The Morning Joe panel discusses New York Times reporting on Trump’s words and the fears about his authoritarian leanings.
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Where things stand on a potential Israel-Hamas hostage deal
The Biden administration is anticipating a breakthrough on securing the release of dozens of hostages who were violently kidnapped by Hamas from Israel on Oct. 7.
The U.S. is involved in intensive negotiations alongside Israel to recover an estimated 240 people who are being held under an information blackout — proof of life, living conditions and health status all unknown and unconfirmed.
“President Biden and the team here [are] doing everything we can to help get the hostages that Hamas took, get them released, including young children and, of course, Americans that are in that pool,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday.
“We believe we’re closer than we’ve ever been, so we’re hopeful. But there’s still work to be done. And nothing is done until it’s all done. So we’re gonna keep working on this.”
The failure by Hamas to release all hostages is one reason that Israel, with backing from the U.S., has rejected a general cease-fire in its military operations on the Gaza Strip, despite increasing pressure from the international community to relent over a desperate humanitarian crisis and the deaths of more than 11,000 Palestinians, with half of those killed believed to be children.
The U.S. has reportedly proposed a deal in which Israel and Hamas cease fighting for five days, allowing Hamas to free dozens of women and children. Among the individuals believed to be held by Hamas include a months-old baby, toddlers and children, elderly and sick people.
Biden has specifically mentioned a 3-year-old American hostage as focusing his motivations, with efforts happening hour-by-hour, five to six times a day, the president has said.
“I’m not going to stop till we get her,” Biden said last week.
Qatar and Egypt are the main go-betweens in working to negotiate the hostages’ release, retrieving messages from Hamas’s military leaders — believed to be hiding underground in the Gaza Strip — and transmitting them to Israeli and U.S. officials.
It’s a tedious back-and-forth, and U.S. and Israeli officials have accused Hamas of trying to stall Israel’s military incursion into Gaza by floating possible hostage releases that have failed to materialize.
An Israeli hostage negotiator told NPR the understanding is Hamas leaders are passing notes on pieces of paper through tunnels in Gaza, to intelligence officials at the Egyptian border, then out to Qatar, to U.S. officials and then to Israel.
In public statements, Hamas has made no distinction among those it kidnapped in its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, referring to all its hostages as “Zionist prisoners,” a slur against what it views as Israel’s illegitimate existence.
While the majority of those kidnapped are Israelis, both civilians and some soldiers, civilians of other nationalities were also taken hostage, such as South Asians who were working in Israeli communities surrounding the Gaza Strip.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israel’s Security Agency on Sunday released what they said was video evidence of Hamas forcibly transferring a Thai civilian and a Nepalese civilian through Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital.
And the IDF said it recovered the bodies of two people initially taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza: 19-year-old Cpl. Noa Marciano and civilian Yehudit Weiss, 65, a mother of five.
“I’m not sure that we all know where all the hostages are being kept at this point. We don’t even know who of them is alive and who is not alive, who is injured or not injured,” Eliav Benjamin, deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Israel, told The Hill in an interview last week.
“Hamas is not even allowing the International Red Cross to come and visit them or to give them any sign of life — forget Israel, they’re not giving the International Red Cross any sign of life.”
Hamas has only released four people. The initial hostage releases were meant to demonstrate that such a transfer could be carried out with the cooperation of the international Red Cross, but some U.S. officials have said that the slow pace of releasing hostages pointed to Hamas not being serious about freeing their prisoners.
“It’s a real question if [Hamas military commander] Yahya Sinwar is serious in any degree about releasing those hostages,” Barbara Leaf, the assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, told a House panel in early November.
Gerald Feierstein, a former ambassador to Yemen who also served as principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs during the Obama administration, said that Hamas is likely issuing demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, which is delaying a deal.
“Hamas would not just be negotiating for a cease-fire. They want to come out of this demonstrating that they got some tangible benefit for Palestinians out of this whole thing,” he said. “And a cease-fire in and of itself doesn’t absolutely meet that requirement. They’ve got to get something more than that. And that might be the hold-up.”
Among those first released included an American mother and her teenage daughter on Oct. 20.
And two elderly Israeli women were released Oct. 23. One of the women, Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, detailed to the media shortly after her return to Israel that she “went through hell” during her 17-day captivity, and she provided unprecedented insight into how those kidnapped were being held.
