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The Hill
a few seconds ago
- Politics
- The Hill
US support for Israel military in Gaza sinks
Americans' disapproval of Israel's military action has now reached 60 percent and diverges greatly along partisan lines. Democratic support is at a low of 8 percent, while 25 percent of independents approve with those low numbers contributing to overall decline in approval. The latest poll took place between July 7-21. It comes amid growing international outrage against Israel for a worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, with food crisis experts saying Tuesday there is a 'worst-case scenario' related to famine in the territory. 'Americans supported Israel's actions in Gaza in its initial reading in 2023, taken several weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Since then, disapproval has outpaced approval in each survey, peaking at 55 percent in March 2024 before dipping to 48 percent in two readings later in the year,' Gallup said. While 71 percent of Republicans approve of Israel's military actions in Gaza, the wide divergence among political parties is viewed as threatening the longstanding bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Monday he would vote against any military support for Israel amid the hunger crisis in Gaza. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Friday introduced a joint resolution of disapproval to block certain weapons shipments to Israel, reportedly to block the sale of thousands of fully automatic assault rifles. In April 2024, Congress approved more than $14 billion in security assistance to Israel, and under the Biden administration, approved more than 100 separate foreign military sales, the Washington Post reported. President Biden was criticized for slow-walking deliveries to Israel under pressure from Democrats to hold back sending some of America's most destructive weaponry. The Trump administration said in March it was expediting 'the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asked earlier this month whether he was worried about declining support for Israel in the Democratic Party, said he was 'certainly interested in maintaining the great support that Israel has had' and blamed a 'concerted effort to spread vilifications and demonization against Israel in social media.' The Gallup poll also recorded a majority of Americans disapprove of Netanyahu, at 52 percent, his highest unfavorable rating since 1997.
Fox News
an hour ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Pete Buttigieg acknowledges 'fairness issues' with trans athletes in women's sports
Prominent Democrat and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg weighed in on the debate about transgender athletes competing in women's sports. During an interview with NPR, Buttigieg acknowledged "fairness issues" in the debate. "Around sports, … I think most reasonable people would recognize that there are serious fairness issues if you just treat this as not mattering when a trans athlete wants to compete in women's sports," Buttigieg said. The Democrat then agreed that parents who have complained about trans athletes competing against their daughters "have a case." However, Buttigieg also argued that politicians shouldn't be dictating policy to determine whether males can compete in women's and girls sports. "And that's why I think these decisions should be in the hands of sports leagues and school boards and not politicians … in Washington trying to use this as a political pawn," Buttigieg said. "Chess is different from weightlifting, and weightlifting is different from volleyball and middle school is different from the Olympics. So, that's exactly why I think that we shouldn't be grandstanding on this as politicians. We should be empowering communities and organizations and schools to make the right decisions." Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, have advocated for policy changes that would allow trans athletes to compete in women's and girls sports. Biden passed an executive order on his first day in office in January 2021 that said "Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports." Democrats in Congress also tried to pass the Transgender Bill of Rights and the Equality Act, both of which would have allowed trans athletes to compete in girls and women's sports. President Donald Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order Feb. 5, and 27 states have passed their own laws to ensure similar restrictions. Buttigieg joins several other prominent Democrats and media pundits who have spoken out against allowing males to compete with females, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; and HBO host Bill Maher. An April report by The New York Times claims that Biden did not agree with trans athletes participating in women's and girls sports. "According to a number of former Biden-administration officials, there remained a simmering debate inside the administration about whether those Title IX protections should extend to sports," the Times reported,. "One side …maintained that there was no legal difference between letting trans students use bathrooms that align with their gender identity and letting trans student athletes play on sports teams that align with their gender identity." However, Biden was "on the other side … who believed that the competitive, zero-sum nature of sports made them different from bathrooms — that some transgender athletes would enjoy unfair physical advantages over women. Most important, one of the officials holding this view was Biden himself." A New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don't think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women's sports. "Thinking about transgender female athletes — meaning athletes who were male at birth but who currently identify as female — do you think they should or should not be allowed to compete in women's sports?" the survey asked. Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women's sports. Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women. Other data suggests the issue affected the outcome of the 2024 election. A national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America (CWA) legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of "Donald Trump's opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls' and women's sports and of transgender boys and men using girls' and women's bathrooms" as important to them. And 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was "very important."
