But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. How we check
Pedro DeSouza
Independent · U.S. House, Rhode Island District 1
✓Opposes
How this mark works
We track key votes on sending U.S. weapons and money to the government of Israel. A check means every tracked vote they cast came down against sending more, on the side of peace and de-escalation. A question mark means a mixed record: they sided with sending up to half of the time. An X means they voted to send more weapons and money in over half of their tracked votes, even as the way those weapons and dollars were being used became more and more obvious. At exactly half, money this election cycle from a lobbying group we track, or an endorsement from a group that backs sending weapons, makes it an X. Only votes actually cast are counted. Where a candidate has no recorded votes on these bills, the mark comes instead from a reviewed reading of their public record (money from the lobbying groups we track, endorsements, and their own words since January 26, 2024). There an X also covers fully backing the conduct of the war by the government of Israel without significant reservations, and a question mark also covers speaking about Israel without saying clearly where they stand on U.S. weapons and funding. A dash means No Position Found: we found nothing in their own words about Israel, Gaza or the war.
Two reviewers, reading the public record as a whole, agree: His platform plank headed Stop Funding Genocide says plainly to end military funding and weapons to Israel. Reviewed by hand on 2026-10-01. This candidate has no recorded tracked floor votes.
DeSouza's platform has a plank headed “Stop Funding Genocide” that reads “End military funding and weapons to Israel.” It also calls for ceasefires, diplomacy and accountability. Separately, he pledges to refuse money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby, and says it “must be dissolved.”
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He has not answered Ballotpedia's candidate questionnaire, and no news report found quotes him on this subject. His campaign's Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts were not read for this card; their addresses, his other planks and the rest of what our research found are on his research page.
The money
Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found
2026 support from the five lobbying groups we track
Nothing recorded (as of 2026-09-27) from the five lobbying groups we track; earlier cycles and earmarked donations not yet tracked.
Support-only OpenFEC data. Opposition independent expenditures are excluded.
Research log
The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.
Every page named below was opened and read on 2026-10-01 unless the entry says otherwise. His campaign site was read in full: the home page, which carries the whole platform, and the platform, news, events and three news posts, which are all the pages it links. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. DeSouza has not served in Congress, so none of the congressional votes this site tracks is his. Undated campaign pages are recorded on the date we read them and banded Position.
U.S. military aid and weapons to the government of Israel
[Position, read 2026-10-01] His campaign site, under the heading "Stop Funding Genocide": "End military funding and weapons to Israel. Human rights over geopolitics and foreign profit. Demand ceasefires, diplomacy, and accountability." This is the whole of the plank.
[Position, read 2026-10-01] The same page, under the heading "No More Forever Wars": "No more blank checks for foreign wars. No more troops sent to die for elites and contractors. Audit the Pentagon and cut the waste." No country is named in this plank. His second site's "End Forever Wars" section, on pedroforri.com, is about Vietnam and wars in general and names no country in the Middle East.
U.S. aid to Palestinians
Nothing located, at any date. Neither UNRWA, nor Gaza humanitarian funding, nor the aid pipeline appears in anything he has published.
Characterization of the conflict
[Position, read 2026-10-01] The plank above is headed "Stop Funding Genocide" on his campaign site. That heading is the only place his own pages characterize the war. The word genocide appears once more on his site, in a May 28, 2026 post on healthcare, about Rwanda in the 1990s; it is not about this subject.
Israel-related rhetoric and lobbying
[Position, read 2026-10-01] His campaign site, under the heading "Dissolve AIPAC. No Foreign-Interest Lobby Money.": "AIPAC must be dissolved. I will not take money from AIPAC, foreign-agent PACs, or lobbying groups that put another country's interests ahead of the American people. Rhode Island's seat in Congress belongs to Rhode Islanders." The donation section of the same page reads: "Our campaign is funded by grassroots supporters like you, never special interest groups or foreign lobbies." The page's own description for search engines adds "No AIPAC money. No foreign lobby influence."
