Turns Out Kamala Harris Isn’t Snubbing Netanyahu After All

Kamala won’t appear beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he speaks to a joint session of Congress this week, in what appears to be a tactful political play. However, the vice president will still speak one-on-one privately with Netanyahu at an undetermined time. 

According to an anonymous White House aide who spoke with Politico, Harris plans to discuss the ongoing cease-fire deal and winding down the war in Palestine. Seven in 10 likely voters support a permanent cease-fire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza, according to Data for Progress. 

Though Harris has spoken about Israel’s right to defend itself, the vice president plans to “convey her view that it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom, and self-determination,” the aide said. 

Harris’s decision not to appear next to Netanyahu “probably wasn’t an accident,” a former senior Biden administration official told The Times of Israel, as Harris may look to differentiate herself slightly from Joe Biden’s ironclad support of Israel. 

According to one person close to the vice president’s office, Harris believes the United States should be “tougher” on Netanyahu and “more forceful at seeking a long-term peace and two-state solution,” according to Politico. 

Biden will likely meet with Netanyahu on Thursday, after their meeting was briefly up in the air. A date for the meeting with Harris has not been set. While in town, the prime minister will also meet with several congressional leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.  

Aides to both Donald Trump and Netanyahu have confirmed they will also attempt to meet, likely on Tuesday. 

While Netanyahu has many meetings lined up with individual political change-makers, his address to Congress may not be well attended. Fifty to 100 Democrats are expected to skip the speech, likely surpassing the 58 who declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech in 2015. 

It’s only been two days since President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, and Donald Trump is already trying to get out of debating Vice President Kamala Harris.

The former president was up late again Monday night ranting on Truth Social, and turned his attention to ABC News, which is set to hold the second presidential debate on September 10. The change-up in presumptive Democratic presidential nominees means Trump will likely face Harris onstage.

“ABC Fake News is such a joke, among the absolute WORST in the business. They try to make Crooked Joe into a brave warrior because he didn’t have the ‘guts’ to fight it out—He quit!” Trump wrote. “They then tried to make ‘Sleepy’ look like a great President—he was the WORST, and Lyin’ Kamala into a competent person, which she is not. ABC, the home of George Slopadopolus, is not worthy of holding a Debate, of which I hope there will be many!”

In a separate post, Trump also accused the Democratic Party of misleading the Republican Party and “causing it to waste a great deal of time and money.” In another, he labeled Harris the “‘Border Czar’ who never visited the border,” and knocked her for her “absolutely terrible pole [sic] numbers.”

These posts mark day two of Trump’s meltdown over Biden’s withdrawal and endorsement of Harris. In the place of well-reasoned, or spelled, criticisms, Trump seems set on airing his grievances over the next debate, possibly to create a context for skipping it altogether.

“Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC,” Trump wrote on Sunday. It’s not clear why these two thoughts are connected, but one thing is certain: Trump is scared enough of Harris to seek a friendlier debate venue.

When it came to Biden, Trump said he’d debate him “anytime, any place.” Now it’s only sometimes and a few specific places. Although, to be sure, Trump did a lot of whining about the first debate too. He tried desperately to undermine the credibility of the hosts and Biden’s performance before it had even happened.

Ultimately, Trump was able to flourish in CNN’s controlled environment, where his many baseless claims went uninterrupted, and undisputed until after the program had ended.

Republicans are scrambling to come up with talking points against Kamala Harris now that President Joe Biden has pulled out of the presidential race and endorsed her—and it’s not going well.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee released a memo Monday with suggestions to Republicans on how to attack Harris, and many of them are attempts to transfer their criticisms of Biden onto Harris. These include calling Harris Biden’s “border czar and the architect of his biggest failure” and accusing her of “siding with Hamas terrorists, not Israel.”

But at the bottom of the memo is a section titled “Weird,” which seems more hilarious than cutting. Among the attempted criticisms are “Kamala Harris loves Venn diagrams,” “Kamala Harris loves electric school busses because she went to school on a school bus,” and “Kamala Harris recently discovered that electricity doesn’t smell.”