The Independent
2 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
With Biden gone, and faced with indescribable famine, the Democratic consensus on Israel and Gaza shifts
The crisis in Gaza reached new horrific levels this week as the world's leading authority on famine and food security declared that mass starvation and death is imminent within the enclave unless Israeli forces begin allowing more aid into the Strip. In Washington, the mood among Democrats on the issue is dark. Having chained their party to support for Israel under the Biden administration, the party suffered a devastating defeat in 2024 and are now being forced to watch a resurgence on the progressive pro-Palestinian left. Despite breathless insistences to the contrary by center-left commentators, it's becoming increasingly clear that the base of the Democratic Party is shifting away from the pro-Israel consensus long upheld by the DC foreign policy establishment. It's not just the left, either; new polling shows a generational divide across all party lines on the issue of sympathy for support of Palestinian statehood and an end to the slaughter in Gaza. Few will say it openly, but no one is denying it on the left: there has been an earthquake within the party. The upstart victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor came amid a barrage of coverage from the mainstream media — including his hometown papers, the New York Times and New York Post — which often insinuated that Mamdani harbored anti-Semitic beliefs or falsely accused him of expressing them. It also rebuked the endorsements of aging Democratic would-be kingmakers Bill Clinton and James Clyburn, who issued late-game endorsements of New York's former governor, Andrew Cuomo. In a poll out Tuesday from the IMEU Policy Project conducted by Data for Progress, a clear portrait of the race emerges. Nearly eight in 10 New York mayoral primary voters said they believed Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza. Putting aside the mayoral race entirely for a moment — how does a candidate in the ideological vein of Joe Biden or Kamala Harris fare among an electorate like that? In the same poll, 63 percent of Democratic primary voters in the city supported what could easily be described as Mamdani's most hardline position on the matter of Israel-Palestine: his support for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were he ever to visit the city. A lower figure than the number that are willing to assign the term 'genocide' to the conflict, but far from insignificant. A news article in the Jewish magazine Forward put the question plainly on Monday: 'After Mamdani and Gaza, are Democrats turning against Israel?' Democrats in New York and across the country are quickly waking up to the rapidly shifting ground beneath them. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat and vocal critic of his colleagues in the so-called 'Squad,' bluntly assessed that he could not win a Democratic primary for governor in the state after Mamdani's victory. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House Minority Leader, reportedly told allies that he doubts his ability to win the speakership with Mamdani in play. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York's junior US senator, issued a humbling apology to Mamdani after accusing him (falsely) of supporting 'jihad.' The efforts to dodge what could be a historic wave of primary challenges fueled by progressive rage over the next three years are hastily getting underway. Joe Biden's departure from the White House and Netanyahu's close alliance with Trump make criticizing Israel a much easier prospect for Democrats. The mass starvation and shocking killings of Palestinians at aid reception areas by Israeli troops have accelerated the criticism of Israel from Washington Democrats in the past week. In the Senate, a large coalition of Democrats led by Chris Van Hollen of Maryland is urging the Trump administration to publicly break with the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and return to reliance on neutral international groups to provide aid. Van Hollen, who was a lonely voice for Palestinian suffering under the Biden administration, now has the backing of nearly half of his caucus. One unsurprising holdout was John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator and vocal supporter of Israel, including some of its most controversial war-fighting methods that have been denounced as war crimes by the International Criminal Court and others. Fetterman, up for reelection in 2028, has vultures circling him. Conor Lamb, his former primary opponent, is punching him relentlessly on social media and in a series of public appearances he's made at town hall-style events across the state. Lamb, who tweeted in support of destroying Hamas and supporting Israel after the October 7 attacks, lost out on endorsements from the progressive left that now despises Fetterman when they ran against each other in 2022. Another Pennsylvania congressman, a Democrat, tweeted (publicly!) that he hopes Fetterman doesn't run for president. This past week, Lamb tweeted that he hopes Pope Leo, the first American pontiff, 'continues to speak against starvation and barbarity in Gaza.' Members of the House are speaking out as well. Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana, came out in support of an arms embargo against Israel on Monday while accusing Netanyahu's government of 'starving' the population of Gaza. Others, including Madeleine Dean, demanded another ceasefire be hammered out. Torres attacked a Republican colleague for making repeated Islamophobic remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar, and in an interview with Chuck Todd blasted Netanyahu for doing 'irreparable' harm to the relationship between Israel and the Democratic Party. Leadership is lagging behind but clearly feels the wind shifting: Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Jeffries released statements on Friday on the starvation, each condemning the crisis, neither one using the word 'Israel' at any point. Even Barack Obama, hesitant as he typically is to speak out on the issue of the day in his post-presidency, put out a statement seemingly critical of Israel, writing in part: 'There is no justification for keeping food and water away from civilian families.' The only Democrats who are being truly silent on the issue are tied directly to the former administration. Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris are widely seen as two of the most likely to contend for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. Neither has issued a word about Gaza for months. Harris, also thought to be considering a run for governor of California, hasn't sat for a long-form interview this year. In the end it could be difficult to determine exactly how much of the stink attached to former Biden-world figures relates to Gaza, as opposed to the year(s?)-long coverup of the president's declining faculties. One thing is for certain: something shifted in the past week, something beyond just the fallout from election of a charismatic Muslim candidate in a prominent but isolated primary race.
The Intercept
3 hours ago
- Health
- The Intercept
Trump Prepares to Revoke Lifesaving Abortion Care for Veterans
President Donald Trump appears poised to institute an abortion ban for hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs — escalating his war on reproductive health care by revoking veterans' access to abortion. The Office of Management and Budget concluded its review last week of a Veterans Affairs rule titled Reproductive Health Services, clearing the way to implement it at the VA. Experts believe the rule is a reversal of a Biden-era policy of the same name which ended the agency's ban on abortion counseling for veterans and allowed for VA providers to offer abortion services in limited circumstances, such as rape, incest, or endangerment of a pregnant person's life or health. If the policy is overturned, hundreds of thousands of veterans in states with abortion bans could lose access to abortion care and counseling. Sarah Baker, the digital director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the change appears to be 'the first nationwide abortion ban that Trump is supporting and putting in place.' The new rule has not yet been published, and until it is, experts can't be certain what exactly is in it. The VA did not respond to The Intercept's request for comment. But Rachel Fey, vice president of policy and strategic partnerships at the reproductive and sexual health advocacy organization Power to Decide, said that based on the Trump administration's posture and explicit calls in Project 2025 to reverse the Biden policy, she expects one of two outcomes. 'We think either they would roll back the exceptions to an extremely narrow set that mimics the Hyde Amendment,' Fey said, referring to a law that bars federal funds from being used for abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a person's life. (The Hyde Amendment does not allow exceptions to preserve a person's health in non-fatal circumstances, as the Biden rule does.) Or, Fey said, another possibility is 'just striking [the Biden rule] entirely and saying abortion is not allowed in any circumstances at the VA.' The Biden administration implemented the Reproductive Health Services rule for the VA in 2024, two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Though the rule only allows VA hospitals to provide abortions in extreme circumstances, it was designed to provide basic protections in states that moved quickly to institute abortion bans. Read Our Complete Coverage Over half of all women veterans of reproductive age in the U.S. live in states where abortion is banned or likely to be banned, according to analysis from the National Partnership for Women & Families. 'So that's 345,000 women veterans that live in states that have banned or are likely to ban abortion,' said Jaclyn Dean, director of congressional relations, reproductive health, at the National Partnership for Women & Families. 'For many of the women veterans living in any of those 12 states with total abortion bans, the VA is the only place that they can get abortion care. So you can expect those people to lose abortion care in cases of rape, incest, in the life and health of the pregnant person.' In that climate, Fey stressed, even narrowing the exceptions could be devastating. 'What we've seen in states like Texas and Idaho is women coming close to death, suffering the loss of future fertility sometimes, suffering long-term disability because they were not given the standard clinical care they needed when they needed it,' Fey said. 