Tag Archive for: Joe Biden

Biden Focuses On Issues Americans Care Least About In Biggest Speech Of Presidency

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President Joe Biden set aside immigration, inflation and crime to lead his 2024 State of the Union speech with a trio of issues that hardly register in polls of the American people.

During the first ten minutes of his 2024 State of the Union address, Biden spent his time discussing the war in Ukraine and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot before moving on to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. At least an hour after the president was scheduled to take the podium, he finally touched on concerns about his age, the southern border crisis and answered the growing calls to say Laken Riley’s name, the deceased Georgia 22-year-old who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant.

“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” the 81-year-old began. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.”

“In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way. But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world,” he continued.

After stressing his message to Putin and making a pitch for more Ukraine aid, Biden pivoted to another topic that occurred nearly three and a half years ago: the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The president never addressed former President Donald Trump by name, rather referring to him as his predecessor.

“January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden said. “But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed. But we must be honest the threat remains and democracy must be defended.”

“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th. I will not do that,” Biden continued.

Biden cast the recovery from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as a story of American comeback.

“America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America, in all Americans to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind,” Biden said.

“The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer,” he continued.

While Biden and his advisors deemed Ukraine, COVID-19 and the January 6th Capitol as the best topics to open the address with, the American people have indicated an interest in other topics. Immigration is now Americans’ top concern, with 28% naming it their top priority, according to a February Gallup poll. Twenty percent of American voters called “government” their top priority while 12% named the “economy in general.”

Only nine percent of Americans called “threats to democracy,” a common phrase Biden and his allies have used to characterize Trump and his administration, their top priority, according to a January Data for Progress survey.

Just 3% of American voters said foreign aid and issues overseas are their priority — the very topic Biden chose to open his State of the Union with.

Those issues that Americans have deemed their top concerns came in the second half of Biden’s speech, about thirty minutes into his address. When discussing the border crisis, the president repeated his calls for Congress to pass a supplemental funding bill that would provide funds to stem the border crisis, while also giving aid to both Ukraine and Israel. Most notably, the president was confronted by Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, who called out during the address and begged the president to say the name of Riley.

Biden tried to, but he botched Riley’s first name and instead referring to her as “Lincoln.”

“Lincoln. Lincoln Riley,” Biden said, holding up a pin with the late female’s name. “The innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right.”

The slip-up was the only major flub for Biden, who saved the final moments of his speech to address his age, another key concern for voters.

“Now some other people my age see a different story. An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me,” Biden said, before going on to tout the experience his age gives him.

Biden’s fitness for office remained a main concern ahead of his address. At least 66% of American voters are worried about Biden’s age and health ahead of the 2024 election, according to a Feb. 6 NBC poll. But the worries for Biden’s health truly ignited following special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the president’s handling of classified documents last month. Hur noted that in a five hour interview with the special counsel, the president appeared to forget when he began and ended his vice presidency and was unable to identify the date that late son passed away.

There was an emphasis on the president’s energy during his State of the Union address, a moment his re-election campaign is reportedly planning to use as a reset while he trails in the polls. In preparation, Biden reportedly spent ample time fine tuning his address and doing physical tests. Regardless of the prep work, some Democrats and allies still feared potential gaffes.

“If I was smart I would go home now,” Biden said as he took the podium.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

ROOKE: D.C. Republicans Prove The Swamp Is As Infested And Useless As Ever

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After losing over and over again, state after state, to former President Donald Trump, Nikki Haley finally won a Republican Primary race in the District of Columbia.

If Republican voters were ever in doubt about whether Republicans in D.C. understand them and the issues facing everyday Americans, Haley’s win should solidify in their minds that they don’t. In the 2020 general election, D.C. voters overwhelmingly voted for President Joe Biden. Trump garnered just 5% of the vote in the district. The 2024 GOP primary was more of the same. Only about 2,000 people voted, and of that sampling, Haley won 63% of the vote to Trump’s 33%.

In open primary states, Haley has been able to hang on because Democrats are willing to jump the aisle to side with the “anyone but Trump” option in hopes their failing candidate, Biden, will be able to sneak out a win in November against a candidate adamantly rejected by the Republican base.

However, D.C. is not an open primary. Only registered Republicans can vote in the D.C. primary, making her win an eye-opener for voters about who is running the offices of the most important officials in the country.

Haley is not the base’s choice in Iowa, South Carolina, Michigan, Missouri, Idaho, New Hampshire, etc., but the D.C. political class overwhelmingly supports her. The people who think they know better than the Republican base about what issues and policies are good for them love Haley.

Chair of the D.C. Republican Party Patrick Mara and Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors Dan Schuberth perfectly encapsulated this point with their quotes about Haley’s win to Politico.

“This universe is a little more sophisticated than just about any universe in any other state,” Mara told the outlet. “I listen to the political podcasts in the morning. I read the newsletters throughout the day. That’s probably, like, half the people showing up at this.”

“You’ve got a really dialed-in political class,” Schuberth, who hosted Haley’s D.C. campaign stop, said. “You know, folks read POLITICO. They read The Hill. Folks here are reading the Washington Post.”

Mara and Schuberth are among the Republicans living inside the D.C. echo chamber who believe that reading mainstream media newsletters and political punditry, knowing all the people working on the campaigns and living in the district gives them a better understanding of what’s good for Americans. In the political class system, they would consider themselves at the top, while a family of six burdened by the economic and social repercussions of their hubris is an uninformed lemming.

Haley’s presidential campaign has been nothing short of a wish list for the old guard of the Republican Party that flies in direct contrast to the new GOP. Middle America does not want to send their boys to fight in another endless war in the desert, where death is inevitable. Parents are disgusted with the state of the U.S. education system, which acts as an indoctrination camp for far-left policies. Working-class Americans can not only see but feel how illegal immigration puts their families at risk, lowers their wages, and makes them compete for jobs that are rightfully theirs.

Trump captures the angst of everyday Americans in the way the Democrats used to do, while Haley campaigns like a Reagan-era Republican devoid of this insight. He stands up for these people, tells them it’s okay to recognize how these policies affect them, and promises to right the wayward ship once he’s back in office.

To disregard this reality the way the GOP political class does is why the base will take two steps forward and one step back. While at the state level, Republicans are fortifying election integrity, fighting back against open borders and killing the infestation of DEI, the D.C. swamp is terrified even to admit these issues are a problem, much less take the fight to the radicals implementing them.

It takes a level of ignorance and arrogance to tell Republican voters they can’t have the safe, prosperous country they grew up in. That their wish to have policies focused on putting Americans first isn’t popular or winnable when Trump beats their preferred candidate, Haley, into the ground in every state, gaining momentum with each victory. He’s a political force not just because of his one-liners and smash-mouth style of campaigning but because he gave a voice to the base when everyone else told them to forget their patriotism, forget their American dream and instead bow down to the global machine ruining their country.

AUTHOR

MARY ROOKE

Commentary and analysis writer.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Hunter And His Uncle Can’t Get Their Story Straight About Key Meeting With Joe Biden

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James Biden’s Feb. 21 closed-door congressional testimony conflicted with testimonies given by both Hunter Biden and Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter’s.

