Netanyahu meets Biden amid political tensions, to speak with Harris later
(WASHINGTON) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden at the White House Thursday to discuss the U.S.-Israeli relationship amid tensions over the ongoing conflict in Gaza and a changing political landscape in the U.S.
“Welcome back, Mr. Prime Minister. We got a lot to talk about,” Biden said in brief remarks shortly before cameras left the room.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking to succeed Biden, is scheduled to meet with Netanyahu later Thursday. She has been more outspoken than Biden about killed Palestinian civilians and called on Israel to allow in more humanitarian aid.
The meeting comes just hours after Biden, in an Oval Office address, told Americans that getting peace in Gaza — ending the fighting between Israel and Hamas and freeing hostages — is one of his top goals in his remaining six months in office. Netanyahu so far has resisted Biden’s efforts, rejecting his calls for a cease-fire.
Netanyahu brought up their long relationship and other Israeli leaders Biden has known throughout his career.
“From a proud Jew Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel. And I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us,” Netanyahu said.
Biden reflected on that first meeting, joking, “I was only 12 then.”
Other U.S. officials attending included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the president was going to press Netanyahu to help “close the gaps” with the peace deal that would return the Israeli hostages.
“We are closer now than we have ever been before,” he said.
The meeting is the first time the leaders have come face-to-face since Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsed Harris’ run.
Kirby said that both leaders would meet with American families of Israeli hostages.
Kirby would not comment on why Harris was meeting with Netanyahu later but noted that she had campaign events during the same time as Biden met with the prime minister.It also comes a day after Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress, which Harris did not attend, holding a previously scheduled campaign event instead.
The prime minister has praised Biden for “half century of friendship to Israel” and U.S. support following the Oct. 7 attacks.
“He rightly called Hamas ‘sheer evil.’ He dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Middle East to deter a wider war. And he came to Israel to stand with us during our darkest hour — a visit that will never be forgotten,” Netanyahu said in his speech to lawmakers on Wednesday.
The prime minister did not mention Harris. But he did he did laud former President Donald Trump for his support of Israel during his four years in office.
Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with Trump Friday at Mar-a-Lago.
The prime minister has called on the U.S. to provide bipartisan support for Israel during the conflict and urged leaders to, “Give us the tools faster and we’ll finish the job faster.”
“Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas’ military capabilities and its role in Gaza and bring all our hostages home. That’s what total victory means. And we will settle for nothing less.”
In May, Biden paused a shipment to Israel of unguided bombs citing concerns that they could be used on civilians.
Congress sent $26 billion in aid to Israel and provided humanitarian relief for people in Gaza in April as part of a foreign aid package.
About $4 billion of that was dedicated to replenishing Israel’s missile defense systems. More than $9 billion of the total went toward humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
(WEST ALLIS) — Vice President Kamala Harris rallied voters in battleground Wisconsin on Tuesday, her first presidential campaign event since securing enough delegate pledges for the Democratic nomination if they keep their word — and used the rally to sharply frame her race against former President Donald Trump.
Since Sunday, Harris has earned the backing of Democratic Party leaders and enough Democratic National Convention delegates to make her the nominee if they kept true to their pledges — a major milestone for the vice president.
“So Wisconsin, I am told as of this morning that we have earned the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination. And I am so very honored, and I pledge to you, I will spend the coming weeks continuing to unite our party so that we are ready to win in November,” Harris said to an energetic crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin — just outside of Milwaukee.
Harris attacked Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on the issue of abortion and Project 2025, the conservative presidential transition blueprint fronted by the Heritage Foundation.
“We’ll stop Donald Trump’s extreme abortion bans because we trust women to make decisions about their own body and not have the government tell them what to do,” Harris said to raucous applause. “And when Congress passes the law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United States, I will sign it into law.”
Harris, in recent weeks, has leaned into her career as a prosecutor, having served as San Francisco’s district attorney and California’s attorney general, to draw a contrast with Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts.
During the rally, Harris touted her previous experience while making a dig at Trump.
“In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain,” she said. “So, hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type.”
The comments elicited the chant of “lock him up” from the crowd — a reference to the popular “lock her up” chants from crowds at Trump’s rallies when he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Harris’ campaign chose Wisconsin — a key battleground state in the 2024 race — as the site of her first campaign event. Wisconsin hosted the Republican National Convention last week.
“Vice President Harris’s visit will highlight the choice facing Wisconsinites: between Donald Trump, the convicted felon who would drag this country backwards, and her brighter vision for the future, where our freedoms are protected and every American has a fair shot,” the campaign said in the memo.
Before taking the stage, Harris’ campaign announced that her political operation raised $100 million in just over a day since getting in the race for president after President Joe Biden announced he would bow out of the race.
The massive sum — raised by the Harris campaign, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees — came in between Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, the campaign said. Within that time, 58,000 people signed up to volunteer, a figure that is more than 100 times their average daily sign-up rate, according to the campaign.
(NEW YORK) — World famous as entertainers, celebrities are not usually relied on for their political expertise.
Yet candidates across the political spectrum in 2024 have been keen on highlighting star power at their campaign events.