Lifshitz spoke in front of a microphone while sitting in a wheelchair, surrounded by reporters who had crowded into the lobby of the hospital where she was recovering.
She detailed how Hamas had brought her down into a tunnel network, describing it as a massive spider web, walking for kilometers underground and being held in rooms large enough for more than two dozen people, according to an account reported by The New York Times.
Hostages were fed the same as their guards — a single meal daily that consisted of pita bread, two kinds of cheese and cucumber — and hostages were provided medication, shampoo and feminine hygiene products, Lifshitz said.
“They were very attentive to the sanitary aspect,” she said, according to The New York Times, “so we don’t get sick on them, God forbid. There was a doctor nearby who would come every two or three days to check in on us. And the medic took the responsibility to bring us medication. If they did not have the exact same medication, they brought us the equivalent.”
The families of hostages and their supporters have protested for weeks in Israel to keep the focus on the fate of their loved ones and to pressure the Israeli government to make every effort to secure their release.
Families have reportedly clashed with far-right Israeli politicians, criticizing their calls for the death penalty for Hamas members as threatening efforts to negotiate the release of their loved ones.
In the U.S., nearly 300,000 people came out in support of Israel in its war against Hamas at the National Mall, with the rally’s focus on securing the release of hostages and backing Israel’s rejection of a cease-fire with Hamas until those kidnapped are set free.
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
Maryland hate crime task force member claimed babies murdered by Hamas were ‘fake,’ compared Israel to Nazis
A member of a Maryland task force aimed at combating hate crimes published numerous antisemitic social media posts, including claiming that the babies brutally murdered in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack were “fake,” and comparing the nation of Israel to Nazi Germany.
Zainab Chaudry, an anti-Israel activist who serves as the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Maryland office, made the posts in the weeks following Hamas’ attack, which saw more than 1,200 people killed, including children and babies, as well as numerous rapes and destruction of property.
“I will never be able to understand how the world summoned up rage for 40 fake Israeli babies while completely turning a blind eye to 3,000 real Palestinian babies,” Chaudry wrote in a Facebook post dated Oct. 26.
“[T]hat moment when you become what you hated most,” Chaudry wrote in an Oct. 17 post, including two photos of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, one showing it lit up with the Israeli flag in solidarity with Israel following the attack, and another from a ceremony in 1936 when it was decorated with the flag of Nazi Germany during the Olympics that year.
In another post from Nov. 6, Chaudry appeared to suggest the mere existence of Israel as a nation was the cause of the ongoing war, writing it was an “inconvenient fact.” She included an image of the words “it all started in 1948,” the year Israel was founded as a nation.
Others from the weeks following the attack showed Chaudry sharing a quote celebrating “martyred Palestinians,” and a post citing what appeared to be an Islamic prophesy that said “garrisons who defend the lands of Islam will be in Ashkelon,” an Israeli city north of the Gaza Strip.
Despite the posts, Chaudry has maintained her place on the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention, a position for which she was nominated by Democrat Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown in August.
The commission’s goal, according to Brown’s office, is to address hate crime incidents across Maryland, and to “communicate and promote understanding of diverse perspectives in a positive and meaningful way.”
Brown’s spokesperson, Jennifer Donelan, told Fox News Digital that “the views and opinions of any individual Commission member do not reflect those of either the Maryland Commission on Hate Crime Response and Prevention or the Attorney General.”
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“We understand that there are many viewpoints regarding current events in the Middle East. The Commission will do its best to explore the impact of those events on our community, and to determine how best to address escalations in hate and bias incidents across the state,” she said, explaining that the Commission would “develop policies and protocols governing its work” and how its members engage on the issues.
“Just as we urge others to do, the Commission will identify ways in which we can foster productive and empathetic dialogue amongst ourselves that leads to mutual understanding. We, like the rest of the world, must first talk to one another and, most importantly, listen to one another as we work toward the goals of peace and tolerance,” she added.
When reached for comment, Chaudry told Fox News Digital that the “Nazi post” was originally shared “by a close Jewish friend,” before going on to accuse the Israeli government of wanting to commit genocide against Palestinians.
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“The Israeli prime minister has analogized the bombing of Gaza to an ancient biblical story about the total genocide of a city, [and] declared that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, the Israel defense minister has justified starving Palestinian civilians by calling them ‘human animals,’ the Israeli military spokesman has said that the aim of their bombing campaign is destruction rather than accuracy. Multiple Israeli ministers have called for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, with one even calling the ongoing war a ‘Nakba 2023,'” she said.
