Auchincloss Talks Iran, AIPAC at Needham Town Hall

June 29, 2026
• As the November midterms loom — and he faces his own primary challenge in September — U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss fielded constituent questions on war in the Middle East, hopelessness in President Trump’s second term and his personal campaign funding in a town hall Sunday afternoon.

Close to 300 people filtered through Needham High School’s auditorium for an hour-long Q&A with the third-term Democrat from Newton.

His two jobs, he said, are to “defend democracy in Washington, D.C.” and “promote the economy here in Massachusetts.” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “and his henchmen,” however, undermine both those jobs, Auchincloss said.

Auchincloss touted legislative wins, including securing about $2 billion in biomedical research for Massachusetts and the passage of bipartisan housing legislation that would enable housing supply — a bill Trump has not signed.

His messages rebuking the Trump administration received applause around the room, as did audience comments opposing Auchincloss’s acceptance of money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

Prior to the forum, a handful of people handed out fliers outside the school, opposing the congressman’s support for the United States arming Israel and the money he has received from AIPAC and Palantir Technologies. Palantir is a data and artificial intelligence company that has been criticized for its partnerships with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and involvement in surveillance.

“I haven’t given you a nickel, but I’ve given you my vote. Do you represent me?” one audience member asked.

Auchincloss welcomed criticism of his views and AIPAC while warning against targeting a specific political group more so than others.

“There’s tons and tons of money in politics, there is tons of lobbying in politics, but one group of people get pummeled above all others,” he said. “It really concerns me.”

In each election cycle, Auchincloss said he gives more than $1 million to “frontline Democrats” in battleground seats in an effort to provide resources where he can. “I don’t go to work at a monastery, I go to work in Washington, D.C. I’m going to hit hard. I make no apologies for that,” he said.

One of the pamphlets passed out by protestors indicated Auchincloss opposed a US-Iran peace deal. While Auchincloss did call the initial Iran peace agreement the “worst deal ever” in his newsletter this month, he spoke adamantly against the current Iranian regime and the need to prevent a “third forever war.” Now, he said, there’s no peace deal on the table.

“As I’m talking, they’re bombing each other right back. There’s no peace deal,” he said. “What the president did was he launched the war, didn’t think it through, Iran seized the Strait of Hormuz, he got scared, he gave them hundreds of billions of dollars and hoped that they would stop. They haven’t stopped, and now he’s gonna try to hope he can buy his way into a deal. I just don’t think that’s gonna work.”

Auchincloss had previously voted alongside House Democrats to pull the U.S. military out of the Iran War, though the measure was mostly symbolic in nature.

Auchincloss last held a town hall in Needham in December 2024, where he was questioned on the Israel-Gaza War. Despite several questions on AIPAC and Iran, no one specifically asked about that ongoing conflict.

While the conversation largely focused on federal and international issues, two Needham residents — Peter Metz and Joe McCabe — called on Auchincloss to take action following a May 2025 Town Meeting resolution that asked legislators to support nuclear disarmament.

At the time, Auchincloss said he didn’t support the resolution, and he echoed similar sentiments Sunday.

“I agree that we should have a no first-strike policy. I agree that Congress should have to authorize any deployment of nuclear weapons. I don’t agree that we should proactively handcuff ourselves… against enemies like Vladimir Putin and others who are clearly trying to undermine NATO and our allies,” Auchincloss said.

The auditorium, mostly filled with older adults, took a tone of despair when discussing Trump and the direction of the country under his leadership. Several audience members spoke solemnly of federal action, such as pulling money for offshore wind, removing temporary protected status for immigrants and Trump’s perceived impact on democracy. The strategy, Auchincloss said, is to shift the focus toward Trump’s cabinet and “make him seem increasingly irrelevant.”

When asked for encouragement, given that reality, Auchincloss said Trump can be viewed as the beginning of something or the end. He chooses to see him as the end.

“If you think it’s a new era of politics of crassness and hoarseness and low character and corruption and demagoguery, yeah, it’s upsetting. Or you can view him as sort of a rejection of a status quo politics that had grown a little too comfy, and that is not serving the economic interests of the middle class of the United States. I view it as the latter,” he said. “I view it as the end of something, and so I view it as the call to arms to build something going forward, build out a new American dream that we can offer the American public, and seize what is increasingly a vacant center of American public life, people who feel orphaned by some of the extremist rhetoric they see, particularly online.”

Auchincloss is running for a fourth term against progressive challenger Jason Poulos for the Fourth Congressional District, which includes Needham. The primary is Sept. 1.

Benjamin Fogler contributed to this story.