US Politics

Kari Lake, the Republican candidate who lost the race for Arizona governor but never conceded her loss, announced a run for US Senate in the western state Tuesday.A former TV news anchor, Lake made her move into politics by making repeated false claims about elections. She aligned closely with former president Donald Trump and has been floated as a potential running mate for Trump, who once praised Lake for her ability to constantly bring up election fraud.Lake has taken her election denials to court, so far unsuccessfully, in her attempt to claim she’s the rightful governor of Arizona. Her legal team has been hit with court sanctions in two different cases.Lake announced her run in Scottsdale on Tuesday, a week after filing paperwork for a Senate bid.“I am not going to retreat. I’m gonna stand on top of this hill with every single one of you, and I know you’re by my side as I formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate,” Lake told a crowd of supporters, according to CNN.Lake’s Senate run comes after Republicans lost major races in the swing state in 2022. The Democratic senator Mark Kelly defeated Republican businessman Blake Masters. Lake lost the governor’s race by about 17,000 votes, and Republicans lost the secretary of state and attorney general races as well. Lake failed to win over independent voters, who make up about one-third of Arizona’s electorate, and alienated mainstream Republicans.The state’s Senate race will be one of the country’s most competitive – and most expensive. Its dynamics could be especially difficult, if sitting Senator Kyrsten Sinema, once a Democrat and now an independent, decides to run for re-election.Republican Mark Lamb, the sheriff in Pinal county, Arizona, has already entered the Senate race. On the Democratic side, Representative Ruben Gallego is in. Sinema hasn’t announced a re-election bid yet, but her team has privately been working on a campaign strategy to chart an independent bid without party support.Lake’s campaign trail antics – a perpetual camera following her for confrontations with politicians or reporters – have already started for her Senate run. She approached Gallego at the Phoenix airport last week, pinging him with questions and criticisms about the US-Mexico border. She told the congressman that the Senate race would be a “knock-down, drag-out”. More

Prominent Republican party members Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan made their pitches for the powerful role of speaker of the US House of Representatives on Tuesday amid mounting pressure from a war in the Middle East and another looming government shutdown. Lawmakers exiting a closed-door forum said neither Scalise, the House majority leader, nor Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, will have a clear advantage when Republicans begin to vote for a nominee by secret ballot on Wednesday.“We’ve got two good leaders within our party, with good perspectives on where the party needs to go and an understanding and an emphasis on reuniting the party,” Mike Garcia told reporters. But before voting for a candidate on Wednesday, Republicans will have to decide whether to keep internal disagreements behind closed doors by requiring any nominee to win 217 Republican votes, enough to elect the next speaker on the House floor over Democratic opposition. Current rules require only a simple majority. “The first order of business is figuring out a rules change that works for the conference,” said congresswoman Kat Cammack.Republicans hold a narrow 221-212 majority in the House.The narrowly divided caucus raised some worries that neither candidate would be able to win enough support to be elected speaker in the first round of voting.“We’re going to go get this done tomorrow, and the House is going to get back to work,” Scalise told reporters after the candidate forum, which ran more than two hours.Scalise and Jordan each pledged to back whichever candidate ultimately emerged as the nominee, lawmakers said.Republicans’ narrow majority in House made it possible for a fraction of their members to force Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker last week, to endure 15 grueling floor votes to become speaker in January.“We need to handle this inside the caucus and not go through what we did in January,” said Representative Ralph Norman, who opposed McCarthy at the time. McCarthy on Monday said he would take the job back if asked to by House Republicans, but on Tuesday told reporters, “I asked them please not to nominate me.”It took only eight Republicans to oust McCarthy last week, which could make leading the caucus a challenge for any new speaker. While McCarthy was the first speaker to be ousted in a formal vote, the previous two Republicans to hold the job left under pressure from party hardliners.Republicans may have to tackle other thorny issues, including how to move forward on government funding for the fiscal year that began 1 October and whether to change the rule that allowed just one lawmaker to call a vote to oust McCarthy. Current government funding expires on 17 November. Jordan, a prominent hardline conservative backed by former President Donald Trump, told Tuesday’s forum that he would back a new stopgap measure to fund the government through April to avoid a partial government shutdown, according to Thomas Massie, a Jordan supporter.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther lawmakers said Scalise also backed a temporary funding measure, but they offered few details.Scalise appeared to have the support of many veteran and establishment Republicans including party leaders, while Jordan drew endorsements from others including Trump-style populists.Representative Patrick McHenry, who is standing in as interim speaker, has been seen as a possible fallback candidate if no one else wins enough votes. But McHenry told reporters on Tuesday that he has not spoken to colleagues about running, adding that there are two candidates. Until a new speaker is chosen, the House cannot take action. That has brought new pressure on Republicans after Israel declared war on Sunday following an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that has prompted calls for more U.S. military aid. Some Republicans are hoping to have a new speaker in place as early as Thursday. More

