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Tag: 2024 election

  • Dean Phillips’s First Town Hall Unravels Over Israel-Gaza

    Dean Phillips’s First Town Hall Unravels Over Israel-Gaza

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    The long shot presidential bid of Dean Phillips is off to a rough start.

    On Thursday, the three-term Democratic congressman from Minnesota held his campaign’s first town hall, in Manchester, New Hampshire, which devolved into a contentious squabble over Israel’s invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip. The incident began when a 23-year-old Kenyan immigrant asked Phillips why he hadn’t urged a cease-fire in the conflict that has so far led to the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children.

    “How do you feel about the Israeli babies?” Phillips shot back, according to The Daily Beast, referencing those killed in Israel during Hamas’s October 7 attack. “And moms, and dads, and grandmas, and hostages in Gaza who were brutally murdered. Before I answer your question, I want to understand if that empathy is across humanity, or only for Palestinians?”

    While the questioner, Manchester resident Atong Chan, said that she was “completely empathetic” to the dead Israeli civilians, Phillips ultimately ignored her question about supporting a cease-fire, saying instead that he was “horrified and disgusted when I see Palestinians slaughtered,” according to The Washington Post.

    “I care deeply about Palestinian lives. Rashida Tlaib, my Palestinian sister, is my friend,” he said, referring to the only Palestinian member of Congress. “I’m her Jewish brother.” But the dispute went unsettled until Chan and another audience member were ultimately escorted out of the venue, according to The Daily Beast. One attendee voluntarily left the event in protest, the Post reported. (While speaking with reporters after the event, according to the Post, Phillips clarified that he would “support a cease-fire when Hamas is no longer in a position to murder Israelis.”)

    As part of his peculiar primary campaign against Joe Biden, Phillips, whose slogan proclaims, “Everyone’s Invited,” has said he will hold 118 additional town halls over the coming months. The Phillips campaign, The Daily Beast noted, has adopted a rigorous production setup to ensure the sessions can be recorded and viewed online. However, the YouTube livestream of Phillips’s Thursday town hall was curiously not archived online, even though the candidate had said he was happy the kerfuffle with Chan occurred “in front of the cameras.”

    The Phillips campaign did not respond to a request for comment. But Chan raised a point shortly before she was shown the door that might explain the video’s disappearance. “This is so embarrassing for you,” she told Phillips, “and you want to make it seem like it was embarrassing for me.”

    As of Wednesday, 18 members of Congress had signed on to a resolution calling for a cease-fire. Biden, meanwhile, has argued in favor of a humanitarian “pause.” Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said Friday that he will not impose a temporary cease-fire until all of the hostages held by Hamas are released.

    During his campaign launch last Friday, Phillips, 54, said, “It is time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of American leaders,” an apparent shot at Biden, who is 80, or possibly the 77-year-old Donald Trump. “It is time for a change,” the congressman added. “And I am ready to lead our great nation to a secure and a more prosperous future.”

    Phillips’s decision to challenge Biden for the nomination has elicited outrage and irritation from many members of his own party, including Democrats in his home state. Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, even suggested last week that Phillips’s bid was a self-serving “political [sideshow].”

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    Caleb Ecarma

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  • Ron DeSantis Suggests Anyone Asking Questions About His Alleged Use of Lifts Has a Foot Fetish

    Ron DeSantis Suggests Anyone Asking Questions About His Alleged Use of Lifts Has a Foot Fetish

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    Responding to questions about his very likely use of height-enhancing boot lifts Thursday, Ron DeSantis said there are graver issues facing this country and suggested that anyone talking about the lengths he allegedly goes to give himself a few extra vertical inches has a sexual interest in feet.

    “This is no time for foot fetishes,” are the words that literally came out of the 2024 hopeful’s mouth. “We’ve got serious problems as a country. We’ve got war in the Middle East. We’ve got terrorists coming across our own southern border. We have an American dream that’s out of reach for millions of Americans because of the Biden-flation and the high energy prices. We’ve got schools that are indoctrinating kids, not educating kids, and we’ve got cities that are being overrun by crime. And I know people want to try to divert onto other issues, I know Donald Trump and a lot of his people have been focusing on things like footwear. I’ll tell you this: If Donald Trump can summon the balls to show up to the debate, I’ll wear a boot on my head. This is a time for substance.”