“I strongly and unapologetically condemn Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right, racist government for repeatedly making such genocidal threats towards the Palestinian people and killing over 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children murdered in their homes. Unlike many of the Israeli government’s most extreme supporters, I recognize that killing any civilians is wrong, which is why my office has repeatedly condemned the killing of both Israeli and Palestinian civilians,” she said.
“There is no conflict between condemning the Israeli government’s genocidal war crimes overseas and standing up against all forms of hate here at home, including antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. False smears from anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists will not stop me from standing up for justice here and abroad,” she added.
Fox News Digital has reached out to CAIR for comment.
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Internal Senate memo highlights Biden admin efforts to tie highway funding to woke priorities
FIRST ON FOX: An internal memorandum circulated among lawmakers by Senate Commerce Committee Republicans highlights how the Biden administration is tying billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to “woke initiatives.”
The memo, first obtained by Fox News Digital, was sent late Monday evening and spearheaded by Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is planning to author legislation that would prohibit the Department of Transportation (DOT) from tying federal funds to left-wing priorities. It particularly targets DOT’s management of three grant programs that serve as key vehicles to fund various types of surface transportation projects nationwide.
“Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars meant for infrastructure projects are tied to woke initiatives that are more focused on dismantling America’s infrastructure in the name of ‘equity’ and ‘climate change’ than building roads, bridges, and highways to connect the country,” the memo states.
“Congress must not allow the Department of Transportation to push the absurd concept of ‘racist roads’ to prevent Americans from getting much-needed improvements to their highways,” it continued. “The funding notices issued by DOT should focus on the law as written, not woke priorities.”
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In June, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced that his agency had started accepting applications for the National Infrastructure Project Assistance, Infrastructure for Rebuilding America (INFRA), and Rural Surface Transportation Grant programs. The three programs received a collective $5.6 billion boost, most of which supports INFRA, under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
Buttigieg said the grants eventually awarded under the programs would support “transformational infrastructure projects across the nation.” But the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) the DOT issued as part of its grant awarding process states recipients must broadly address equity and climate concerns.
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“Projects that have not sufficiently considered equity and barriers to opportunity in their planning, as determined by the Department, will be required to do so before receiving funds for construction,” the DOT’s NOFO states.
“Projects that have not sufficiently considered climate change and environmental justice in their planning, as determined by the Department, will be required to do so before receiving funds for construction,” the document adds.
The two funding conditions cite President Biden’s day-one executive order titled “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”
Following Buttigieg’s announcement, Cruz wrote in July to the Government Accountability Office, asking for confirmation that the NOFO is a rule and, therefore, is subject to Congressional Review Act (CRA), a law dating back nearly three decades that allows Congress to revoke federal regulations. The federal watchdog responded last month, saying it was, in fact, subject to the law.
According to the memo circulated Monday, Cruz will soon introduce a CRA resolution “challenging ‘woke’ anti-highway policy in DOT grants.” The resolution would additionally target other DOT policies such as framing road building as increasing “automobile dependence,” and condemning highway expansion projects that don’t involve electric vehicle charging stations or bike lanes.
“Taken together, these additions, which severely deviate from the criteria in law, will favor states seeking to expand mass transit and bike paths over states wanting to build roads. The added requirements on grant agreements, which are necessary for money to be paid after awards are announced, are particularly pernicious,” the memo adds.
“The DOT funding notice guarantees that applicants will not get construction funds unless they embrace the administration’s extreme views on climate and equity,” it states, calling for Congress to support Cruz’s forthcoming resolution that opposes the Biden administration’s “anti-highway agenda.”
For years, left-wing groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and activists have argued U.S. cities historically used highway infrastructure to further racist discrimination. Buttigieg has sought to reverse past racist policies that led to certain infrastructure decisions.
“There is racism physically built into some of our highways, and that’s why the jobs plan has specifically committed to reconnect some of the communities that were divided by these dollars,” Buttigieg said in an interview with theGrio in 2021.
In June 2022, Buttigieg launched the $1 billion Reconnecting Communities program that aims to reverse infrastructure policies that divide communities and disconnect certain neighborhoods from economic opportunities.
“Transportation can connect us to jobs, services and loved ones, but we‘ve also seen countless cases around the country where a piece of infrastructure cuts off a neighborhood or a community because of how it was built,” Buttigieg said at the time.
