Democratic Senators Urge Biden to Stop Arming Israel

A cohort of senators in the Democratic caucus is calling on President Joe Biden to immediately suspend military aid to Israel on Monday, so long as it continues to block U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Eight senators, led by independent Senator Bernie Sanders, claimed that Israel’s interference in the delivery of humanitarian aid to the decimated region violates a humanitarian aid subsection of the Foreign Assistance Act.

“The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history,” read the letter to Biden.

“The Netanyahu government’s interference with humanitarian operations has prevented U.S.- financed aid from reaching its intended recipients in a safe and timely manner,” it continued. “In recent weeks, humanitarian access has seriously deteriorated. That reality was underscored by your decision last week, which we support, to begin air dropping supplies to desperate civilians in north Gaza.”

“Federal law is clear, and, given the urgency of the crisis in Gaza, and the repeated refusal of Prime Minister Netanyahu to address U.S. concerns on this issue, immediate action is necessary to secure a change in policy by his government,” the senators wrote.

The letter notes, however, that withdrawal on the basis of the statute would not stop continued support for Israel’s missile defense system, better known as the Iron Dome.

Biden himself sparred with Netanyahu over the weekend. On Saturday, Biden urged the Israeli leader to consider the innocent lives lost in the ongoing war, insisting that the conflict is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” But Netanyahu brushed those off the following day, telling Politico that his intention to crush Palestine is supported by the majority of his citizens.

“The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7: ‘We don’t want to see a Palestinian state,’” he said.

More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in what a top United Nations court is deliberating as genocide. Roughly two-thirds of the rising death toll consists of women and children, according to data collected by Al Jazeera. So far, Israel has reportedly utilized starvation as a weapon of war, blocking or destroying access to water, food, fuel, electricity, and medical aid.

Special counsel Robert Hur sought advice before testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. And the adviser he picked has deep ties to Donald Trump.

Hur, whom Trump appointed to the Justice Department in 2017, investigated Joe Biden for keeping classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Although Biden was not charged, Hur’s report damningly described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur officially resigned from the Department of Justice on Monday, the day before his testimony.

His departure already raised red flags for some people. Had he still been a federal employee, the Justice Department would have been more involved in Hur’s testimony and behavior during the hearing, making sure both followed department ethics guidelines. But as a private citizen, Hur is freed from those constraints.

More concerning, though, is the man that private citizen Hur picked to help him prepare ahead of testifying. Hur has been working with William Burck, a longtime lawyer with deep ties to both the Republican establishment and Trump’s inner circle, as well as a history of stonewalling Democratic efforts.

Burck served in George W. Bush’s administration, first as the president’s deputy counsel, then as special counsel, and finally as White House deputy staff secretary. When he left office, Bush designated Burck as one of his official representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration.

Burck has primarily been in the private sector since then, including serving on the board of Fox News parent company Fox Corporation since 2021. In his law practice, Burck has had some major clients in recent years. He represented three Trump White House officials during the Robert Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Burck worked with Trump’s first White House counsel, Don McGahn, his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his 2016 campaign chair and White House strategist, Steve Bannon.

But Burck’s ties to Trump go even further. In mid- to late 2018, he was tasked with reviewing more than 100,000 pages of Bush-era records related to now–Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the high court in July 2018. Burck advised Trump to invoke executive privilege over those documents, blocking Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee from seeing them during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process—which later turned into a painful and drawn-out investigation rife with sexual assault allegations against the nominee.

When Hur was tapped to look into Biden, he was supposed to be a nonpartisan investigator. Instead, he ultimately handed Republicans a major tool in discrediting the president’s mental capabilities. And his choice of counsel doesn’t make him look much better.

Donald Trump has expanded his canonical universe again, this time brandishing himself with a new character and a new name: “Honest Don.”

Like any good writer, Trump was up burning the midnight oil on Tuesday, penning a new chapter in a political saga in which he plays the glorious, faultless counterpart to President Joe Biden’s “Crooked Joe.”

“Dean Phillips, who just ‘quit’ in his hapless campaign against Crooked Joe Biden, was not very good at his craft, politics,” Trump started on Truth Social, inexplicably dunking on Phillips who won zero delegates during the Democratic primary, coming behind “uncommitted” on the ballot. “In fact, I would say that he was far worse than the Republican challengers to me, with a few exceptions.”

