Top Republicans Lose Their Mind Over Biden Delaying Weapons to Israel

President Biden briefly held up sending weapons to Israel this week, and Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson promptly freaked out.

The Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader sent a rare joint letter to Biden on Wednesday saying they were “alarmed by media reports that your administration had delayed the delivery of a variety of weapons shipments bound for Israel. This news flies in the face of assurances provided regarding the timely delivery of security assistance to Israel.”

The shipment consisted of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, according to the BBC, and the delay reportedly came because Biden administration officials felt Israel has not “fully addressed” humanitarian concerns in Rafah, a city on Gaza’s border with Egypt where small amounts of aid have entered the territory and where civilians from the rest of Gaza have fled during the war. Israel has recently begun a military operation in the city.

Other Republicans also expressed outrage at the delay.

Senator Lindsey Graham said, “If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price. This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose.”

Republicans seem to be ignoring how Israel has already killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 14,500 children. The Biden administration has said previously that Israel’s military would cross a red line if they launched an operation on Rafah, but now maintain that Israel isn’t crossing that line. A cease-fire was agreed to by Hamas this week, only to be rejected by Israel, making Biden’s public statements and behind-the-scenes efforts toward Netanyahu look foolish.

Flippant statements from Israeli officials over the weapons holdup don’t help, either:

(A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in response, “Those comments are deplorable,” adding senior Israeli officials “should refrain from” these kinds of threats.)

At least one Democratic, or rather independent, senator saw the Biden administration’s decision as a good first step, perhaps toward a bigger move.

Bernie Sanders said:

Given the unprecedented humanitarian disaster that Netanyahu’s war has created in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of children face starvation, President Biden is absolutely right to halt bomb delivery to this extreme, right-wing Israeli government. But this must be a first step.

The U.S. must now use ALL its leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, the end of the attacks on Rafah, and the immediate delivery of massive amounts of humanitarian aid to people living in desperation. Our leverage is clear. Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.

At a press conference Wednesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson pushed a right-wing conspiracy theory that undocumented immigrants are voting in elections—and then in the same breath admitted that there was no proof.

Johnson was speaking about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act, introduced by Republicans Wednesday in the House of Representatives and the Senate, which would require proof of citizenship to be able to vote in elections.

“We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable. We don’t have that number,” Johnson said.

Johnson claimed the new bill would allow states to track instances of illegal voting and would give them the ability to enforce the law against such instances. But the idea that “a lot of illegals” vote in elections is a long-standing right-wing myth, repeated without proof by personalities such as Elon Musk and far-right members of Congress like Byron Donalds. Statistics show that fewer than 1 percent of noncitizens even attempt to register to vote.

So why repeat it? It seems to be a recurring pattern for Republicans to scare up votes by demonizing immigrants. It hasn’t worked the last few elections, though, and this time around, Trump and the GOP even scuttled a border security bill out of fears it would be good for Biden, making it clear to voters that Republican rhetoric is merely theater. They want to use fear about immigration to win in 2024 so they can enact more laws like the Muslim ban and streamline deportations.

The Ku Klux Klan is the “the military wing of the Democratic Party,” and migrants coming to the United States “have no interest in being Americans,” Republican Representative Scott Perry said in a closed-door meeting with other lawmakers Tuesday.

CNN obtained a recording of Perry, whose district encompasses south central Pennsylvania, making the remarks during a House Oversight Committee member briefing on “The Origins and Implications of Rising Antisemitism in Higher Education.”

“The KKK in modern times, a lot of young people think somehow it’s a right-wing organization, when it is the military wing of the Democratic Party. Decidedly, unabashedly, racist and antisemitic,” Perry said in the recording.

“‘Replacement theory’ is real,” Perry added, referencing the discredited, racist idea that elites are deliberately replacing white people with immigrants and other racial groups. “They added white to it to stop everybody from talking about it.”

His comments at the meeting didn’t end there.

“What is happening now is we’re importing people into the country that want to be in America … but have no interest in being Americans, and that’s very different, and to disparage the comments is to chill the conversation so that we can continue to bring in more people that we never met that are un-American,” Perry said, according to the recording.

When CNN contacted Perry for comment, he claimed that he was taken out of context.

“Once again, the radical Left twists facts in order to silence conversation about its own crimes and Biden’s intentional failures to enforce laws and close or regulate our borders. My point is proven yet again: when the Left loses an argument, it debases and smears instead of engaging in debate on merits,” Perry said in a statement.