The memo shows that Republicans don’t have any new ammunition to use against Harris beyond their standard attacks on most Democrats. The “Weird” section is especially weak considering convicted felon and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s own litany of weird stuff, like that time he went on a bizarre rant about sharks and electric batteries or, more seriously, his history of disgusting comments about his own daughter. And that’s barely scratching the surface.

It’s pretty clear that the GOP was taken by surprise with Biden’s announcement to leave the race and his subsequent endorsement of Harris on Sunday. They’ve been freaking out ever since and, despite earlier reports that Harris taking over was a real possibility, they apparently have only come up with weak lines of attack. They are reportedly even second-guessing Trump’s running-mate choice, J.D. Vance, as he seems to have been selected to drive up turnout from the MAGA base against a weak Biden rather than attract swing voters away from Harris, whose popularity has been rising in the last day.

As Monday began, Vance had already made one boring, low-energy speech at the Republican National Convention last week. By the late afternoon, he added another one in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, where he attempted a weird, anti-woke punch line about diet Mountain Dew that fell flat with his friendly audience. If Republicans think they are offering something normal to Americans in the face of Democratic weirdness, they may soon receive a rude wake-up call.

As Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Washington, D.C., this week with a plan to address Congress, he may not be meeting with President Joe Biden.

Citing a source in the Israeli prime minister’s office, Axios’s Barak Ravid reports that Netanyahu’s meeting with Biden, originally scheduled for Tuesday, isn’t expected to happen.

“We are still waiting for an answer from the White House,” the official said.

Only last week, the White House said that Biden was expected to meet with Netanyahu this week, despite the president being diagnosed with Covid-19 on Wednesday. Now that Biden has withdrawn from the race, circumstances seem to have changed, although it’s possible he may still be experiencing symptoms from the virus.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday, despite a backlash and calls to boycott the address from Democrats. Some Democrats have reportedly discussed attending the speech but protesting or disrupting it in some way, and Speaker Mike Johnson has threatened police action in response.

But the most conspicuous action at Netanyahu’s address might be Vice President Kamala Harris’s absence. The Biden campaign scheduled Harris to speak at a campaign event in Indianapolis, likely not by accident, which, coupled with the possibility of Biden choosing to meet with Netanyahu, could signal a shift in U.S. policy toward Israel, or at least toward Netanyahu.

Biden’s support for Netanyahu and Israel’s brutal war in Gaza cost him a lot of support, particularly from young people and communities of color, and may have been a contributing factor in his decision to withdraw from the presidential race. Netanyahu is arriving in Washington as the International Criminal Court has filed for arrest warrants for him, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and top Hamas leaders over accusations of war crimes. Is Biden finally seeking the wisdom of cutting ties with Bibi? If so, the next step is to take action to push for a cease-fire and cut off weapons shipments to Israel.

J.D. Vance’s weird, anti-woke punch line fell flat at his own sleepy speaking event on Monday.

Vance held a rally at his former high school in Middletown, Ohio, where hundreds gathered to hear the views of Donald Trump’s newly minted vice presidential candidate. But even as a hometown hero, the Ohio senator suffered some brutally awkward moments.

“It is the weirdest thing to me: Democrats say that it is racist to believe—well, they say it’s racist to do anything,” said Vance. “I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday, and one today. I’m sure they’re probably gonna call that racist too.” Around the room there were some scattered laughs.

“It’s good,” he said after a beat, drawing more polite laughter from the rally attendees. Vance let out his own breathy laugh at his comment, slapping the podium in front of him. “I love you guys,” he said, smiling and laughing.

Vance’s weak swing at a joke landed as a lazy attempt to score some culture-war points. And that wasn’t the only cringey moment during his time on stage. While there was a lot of laughter throughout Vance’s 40-minute speech, much of it appeared to come from him.

