“Unacceptable”: White House Cancels Event as Biden Struggles on Gaza

The White House has canceled its yearly iftar banquet, a tradition where the president hosts Muslims in government, community leaders from across the country, and members of the diplomatic corps to break their daily Ramadan fast with an evening meal. And President Biden’s Gaza war policy appears to be why.

The White House decided Tuesday to cancel the meal, Al Jazeera English reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The move came after many Muslim community members declined invitations and warned leaders not to attend in protest of Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

“The American Muslim community said very early on that it would be completely unacceptable for us to break bread with the very same White House that is enabling the Israeli government to starve and slaughter the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Al Jazeera.

On Monday, CNN reported that the White House would be hosting a scaled-back iftar dinner the next day, but hours later, the White House announced that there would only be a smaller meal for Muslim government staffers, with a separate meeting for Muslim community leaders.

Even that meeting with the president didn’t go as planned, when a Palestinian American doctor walked out in protest.

“I said it was disappointing I’m the only Palestinian here, and out of respect for my community, I’m going to leave,” Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an emergency physician from Chicago who traveled to Gaza earlier this year, told CNN. That meeting also included national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as other administration officials.

The cancellation comes on the heels of better than expected results for a protest vote in Wisconsin’s Democratic presidential primary elections Tuesday. Voters who selected an “uninstructed” option on their ballot instead of voting for Biden or Representative Dean Phillips (who has suspended his campaign) currently make up 8 percent of the results, or just over 48,000 votes, exceeding organizers’ goal of at least 20,000 votes, which was Biden’s margin of victory over Donald Trump in 2020.

Wisconsin’s results follow similar efforts in states across the country, which began with Michigan’s “uncommitted” movement, spearheaded by the state’s Arab and Muslim American communities. The results on Super Tuesday in March shattered expectations in the swing state, also exceeding Biden’s 2020 margin of victory.

Biden’s support from the Muslim community has sharply declined since the start of the Israeli offensive against Palestinians in Gaza in October. Since then, his disaffected Muslim supporters have demanded he call for a cease-fire in the war before they agree to support his 2024 campaign.

But recent news of Israel’s bombing of an aid convoy in the territory, as well as fresh U.S. shipments of fighter jets and bombs to Israel are not likely to help matters. As Michael Tomasky wrote for The New Republic in February, the president needs to change his Israel policy, and fast.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has two words for Donald Trump’s latest attempt to throw out his New York hush-money trial: no way.

In March, the former reality TV host and his legal team filed a formal request to adjourn his hush-money trial on the basis of too much “pretrial publicity,” arguing that the nature of his charges were too widely known in New York, making it impossible for him to get a fair trial.

But in a Wednesday legal filing, Bragg argued that Trump’s language, which admits the pretrial publicity will never end, reflects his true intentions: to keep the trial at bay indefinitely.

“Defendant appears to acknowledge that there is no end in sight to public coverage of this criminal proceeding, laying bare his strategy of obtaining an open-ended delay of the trial,” Bragg wrote in a 38-page memo. “The answer to defendant’s complaint about pretrial publicity is thus to hold this trial sooner rather than later.”

Bragg also argued that Trump’s insistence on the jury’s inherent bias was undercut by several legal precedents.

“Defendant’s request for an adjournment is based on the fundamentally flawed premise that any amount of pretrial publicity irreparably taints the jury pool,” Bragg continued. “That argument flouts bedrock law that expressly holds otherwise. Pretrial publicity, even when pervasive and adverse, ‘does not inevitably lead to an unfair trial.’”

If anything, Trump could get a fair trial despite all the publicity—as shown in a study commissioned by Trump’s own lawyers, which found that 67 percent of Manhattan’s denizens said they could “definitely” or “probably” set aside their opinion of Trump to give him a fair shake.

And, besides all that, it’s not just the press drawing attention to the first criminal trial of a former president, but Trump himself too. He has incessantly complained about the proceedings at his rallies and on his social media platform, Truth Social. Bragg argued it would be “perverse to reward” Trump with an “adjournment based on media attention he is actively seeking,” pointing to motions filed by Trump’s legal team attempting to protect his right to keep posting online about it.

“Moreover, defendant has made clear that he intends to continue stoking such publicity. In opposition to the People’s motion for an order restricting defendant’s extrajudicial statements, defendant insisted on preserving his ‘uncensored voice on all issues that relate to this case’ and his entitlement to make ‘unfettered’ comments about this case,” Bragg wrote.