James Biden says a meeting between him, Hunter, Bobulinski and Joe Biden at a California hotel during the 2017 Milken Institute conference never occurred, according to a transcript of his February testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Hunter Biden, however, attested that he, James, Bobulinski and his father did in fact meet at a hotel bar during his Wednesday testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees.

Hunter Biden testified that he, Bobulinski and his uncle were drinking coffee in a hotel bar at 11 p.m. while waiting to meet with Joe Biden. Once Joe Biden arrived, he shook hands with Bobulinski, and the two spoke, according to Hunter’s testimony.

Hunter was unable to recall any details of the conversation between Bobulinski and his father beyond them talking about Bobulinski’s family member who was suffering from cancer.

Bobulinski claims to remember more details about the conversation.

Joe Biden met with the trio to discuss a business deal related to CEFC China Energy, a Chinese Communist Party-linked corporation, according to Bobulinski’s Feb. 13 testimony before the House Oversight Committee. Bobulinski said “the only reason I was there” was to talk business with the Bidens.

Joe Biden claimed in August 2023 he never “talked business” with Hunter’s associates.

James Biden, when asked about the alleged conversation with Joe Biden, said, “that I know did not happen.”

James Biden claimed that he “could have been there just with Tony Bobulinski” and that he “could have been there with Hunter as well” but that Joe Biden “was never there.”

James Biden previously denied having anything to do with Hunter’s CEFC China Energy dealings but changed his story when investigators presented him with a copy of an agreement featuring his signature alongside Hunter Biden and his business associates.

James Biden brushed off the possible reputational damage to his family over their Chinese business dealings, citing “plausible deniability,” according to Bobulinski’s testimony.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SCHMAD

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Campaign Co-Chair Suggests Deporting Illegal Immigrants Would Hurt The Economy

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Democratic Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar on Friday suggested that deporting illegal immigrants would have adverse economic consequences.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both visited the border and delivered remarks on Thursday. Escobar, co-chair of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, criticized Trump’s rhetoric and underscored the economic importance of immigrants in the workforce, advocating against deporting them on “CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.”

“Democrats have been willing over the decades to not just address border security as a whole, but also to address our workforce needs and to make sure that we remain a country of immigrants. Immigration is good for us economically,” Escobar asserted. “Republicans have created the current situation and we need solutions. But what Trump is signaling is horrific. He really does want to take us back to an era where people feared being in their own country simply because they belong to a minority group.”

WATCH:

Illegal immigration has massively increased under Biden as millions of migrants from around the world cross the southern border. One of Biden’s first actions in office was to issue executive actions revoking Trump-era border policies, including the Muslim travel ban and the border wall project.

“He‘s willing to violate the Constitution, violate our civil rights, violate constitutional rights,” Escobar told Acosta. “And let me tell you, it is impossible to deport every undocumented person in this country. There simply are not the resources nor is it advantageous to us. I mean, I’m sure you’ve seen the reports, Jim, that it has been immigrant labor, the immigrant workforce that has actually propped up our economy. The challenge we face is that Congress has not created legal pathways for them.”

AUTHOR

JASON COHEN

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Unprecedented’: KJP’s Worst Fears Appear To Be Coming True

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Karine Jean-Pierre has turned over her spotlight to Admiral John Kirby in an “unprecedented” way as the White House barrels toward a pivotal election season, a Daily Caller review of briefing data reveals.

Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Kirby has been a mainstay at briefings alongside Jean-Pierre to answer reporters’ questions about the foreign conflict. Though Americans have indicated the war is not their top concern, Kirby has remained at the briefings — only missing five through January until Feb. 27. Of the briefings he has attended in 2024, 19 out of the 22 total held, Kirby has fielded questions for almost the exact same amount of time as Jean-Pierre.

As of Feb. 27, Jean-Pierre has spent about 11 hours and 31 minutes at the White House press briefing podium this year across 22 briefings. Kirby has answered questions for just under nine hours and two minutes in 19 briefings. In those 19 briefings when Kirby and Jean-Pierre were together, the press secretary spoke for just shy of nine hours and 11 minutes — almost a perfect fifty-fifty split with her counterpart.

“There is no precedent for this. Press secretaries always bring guests, right. It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have the OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] guys brief you on the budget and talk to you about that.’ That’s normal,” Sean Spicer, one-time press secretary for former President Donald Trump, told the Daily Caller. “That’s as old as the job. But this idea that you have a co-press secretary is unprecedented.”

Some other names have made appearances at briefings and gaggles, either alongside Jean-Pierre or Kirby: deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, White House spokesman for oversight and investigations Ian Sams and a few other policy-specific officials from the administration.

But none have appeared nearly as often as Kirby, who Jean-Pierre was reportedly concerned might usurp her as press secretary when she first got the job. Biden “awkwardly” added that Kirby would be joining Jean-Pierre’s team when the president gave her the press secretary position in 2022, leaving her “upset and confused,” according to Axios.

Jean-Pierre’s appointment was lauded as historic and powerful when she got the job — she’s the first black press secretary, and is also a lesbian woman of immigrant parents. From the beginning, things have reportedly been rocky, though — Biden also allegedly said that Jean-Pierre didn’t need to worry because she’d “have an admiral looking over your shoulder,” a comment that was not received well by the new press secretary.

Amid the tension between Kirby and Jean-Pierre, the latter’s top deputy, Dalton, is reportedly ditching the White House for a gig at Apple.

That leaves a clear path to the top job for Kirby. He has told some around the White House he’s interested in the position, according to Axios, but other White House officials denied those accounts.

When it comes to gaggles, Kirby has appeared at more as of late, speaking at seven of them between the start of the year and Feb. 16 for a total of more than an hour and seven minutes. The pair has attended four gaggles together, with Jean-Pierre answering questions for more than 41 minutes.

“I don’t think the dynamic is awkward to begin with. I think they did it under the presence, under the guise of national security and foreign affairs. But the reality is, Kirby has really taken over a lot more, for obvious reasons,” Spicer said. “The press secretary should be able to handle all of the issues and it’s pretty obvious that there’s a level of competence that just doesn’t exist.”

The White House previously attributed Kirby’s frequent presence at briefings to the war in the Middle East, adding that he will be featured less once it subsides, the New York Times reported.

The White House and the National Security Council did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.

Kirby’s attendance at the briefings has dipped slightly. Spanning from Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel until Jan. 5, 2024, Jean-Pierre had only held one press briefing or gaggle on Air Force One by herself, according to an Axios count. Jean-Pierre was always accompanied by Kirby or even on occasion National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

The national security council spokesperson has continued to attend the press briefings alongside Jean-Pierre specifically because the president enjoys it, Axios reported. Biden has reportedly asked the spokesman to personally brief him and also travel with him on both domestic and international trips.

