Former President Donald Trump reacts to President Joe Biden’s comments on Israel, and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson works to shepherd space agency’s $25 billion budget through Congress.
Trump charges Biden ‘abandoned’ Israel after comments about not supplying weapons for Rafah invasion
In an interview with Spectrum News on Thursday, former President Donald Trump accused President Joe Biden of abandoning Israel after the incumbent said he would not supply the country with weapons it could use to invade Rafah.
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN anchor Erin Burnett in an interview in Wisconsin on Wednesday, adding: “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah … I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities — that deal with that problem.”
When asked by Spectrum News North Carolina political anchor Tim Boyum about Biden’s comments and if he would have a red line in Israel’s war with Hamas, Trump replied: “Well, I wouldn’t do what Biden did. He just abandoned Israel. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Trump then criticized why Jewish people — who typically overwhelmingly back Democrats — vote the way they do. A Pew Research Center survey from last month showed that 69% of Jewish voters align with the Democratic Party, while 29% back Republicans. Since 2020, Jewish voting share among Democrats increased 8%.
“Why Jewish people vote for Democrats is beyond me,” Trump said. “I think maybe they’ll change their mind, but they’ve been married to Democrats for you know, for 50 years, probably more than that. And there’s been no president has ever done anything close to what I’ve done for Israel.”
As president, Trump in 2020 oversaw bilateral agreements between Israel and Arab nations known as the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between the Jewish state, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. That year, he also announced an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan alongside Netanyahu that was criticized by Palestinian leaders and the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
Biden at the time called it a “political stunt” that could “set back peace even more.” In 2017, Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and oversaw the opening of a US embassy in the holy city, a move that enraged Palestinians.
But Biden has been steadfast in his support for Israel, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that killed 1,200 — the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust — and sparked the war in Gaza. Biden just last month signed into law a foreign aid bill providing billions in aid for Israel in its war against Hamas, as well as humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza.
Trump on Thursday charged that Biden has “totally gone on the other side” and “dropped Israel.”
“If you’re Jewish and you vote for him, I say shame on you,” Trump said. He doubled down on those comments ahead of his hush money trial beginning Thursday morning after the interview.
President Biden’s reelection campaign later Thursday condemned Trump’s comments in his interview with Spectrum News.
“As president, Donald Trump said Neo-Nazi marches were ‘very fine people.’ Now, like a cuckoo clock of hate, he is popping up every month with the same patronizing anti-Semitic shtick and reminding Jewish voters that he has no respect for us,” said campaign spokesperson Charles Lutvak. “Like Trump himself lately, his monthly attack on American Jews is getting tired. Voters are ready to put it to bed and they will — by reelecting a president in Joe Biden who cares about people and fights for them instead of one who denigrates them and only cares about himself.”
Trump’s 18-year-old son Barron to serve as RNC delegate
Former President Donald Trump’s youngest son is the latest member of the family to enter the political fray.
Barron Trump, 18, who graduated from high school this month, has been tapped to serve as an at-large delegate from Florida for the Republican National Convention. He will be one of the 125 delegates from the Sunshine State to cast a vote to formally nominate his father at the gathering in Milwaukee in July.
Barron Trump’s appointment was first reported by NBC News.
The 18-year-old will join his father’s eldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as his youngest daughter Tiffany Trump, as delegates, according to a list released by Florida’s Republican Party. Also on the list are Don Jr.’s fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Tiffany Trump’s husband Michael Boulos, and other donors and figures in the former president’s orbit.
“We are fortunate to have a great group of grassroots leaders, elected officials, and members of the Trump family working together as part of the Florida delegation to the 2024 Republican National Convention,” Florida Republican Party Chairman Evan Power said in a statement.
The list underscores the prominence of Trump’s family in the Republican Party. Eric Trump’s wife, Lara, was recently named co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, who served in his administration, was not on the list.
The convention will take place in Milwaukee — the most populous city in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin — from July 15-18.
Barron Trump largely stayed out of the public eye while his father was in the White House and after his presidency. The judge overseeing the elder Trump’s hush money trial in New York said there would be no court on May 17 so he could await Barron’s graduation.
Nelson works to get NASA’s proposed $25 billion budget approved
On Capitol Hill, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson is urging legislators to approve the agency’s proposed $25 billion budget, which includes billions in funding for deep space exploration.
The Biden Administration’s proposed 2025 NASA budget is about half a billion more than the space agency’s current budget, which was adopted months behind schedule.
The proposal seeks nearly $8 billion for deep-space exploration programs, including missions that are part of the Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the moon.
The Artemis II launch — which would send astronauts around the moon — has been pushed back to at least September of next year. The next step, Artemis III, would land astronauts at the moon’s south pole.
Nelson and Republicans on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee emphasized the importance of getting there before adversaries like China.
“We think that there is water there, and if there’s water, then there’s rocket fuel,” Nelson said. “And that’s one reason we’re going to the south pole of the moon.”
NASA faced criticism over layoffs earlier this year at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California as Congress battled over the size of the federal budget. One issue was projections that the cost of the program to retrieve rocks and soil from Mars had grown to $11 billion.
Two weeks ago, NASA announced it was reassessing the program, but would still seek $200 million for it in the 2025 budget.
“It was very possible that we were not even going to get the sample back until 2040,” Nelson said. “And that’s just simply unacceptable.”
Democrats on the committee warned about the dangers of another showdown between Republicans and Democrats like the one that caused this year’s budget to be finalized six months late.
“If we in Congress are forced to continually cut budgets year after year, does that mean that there’s going to be a growing gap in funding because the public sector and the private sector moved farther away?” Rep. Eric Sorenson said.
Lawmakers have until the end of September to pass the new budget.
