Senate candidate David McCormick meets with Jewish community in Squirrel Hill

Republican Senate hopeful David McCormick called Iran “the original sin” of the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Speaking before a crowd of more than 30 members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community at Bunny Bakes on Murray Avenue — a kosher bakery affiliated with The Friendship Circle — McCormick was critical of the nuclear deal cut by former President Barack Obama and the Islamic state in 2015, and of his political foe’s role in the agreement.

“Bob Casey was the deciding vote — the deciding vote — that gave Iran $100 billion of sanctioned moneys, which has underwritten terrorism,” he said. “It has been the source — one of the sources — of funding for Hamas.”

McCormick spoke of his support for Israel, his belief that the United States needs to stand by the Jewish state, his military background and his wife, Dina Powell, who he said helped secure the Abraham Accords while serving as White House deputy national security adviser in Donald Trump’s administration.

The candidate outlined his background, which has included two tenures living in Squirrel Hill — from 1996 to 2005, and again beginning in 2022 — graduating West Point, a stint as the undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs during the George W. Bush administration and time at FreeMarkets, a Pittsburgh-based software company.

“I really feel like this is my community and my home,” he told those in attendance while recounting buying coffee cake with his now adult daughter at the neighborhood Starbucks when she was still in a stroller.

While discussing why he believes this election to be the “most consequential” in history, McCormick noted that one of his supporters was attacked at the University of Pittsburgh when walking past an anti-Israel demonstration on campus last semester.

“This is not free speech. This is a violation of the policies of the university, a violation of the statutes within our city,” he said. “These kids are saying horrible antisemitic things, horrible anti-Israel things, horrible anti-American things.”

McCormick told the friendly crowd of his visit to Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

“The reason we went was because we had many friends who were talking about this,” he said. “But it was mostly to show solidarity with our friends there and here facing an existential crisis, who had just lived through the most horrific thing.”

McCormick recounted touring the spots where Israelis were murdered, watching the 47-minute film depicting Hamas’ horrific murders and visiting Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, whose son Hersh was held as a hostage at the time — he has since been murdered by the terrorists holding him.

McCormick told of meeting an Oct. 7 survivor, who was shot but survived because her dead friends fell on top of her.

“You can’t come away from that without feeling heartbroken and believing we in America need to support Israel with eradicating Hamas,” he said.
Hamas’ attack and Israel’s response, he said, has been a test for America.

He accused Casey of failing the test by refusing to call for an end to the protests on college campuses and endorsing Rep. Summer Lee, an outspoken critic of Israel.

McCormick said he would be a strong voice of support for the Jewish community.

“I don’t even understand completely the political calculations of it. I don’t care,” he said. “I know where we need to be on this.”

After speaking for about 15 minutes, McCormick took questions from those in attendance.

Asked how he would address the recent unrest at college campuses on a federal level, McCormick said there must be “zero tolerance” for antisemitism.

Strong leadership is needed on college campuses to stand against antisemitism, he said. Such leadership is beginning to emerge, he said, pointing to Vanderbilt University and Dartmouth College as examples of schools handling the protests correctly.

Universities, he noted, are the beneficiaries of enormous tax benefits, enabling them to make “billions of dollars on their endowments.” Their tax-free status, he said, should be subjected to a standard requiring them to root out antisemitism.

The same should apply to federal grants, McCormick added.

“All these universities are heavily subsidized by grants from the federal government for research. All the big universities — Penn State and the Ivy Leagues are beneficiaries,” he said. “The government has a huge amount of leverage with these universities.”

McCormick said he is a proponent of school choice. He noted that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro recently vetoed a bill that would have provided the option to parents, but said there are things that can be done on a federal level.

“I’d be supportive of any bill that’s advocating and promoting and has efficacy of school choice,” he said. “It’s something we have to fight for.”

McCormick said he didn’t support the possible merger between U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel Corporation for national security reasons. And, while he understands there are concerns about US Steel leaving the region, he thinks the company might find other alternatives.

“The key responsibility [of the government] is to protect the security of all of us,” he said. “That’s the only thing we can all agree government is responsible for, and to have the domestic steel industry in the hands of others would give me real pause.”

McCormick spent the remainder of his time at Bunny Bakes in private conversations with individuals in attendance. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.