In devoting roughly half their briefing time with Kirby in attendance to foreign affairs, the White House is granting a disproportionate amount of air to issues voters say they aren’t as concerned about. Americans have indicated that they are more interested in domestic topics, with immigration now the top issue among the populous, according to a February Gallup poll. Twenty-eight percent of Americans say the issue is their main priority while just 3% say foreign aid and issues overseas are the most important to them.

The next top concern was government, as 20% of Americans voted it their main worry, the Gallup poll showed. “Economy in general,” inflation, “poverty/hunger/homelessness” and “unifying the country” followed in Americans’ most important issues.

With Kirby focused on issues falling into international affairs, Jean-Pierre remains the public face of the administration on most domestic issues. Biden’s poll numbers on many of those issues are struggling, and some have wondered if she is long for the job. Her predecessor, Jen Psaki, departed the post just shy of the 16-month mark.

Kirby’s performance has been better received by some observers.

“Sometimes I’ll tweet out, like, ‘this was a good job by Kirby.’ I’ve had a number of [Republicans] tell me that Kirby gets it. I mean, I actually think he has the respect of Republicans. And so therefore, they listen to what he has to say and they find him to be a credible messenger. I don’t think anybody respects Karine,” Scott Jennings,  a longtime GOP adviser in Kentucky and veteran of numerous campaigns, told the Daily Caller.

“And so if you’re a White House, and you’re trying to communicate to the larger world and also the people in Washington, you know, your chief messenger has to be credible and respected. I think Kirby has achieved that.”

“I can’t remember a time when this has happened. I mean, it seems to me they give Kirby all the important things to talk about. And they let her talk about the rest,” Jennings told the Daily Caller.

Thomas McGiffin contributed to this report.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why the U.S. is Losing the War to the Houthis

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Two fallen Navy SEALS and only 32 dead terrorists after two months of fighting.

After Biden came home from his Caribbean vacation, the Deputy Defense Secretary came back from hers and the Secretary of Defense was on the verge of being released from the hospital, airstrikes were finally authorized against the Houthi Jihadis attacking ships in the Red Sea.

Biden said that the air strikes sent “a clear message that the United States and our partners will not tolerate attacks on our personnel or allow hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most critical commercial routes.”

The message was not very clear since the Houthis then struck a bulk carrier owned by an American company and spent the next two months terrorizing the Red Sea. The Iranian-backed terror group which seized control of much of Yemen due to Obama’s Arab Spring has launched even more devastating attacks on ships and has now reportedly attacked an undersea cable, after previously deploying an undersea drone and warning of further “submarine” attacks..

The Red Sea siege has affected shipping and commodities prices all over the world. The U.S. Navy ended a lot of its cargo runs in the Red Sea and so have a lot of civilian shipping firms.

Why have the Houthis been able to not only survive, but to escalate their attacks? Because the Biden administration was never serious about taking them out. The original attacks targeted less than 30 sites from a terror group that had shot off over 1,000 rockets and missiles in the previous 7 years and was clearly prepared for an extended campaign of rocket attacks.

Israel had reportedly dropped over 1,000 bombs a day in the first week of the Oct 7 war. While numbers like these were widely criticized as overkill, they worked. There had been over 6,000 Hamas rocket alerts in the first two weeks of the war. Two weeks later, the number had dropped to over 1,000 and currently stands at less than 100. Israel’s massive assault had worked.

Biden’s occasional pinprick attacks barely even slowed down the Houthi attacks.

After the first round of U.S. strikes, right before Biden flew off to Raleigh, North Carolina to promote his plan for subsidized internet, there was a remarkable exchange with a reporter.

“Are the airstrikes in Yemen working?” he was asked.

“Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue?  Yes,” Biden replied.

No one in the press seemed interested in following up the very strange statement. If the airstrikes aren’t working, why carry them out? Was there a plan to step up the strikes? No.

After the initial wave of attacks, the US Navy shifted over to what it euphemistically called “defensive air strikes” against Houthi missiles or rockets that had already been launched or were being prepped for launch. The constant reports about “defensive air strikes” made it sound as if the United States were constantly bombing Yemen, when the US Navy had been allowed to do the bare minimum to prevent and survive more incoming attacks. It wasn’t enough.

Two weeks after the original raids, as the Houthis continued their attacks, Biden authorized follow-up air strikes on a mere 8 locations. A week later, a tanker had been hit and was burning. In early February, Biden signed off on a third round of attacks hitting 36 targets across 13 locations. In the coming weeks, the Houthis shot down the second of two U.S. drones

After multiple Houthi attacks and damage to an underwater cable, Biden now signed off on a fourth round of attacks that hit 18 targets across 8 locations. Will these stop the Houthis?

As Biden already admitted after the first round of attacks, they won’t. But that’s not their purpose. The goal is to maintain some sort of balance of power against the Houthis. The Department of Defense regularly issues official warnings to the Houthis that there will be consequences. But the only consequences are the occasional light air strikes on old Yemeni air defense capabilities and rocket:, some of which date back to the days of the USSR.

So far two American Navy SEALS are dead and Iran has control of the world’s shipping.

And how many of the Houthi Jihadis have been killed? After an initial naval battle in which ten of the terrorists were killed, the Houthis claimed that only five of their men were killed in Biden’s first round of airstrikes. The funerals of another 17 were held after the third round of strikes.

That would make for a total of 32 dead terrorists after two months of fighting the United States.

Are the Houthis understating their casualties? Maybe. But a New York Times article on the Biden administration’s intentions stated that the strategy represents “the administration’s attempt to chip away at the Houthis’ ability to menace merchant ships and military vessels but not hit so hard as to kill large numbers of Houthi fighters and commanders, and potentially unleash even more mayhem into a region”. As if ceding the Red Sea hasn’t done that already.

Chipping away at their arsenals while trying to minimize Houthi deaths has failed miserably.

What is the Biden administration doing wrong? Apart from scale, it’s trying to target Houthi drones and missiles, and some air bases, preferably right before they’re about to be used. This is the same approach that failed in Iraq and it’s also the same approach Israel used to use against Hamas also in an effort to deter attacks, minimize casualties and avoid escalation.

And then Oct 7 happened. Since then, the Israeli military strategy has been to destroy Hamas forces as functioning units rather than target its rocket stockpiles. And it worked. Hamas, like the Houthis, had learned to fire off rockets or drones from disposable locations before running away. Even when rocket stockpiles are taken out, the terrorists can go ahead and build more.

Rockets can be replaced, but organized forces that have trained together are harder to replace. That’s what Israel demonstrated. And it worked. Even though Israel didn’t specifically focus on taking out Hamas rockets, the rocket attacks dropped sharply because there’s no one to shoot them. When rockets are targeted, the terrorists run away and regroup, but when the terrorists are targeted, they have to keep running, so they don’t have the time and space to regroup.

(That is what the proposed hostage deal and the various calls for a ‘ceasefire’ are really about.)

Biden is unwilling to target the Houthis and so they keep attacking.

After two months and over four rounds of larger attacks, the Houthi command and control operations, and their forces, remain intact even if they lost some infrastructure along the way.

This might be excusable if, like Bush in Iraq, Biden really believed that what he was doing would work, but he admitted in a direct quote to the press that he knows what he’s doing won’t work.

