Politics
Biden’s decision to pull Israel weapons shipment kept quiet until after Holocaust remembrance address: report
The White House National Security Council reportedly sought to keep the decision to stop supplying U.S. weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah out of the public eye for several days until after President Biden delivered a public address for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Biden signed off on the pause in an order conveyed last week to the Pentagon, The Associated Press reported, citing U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment on the matter. But the NSC wanted to keep the decision quiet until after it had a better understanding of the scope of Israel’s intensified military operations in Rafah and Biden delivered a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior U.S. administration official told the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
The focus of U.S. concern was the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban area.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden said he would halt some shipments of U.S. weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of the city of Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. It was the first time Biden said he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel’s action in the seven-month-long war launched in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem.”
Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. An official told the AP the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.
BIDEN VOWS TO WITHHOLD WEAPONS FROM ISRAEL IF NETANYAHU GOES FORWARD WITH RAFAH INVASION
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Thursday about the AP report but did not immediately hear back.
President Biden speaks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
U.S. officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described U.S. support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV news, said the decision to pause the shipment was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.” He suggested the move stemmed from political pressure on Biden from Congress, the U.S. campus protests and the upcoming election.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works. The Republicans called on Biden in a letter to swiftly end the blockage, saying it “risks emboldening Israel’s enemies,” and to brief lawmakers on the nature of the policy reviews.
Biden has faced pressure from some on the left – and condemnation from the critics on the right who say Biden has moderated his support for an essential Mideast ally.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier Wednesday confirmed the weapons delay, telling the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the U.S. paused “one shipment of high payload munitions.”
“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Austin said. “But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.”
President Biden talks to House Speaker Mike Johnson during the Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on May 7, 2024. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, raising his voice with Austin. “This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose.”
Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Biden ally, said in a statement the pause on big bombs must be a “first step.”
BIDEN WARNS NETANYAHU AGAINST RAFAH INVASION AS ISRAEL PREPARES FOR ACTION
“Our leverage is clear,” Sanders said. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”
Austin, meanwhile, told lawmakers that “it’s about having the right kinds of weapons for the task at hand.”
“A small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, that’s very useful in a dense, built-up environment,” he said, “but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral damage.” He said the U.S. wants to see Israel do “more precise” operations.
Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.
President Biden is welcomed as he arrives to honor the memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, at the Capitol, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as “targeted strikes” on the eastern part of Rafah.
Privately, concern has mounted inside the White House about what’s unfolding in Rafah, according to the AP, but publicly administration officials have stressed that they did not think the operations had defied Biden’s warnings against a widescale operation in the city. The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.
Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and CEO of Commanders for Israel’s Security, a group of former senior Israeli security officials, said the U.S. move is largely symbolic, but a sign of trouble and could become more of a problem if it is sustained.
“It’s not some kind of American embargo on American munitions support, but I think it’s some kind of diplomatic message to Mr. Netanyahu that he needs to take into consideration American interests more than he has over the last few months,” he said, adding it’s “a kind of a signal, a ‘be careful.’”
The U.S. dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State terrorist group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. Experts told the AP the use of the weapon, in part, has helped drive the Palestinian casualty count that the Hamas-run health ministry puts at more than 34,000 dead, though it does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Politics
Biden urges respect for legal system after Trump conviction while publicly flouting SCOTUS rulings
President Biden said on Friday that the justice system “should be respected” and that it was “reckless” for former President Donald Trump to claim that the verdict in his New York trial was “rigged,” just days after he told his supporters the Supreme Court could not “stop” him from carrying out his agenda.
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said in response to the former president’s remarks about the NY v. Trump verdict, which found Trump guilty Thursday on all 34 counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election.
“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America. Our justice system, that justice should be respected. And we should never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s as simple as that,” Biden added.
TRUMP TURNS CONVICTION INTO CASH, SPOTLIGHTS RECORD FUNDRAISING IN WAKE OF GUILTY VERDICT
President Biden said Friday that the justice system “should be respected” and that it was “reckless” for former President Donald Trump to claim that the verdict in his New York trial was “rigged.” (Getty Images)
Biden’s remarks came just two days after he bragged to his supporters at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that the Supreme Court ruling his student debt relief plan was unconstitutional did not “stop” him from canceling student loans.
“The Supreme Court blocked me from relieving student debt, but they didn’t stop me,” Biden said Wednesday from Girard College.
Biden, like several other Democrat and Republican presidents throughout history, has taken aim at the Supreme Court for a number of rulings they have made during his tenure in the White House.
During his State of the Union address in March, Biden took direct aim at the justices and insisted they had underestimated the “electoral and political power” of women in their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. During an interview with MSNBC about his remarks directed at the justices, Biden said, “Look, I think they made a wrong decision, think they read the Constitution wrong, I think they made a mistake.”