Federal prosecutors added major allegations to the indictment charging the House Republican George Santos with fraud and lying about his campaign finance disclosures, presenting evidence that he stole donors’ identities and charged thousands of dollars to their credit cards without their knowledge.The new charges, revealed in a superseding indictment returned on Tuesday by a grand jury in New York, increases the legal peril for the embattled congressman, given that his former campaign treasurer, Nancy Marks, last week pleaded guilty to defrauding the United States.The original indictment filed in May accused Santos of engaging in multiple instances of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements. Santos, who won his congressional seat through a campaign built partly on falsehoods, pleaded not guilty to those charges.The updated, 23-count indictment detailed two more fraudulent schemes: the credit card scheme, and a conspiracy to submit to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) false reports that inflated his campaign’s fundraising so it could deceive the Republican party into extending financial support.In the credit card scheme, Santos is alleged to have devised a way to steal the identities and financial information of his campaign donors, which were used to charge their credit cards and caused money to be deposited into his campaign, other campaigns, and his own bank account.The scheme involved one instance where Santos allegedly stole the billing details of a donor’s two credit cards and made transfers to his campaign. To get around the fact that they exceeded legal limits, prosecutors said, Santos falsely listed himself and relatives as the sources of the funds.On one occasion, prosecutors said, Santos charged $12,000 to the donor’s credit card – money that mostly ended up in his personal bank account.In the Republican party deception scheme, Santos is alleged to have conspired with Marks to file FEC reports that falsely claimed his campaign had raised $250,000 from third-party donors in a single quarter, the threshold needed to unlock financial support from the GOP.The deception included false FEC reports that said at least 10 family members of Santos and Marks had made significant contributions to the campaign, as well as false reports that said Santos had loaned large amounts of money to his campaign, including one $500,000 loan.Confronted on Capitol Hill as he emerged from a closed-door House Republican conference meeting, shortly after the superseding indictment was unsealed by reporters, Santos insisted he had not seen the new allegations and that he would not resign his seat.“I did not have access to my phone. I have no clue what you guys are talking about,” Santos told CNN.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe congressman is set to appear in federal court on 27 October, where he is likely to be arraigned on the new charges against him. A spokesperson for Santos did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night and on whether he would plead not guilty.Santos faces escalating legal peril after Marks last week pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States by committing one or more federal offenses after cooperating with prosecutors, even if her lawyer claimed she had not entered into a formal plea agreement.Marks said in a prepared statement at her arraignment in federal district court on Long Island that she had given the FEC a list of fake people who had supposedly given money to the campaign. Outside the courthouse, her lawyer said she could testify against Santos at trial.“If we get a subpoena, we’ll do the right thing,” said her lawyer Ray Perini. “There’s a manipulation involved that had to do with her family and the death of her husband,” he added without elaborating further. “There were lies told.” More

Criticising a pro-Palestinian rally held in Times Square in New York City in the aftermath of Hamas attacks on Israel which left hundreds dead, the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: “It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it.”The attacks, including the killing of at least 260 concertgoers and the taking of hostages, sparked a new war between Israel and Hamas. In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed hundreds. By Tuesday, the Israeli death toll approached 1,000.The Sunday rally in New York, endorsed by members of the Democratic Socialists of America and promoted by the group’s New York chapter, attracted a crowd of more than 1,000. Some chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied” and there were reports of a Nazi emblem being shown and Israeli flags burned and trodden on.Amid attacks from Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez, a New York representative popularly known as AOC, was among Democrats to condemn the rally.Speaking to Politico, she said shutting down hatred and antisemitism was “a core tenet of solidarity”.