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      Israeli Troops Enter Gaza Hospital, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.Dsplaced Palestinians taking shelter at Al Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict last week.Doaa Rouqa/ReutersOn Today’s Episode:Israel Says Troops Have Entered Hospital in Gaza City, by James C. McKinley Jr. and Victoria KimU.S. Manages Expectations of a Breakthrough Before Biden and Xi Meet, by Katie Rogers and David E. Sanger, with Ed WongHouse Passes Johnson’s Plan to Avert Shutdown in Bipartisan Vote, by Catie EdmondsonEmily Lang More

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      The Growing Republican Battle Over War Funding

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      Rob Szypko, Carlos Prieto, Stella Tan and Dan Powell and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicIt’s been one month since the attack on Israel, but Washington has yet to deliver an aid package to its closest ally. The reason has to do with a different ally, in a different war: Speaker Mike Johnson has opposed continued funding for Ukraine, and wants the issue separated from aid to Israel, setting up a clash between the House and Senate.Catie Edmondson, who covers Congress for The Times, discusses the battle within the Republican Party over whether to keep funding Ukraine.On today’s episodeCatie Edmondson, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to force a stand-alone vote on aid for Israel has set up a confrontation between the House and Senate over how to fund U.S. allies.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBackground readingThe Republican-led House approved $14.3 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas, but no further funding for Ukraine.Speaker Johnson’s bill put the House on a collision course with the Senate.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Catie Edmondson More

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      Israel’s ‘Large Attack’ on Gaza, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes.The Israeli military announced that its forces had fully encircled Gaza City and were carrying out “a significant operation” in the Gaza Strip late on Sunday.Mohammed Saber/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Today’s Episode:Israel Announces “Large Attack” as Communications Blackout Cuts Off GazaBlinken Meets With Palestinian and Iraqi Leaders in Bid to Contain Gaza WarTrump’s Credibility, Coherence and Control Face Test on Witness StandTrump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll FindsEmily Lang More

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      Joe Biden Knows What He’s Doing

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      There’s a gathering sense that President Biden’s response to the war in Gaza may cost him the 2024 election. A recent Gallup poll showed that his support among Democrats has slipped 11 points in the past month to 75 percent, the lowest of his presidency. On Friday my colleagues in the newsroom reported on a growing backlash against Biden coming from young and left-leaning voters.Does this mean that standing with Israel could be politically fatal for Biden? I don’t think so, and to understand why, it’s important to understand the core responsibilities of an American president.In 2012, when I was a partisan supporter of Mitt Romney, there was one message from President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign that I thought made the most succinct and persuasive case for his second term. It was delivered most memorably by then-Vice President Biden, of all people, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. He said that Obama had “courage in his soul, compassion in his heart and a spine of steel,” and then Biden delivered the key line: “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.”While I believed that Romney would do a better job as president than Obama, that sentence affected me so much — not just because it happened to be true but also because it resonated with two of a president’s most vital tasks: preserving prosperity at home and security abroad. A war-weary nation longed for a clear win, and a people still recovering from the Great Recession needed economic stability. The killing of bin Laden was the greatest victory of the war on terrorism, and the preservation of General Motors, an iconic American company, resonated as a national symbol as important as or more important than the number of jobs saved.Now fast-forward to August 2024, when Biden will speak on his own behalf in Chicago at the next Democratic convention. Will he be able to tell the American people that he did his job? Will he be able to make that claim in the face of international crises more consequential than anything either Obama or Donald Trump faced during their presidencies?Consider what he confronts: a brutal Russian assault on a liberal democracy in Europe, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and an aggressive China that is gaining military strength and threatens Taiwan. That’s two hot wars and a new cold war, each against a nation or entity that forsakes any meaningful moral norms, violates international law and commits crimes against humanity.In each conflict abroad — hot or cold — America is indispensable to the defense of democracy and basic humanity. Ukraine cannot withstand a yearslong Russian onslaught unless the United States acts as the arsenal of democracy, keeping the Ukrainian military supplied with the weapons and munitions it needs. America is Israel’s indispensable ally and close military partner. It depends on our aid and — just as important — our good will for much of its strength and security. And Taiwan is a target of opportunity for China absent the might of the United States Pacific Fleet.And keep in mind, Biden is managing