[Position, read 2026-10-01] His second campaign site, linked from the first and marked "Paid for and authorized by Pedro DeSouza for Congress", carries the same pledge under the heading "No AIPAC Money. No Foreign-Interest Lobby Money.": "I will not take money from AIPAC, foreign-agent PACs, or lobbying groups that put another country's interests ahead of the American people."
A refusal to take a lobby's money is recorded here as a pledge about his fundraising. It is not read as a position on weapons or funding; his position on that is the plank under the first heading above.
Safety and antisemitism
Nothing located, at any date. Nothing he has published addresses antisemitism or the safety of any religious community.
What the campaign site and own pages say
[Position, read 2026-10-01] The home page says he "is fighting for working families, affordable housing, healthcare for all, and an end to forever wars" and sets out ten planks: Cost of Living & Tax Relief; Homes for Families, Not Wall Street; End Medical Debt Bankruptcy; Lower Energy & Utility Costs; No More Forever Wars; Jobs, Small Business & Working Americans; Stop Funding Genocide; Defend the Second Amendment; Veterans Before War Profiteers; and Dissolve AIPAC. Two of the ten are about this subject, and both are quoted above.
[Position, 2026-05-28] The site's News & Views page carries three posts, all dated May 28, 2026: on housing and utility costs, on healthcare and on a food desert in Woonsocket. None is about this subject. The housing post says foreign policy affects what Americans pay for energy, naming "Energy markets, oil prices, LNG production, sanctions, wars, and instability overseas", and names no country.
[Read 2026-10-01] The platform page offers the full platform as a downloadable document, https://www.voteforpedrori.com/Pedro-DeSouza-Platform-v2.pdf . Its text could be read only in summary form here, so nothing is quoted or claimed from it. The events page lists no events.
[Read 2026-10-01] His second campaign site describes him as "a working-class Rhode Islander, small business owner, and data professional" and lists seven key issues: housing affordability, cost of living, healthcare, ending forever wars, the national debt, accountability for abusers of children and adults, and the AIPAC pledge quoted above.
The race
[Read 2026-10-01] Ballotpedia's page for the race: "Incumbent Gabe Amo, Kellie Keenan, and Pedro Soares de Souza are running in the general election for U.S. House Rhode Island District 1 on November 3, 2026." Amo and Keenan were each unopposed in their party's primary on September 9, 2026. Wilfred Curioso, an independent, is listed as withdrawn or disqualified.
[Read 2026-10-01] Ballotpedia's page for him lists him as an independent on the November ballot and says he has not yet completed its 2026 candidate questionnaire. It lists no campaign site.
[Read 2026-10-01] The Green Papers' Rhode Island page lists him as Pedro Junior Soares DeSouza with Federal Election Commission candidate number H6RI01161, and Politics1's Rhode Island page lists "Pedro DeSouza (I) - Data Professional" with a link to his campaign site.
Places that could not be read, so nothing is claimed from them
WPRI's report on the candidates who filed to challenge the state's congressional delegation, https://www.wpri.com/news/elections/ri-congressional-delegation-draws-9-challengers-at-filing-deadline/ (source could not be opened).
The full platform document, https://www.voteforpedrori.com/Pedro-DeSouza-Platform-v2.pdf (only a summary could be obtained; nothing claimed).
Not read for this card: his campaign's Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61590603443978 , and its Instagram account, https://instagram.com/voteforpedrori , both linked from his own site and link page; and its YouTube channel, https://youtube.com/@voteforpedrori , also linked from his site, which embeds his video updates.
Not on the card, and why
His planks and posts on taxes, housing, healthcare, energy, jobs, guns, veterans, the national debt and food deserts: out of scope, listed above so the record can be checked.
The "No More Forever Wars" plank and the housing post's sentence on foreign policy and energy prices: neither names a country, so neither is read as a position on what the United States sends to the government of Israel.
The tracked committees' giving to his campaign: shown in the funding badge, not restated.
Sources retrieved for this card (address; opened or could not open; date)
But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and
funding for the government of Israel. Every claim on this page goes through at least two verification steps.
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