The White House declined to comment Friday on reports that President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he couldn’t back a year of war, instead suggesting that Biden isn’t concerned about the ramifications Israel’s offensive in Gaza will have on the 2024 election.
Axios reported Friday that Biden said during last Friday’s call with Netanyahu that he was concerned about losing support from voters under 35, given strong calls for an immediate ceasefire among that demographic. Axios claimed that the president spent much of that same call stressing the need for Israel to wind down fighting in Gaza.
Asked about that report during Friday’s White House press briefing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that he “cannot” and will not “get into more detail about the call.”
“We gave you a pretty fulsome readout,” he continued. “We’re going to continue to make sure that they have the benefit not only of American security systems but American voices and council.”
“The president is concerned about Israel’s right to defend themselves from legitimate threats. The president is concerned about the humanitarian crisis that’s going on in Gaza. Right now, people are in desperate need of food, water, medicine, fuel,” he continued. “The president is concerned, as I said at the very outset, with the 100 plus hostages that are still being held by Hamas and other Islamic Jihad groups there in Gaza and making sure that they get home to their families.”
Kirby, citing calls the president made to the leaders of Qatar and Egypt, claimed that Biden is “working at this personally, at his level, to see if we can’t get them home.”
“That’s what he’s concerned about. He’s not looking at the clock and the electoral calendar; he’s looking at the clock in terms of the lives that are at risk in Gaza right now — hostage lives, Palestinian lives, and, you know what, even Israel Defense Force lives because they keep taking casualties. That’s the clock he’s worried about,” he said.
Biden has faced a surge of protests at his political events in recent weeks, including multiple pro-ceasefire interruptions at his abortion rights rally in Virginia this past Tuesday.
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“Joe Biden is approaching the situation in the Middle East not through the lens of politics, but as the commander in chief of this country who was prioritizing American national security and global security,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said Wednesday. “He’s doing so with the wisdom, the judgment, and the experience that comes with his age, as you mentioned, but he’s also doing it with the empathy and the decency that complex situations demand.”
You can watch Friday’s briefing in full below.