there, and they refuse to do that. Why is that happening? Why are they refusing? Why are we allowing this to happen? And so, we should be demanding that he be released. We should be demanding that all the prisoners that are being held under these conditions should also be — should be let go. And we should restore order there.

And yeah, what’s happening is the genocide is continuing 'til today. It has broken every single ceasefire it has made throughout its history, and has extended this genocide to the region. We see what's happening in Lebanon, what’s happening in Iran. It’s the Gazafication of the entire region. And what they have used in Gaza over the last three years, they’re now doing it in villages in Lebanon and beyond.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Adam Hamawy, we want to thank you very much for being with us. He has just won the Democratic Party’s primary representing New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, former U.S. Army surgeon who volunteered in Gaza and helped save the life of now the current U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth.

Coming up, we speak to the prominent streamer and commentator Hasan Piker. He was just banned from traveling to Britain after criticizing Israel. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Dark Matter” by The Corner Laughers.