“I was told I was going to get to debate Kamala Harris; now President Trump is going to get to debate her?” Vance said, laughing again. At one point, he lost his train of thought after the crowd began to boo Harris, and started nervously laughing again.

While this would escape the interest of any normal person, it’s worth noting because his running mate has repeatedly called Vice President Kamala Harris “Laughing Kamala.” Like Vance’s quip about diet soda, this approach to criticism seems to stem from having absolutely nothing of substance to say about a subject, but giving it their best shot anyway.

Overall, the Republican’s performance was so underwhelming that even Fox News stopped airing coverage of Vance’s speech in the middle of his remarks.

Vance’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week was similarly kind of boring. At the time, it seemed like it could be an intentional play not to overshadow Trump, which the former president famously hates. But with Vance’s most recent display, it seems that sluggish performance might’ve been unavoidable.

Kamala Harris will most likely not appear beside Benjamin Netanyahu when he speaks to Congress this week. Former senior Biden administration officials say that was likely by design.

Harris declined to attend Netanyahu’s joint address later this week, Axios journalist Juliegrace Brufke reported Monday. And the decision was made before Joe Biden announced he was withdrawing from the 2024 race.

The vice president would have sat directly behind Netanyahu’s podium during the Wednesday event. Instead, last week, Biden’s campaign had scheduled her to speak in Indianapolis.

“That probably wasn’t an accident,” a former senior administration official told The Times of Israel. The source theorized that Biden may keep Harris away from the White House while Netanyahu is in town to avoid images that feature Harris associating with the Israeli prime minister. This would mark a significant shift in U.S. policy, if appearing with Netanyahu is suddenly viewed as a bad thing.

At the same time, Harris is receiving flack from Zionist organizations over comments she made about student protests in support of Palestine in an interview with The Nation earlier this month. The Zionist Organization of America accused Harris of endorsing “Arab Islamist criminality,” among other racist remarks.

However, a current U.S. official said that a future Harris administration’s policies on Palestine won’t differ much from Biden’s. “Vice President Harris shares President Biden’s support for an iron-clad U.S. commitment to Israel’s security coupled with a commitment to advancing a two-state solution in order to bring an end to this cycle of violence,” the official said, speaking anonymously.

But Biden may also snub Netanyahu. A senior official in his office told reporters that Netanyahu may not meet with the U.S. president after all. Meanwhile, a record number of Democrats are set to boycott Netanyahu’s speech.

Representative Nancy Pelosi is throwing her “enthusiastic support” behind Kamala Harris for president.

“Today, it is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States,” Pelosi wrote in a statement Monday. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for President is official, personal and political.”

Despite holding off a day longer than other Democrats, the fellow Bay Area politician has made clear she approves of Joe Biden’s decision to step down and hand the torch to Harris.

“Officially, I have seen Kamala Harris’s strength and courage as a champion for working families, notably fighting for a woman’s right to choose. Personally, I have known Kamala Harris for decades as rooted in strong values, faith and a commitment to public service,” she wrote. “Politically, make no mistake: Kamala Harris as a woman in politics is brilliantly astute—and I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.”

After Biden dropped out, Pelosi and Harris spoke by phone on Sunday, according to Axios.

Though Pelosi never officially called for Biden to step down, she played a critical role in strong-arming him to bow out. Privately, Pelosi warned Biden about the ripple effects for other Democrats on the ballot. Additionally, she appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe saying she wanted Biden “to do whatever he decides to do,” while at the time Biden had made clear he planned to remain in the race.

While much of the Democratic establishment is falling in line behind Harris, those yet to endorse her include former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke with Donald Trump earlier this month about getting a job in the White House in exchange for endorsing him as president.

The Washington Post reported Monday that in the hours after Trump’s attempted assassination last week, Kennedy received a message from the former president’s team asking to talk. At the time, Kennedy had been giving interviews about the attack.

Later that night, the two men spoke on the phone, and weighed the price of Kennedy’s support: a job in Trump’s administration. But apparently Kennedy’s job interview quickly fell apart.