these conflicts all while trying to make sure that the nation emerges from a pandemic with inflation in retreat and its economy intact. In spite of economic growth and low unemployment numbers that make the American economy the envy of the world, Americans are still dealing with the consequences of inflation and certainly don’t feel optimistic about our economic future.Biden is now under fire from two sides, making these challenges even more difficult. The populist, Trumpist right threatens his ability to fund Ukraine, hoping to engineer a cutoff in aid that could well lead to the greatest victory for European autocrats since Hitler and then Stalin swallowed European democracies whole in their quest for power and control.At the same time, progressives calling for a cease-fire in Gaza threaten to hand Hamas the greatest victory of its existence. If Hamas can wound Israel so deeply and yet live to fight again, it will have accomplished what ISIS could not — commit acts of the most brutal terror and then survive as an intact organization against a military that possesses the power to crush it outright. I agree with Dennis Ross, a former U.S. envoy to the Middle East: Any outcome that leaves Hamas in control in Gaza “will doom not just Gaza but also much of the rest of the Middle East.”And hovering, just outside the frame, is China, watching carefully and measuring our will.I understand both the good-faith right-wing objections to Ukraine aid and the good-faith progressive calls for a cease-fire in Israel. Ukraine needs an extraordinary amount of American support for a war that has no end in sight. It’s much easier to rally the West when Ukraine is on the advance. It’s much harder to sustain American support in the face of grinding trench warfare, the kind of warfare that consumes men and material at a terrifying pace.I also understand that it is hard to watch a large-scale bombing campaign in Gaza that kills civilians, no matter the precision of each individual strike. Much like ISIS in Mosul, Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population. It is impossible to defeat Hamas without harming civilians, and each new civilian death is a profound tragedy, one that unfolds in front of a watching world. It’s a testament to our shared humanity that one of our first instincts when we see such violence is to say, “Please, just stop.”This instinct is magnified when the combination of the fog of war and Hamas disinformation can cause exaggerated or even outright false claims of Israeli atrocities to race across the nation and the world before the full truth is known. The sheer scale of the Israeli response is difficult to grasp, and there is no way for decent people to see the death and destruction and not feel anguish for the plight of the innocent.The combination of tragedy, confusion and cost is what makes leadership so difficult. A good leader can’t overreact to any given news cycle. He or she can’t overreact to any specific report from the battlefield. And a good leader certainly can’t overreact to a negative poll.I’ve long thought that politicians’ moment-by-moment reaction to activists, to members of the media and to polls is partly responsible for the decline in trust in American politicians. What can feel responsive in the moment is evidence of instability in the aggregate. The desperate desire to win each and every news cycle leads to short-term thinking. Politicians put out fires they see on social media, or they change course in response to anger coming from activists. Activists and critics in the media see an outrage and demand an immediate response, but what the body politic really needs is a thoughtful, deliberate strategy and the resolve to see it through.No administration is perfect. Americans should object, for example, to the slow pace of approving each new weapons system for Ukraine. But in each key theater, Biden’s policies are fundamentally sound. We should support Ukraine as long as it’s necessary to preserve Ukrainian independence from Russian assault. We should stand by Israel as it responds to mass murder, including by supporting a lawful offensive into the heart of Gaza. And we should continue to strengthen alliances in the Pacific to enhance our allies’ military capabilities and share the burden of collective defense.And we should do these things while articulating a moral vision that sustains our actions. On Thursday, John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communication, did just that. First, in an interview on “Morning Joe,” he described the efforts to aid Gazan civilians — a humanitarian and legal imperative. He made it clear that the United States is working to preserve civilian life, as it should.Later on Thursday, he also provided a wider moral context. Asked at a news conference about Biden’s observation that innocents will continue to die as Israel presses its attacks, Kirby responded with facts we cannot forget: “What’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. What’s harsh is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon.”By word and deed, the Biden administration is getting the moral equation correct. There should be greater pressure on Hamas to release hostages and relinquish control of Gaza than there should be pressure on Israel to stop its offensive. Hamas had no legal or moral right to launch its deliberate attack on Israeli civilians. It has no legal or moral right to embed itself in the civilian population to hide from Israeli attacks. Israel, by contrast, has every right to destroy Hamas in a manner consistent with the laws of war.If Biden can persevere in the face of the chaos and confusion of war abroad and polarization at home, all while preserving a level of economic growth that is astonishing in contrast with the rest of the world, he’ll have his own story to tell in Chicago, one that should trump the adversity of any given moment or the concern generated by any given poll. If Biden can do his job, then he can take the stage in Chicago with his own simple pitch for re-election: In the face of disease, war, inflation and division, the economy thrives — and democracy is alive.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      DeSantis and Haley Diverge on Help for Gaza Refugees

