On July 21, Rep. Summer Lee — the DSA-aligned Squad member from Pennsylvania — fired off a post on X attacking a Jewish Democrat for signing a bomb. The problem: she tagged the wrong Jewish guy named Josh.

The person who rushed in to back her up was Ilhan Omar. So that went well.

Here's what happened. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the New Jersey Democrat, posted a broadside against progressive members of his own party, calling them "not Democrats" but "socialists, who want to hijack the Democratic Party." He added there was "no room for anti-American bomb-throwers who oppose our ideas, values, & leaders."

Lee responded by tagging Gottheimer and writing, "What about Dems who sign bombs and vote to drop them?" She was referencing Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who signed an artillery shell during a visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Scranton back in September 2024. Different Josh. Different state. Different office. Same religion, though — which is apparently the detail that stuck.

Gottheimer's reply was surgical: "You know that's the other Jewish guy named Josh, right?"

That's when Omar decided to make things better. The Minnesota Democrat jumped into the thread and wrote: "He signed the bombs you voted to be dropped. Hope this helps!" Except Gottheimer didn't sign anything. She was also confusing him with Shapiro. And the kicker — Gottheimer fired back with a screenshot of Omar's own voting record. "Ilhan, you know who else voted for it? You," he wrote, pointing to her yes vote on the $60.8 billion Ukraine aid package in April 2024.

Omar, who joined 103 House Democrats in voting for a defense bill amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky to strip $3.3 billion in Israel aid, apparently forgot about the other military spending she approved. Selective memory is a feature of the Squad, not a bug.

The entire exchange played out publicly on X over the span of two days — July 21 through July 22 — with Gottheimer posting the voting-record screenshot on the 22nd. Nobody deleted anything. The whole thread is still up.

Progressive commentators tried to move past it quickly. But the underlying problem isn't a typo. It's a pattern. Lee didn't accidentally mix up two policy positions or confuse a bill number. She confused two Jewish members of her own party — and the person who jumped in to "clarify" has her own well-documented history with anti-Semitism controversies.

As Van Jones once noted, the progressive wing has a growing credibility gap on exactly this issue. The Squad lectures the rest of the country about sensitivity, representation, and identity — and then can't be bothered to figure out which Jewish Democrat they're attacking before hitting send.

Two Jewish guys named Josh. Two Squad members who couldn't tell them apart. And one voting record that blew up the whole rescue mission.

The "Hope this helps!" really did.