‘Be a human being about this’: Ritchie Torres, Adam Friedland and a sensational confrontation over the Israel-Hamas War
A conversation between a politician and a comedian veered suddenly from bro-ish to anguished when the subject
Adam Friedland, typically detached, became emotional speaking to Rep. Ritchie Torres. Screenshot of YouTube/The Adam Friedland Show
By Louis Keene August 28, 2025
It was supposed to be that staple of 2020s political discourse, a bro-ish encounter between a politician and a comedian, the kind that helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency and that Democrats are keen to emulate.
But about 40 minutes into the interview, Adam Friedland dropped his morbid fanboy facade and in anguished tones confronted Rep. Ritchie Torres about his support for Israel.
“Me saying this to you right now will hurt people in my own family, OK?” Friedland said, choking up. “Because this is a very important thing to us. And the fact that I still f–king care about being Jewish is embarrassing. I should just be a guy. But this feels like a stain on our history, and it feels like it’s changed what being Jewish is.”
It was a sharp and dramatic turn from Friedland’s trademark deadpan. A millennial with a Jeff-Goldblum-meets-Woody-Allen affect, his guests come from just outside the margins of the American zeitgeist — B-list actors, online cult heroes, Tom Hanks’ adult son. He asks them questions that are at once direct and out of left field. He asked retired basketball star Blake Griffin how many Republicans were in the NBA, and the rapper Jadakiss if he would join a group chat with his buddies.
For more than half an hour, Friedland and Torres hewed to the form, bantering about Torres’ coming-out story — he is the first gay Black Latino to serve in Congress — convicted fraudster George Santos, sex predator Jeffrey Epstein and the 2024 election. Torres, only a few months younger than his host, fielded Friedland’s questions gamely, returning some gentle ribbing and generally meeting the lo-fi vibes of the soundstage.
But when the interview turned to Israel, a kind of role reversal occurred: the typically unflappable Friedland suddenly began baring his soul, and Torres — perhaps unprepared for this level of sincerity — retreated into laconic detachment. The interview eventually collapsed under its own weight, but not before producing a viral exchange which many American Jews outraged by the war found cathartic.
At its climax was a startling plea made by the host: “Listen man, you gotta be like, a human being about this.”
And while Friedland failed to break through to his guest, he created something different for his audience — a direct expression of their anguish to someone causing it. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” one viewer captioned an excerpt of the exchange. “How is Adam Friedland making me emotional right now.” That post has been viewed millions of times and received some 40,000 likes.
Going into the conversation, both had appeared to anticipate friction. Friedland has been open about the war and campus antisemitism, espousing views in direct conflict with the congressman’s. Friedland mentioned on the podcast that Torres’ advisors had warned him not to accept the host’s invitation.
And before rolling the tape on their recorded interview, Friedland addressed his viewers directly, saying he had hoped to have a conversation that went beyond the “point-counterpoint, screaming match” that typifies most Israel/Palestine discourse. But he had become emotional, he admitted, and it “fell off the rails.”
“I don’t know what this is,” he said of the forthcoming episode of his show. “It’s kind of like — it becomes — it’s unexpected.”
Friedland claimed that American Jewish support for the war — he called it “an absolute brutality” — has increased hatred of Jewish people.
“What does it look like to have a flag with a Jewish star, and I’m Jewish, and for kids to be starving right now?” Friedland said. He stammered, giving Torres an opening to respond.
“It just kind of sounds like you’re justifying antisemitism,” the congressman said, “which is making me feel uncomfortable.”
Taken aback, Friedland replied, “Are you crazy right now?”
It was not the first time Friedland, who did a gap year in Israel and has relatives living there, had had antisemitism explained to him by a non-Jew. Chris Cuomo called him a self-hating Jew for being “anti-Israel”; on Cuomo’s NewsNation panel in June, Andrew Yang told Friedland he was downplaying concerns of antisemitism on campus.
Perhaps it was these experiences that prepared Friedland, in the comfort of his own armchair, to reveal Torres something he had not in those appearances: He believed the war was a genocide, he said, and that admission was made all the more painful as a Jew who grew up learning about the Holocaust.
To think that Jews could be capable of that, Friedland said, “hurts me in my stomach.”
Torres didn’t seem to know how to react, at first. When his response came, it was dry: “I feel like I’m here to be lectured,” the congressman said.
Friedland did not give up. Later, he pressed Torres to engage with the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died in Gaza since Oct. 7 beyond calling war a tragedy.
“They’ve killed journalists,” Friedland said of Israel. “They’ve killed people waiting for aid.”
“But you’re suggesting that it’s Israel’s policy to murder civilians, and that is a notion that I reject,” Torres said.
“Listen man, you gotta, like, be a human being about this,” Friedland said.
“People who are dying in a war — which to me is a tragedy, war is a tragedy—” Torres repeated.
“Do you feel in your heart that what you’re saying is right?” Friedland cut in.
“If Hamas, if you remove Hamas—” Torres started again.
“You don’t actually believe that,” Friedland again interrupted.
“Don’t tell me what I believe,” Torres shot back. A few minutes later, the interview was over.
One of the many explanations for President Trump’s victory last November was that he had done a better job going on podcasts, especially ones led by white male comedians. Democratic politicians began leaning into the medium to sell their ideas to the American public, presumably how Rep. Ritchie Torres wound up on the Adam Friedland Show over the cautions of his advisers.
But unlike the credulous manosphere podcasters who hosted Trump, lefty interviewers may not be as hospitable. Many Democratic voters are still awaiting real answers from their elected leaders, especially when it comes to Gaza. Booking Torres, a self-identified “unapologetic Zionist,” offered Friedland a rare opportunity to demand them.
The ensuing back-and-forth underscored a disorienting reality for American Jews who oppose Israel’s war conduct: the people promoting it are often non-Jews who claim to be working in their interest. A similar dynamic is unfolding at the federal level, where the Trump administration’s fight against antisemitism has served as pretext for billions of dollars being pulled from universities and crushing action on immigration.
Friedland embodied not only the sense of shock and powerlessness felt by American Jewish critics of the war, but also the profound tzuris they experience when speaking up about it. Breaking from type, he prefaced some of his questions to Torres with the disclaimer that he did not want the interview to become an argument; when it was over, he lamented that it had anyway.
Torres told Friedland he had been hostile and disrespectful — guilty of a “gotcha interview.”
It is a label any interviewer wants to avoid. But Friedland let the comment pass. “I think that my conscience is clear,” he said.
