Inside Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress

Today Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu became the first world leader to address a joint session of Congress four times, surpassing the previous record jointly held by him and Winston Churchill. 

And the anti-Israel protesters, not unlike the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, drastically inflated their numbers ahead of Wednesday’s proceedings. Despite concern that more than 10,000 anti-Israel protesters would descend on the nation’s capital, only a small group that carried Hamas flags and shut down multiple streets showed up. That’s not to say there was no drama, however. 

There was “absolute chaos” in the streets of the capital by the protesters who did show, with some activists pepper-sprayed and arrested by the Capitol Police. Outside of Union Station, protesters hoisted the Palestinian flag in place of the American flag, which was promptly burned in Columbus Circle. The night before Netanyahu’s speech, anti-Israel groups such as the Palestinian Youth Movement had snuck into the Watergate Hotel where Netanyahu stayed and released “mealworms and maggots” throughout. 

Those protesters also paid homage to Representative Jamaal Bowman of New York by pulling fire alarms throughout the Watergate Hotel, which did not return The Spectator’s request for comment. These security breaches continued a horrible week for the Secret Service, whose director recently resigned in disgrace following the failed assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump. 

Netanyahu’s speech itself was well-received by members of both political parties. 

In contrast with some presidential State of the Union addresses, he regularly received raucous standing ovations from both Republicans and some, but not all, Democrats. 

Netanyahu put a spotlight on the horrific atrocities that befell Israel on October 7, the ever-present threats posed by Iran and its proxies in Gaza and Yemen and decried the “downright dangerous” crusade against Israel by organizations such as the International Criminal Court that he said, if successful, will make it harder for America to fight terrorism. 

Netanyahu brought a crew of guests with him that he shouted out, including former Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, who was rescued alongside three others in a daring raid by Israeli forces, and several soldiers whose heroism Nentanyahu praised. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, sat next to Argamani for the speech.

Ahead of the speech, top Democrats including Vice President Kamala Harris, former speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and more announced they were skipping the event.

Representative Rashida Tlain of Michigan stayed seated and silent throughout the address, including when Netanyahu threw out obvious bipartisan applause lines, including one about the need to rescue the American hostages who are still held by Palestinian terrorists and another praising the fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina who hoisted the American flag during campus protests. She did however brandish a sign in the chamber that read “war criminal.”

Tlaib was not alone in her muted response. On the chamber’s far left, a group of Democratic lawmakers was also silent for virtually the entire speech, which Republicans are already eager to seize on as part of the party’s drift from its pro-Israel history. 

“From Vice President Kamala Harris snubbing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech in favor of a sorority luncheon, to Chuck Schumer’s cold interaction with Israel’s leader as he approached the dais, to the scores of Democrats who boycotted the speech and others who refused to applaud — and in one shameful instance, held up a ‘war criminal’ sign — it is clear that there is only one unequivocally pro-Israel party, and it is the Republican Party,” the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spokesman, Sam Markstein, said right after the speech.

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar 

BIDEN UNLEASHED President Joe Biden will address the nation at 8 p.m. tonight, marking his first time speaking publicly since testing positive for Covid and announcing on X that he is dropping out of his re-election bid. 

MEN-END-EZ New Jersey senator Bob Menendez will resign next month after being found guilty on corruption and bribery charges. Menendez was the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee before his problematic relations with Egypt and Qatar were revealed in a federal indictment. 

YOU MUSK BE JOKING Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk pared back his commitment to donate $45 million a month to America PAC to help elect Donald Trump. Musk said on his social media platform X that his donations will be made “at a much lower level” and will be more focused on promoting “meritocracy & individual freedom.” 

Kamala chameleon

Democrats and their allies in the media are going all-in on their new presumptive nominee, Kamala Harris, which means divorcing her from the Biden administration’s abysmal policy record. Unfortunately for them, Harris was assigned charge of one of the worst aspects of the Biden presidency: the border crisis.

As Roberta Jacobson, the Biden administration’s “border czar” — as news outlets such as the New York Times, the LA Times, the Hill, Politico and Axios called her at the time — prepared to retire, Biden announced on March 24, 2021 that his vice president has “agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their borders” and to help with “stemming the migration of folks to our border.” Shortly after the announcement, BBC described Harris as the new “immigration czar.” Other reports followed suit from prominent publications that repeatedly referred to her as the “border czar” and acknowledged that she was responsible for stemming the border crisis. 

Fast-forward three years, and the same media outlets are insisting that Harris was never the “border czar.” It was a title bestowed upon her by Republicans and the Trump campaign in bad faith, they claim. Of course, there is no official “czar” title in American government, but it is an informal and common shorthand to describe individuals in charge of a specific policy area. No one took issue, for example, with John Kerry being labeled the “climate czar.”

The intention, obviously, is to absolve Harris of responsibility for failing to significantly reduce illegal crossings or improve conditions in the Northern Triangle countries. It’s a blatant and shameless display of revisionist history.

Axios even updated its article criticizing the use of “border czar” to say that “Axios was among the news outlets that incorrectly labeled Harris a ‘border czar’ back in 2021.” Throwing themselves under the bus to save the presumptive Democratic nominee. Now that’s journalism! 

Immigration remains one of the top two issues for voters heading into November which means “root causes czar” Harris has quite the millstone around her neck. Trump will surely hammer her for this if the pair end up debating this fall; the former president says he “would be willing to do more than one debate actually.” 

–Amber Duke

Trump’s campaign finance curveball  

Former president Donald Trump’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday, accusing Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign of improperly taking over funds from President Joe Biden’s reelection bid when he dropped out on Sunday.

The complaint is filed against Biden, Harris, the Biden campaign and campaign treasurer Keana Spencer.

In its first twenty-four hours, Harris’s campaign has broken fundraising records since launching Monday, raking in more than $80 million.

The Trump campaign is demanding a criminal investigation, claiming that Harris cannot take over President Biden’s funds because it is a violation of campaign finance contributions and a form of fraud. The Harris campaign “is in the process of committing the largest campaign finance violation in American history and she is using the Commission’s own forms to do it,” Trump campaign counsel David Warrington wrote in the complaint. Warrington accuses Harris of simply replacing Biden’s name with hers rather than filing her own Statement of Candidacy.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak responded to the complaint saying, “Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims — like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections — will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters and win this election.”

Campaign finance experts say that because a presidential candidate and vice-presidential candidate share the same entity as their joint campaign depository under federal election law, Harris has lawful access to Biden’s funds. However, some argue that since Harris has not gone through the formal nomination process yet, she is not allowed to use the money yet. The FEC is unlikely to resolve the issue before the election.

–Elisenne Stoller