“The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment,” she said.“It also did not speak for the thousands of New Yorkers who are capable of rejecting Hamas’s horrifying attacks against innocent civilians as well as the grave injustices and violence Palestinians face under occupation.”Earlier, Ocasio-Cortez was among leading congressional progressives to call for a ceasefire. In a statement, she said: “I condemn Hamas’s attack in the strongest possible terms.“No child and family should ever endure this kind of violence and fear, and this violence will not solve the ongoing oppression and occupation in the region. An immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is urgently needed to save lives.”Cori Bush, a progressive congresswoman from Missouri, said that while she “condemn[ed] the targeting of civilians”, to “achieve a just and lasting peace” in the Middle East, “US government support for Israeli military occupations and apartheid” should be ended. More

From 3h agoBiden opened his remarks by saying that the attacks were done by “the bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas.”“This was an act of sheer evil”, said Biden, adding that more than 1,000 civilians were “slaughtered” in Israel.Biden confirmed that at 14 American citizens were killed. He also said Americans were among the hostages in Gaza.Biden added: “In this moment, we must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.”It’s been a tense day in Washington, the terrible conflict in Israel casting a shadow over national politics, and House Republicans getting ready to try to elect a new speaker – a gap in Congress made to look ever more gaping by the Middle East tumult.This blog is closing now. It will resume on Wednesday morning US time. The Israel-Gaza global live blog continues here.Here’s how the day went:
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to Israel on Wednesday, arriving Thursday, to meet with Israeli officials show US solidarity following attacks from Hamas.
At least 20 Americans are missing in Israel amid ongoing fighting, in addition to the 14 Americans known to have been killed so far, according to the White House.
Joe Biden confirmed that Americans are among the people being held hostage in Gaza by Hamas militants.
Biden called the attacks by Hamas on southern Israel an act of “sheer evil” and reiterated in a speech from the White House that “we stand with Israel”.
The special counsel for the federal January 6 election subversion case against Donald Trump has requested that the former president be restricted from doing juror research and publishing the identities of jurors in the case.
The special counsel also filed a request asking that Donald Trump be required to say if he will advance an “advice of counsel” defense.
House Republicans supporting Kevin McCarthy plan to nominate the former House speaker, who was ousted from the post just days ago, for the position again during the upcoming election on Wednesday.
Republicans are under pressure to elect a new House speaker ASAP this week, amid the Hamas-Israel crisis reverberating across the globe.
Until last weekend, the Biden administration was counting on the Middle East to remain relatively calm while it quietly pursued its main policy goals there: brokering the Israeli-Saudi detente and containing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Reuters writes.Those hopes were shattered when Palestinian Hamas militants infiltrated Israel from Gaza and rampaged through towns on Saturday, killing hundreds and abducting scores more. Israeli forces have retaliated by pounding the coastal enclave, killing hundreds and imposing a total blockade there.After keeping the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict at arm’s length, Joe Biden now finds himself thrust into a crisis likely to reshape his Middle East policy, and into an uneasy alliance with the far-right Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He is dispatching the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to meet with Israeli leaders this week.It is a politically risky situation for a president seeking re-election in 2024, one that could have significant implications for world oil prices and pull US resources and attention away from what until now has been his defining foreign policy challenge – Russia’s war in Ukraine.The surprise Hamas attack has dealt a blow to US efforts to broker a landmark normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia and complicated Washington’s approach toward Iran, Hamas’s longtime benefactor.While US officials insist that their bid to establish ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, longtime foes, can survive the crisis, many experts take a more pessimistic view.
Quite simply, all efforts at normalization are on hold for the foreseeable future,” said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, contradicting the official US government line.
Khaled Elgindy, a former Palestinian negotiations adviser, accused the Biden administration of leading an Israeli-Saudi normalization process that mostly bypassed the Palestinians and their hopes of ending Israeli occupation.
That sort of neglect is part of why we’re seeing what we’re seeing,” he said.
Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, will travel to Israel this week to show US solidarity following attacks from Hamas, the Associated Press reports.The state department confirmed Blinken’s visit on Tuesday.Blinken will talk with Israeli officials about “what additional resources we can give them”, said the state department spokesperson Matthew Miller, the AP reported.Blinken will leave for Israel on Wednesday and arrive on Thursday.At least 20 Americans are missing in Israel amid ongoing fighting, according to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.14 Americans have also been killed in Israel, in addition to the 20 who are unaccounted for.During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sullivan confirmed that more than a dozen Americans have not been accounted for as fighting escalates between Israel and Hamas.“We believe that there are 20 or more Americans that are missing. I want to underscore that does not mean 20 or more are being held hostage. That is the number unaccounted for… We do not know how many hostages we have at this time,” said Sullivan, reported the Guardian’s David Smith.Biden ended his remarks with a stark message of support for Israel:“We’re with Israel. Let’s make no mistake.”Biden, accompanied by Vice president Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony, left without taking any questions from the press.Biden added that the police departments of several US cities have beefed up security around centers of Jewish life.Biden added that national security officials are working to identify and disrupt domestic threats that “could emerge in connection with these horrific attacks”.Biden added: “There’s no place for hate in America, not against Jews, not against Muslims, not against anyone.”Biden also confirmed that Americans are among the people being held hostage in Gaza.Similar news came on Monday from the Israeli ambassador to the UN.From CNN’s Kaitlan Collins:At least 100 people have been taken captive by Hamas, said Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen on Monday.Biden has made it clear that the US is committed to supporting Israel materially.“We will make sure Israel has what it needs,” said Biden.Biden added: “There is no justification for terrorism. Hamas doesn’t stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity…they use Palestinian civilians as human shields.”Biden also noted that Congress has been asked to “take urgent action” to fund the “national security requirements of our critical partners.”Biden added that the “Israel has a duty to respond to these vicious attacks.”Biden compared the actions of Hamas to the “worst acts” of the terrorist group ISIS, specifically naming reports that Hamas is raping individuals and killing children.Biden opened his remarks by saying that the attacks were done by “the bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas.”“This was an act of sheer evil”, said Biden, adding that more than 1,000 civilians were “slaughtered” in Israel.Biden confirmed that at 14 American citizens were killed. He also said Americans were among the hostages in Gaza.Biden added: “In this moment, we must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.”Biden posted a snapshot from his meeting with Netanyahu to X, formerly known as Twitter.From the official President of the United States’ account:
[The Vice president] and I sat down with our teams to receive a situation update on the terrorist attack in Israel and to direct next steps.
We connected with Prime Minister Netanyahu to discuss coordination to support Israel, deter hostile actors, and protect innocent people.
Biden and Harris wrapped up a phone call about a half hour ago with Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss US support of Israel. Biden is expected to give remarks shortly on escalating fighting in Israel.From the Wall Street Journal’s Catherine Lucey:Biden has yet to make remarks from the White House about escalating fighting between Israel and Hamas. In other news, Republican Steve Garvey has entered the California Senate race.The former Dodgers baseball player will be running for the Senate seat left by the late senator Dianne Feinstein, the Los Angeles Times reports.“In those 20 years that I played for the Dodgers and the Padres, played up in cold Candlestick Park, I never played for Democrats or Republicans or independents,” Garvey said to the Times. “I played for all the fans, and I’m running for all the people.”Garvey, 74, is a relative political newcomer, but brings some celebrity to the upcoming election.Garvey told the Times he was inspired to run after witnessing dysfunction in Washington DC and being told by a Dodgers fan that they would vote for Garvey.Garvey faces several top Democrats for the position, including California representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff.Joe Biden is due to make remarks from the White House at the top of the hour and it’s expected that the US president will slam Hamas and reiterate unswerving US support for Israel.We’ll expect to have a live feed of his speech in this blog and will report highlights of his remarks. For all the wider developments in the conflict in Israel, we have our global blog on the situation running here, with our Léonie Chao-Fong at the helm at the moment as part of our worldwide team.From the White House, Biden will express concern about the potential that some Americans are being held hostage by Hamas, an Iranian-backed Islamist group, a senior White House official said, and Reuters reports.Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Tuesday with the fiercest air strikes in its 75-year-old conflict with the Palestinians, razing whole districts to dust despite a threat from Hamas militants to execute a captive for each home hit.Biden will speak after holding his third phone call in four days with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He will outline in his remarks the US military assistance being sent to help Israel in its fight, the official said.A second White House official said Biden will strongly condemn Hamas* attacks and provide an overview of the actions the United States is taking with allies around the world to support Israel. More