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      The two Republican candidates appeared to diverge on attitudes toward civilians in the Gaza Strip who are bracing for an invasion by Israel.The deepening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip is driving a wedge between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, two of the leading Republican presidential candidates, who deviated sharply on Sunday over whether the United States should help Palestinian refugees from the region ahead of an expected Israeli invasion.In an appearance on the CBS morning show “Face the Nation,” Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, doubled down on remarks he had made one day earlier in Iowa, espousing a hard-line opposition toward helping civilians who have been thrust into the middle of the conflict.“They teach kids to hate Jews,” he said. “The textbooks do not have Israel even on the map. They prepare very young kids to commit terrorist attacks. So I think it’s a toxic culture.”Ms. Haley, the former United Nations ambassador under President Donald J. Trump, pushed back against that view during a CNN interview on Sunday with Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”“America has always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists,” she said after being shown a clip of Mr. DeSantis’s initial comments on Saturday.Nearly one million people are grappling with shortages of food, clean water and shelter in Gaza, which is bracing for a land invasion by Israel in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attacks and the taking of hostages by Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group.Mr. DeSantis argued on Sunday that it would be detrimental to the United States to “import” large numbers of refugees and would fuel antisemitism, echoing comments he made about people in Gaza the day before that drew scrutiny.At a campaign event on Saturday, Mr. DeSantis said, “If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all antisemitic. None of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”He added: “The Arab states should be taking them. If you have refugees, you don’t fly people in and take them into the United States of America.”When the CBS anchor Margaret Brennan pointed out to Mr. DeSantis that Arabs are Semites and replayed his remarks, he stood by his words.Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor at the First in the Nation Leadersip Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York TimesGovernor Ron DeSantis of Florida at the First in the Nation Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire on Friday.John Tully for The New York Times“There was a lot of celebrating of those attacks in the Gaza Strip by a lot of those folks who were not Hamas,” he said.Ms. Brennan suggested that it was a remote possibility that refugees from Gaza could resettle in the United States, saying that they could not even evacuate from their immediate area. Still, Republicans have used the broader conflict to frame their postures on military action and humanitarian aid.In the House, Representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin and Andy Ogles of Tennessee, both Republicans, have announced that they plan to introduce a bill they say would block the Biden administration from issuing visas to Palestinian passport holders.Mr. DeSantis, who served in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps in Iraq, was also asked whether he would advise the Israeli military to stop their attacks on the infrastructure that provides water and electricity to Gaza.“I don’t think they’re under an obligation to be providing water and these utilities while the hostages are being held,” he said.Ms. Haley struck a more sympathetic chord earlier on Sunday, saying that large percentages of Palestinians and Iranians did not support the violence being perpetrated against one another.“There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule,” she said.While the Republican candidates have expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks, they have also clashed with each other over who is most loyal to Israel, America’s closest Middle East ally, and what the role of the United States should be in conflicts overseas.Ms. Haley on Sunday continued to condemn Mr. Trump, her former boss and the Republican front-runner, for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence. She accused Mr. Trump of emboldening U.S. adversaries and drawing attention to himself.“You don’t go and compliment any of them because what that does is that makes America look weak,” she said on CNN, adding: “This isn’t about Trump. It’s not about him.”A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Ms. Haley also leveled fresh criticism toward President Biden, saying that he should never have agreed to free up $6 billion in frozen oil revenue money for Iran for humanitarian purposes as part of a hostage release deal that was announced in August.Facing blowback over the money’s release, the Biden administration and Qatar agreed last week to deny Iran access to the funds, which White House officials had said had not been spent.“You empowered Iran to go and strengthen Hamas, strengthen Hezbollah, strengthen the Houthis to spread their terrorist activity,” Ms. Haley said.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.Haley Johnson More

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      Has Support for Ukraine Peaked? Some Fear So.