James Comer just can’t let his Biden impeachment dream die.

The House Oversight Committee chair tried to make the case that “impeachment’s still on the table” Wednesday morning, during an interview on Fox Business. Comer insisted to host Maria Baritromo that the committee’s probe into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter “is a very serious investigation.”

“Impeachment’s still on the table. There’s still an overwhelming majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives that agree with me that Joe Biden has committed impeachable offenses,” Comer said.

This flies in the face of actual facts: All of the committee’s efforts have fallen flat, with House Republicans failing to produce any concrete evidence. Witness after witness has either said that they don’t have proof or been proven to be making things up.

One such witness, Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying to the FBI, which Comer claimed was a “deep state conspiracy.” As if this wasn’t damaging enough, Smirnov reportedly later admitted that he has ties to Russian intelligence.

What’s more, many Republicans have begun to back away from the impeachment effort, with some pointing to the fact that they likely do not have the votes to pass articles of impeachment.

Comer has been the main Republican spearheading the investigation into the Bidens. But even he doesn’t seem to be taking the investigation seriously. The Kentucky Republican didn’t even stay for Hunter Biden’s full deposition before the committee in February, and just last week, he seemed to admit defeat on impeachment efforts, saying that the Biden investigation’s new goal was criminal referrals.

But Comer now claims that these referrals would be a step toward impeachment. Such referrals are nonbinding, and the Justice Department is unlikely to choose to pursue them. But no worries: Comer has a plan for the long term. He told Bartiromo that “hopefully in a year, we will have a Department of Justice that can hold [the Bidens] accountable,” alluding to a victory by Donald Trump in November.

Since it seems unlikely that Republicans will impeach Biden while he is still in office, it appears that all the evidence they have presented only adds up to an effort to weaken the president’s image before November’s presidential election.

Donald Trump’s virulent anti-immigration campaign series offered an unexpected shout-out to a group of people who didn’t want it: the family of murder victim Ruby Garcia.

“She lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people,” Trump claimed Tuesday at a news conference in Garcia’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I spoke to some of her family.”

But Garcia’s family said that the GOP presidential nominee had never reached out to them. Instead, they were at home, watching as Trump turned their family’s loss into a political stunt.

“He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,” Garcia’s sister, Mavi Garcia, told NBC affiliate Target 8, noting that not only had Trump not reached out to the family, but neither had anyone from his campaign.

“It was shocking. I kind of stopped watching it. I’d only seen up to that, after I heard a couple of misinformations he said, I just stopped watching it,” she said.

Garcia, 25, was shot and killed on March 22 by Brandon Ortiz-Vite, an undocumented immigrant who confessed to murdering her and dumping her body along a highway in the city. Ortiz-Vite had previously been deported out of the United States by court order in 2020, and it was unclear when he had reentered.

The Trump campaign quickly took notice of the murder, leveraging it as an example of a rising wave in “migrant crime” and claiming that Ortiz-Vite had been “let back in by Joe Biden.” But that’s not the story that Garcia’s family wants Ruby’s name wrapped up in.

“It’s always been about illegal immigrants,” Mavi Garcia told Target 8. “Nobody really speaks about when Americans do heinous crimes, and it’s kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegals. What about Americans who do heinous crimes like that?”

“The focus should be on my sister right now, who she was in life. I want people to remember who she was in life,” she added, describing Ruby Garcia as a very happy and generous person.

Tuesday’s speech wasn’t even the first time in the last month that Trump lied about his interactions with a grieving family for his own political gain. In March, Trump’s campaign issued a statement claiming that he had been invited to attend the funeral of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller by his family—but that wasn’t really the case. In reality, the invitation had been extended by Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

Donald Trump has attacked the judge in his hush-money trial so much that it earned him a massive gag order. Now Fox News is defending Trump by justifying the attacks.

“The judge is threatening to put Trump in jail by pointing out that his liberal family is getting rich off this trial,” Fox host Jesse Watters said Tuesday night. “He just wants a new judge—one whose family isn’t funded by Democrats.”

Trump’s attacks go far beyond simply requesting a new judge. The Republican presidential nominee has repeatedly attacked Judge Juan Merchan, his daughter, and his court staff and their families.

Trump has even mentioned Merchan’s daughter by name and posted her picture to his Truth Social account. Except, these attacks are based on a falsehood: Trump targeted the judge’s daughter for allegedly sharing a doctored photo of Trump behind bars on social media, which was quickly debunked after a representative for the New York state court system pointed out that the account wasn’t hers.