The former Maryland governor Larry Hogan said he had not ruled out a presidential run, as he contemplated the “train wreck” his Republican party had become amid infighting in Congress and the ascendancy in primary polling of the 91-times criminally charged Donald Trump.Hogan also called the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, the instigator of last week’s historic removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the US House, “a cancer on the party and on the Congress”.Hogan, 67, stepped down as governor of Maryland this year after two terms in the role. He has previously backed away from a presidential run but on Tuesday, speaking to Bloomberg News in Washington, he said he still wanted to “serve”.“I’m still trying to figure that out, but I’m not walking away” from presidential politics, Hogan said.“I don’t want to run a race and nibble around the edges. If I thought there was a path to success to win the race, then I just said I wouldn’t shut the door to that opportunity.”Hogan is a national co-chairperson of No Labels, a group contemplating a third-party White House bid. Critics say the group, with donors including rightwing figures, will only succeed in damaging Joe Biden in the president’s expected contest against Trump – who on 6 January 2021 incited his own supporters to attack Congress in an attempt to reverse his own election defeat.Confirmed third-party candidates – Robert F Kennedy Jr, an independent, and Cornel West, of the Green party – are also thought likely to make an impact on a race between two unpopular mainstream picks.Majorities of Americans think Biden is too old at 80 to serve an effective second term. Trump is 77 but fewer voters say the former president is too old. His popularity with the general public is low, however, as he fights criminal charges for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments, as well as civil suits over his business affairs and a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Among Republican voters, Trump dominates, with huge leads in national and key state polls and with a grip on Republicans in Washington through the actions of allies such as Gaetz, who initiated the removal of McCarthy that left the House without a leader.“It’s a train wreck,”’ Hogan told Bloomberg. “I mean, it’s embarrassing, and I think it’s terrible for the Republican party. I think it’s terrible for Congress and for the country.”Hogan said it was too late for serving governors such as Brian Kemp of Georgia and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, touted by some as presidential candidates with appeal to the middle ground, to enter the primary and beat Trump.“That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I mean, they’ve missed the deadlines already.”Among Trump’s confirmed challengers, Hogan said he thought Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, was “on the ascent” – and a stronger candidate than Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor long second to Trump in polling.“DeSantis has continued to fail throughout the campaign,” Hogan said. More

The former former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization was grilled over discrepancies in financial statements as the second week of Donald Trump’s fraud trial kicked off in New York.Prosecutors questioned Allen Weisselberg, who worked at the company for decades, about whether the Trump Organization was aware of inconsistencies between documents. The New York attorney general’s office has been trying to prove that Weisselberg and others at the Trump Organization knowingly inflated the value of Trump’s assets to boost his net worth.Before the trial began, the New York judge Arthur Engoron issued a pre-trial judgment ruling that Trump had fudged financial statements to broker deals and obtain favorable loans. The trial is focused on whether there was knowledge and intent from Trump and other defendants, including Weisselberg, when they misreported the value of the properties of financial statements.Trump’s team is arguing that the whole case is a political stunt from New York attorney general Letitia James, who has been in the audience of the trial since its beginning. Trump had appeared in court for the first two days of the trial, but left during the third.Lawyers also argued that the 23 properties that have been singled out in the case were just a few line items in a whole swath of properties owned by the company. Banks that gave loans to Trump knew that the financial statements were not verified, and thus knew the risk they were taking when using them.Prosecutors honed in on these arguments during their questioning of Weisselberg, who signed off on the financial statements at the center of the case. Louis Solomon, a prosecutor for James’s office, asked Weisselberg about the value of Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower.On documents, Trump had listed the apartment as 30,000sq ft and worth $327m, despite other documents – including one personally signed by the former president in 1994 – reporting that the apartment was actually under 11,000sq ft.Weisselberg said the value of the apartment was “about 1%” of Trump’s overall net worth, adding that Trump and other executives did not care about properties that represented less than 5% of his net worth. Weisselberg repeatedly said that the triplex apartment was a smaller asset compared to others under Trump, and that he was focused on the overall picture of the company.