The White House News

There was chatter among Congressional reporters about wandering over to The Monocle for a drink last Wednesday night. The Monocle is an old-school Capitol Hill watering hole located next to U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters and across the parking lot from the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Senators sometimes hang out there while they wait for the body to get its business together for late night votes.

It was pushing 9 p.m. last Wednesday and the Senate was mired in a vote which began at 2:26 p.m. Senators struggled to work out a deal to finish up its work before Thanksgiving. The only reason reporters still lingered at the Capitol at that hour was because the Senate was slated to vote later to align with the House and avert a government shutdown. There would have been drama surrounding a potential government funding cliff just a few days earlier. But not now. The question was not if the Senate would pass the stopgap spending package – but when. And since there wasn’t an agreement over a pending defense policy bill, the Senate forestalled closing the roll call vote until everything was settled.

That’s when word came from the Capitol Police that all the office buildings on the House side of the Congressional complex were locked down. No one could come or go.

A massive, pro-Palestinian demonstration descended on the Democratic National Committee Headquarters just steps from the House office buildings. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Minority Whip Kathleen Clark, D-Mass., Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., and other Democratic members were at the DNC for an event. Democrats huddled throughout the day at the DNC with campaign operatives and Democratic candidates ahead of the 2024 election cycle.

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The protesters encircled the building, demanding a Middle East ceasefire, blocking anyone from entering or leaving the DNC.

The Capitol Police moved in.

Jeffries and Clark have USCP security details due to their leadership positions. The protesters fired tear gas at the Capitol Police. The USCP then began clearing the way to evacuate members from the crowd. USCP arrested one man for assaulting officers.

The protesters injured a total of six officers. 

“Last night’s group was not peaceful,” said the USCP in a statement the next day. “When demonstrations cross the line into illegal activity, it is our responsibility to maintain order.”

Democrats holed up in the DNC and let loose on the protesters.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who is Jewish, characterized them as “pro-Hamas” and “pro-terrorist.” He added that demonstrators “want Republicans” to win in 2024.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., is also Jewish and was trapped in the DNC as well.

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“When you engage in tactics that are intimidating and certainly blocking access or exit from a building, I think that crosses a line,” said Wasserman Schultz. “It was a very troubling, disturbing situation.”

“We were rescued by armed officers who did not know the protesters intent,” said Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., on Twitter.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., tweeted that she was stuck in her office in the Longworth House Office Building with her newborn baby during the raucous demonstration.

Democrats have a problem.

There is a tear in their party over the Middle East. Progressive, left-wing activists – fueled by college campus outrage – are fracturing the party over calls for a ceasefire and Israel’s assertion to defend itself. That’s to say nothing of controversial comments by Squad members like Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for a ceasefire and criticism of pro-Israeli groups like AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee). 

“I don’t think the Democratic Socialists of America, the Justice Democrats, et cetera, are part of the Democratic coalition,” said Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill.

Schneider has long aligned with AIPAC. He voted to sanction Tlaib on the House floor for pushing the trope “from the river to the sea,” which calls for the elimination of Israel.

“What we need is people of good conscience and moral clarity to stand united and say Israel was attacked by a terrorist organization seeking to destroy the country,” said Schneider.

AIPAC is now prepared to run candidates against Democrats who oppose its goals.

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Progressive groups warned Jeffries last week that he and Democratic Congressional Committee Chairwoman (DCCC) and Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., need to keep AIPAC out of Democratic primaries.

Republicans have plenty of schisms on their side – between “Reagan” Republicans, the MAGA crowd, the Freedom Caucus and those who just want to lay a blowtorch to everything. That is radioactive. But the political, radioisotopes over the Middle East cauterize like no other issues.

That’s why some on the left now refer to President Biden as “Genocide Joe.”

The New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America faced criticism after it included a watermelon on a flyer pushing for a protest of Jeffries. Jeffries is Black. Racists have long used a watermelon to emphasize anti-Black views. The watermelon is also an icon of Palestinians who view Israel as occupiers.

A reporter asked Jeffries last week about the accusation by Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., that he shared the stage with Pastor John Hageee at a pro-Israel rally on the National Mall. Lee termed Hagee “an antisemitic bigot,” adding “this must be condemned.” 

Jeffries replied that he appeared on stage at the rally alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

“I have no idea what she’s talking about,” responded Jeffries to Lee’s accusation.

