A Green Party congressional candidate in Wisconsin was arrested Thursday after video showed him yelling obscenities at an Israeli father whose young son was in a car.
Matthew Arndt, 54, a candidate running for Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District, was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct as a promoter of a hate crime after a confrontation in the Milwaukee suburb of Mequon. Police said he made profane and anti-Semitic remarks toward another driver, Fox 6 News reported.
According to local police, the conflict occurred around 8:50 a.m. Thursday at a Mobil gas station near Mequon and Wauwatosa roads. Investigators say the encounter began on Mequon Road and involved obscene gestures and dangerous driving. The two then pulled into a gas station parking lot, where Arndt cursed the other driver and denounced Israel multiple times.
“You’re a fucking bastard! You’re a fucking traitor!” Arndt said in the video. “You fucking traitor to Israel! Fuck you! Fuck Israel! Fuck yourself!”
Arndt also asked the man to post the video to social media announcing he was running for Congress in Wisconsin’s 6th District. He repeatedly chanted “Free Palestine” and said, “The whole country is against you, you bastard.”
The man who filmed the confrontation said he believed a sticker on his car’s bumper that read “F*ck Hamas” and had an Israeli flag on it contributed to the conflict. He said he was driving his young son to school when the other driver started making obscene gestures and tried to push him out of the driveway.
The father, an Israeli immigrant who has lived in the United States for about 12 years, said he followed Arndt into the gas station parking lot and recorded the confrontation. His son was in the back seat when the incident occurred.
“I don’t have any grudge against the Palestinians,” the father told the New York Post. “I definitely have a problem with an organization that wants to kill Jews.”
Arndt later argued in an interview with Fox 6 News that his comments were directed at Israel, not Jews. “I’m not against anyone. I’m against Israel, I’m against the Israeli government,” he told the media.
Asked about repeatedly swearing at the other driver, Arndt said he had said that to people during other altercations and said the man followed him to the gas station. He also apologized for his actions, saying he “messed up” while insisting the “information was correct.”
His actions were criticized by the Wisconsin Green Party, which said it “firmly supports Palestinian human rights” and ends U.S. support for the Gaza war. “Yelling obscenities at someone in a parking lot does not advance the cause,” the party’s coordinating committee said in a statement. The party said it had spoken to Arndt and would wait for the police report before making further comment.
Brad Smith, the Democratic candidate running for the same congressional seat, also criticized Arndt’s actions, saying the language used in front of children was unacceptable.
Arndt’s campaign platform calls for breaking up monopolies, establishing universal health care and ending U.S. support for Israel. His campaign website also promotes religious tolerance, claiming that America belongs to people of all faiths and that politics that teaches people to hate each other is “poison.”
Police said the investigative report will be forwarded to the Ozaukee County District Attorney’s Office for review of charges.
The incident occurred one day after the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and triggered the Gaza war.