Jury selection in Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin on April 15. He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in order to cover up an extramarital affair.

It’s only the latest attempt by Fox News to defend the former president’s actions. On Tuesday, Fox News presenter and former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed that Trump’s $454 million bond was unfair, as the former president committed a “victimless crime.” And the attacks on Merchan’s daughter have come from the president’s other allies, including his son Donald Jr., going back to last year.

Fox contributors have seen their loyalty rewarded. On Tuesday night, Trump promoted Watters’s new book, Get It Together: Troubling Tales From the Liberal Fringe, in a Truth Social post.

Donald Trump hosted back-to-back rallies in two states on Tuesday, using his time to attack President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and make some extreme promises in regard to his own agenda for the U.S.-Mexico border. That included claiming he’d deport U.S. citizens if undocumented migrants were found “invading” their homes.

“If your constitutional rights have been violated, we will defend you. If you have illegal aliens invading your home, we will deport you,” Trump said during an event in Wisconsin, his second stop of the night.

The claim, which is alarmingly similar to the policies of another far-right leader who punished civilians for hiding Jews in their homes, could be a direct attack on a controversial program announced last month by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration. Whitmer’s new policy offers $500 subsidies for households that volunteered to shelter refugees.

Or, if the phrasing was just another verbal gaffe, it would add to a mountain of evidence that Trump is losing his grip. Over the last several months, Trump has claimed that there were “millions of people” arriving from “places unknown” speaking no language and that he would stop banks from “debanking” Americans; he has mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and described his plan for America’s missile defense system by going, “Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.… Boom. OK. Missile launch. Woosh. Boom.”

But, after much leg work, Trump’s campaign has also successfully transformed immigration into a key issue in the upcoming election, with more than a quarter of Americans—28 percent—listing it as their top concern, according to a March Gallup poll. Behind the scenes, the former president has strong-armed Republican lawmakers into refusing bipartisan border deals to avoid giving Biden a win on the issue.

Trump has also stoked the flames of a standoff between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the federal government over lengths of concertina wire erected by the state that have prevented federal border agents from doing their job along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

And, by now, it seems to have helped him—or at least taken a toll on his opponent. Polls suggest that immigration, in light of rising border crossings, is Biden’s worst policy issue, with seven out of 10 Americans disapproving of his approach, according to The Washington Post.

If you ask most Americans, whether they are Democrats or unserious presidential candidates, the fate of U.S. democracy depends on how November’s election goes. If you ask Donald Trump, the election could determine the fate of the United States itself.

“If we don’t win on November 5, I think our country is going to cease to exist. It could be the last election we ever have. I actually mean that,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday.

In fact, looking at Trump’s plans for a potential second term, it’s more likely that the opposite is true. He has claimed that he wants to be a dictator, but only on “day one,” and plans to install his legal allies at all levels of government. And his Cabinet? It’s sure to be full of ideologues, immigration hard-liners, and outright fascists. Even conservative judges claim he’ll shred the legal system.

But Trump’s remarks could also be a veiled threat that he should win, or else. The far right, from Trump down to militias, hate groups, and grassroots MAGA supporters, could react violently if the election doesn’t go in their favor.

As Brynn Tannehill wrote for The New Republic in March, “The election cycle either ends in chaos and violence, balkanization, or a descent into a modern theocratic fascist dystopia.” It might not be a stretch to suggest that Trump could plan another January 6–type event if he loses. After all, only months prior to the Capitol insurrection, he urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” on a debate stage.

But it could all be bluster, as well. Trump is no stranger to hyperbole, particularly on the campaign trail. In October 2020, for example, he suggested he might leave the country if he lost the election that year. At a rally in April 2022, he claimed to be “the most honest human being, perhaps, that God ever created.”

Donald Trump started off his campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday with a bang, immediately launching into a vitriolic tirade about the alleged numbers of “sick” undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“People were sick, we don’t want them coming into our country with contagious diseases, and they have it,” Trump said, despite the fact that he actively ignored the onset of the global pandemic, lied to the U.S. public about ways to treat Covid-19, and thwarted efforts to develop a vaccine. “All of a sudden you see these contagious diseases spreading, and everyone is saying, ‘I wonder where they came from.’ I can tell you where they came from.”