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      The war in the Middle East, anxiety about the commitment of the U.S., and divisions in Europe are worrying Kyiv that aid from the West may wane.Clearly anxious, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine went in person this week to see NATO defense ministers in Brussels, worried that the war between Israel and Hamas will divert attention — and needed weapons — from Ukraine’s long and bloody struggle against the Russian invasion.American and NATO officials moved to reassure Mr. Zelensky, pledging another $2 billion in immediate military aid. But even before the war in the Mideast began last week, there was a strong sense in Europe, watching Washington, that the world had reached “peak Ukraine” — that support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia’s invasion would never again be as high as it was a few months ago.The new run for the White House by former President Donald J. Trump is shaking confidence that Washington will continue large-scale support for Ukraine. But the concern, Europeans say, is larger than Mr. Trump and extends to much of his Republican Party, which has made cutting support for Ukraine a litmus test of conservative credibility.Even in Europe, Ukraine is an increasingly divisive issue. Voters in Slovakia handed a victory to Robert Fico, a former prime minister sympathetic to Russia. A vicious election campaign in Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies, has emphasized strains with Kyiv. A far right opposed to aiding Ukraine’s war effort has surged in Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling to win voters over to his call for a stronger military.“I’m pessimistic,” said Yelyzaveta Yasko, a Ukrainian member of Parliament who is on the foreign affairs committee. “There are many questions now — weapons production, security infrastructure, economic aid, the future of NATO,” she said, but noted that answers to those questions had a timeline of at least five years.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, right, talking with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.Olivier Matthys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have been fighting for 600 days,” she added, “and I don’t see the leadership and planning that is required to take real action — not just statements — in support of Ukraine.”Even more depressing, Ms. Yasko said at a recent security forum in Warsaw, is the way domestic politics are “instrumentalizing Ukraine.”“Opinion polls show the people still support Ukraine,” she said, “but politicians start to use Ukraine as a topic to fight each other, and Ukraine becomes a victim.”“I’m worried,” she continued. “I don’t like the way my country is used as a tool.”The previous bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States no longer seems to hold. “There’s less pushback against the anti-Ukrainian stuff already out there,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the former president of Estonia, mentioning the Republican right wing and influential voices like Elon Musk. “It’s dangerous.”Should Washington cut its aid to Ukraine, deciding that it is not worth the cost, top European officials, including the European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, openly acknowledge that Europe cannot fill the gap.He was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, when Congress excluded support from Ukraine in its temporary budget deal. “That was certainly not expected, and certainly not good news,” Mr. Borrell told a summit meeting of E.U. leaders this month in Spain.European Union’s head of foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles, right, with Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, this month in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, via EPA, via Shutterstock“Europe cannot replace the United States,” he said, even as it proposes more aid. “Certainly, we can do more, but the United States is something indispensable for the support to Ukraine.” That same day, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that without Western aid, Ukraine could not survive more than a week.European leaders have pledged to send more air-defense systems to Ukraine to help fend off a possible new Russian air campaign targeting energy infrastructure as winter looms. Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Friday that his country would send additional Patriot missiles, which have proved effective in defending the skies over Kyiv, according to Mr. Zelensky’s office.At the same time, European vows to supply one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March are falling short, with countries supplying only 250,000 shells from stocks — a little more than one month of Ukraine’s current rate of fire — and factories still gearing up for more production.Adm. Rob Bauer, who is the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, said in Warsaw that Europe’s military industry had geared up too slowly and still needed to pick up the pace.“We started to give away from half-full or lower warehouses in Europe” to aid Ukraine, he said, “and therefore the bottom of the barrel is now visible.”Even before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East, a senior NATO official said that the mood about Ukraine was gloomy. Still, the official said that the Europeans were spending more on the military and that he expected Congress to continue aid to Ukraine, even if not the $43 billion authorized previously.Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based defense research institution, said a key issue now is Ukrainian will and resources in what has become a war of attrition. “It’s not really about us anymore, it’s about them,” he said. “The issue is Ukrainian resilience.”Ukrainians will quietly admit to difficulties with morale as the war grinds on, but they see no option other than to continue the fight, whatever happens in the West.Soldiers with the 128th Brigade repairing a broken down Carnation, a self-propelled artillery piece, before taking it back to the front line in September in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.Lynsey Addario for The New York TimesBut some say that they are fearful that President Biden, facing what could be a difficult re-election campaign against Mr. Trump, will try to push Kyiv to get into negotiations for a cease-fire with Russia by next summer, to show that he is committed to peace.That worry is likely to be exaggerated, American officials suggest, given Mr. Biden’s continuing strong support for Ukraine, which is echoed in American opinion polls. But there remains confusion about any end goal that does not foresee Ukraine pushing all Russian troops out of sovereign Ukraine, or any clear path to negotiations with a Russia that shows no interest in talking.As Gabrielius Landsbergis, the foreign minister of Lithuania, said at the Warsaw security forum, the mantra “as long as it takes” fails to define “it,” let alone “long.” For him, “it” should mean driving the invading Russians out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014.In private, at least, other European officials consider that highly unlikely.Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, suggested that NATO’s 75th anniversary summit meeting next summer in Washington will be tense because of Ukraine, as it will come at the height of the American presidential campaign. Any invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is likely to help Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, Mr. Bildt said.But while many worry about the possibility of declining American support for Ukraine, the potential for backsliding is not limited to the United States, as the costs of the war are more deeply felt in Europe.In its campaign in Poland, for elections this weekend, the governing Law and Justice Party has complained angrily that Ukrainian grain exports are flooding the Polish market, damaging the farmers who are a key element of the party’s support and underlining the implications for Polish agriculture should Ukraine join the European Union.Mr. Zelensky responded that “it is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain.”Grain stored in Leszczany, Poland, in April.Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesThe Polish government, fighting for votes with parties farther to the right, then said it would cease military aid to Ukraine, even though it has already provided an enormous amount early in the war.Anti-Russian sentiment is a given in Poland, but the animosity toward Germany, an E.U. and NATO ally, was striking, too, said Slawomir Debski, the director the of Polish Institute of International Affairs.He described the campaign as “very dirty,” with wild accusations playing on strong anti-German, anti-Russian, anti-European Union sentiments, combined with growing tensions with Ukraine.It was all a sharp contrast to Poland’s embrace of Ukrainian refugees and important early provision of tanks, fighter jets and ammunition just last year.“I warned many people, including the Americans, that this government is being accused of doing too much for Ukraine, so be careful,” Mr. Debski said.Michal Baranowski, a Pole who is the managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, said he was “disheartened because Polish political leaders know we need to stay the course in Ukraine, but they are letting emotions and politics get the better of them.”Polish division, however political, does not stay in Poland, Mr. Baranowski warned. “The effect of this on the United States and the Republican Party is terrible,” he said.Constant Méheut More

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      Haley Slams Trump and Ramaswamy Over Israel Remarks

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      Nikki Haley on Friday knocked two of her Republican presidential rivals, Donald J. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy, over their recent comments on Israel, underscoring the deepening divide within the party around the “America First” anti-interventionist stance that Mr. Trump made a core part of his first campaign.Mr. Trump, Ms. Haley suggested, lacks moral clarity and has not left “the baggage and negativity” of the past behind, an apparent reference to Mr. Trump’s still-simmering animosity toward Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over events that include his congratulating President Biden on winning the 2020 election. Mr. Ramaswamy, meanwhile, sounds more like a liberal Democrat than a Republican, Ms. Haley said.“To go and criticize the head of a country who just saw massive bloodshed — no, that’s not what we need in a president,” Ms. Haley said of Mr. Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner, in a news conference in Concord, N.H., after filing to get on the state’s primary ballot.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump who has been running on her foreign policy experience, said the next president of the United States needed to be someone who “knows the difference between good and evil, who knows the difference between right and wrong.”“You don’t congratulate or give any credit to murderers, period,” she said. