Why Biden Won’t Abandon Israel
Plus: The incredibly inert 2024 horse race.
Politico’s headline sums up yesterday at the Trump trial: “Stormy spoke. Trump fumed. Jurors were captivated—but also cringed.”
Porn performer Stormy Daniels’ testimony was much the same as the public accounts she’s given of her alleged tryst with Trump in the past, although all the more surreal for being delivered while face-to-face with him in court. And she included enough lurid detail that defense attorneys immediately moved for a mistrial: “All of this has nothing to do with this case,” lawyer Todd Blanche argued in a sidebar with Judge Juan Merchan, calling it “extraordinarily prejudicial to insert safety concerns into a trial about business records.”
Merchan agreed “there were some things that would probably have been better left unsaid,” but denied that Daniels’ testimony was grounds for mistrial. Happy Wednesday.
Biden on Antisemitism: ‘I Have Not Forgotten’
Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza has created enormous political peril for President Joe Biden, as his continued staunch support for Israel in the conflict has created huge rifts in the Democratic coalition while—largely thanks to our broken media ecosystem—winning him basically zero goodwill among pro-Israel conservatives. Why has he stuck to his guns? He laid it out in a speech at the Capitol commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday:
The ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust. It didn’t end with the Holocaust either . . . This hatred continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world. It requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness. That hatred was brought to life on October 7, 2023. On a sacred Jewish holiday, the terrorist group Hamas unleashed the deadliest day of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Driven by ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the Earth. Over 1,200 innocent people—babies, parents, grandparents—slaughtered in a kibbutz, massacred at a music festival, brutally raped, mutilated, and sexually assaulted.
Now here we are, not 75 years later, but just 7 and a half months later. And people are already forgetting. They’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten, nor have you. And we will not forget.
As the conflict in Gaza has ground on, the White House has continued to publicly pressure Israel’s government to take all reasonable steps to diminish Palestinian civilian casualties and mitigate the conflict’s collateral damage, particularly by letting more and more humanitarian aid into Gaza, where many people are starving. Biden and his spokespeople have repeatedly acknowledged the immense logistical challenges these asks present, given that it is bedrock battlefield strategy for Hamas, as National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby put it months ago, to “embed themselves in and around the civilian population, hiding behind human shields.”
But there has also been growing impatience at the White House that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is grappling with his own domestic political pressures—is not treating minimizing civilian casualties with enough urgency. Biden gave Netanyahu a slap on the wrist last week by halting a shipment of bombs to Israel over concerns they might be used in an assault on Rafah, which is both the last stronghold for Hamas in Gaza and the current location of more than a million displaced Palestinian refugees.
But even as rifts grow between Netanyahu and Biden, the latter’s speech yesterday made it clear his basic position on the war is unchanged: Israel should do more to minimize civilian casualties, but those casualties are ultimately the responsibility of Hamas, and the United States believes Israel has the right to strain every nerve to root Hamas out of Gaza.
A side note: It was bizarre to watch reactions to this speech filter across social media yesterday, where many pro-Palestinian progressives seemed to take umbrage at Biden’s language of “ancient hatred.” “Hamas is 37 years old, so could someone at the White House clarify if he’s talking about Arabs, Muslims, or brown people in general here?” said Kat Abughazelah of the progressive group Media Matters for America, in a tweet that was shared by tens of thousands of others. “Pretending October 7 was motivated by ‘ancient desires’ to kill Jews is not only WILDLY RACIST, but wrong.”
Tell it to the Hamas fighter who called home in triumph after the deadly October 7 attack: “Look at how many I killed with my own hands—your son killed Jews!” he exulted. “I am talking to you from the phone of a Jew—I killed her and her husband, I killed ten with my own hands.”
—Andrew Egger
2024 Vibes Check: Not Great, Bob
Where do we stand in the presidential race?
Let’s begin with a couple of grounds of hope.
In yesterday’s Republican primary in Indiana, Nikki Haley, who didn’t campaign but was still on the ballot, won 22 percent of the vote.