'That's what we're talking about when we get to a life exception versus a health exception.' Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., who co-authored a letter in April opposing the rule change along with 130 House Democrats, said reversing the Biden rule was a 'betrayal.' 'As a physician, I trained at the VA, where a sign at the entrance read: 'The price of freedom is visible here.' Our veterans sacrificed everything for this country, and in return, we promised them the best care possible,' Dexter wrote in a statement to The Intercept. 'For Trump to reinstate a complete ban on abortion care and counseling at the VA – even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life or health of the mother — is an utter betrayal of that promise.' Veterans also face unique health risks related to pregnancy, said Baker with the Center for Reproductive Rights. 'Pregnancy is just riskier for veterans,' said Baker, 'because of the different health risks that they face, higher rates of sexual assault, higher rates of PTSD … and the higher [rates of] other chronic conditions.' And restricting or cutting off access to abortion would only compound the additional barriers to accessing quality health care that veterans already face, Fey noted. 'Serving in the U.S. military is often a way out of poverty for a lot of people in this country, and because of systemic racism, a disproportionate number of the people looking for that way out are Black and brown women when they serve in the military,' said Fey. 'When we talk about reproductive health care in this country, the harms don't fall equally.' The Trump administration has been steadily chipping away at policies put in place by President Joe Biden to protect access to reproductive health care. In June, Trump rescinded guidance from the Biden administration that directed hospitals under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act to provide stabilizing treatment to patients in medical emergencies — including abortion care. 'It's all part of this larger plan of extremists to ban abortion wherever they can and to interfere with people's personal medical decisions,' said Dean. 'They're weaponizing control over veterans' health care, instead of doing what's actually best for our country's veterans, which is giving them the health care that they need.'
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
Does Europe still matter in the Iran nuclear talks?
Europe still talks like a power – but it no longer acts like one. The recent meeting in Istanbul between Iran and the E3 nations – the UK, Germany, and France – was less a negotiation than a diplomatic performance. Though cloaked in formal statements and procedural optimism, the gathering resembled a carefully staged simulation of diplomacy, aimed more at signaling activity than achieving substance. For all their rhetorical commitment to dialogue, the E3 nations have long ceased to be meaningful actors in the Iranian nuclear file. Their insistence on maintaining a mediating role is no longer backed by either institutional capacity or political will. The talks in Istanbul offered no new proposals, no breakthroughs, and no signs of strategic coherence. Instead, they epitomized a pattern of 'negotiations for the sake of negotiations' – a ritualized diplomacy that conceals, rather than resolves, the underlying geopolitical rift. This was not the first time. A similar meeting held in Istanbul on May 16, 2025, produced the same optimistic rhetoric, only for the situation to unravel weeks later. By mid‑June, Israel had launched a series of strikes against Iran, and for the first time in history, the United States directly attacked Iran's Fordow nuclear facility during the '12‑day war.' That escalation demonstrated in stark terms the limits of Europe's ability to influence outcomes – and the acceptability of force in a conflict where Europe is now largely a bystander. Europe's problem is not just marginalization by the US, but voluntary irrelevance. While Paris, Berlin, and London posture as bridge‑builders between Tehran and Washington, in practice they operate within the parameters defined in Washington and West Jerusalem. The result is not constructive engagement, but an elaborate pretense – diplomacy without agency. The collapse of Europe's credibility in the Iranian nuclear file began long before these days. After Donald Trump's 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the E3 promised to shield Tehran from the shock of renewed US sanctions. Their flagship solution was the INSTEX financial mechanism – a supposed alternative channel for trade with Iran. But INSTEX never fulfilled that promise. Over its entire existence, it conducted only a single transaction – a humanitarian shipment of medical supplies in 2020 – and even that fell squarely within the categories of goods already exempt from US sanctions. There was no real test of Europe's willingness to defy Washington's restrictions, no challenge to the financial chokehold imposed on Iran's oil and banking sectors. The episode exposed INSTEX for what it was: a symbolic gesture designed to project strategic autonomy, not exercise it. By 2023, the mechanism had been quietly dismantled. This failure was not merely technical. It sent Tehran a clear message: when Washington applies pressure, Europe folds. Even the Biden administration's declared willingness to revive the JCPOA failed to change the