Victoria Nuland has long been known as a relentless, even pugnacious, U.S. diplomat, with a strong belief in American power. The approach sometimes got her in trouble, but it rarely held her back.

Nuland recently left the State Department after serving at its highest levels, first as the Biden administration’s undersecretary of State for political affairs, and, for several months, acting deputy secretary of State. She previously was a career diplomat who held an array of roles under presidents both Republican and Democratic; her first posting more than three decades ago was as a consular officer in China.

In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, Nuland discussed her time in public service — dismissing chatter that she was passed over for a promotion — as well as her views on where American foreign policy has gone wrong and right.

Notably, she said the United States was not quick enough to realize and prevent the expansionist ambitions of both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Read More »

In late April, staffers at Joe Biden’s headquarters fixated on votes for Nikki Haley rolling in during the Pennsylvania primary, as she pulled 20 to 25 percent support in the largely upscale, suburban collar counties around Philadelphia.

Most remarkable: Haley had dropped out more than six weeks earlier.

Within a day, the Biden campaign dropped an additional six-figure TV and digital ad buy in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties, explicitly targeting Haley voters with an ad featuring former President Donald Trump bad-mouthing his former U.N. ambassador and her supporters.

The ads are part of a much larger — and mostly behind-the-scenes — strategy to reel in anti-Trump Republicans, who continue to show up everywhere from Arizona to Wisconsin. The Biden campaign views Haley voters as a core part of its coalition this fall, especially as polls show some erosion among traditional Democratic groups such as young voters. Top campaign officials continue to court major Haley donors and possible anti-Trump GOP endorsers while honing their messages for bringing in Haley voters.

Read More »

The Biden administration once again pulled its punches when it comes to Israel.

Despite pressure from Democratic lawmakers and his efforts to stop a major Israeli ground operation in Rafah, President Joe Biden did not use a much-anticipated report on Friday to declare that Israel has violated international law in its war with Hamas. Instead, the State Department document, mandated by a Biden-backed review policy, punted on one of the most controversial issues in the president’s support for Israel.

“It is reasonable to assess” that Israel used American-provided weapons in ways that are “inconsistent” with international law, per the report obtained by POLITICO. It goes on to say that Israel didn’t give the U.S. enough evidence to adjudicate whether those arms were used to violate human rights in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

There have been “sufficient reported incidents to raise serious concerns,” the report continues, flipping between criticism of Israel’s conduct without explicitly calling it out for human rights violations.

Read More »

The Biden administration once again pulled its punches when it comes to Israel.

Despite pressure from Democratic lawmakers and his efforts to stop a major Israeli ground operation in Rafah, President Joe Biden did not use a much-anticipated report on Friday to declare that Israel has violated international law in its war with Hamas. Instead, the State Department document, mandated by a Biden-backed review policy, punted on one of the most controversial issues in the president’s support for Israel.

“It is reasonable to assess” that Israel used American-provided weapons in ways that are “inconsistent” with international law, per the report obtained by POLITICO. It goes on to say that Israel didn’t give the U.S. enough evidence to adjudicate whether those arms were used to violate human rights in Gaza, the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

There have been “sufficient reported incidents to raise serious concerns,” the report continues, flipping between criticism of Israel’s conduct without explicitly calling it out for human rights violations.

Read More »

WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be released Biden administration report does not conclude that Israel has violated the terms for its use of U.S. weapons, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter.

The report is expected to be sharply critical of Israel even though it didn’t conclude that Israel violated terms of U.S.-Israel weapons agreements, according to one U.S. official.

Two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the findings of the national security memorandum to be submitted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Congress discussed the matter before the report’s release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not yet public.

A senior Biden administration official said the memorandum is expected to be released later Friday, but declined to comment on the findings.

Read More »

Donald Trump is making presidential history all over again: He's poised to be the first major party nominee to court cryptocurrency traders. It's leaving some Democrats feeling uneasy.

Trump told crypto backers at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday that they "better vote" for him because of the way the Biden administration has unleashed a regulatory crackdown on the industry.

“They are against it,” he said at an event promoting his own non-fungible token, or NFT.

Trump's overt play for the crypto faithful is a big shift from the criticism he dished out in his first term, but it's not unexpected. The GOP has become increasingly friendly toward bitcoin and other digital assets in recent years, while key Democrats remain at odds over whether to grant the industry legitimacy after a series of scandals. Trump's direct embrace is a landmark moment for crypto firms that have undertaken an intense Washington lobbying effort and are spending tens of millions of dollars to influence the 2024 elections.

Read More »

CHICAGO — President Joe Biden’s top advisers are all too aware the ghosts of 1968 may haunt their convention here, but they’re grappling with a pair of more urgent and thoroughly modern-day challenges as summer nears: How far can they go in reprising their virtual 2020 convention to mitigate the threat of disruption inside the arena, and how will they navigate a rookie mayor who unabashedly sympathizes with protesters?

