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.