Beyond the damage to shipping and the prestige of the United States, two Navy SEALS are dead because the commander-in-chief pursued a military strategy that he knew would fail.

Biden had two options in Yemen. He could either hit the Houthis hard or let them do what they wanted. Both were politically untenable. It would be too politically damaging to go into the primaries inflicting sizable casualties on an Arab Muslim terror group that his pro-terror supporters love and now chant at pro-Hamas ‘ceasefire’ rallies, “turn another ship around.”

But doing nothing while shipping slowed down and prices rose would also be damaging.

Given a choice between alienating the country and his party’s terror supporters, he chose a middle ground of ‘show’ strikes like the kind that Bill Clinton had deployed against Osama bin Laden that will avoid offending terror supporters but also will not end the Houthi attacks.

This strategy serves no one except Biden who has sacrificed the nation’s prestige, a major international waterway and the lives of two U.S. Navy SEALS to win an election.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Federal Court Rules Major Biden Spending Bill Was Passed Unconstitutionally

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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that a $1.7 trillion spending bill was unconstitutionally passed in December 2022 due to the lack of a quorum, blocking enforcement of a law about pregnant women in the workplace.

United States District Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas said that the House of Representatives improperly passed the spending package because a quorum of members was not physically present. The then-Democrat-controlled body allowed proxy voting for the measure, which 215 Democrats and nine Republicans supported.

“Although the Court finds that the passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act violated the Constitution, Texas does not seek an injunction of—and the Court does not enjoin—the entire Act,” Hendrix wrote in the 120-page opinion. “Rather, the Court enjoins only the application of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act against Texas. The relief granted here is limited to abating the injury that Texas has proven will occur.”

“Based on the Quorum Clause’s text, original public meaning, and historical practice, the Court concludes that the Quorum Clause bars the creation of a quorum by including non-present members participating by proxy,” Hendrix added. “Supreme Court precedent has long held that the Quorum Clause requires presence, and the Clause’s text distinguishes those absent members from the quorum and provides a mechanism for obtaining a physical quorum by compelling absent members to attend. This power to compel attendance makes little sense divorced from physical presence.”

Paxton sued President Joe Biden in February 2023 for signing the measure, arguing in court documents that congressional power to force absent members to attend “would make little sense if the Constitution did not require physical attendance.”

“Congress acted egregiously by passing the largest spending bill in U.S. history with fewer than half the members of the House bothering to do their jobs, show up, and vote in person,” Paxton said in a Tuesday afternoon release. “Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi abused proxy voting under the pretext of COVID-19 to pass this law, then Biden signed it, knowing they violated the Constitution. This was a stunning violation of the rule of law. I am relieved the Court upheld the Constitution.”

The Supreme Court ruled against Republican efforts to challenge the proxy voting rule put in place during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in January 2022.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: DCNF Reporter Details Dem Rep.’s Proxy Voting-Enabled High Life

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The World Prepares to Recognize a Hamas Palestinian State

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A “Palestinian” state will be a state of the terrorists, by the terrorists and for the terrorists.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO’s Palestinian Authority and the other Islamic terrorist groups who make up the official “Palestinian” leadership have been invited for unity talks in Moscow.

The terrorist unity talks scheduled by the Putin regime for the end of February are a homecoming for a “Palestinian” movement invented by Soviet propagandists. Mahmoud Abbas, the long-serving dictator of the PA, wrote his Holocaust denial thesis while studying at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University which had trained a generation of third world terrorists.

The invitation to Moscow comes from Putin’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov. Materials from a KGB defector revealed that Abbas had worked for the KGB under Bogdanov. Back then Abbas had the KGB codename “mole”, these days, his code name is “president”.

Some of the same ex-Soviet operatives who helped set up and fund the PLO, the PFLP and the rest of the “Palestinian” movement are now trying to unite them all under one single banner.

While the State Department in D.C. and British Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron are talking about immediately recognizing a “Palestinian” state as soon as they can force Israel to stop its campaign to destroy Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is trying to bring Hamas into the state.

The media claimed that Abbas had visited Qatar to hold talks with the Islamic tyranny’s leaders on a “ceasefire”. In reality, the Palestinian Authority leader had been meeting with the Qatari regime, another state sponsor of Hamas, to pursue unity talks with the fellow terror group.

Putin’s relationship with Iran makes Moscow, like Doha, home turf for Hamas. Some weeks after Oct 7, top Hamas leaders had flown out to Moscow to meet with Bogdanov after the Russian official had previously chatted with leaders of the terror group in their home base in Qatar.

In 2006, Putin had reacted to the Hamas takeover of Gaza by declaring that “we are maintaining our contacts with Hamas and intend, in the near future, to invite the leadership of this organisation to Moscow” and emphasized that, “we have never called Hamas a terrorist organisation.” Putin invited Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, who recently claimed that “the Russians told us they would study our Oct. 7 attack in their military academies.”

A week after the Oct 7 attacks, Hamas stated, “we in the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) appreciate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s position on the ongoing Zionist aggression against our people and his opposition to the siege of Gaza”.

After Oct 7, Putin and China’s Xi had blocked a UN condemnation of the Hamas atrocities. Now Russia is working on uniting its old PLO friends and its new Hamas friends. But Russia and Qatar are not alone. The Biden administration and the European Union are all pushing for a “Palestinian” state after they force a ceasefire. And that state will inevitably include Hamas.

“Russia has invited all Palestinian factions who will be meeting on the 26 of this month in Moscow. We will see if Hamas is ready to come to the ground with us,” Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh informed the Munich Security Conference. “We are prepared to engage. If Hamas is willing to join us, that’s positive. We need Palestinian unity,”

“One should not continue focusing on October 7,” he warned attendees at the forum.

“Hamas is an essential part of the Palestinian political map. Israel’s talk of eliminating Hamas will not happen and are not acceptable to us,” Shtayyeh had told Qatar’s Doha Forum in December around the same time that the PA was holding unity talks with Hamas in Doha.

After the Oct 7 attacks, Biden claimed that, “the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.” In reality, polls show that Hamas would easily win any current election, as it won the last set of “Palestinian” elections in 2006, leading Abbas and his Fatah faction to seize total control of the West Bank and reject any future elections. Hamas was able to take over Gaza leading to the two “Palestinian” statelets.

In January, Abbas’ spokesman had promised to “hold general elections, and if Hamas wins, the president will hand over the [Palestinian] Authority.”

With polls showing that Hamas would handily win an election, If Abbas is serious this time, that means recognizing a “Palestinian” state will mean creating a Hamas state inside Israel.

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority had been holding unity talks on and off, including four months before the Oct 7 attacks, and quickly began holding them again afterward.

The current proposal, like previous ones coming out of the unity talks, places Palestinian Authority officials up front, so that terrorists can receive foreign aid from America and the EU, while Hamas officials maintain an official subsidiary role but continue to control Gaza.