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, accused Ms. Haley of using Democratic talking points and said that “there has been no bigger defender and advocate for Israel than President Trump.” But Mr. Trump has drawn scorn from both sides of the political aisle for referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart” while criticizing Israel’s prime minister and Israeli intelligence.His tone shifted on Friday, though, as he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he had “always been impressed by the skill and determination of the Israeli Defense Forces.” A second post said simply: “#IStandWithIsrael #IStandWithBibi.”Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Ramaswamy campaign, dismissed Ms. Haley’s remarks on Friday — including Ms. Haley’s accusation that he sounded like a member of the group of progressives known as “the squad” — as a scripted attack from a candidate whom Ms. McLaughlin sought to portray as beholden to special interests.“Pre-canned quip brought to you by the Boeing squad,” she said in an email, invoking Ms. Haley’s tenure of less than a year on the corporate board of Boeing.Ms. Haley’s dig at Mr. Ramaswamy on Friday escalated an ongoing feud between the G.O.P. rivals that has pitted those with more traditional conservative positions, who believe the United States should play a major role abroad, against those espousing anti-interventionist views, who want Americans to focus on issues at home.Mr. Ramaswamy was sharply rebuked by his opponents over his conversation with Tucker Carlson on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, earlier this week.He called the Republican response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel another example of “selective moral outrage” and argued that politicians on both sides of the aisle had largely ignored other atrocities, citing fentanyl deaths in the United States and the accusations of genocide of ethnic Armenians by Azerbaijan.“It comes down in most cases — some people do have ideological commitments that are outdated that are earnest — but a lot of it comes down to money, the corrupting influence of super PACs on the process,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.In a statement on Friday, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, another Republican candidate in the race, condemned Mr. Ramaswamy’s remarks, saying that he was “pulling out the oldest and most offensive antisemitic tropes possible.”He added: “To say that outrage is fueled by donor money and the media is beyond offensive. It is morally wrong and it is dangerous.”Mr. Ramaswamy accused critics and even conservative media outlets of taking his words out of context. Ms. McLaughlin, his campaign spokeswoman, said in an email on Friday that he was talking about Azerbaijan, not Israel.But Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator, was not persuaded. In a tense exchange between the two men on Thursday night, Mr. Hannity said that Mr. Ramaswamy had a history of retreating from his incendiary statements and had made wild claims without backing them up.“What are the financial corrupting influences that Nikki Haley is taking a position on?” he said. “We’ve got pictures of dead babies decapitated, burned babies’ bodies. We’ve got the equivalent of what would be, population-wise in the U.S., over 37,000 dead Americans. So, how much more evidence do you need? What are you talking about?”Mr. Trump, during his time in the White House, virtually did not challenge Israel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.As his United Nations ambassador, Ms. Haley forcefully spoke out in support of the president’s formal recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as well as his decision to cut American funding to Palestinian refugees. She has since made her foreign policy credentials and staunch support for Israel pillars of her campaign. Her sparring with Mr. Ramaswamy over foreign policy on the national debate stage in particular helped to boost her in the polls, propelling her to the second position behind Mr. Trump in New Hampshire.On the trail and on the Republican media circuit this week, Ms. Haley has been talking up her on-the-ground experience in the Middle East and calling for the elimination of Hamas. In town halls in New Hampshire on Thursday, she ratcheted up her criticism of Mr. Trump for his reaction to the Israel-Hamas war, saying the former president was too focused on himself.In a small room crowded with reporters at the New Hampshire State House on Friday, Ms. Haley again pitched herself as “a new generational conservative leader” who knew how to negotiate with world leaders.“I know what it takes to keep Americans safe,” she said. She later added: “You don’t just have Israel’s back when they get hit. You need to have Israel’s back when they hit back, too.” More

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      Trump’s Remarks on Hezbollah and Netanyahu Prompt Bipartisan Outcry

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      Republican rivals and the White House were among those to roundly condemn the former president for his characterization of the Lebanese militant group.Former President Donald J. Trump drew scorn from both sides of the political aisle on Thursday for remarks that he made one day earlier criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and referring to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, as “very smart.”During a speech to his supporters in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Wednesday, he weighed in on the Hamas attacks on Israel, the worst experienced by America’s closest Middle East ally in half a century.Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, has clashed with Israeli forces in the days after Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked border areas in southern Israel, intensifying concerns that the country could be drawn into a conflict on a second front.