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    It’s not clear that anyone would be interested in seeing DeSantis wear a boot on his head. However, if he offered to wear his boots out onstage, and then take them off for the cameras so people could see once and for all if they have lifts inside them, that might actually put all of this to rest.

    Earlier this week, in a tour de force of journalism, Politico ran a story in which some of the world’s leading bespoke footwear makers were were asked their professional opinions on whether or not DeSantis has been wearing boots with heels concealed on the inside. Their expert takeaways? Most definitely yes. “I’ve dealt with these politicians many times,” Zephan Parker, the proprietor of Texas-based bespoke boot maker Parker Boot Company, told the outlet. “I’ve helped them with their lifts. [DeSantis] is wearing lifts; there’s no doubt.” DeSantis has vehemently denied doing so.

    Shortly after the story ran, DeSantis rival Nikki Haley was asked in an interview on The Daily Show if her heels were higher than the governor’s. “I don’t know,” she responded. “We’ll have to figure that out.” She added: “I’ve always talked about my high heels…. I’ve always said, ‘Don’t wear them if you can’t run in them.’ So we’ll see if he can run in them.”

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    Bess Levin

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  • Joe Biden’s Israel-Gaza Policy Complicates His 2024 Chances

    Joe Biden’s Israel-Gaza Policy Complicates His 2024 Chances

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    Election Day is one year away, and Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign operation down in Wilmington, Delaware, continues to gear up for what was already going to be a difficult slog. Now a brutal war, between Israel and Hamas, has added an especially volatile dimension to the task—and threatens to fracture the coalition that delivered Biden to the White House, with support from Arab American and younger voters suddenly in question.

    Biden expressed support of Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack, which left 1,400 dead, and the president later visited the country, where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The war has intensified with Israel’s strikes on Gaza, with thousands of Palestinians dead and more than a million displaced. Biden called for a humanitarian “pause” this week, though not a cease-fire, as some Democrats demand.

    The president’s team has wisely sought to avoid discussing the possible domestic political fallout, out of both a sense of respect for the life-and-death events unfolding in the Middle East and an understanding that the course of the crisis is impossible to predict. When they do talk about its political ramifications, they are firmly of the belief that the war will not be a high priority for American voters next November. “Typically, with maybe the exception of 2004, after 9/11, foreign policy doesn’t end up being the sort of thing that most people vote on,” one Biden ally says.

    Cornell Belcher, a Democratic strategist who worked on both of Barack Obama’s successful White House runs, is more emphatic, pointing to the 2012 campaign, when the presence of 77,000 US troops in Afghanistan was a minor issue in the contest between Obama and Mitt Romney. “Americans don’t remember foreign policy and they don’t remember what’s happening on the other side of the world,” Belcher says. “If Americans voted on foreign policy issues, there would have been a President [Richard] Lugar,” the late senator who twice chaired the Foreign Relations committee. “Our hearts go out to all the people who are suffering,” Belcher says. “But unless American troops are fighting on the ground three or four months from now, this won’t be a thing for Americans.” 

    Yet the margins this time around look as if they’ll be nearly as tight as they were in 2020. And for two important segments of voters, the war is likely to still be painfully fresh next fall. Muslim Americans voted two-to-one for Biden in 2020 and helped provide the Democratic candidate a crucial, narrow edge in Michigan. And while no demographic is ever monolithic in elections, Arab Americans have for the most part turned decisively against the president since October 7, stunned by what they see as Biden’s one-sided reaction to the war. According to one poll this week, conducted by the Arab American Institute, Biden’s support dropped from 59% in 2020 to 17% now.

    “Last time I checked, we have about 8,000 people who were massacred in Gaza, 3,300 of whom were children,” says Nada Al-Hanooti, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of Emgage, a national organization that seeks to increase Muslim American political participation. “In Illinois just a few weeks ago, a six-year-old Palestinian boy named Wadea Al-Fayoume was murdered in a hate crime. And the administration is not listening to our calls for a cease-fire. Our community will not forget. I don’t see a way forward for the Biden campaign to win over our community at this point.”

