President Joe Biden has been straddling an incredibly thin line when it comes to his stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. The president historically has been supportive of the US’s alliance with Israel but his posture has been tested by a vocal pro-Palestinian contingent in the Democratic Party; in the Democratic primaries, they voted “uncommitted” to send a message to their party’s leader and in recent weeks have showed up on college campuses to demand university administrations divest from Israel. Biden has responded by remaining vocally pro-Israel but inching further away from Israel from a policy standpoint. The United States abstained during a United Nations vote to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in March, causing Israel to cancel a diplomatic trip to the US — and in recent days, the relationship has dissolved even further.
Israel is most frustrated by a sneaky move pulled by the Biden administration to seemingly pressure its ally into accepting a ceasefire agreement. Israel and Hamas have been negotiating a ceasefire with the help of mediators from Egypt and Qatar, but have been unable to get over some insurmountable hurdles. Israel wants all hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 to be released immediately, which might prove difficult, as former president Donald Trump speculated that there are fewer hostages still alive than Israel expects: “That’s why it’s hard for Hamas to make a deal — they are no longer able to produce the people.” Israel, meanwhile, will not agree to a permanent end to the war or for Hamas to remain in power when it is over. Instead of acknowledging these realities, the Biden administration did something quite dastardly. Israeli officials claim that the Egyptians presented a new ceasefire agreement to Hamas over the weekend that was crafted without Israel involvement. The United States reportedly knew about this new proposal — and knew that Hamas was planning to publicly accept it, but did not warn Israel.
“Two Israeli officials said the feeling is that ‘Israel got played’ by the US and the mediators who drafted ‘a new deal’ and weren’t transparent about it,” Axios reported.
Senior administration officials confirmed to NBC News that the United States has also paused weapons shipments to Israel as the country begins its military offensive in Rafah — seen as a key Hamas stranglehold by Israel but a red line by Palestinian activists, who fear an overwhelming civilian death toll will come from fighting in the city. The US is also set to release a report on whether or not Israel has violated international law during the war, this week concluding an investigation that congressional Democrats demanded of the Biden administration. Delivering a verdict that Israel did violate the law will naturally further fray the already tattered relationship.
In a Holocaust Remembrance Speech on Monday, Biden again condemned Hamas’s October 7 terror attack on Israel and rejected antisemitism that has spread in the US — largely from those on his own political wing. But in terms of a strategy to combat these trends, Biden is lost in the wind. According to Axios, Biden is playing the “wait and see” game as the progressive base continues to rally against the “genocidal” Israel: “The strategy appears to be to let the protests play out, wait for undergrads to leave for the summer, and hope that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is in place before students return in the fall.” Is it any wonder that Israel feels “frustrated”?
-Amber Duke
On our radar
FDIC’s #METOO MOMENT An independent report found that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fostered a culture in which employees were subject to pervasive sexual harassment and misconduct. The FDIC, the report said, is in desperate need of reform, but questioned whether Chair Martin Gruenberg is the right person to lead the changes.
NOEM CANCELLED South Dakota governor Kristi Noem canceled a Fox News interview with Greg Gutfeld after getting grilled by several other hosts on the network, citing bad weather in her home state. “I tried to convince Noem to stay and do our show. I even told her my dog Gus had all his shots. She said not yet he hasn’t,” Gutfeld cracked in response to the cancelation.
MTG DOES MTV Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made good on her threat Wednesday and filed a motion to vacate Speaker Mike Johnson. The trigger pull comes after former president Donald Trump reportedly tried to mediate a ceasefire between the two Republicans.
Stormy on the stand
All eyes were on Stormy Daniels yesterday as she testified in Donald Trump’s so-called “hush-money” trial, which alleges Trump paid the porn star to keep quiet about an alleged liaison and falsely marked the payments as legal, rather than campaign, expenses.
Even Trump was remarkably alert to what Daniels had to say. As Matt McDonald wrote for The Spectator yesterday, “Unlike with previous witnesses, where Trump has seemed tired or disengaged, the former president paid close attention to Daniels’s testimony, according to reporters in the courtroom.”
During her testimony, Daniels described meeting Trump at a celebrity golf tournament and arranging to have dinner with him afterward. Instead of having dinner, though, the pair had sex, said Daniels, who described what she remembers Trump’s Lake Tahoe hotel apartment looking like and how he “was very interested in a lot of the business aspects of [the adult film industry], which I thought was very cool.”
Politicoreports Trump muttered “bullshit” under his breath during portions of Daniels’s testimony. According to CNN, “Some details Daniels described were so explicit that Judge Juan Merchan cut her off at several points. And Trump’s lawyers argued that Daniels had unfairly prejudiced the jury, asking Merchan to declare a mistrial. The judge denied the request but added that some of the details from Daniels were ‘better left unsaid.’”
One of the details Daniels provide the courtroom about the alleged affair was that she “passed out” during sex with Trump, which Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University School of Law, told Newsweek is “a gift” to Trump’s team, as it will “enable the lawyers to challenge her memory.”
Stormy Daniels will take to the stand again tomorrow.
–Teresa Mull
Governor Hochul accused of racism
New York governor Kathy Hochul is sorry that she said some black kids in the Bronx don’t know what the word “computer” means.
Hochul made the flippantly racist remark during a speech at the Milken Institute Global Conference in California on Monday. She was discussing economic opportunities in AI for low-income communities when she said, “Right now, we have young Black kids growing up in the Bronx who don’t even know what the word computer is. They don’t know, they don’t know these things.”
Hochul was blasted across the political divide for the comment, including by some Democrats in New York. In a statement later that day, she claimed, “I misspoke and I regret it.”
Hochul’s underestimation of her black constituents was compared to President Joe Biden saying on the campaign trail that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”
“Deep down, White Liberals see themselves as our saviors and only need our votes to protect their power. These aren’t gaffes. This a result of the racism of low expectations,” Michigan Congressman John James, who is black, said. “Apparently being a powerful Democrat is a license to spout racist filth without accountability.”
–Cockburn
Biden’s ad blitz
Constrained by his time in court and legal bills, Donald Trump is struggling to fundraise to match Joe Biden’s campaign, which has twice as much cash on hand. Biden-Harris HQ is spending its massive war chest with abandon; the campaign has already announced its plans to have more than 500 staffers and 200 offices in several key states by the end of May. An advantage in this regard puts Trump in danger; support means nothing if it doesn’t translate into votes.
Additionally, the president’s team also announced a $14 million ad buy in May, following a $30 million one in March and April. The new ad buy includes two portraying Trump as a threat to abortion access, as well as one focused on Trump’s old promises to end Obamacare.
Another of the ads, targeting increasingly-Trump-friendly Hispanics, is titled “Ripped Apart.” It focuses on Trump’s much-criticized “family separation” policy. It’s quite effective, but it dishonestly includes a clip of Trump saying “These are animals,” as if he were talking about regular folks and not violent gang members.
A busier and cash-strapped Trump, even one with the right messaging, faces trouble when we account for all these moves. Competing against a well-organized, well-funded campaign is always hard. Doing it with court appointments filling your schedule? That’s harder.
–Juan P. Villasmil