Biden made similar comments on how the high court’s ruling “didn’t stop” him from canceling student loans in February while speaking at the Julian Dixon Library in Culver City, California.
BLACK VOTERS CRITICIZE BIDEN FOR ‘PANDERING’ AS SUPPORT SHIFTS TO TRUMP: ‘IT’S INSULTING’
The Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said at the time. “Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled in debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that federal law does not allow Biden’s Secretary of Education to cancel more than $430 billion in student loan debt. Biden promised at the time that his administration would continue to push for his student debt relief plan.
Shortly after the court’s ruling, Biden said: “I think the court misinterpreted the Constitution.”
Earlier this year, Biden announced the Savings on Valuable Education (SAVE) plan that cancels debt for enrolled borrowers who have been in repayment for at least 10 years and hold $12,000 or less in student loan debt. Those with larger debts will receive relief after an additional year of payments for every additional $1,000 they borrowed.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said: “Expressing disagreement with a Supreme Court decision – as all Presidents do – is not the same as attacking the rule of law and undermining our judicial system.”
Following the verdict in Trump’s trial, Biden took to social media on Friday to claim, “No one is above the law.”
President Biden speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 31, 2024. (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He has also used Trump’s remarks to raise funds for his re-election campaign, claiming in another post on X that Trump “questioned our judicial system.”
“Donald Trump is threatening our democracy. First, he questioned our election system. Then, he questioned our judicial system,” Biden wrote Friday.
Biden said Friday that Trump, who is the first president to be convicted of a felony, will “be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal” the conviction.
Fox News’ Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.
Politics
Trump rages, Biden struggles to tame the war in Gaza: The contrasting days of a former and current president
Former President Trump stood in the lobby of his namesake office tower in New York on Friday morning, lashing out at “fascists” in the government, a “sleazebag” star witness and a judge who is “crooked,” “a devil,” “a tyrant” and “can’t put two sentences together.”
He complained for 40 minutes about a “rigged trial” that resulted in his 34 felony convictions Thursday, detailing procedural objections as he vowed an appeal, while occasionally insisting that “it’s not about me.”
President Biden had a more typical day for an incumbent head of state, returning to the White House from an overnight stay at his Delaware beach house to welcome the Kansas City Chiefs to celebrate their Super Bowl win, meet with Belgium’s prime minister behind closed doors and deliver public remarks unveiling a proposed cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed
— President Biden
Friday offered the type of contrast that Biden and his allies have been trying to showcase for months: between a president performing a normal mix of duties that range from the ceremonial to the profound and a former president mired in his insular world of grievance.
“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said from the State Dining Room on Friday before delivering his Middle East proposal. “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
Biden won the White House in 2020 with a promise to return to normality, offering his five decades in mainstream politics as a steadying alternative to Trump’s chaotic pandemic news conferences and shattering of norms that would lead ultimately to the violent Jan. 6 insurrection.
“Trump has sought to remake this nation in his image: selfish, angry, dark and divisive,” Biden said in 2020. “This is not who we are. At our best, America’s always been — and if I have anything to do with it — it will be again, generous, confident, an optimistic nation, full of hope and resolve.”
But four years later, polls show that the nation remains deeply divided, pessimistic and concerned about the future and that a large share of voters have forgotten much of the turbulence of the Trump era, or at least decided they are willing to live with it. The former president has a slight edge in national and swing state polls, with voters giving him credit for the pre-pandemic economy while blaming Biden for the inflation that came with the recovery.
It remains unclear whether Thursday’s verdicts in the election interference trial will alter those dynamics.
Trump supporters have stuck with him through any number of crises that would have sunk other politicians, including the insurrection, two impeachments and numerous former officials from his inner circle calling him unfit to serve. His three other criminal cases remain unresolved and will probably hang over him during the November election.
So far, I guess it’s backfired
— Former President Trump on his conviction
Trump boasted Friday of what he said was a record $39-million fundraising haul that came in the first 10 hours after his conviction. (The numbers have not yet been officially reported or verified.)
“So far, I guess it’s backfired,” he said of the prosecution brought by New York’s district attorney, for which he has falsely blamed Biden, before saying that he would have preferred to skip the ordeal and defeat Biden “legitimately.”
He also returned to the themes his advisors hope will win him a return to the Oval Office, including his mainstays of immigration and “rampant crime.” But the former president who campaigns on law and order is now basing much of his case for reelection on calling out the criminal justice system as rigged and “a scam,” at least when it applies to him.
When Larry Hogan, a Republican former governor running for Senate in Maryland, wrote on social media that people should “respect the verdict and the legal process” Thursday night, a top Trump aide, Chris LaCivita, rebuked him immediately on the platform X.
“You just ended your campaign,” LaCivita wrote.