    There’s also another group of voters—larger but harder to define—for whom the war may make a difference in the coming year. Younger, progressive voters showed up in substantial numbers for Biden in 2020. The president’s current support of Israel has left many disenchanted, as protests in major cities and on college campuses clearly illustrate. Some of that reaction is ugly and antisemitic, but there’s also a generational element that seems rooted more in empathy than ideology. John Della Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, specializes in the study of younger voters. Della Volpe says a defining characteristic of Gen Z and millennial voters is that they care deeply about political vulnerability, whether it’s based on race, gender, or income. The pro-Palestinian element of that reaction has gotten the bulk of media attention, but Della Volpe says the true breakdown of sympathies is harder to measure, and how it will be expressed as votes next year is the big, open question. “The polling I have seen of younger voters is fairly equal,” Della Volpe says. “They connect on a visceral level to the vulnerable teenager at an Israeli music festival and to the vulnerable teenager in a refugee camp on the other side of the border.”

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    Chris Smith

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  • Seth Meyers Isn’t Buying This 1 Trump Claim About His Kids

    Seth Meyers Isn’t Buying This 1 Trump Claim About His Kids

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    Seth Meyers on Thursday said one of Donald Trump’s reported fears about his civil fraud trial in New York doesn’t ring true.

    Trump has reportedly told advisers he feels his entire brand and the inheritance of his children are at risk from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million lawsuit against him and his business.

    “I buy the line about his brand but not the line about his children’s inheritance,” said Meyers, the host of NBC’s “Late Night.”

    “There is no way Trump plans on leaving his children with anything other than a giant stack of unpaid bills,” he cracked. “If he has any money left when he dies he’s going to be entombed with it like a pharaoh.”

    “Bury me with my last $300 and also Rudy Giuliani,” Meyers imagined Trump as saying.”

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  • Ron DeSantis’ popularity compared to other governors is abysmal

    Ron DeSantis’ popularity compared to other governors is abysmal

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    Ron DeSantis is one of the most unpopular governors in the country as he records a disapproval rating in the Sunshine State above nearly all others, according to a poll.

    Morning Consult released its quarterly U.S. Senator and Governor Approval Ratings report on Tuesday, showing that 45 percent of people in Florida disapprove of the job DeSantis is doing as governor, with 51 percent approving.

    The rating places DeSantis second in terms of highest disapproval ratings, with Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds in first place at 47 percent (49 approve) and Mississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves in third at 44 percent (46 approve).

    Newsweek reached out to DeSantis’ office via email for comment.

    DeSantis is currently running for president but is trailing former president Donald Trump in the GOP primary polls. While his net approval rating is still positive, the Morning Consult survey may be a blow to the Florida governor, who is usually considered a popular Republican figure in the state. He cruised to re-election in November 2022, beating his Democratic challenger, Charlie Christ, by nearly 20 points.

    Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during a campaign event in Tampa on October 5, 2023. A poll has found that DeSantis has one of the highest governor disapproval ratings in the country.
    Joe Raedle/Getty Images

    The results also suggest that DeSantis is losing his support in Florida. The previous Governor Approval Ratings report in July showed that DeSantis had a 54 percent approval rating, three points higher than the new survey, with a 42 percent disapproval rating, three percent lower than his latest figures.

    In 2019, a Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce survey found that 64 percent of Florida voters approved of the job DeSantis is doing as governor, compared to just 24 percent who disapprove.

    According to the latest Morning Consult poll, Reynolds also saw her disapproval ratings in Iowa rise from 39 percent in the last quarter to 47 percent rise partially because of ties with DeSantis.

    “Her unpopularity increased partly because of a surge in negative sentiment among independent and Republican voters during a year in which she signed a strict anti-abortion law and took a lashing from former President Donald Trump over her apparent closeness with Gov. Ron DeSantis,” a summary of the polls states.

    In September, DeSantis appeared in Iowa, which will hold the first-in-the-nation caucus in January 2024, as part of his presidential campaign to watch the football game between the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. DeSantis sat in the stands alongside Reynolds and also met fans with her outside the stadium.

    Elsewhere, the Morning Consult survey showed that Vermont Republican Phill Scott is the most popular governor in the U.S., with an 83 percent approval rating. Wyoming governor Mark Gordan, a Republican, is second with 73 percent approval, with GOP governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire in third at 67 percent.

    Hawaii Governor Josh Green is in fourth place overall and the most popular Democratic governor, with a 66 percent approval rating.

    The results also reveal that Republican Wyoming Senator John Barrasso is the country’s most popular senator, with a 70 approval rating, followed by Democratic Senator Brian Schatz, who has a 65 percent approval rating in Hawaii.