Musical performances by Megan Thee Stallion, Quavo, and Bon Iver brought crowds to their feet during recent Kamala Harris rallies.
Last month, musician Kid Rock and model Amber Rose were among the celebrities featured at the Republican National Convention.
It turns out, a new study finds, that celebrities do more than merely generate online buzz — they can actually influence elections.
According to the research by Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, there is “rigorous evidence that [celebrity] voices are incredibly powerful” in promoting civic engagement and altering polling numbers.
“Right now, young voters have relatively low levels of trust in a lot of leaders and institutions, including traditional news media — but celebrities are often a rare exception,” Ashley Spillane, the study’s author and a civic engagement and political expert, told ABC News.
Published on Friday, the study discusses how America falls behind other highly developed democratic nations in terms of the number of eligible voters who actually cast votes.
Spillane noted that “despite record-breaking voter participation levels in recent elections, the United States still ranks 31st out of 50 developed nations in terms of eligible voter participation.”
She says lack of motivation and mobilization is one of the main reasons behind that ranking, and celebrities could be key in addressing the lack of participation.
Spillane said the culture surrounding civic engagement needs to change.
“Voting should be the trendy, cool thing to do,” she said. “And the study shows there is evidence that when people feel this way about voting, they participate.”
In terms of shifting this culture, celebrities are “uniquely positioned to empower everyday Americans,” the study said. Online voter registration and poll worker volunteer rates were found to increase when a celebrity promoted them.
“What the study finds is that sharing information that allows people to take action (a registration link, a way to find your polling place, when Election Day is!) can have the most impact,” Spillane added.
Back in 2018, Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote by posting a simple Instagram story, resulting in 250,000 new Vote.org registrants in 72 hours.
In a similar fashion, Kylie Jenner utilized Instagram to urge her followers to vote in 2020, and “the site to which she linked reported a 1,500% increase in traffic compared to the day before — and an 80% increase in total users registering to vote,” the study said.
Actress Kerry Washington communicated outside her fanbase and recruited other celebrities to promote civic engagement. The study referenced $32 million in organic earned media coverage, as well as one billion online engagements as a result of her efforts.
Ariana Grande, David Dobrik, Hailey Bieber, Billie Eilish, Trevor Noah were among other celebrities studied. Offline engagements such as television, movies, and merchandise were included in the research set as well.
The study also emphasized how “authenticity moves the needle on civic engagement,” making it crucial for celebrity efforts to align with their public interests and overall platform in order to be effective.
Although some celebrities remain wary of “potential backlash and ‘canceling,'” the study found that those who encourage voter participation believe it is “good for democracy” and “good for their brands.”
As seen throughout the current election cycle, celebrities have even inspired civic engagement without their explicit knowledge or intention.
For example, Swifties for Kamala represents a group of Taylor Swift fans promoting Harris’ campaign. Their X account currently has over 57,000 followers.
Swift has yet to comment on the group created in her namesake, or on the election itself.
Though the Harvard study did not explicitly focus on such sub-groups, Spillane told ABC News that “fan communities getting involved in civic engagement enables them to be a part of something collaborative, which helps build trust in the democratic process and motivation to participate.”
Just this past month, British hyperpop artist Charli XCX posted, “Kamala IS brat,” on X, amassing over 54.5 million views and catalyzing millions of memes and video edits. This one celebrity post inadvertently contributed to the Harris campaign’s digital success and Gen-Z outreach.
“Charli XCX’s post is a great example of a celebrity’s ability to garner media coverage, attract large crowds, reach their fans, and influence conversation,” Spillane observed.
Gen-Z and millennial groups are of particular importance given that they will comprise the majority of voters by 2028, the study confirmed. In addition to the significant screen time that both groups average each day on social media, such platforms were also found to be their primary source of news.
Given such findings, a close eye is likely to follow celebrity voices throughout the remainder of this historic and tumultuous election cycle.
“The evidence is clear that, using their powerful platforms, these influential figures can encourage and empower more everyday Americans to use their voices and exercise their civic rights,” Spillane said.
(ST. LOUIS.) — Progressives are on the short end of a spending war with pro-Israel and other establishment Democratic forces. And they know it.
Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush’s primary loss Tuesday at the hands of St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell put into stark relief once again how progressive lawmakers are at risk of getting swarmed by gobs of outside money if they become targets of well-heeled advocacy groups. Bell focused much of his race on local issues and congressional legislation, but he was backed by more than $8 million from the pro-Israel United Democracy Project.
Liberals for years have lamented lax campaign finance laws that allow outside groups to flood races with millions in spending. But until those laws are changed, the rules of the electoral road stand — and even progressives say they probably can’t catch up.
“You can try to out-organize it, the classic left formula of getting enough people at the doors and in the community as the antidote. But how do you do that to scale?” asked progressive Democratic strategist Angelo Greco. “You can’t match that unless you have your own fundraising operation, and we’re not organized at that level just yet.”
Progressives, who had been on an upswing since 2016, found themselves playing defense after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip.