“But we can’t ignore the basic truth that some of the planners and politicians behind those projects built them directly through the heart of vibrant, populated, communities — sometimes in an effort to reinforce segregation,” he said. “Sometimes because the people there had less power to resist. And sometimes as part of a direct effort to replace or eliminate Black neighborhoods.”
The DOT didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Role abortion rights played on Election Day: Underestimated by GOP or overstated by Democrats?
For Republicans, this month’s off-year elections were anything but a success.
The results in gubernatorial and legislative showdowns as well as in some high-profile referendums gave Democrats a big shot of adrenalin while potentially serving as a warning sign for the GOP looking ahead to the 2024 elections for president and control of Congress.
Apparently hurting Republicans for a second straight year at the ballot box was the combustible issue of legalized abortion.
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“We do have to talk about abortion,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has been saying since the election results this month.
McDaniel said GOP candidates “are not responding to the lies of the Democrats on abortion. We have to come out and very vocally say where we stand.”
The month’s election results were the latest in a slew of statewide victories for abortion rights since the blockbuster move last year by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to overturn the landmark, nearly half-century-old Roe v. Wade ruling, which had allowed for legalized abortions nationwide.
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The decision moved the divisive issue back to the states. And it’s forced Republicans to play plenty of defense in elections across the country. A party that’s nearly entirely “pro-life” has had to deal with an electorate in which a majority of Americans support at least some form of abortion access.
Democrats made abortion a major part of their messaging in Kentucky’s gubernatorial showdown, in Virginia’s legislative contests, in a state Supreme Court race in battleground Pennsylvania, and in an Ohio referendum on codifying abortion rights. And Democrats chalked up wins in all of those states.
But veteran Republican strategist and Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who masterminded former President George W. Bush’s two White House victories and served as his top White House political adviser, says the effect of abortion on this month’s elections is overblown.
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“Abortion might have helped Democrats sometimes, but the issue is hardly a silver bullet,” Rove wrote last week in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.
And taking aim at the political weaknesses of President Biden, Rove said that “as Virginia showed, as long as Mr. Biden is the face of the party, pro-life candidates can make gains on Democratic turf if they frame the abortion issue with care.”
But Democrats see the issue of abortion as a continued “mobilizing” factor to energize their base and attract crucial swing or moderate voters going forward.
Veteran strategist and Democratic National Committee member Maria Cardona pointed to last year’s midterms, in which the Democrats overperformed, and told Fox News that the 2023 results “were similar to what happened in 2022 when everybody was predicting a red wave.”
Looking ahead to next year’s contests, Cardona predicted that abortion “is going to continue to be an incredibly mobilizing issue.”
Longtime GOP strategist David Kochel noted that abortion remains “a terrible problem” for Republicans.
“They’re out of step with where the country is” on the issue, he said.
Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns in Iowa, acknowledged that Republicans are “not going to win on abortion” and urged GOP candidates to “fight where they can win – on the economy, foreign policy, competence.”
McDaniel, talking to Fox News Digital and other news organizations the night after this month’s elections, said Republicans need to more forcefully push back on Democrat attacks over where they stand on abortion.
“If a lie is up against you with $30 million behind it, and you do not respond, that lie becomes the truth, and that’s the Democrats’ playbook, and our candidates have to respond on TV,” she said.
“As a suburban woman who’s heading the party, we have to talk about abortion,” McDaniel added. “If we do not get up on TV and define ourselves on this issue and allow the Democrats to do it for us, it’s a losing strategy.”
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GOP lawmaker to introduce bill to prevent International Monetary Fund from giving cash to adversaries
A Florida Republican lawmaker is introducing a bill to bring congressional authority over the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and prevent the body from giving cash to American adversaries.
Rep. Scott Franklin, R-Fla., is expected to introduce the IMF Accountability Act on Tuesday, which aims to give Congress more authority over how the body allocates special drawing rights (SDRs) and lends money.
The bill would “prohibit representatives of the United States from voting at the International Monetary Fund for any Special Drawing Rights allocations, quota increases, or policy modifications that would benefit certain countries, and for other purposes.”
Franklin’s bill aims to prevent the IMF from giving funds to American adversaries like China, Iran, North Korea, and others.
