- Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly bodying Tucker Carlson on his weird little garage show

As mediators continue to negotiate a potential deal between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s far-right government decided to press on with its deadly campaign in Gaza.
 

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a “massive operation” in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, one of the last refuges for civilians in the enclave, which has been under constant siege since the October 7 Hamas attack. Just a few months ago, the Netanyahu government and its Israel Defense Forces instructed Gazans to move south, giving them little more than 24 hours to do so, as they attacked the north. Now, an estimated 1.4 million civilians are sheltering in the south, half the enclave’s population. 
   

• IDF airstrikes on Rafah Thursday night killed at least 13 people, according to the local hospital that received the bodies. According to an estimate from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), the city’s population has swelled to five times its prewar total, and thousands of people are sleeping in tents or makeshift dwellings that offer almost no protection. Many of the civilians sheltering in the city have been displaced multiple times since the war began. 
   

• Netanyahu has directed the IDF to present a “dual plan” to remove the civilian population from combat zones and to “collapse” the four remaining Hamas factions it claims remain in Rafah. It’s unclear what shape this plan will take. U.S. Intelligence officials told Congress this week that while Israel has degraded Hamas’s military capabilities, it is currently not close to eliminating the group.

The Biden administration, which has been cagey about criticizing Israel since the war began, seems to be losing patience with the Netanyahu government, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 27,000.  

• National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Thursday that a major military offensive in Rafah “would be a disaster,” and that under current conditions, the United States “would not support it.” President Biden gave some of his most direct criticism of Israel yet, calling its campaign in Gaza “over the top.” Biden issued a memorandum on Thursday laying out standards of conduct to which countries that have received American weapons must adhere. For the first time, it requires the administration to submit an annual report to Congress about whether countries are meeting these requirements. 

• The move came after several prominent progressive lawmakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) raised concerns about continuing to fund Israel’s effort with unconditional aid. So far, only half of Senate Democrats have supported a measure that would ensure Israel and other countries are held accountable for meeting such standards, which include abiding by international law and facilitating the transport of U.S. humanitarian aid. Last month, the United States suspended funding to UNRWA—an organization on which 87 percent of Gazans rely for daily aid—after Israel accused a dozen of it’s 13,000 employees of participating in the October 7 terrorist attacks. As Ben Rhodes explained on Pod Save the World, Netanyahu has long wanted to see UNRWA—which was established in 1949, when Palestinians were displaced in the creation of Israel—dissolved, because he does not want Palestinians to have refugee status, which comes with certain protections like “right of resettlement,” or “right of return.” Netanyahu and far-right extremist Israeli Foreign Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Rhodes says, want to “erase a certain legal categorization of identity for Palestinians.” 
   

The White House has warned Netanyahu about “indiscriminate” bombings, and many of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visits to the Middle East have been conducted with the aim of convincing Israel to pursue a more targeted military strategy, but there has been seemingly little change. Now, as the IDF gears up to conduct a massive military operation in Rafah, the United States needs to decide whether it will change course if Netanyahu does not.

Keep It hosts Louis & Ira shared hot takes on why they felt Taylor Swift’s Grammy speech was a flop. To hear this and more news coming out of music’s biggest night of the year, check out the latest Keep It episode on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

Special Counsel Jack Smith urged the judge overseeing disgraced former President Trump’s criminal case in South Florida to reconsider her decision to reveal the identities of potential witnesses in the case, saying they’d likely become targets of threats. Smith’s legal filing seemed to reflect a sense of rising exasperation among his team of prosecutors with Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been widely criticized for appearing to bend over backwards to suit Trump’s preferences. Cannon was appointed by Trump late in his presidency, and she is now overseeing the criminal case against the former president for allegedly violating the espionage act by taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, FL. Smith’s team said Cannon made a “clear error” in her previous ruling to allow lawyers to reveal the identity of over two-dozen potential witnesses. They said Cannon got the law wrong, and that if she didn’t change her mind, her ruling would create “manifest injustice.” 

The threats from Trump fans, of course, are no figment of Smith’s imagination. Many of those involved in Trump’s trials have received a torrent of incendiary and intimidating messages and phone calls, including court officials in New York and Washington D.C., Smith himself, and even Judge Cannon. “There is a well-documented pattern in which judges, agents, prosecutors and witnesses involved in cases involving Trump have been subject to threats, harassment and intimidation,” Smith’s team wrote. Smith revealed Wednesday evening that a separate criminal investigation has already been opened into online threats made against one of the witnesses in the case. 

Trump, of course, knows perfectly well that his followers will make the lives of his enemies a living hell through harassing calls and emails. The question now becomes whether Judge Cannon is really going to let that happen in this case, or whether Smith can convince her to change her mind—or, if not, pull an emergency legal move to get her overruled by a higher court.

Vice President Kamala Harris called DOJ special counsel Robert Hur’s report into the investigation of President Biden’s handling of classified documents “politically motivated.” The report cleared Biden of criminal wrongdoing but repeatedly took shots at his memory and advanced age. Hur is a Republican who served in Trump’s DOJ. 

The primary witness in the investigation against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is cooperating with the House Ethics Committee, according to the witness’s lawyer. Investigators want to find out whether Gaetz had sex with a minor while serving in Congress, something we would also very much like to know!

Meta is debating whether the word “Zionist” should be considered antisemitic, and whether posts using the word should be taken down—or whether it should continue to consider the word simply a term that describes an ideology, according to internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson—in a particularly deranged interview, even for the two of them—that he wants to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine and the United States, but wants The Kremlin to be able to write the terms. There's that reasonable, collaborative approach we have all come to know and love about Putin!

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The White House announced an $11 billion semiconductor research and development plan on Friday. Still not entirely certain what those are, but sounds good!!

The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show 60 years ago today. It remains one of the most-watched television events in American history. The next most-watched event will, fingers crossed, be Donald Trump going to prison! 

America’s oldest person Edith Ceccarelli of Willits, CA, turned 116 this week. She’s the second-oldest living person in the world. That’s pretty impressive, but can she speak 2nd grade-level French and type 60 words per minute? Take that, Edith!