“My dealings with Trump Tower was always about the commercial side,” Weisselberg said. The triplex apartment “was never a concern of mine. I never even thought of the apartment.”Later, Solomon pointed out that, if Trump’s net worth was around $6bn, the triplex apartment would have been over 5% of his net worth.Solomon pulled up multiple emails from Forbes reporters asking the Trump Organization about the size of Trump’s triplex apartment. Trump had been listing on financial statements that the size of the apartment was 30,000sq ft. The reporters had pointed out that the apartment, in other documents, had been listed as 10,996sq ft.Weisselberg said he didn’t recall any of the interaction with Forbes reporters, or with Trump Organization employees dealing with Forbes reporters.“I just stopped speaking to them,” Weisselberg said of the reporters, saying that “they would mess up” information.In one instance in 2017, a Forbes reporter reached out to the Trump Organization about discrepancies in the apartment’s size. Four days later, Weisselberg had signed a financial statement confirming the accuracy of the financial statements.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You were comfortable with certifying that nothing… in the statement required adjustment,” Solomon said.Solomon pulled up an article Forbes published shortly after that, reporting that Trump had been lying about the size of his Triplex apartment.“That’s when we started to do our investigation as to what the number actually was,” Weisselberg said.Prosecutors have meticulously gone through various documents, sometimes line by line, asking witnesses to detail their recollection of preparing or signing off on statements. Solomon pointed out that the financial statements Weisselberg signed off said that the Trump Organization was following accounting rules and principles.Weisselberg earlier this year served about four months in New York City prison after being convicted of tax fraud, not paying taxes on perks for working at the Trump Organization, including a Mercedes-Benz, a New York City apartment and school tuition for his grandchildren. Weisselberg had made a deal with prosecutors that he would testify truthfully in exchange for a more lenient sentence.The former Trump executive is the fourth witness to testify in the trial, which is scheduled to continue until 22 December. More

A sports reporter in Philadelphia has lost his job after tweeting his “solidarity” with Palestine in the wake of Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.Jackson Frank, a writer who covered the Philadelphia 76ers professional basketball team, is “no longer employed by PhillyVoice.com” after he expressed support for the Palestinian cause on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, PhillyVoice.com chief executive Hal Donnelly told the New York Post.Frank’s departure stemmed from his response to a tweet by the 76ers about the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza, where hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian civilians have died, first from a deadly incursion by Hamas militants over the weekend and then from retaliatory airstrikes from the Israeli military.The 76ers tweeted: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas,” along with the hashtag #StandWithIsrael.Frank responded by quoting the tweet while adding: “This post sucks! Solidarity with Palestine always.” Frank, who had only recently joined PhillyVoice.com as a sports reporter, has since deleted the tweet.The deteriorating situation in the Middle East has exposed schisms in the US, which has traditionally been a staunch ally of Israel. A pro-Palestine rally has been held for two days in New York City while dueling protests supporting the Palestinians and Israelis have faced off in Boston.Joe Biden has condemned what he called the “appalling terrorist assault” against Israel, which involved the killing of hundreds of people, including those attending a music festival, and the kidnapping of dozens of others. Biden has added that the “American people stand shoulder to shoulder with Israelis”.Republicans have, however, accused the Biden administration of being “complicit” in the attacks by claiming, misleadingly, that a deal to partly lift sanctions on Iran helped fund the attacks by Hamas.According to polling taken prior to the latest surge in violence, Americans’ sympathies are still mostly with Israel but the picture is changing. More Democrats are now sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than they are of Israel, according to a Gallup poll in March, even as Republican voters remain overwhelmingly more aligned with Israel’s view of the conflict.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFrank was not the only media figure to lose his job after expressing support for Palestine. As the Daily Beast reported, the adult magazine Playboy terminated a partnership with the Lebanese American social media influencer and former porn actor Mia Khalifa after she expressed solidarity with Palestine after the Hamas attacks in Israel.Playboy reportedly said it had spiked its deal with Khalifa because she had made “disgusting and reprehensible comments”. More