How a comedian and a senator’s riffs on Israel reveal the Democratic party divide
Foul-mouthed comic Bill Burr and Sen. Chuck Schumer — in conversation?
“Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields,” Schumer told The New York Times. Burr called it his favorite argument. “It’s like, well, you gotta work around that,” he says in his new standup special. Photo by Getty Images
By Louis Keene March 18, 2025
There would seem to be very little that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and comedian Bill Burr have in common. Burr, the irreverent standup with a red goatee and proclivity for ranting, touts his ignorance of the news; Schumer, a New York Jew sometimes chided for excessive civility, is often at the center of it.
But rhetorical asides made by each this week about human shields — the notion that Palestinian militants hide among a civilian population — put the two in a kind of conversation about the Israel-Hamas war, one that exposed the yawning gap between old-guard Democrats like Schumer and the young, progressive base they hope to lead.
Their comments appeared, naturally, in different media and were delivered for different audiences. In an interview published in the Sunday New York Times, Schumer cited Hamas’ use of human shields to parry accusations of genocide against Israel.
“I see the pictures of a little Palestinian boy without a leg, or one that sticks in my head, there’s a little girl, like 11, 12, crying because her parents were both killed. I ache for that,” said Schumer, 74. “But on the news, they never mention that Hamas used the Palestinian people as human shields. And so when these protesters come and accuse Israel of genocide, I said, ‘What about Hamas?’ They don’t even want to talk about Hamas.”
Burr’s riff — which came at the outset of his latest standup special, released Friday on Hulu — could be read almost as a direct reply to Schumer.
He joked that calling someone fat was frowned upon, but “it’s still socially acceptable to shoot a missile in the general direction of someone you’re upset with. It’s like, dude, there’s kids over there.”
As the crowd cheered, Burr continued: “This is my favorite response: ‘Well, you know, they’re using kids as human shields!’ It’s like, well, you gotta work around that! Jesus Christ. If I’m mad at my neighbor and I want to beat the shit out of him, but he’s holding a baby, I wouldn’t try to punch him through the baby. You throw a hook!”
Bill Burr rips into Israeli war crimes in his new standup special
— The Serfs (@theserfstv.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 3:56 AM
Burr, 56, could hardly be described as a dyed-in-blue Democrat. He has made a career waging war on political correctness. In the special, “Drop Dead Years,” he goes after liberals for being passive and teases campus protesters for hypocrisy. But in recent months, as Elon Musk’s overhaul of the American government has seemingly paralyzed elected Democrats, Burr has emerged as one of the most effective celebrity voices disparaging him. Calling Musk “the Twitter guy,” Burr repeatedly mocked his “Turkish hair plugs” and “laminated face” following Musk’s apparent Nazi salute at President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“What I don’t get is the amount of people in the armed services that died trying to stop Hitler, and then this guy comes in, and does that, while being an immigrant, too,” he said on the nationally syndicated radio show The Breakfast Club. “None of it tracks.”
Burr also stands out in a comedy landscape where popular new-media voices like Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Tony Hinchcliffe have hosted Trump on their show or spoken at his rallies.
As his comments on Musk and Israel have made Burr an unlikely hero among the online left, they underscore how detached Schumer is from the anti-Israel sentiment uniting it. Most Democrats sympathize with Palestinians more than Israelis, a recent Gallup poll showed, and it’s not even close. The fifth-term senator’s point about human shields is familiar, and unsurprisingly elicited criticism.
Support for Israel is steadier among elected Democrats. Yet even they appear frustrated with Schumer these days. His cooperation with Republicans last week on a bill to avert a government shutdown led to some calls for his ouster from party leadership. He postponed his book tour for Antisemitism in America: A Warning amid the controversy and planned protests by Jewish groups on the left and right.
Meanwhile, to the extent Schumer is aware of anti-Israel sentiment that is increasingly the orthodoxy among Democratic voters, he doesn’t seem inclined to seek alignment. When the Times asked him about the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests, Schumer said, breaking from his party’s talking points around free speech and due process, “If he broke the law, he should be deported.”
A senator undoubtedly knows more about Washington than a comedian. But as Schumer himself insisted to the Times, the Democratic party is the party of the working class. Ironically, he means people kind of like Bill Burr — a former warehouse worker who says he hasn’t checked the news in a decade — and the people who think the comic has a point.