In the past, Hamas had been able to siphon foreign aid through UNRWA, but as it now faces the possibility of utter destruction in Gaza, it may be more willing to accept the proposal being advanced by Qatar, Russia, the EU and the Biden administration. While Russia and Qatar may be more publicly supportive of their Hamas allies, all the proposals come down to a government of “technocrats” serving as the public face of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Shtayyeh is an example of one of those “technocrats”, academics with experience in extracting foreign aid and telling foreign diplomats what they want to hear, but with no actual political power, who were put into place to act as a cover for the Arafat and Abbas regimes. A similar puppet regime of technocrats subsidiary to Afghanistan’s warlords had operated in Kabul before it fled the Taliban. The Taliban and the Biden administration have resurrected a version of its “technocrats” to administer the funds going from the United States to Afghanistan.

The current plan is to blame Oct 7 entirely on Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, and a few of his cronies, to demand their expulsion, and then to make a deal with the “moderate” Hamas leaders in Doha before putting the plan for a “Palestinian” state in overdrive. But the Moscow summit is a warning that any such state will never be anything other than a terror state.

The primary difference between the Qatari and Russian positions, and the Biden and EU position, is plausible deniability. Qatar and Russia want Hamas out front, while Biden and the EU prefer it out back. And we already know from Afghanistan how that will end up working out.

The Qataris negotiated our deal with the Taliban that would have made the Islamic terrorist group a part of a multilateral government. Americans died to maintain that State Department fiction as the Taliban were advancing to take over the entire country. Hamas had its chance to be part of a multilateral government with other Islamic terrorists and each time it chose to try and take everything. Biden and the EU may want to keep Hamas in the background, but history tells us that, like the Taliban, it will eventually seize power and dominate any “Palestinian” state.

It’s difficult to know whether Secretary of State Blinken and the State Department personnel who pretended until the last moment that the Taliban were not trying to take over Afghanistan, but only to take a stronger position in the negotiations for a united government really believed that. It’s also difficult to know whether they truly believe that their proposed “Palestinian” state will be anything other than a terrorist state that will eventually fall into the hands of Hamas.

But we know that not only Qatar and Russia, but the Biden administration and the EU, have urgently fought against any Israeli move into Rafah that would finish off Hamas in Gaza.

It’s obvious why Qatar or Russia’s Bogdanov are condemning an attack on Rafah, but the Biden administration has introduced a draft UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, and from Biden on down have warned Israel against going into Rafah. The internal reasoning is probably similar to the one that guided Nixon and Kissinger during another October war 50 years ago.

During the Yom Kippur War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had told Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that “my nightmare is a victory for either side.” He warned that without negotiations and a deal, “the Israelis [will] have pushed the Arabs out of every territory and “If we do nothing by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, Arabs will have been defeated.”

“I do not mean to imply that he wanted Israel to lose the war, he simply did not want Israel to win decisively. He wanted Israel to bleed just enough to soften it up for the post-war diplomacy he was planning,” Admiral Elmo Zuwalt, the former head of the Navy, wrote in his memoir.

The Biden administration also wanted Israel to defeat Hamas, but not to defeat it too much.

The administration is worried that if Israel wins in Rafah, it will win too much and be much less interested in its diplomatic solution of creating a “Palestinian” state which it believes is the real solution to the conflict. And it needs Hamas to provide pressure on Israel to create such a state.

The same failed idea that has haunted the region for decades is that Islamic terrorism can only be defeated by giving the terrorists some, but not all, of what they want. Much as it did not occur to the State Department that the Taliban would want everything, it refuses to believe that Hamas would want everything. And every time the negotiations fall apart, history is rewritten again.

In an article published in early October, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan described the negotiations that had brought peace between Hamas and Israel. “We have de-escalated crises in Gaza,” he boasted. The online version of the article has been edited to remove those words.

Since December, Sullivan has taken to warning Israel to “transition” to a new “phase” of the war in which it stops its military campaign and goes back to occasional drone attacks on Hamas leaders. And then he and the rest can get started building their “Palestinian” state. And when Hamas takes over again, more articles will have to be edited and more bodies will be buried.

The Biden administration, the European Union (for now only being held off by Hungary), Russia and the rest of the international community are preparing to reward Oct 7 with a terrorist state. A ‘Palestinian’ state will be a state of the terrorists, by the terrorists and for the terrorists.

The 10/7 attacks reminded Israelis of what Americans had known and forgotten after 9/11.

The Israeli soldiers battling in Gaza are not just fighting for their country, but to remind America and the world that it is possible to defeat Islamic terrorists, instead of negotiating with them. A victory there will show everyone that we can all fight and win, instead of surrendering to Islam.

A lot is riding on that battle for Israel, for America, Europe and the free world. That is why the leaders of the international community and the diplomats of the world are fighting to save Hamas. What happens in the next weeks will hand the Islamic terrorists and their enablers either one of their greatest defeats or their greatest victory: a Hamas ‘Palestinian’ state.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Massive Protest Vote Sucks The Wind Out Of Biden’s Michigan Primary Victory

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President Joe Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary Tuesday evening where 117 delegates were up for grabs, but faced a campaign that encouraged voters to support the “uncommitted” ballot option in protest to his handling of the war in Gaza, according to The Associated Press.

A group of Arab and Muslim American activists encouraged Michigan Democratic voters who oppose Biden’s support of Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack to vote against the president in the primary to send a political message ahead of November. Still, Biden won over 78.8% of Democratic primary voters compared to the “uncommitted’s” 15.8%, and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips secured 2.7% support, the AP projected at the time of writing.

Democratic lawmakers in the state have rallied around the “Listen To Michigan” campaign, which has encouraged voters to support the “uncommitted” ballot option rather than voting for Biden. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whose sister, Layla Elabed, is the campaign manager for the group, has also endorsed the effort that views Biden’s support for Israel as “funding war and genocide in Gaza.”

Elabed’s 10,000 vote threshold to measure the “Listen To Michigan’s” success was surpassed, as over 20,000 individuals backed the “uncommitted” ballot option. The “uncommitted” ballot option has received a similar number of votes in recent cycles, but made up for only 1.2% of the share in 2020 and 1.8% in 2016.

The state has one of the largest populations of Arab and Muslim Americans in the country, with Dearborn, Michigan, accounting for a high concentration of the community. Michigan is home to roughly 200,000 registered Muslim voters, and approximately 145,000 participated in the 2020 election, according to the Michigan chapter of Emgage, which aims to boost Muslim turnout.

Biden only beat former President Donald Trump by 154,000 votes last cycle.

A similar effort, the Abandon Biden campaign, formed due to Biden’s refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and is urging Muslim Americans to vote for anyone but the president. The group is operating in Michigan and other battleground states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump also beat former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley 65.5% to 30.2% in the Michigan primary, according to the AP’s projection. Haley has yet to win a single nominating contest, and she lost her home state of South Carolina by roughly 20 points on Saturday.

The RealClearPolitics average for a potential 2024 rematch between Trump and Biden, based on polls conducted between Feb. 13 and Feb. 25, indicates the former president is leading by 2.1 points. Biden is also lagging behind in several crucial battleground states, including Michigan.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘The Republican Party Is Not The Enemy’: Black Voters Tell Lawrence Jones Why They’re Picking Trump

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Black voters told Fox News host Lawrence Jones why they are voting for former President Donald Trump in a Saturday “Fox & Friends Weekend” segment.