Though Indiana is effectively an open primary, it doesn’t seem many Democrats showed up to pad the vote for Haley. There wasn’t much of an organized effort for that, and the total vote on the presidential line ended up being about the same as in the Republican gubernatorial primary, suggesting there weren’t many one shot crossover Democratic anti-Trump voters.
So Indiana is yet another indication that there is real resistance to Donald Trump among Republicans.
Meanwhile, Paul Ryan said yesterday he wouldn’t support Trump in the general election. Ryan joins Mike Pence in the Never Again Trump (if, foolishly, not actually voting for Biden) category. So there is an expanding permission structure for those Republican voters inclined to resist Trump to stay in that resistance, and to vote against Trump–or at least not to vote for Trump–in the general election.
So there are possibilities ahead for weakening Trump.
On the other hand:
It’s now two months since President Biden delivered his State of the Union speech. At the time, he trailed Trump by about two points in the polling average. He’s now behind by about a point. So he’s gained–a bit. But his momentum, such as it was, seems to have stalled out a couple of weeks ago, and it’s not that much of a gain in any case.
Indeed, the overwhelming story of the Trump-Biden matchup so far is the stability of the race.
Take a look at this chart:
Between polarization of the electorate, and the fact that we have two candidates, both of whom voters think they already know very well, this isn’t a race that seems to want to change a lot—or at all.
And a race that’s been this stable is more likely than not to stay stable.
And if it stays stable, Trump, with a slight national popular vote lead that would translate into an Electoral College victory, would win.
What’s more, the underlying data in many of the polls aren’t particularly encouraging. The finding that leaped out in polling late last year and that still remains striking is that voters retrospectively prefer the Trump presidency to the current Biden presidency. Americans are comparing two candidates who’ve been president; they’ve seen them both as president; and they judge Trump's presidency as superior. In the recent CNN poll, 55 percent of Americans say they see Trump’s presidency as a success, and 44 percent see it as a failure. Only 39 percent say Biden’s presidency has been a success, with 61 percent saying it’s been a failure.
So there’s a major task ahead in either a) changing some Americans’ minds about the Trump presidency, b) changing their minds about the Biden presidency, or c) explaining to them that a Trump second term would be dangerous or a failure even if his first term wasn’t.
In addition, two Pennsylvania polls came out yesterday showing Trump with a three and a four point lead, respectively, over Biden. And if Biden loses Pennsylvania and Georgia (where he now seems to be trailing by about 5 points), and if Trump simply holds everything he won in 2020, Trump has 270 electoral votes. Trump wins. Biden needs Pennsylvania.
By the way, the Pennsylvania AARP poll, conducted jointly by firms working for Trump and Biden, was consistent with the CNN national poll in having Trump’s retrospective job approval at 51 percent, with Biden’s job approval at 36 percent.
The glimmer of good news is that Biden is actually doing better than one might expect, given the terrible results of the “Do you approve of Biden’s presidency / Do you approve of Trump’s presidency?” question. This does suggest that some voters are open to making a forward-looking judgment different from their retrospective one. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there aren’t enough such voters—yet.
The bottom line? We’re not doomed. But we should be alarmed.
I come back to Tocqueville, near the end of Democracy in America:
“Let us therefore have that salutary fear of the future that makes one alert and combative, and not that sort of soft and idle terror that wears hearts down and enervates them.”
—William Kristol
Quick Hits: MTG’s Motion-to-Vacate Flop
If you missed Joe’s latest Press Pass yesterday, it’s worth a revisit:
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been dangling an axe over House Speaker Mike Johnson for weeks, and during that time, she’s further alienated herself from her colleagues and seen her influence severely diminish. It was back on March 22 that she filed a motion to vacate the chair, the same motion that Matt Gaetz used to set in motion the removal of Kevin McCarthy last year. When Greene declared last week that she would give Johnson the weekend to announce a resignation date, it seemed reasonable to assume that meant she would make her resolution ‘privileged’ to trigger an imminent vote on his ouster first thing Monday morning. Instead, she spent Monday seeking concessions and a deal that would allow her to back off while saving face. In other words, she knows she overplayed her hand, and she is now searching for the least humiliating way out of the sticky corner she backed herself into.