UDP, which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and newer groups such as Democratic Majority for Israel, dumped millions into races to defeat candidates or lawmakers perceived as critical of Israel.
Bush’s defeat followed New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s loss to Westchester County Executive George Latimer. Latimer and UDP outspent Bowman and his allies by a nearly 5-to-1 margin, and Bush and her allies were outspent by Bell’s allies (including UDP) by a roughly 3.5-to-1 margin, according to AdImpact.
The attacks on Bush and Bowman largely didn’t focus on Israel, instead homing in on issues like their opposition to President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill. But the two lawmakers’ criticism of Israel opened the door to the spending — and neither Bush nor Bowman could keep up on the airwaves.
“If she had just enough money to be on the air, they could have countered it,” said Joseph Geevarghese, the head of Our Revolution, a progressive group. “We’re not saying you’ve got to match dollar-for-dollar, but you’ve got to be able to have a presence.”
To be certain, not every liberal lawmaker is facing such daunting opposition. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the highest profile House progressives, is outspending her rivals in her Minneapolis primary, according to data from AdImpact.
But the Bowman and Bush losses have progressives confronting their inferior financial footing, all while still railing against campaign finance laws they deem too loose, experts said.
Some progressives said the best strategy is making such hefty outside spending unappetizing in Democratic politics and that investing more money of their own, even for progressives, shouldn’t be the objective.
“The goal should not be, how can we turn $20 million Democratic primaries into $40 million Democratic primaries. That is a race to the bottom for our democracy,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats.
“We should force more members of Congress to stand up to these interests and make taking this money toxic,” he added. “Part of it is educating voters about who these special interest groups are … and why they’re advancing those interests.”
One avenue progressives eyed is triggering a legal challenge.
A petition in Maine would limit contributions to super PACs, vehicles that can spend unlimited sums. The goal is to trigger a court battle that makes its way to the Supreme Court, hoping to convince the justices that the 2010 Citizens United decision — which limited what campaigns themselves can raise, but not super PACs due to their perceived independence — is too permissive in today’s politics.
Other operatives pointed to progressives’ overall structure as an area for improvement.
The movement is highly fractured, with multiple advocacy groups with their own origin stories and policy niches all competing for a slice of the money pie. That’s on top of the candidates themselves running their own races.
Cooperation could be key, given that not all races are considered competitive and outside groups’ goals end up overlapping.
The tactic was tried once already this year, with Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive without a serious primary challenger this year, donating $500,000 from her campaign to Justice Democrats’ “Squad” protection branch to help Bowman. And while the move didn’t save the New Yorker in the end, it could offer a precedent for greater collaboration.
“There needs to be a convening among progressives from different organizations, different leaders, to talk about the challenge, because what happened to Jamaal Bowman and what happened to Cori Bush is going to continue to happen,” Geevarghese said.
Beyond cooperation, some progressives also urged a more discerning strategy.
Some candidates have raised mounds of dough for safe races. Others have raked in cash for challenges to incumbents who are fairly well insulated. And still others have raised decent money but, as in the case of Bowman and Bush, adopted a more defensive posture, responding to attacks that defined them in voters’ eyes rather than establishing their own brands.
That, operatives said, has to change.
“Organizationally, we can do better about picking and choosing where to deploy those resources,” Greco said, adding that candidates and campaigns need to be better about “anticipating those attacks.”
“Cori Bush, actually as a Squad member, progressive member, if maybe more resources were put into telling the story that … she was a champion for the president’s agenda, instead of getting smeared as someone who was a detractor.”
Progressives’ critics, for their part, insisted that money isn’t the problem and that liberal lawmakers they targeted are just unpopular.
“I think the whole spending disparity issue, the way it’s being raised, is fundamentally insulting to voters. We provide voters with information that they may not otherwise have had. It’s up to them to decide whether that information is important,” said Democratic Majority for Israel President Mark Mellman.
And progressives conceded that the movement’s problems can’t be entirely chalked up to spending disparities.
Bowman, beyond being critical of Israel, floated false theories that sexual assault and rape did not occur during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and he drew negative headlines after pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol ahead of a House spending bill vote. Bush found herself in hot water after the Justice Department launched an investigation over her campaign’s spending on security services that included work by her husband.
And both voted against Biden’s signature infrastructure bill, a vote they chalked up to the legislation not fulfilling the president’s original promise, but that helped critics tag them as unserious legislators.
“Tactically, the campaign was messy. It was not a well-run campaign, and she had some unforced errors,” one progressive operative said of Bush’s reelection bid.
“Could they have been less principled and voted with everyone else? Sure, probably might have saved their careers. But that’s not the type of people we try to send to Congress,” the person added of the infrastructure votes.
But strategists expressed confidence that progressives could pick themselves up off the mat and that the movement’s fire hadn’t been doused by the recent losses.
“I have no doubt that does dissuade people from potentially running and dissuade them from speaking their conscience. So yeah, there’s concern about that,” Faiz Shakir, a prominent liberal operative, said of the spending against progressives. “But as long as there’s a beating heart of progressives out there to call attention to it, I believe that at least you’ll hear a debate and discourse about it.”