Jones interviewed several attendees of the Black Conservative Federation’s gala Friday in Columbia, South Carolina who expressed their support for Trump ahead of the state’s GOP primary.

“Black people just need to come and realize the Republican Party is not the enemy,” one woman told Jones. “It’s good on this side of the fence.”

When asked about the main issue driving Black voters to the polls in 2024, the interviewees cited the economy and border crisis under President Joe Biden. One man told Jones “you can’t fool what happens at a grocery store,” referencing the high inflation in the United States. Another woman said “everyone is suffering right now.”

One man noted how the guests attending the gala from Chicago, New York and Texas were “tired of … the migrant issue.” Another prospective voter agreed, stating that Biden’s policies are “putting illegal immigrants ahead of the urban voters.”

“The Black community wants a leader who has the energy to actually go to bat for the issues that they would want to fight for. And we see that in Donald Trump,” one man told the Fox News host. “We don’t necessarily see that from Joe Biden.”

The prospective voter continued to explain that Trump is “visible,” claiming many Black voters believe “he’ll have the energy, he’ll have the charisma to get up and go and fight for the issues.”

President Biden has recently faced concerns about his fitness for office following the conclusion of special counsel Robert Hur’s report. The report concluded criminal charges would likely not be filed against the president because he “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview, as a sympathetic, well-meaning old elderly man with a poor memory.”

“I think that most Black people are trying to look for something different,” another man told Jones. “A lot of us are waking up, especially Black men.”

AUTHOR

JULIANNA FRIEMAN

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Hamas is Directly Trying to Influence Biden

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“He wants to keep the fighting going on until the U.S. elections in November for Trump to win.”

While plenty of Hamas supporters are besieging the administration and the Democratic Party, Hamas is more directly trying to manipulate Biden.

Via Al Jazeera. (Not linked for the same reason I don’t directly link Al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorist groups.)

Mohammed Nazzal, a senior Hamas figure, told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu “wants the war to continue to stay in power, and doesn’t want to lose his right-wing coalition.”

“He wants to keep the fighting going on until the US elections in November for Trump to win,” Nazzal said.

Al Jazeera is Qatar’s terrorist propaganda network. The quote is carefully chosen, but who is it aimed at?

Biden, at the very least, and certainly the Democratic Party.

Hamas is trying to play on its fears, to pursue the ‘Netanyahuization’ of Israel that Obama began, and to convince them that Israel isn’t fighting because of Oct 7, but because it’s all a conspiracy to help Trump win.

It’s insane and yet you can expect some to believe it.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Forget Basement Campaign — It’s Been A Whole Basement Presidency For Joe Biden

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Critics of President Joe Biden have begun dusting off the “basement campaign” allegation now that the 2024 election cycle is in full-swing, but a low-profile, press-free campaign would fall right in line with how Biden has conducted his entire presidency.

During Biden’s run for president in 2020, the now 81-year-old was criticized for running a “basement campaign” as he often stayed in his home studio for media appearances and had limited, low-attendance rallies. Now, as the 2024 election approaches, similar critiques are bubbling after Biden ducked out on a traditional end of year press conference and opted out of a prime-time Super Bowl interview.

Going on his fourth year in office, Biden is averaging about 11 press conferences a year, according to data compiled by the University of California at Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project. Biden’s average is the lowest since former President Ronald Reagan, who held office from 1981 to 1989, and averaged 5.8 press conferences per year.

The parallel between Biden and Reagan is not a coincidence, historian Barbara Perry, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, told the Daily Caller.

“I think it’s more than coincidental that you have these two presidents with an aging factor. And I don’t mean to say that he’s non compos mentis and he’s going down. I’m not saying that at all. I’m just saying I do think it’s more than coincidental that oftentimes as these presidents get older, they want to do these kinds of pressers less. Prior to that would be the third and most elderly president was Eisenhower, who was well known for having trouble with his syntax,” Perry told the Daily Caller.

“I just think that’s part and parcel of what happens when you have older presidents, that to be on the hair trigger and be able to respond immediately to let’s face it, and I think this is the role of the press is to press and ask pressing questions instead, sometimes may even be hostile or at the very least, be pointed, and ask presidents to explain what they’re doing and why they’re doing things and to be controversial,” Perry continued.

In addition to snubbing press conferences, Biden has participated in fewer interviews with media outlets than his predecessors, according to NBC News. Since his 2021 inauguration, Biden has done 86 interviews with media outlets, NBC tallied. Former President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama trounce Biden’s numbers, each doing 300 and 422 interviews, respectively, at the same point in their presidency.

When Biden has done sit-down interviews with the media, his administration has often chosen to go the non-traditional route, sometimes avoiding hard-hitting journalists in favor of celebrity personalities. The president has done interviews with the Weather Channel, CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Ryan Seacrest and comedian Conan O’Brien.

In 2024, Biden has already foregone media opportunities. Biden turned down a prime-time Super Bowl interview for the second year in a row. His campaign then claimed that they wanted to give Americans a break from politics during the game, CNN reported. The NFL, however, is notoriously political, playing the black national anthem before the U.S. national anthem while players don helmet stickers reading “End racism” and “It takes all of us.”

“We are being less traditional because less people get their news from traditional mediums than ever before,” a Biden campaign official told CNN.

This year’s Super Bowl was the most-watched program in television history.

After giving an address on border initiatives being debated in Congress, Biden promised reporters on Feb. 5 that he would be back sometime during the week to answer questions. That same week the president unexpectedly gave a press conference to address a special counsel report that had been released that day discussing the president’s physical and mental state. It was widely panned after Biden mixed up the presidents of Egypt and Mexico and snapped at reporters who asked about his age.

Biden again promised to take questions from reporters following remarks on Ukraine funding stalling in Congress. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed further questions about the president’s promise.

“On Tuesday, President Biden, he said, ‘I’m not going to answer your questions today. I will answer them tomorrow and the day after,’” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre during a press briefing. “What was he talking about?”

“Well, he was outside yesterday, and he took questions from some of you,” Jean-Pierre responded, referring to when the president told the media he was giving them up for Lent. Biden also continued to repeat “Happy Valentines day” as he was asked about a mysterious national security threat.

“And what about today?” the reporter followed up.

“Today I don’t have anything to share beyond what you all know, don’t have anything to add on his public schedule,” Jean-Pierre followed up.

Mark R. Weaver, a GOP strategist, pointed to the quick-witted nature of press conferences as a reason Biden may be conducting less of them.

“It can be a little bit like playing ping pong. So in these gaggles, the reporter can serve the ping pong ball towards him, and he can hit once back, but he can’t hit the next shot or the next shot. He’ll walk away before he does. So [for example a reporter]  will say ‘Mr. President, why are the prices still so high?’ And he is able to give a first response he will say ‘Well, that’s because the Republicans in Congress’ right, so we can get a first response out,” Weaver said.

