From birthday celebrations to high-pressure negotiations, President Biden is teeing off a packed Thanksgiving week.
The president turns 81 today, a fact that’s sure to inspire mixed emotions among his supporters. Biden was already the oldest president ever on the day he took the oath of office in 2021. If he wins reelection and serves a full second term, he would exit office at the age of 86.
Biden’s allies are confronting voter anxiety — reflected in early polls — that the president could lose in an increasingly likely rematch next year against former President Trump. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of battleground states, 71 percent of respondents — including 54 percent of his own supporters — said Biden was “too old” to be president. In contrast, 39 percent said the same about Trump, who is 77.
Politico reports there are deep concerns that the campaign’s largely hands-off approach to Biden’s age — and focus on his accomplishments instead — isn’t enough to assuage voters’ fears. Some donors are directly urging top campaign aides to go on offense, leaning even harder into Biden’s age as proof of his wisdom. They are hoping for more humor from “Grandpa Joe.”
“I think everyone knows it’s an issue, and we have to address it,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, adding it’s important to “emphasize [that] it gives him more wisdom and experience, how he’s navigated this difficult problem in Ukraine.”
“He’ll keep on doing the job, campaigning with vigor and demonstrating to the American people his energy level, which is quite robust,” Klain said.
The White House has no plans to mark today’s occasion with a lavish party; Biden will celebrate privately with family in Nantucket later this week (The New York Times).
- The Hill: The Biden campaign is ramping up its offensive against Trump, targeting the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination as a rematch between Trump and Biden appears increasingly likely.
- NPR analysis: As Biden celebrates his birthday, candles on the cake are adding to a problem.
BIDEN AND U.S. OFFICIALS ARE WALKING A DELICATE TIGHTROPE when it comes to addressing Israel’s offensive in Gaza as it stares down a potential deal to release dozens of hostages from Hamas while emphasizing “real concern” for an Israeli operation eyed in the coastal enclave’s southern tip. Deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer on Sunday tackled the aftermath of a weekend report indicating that a deal was close to being reached for a five-day pause in fighting in exchange for the release of some of the 239 hostages in Gaza who were captured on Oct. 7 (The Hill).
Reporting by The Washington Post indicated that a U.S.-brokered deal would free dozens of women and children as well as allow an increase in much-needed humanitarian assistance for civilians, including fuel. Finer was careful to remain cautious that the deal is not yet done.
“[W]e are closer than we have been to reaching a final agreement, but that on an issue as sensitive as this and as challenging is this, the mantra that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed really does apply. And we do not yet have an agreement in place,” he told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.”
Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said Sunday that he was “hopeful” that a deal will be completed “in the coming days” to free at least some of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.
Israel, meanwhile, is shifting the focus of its military campaign to southern Gaza, where it will likely face the hardest stage of the six-week-old war after its forces largely succeeded in taking control of the enclave’s north. But amid a deepening humanitarian crisis, they have only partially destroyed Hamas’s military capabilities and haven’t captured or killed many of its top leaders (The Wall Street Journal). The U.S. cautioned Israel on Sunday not to embark on combat operations in the south until military planners have taken into account the safety of Palestinian civilians.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government said at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardments since the start of the fighting, including at least 5,500 children. The civilian death toll in Gaza is “staggering and unacceptable,” United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said Sunday, appealing again for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire (Reuters).
- The Washington Post: A midnight trip into northern Gaza reveals a shattered warscape.
- The Hill: An Israeli-linked ship was hijacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, with 25 hostages taken.
- CNN: Al-Shifa Hospital’s neo-natal babies are heading to Egypt by ambulance.
- The New York Times: At least 24 were killed in a strike on Gaza school run by the U.N. Nearly 7,000 people were sheltering at the school, according to the U.N. Another school had been struck on Friday.
THREE THINGS TO KNOW
- Javier Milei, a libertarian candidate with radical solutions to Argentina’s economic crisis who has drawn comparisons to Trump, won Sunday’s presidential runoff.
- Ukrainian troops fighting through a stalemate notched a victory last week by securing a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, pushing Russian troops back from another front as Moscow struggles to make ground.
- Sam Altman, the co-founder of ChatGPT parent OpenAI who was ousted as CEO in a chaotic boardroom coup Friday, is joining Microsoft, the startup’s biggest financial backer.