Perry’s statement doesn’t actually dispute his recorded comments, which sound damning in just about any context. The irony of stating his beliefs on replacement theory is that it is very much connected to antisemitism, with many claiming that Jewish people are the “elites” leading the efforts to replace white people. These days, replacement theory has been tied to massacres like the Buffalo shooting, parroted by people like Elon Musk, and used by some Republicans to justify regressive policies on abortion and immigration alike. 

This is yet another mark on Perry’s record, as the Pennsylvania congressman has been extensively linked to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021, even having his cell phone briefly seized by the FBI and narrowly escaping a lawsuit from his own state to be removed from the 2024 ballot for his part in the insurrection.

Donald Trump simply can’t help himself from taking a solid jab at the partial gag order he’s under in his New York hush-money trial. The court-imposed gag order prevents him from speaking publicly about courtroom staff, prosecutors, jurors, witnesses, or their family members—but according to Trump, not having the opportunity to openly insult them is thoroughly “unfair.”

“It is a really bad feeling to have your Constitutional Right to Free Speech, such a big part of life in our Country, so unfairly taken from you, especially when all of the sleazebags, lowlifes, and grifters that you oppose are allowed to say absolutely anything that they want,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday morning, during his only break from the courtroom this week.

“It is hard to sit back and listen to lies and false statements be made against you knowing that if you respond, even in the most modest fashion, you are told by a Corrupt and Highly Conflicted Judge that you will be PUT IN PRISON, maybe for a long period of time,” he continued. “This Fascist mindset is all coming from D.C. It is a sophisticated hit job on Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent, ME!”

Trump then went on to attack Judge Arthur Engoron and Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw two of his prior civil trials, including the New York bank fraud trial in which Trump had to cough up $15,000 for violating a similar gag order.

“Judges Engoron and Kaplan, also of New York, are equally Corrupt, only in different ways,” Trump wrote, attempting to tie court cases in which he, a former real estate mogul, reality TV star, and indicted former president, was tried for his own misconduct, to the liberties of the average American. “What these THUGS are doing is AN ATTACK ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AND OUR ONCE GREAT NATION ITSELF. OUR FIRST AMENDMENT MUST STAND, FREE AND STRONG. ‘GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!’”

Donald Trump’s big mouth in the hush-money trial has so far cost him $10,000* and earned him a formal warning about the possibility of jail time if he continues to violate the gag. In the days since Trump was last formally warned, he has come pretty close to breaching the order—including deleting a post about Stormy Daniels moments before she was set to take the stand. It remains to be seen if his latest post—which seems to lambast witnesses in the case as “sleazebags” and “lowlifes”—will constitute another violation.

Trump is accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. The Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony charges in this case for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

*This article originally misstated the amount Trump has been fined for violating the gag order.

A Republican lawmaker has decided that the violent detention of college students participating in Gaza solidarity protests isn’t enough of a punishment. Instead, he believes the only way to encourage them to stop using their First Amendment right to protest is to ship them off to Gaza.

Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles introduced a new bill into the House Wednesday, proposing that students who were arrested for protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza should be sent abroad to “provide community service” for a minimum of six months in the war-torn territory.

“Any person convicted of unlawful activity on the campus of an institution of higher education beginning on and after October 7, 2023, shall be assigned to Gaza for the purpose of providing community service… for a period not fewer than six months,” the bill reads.

It is not currently clear what the exact parameters of the proposed community service would be, though the bill points to the term’s definition in U.S. Code, which are identified by universities “through formal or informal consultation with local nonprofit, governmental, and community-based organizations.”

Although it’s unlikely to gain momentum, the bill could impact approximately 2,100 students who were arrested while participating in peace protests in recent weeks.

It’s at least the second time Ogles has hatefully condemned the citizens of Gaza and their American allies who want an end to the war. In February, the Tennessee Republican ruthlessly advocated for the complete extermination of Palestine while engaging in a fiery spat with an activist.

“You know what? So, I think we should kill ’em all, if that makes you feel better,” Ogles, a self-described Christian, told a protester asking him about dead Palestinian children. “Everybody in Hamas.”

“Hamas and the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 20 years. And It’s time to pay the piper,” the lawmaker continued.

Meanwhile, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 77,000 Palestinians have been injured in the conflict, according to data from the Gaza Health Ministry. Most of the victims have been women and children.

Israel has advanced its attacks on Gaza by blocking humanitarian aid from reaching those who need it. Israel has also utilized mass starvation, as well as blocked or destroyed access to critical resources such as water, food, fuel, electricity, and medical aid.