At Greene’s request, Johnson met with her on Monday afternoon ahead of the first votes of the day. The meeting lasted long enough that the dozens of reporters waiting outside Johnson’s office began to speculate about the possibility they were working out a deal. The Greene-Johnson confab even bled into a planned leadership meeting, which had to be canceled; top GOP members, like Republican Study Committee Chairman Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) and Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-Va.), exited after waiting for a half hour. Finally, after two hours, Greene and her sole ally, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), emerged to face the growing crowd of reporters. They offered no new developments. The duo met again with Johnson this afternoon for more than an hour and uncharacteristically, left without any comment. Later, after votes, Greene appeared to soften her stance, telling reporters, “The ball is in Mike Johnson’s court.”
Greene’s weeks-long motion-to-vacate threat campaign has worked out very differently from Gaetz’s against McCarthy last October. Greene’s feud with Johnson isn’t personal. Putting it in a charitable frame, it’s a principled disagreement on policy that turns on Greene’s sincere opposition to funding Ukraine in its fight against Russia. Reading the situation less charitably: Greene is making the kind of ploy for attention that’s become her signature in the course of short career in Washington.
Cheap Shots
A quick hits approach of my own today, sampling the morning buffet's offerings:
1) I don't know how relevant the details of the Daniels affair are to the court case, but those on the right complaining about their guy being violated and embarrassed need a reality check. I know it was the 20th century, officially a while ago now, but we all remember how they had no problem with Ken Starr lighting up President Clinton in the peep show that was the Bill and Monica Story, hoping that it would derail his administration. (I heard the term "salacious" invoked yesterday, for a one of just a very few times since then.) I get it that this court case is not the same thing as impeachment. Still, they were quite fine at the time with airing all of that dirty laundry as long as it weakened Clinton. Now they can't seem to handle the truth. It couldn't possibly be merely politics, could it?
2) I don't know any more than anyone else what the right way is for Joe Biden to approach the Israel/Hamas/Gaza situation. But I do sense that whatever he says or does, he will piss off someone who will feel alienated and angered. At this point perhaps he needs to pull a Harry Truman, say screw the optics, and simply do what is right and best and let the chips fall where they may. The result of trying to please everyone usually is pleasing nobody in the end.
3) In the same spirit, Truman-style: screw the polls, work on priming the economy and lowering inflation as much as possible, and make it a pocketbook reality check (along with that abortion campaign) come November. We've come a long way since the pandemic. Remind people of that. Often. In detail. Eventually it will gain traction when the GOP alternative remains no specific plan other than four more years of DJT and whatever he wants to do at a moment in time.
4) While you're at it, President Biden, be sure to remind voters about the non-monetary costs of this election. For those who grumble about the price of gas and their basket of groceries, say yes, we're working on that, but also ask them bluntly: what price tag do you put on your freedom? How much money are you willing to spend to ensure that you have the right to vote in the future and determine the fate of this nation? It matters. Not enough people are taking it seriously enough, so hit them between the eyes with it. Freedom isn't free, and no amount of cash can buy it back once it is gone.
5) Of course MTG's maneuvering has gotten her into an unsustainable position, because she always has been on thin ice and skating toward water. Her type of revolution from below has a shelf life, it takes real talent to maximize results during that window, and, (not) sad to be the bearer of the bad news, but she doesn't have it. She is more the annoying fly that people eventually swat rather than tolerate. Of course she is the last person in the room to recognize it. Let's hope that her constituents eventually come to see as well that she is more of a gasbag than a mover and shaker in the eyes of people who actually matter, and then vote accordingly.
Really? Absolutely NOTHING on Cannon putting the trump trial on hold indefinitely? https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/07/politics/judge-postpones-trump-classified-documents-trial/index.html#:~:text=Judge%20Aileen%20Cannon%20has%20indefinitely,case%20goes%20to%20a%20jury.