“But then the reporter will follow up ‘no, Mr. President, you did you know, you did this policy, you forgave student loans and and that change this monetary policy, what do you have to say about that,’ and then he’ll mumble and walk away. He can’t hit that second shot,” Weaver continued.

The White House dismissed questions about the president’s lack of press interactions during a February press briefing.

“The numbers show that President Biden has engaged in about 33 news conferences.  Compare that to Obama’s 66 and Donald Trump’s 52 by this time in their presidencies.  Can you explain why the President isn’t doing more?” a reporter asked Jean-Pierre on Feb. 12.

“We’re always going to try to find ways — obviously, outside of press conferences as well — t0 — for the President to be out there. And we have found some nontraditional ways.  We think it’s important to try and meet the American people where they are,” Jean-Pierre responded.

“As far as press conferences, we’re going to try and make sure when it’s the right time for — for those to happen, certainly we will — we will do so. But it doesn’t mean that this President does not engage with — with the press corps — with the White — White House press corps or with other reporters, journalists out there who have different — different ways with communicating with the American people as well.  We think that’s important too,” the press secretary continued, pointing to the amount of times Biden takes questions from reporters while on the road.

Biden does appear more willing to speak to the press when it is spontaneous, whether that be during trips or following a speech.

As of Oct. 17, 2023, Biden has engaged with the press 492 times in an informal “gaggle,” which is more than any other president aside from Trump, the Washington Post reported. The president is averaging about 131 interactions with the press per year as of Feb. 20, according to the American Presidency Project. The number is less than Trump, though far more than Obama who averaged 25 exchanges with the press per year.

Perry recounted a time she attended a December 2022 event at the White House and had an opportunity to speak to the president. Biden’s strength, Perry noted to the Daily Caller, is more personal, unexpected interaction.

“About 10 to 15 years, slid off his face between standing on that stage looking kind of tired and coming down and talking to each person standing behind the velvet rope line. And so I do think that part is a shame that to the extent that he is not out as much as maybe he would have been as a younger person meeting and greeting and pressing the flesh because that is his strength,” Perry told the Daily Caller.

While doing fewer press conferences, the Biden White House has still made an effort to meet the Americans through social media platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok, the Washington Post previously reported. Throughout his presidency, Biden and his administration have leaned heavily on social media influencers in an effort to reach a younger crowd, though some argued to the outlet that the medium allows the White House to control the president’s messaging more.

“I think we should also point out that the press these days and in part may be trying to keep up with social media, may be more confrontational than at other times in long past,” Perry noted. “I mean, certainly the press was confrontational with Reagan, they were confrontational with Nixon, and I would compare him to someone like Trump, who really disliked the press. I don’t think Joe Biden dislikes the press, I think he probably misses the days when he could go toe to toe with them.”

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Joe Biden’s Brother Switched Up Story On China Deal After Lawmakers Showed Him Receipts, Source Says

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James Biden altered his story during a closed-door interview with lawmakers on Wednesday after congressional investigators presented him with evidence directly contradicting his claims, according to a source familiar with the interview.

Joe Biden’s younger brother, in closed-door testimony to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, initially told his interviewers that he was not part of a business deal involving Hunter Biden and several of his associates, according to a source familiar with the interview. However, after investigators showed him an agreement that featured his signature alongside those of Hunter Biden and his business partners ,James Biden then told legislators that he did not remember signing the agreement.

The deal in question was a proposed joint venture involving an entity known as SinoHawk and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-tied CEFC China Energy Limited energy firm, according to a source familiar with the interview.

Fifty percent of SinoHawk was to be owned by Hudson West IV — an entity nominally managed by CEFC “emissary” and Joe Biden “office mate” Gongwen Dong — with the other 50% to be owned by Oneida Holdings LLC, an entity composed of LLCs controlled by Hunter Biden, James Biden, Rob Walker, James Gilliar and Tony Bobulinski, according to Bobulinski’s Feb. 13 testimony to congressional investigators and documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The president’s younger brother also stated that he threw out a diamond that Hunter Biden had given him to appraise, according to a source familiar with James Biden’s interview. That diamond had initially been given to Hunter Biden by CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming, presumably to woo Hunter Biden to engage in business with CEFC, according to the source.

A May 2017 email from Gilliar to Hunter Biden, Bobulinski and Walker detailed the potential equity split for Oneida’s piece of SinoHawk, with 20% for “H,” 20% for “RW,” 20% for “JG,” 20% for “TB,” 10% for “Jim” and “10 held by H for the big guy,” according to the archive of Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Bobulinski told the FBI in 2020 that Oneida was supposed to receive a $5 million unsecured loan from CEFC or a related entity, and that the loan was supposed to be forgivable, according to an October 2022 letter signed by Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley. As of July 2017, the funds had not yet been sent to Oneida, apparently to the chagrin of Hunter and James Biden.

Then, on July 30, 2017, Hunter Biden sent a threatening WhatsApp text message to a Chinese business associate affiliated with CEFC, according to information disclosed to lawmakers by Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” the text reads.

Bank records obtained by congressional investigators do not indicate that SinoHawk ever received the cash infusion from CEFC or related entities that may have been expected, according to Grassley’s October 2022 letter.

However, records and other information obtained by Republican lawmakers demonstrated that Hunter Biden and James Biden profited from a $5 million wire from a CEFC-linked firm in August 2017.

Those funds do not appear to have been transmitted to SinoHawk, but instead to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by the Bidens and CEFC in August 2017, according to Grassley’s letter. Subsequently, wire transfers were conducted from Hudson West III to Owasco — Hunter Biden’s firm — and Lion Hall Group, James Biden’s company, a move that appears to have effectively cut SinoHawk out of the deal altogether.

Bobulinski told investigators on Feb. 13 that “the Biden family — Joe’s son Hunter and his brother Jim — knowingly and aggressively defrauded me as the CEO of SinoHawk Holdings and as a member of Oneida Holdings, LLC, at the end of July 2017” and that “the Biden family violated their fiduciary duties to SinoHawk and Oneida as they enriched themselves at the CEFC trough.”

The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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Biden Regime Considered Sanctioning Israeli Cabinet Members

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The Biden regime is desperate to stop Israel’s campaign against Hamas.

The Biden administration has a plan for the Hamas-Israel war. It’s the same plan that past administrations have unleashed on Israel. Pressure Netanyahu or whoever is in office into ignoring voters and conservative members of his coalition, push him into making a deal with the Islamic terrorists, and go back to advocating for a terrorist state. The problem is that things fundamentally changed in Israel on Oct 7 even if they didn’t change in D.C.

When the Biden administration wanted Israel to stop its offensive at the end of 2023, it didn’t get its wish. Now it’s fighting to keep Israel from going into Rafah and finishing off Hamas in its last stronghold.

So the Biden administration has ramped up a pressure campaign, much of it under the radar, but that is playing out across various fronts. The administration has enabled the “monitoring” of Israeli attacks on Hamas for “human rights violations” in a way that may trigger a shutoff of arms sales. It also tested the waters by sanctioning four Israeli Jewish activists for allegedly harassing terrorists and their supporters.