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“You don’t give taxpayer dollars to your enemies – that’s just commonsense,” Franklin said. “Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has allowed the transfer of billions of dollars from the IMF, funded in large part by the U.S., to our adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.”
“These funds are used to help them meet their political goals and strengthen their economies,” Franklin said. “This projects weakness on the world stage and should never be allowed to happen. Our bill will strengthen Congressional oversight over these decisions and prevents American taxpayer dollars from ending up in the hands of the world’s worst actors.”
Several Republican lawmakers are co-sponsoring Franklin’s bill, including fellow Florida GOP Rep. Gus Billirakis.
“The Biden Administration’s appeasement approach when dealing with our adversaries on the international stage has been a complete and utter failure that has only emboldened these rogue regimes,” Billirakis told Fox News Digital. “We must regain our position of strength by embracing an America-first approach that draws a line in the sand and clearly prohibits the Biden Administration from further rewarding these bad actors who seek to do us harm and cause global instability.”
Fellow co-sponsor Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, said he “fully supports the IMF Accountability Act, a critical measure to ensure U.S. resources are not aiding adversaries.”
“This bill rightly returns oversight to Congress, safeguarding our nation’s investments from supporting regimes that oppose our values and threaten global stability,” Gooden continued.
Fellow Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott is leading the Senate companion bill, joined by Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Hostile actors and rogue regimes use IMF Special Drawing Rights to bolster their economies and reserves. This ability directly undermines American efforts to hold such regimes accountable through sanctions, and therefore the safety and security of Americans,” Cruz said. “It is long past time for the United States to counter these tactics.”
“As Iran-backed Hamas holds hundreds of hostages in Gaza, including Americans, and continues attacks against Israel, the United States must act,” added Scott. “We must send a clear message to these terror sponsors and evil regimes across the world: the free ride is over, you are cut off. My bill, the IMF Accountability Act, will prohibit U.S. representatives to the IMF from supporting the world’s tyrannical regimes and benefiting from the economic strength of America and our partners and allies.”
“I thank Congressman Franklin for leading the charge in the House and urge the Senate to immediately pass this crucial and timely legislation,” he added.
SDRs were created by the IMF to bolster member countries’ official reserves and are distributed based on the country’s individual IMF quota. Member countries who receive SDRs can exchange them for U.S. dollars or other member countries’ currencies. The U.S. is a major backer to the IMF.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) works to achieve sustainable growth and prosperity for all of its 190 member countries,” the IMF website reads. “It does so by supporting economic policies that promote financial stability and monetary cooperation, which are essential to increase productivity, job creation, and economic well-being. The IMF is governed by and accountable to its member countries.”
“The IMF has three critical missions: furthering international monetary cooperation, encouraging the expansion of trade and economic growth, and discouraging policies that would harm prosperity,” it continues. “To fulfill these missions, IMF member countries work collaboratively with each other and with other international bodies.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the IMF and the White House for comment.
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Federal Court Moves to Drastically Weaken Voting Rights Act
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Biden marks ‘146th birthday’ with flaming cake
President Biden marked his 81st birthday with a tongue-in-cheek reference to his age in a fiery Instagram post on Monday.
“Turns out on your 146th birthday, you run out of space for candles!” Biden joked in the post, showing off his cake decorated with dozens of lit candles huddled together along the perimeter. The crowded flames formed a blazing ring atop the celebratory dessert, drawing awe in the post’s comments section.
“Does the secret service have a fire division?” one comment joked.
“Y’all could have at least made the cake bigger so all of those candles had a little room to breathe,” another read.
Biden has made a fair share of quips about his age in recent weeks. He has faced mounting concern over his age since his 2020 campaign, and his age has come more directly under the spotlight with recent polls showing voters perceive the president to be “too old” to serve another term.
Biden spent his birthday on Monday pardoning the Thanksgiving turkeys at the White House, during which he joked he was only turning 60 years old.
“I just want you to know it’s difficult turning 60. Difficult,” he said during the ceremony.
He also noted the 76th anniversary of the turkey pardoning tradition at the White House.
“I want you to know I wasn’t there the first one; I was too young to make it up,” he said.
The president and first lady Jill Biden plan to travel to Nantucket, Mass., on Tuesday to celebrate Biden’s birthday with family, and the pair will stay on the island through the Thanksgiving holiday.
Go to Source: Administration News | The Hill
AP Top 25 Reality Check: Low-turnover season in poll with only 42 teams having been ranked
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