Trumpeting the success of their Covid-era convention four years ago, some in Biden’s orbit are aggressively pushing to make the 2024 conclave a hybrid production. That would mean in-person speeches from the president, party luminaries and rising stars to draw television attention alongside a mix of pre-recorded testimonials and videos from other parts of the country.

The goal: drive maximum viewership on television and the internet while minimizing live programming and openings for protest in Chicago’s United Center. This would mean moving party business, such as rules and platform votes, off the floor and denying would-be demonstrators a chance to seize on contentious debates.

While the Biden campaign, White House and convention planners have only just started hatching plans, senior Democrats tell me they’re discussing whether to conduct such business before the convention even begins or move it out of the arena and across town to McCormick Place, their other Chicago venue. Serendipitously, Biden’s advisers may have a very good reason to move up such housekeeping: If the Ohio Legislature does not relax its ballot certification deadline, which is before the Democrats’ August convention, the DNC may have no choice but to technically nominate the president before the conclave begins.

Read More »

After watching Israel flatten much of Gaza, President Joe Biden decided to draw the line at the city of Rafah. Now, he has to decide what to do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crosses it.

The president quietly directed his team last week to halt shipments of massive bombs to Israel to “deliver a message” to Netanyahu that no operation should move forward without a civilian protection plan in place, a U.S. official said.

Then, after Netanyahu moved forward with a push into Rafah, Biden gave a primetime interview Wednesday in which he vowed not to send Israel more of the large bombs and artillery shells it would likely use for a major assault on a city with more than a million Palestinians.

The administration is hoping that the threat is enough to stop a large-scale invasion of Rafah from happening, even as it continues to struggle to explain what, exactly, crosses their red line. Officials say they don't want Israel to launch an operation that could further destroy infrastructure and send more civilians fleeing for safety, but they’ve consistently referenced being open to smaller, more-targeted missions in the southern Gaza city.

Read More »

Read More »

A federal judge in Delaware denied Hunter Biden’s bid to throw out his felony gun charges on Thursday, rejecting arguments from the president’s son that the federal prohibition on owning guns while using illegal drugs is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

Separately, a federal appeals court panel ruled against Biden earlier Thursday in another bid to have the charges against him tossed. The two decisions appear to clear the way for his case to head to trial on June 3, though his defense team can still pursue further appeals.

Last year, Biden was charged with illegally buying a gun while using illegal drugs and with lying on a government form about his drug use when he made the purchase –– two separate criminal charges. Special counsel David Weiss alleges that Biden bought a gun in October 2018, a time when he was frequently using crack cocaine. Biden has spoken publicly about his struggles with drug addiction.

Federal law bars people who use illegal drugs from buying guns. Biden’s team, however, argued in court that this ban violates the Second Amendment. They pointed to a recent Supreme Court decision, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which constrained the government’s power to regulate gun ownership.

Read More »

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he hoped President Joe Biden was having a "senior moment" when he declared he would withhold weapons from Israel if it proceeded with a planned invasion of Rafah.

On Thursday, administration officials made clear the president meant every word.

The White House said Biden could finally threaten Israel ahead of the possible invasion because Hamas has been significantly degraded over seven months of fighting. Biden’s announcement was the clearest conditioning of aid since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza and it immediately sparked outrage from some Republicans who accused the president of going back on his word and suddenly abandoning a long-held ally.

But Biden administration officials said Biden’s antipathy toward a large-scale Rafah invasion has been consistent for months, and he now has the space to withhold bombs and artillery because Hamas doesn’t pose as big a threat.

Read More »

Read More »

Read More »

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday he felt betrayed by President Joe Biden after learning that he is willing to withhold offensive weapons to Israel and accused the president of reneging on the deal they made to pass aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan last month.

Johnson also said he hoped that Biden’s threat to cut off American weapons, made in a CNN interview, was “a senior moment.” And he revealed that even before that, he had privately reached out to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fact-check reports that weapons were being delayed to send a political message, contrary to what Biden administration officials had told him.

The speaker reacted just moments after he learned about Biden’s comments during an exclusive hour-plus interview with POLITICO Wednesday night. The sitdown also came just hours after Johnson survived an attempt at a parliamentary coup by a far-right faction of House Republicans who said Johnson “aided and abetted the Democrats and the Biden administration in destroying our country.”

The speaker was in a buoyant mood after defeating the attempted putsch as he sat in his Capitol office suite beneath an enormous painting of Ronald Reagan. In a wide-ranging conversation for a forthcoming episode of the Playbook Deep Dive podcast, he touched on topics that included his relationships with Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and the future of democracy.

Read More »

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would halt shipments of bombs and other munitions to Israel if it launched a major military invasion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

The warning comes as Israeli forces appeared poised to conduct more operations in the densely packed city of 1.7 million despite repeated warnings not to do so by the U.S. government.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — 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,” Biden said in an interview on CNN.