This was a trial balloon and it looks like the Biden administration is preparing to escalate.

The United States is considering imposing sanctions on Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

According to the report, the US was preparing a package of sanctions that would include actions taken against the two far-right ministers who are influential members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

The sanctions were considered amid exacerbated tensions between the US and Israel due to Washington’s insistence that Israel refrain from carrying out a full-fledged invasion of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Sanctioning cabinet members of an allied government would be unprecedented, but apparently, that was Plan A and still on the backburner.

Last month, the U.S. administration was considering enacting a package meant to send a message of discontent to Israel.

The package, U.S. officials said, would have included a reversal of two Trump-era policies: one that allows products made in Jewish settlements in the Israel-occupied West Bank to be labeled as being “Made in Israel,” and another that upended longstanding U.S. policy that the West Bank settlements violate international law.

U.S. officials said they were also considering imposing sanctions on two influential members of Netanyahu’s right-wing government: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Taken together, U.S. officials said, the package could have sent a strong message of discontent. But, in the end, the Biden administration only enacted sanctions against four largely unknown Israeli settlers, once again tempering the Biden administration’s response.

Leaking this to the media however, makes it clear that the Biden administration is preparing to escalate to stop Israel’s campaign against Hamas.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Administration Has No Idea Who Should Run A Palestinian State

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The Bidenites are making their insidious plans to pressure Israel to accept a Palestinian state, by agreeing to be squeezed back within the 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. Israel is already, with 8,630 square miles, among the tiniest countries in the world; its current size — before the reductions the Bidenites are planning — is 8,630 square miles. The 22 Arab states are spread across 5 million square miles — that is, they are 632 times as large as Israel. Now the administration wants to shrink Israel further still, in order to create a 23rd Arab state. Washington has been planning — plotting might be a more accurate word — with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Pakistan — what territories Israel will be forced to give up if there is to be “peace” in the Middle East, which can only be achieved, the Bidenites devoutly believe, through a “two-state solution.” After all, why would everyone call it a “solution” unless it were exactly that? The Bidenites look forward to forcing Israel to remove its “settlers” from the West Bank, as was done in Gaza in 2005. They don’t seem to realize that there are half a million so-called settlers living in the West Bank. It was difficult enough to uproot 8,000 Israelis from Gaza in 2005; the notion that the Israeli government would uproot 500,000 Israelis from their towns and cities in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank) is hallucinatory. And unlike the Bidenites, the Israelis know that their claim to retain that territory is solidly based on the Mandate for Palestine which, in turn, was based on 3500 years of the Jewish people’s connection to, and presence in, the Land of Israel.

Given its planning the lineaments of a “Palestinian state,” one would expect that the Bidenites would have a clear idea of who, in their view, should be chosen to run that state. But one would be wrong. A recent exchange in Congress between Rep. Brian Mast and Bonnie Jenkins, a high-ranking member of Blinken’s State Department, shows that the Bidenites have no idea as to who will run this Palestinian state. More on this telling exchange can be found here: “Biden admin official repeatedly won’t say who’d run Palestinian state,” JNS, February 16, 2024:

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) pressed Bonnie Jenkins, U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security, repeatedly at a House hearing about who would run the Palestinian state, for which the Biden administration is calling.

“Have you analyzed that objectively?” he asked Jenkins, of the policy of a Palestinian state.

“No I have not, if I understand your question,” she said, testifying on Feb. 14 before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on “AUKUS implementation and challenges to international security and arms control in the 21st century.”

“You might not, because I can’t believe that you would answer it in that way,” Mast said.

Jenkins then said she had assessed it.

“Who would you assess would lead that Palestinian state?” Mast asked. “Pick a group. You can name a group, but I’m saying Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, some other group. Who would lead it?”

“I think that has to be something that’s considered. I don’t think I’m in a position to say,” Jenkins said….

She hasn’t the faintest idea who might be fit to lead that Palestinian state. It’s not because she is out of the loop; she’s an under secretary at the State Department. Her ignorance and indecision reflect that of the Bidenites above her, who are so preoccupied with preventing the IDF from entering Rafah and finishing off Hamas, and with their plan to then squeeze Israel back within the 1949 armistice lines, that they have not done the very thing they accuse the Netanyahu government of not doing — which is preparing for “the day after.”

Mast continued to press the State Department official. “What group that does not receive military support from, say, Iran do you assess would lead that state?” he asked….

Mast is making an important point: every Palestinian terror group —Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP — receives aid from Iran. Perhaps he wanted to hear her name the Palestinian Authority, which does not receive aid from Iran, but is colossally corrupt — Mahmoud Abbas and his two sons Yasser and Tarek have accumulated a family fortune of $400 million — and deeply unpopular, with 80% of Palestinians ruled by the Authority saying that they want Abbas to resign.

When Mast asked Jenkins to say, without naming who would run the Palestinian state, whether there has been an assessment of who would run it, the official said, “Put it this way. There will be an assessment of this question with within the U.S. government.”

Or put it this way: the Bidenites have been making pronouncements about the need for a “Palestinian state” and pushing forward, with Arab states but not Israel, with plans to create that state. But not only do they have no idea who would or should run it; they haven’t even begun to do an “assessment” of the possible candidates. It simply hasn’t come up.

He moved on to another line of questioning. “Do you assess that a Palestinian state would be more likely to be designated as a major non-NATO ally, like Israel or Egypt, or would you assess that they would have to be labeled a state sponsor of terror?” he asked.

Jenkins said she couldn’t answer the question.

“You are in the position to answer if you have assessed whether that would be the case,” Mast said. “You came here, sitting before Congress saying you are here representing the idea that there should be a Palestinian State. You said you looked at it objectively, which you probably didn’t. And I’m asking if you assessed that. So you can answer whether you assessed something or not.”…

Jenkins was there, before a congressional committee, to make the case for a Palestinian state. Yet she had no idea as to possible candidates being assessed for their fitness to govern that state, or even whether such an assessment had been begun. She is remarkably ill-informed, or rather, her bosses are themselves ill-prepared to discuss what group or individual should be in charge of that Palestinian state.

Jenkins made quite a spectacle of herself. She could not answer the simplest of questions about a future Palestinian state. She did not offer any guidance as to what groups might be considered suitable by Washington to run that state. She did not even know if the Bidenites were “assessing” those who might be considered. She had no thoughts as to whether a group that is supplied weapons by Iran, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, could still be eligible to run the new state. When Representative Mast asked what she thought about creating a state for people who had just committed atrocities, she was unable to answer, claiming “I just don’t feel like I’m in the position right now that I can answer those type of questions. This is a question for the U.S. government.” Mast reminded her that she was part of the U.S. government and, he might have added, she had been sent to testify before Congress on precisely “those type of questions” about a future Palestinian state.

She is no different from her bosses, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken, except that she is willing to admit to her ignorance, while they are not. This administration does not know where to put its hands and feet. No good can come of this.

AUTHOR

HUGH FITZGERALD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.