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Rift or realignment? President Trump’s whirlwind Middle East tour has included sanctions relief for Syria, warmer rhetoric toward Iran, and praise for a former al Qaeda terrorist now leading Syria—without a stop in Israel. The moves have fueled headlines about a growing divide with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the reality may be less dramatic, our Andrew Tobin reports.
There "are indications that reports of a rift between American and Israeli leaders are overblown. Trump has not, by any account, pressured Netanyahu to end the Gaza war or to cancel a major ground offensive in the Gaza Strip set to begin once the president leaves the region," Tobin writes. While meeting with Gulf leaders in Riyadh on Tuesday, Trump doubled down on the U.S. stance that Hamas must be removed from power in Gaza, saying the Palestinian people cannot expect a "future of safety and dignity" under terrorists who "delight in raping, torturing, and murdering innocent people."
Some in Israel are treating Trump’s approach as a signal that the U.S.–Israel relationship may need to evolve. "Trump takes care of the U.S. Israel takes care of Israel. That’s how it works," the pseudonymous Israeli analyst Abu Ali Express wrote in a blog post on Monday. Netanyahu struck a similar tone in a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on Sunday, telling lawmakers that it’s time to "wean ourselves off of American security aid," just as Israel once did with U.S. economic support.
READ MORE: Is the Trump-Bibi Rift Overblown?
Enablers in chief: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the the married cohosts of Morning Joe on MSNBC, may have been the most zealous and handsomely paid champions of Joe Biden’s mental fitness in the media. In light of renewed attention on the media’s role in obscuring Biden’s decline—sparked by an upcoming book from CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson—our Andrew Stiles takes a closer look at the duo’s record of Biden cheerleading.
Biden was reportedly a big admirer of Morning Joe—and for good reason. "The role they’ve played is just doing the bidding of the Biden White House and the Biden campaign," a Democratic consultant told the Washington Post in 2024. According to Axios, Biden spoke "often" with Scarborough, and his "years-long love" of the show helped shape "how the White House runs." Top advisers believed the show gave Biden "a fairer shake on issues than other news shows and media outlets." Not to mention the cohosts' "antagonism toward Donald Trump, which prompted MSNBC brass to briefly suspend the show after Trump was nearly assassinated at a rally in Pennsylvania," Stiles observes.
Then there were the family ties. Brzezinski's brother, Mark Brzezinski, served in the Biden administration as U.S. ambassador to Poland. Joe and Mika were "regular visitors at the White House, and Biden would sometimes invite Morning Joe regulars to take part in off-the-record conversations with policy experts."
"In early March 2024, Scarborough delivered the most outrageous and impassioned defense of Biden's fitness to serve that would ever be recorded over the course of the campaign," Stiles writes.
"Start your tape right now, because I'm about to tell you the truth. And F you if you can't handle the truth," Scarborough said. "This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever, not a close second. … If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it."
READ MORE: Biden's Highly Paid Enablers at MSNBC
Another one bites the dust: Amid sluggish sales of electric vehicles, Vermont on Tuesday joined the growing number of states that are hitting the brakes on EV mandates.
"Vermont governor Phil Scott (R.) issued an executive order Tuesday directing the state's Agency of Natural Resources to pause enforcement of the plan. Under the now-paused law, beginning later this year, automakers would have been forced to ensure EVs were a certain share of total car sales, a percentage that would incrementally increase every year until 2035, when a complete mandate would take effect," reports our Thomas Catenacci.
Roughly 12 percent of new car purchases in Vermont are electric, according to the latest industry data—far below the mandate requiring 35 percent of model year 2026 cars sold in the state to be electric.
That makes Vermont the latest in a string of blue and purple states to retreat from aggressive EV targets: Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware have all withdrawn or scaled back their mandates.
John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, told the Free Beacon the reason for the wave of reversals is simple. "They understand what is happening in their states," he said. "Not enough customers and insufficient charging for these unachievable EV sales requirements."
READ MORE: Another One Bites the Dust: Vermont Slams Brakes on EV Mandate as Sales Lag
Away from the Beacon:
Check out our full Thursday lineup below.
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