“You know, Hezbollah is very smart,” Mr. Trump said. “They’re all very smart.”He took swipes at Mr. Netanyahu on the “Brian Kilmeade Show,” a Fox News Radio show, broadcast on Thursday, arguing that intelligence lapses by Israel had left it vulnerable to the sweeping attack, kidnappings and slaughter of civilians leading to the war.A broad spectrum of political rivals condemned Mr. Trump on Thursday, including the White House and several of his Republican primary opponents.“Statements like this are dangerous and unhinged,” Andrew Bates, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement. “It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’ Or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel.”While filing paperwork on Thursday to appear on the Republican primary ballot in New Hampshire, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is running a distant second to Mr. Trump in national polls, also admonished his main rival.“You’re not going to find me throwing verbal grenades at Israeli leadership,” said Mr. DeSantis, whose campaign shared a clip Wednesday night of Mr. Trump’s Hezbollah remarks on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.Former Vice President Mike Pence similarly objected to Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, saying that his former boss was sending the wrong message.“Well look, this is no time for the former president or any other American leader to be sending any other message than America stands with Israel,” Mr. Pence said during a radio interview with “New Hampshire Today.”Mr. Pence disputed Mr. Trump’s characterization of Hezbollah and pointed out that Mr. Trump’s compliments to a brutal figure were not new: Mr. Trump referred to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a “genius” and “very savvy” after Russia invaded Ukraine last year. And as president, Mr. Trump praised Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as “very honorable.”“Look, Hezbollah are not smart,” Mr. Pence said on Thursday. “They’re evil, OK.”Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat who is a national advisory board member for President Biden’s re-election campaign, slammed Mr. Trump in a statement on Thursday.“No true friend of Israel, the Jewish people or of peace would praise Hezbollah just days after what President Biden and Jewish leaders have called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” Mr. Pritzker said.In a statement on Thursday, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, defended Mr. Trump’s comments. He accused the Biden administration of telegraphing its concerns about the potential for a Hezbollah offensive in northern Israel, and he cited a background briefing that a senior defense official gave to the media on Monday.But the Israeli Army had already been engaged in clashes with armed militants along the country’s volatile northern frontier for several days. On Sunday, the day before the briefing, The Associated Press reported that Hezbollah had fired dozens of rockets and shells at three Israeli positions in a disputed area along Lebanon’s border with the Golan Heights.“Hezbollah has operated there for decades,” Mr. Bates said. “And the United States’ words of deterrence have been welcomed across the board in Israel — unlike some other words that come to mind.”Mr. Trump, who has frequently sought to cast himself as a champion for Israel, maligned Mr. Netanyahu on multiple occasions in recent days.On Wednesday in Florida he said that Israel had in 2020 opted out of participating in the U.S. drone strike that killed Iran’s top security and intelligence commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, who the Pentagon said had been planning attacks on Americans across the region — despite its coordination on the plan.“But I’ll never forget,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing.”In the “Brian Kilmeade Show” interview, the former president criticized Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence as being poorly prepared for the attacks by Hamas on Saturday.“Thousands of people knew about it, and they let this slip by,” he said. “That was not a good thing for him or for anybody.”Mr. DeSantis said that Mr. Trump had crossed the line with his attack on Mr. Netanyahu.“We all need to be on the same page,” he said. “Now is not the time to air personal grievances about an Israeli prime minister. Now is the time to support their right to defend themselves to the hilt.”Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who are also challenging Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination, condemned his remarks as well.“Shame on you, Donald,” Mr. Hutchinson wrote on X. “Your constant compliments to dictators, terrorist groups, and evil-doers are beneath the office you seek and not reflective of the American character.”Speaking to reporters in New Hampshire, Mr. Burgum said that “smart” was not how he would describe Hezbollah or Hamas.“I’d call them barbaric,” he said. “I’d call them inhumane. I’d call it unthinkable. But what Hezbollah and Hamas have done, but I don’t think I’d characterize them in any positive fashion — not when you see this incredible ability to conduct the atrocities that most of us would find as unthinkable and unimaginable.”In an interview on CNN on Thursday, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, told the anchor Wolf Blitzer: “Only a fool would make those kinds of comments. Only a fool would give comments that could give aid and comfort to Israel’s adversary in this situation.”While campaigning in New Hampshire on Thursday, Nikki Haley criticized Mr. Trump in response to a question from a voter during a town hall. “I don’t want him hitting Netanyahu,” she said, adding: “Who cares what he thinks about Netanyahu? This is not about that. This is about the people of Israel.”Jazmine Ulloa More