Some on Trump’s team were reportedly concerned about offering the independent candidate an official role in return for his endorsement, according to sources who spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity. So nothing materialized for either candidate.

A segment of a phone call between Kennedy and Trump was previously leaked on social media, in which the former president could be heard claiming that vaccines cause autism. Although Kennedy insisted before Congress last summer that he had “never been anti-vaxx,” he previously claimed that there was “no vaccine that was safe and effective,” and said he believed vaccines cause autism.

“I would love you to do something,” Trump said during that call. “And I think it would be so good for you. And so big for you. And we’re going to win. We’re going to win. We’re way ahead of the guy.” It was previously unclear what exactly Trump was referring to, but now it seems likely they were talking about a potential gig for the conspiracy-touting independent.

Kennedy apologized for the leak, and on Monday, he began praising Trump. “I have a lot of respect for President Trump for reaching out to me. Nobody from the DNC, high or low, has ever reached out to me in 18 months. Instead they have allocated millions to try to disrupt my campaign,” he said in an interview with the Post.

He added that he would continue his campaign.

A Trump spokesperson tried to downplay the significance of the meeting between the two. “President Trump met with RFK and they had a conversation about the issues just as he does regularly with important figures in business and politics because they all recognize he will be the next president of the United States,” said Danielle Alvarez.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris Monday morning and ripped Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance in the process.

Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Beshear touted Harris’s previous record as a prosecutor, saying that she is “kind and has empathy, which can make her a great president.

“The contrast between her and those running on the other side couldn’t be clearer,” Beshear said, pointing out that Harris prosecuted rapists and abusers, while Vance’s words about rape were egregious.

“Vance calls pregnancy arising from rape ‘inconvenient.’ No, it’s just plain wrong,” Beshear said. “He suggests that women should stay in abusive relationships. Listen, a domestic abuser isn’t a man, he’s a monster.”

Beshear’s endorsement carries a lot of weight, as he’s a twice-elected Democratic governor presiding over a red Southern state in Kentucky. He also has been discussed as a possible vice presidential running mate for Harris, even before Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential election Sunday, and in Monday’s interview, he hinted that he would be interested in the role.

“The only way I would consider something other than this current job is if I believe I could further help my people and to help this country,” Beshear said. When pressed further, he added, “I think if somebody calls you on that, what you do is you at least listen.”

Beshear is one of the most popular governors in America. An October poll found that he has the highest net approval rating of any Democratic governor in a red state. As Harris and her campaign decide who would be the ideal running mate for the Democratic ticket, Beshear’s success in Kentucky can only help his prospects.

On Monday, Mike Pence praised Biden’s decision to end his presidential bid and called for national unity. Despite the normalcy of Pence’s rhetoric, MAGA posters immediately began blasting the former vice president for his supposed traitorousness.

“President Joe Biden made the right decision for our country and I thank him for putting the interests of our Nation ahead of his own,” Pence wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “After the assassination attempt on President Trump and President Biden’s decision to end his campaign, now is a time for leaders in both parties to project calm and send a message of strength and resolve to America’s friends and enemies alike that, whatever the state of our politics, the American people are strong and our American military stands ready to defend our freedom and our vital national interests anywhere in the world.”

The statement was a tame call for national unity (albeit with some jingoism peppered in). Pence biographer Tom LoBianco called it “remarkably normal given the tone of things.”

But Pence has been persona non grata in Trump world since his refusal to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and his post was flooded with replies deeming his banal call for civility further proof of his turncoat status.

The conservative interest group the Association of Mature American Citizens posted, “Praising Biden, pathetic.” Conservative commentator Joey Mannarino said, “This is why we consider you a traitor, Mike. Fuck off.” Various other MAGA accounts left comments like, “Judas Pence has spoken,” “You knew what was at risk by certifying a stolen election yet you did it anyway,” “We are only in this mess because of you, so shut the fuck up,” and so on.

The MAGA outrage over Pence’s quite ordinary statement reveals his own party’s limited appetite for the unity he espouses.