dynamic. By March 2022, EU‑led talks in Vienna had stalled over US terrorism designations against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other unresolved issues. European officials vaguely cited 'external factors' as the reason, but the deeper problem was an unwillingness to confront Washington on Iran's core demands. A 'final compromise draft' circulated that summer, but by September, the E3 were publicly blaming Iran for the collapse of negotiations, accusing Tehran of introducing new conditions regarding its Non‑Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments. For Iran, the pattern was unmistakable: Europe had the rhetoric of diplomacy but lacked the leverage to deliver. The consequences became brutally clear in June 2025, when Israel launched a series of strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities – and the US directly struck Fordow. Europe, once imagined in Tehran as a potential mediator (with France once considered a direct channel to Washington), was reduced to issuing statements of 'concern.' Trust that Paris, Berlin, or London could act independently evaporated. For Iran, these episodes confirmed what INSTEX had already exposed. Again, the pattern is the same: when the stakes rise, the E3 has neither the instruments nor the will to defend its commitments. By 2024, any lingering illusion that the E3 could mediate independently between Washington and Tehran had collapsed. The European powers were no longer attempting to balance interests; they were enforcing Washington's strategy. Sanctions on Iran's aviation sector and civilian fleet, adopted by the EU in November 2024, were a clear signal that Brussels had aligned itself fully with the US 'maximum pressure' campaign. Even earlier that year, a high‑profile meeting with Iranian officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2024 underscored Europe's inability to deliver tangible results. The talks produced the usual optimistic statements but no progress. For Tehran, the message was again clear: European diplomacy was about optics, not outcomes. At the same time, the E3 pushed a series of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolutions censuring Iran for alleged violations of its international obligations. The latest, passed on June 12, 2025 – just one day before Israel's attacks and the unprecedented direct US strike on Fordow – was perceived in Tehran as a green light for escalation. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi publicly warned that the resolution would destabilize the region, but European leaders pressed ahead, seemingly oblivious to the consequences. In reality, the Europeans were not oblivious; they were irrelevant. Paris, Berlin, and London had ceased to shape events and had instead become instruments for applying pressure on Iran. As one Iranian diplomat observed privately, European leaders may initially criticize US decisions, but they ultimately align themselves unconditionally and even present those policies as the 'European position.' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has gone further, openly supporting any decision made by Donald Trump. Diplomatic gatherings such as the Istanbul meeting served less as platforms for negotiation than as reconnaissance missions: opportunities to 'test the waters' of Tehran's demands and feed intelligence back to Washington. By mid‑2025, the E3's so‑called diplomacy was no longer about building bridges. It was about delivering ultimatums. With negotiations going nowhere, Europe and the United States set an August 2025 deadline for reaching a new agreement with Iran. The implicit threat was clear: if Tehran refused, London, Paris, and Berlin would activate the 'snapback' mechanism embedded in UN Security Council Resolution 2231, restoring pre‑JCPOA sanctions. For Tehran, this was not a legal step but an act of coercion. Iranian officials have long argued that the E3 forfeited their moral and legal authority to invoke snapback when they failed to uphold their own commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi's warning could not have been more explicit: if Europe proceeds, Iran will consider withdrawing from the Treaty on the Non‑Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In a letter to the UN secretary‑general and the Security Council, Araghchi accused the Europeans of aligning themselves politically and militarily with the US and Israel – even to the point of tacitly endorsing direct US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. The snapback procedure itself is legally contentious. Since the US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, many international lawyers argue that Washington forfeited the right to trigger the mechanism. But in today's geopolitical landscape, that debate is academic. Under snapback rules, permanent Security Council members have no veto; only nine votes are required to reimpose sanctions. The outcome would be predetermined. And for the E3, the activation of snapback would seal a transformation already underway: from nominal mediators to open enforcers of US policy. The Istanbul meeting, then, was never about diplomacy. It was about pressure. Europe still sits at the table, but the conversation happens elsewhere. Diplomacy is dead; what remains is an ultimatum delivered on behalf of Washington – and Iran is unlikely to mistake it for anything else.