But then Trump tore into the meat of his new narrative, all but promising a debate between himself and his presidential rival.

“I’ll give you those names if you like, but I’d rather get down to the serious business of defeating the worst President in the history of the United States, by far, Crooked Joe Biden!!! For the good of our now failing Nation, and in order to inform the American people of what is going on in our Country, we must immediately have a full scale debate between Crooked Joe and Honest Don,” he continued.

“I’m ready to go, ANY TIME, ANY PLACE!”

That is, despite the fact that Trump didn’t attend a single debate this election season, refusing to appear onstage with any of his Republican primary opponents. Trump also skipped opportunities to debate Biden during their first matchup in 2020, after Biden used their first debate to slap Trump down, calling him a “clown” and telling him to “shut up.”

Biden, for his part, told reporters on Friday that he would consider debating the presumed GOP nominee—on one condition.

“It depends on his behavior,” Biden said.

Of course, we need not remind you which candidate is a rapist, convicted of fraud, and contending with 91 criminal charges that include efforts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results, hoarding troves of classified documents away from the Justice Department, and paying off a porn star to stay mum about an affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats hilariously highlighted Donald Trump’s many memory gaffes on Tuesday with a montage of some of his biggest goofs.

The House Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony from Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Joe Biden for keeping classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Although Biden was not charged, Hur’s report damningly described him as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Republicans have seized on this portrayal to bolster their claims that Biden is suffering from cognitive decline.

But ranking Judiciary member Jerry Nadler expertly pointed out that representatives in glass Houses shouldn’t throw stones. At the start of the hearing, Nadler entered into evidence a supercut of Trump’s latest slip-ups.

“That is a man who is incapable of avoiding criminal liability,” Nadler said. “A man who is wholly unfit for office, and a man who at the very least ought to think twice before accusing others of cognitive decline.”

Recently, despite repeatedly bragging about how he aced a dementia test, Trump has mixed up Biden and Barack Obama, Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi, and Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He has referred to the country of Argentina as a person and appeared to forget how to say “Venezuela.”

The video montage also included clips of Trump insisting that immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border “don’t speak languages” and that if Democrats prevail in November, they will change the name of the state of Pennsylvania. In another, damning clip, Trump confused E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples.

And yet he and his allies continue to insist that Biden is mentally incapable of holding office.

Most of the judges overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trials are weighing options of anonymity and secrecy for their jurors and witnesses, wary of the political blowback from the ideologue’s sycophantic followers. But those judges don’t include Judge Aileen Cannon, whose handling of witnesses has thrust at least one into the limelight, with “Trump employee number 5” revealing himself as former Mar-a-Lago worker Brian Butler.

In a CNN interview released on Monday, Butler admitted to unwittingly helping Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta, transport boxes filled with the documents onto a private jet from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster, New Jersey, ahead of a meeting between Trump and the Justice Department in June 2022—two months before the FBI raid at the Florida estate.

“We got to the airport. I ended up loading all the luggage I had—and he had a bunch of boxes,” Butler said. “They were the boxes that were in the indictment, the white banker’s boxes. That’s what I remember loading.”

His confession corroborates prior reporting, including a clip capturing several individuals hauling boxes across the tarmac during the spring of 2022.

But why confess now? According to Butler, that’s all thanks to an impending decision from the Trump-appointed judge.

“It’s been almost a year since FBI agents showed up at my house when my wife was at home. And you know, over the course of the last year, emotionally, it’s been a roller-coaster. A couple of weeks ago, Judge Cannon says she’s going to release the names of the witnesses. You go from highs and lows in this,” Butler said.

“And instead of just waiting for it to just come out, I think it’s better that I get to at least say what happened, than it coming out in the news, people calling me crazy,” he continued. “I’d rather just get it out there, and the hope is, at least I can move on with my life and get over this.”

The public confession is especially alarming to federal prosecutors, who described Cannon’s choice to oust witnesses as “disturbing … on multiple levels.”

“Reminder: Cannon’s actions have consequences,” posted attorney Bradley P. Moss.

In February, special counsel Jack Smith urged Cannon to reconsider her order to unseal the identities of multiple prospective witnesses, arguing that doing so could expose witnesses to “significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment.”

Despite the new information, none of this appears to be expediting the case. Instead, even conservative commentators have accused Cannon of “slow walking” an “open-and-shut, serious case” in order to delay it past Election Day.