The statement was the clearest conditioning of aid that the administration has made since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. And it sent immediate ripples through national politics, with conservatives accusing the president of abandoning a long-held ally and some liberals hailing the pronouncement.

Read More »

The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second term, according to energy executives with direct knowledge of the work.

The effort stems from the industry’s skepticism that the Trump campaign will be able to focus on energy issues as Election Day draws closer — and worries that the former president is too distracted to prepare a quick reversal of the Biden administration’s green policies. Oil executives also worry that a second Trump administration won’t attract staff skillful enough to roll back President Joe Biden’s regulations or craft new ones favoring the industry, these people added.

Six energy industry lawyers and lobbyists interviewed by POLITICO described the effort to craft executive orders and other policy paperwork that they see as more effective than anything a second Trump administration could devise on its own. Those include a quick reversal of Biden’s pause on new natural gas export permits and preparations for wider and cheaper access to federal lands and waters for drilling.

The initiative is just one example of the efforts underway from multiple advocacy groups with strong policy agendas — including abortion-rights opponents — to fill in the gaps for Trump’s potential return to the White House. The presumptive Republican nominee has been a vocal supporter of the oil and gas industry, but the companies often chafed at the effects of his policies as president, including his trade wars and the legal challenges that thwarted some of his pro-fossil-fuel actions.

Read More »

Israel’s ambassador to the United States sent a stinging letter to nearly 90 lawmakers Wednesday, blasting them for accusing Israel of purposefully withholding humanitarian aid from Gaza’s 2.2 million Palestinians.

Eighty-eight House Democrats wrote to President Joe Biden last week, arguing that Israel had kept food, water, medicine and other provisions from reaching Palestinians in need. That would violate a law prohibiting the delivery of security assistance to a country that restricts humanitarian aid, calling into question commitments Israel gave the U.S. that it would not violate human rights with U.S.-provided weapons. As a result, the Biden administration should at least think twice before delivering more offensive arms to Israel, the lawmakers recommended.

Michael Herzog, Israel’s envoy in Washington, sent an identical letter to all 88 representatives to convey his disappointment in their position.

“At no point during the war has Israel had a policy of deliberately withholding humanitarian aid from entering Gaza,” he wrote in the message to lawmakers that POLITICO obtained. “There are no arbitrary restrictions on the flow of humanitarian goods into Gaza.”

Read More »

Read More »

President Joe Biden on Wednesday cast a major new investment in battleground Wisconsin as emblematic of the nation's economic comeback. But the main thrust of his address wasn’t so much to boast about the current climate as it was an attempt to contrast it with his predecessor’s record.

Time and again, Biden took aim at former President Donald Trump, casting him as someone who talked but didn’t deliver. Even the setting of the speech itself was meant to deliver the point: Biden was highlighting a new Microsoft data center that would be built on grounds where then-President Trump announced that Foxconn would build a $10 billion factory for making LCD panels. That plant was never built, even after the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer received millions in subsidies and bulldozed homes and farms to build the factory.

“He promised a $10 billion investment by Foxconn. He came with your senator, Ron Johnson, with a golden shovel and didn’t build a damn thing,” Biden said. “They dug a hole with those golden shovels and then they fell into it.”

In turning the spotlight on to Trump’s shortcomings, Biden was trying to close a persistent polling disconnect that has harmed his reelection campaign: Many voters perceive that his predecessor’s record was more robust than his. A new Politico-Morning Consult poll showed that 37 percent of voters believe Trump “has done more to promote infrastructure improvements and job creation,” compared to 40 percent who said the same for Biden. Trump never passed infrastructure legislation, while Biden did.

Read More »

Joe Biden’s campaign is dropping another multi-million dollar ad campaign this month and building out its infrastructure in battleground states in hopes of taking advantage of a period of the campaign with Donald Trump largely stuck off the trail.

The president’s team announced on Wednesday that it would be making an additional $14 million in ad spending for May. It will also be hiring more staff — bringing its total to 500 — and open its 200th office by the end of the month. The steady drumbeat of campaign activity will continue as well. Biden heads to Wisconsin this week, followed by stops in Atlanta for a commencement address at Morehouse College and in Detroit to headline the NAACP dinner next week.

All told, the announcements, coming six months out from Election Day, signal that the Biden team is still banking on a traditional campaign strategy of trying to reach voters through a physical footprint and television ads. It is a stark contrast to his opponent, former President Trump, who has spent much of the past few weeks in a New York City courthouse and has attempted to use his ongoing criminal hush money trial to keep his base ginned up.

On a call with reporters, Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks compared the campaign’s efforts with Trump’s campaign, whose “battleground presence is as non-existent as his paid media effort,” he said.

Read More »