Biden has tried to seize that ground from Trump. But after he defended the rule of law on Friday, the subject of his subsequent remarks offered a reminder that life is different for an incumbent president than a challenger.
Biden has been unable to end the war in the Gaza Strip, which has sparked mass protests on college campuses and anger from many on the left who blame him for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and thousands of deaths of Palestinians. Even as Biden urged the Israeli military to avoid civilian deaths, he has supported Israel’s right to defend itself after Hamas killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 250 on Oct 7.
Biden on Friday detailed a three-phase deal proposed by Israel that he says would lead to the release of hostages in Gaza and could end the conflict with Hamas. Previous attempts at a deal have failed, provoking further anger on the left that he was enabling Israel’s assault, coupled with criticism from Israel’s moderate and conservative allies that he was wavering in his support as he tried to pressure the government to scale down its counteroffensive.
“I know this is a subject on which people in this country feel deep, passionate conviction,” Biden said Friday. “So do I. It’s been one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world.”
Trump had no further public events planned for Friday.
Donald Trump is wasting no time in getting back on the campaign trail now that the verdict is in and his historic criminal trial in New York City is over.
The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee headlined a campaign fundraiser just a couple of hours after being convicted. On Saturday he’ll attend a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) match in Newark, New Jersey, Fox News confirmed. And on Sunday he’ll sit for a “Fox and Friends” interview.
“We’ll be fighting hard,” Trump told Fox News’ Brooke Singman in an interview soon after he was found guilty of all 34 felony counts in his case, the first in which a former or current president stood trial.
Trump emphasized that he was excited to get back on the campaign trail.
2024 SHOWDOWN: TRUMP CASHES IN ON THE CONVICTION IN HIS CRIMINAL TRIAL
Former President Donald Trump appears in Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York City. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)
On Friday, as he addressed reporters from the atrium of his Trump Tower in New York City, where he launched his first White House bid nine years ago, the former president vowed that “we’re going to fight.”.
For six weeks, Trump had been confined to the courtroom in Lower Manhattan, which prevented him from campaigning across the country other than on weekends and Wednesdays, when there was no trial.
But Trump’s campaign touted that even during the duration of the trial, the candidate was able to generate “billions of dollars” in media coverage as well as host rallies and fundraisers.
HOW TRUMP GUILTY VERDICTS MAY IMPACT THE 2024 REMATCH WITH BIDEN
The former president’s tenure in court also didn’t seem to put a dent in the slight edge he enjoys in the polls over President Biden in the key battleground states that will likely decide the outcome of their rematch.
And the former president’s top pollsters put out a memo on the eve of the verdict arguing that a conviction would not have any electoral consequences.
“We are already back to the mission,” the Trump campaign told Fox News Digital on Thursday evening. “President Trump won’t let this sham stop the movement of this campaign to save the nation.”
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower in New York City on May 30, 2024 after being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)
Longtime Republican strategist David Carney, a veteran of multiple GOP presidential campaigns who is now steering a pro-Trump super PAC, told Fox News that “the show trial is over and Trump is unleashed to campaign at will again. With the miscarriage of justice out in the open, he will have the wind to his back.”
Trump enjoyed an initial burst of fundraising courtesy of his guilty verdicts.
The former president’s campaign announced on Friday morning that it had hauled in $34.8 million in fundraising from 6pm ET to midnight on Thursday, immediately after the verdict went viral.
On Friday evening, the campaign updated their fundraising total – nearly $53 million over 24 hours.
WHAT TRUMP TOLD FOX NEWS DIGITAL FOLLOWING THE VERDICT
The campaign highlighted in a release that they raked in “a record shattering small dollar fundraising haul and said it was “nearly double the biggest day ever recorded for the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform.” They emphasized that the guilty verdicts “have awakened the MAGA movement like never before.”
Trump will continue his fundraising blitz with a swing at the end of next week in California.
The former president heads to the blue bastion of San Francisco on June 6 for a fundraising dinner hosted by tech investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, two of the heaviest hitters in Silicon Valley and co-hosts of the hot “All-In” podcast.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Trump Tower, Friday, May 31, 2024, in New York. A day after a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony charges, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee addressed the conviction and likely attempt to cast his campaign in a new light. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson) (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)
Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, a Trump ally and potential 2024 running mate who spent time a few years back in San Francisco working for hedge funds in the tech sector, was instrumental in putting the top dollar fundraising together.
Trump heads south to Beverly Hills for a June 7 fundraiser and a June 8 finance event in Newport Beach in Orange County.
The trip doesn’t mean the Trump campaign thinks overwhelmingly blue California may be in play.
Instead, Trump’s swing and two fundraisers in the Bay Area on June 5 headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris are the latest proof that the Golden State remains a crucial ATM for campaign cash.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
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