Why Are Biden Officials Deleting Tweets Calling for Israeli Restraint?

The Biden administration has sparked backlash for posting and then deleting tweets that called for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel, killing about 900 people. Israel has since responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water, and electricity. More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the counteroffensive—and the death toll on both sides is expected to quickly rise.

On Saturday, before the conflict really escalated, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss a solution. Blinken then shared a statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying he “encouraged Turkey’s advocacy for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.”

He quickly deleted the post and replaced it with a statement that said only, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.”

Blinken’s fast 180 was the second time the State Department backtracked on a statement calling for Israeli restraint.

Hours after the initial attack, the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs said on X that it “unequivocally condemned the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred. We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

The office soon deleted the post and shared a statement saying only that it “unequivocally” condemned the attack.

Hamas said Monday that it would be open to discussing a truce or “something of that sort” with Israeli officials. The group said it had “achieved its targets.”

The State Department flip-flopping on a ceasefire is confusing at best. The agency’s entire job is to promote diplomacy, so surely its ultimate goal should be an end to all fighting. Instead, it is letting right-wing backlash determine its next moves.

Robert Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he is switching his presidential candidacy to run as an independent, confirming what everyone knew all along.

Kennedy Jr. raised eyebrows when he first announced in April that he would run as a Democrat. Since then, he has spent more time courting conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists than actual Democratic voters.

So when he told a press conference Monday that he is declaring himself “an independent candidate for president of the United States,” it didn’t come as much of a surprise.

Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaxxer, has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories such as that Covid-19 is the fault of Chinese people and Jewish people. Despite being a renowned environmental lawyer, Kennedy invited a climate change conspiracy theorist to one of his fundraising events.

The vast majority of his campaign donors are Republican, as are growing numbers of his campaign staff. Kennedy Jr. also initially agreed to speak at the far-right Moms for Liberty summit over the summer, although he ultimately backed out.

And the right wing has opened its arms to Kennedy Jr., drooling over his muscles and commiserating with him about supposedly being silenced on social media. One of Kennedy Jr.’s earliest campaign events was an audio space on X (then called Twitter) with platform owner Elon Musk. For nearly two hours, the two men just swapped compliments.

Independent candidates historically perform poorly in the general election. They are more often viewed as spoilers who strip just enough votes away from one major candidate to tip the election toward the other.

In the case of RFK Jr., his embrace of far-right talking points is expected to woo voters away from Donald Trump. Current polling indicates his favorability ratings are far higher among Republicans. It’s unlikely he’ll pull a lot of voters away from Trump, but he could pull just enough to turn the election decisively for Joe Biden.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s newest conspiracy theory about the ongoing war in Gaza is so outlandish that even Russian state media is fact-checking her.

Greene was expanding on a conspiracy theory floated by Donald Trump Jr., who suggested late Saturday that Palestinian militants were using guns supplied by the Taliban. But Greene took things a step further the next day by saying that the weapons may also have come from Ukraine.

“We need to work with Israel to track serial numbers on any U.S. weapons used by Hamas against Israel,” she tweeted Sunday. “Did they come from Afghanistan? Did they come from Ukraine?”

“Highly likely the answer is both.”

Hours later, Russian state news outlet RT had fact-checked her: “Thus far, no solid evidence has emerged to support these claims,” RT said.

Greene and Trump based their theory on the same video, which supposedly shows a Hamas militant thanking Ukraine for providing U.S.-made weapons. The video has not been verified and therefore cannot be cited as fact.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel, killing more than 700 people. Israel has responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip. More than 550 Palestinians have been killed in the counteroffensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sworn to completely “change the Middle East” over Hamas’s attack.

Nikki Haley refused to condemn Donald Trump for saying that people he doesn’t like should be killed, a chilling sign of how the Republican Party is starting to embrace authoritarian violence.

Trump went off the deep end two weeks ago, accusing former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley of treason and implying the now-retired general should be put to death. Republicans have been quick to echo Trump’s call.

In a Sunday night interview, Haley tried to avoid explicitly condemning Trump himself. “I just think it’s irresponsible,” she said blandly, when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker if Trump should be disqualified from the presidential race over his statement.

“You don’t need to say things like that,” Haley continued, with all the force of reprimanding a mildly misbehaving toddler. “I think that any man or woman that has served our country deserves the highest respect.… They sacrifice a lot, their families sacrifice a lot, and we should honor them every chance we get.”

It should go without saying, but Trump making comments like this is incredibly dangerous. His followers have shown themselves quick to spring to action. Hundreds of January 6 defendants have said they descended on Washington because Trump personally called on them.

The fact that Haley refused to give a straightforward answer (which would have risked angering Trump and alienating his supporters) is a sign of how much influence Trump still holds over the Republican Party. And this is just as dangerous as his statement about Milley.

“Apparently the idea of executing Milley is now the Party Line,” historian and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweeted about Haley’s interview. “We are living through real-time preparation for an authoritarian crackdown.”

“We are in [the] phase of ‘getting the public used to the idea of violence.’ Having authoritative voices like Haley endorse violence is key.”

One of the witnesses in Donald Trump’s New York business fraud trial admitted Friday that he regularly committed tax fraud.

Jeff McConney served as a Trump Organization executive from 1987 until February of this year. He was granted immunity in exchange for helping prosecutors, and has previously admitted to breaking the law to help company executives avoid taxes. On Friday, he shed even more light on what exactly that entailed.

Andrew Amer, a lawyer for the Office of the New York State Attorney General, asked McConney whether he had been asked more than once to help Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg commit tax fraud. McConney said yes.

McConney also admitted that Weisselberg had told him to process a payroll check for Weisselberg’s wife so she could get Social Security benefits, even though she was not a Trump Organization employee.

McConney has previously acknowledged he knew he was breaking the law. He testified Friday that he continued to commit fraud because Weisselberg was his boss, and McConney knew he would likely lose his job if he stopped obeying.

McConney also admitted to helping fraudulently inflate the value of multiple Trump Organization real estate assets. One such property was the Seven Springs estate in Westchester, New York. Trump’s son Eric was planning in 2012 to develop the property for seven houses.

The houses were valued at $161 million—how much they would be worth if they were immediately available. The Trump Organization did not take into account that the value would actually be lower in the present due to the years it would take to actually build the homes, the cost of building them, and the cost of marketing them.

McConney continued to value the homes as producing a $23 million profit for the next three years. In 2015, the homes had not been built, and the Trump Organization instead donated the land rights to conservation, giving the organization the right to a hefty tax deduction.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump and the Trump Organization in September 2022 for business fraud. She has accused him of dramatically inflating his net worth by lying about the value of his real estate holdings, including his Trump Tower apartment and his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Trump has denied the charges, but he more or less admitted to fraud earlier this week. He insisted Tuesday that his organization’s financial documents were not the least bit fraudulent—but even if they were, he couldn’t be held responsible because it was up to the lenders and insurers to fact-check that.