Republicans might not face the same internecine sniping as Democrats over the Middle East conflict. The GOP is more unified when it comes to standing behind Israel and approving legislation to assist the Jewish state financially and militarily. But there are Republicans who are tired of U.S. involvement in “foreign wars” and the spending which accompanies that. Look no further than the GOP divide over Ukraine. A potential Republican split hasn’t materialized yet over Israel. But it’s something to watch.

Democrats like Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., are now the victims of anti-Israel graffiti and vandalism at their district and state offices.

The rift over the Middle East is more pronounced on the Democratic side as evidenced by the protest at the DNC last week. Republicans certainly have their own special level of chaos after the Speaker debacle and struggles to pass their own spending bills.

But nothing is as volatile as the Middle East. It poses a special level of political problems for the Democratic Party.

That’s why the lockdown of the House office buildings and the tense protest outside the DNC last week was so important. It’s liberals attacking liberals. There’s division among Democratic members as mentioned earlier with the Squad and others. Democrats will struggle to highlight internal Republican dissent over government funding and even threats of violence between lawmakers when members of their own party are clashing over something as flammable as the Middle East.

Backers of a proposal to change Ohio’s troubled political mapmaking system will finally be able to start gathering signatures, after clearing a second round of state approvals Monday.

Citizens Not Politicians now has until July 3 to collect roughly 414,000 signatures required to put its constitutional amendment before voters in November 2024. Supporters are expected to fan out across the state beginning this week to try to make next fall’s statewide ballot.

Their proposal would replace the current Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of three statewide officeholders and four state lawmakers, with an independent body selected directly by citizens. The new panel’s members would be diversified by party affiliation and geography.

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The effort has experienced repeated delays. It began with two early rounds of objections to their petition language by Republican Attorney General Dave Yost before wording was initially certified. The Ohio Ballot Board then unanimously cleared the measure in October, only for organizers to discover they had made a single-digit typo in a date.

The mistake sent the process back to the drawing board: first, back through Yost’s office; then back through the ballot board, which again OK’d the measure as a single issue Monday.

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The campaign said supporters of changing redistricting are eager to get started circulating petitions. Among them is Nadia Zaiem, of the Cleveland suburb of Westlake, who said she’s motivated to see a new way chosen for the drawing of Ohio’s legislative and congressional maps.

She said the current system allows politicians of both parties to “ignore the will of their constituents, knowing they will continue to be elected and re-elected, not because they have earned the support of a majority of voters, but because they have rigged the system in their favor.”

The effort follows the existing structure’s repeated failure to produce constitutional maps. During the protracted process for redrawing district boundaries to account for results of the 2020 Census, challenges filed in court resulted in two congressional maps and five sets of Statehouse maps being rejected as unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a stern defense of President Biden’s “stamina” on Monday, his 81st birthday, when questioned over the growing concerns surrounding his age.

“I would put the president’s stamina, the president’s wisdom, ability to get this done on behalf of the American people against anyone, anyone on any day of the week,” Jean-Pierre told Fox News’ Mark Meredith during the White House press briefing in response to a question about former Obama adviser David Axelrod raising the issue of Biden’s age.

Earlier this month, Axelrod suggested it may be “wise” for Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race on the heels of a brutal poll that found him losing to former President Donald Trump by up to 10 points in five battleground states.

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Biden’s “biggest liability” with voters is his age, Axelrod said. While he should be “proud of his accomplishments,” the country had too much at stake to risk losing to Trump in the next election, he argued.

Axelrod doubled down on the criticism earlier in the day Monday, even after Biden reportedly called him “a prick.”

“I don’t care about them thinking I’m a prick — that’s fine,” Axelrod told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. “I hope they don’t think the polls are wrong, because they’re not.”

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However, Jean-Pierre told Fox during the briefing that there was “no alarm” going on behind the scenes at the White House despite those age worries.

“No, there’s no alarm happening behind the scenes. I can only speak behind the scenes here. There is no alarm happening behind the scenes. And I’m certainly not going to comment on everybody who has something to say,” she said.

“Also, it’s just not my job. It’s not my job to think through or to tell people what to think. Right? Whether it’s the American people out there or a, you know, political analyst, or as your question is about David Axelrod, it’s just not my place to speak to that,” she said. 

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Jean-Pierre went on to say that the White House’s perspective is that it wasn’t about Biden’s age, but rather his “experience.”

“That’s what we believe. And, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. The president has used his experience to pass more bipartisan legislation in recent time than any other president. That’s just a fact. That is something we have seen this president do, and that’s because of his experience … So what we say is we have to judge him by what he’s done, not by his numbers,” she added.

Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.