President Joe Biden gave a startling answer when confronted with concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be trying to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
Earlier this week, Senator Chris Murphy said there was a possibility that Netanyahu would not be willing to sign a cease-fire deal before our presidential election, potentially to try to “influence” the results.
During a White House press briefing Friday, Biden was directly asked about those concerns.
“Do you agree, do you have any worries that Netanyahu may be trying to influence the election, and that is why he has not agreed to a diplomatic solution?” asked CBS’s senior White House correspondent Weija Jiang.
“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden replied.
“And uh, whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know,” Biden said. “But I’m not counting on that.”
The vague nonanswer follows previous reporting that Biden is well aware of Netanyahu’s possible angle to help Trump.
Biden has reportedly told confidants that he believed that Netanyahu never wanted a cease-fire deal and was hoping to prolong Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza, not only to save his own political career but to give Trump a hand in November’s election.
Biden’s inability to secure a cease-fire between Israeli and Palestinian leaders has become a political liability for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, particularly in the battleground state of Michigan, which is home to the largest populations of Palestinian and Lebanese Americans in the country.
Despite concerns that the prolonged war could be giving Trump a boost, Biden and his administration have been unwilling to use any kind of leverage—including the billions of dollars in U.S. weapons sales or the billions in foreign aid—to compel Netanyahu to curtail Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. Israel has expanded its military actions to Lebanon, where it has killed hundreds of people in the last week alone.
