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- Fox News Host Jesse Watters, pretending to care about how the President of the United States enjoys a beverage.
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Everyone’s bracing for Israeli military operations to resume in Gaza after a seven-day pause in fighting and the release of hostages.
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Hamas freed eight more Israeli hostages on Thursday after Israel agreed to extend the temporary cease-fire for a seventh day. But there appear to be few women and children hostages remaining in Gaza, at least under Hamas control. That means that the grim exchange which has allowed mediators to broker the pause may be running out. Hamas and other groups are still holding as many as 140 hostages in Gaza. But as of this writing, neither Hamas nor Israel had agreed to extend the exchanges to include male hostages or Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. While mediators were still feverishly working behind the scenes to extend the truce, officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appeared to be preparing for Israel to resume fighting.
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Blinken, speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, said Israel had agreed to U.S. demands that it “must” have “a clear plan in place” to protect civilians and allow the flow of humanitarian assistance before it pushes into Southern Gaza. Blinken added that Israel must establish safe areas for civilians in combat zones, avoid damage to civilian infrastructure like hospitals and power stations, and ensure that civilians who fled south will have the ability to return to the North. “There must be no enduring internal displacement,” he said. Blinken gave no specifics backing up what he said was Israel’s agreement with those demands, and Israel hasn’t, as of this writing, confirmed it. Blinken’s remarks included no news of another extension to the cease-fire. Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Thursday evening that Israel knew of Hamas’ plan for its Oct. 7 attack more than a year ago, but dismissed it as aspirational.
- Hamas claimed responsibility for two men who opened fire on Israeli civilians waiting at a bus stop in Jerusalem during the morning rush hour. The attack killed three civilians and wounded seven, including two Americans, Blinken said. The militants were killed by two Israeli soldiers and a civilian.
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Back in the U.S., even the most stalwart progressives are at odds with some in the Democratic base.
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Blinken’s increasing public pressure on Israel reflects, at least in part, widespread anger in the progressive base over the carnage suffered by Palestinian civilians. But even Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) is facing angry blowback for refusing to back a permanent ceasefire. Former pro-Sanders activists and staffers told The New York Times they feel hurt and betrayed that Sanders, who’s criticized the Biden Administration over Israel-Palestine policy, has not supported their calls for an end to the fighting.
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Sanders on Wednesday called for “an end to the bloodshed, and long-term peace, security and justice for the Palestinian and Israeli people” and also called for preconditions on any new U.S. military aid for Israel. But there was no demand for a ceasefire. “If the person who we have looked to as literally one of the most moral people in the Senate is not calling for a permanent cease-fire now, that’s hard to grapple with,” one former staffer told the Times. Congress looks like it’s going to spend most of its time between now and Christmas figuring out how, or whether, to pair aid for Israel with money for Ukraine, Taiwan, Palestinians and US border security
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Pod Save America is down to its last two live shows of the year before Jon, Jon, Tommy and Dan all climb into one big bed for the holidays like Charlie Bucket’s grandparents. You can catch the show in El Cajon on December 7th with co-host Sam Sanders and San Jose on December 13th with co-host Addisu Demissie. Grab your tickets at crooked.com/events today!
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The tributes and obits for Henry Kissinger continued to pour in Thursday. But so did the real talk about his realpolitik, which spanned his Cold War-era stints as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. Kissinger spent decades in the role of elder statesman, enjoying adulation and performative consultation from any Republican or Democrat who wanted to project natsec cred. That sure helped stave off main-stream criticism for a career that included a lot of coups, blood, and dead innocents at the hands of US policy.
All that helps explain why Kissinger’s death yesterday at 100 unleashed an unusually strong torrent of critical coverage. There was a backlog! Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter Spencer Ackerman had his Kissinger obit pre-written. Some main-stream outlets split the difference between Kissinger’s dual roles of expert diplomatic practitioner and war criminal. Kissinger loved the limelight and became a cultural icon. Still, relatively few Americans are familiar with his record of enabling brutal dictators in some of their bloodiest campaigns.