Even though he was arguably as far away as he could get from the Mexico border while staying within the bounds of the contiguous United States, the GOP presidential nominee used the event to go after Joe Biden’s border policies, which Trump’s campaign referred to as “Biden’s Border Bloodbath.”

Over the last few months, Trump’s campaign has successfully transformed immigration into a key issue in the upcoming election, with more than a quarter of Americans—28 percent—listing it as their top concern, according to a March Gallup poll. Behind the scenes, the former president has strong-armed Republican lawmakers into refusing bipartisan border deals to avoid giving Biden a win on the issue.

Trump has also stoked the flames of a standoff between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the federal government over lengths of concertina wire erected by the state that have prevented federal border agents from doing their job along the Rio Grande section of the U.S.-Mexico border.

And, by now, it seems to have helped him—or at least taken a toll on his opponent. Polls suggest that immigration, in light of rising border crossings, is Biden’s worst policy issue, with seven out of 10 Americans disapproving of his approach, according to The Washington Post.

“Under Crooked Joe Biden, EVERY state is now a border state. EVERY town is now a Border Town—because Joe Biden has brought the carnage, chaos, and killing from all over world, and dumped it straight into our own backyards,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement ahead of Trump’s speech.

Trump is also scheduled to make a speech in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, before the state holds its presidential primary alongside Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island. There will be 455 delegates up for grabs in the Democratic primary, and 195 delegates available on the Republican side.

It’s official: John Eastman, Trump’s former lawyer, can no longer practice law in the state of California, pending his appeal through California’s courts.

As of Tuesday, Eastman is listed as “not eligible to practice law” on the State Bar of California’s website. The move comes three days after State Bar Court of California Judge Yvette Roland recommended that Eastman’s law license be put on “involuntary inactive” status.

In January, the California state bar began disbarment proceedings against Eastman for helping to lead Donald Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election results and prevent the certification of votes, which included a direct appeal to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Eastman also helped try to create slates of fake pro-Trump electors in states won by Joe Biden, and helped Trump spread election fraud falsehoods, including at the January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into the Capitol insurrection. While Roland rejected the charge that Eastman’s speech helped incite the January 6 riot, she did slam his actions as “exceptionally serious ethical violations.”

Roland also said the “scale and egregiousness of Eastman’s unethical actions far surpasses” that of Donald Segretti, the lawyer who helped Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign try to sabotage the Democrats.

Eastman can still win his legal credentials back on appeal, as the California Supreme Court has the final say. But if his legal career does come to an end, his legacy isn’t great, even without his election wrongdoing: He once questioned Kamala Harris’s citizenship, arguing that she might be ineligible for the office of vice president because, he claimed, she wasn’t a U.S. citizen at birth. His argument even extended into claiming that birthright citizenship itself might not be constitutional.

Eastman may not be the last Trump ally to lose their legal license: A Washington, D.C., ethics board is currently considering whether to disbar former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell could be disbarred as a result of her October guilty plea to six misdemeanor counts related to the 2020 election in Georgia.

* The headline of this article has been corrected. Eastman has not been officially disbarred yet.

The Daily Caller had to issue a full retraction of an Easter Sunday hit piece on President Joe Biden after it emerged the publication hadn’t performed even the most basic reporting.

The outlet, founded by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and political pundit Neil Patel, had accused Biden of sparking an Easter controversy by implementing a ban on religious symbolism on eggs during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll—but left out a key detail. In reality, the 146-year-old event had implemented a ban on religious iconography decades ago.

The Daily Caller article was subsequently amended, archived, and replaced with a brief notice.

“Following the publication of this article, the Daily Caller became aware of additional context that undercut the central assertion of this article and its newsworthiness,” the publication wrote. “The ban of religious symbolism on eggs as part of the White House Easter egg art contest has been longstanding, dating back decades, and the Biden administration did not make any modifications to this rule. While the Caller did not explicitly state at any point that the rule was new, this additional context rendered the main thrust of the article misleading to readers, who could reasonably have come to the conclusion that the rule was new.”

“With that additional context included, the news value of the article was significantly diminished, leading the senior leadership at the Caller to the decision to retract,” the notice continued. “We sincerely regret the error and are taking the necessary steps to ensure similar mistakes can be avoided in the future.”

It was just another attempted attack on the president by conservatives after they berated him for recognizing Easter alongside the Transgender Day of Visibility, which has been celebrated on March 31 since 2009 but happened to align with the major Chrisitian holiday this year.