Wars in Indonesia or coups in Chile can seem distant to many Americans, but Vietnam sure wasn’t! If you leave this week of Kissinger comeuppance with one widely-ignored piece of history, make it this one: Kissinger and Richard Nixon joined forces in 1968—illegally, as private citizens!—to sabotage an imminent end to the Vietnam War. Peace averted, Nixon would go on to win the presidency, escalate the war, and 30,000 American dead later, lose in humiliation in 1973. Statecraft!
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Rep. George Santos (R-NY) may have just lived his last full day as a member of Congress. A GOP-sponsored resolution to expel Santos from the House hit the floor today and is scheduled for a likely vote tomorrow.
Rep. Dean Phillips sharply criticized Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview on Thursday’s episode of Pod Save America, saying Netanyahu has “got to go.” The comments from the Minnesota Democrat mounting a long-shot bid for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination drew a sharp contrast with President Biden, who hugged Netanyahu close after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Phillips has largely supported Biden, but said in a heated conversation Thursday that he’s running because he thinks Biden can’t beat Trump.
How long can a honeymoon with GOP Trumpists last if you’re not…Trump? Speaker Mike Johnson is getting panned by right-wing GOPs for negotiating with Dems and Republicans in the Senate, which is, like… his job. “Disgusting, “a joke,” and “fucking dumb” are just a few of the no-star reviews coming from House GOPs.
A New York appeals court reinstated a gag order barring disgraced former President Donald Trump from attacking court staff in his civil fraud trial. Trump responded to the appeals court ruling by falsely attacking the judge’s wife.
Police are investigating a complaint by a woman accusing Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler of sexual battery against her. Details in the heavily-redacted police report were limited, but the word “raped” appeared more than once. Ziegler’s wife, Bridget Ziegler is a founder of right-wing Moms for Liberty, and anonymous sources “close to the investigation” told the Florida Center for Government Accountability that the couple had been involved in a three-way relationship with the woman.
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee shouted down committee staff then stormed out of a hearing Thursday, angered by Democrats pushing to subpoena conservative judicial power brokers Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow.
Govs. Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom face off in their extremely sideshow-y Fox News debate on Thursday night, moderated by Sean “good faith referee” Hannity. Watch with your laptop open for tonight’s monster Group Thread where your favorite Crooked personalities will be online to relentlessly goof on... uh, actually... take the whole thing extremely seriously! It’s all on the Friends of the Pod Discord. To get access to this and more events like it, make sure you’re subscribed to Friends of the Pod.
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After some less-than-optimal pre-conference PR, the Cop28 climate summit kicked off in Dubai. Nothing like some deliverables to wash away rumors of big oil deals at a boiling planet’s climate confab! To that end, co-hosts Germany and the United Arab Emirates announced a new international aid fund for countries hardest hit by climate-related calamity. The UAE pledged $100 million to a “loss and damage fund” for vulnerable countries, with pledges from the EU, UK and U.S. also on the books.
The UN is using the conference to call for “immediate action” on carbon emissions, made all the more urgent by record global temperatures and warnings that next year will be even hotter. Altogether, we’re set to blow through the 1.5 degree-Celsius global temperature increase targets agreed to by the international community, with many countries…including the U.S.…still ramping up fossil fuel production. The agreement on the “loss and damage fund” at least ticks one thing off the agenda for the two-week conference. Next on the list: actually addressing the climate!
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Elon Musk said “go fuck yourself” to corporate advertisers pulling out of X/Twitter. They’re not coming back. Did he think they’d make them crumble, make them lay down and die? They will survive!
Sen. Rand Paul, a physician, used the Heimlich maneuver to assist fellow GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa when she choked on some food at a lunch on Thursday. This uplifting story was made weird, unfortunately, by Ernst’s decision to crassly politicize someone possibly saving her life, by cracking a joke about choking on “woke policies.” Who does that?
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