New York House GOP sees fundraising void without McCarthy cash

NEW YORK — Kevin McCarthy made the campaign cash flow as House speaker. His successor Mike Johnson will be playing catch-up for a while.

And for vulnerable New York Republicans with tough reelection battles, the difference is stark.

More than $1.8 million had been raised by McCarthy-associated committees versus just $12,000 by Johnson-affiliated ones for Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Brandon Williams and Nick LaLota, according to federal filings reviewed by POLITICO.

The former speaker was a prodigious fundraiser. Overall, McCarthy’s campaign raised more than 20 times what Johnson’s did for the 2022 cycle and the 2024 one thus far.

And his prowess was especially beneficial to his blue-state colleagues who were critical in the GOP winning the House last year.

Freshman House Republicans in New York acknowledged the void created when McCarthy was ousted from the speakership, but said they had faith that others will pick up the slack.

“Losing McCarthy is obviously a setback for our fundraising; it’s like losing a hall of famer in that category,” LaLota of Long Island said in an interview. “But there are multiple all-stars looking to step up.”

Seven New York incumbents face competitive races in 2024, per Cook Political Report ratings, and New York could decide which party has the House majority in 2025. LaLota is projected to be the safest among the seven, but his GOP colleagues D’Esposito, Lawler, Molinaro and Williams will need robust campaign war chests as they seek second terms.

Republicans are buoyed by the local election gains earlier this month, especially on Long Island, but they’re also fighting association with indicted GOP Rep. George Santos and pushing back on Democrats tying them to Johnson’s extremist views.

Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman described the new speaker in an interview as “someone for a national abortion ban with no exceptions, an architect of election denying, efforts to overturn the 2020 election and virulently anti-LGBTQ.”

Goldman predicted Republicans won’t be able to replicate McCarthy’s fundraising, saying Johnson “has to build an entire donor network from scratch because he’s effectively unknown.” (A Siena Research Institute poll released Monday found 53 percent of New York voters have never heard of Johnson or have no opinion of him.)

LaLota said Johnson’s first weeks as speaker-cum-fundraiser showed promise and cited additional progress by Reps. Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer in GOP leadership as well as Rep. August Pfluger of Texas.

The Congressional Leadership Fund and American Action Network said last week that they had raised $16 million in the 10 days since Johnson endorsed them, noting that the speaker was aggressively working to introduce himself to donors.

D’Esposito, also of Long Island, has stressed he doesn’t share Johnson’s stance on abortion. He also said he believes McCarthy retains considerable clout — even without the speaker’s gavel.

“He’s still going to be supportive of candidates that were supportive of him, especially in seats that he helped deliver,” D’Esposito said in an interview.

D’Esposito and Molinaro, whose district stretches across the Hudson Valley and into central New York, were the biggest recipients of McCarthy-steered cash to the five swing-district Republicans in the state. Molinaro’s campaign declined to comment.

The campaign of Lawler, a Hudson Valley Republican, also declined to comment.

A spokesperson for Williams’ campaign said the Syracuse-area representative is confident in his fundraising as well as Johnson’s.

“In 2024, the majority-makers from New York will once again prove that ‘the people’ have had enough of the ‘progressive fantasies’ of cashless bail, sanctuary cities, open borders and reckless government spending,” Taylor Weyeneth added in a statement.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Savannah Viar listed similar issues as detrimental to Democrats, saying, “Republicans’ strong fundraising effort is beside the main point: no amount of Democrats’ money will make voters forget their terrible policies.”

Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.

A version of this story first appeared in Monday’s New York Playbook. Subscribe here.

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Biden talks turkey — then pardons them

Joe Biden spent his 81st birthday the only way a president would want to, really: pardoning turkeys and telling jokes.

“By the way, it’s my birthday today. I just want you to know, it’s difficult turning 60,” Biden said Monday at the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon.

He chuckled at his own joke. The crowd gobbled it up. But the turkeys didn’t laugh.

Which is odd, because they should have been in a good mood. After all, they were the lucky ones this year, spared from a fate that involved basting and roasting, or a deep fryer, or being lined with smaller birds and consumed alongside a heap of stuffing.

This year’s presidentially spared birds hail from Minnesota — a perhaps telling biographical tidbit, as it’s not quite a swing state but could be one if Biden truly plummets in the polls. In classic Biden fashion, however, there was a Pennsylvania connection, too. This year’s flock of turkeys were named Liberty and Bell. Get it?

“These birds have a new appreciation of the words, let freedom ring,” Biden said, speaking from the White House Rose Garden.

Monday’s annual event marked the 76th anniversary of the White House turkey pardon, which dates back to 1947, when the National Turkey Federation first presented the national Thanksgiving Turkey to President Harry Truman. Biden, in another age reference, quipped that he was not present at Truman’s event. But he was alive; he was a mere 5 years old at the time — old enough, for certain, to eat turkey.

While the Thanksgiving bird used to be for the first family’s consumption, that is no longer the case. Beginning in the late 1980s, the event evolved into an oftentimes funny ceremony (minus the occasional snap at the pardoner’s hand) in which the turkeys are given a second chance at life. Liberty and Bell will make the trek back to live out their lives at the University of Minnesota.

There were a few jokes throughout Biden’s short ceremony on Monday. But let’s just say it was, like the cooked variety, relatively dry.

But like all Thanksgiving festivities, there was also some awkwardness around the table. Biden bungled one joke referencing the challenging nature of getting a ticket to Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour or Taylor Swift’s Eras concert — appearing to confuse Swift with Britney Spears.

“Just to get here, Liberty and Bell had to beat some tough odds and competition. They had to work hard to show patience and be willing to travel over 1,000 miles,” Biden said. “You could say even it’s harder than getting a ticket to the Renaissance tour or, or, for Brittney’s tour. She’s down in — it’s kind of warm in Brazil right now.”

Oops, he did it again. Gobble gobble.

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For one group of trans women, the pope and his message of inclusivity are a welcome change

TORVAIANICA, Italy — Pope Francis’ recent gesture of welcome for transgender Catholics has resonated strongly in this working class, seaside town south of Rome, where a community of trans women has found help and hope through a remarkable relationship with the pontiff forged during the darkest times of the pandemic.

Thanks to the local parish priest, these women now make monthly visits to Francis’ Wednesday general audiences, where they are given VIP seats. On any given day, they receive handouts of medicine, cash and shampoo. When Covid-19 struck, the Vatican bussed them into its health facility so they could be vaccinated ahead of most Italians.

On Sunday, the women — many of whom are Latin American migrants and work as prostitutes — joined over 1,000 other poor and homeless people in the Vatican auditorium as Francis’ guests for lunch to mark the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor.

The menu was evidence of Francis’ belief that those most on the margins must be treated with utmost dignity: cannelloni pasta filled with spinach and ricotta to start; meatballs in a tomato-basil sauce and cauliflower puree, and tiramisu with petit fours for dessert.

For the marginalized trans community of Torvaianica, it was just the latest gesture of inclusion from a pope who has made reaching out to the LGBTQ+ community a hallmark of his papacy, in word and deed.

“Before, the church was closed to us. They didn’t see us as normal people, they saw us as the devil,” said Andrea Paola Torres Lopez, a Colombian transgender woman known as Consuelo, whose kitchen is decorated with pictures of Jesus. “Then Pope Francis arrived and the doors of the church opened for us.”

Francis’ latest initiative was a document from the Vatican’s doctrine office asserting that, under some circumstances, transgender people can be baptized and can serve as godparents and witnesses in weddings. It followed another recent statement from the pope himself that suggested same-sex couples could receive church blessings.

In both cases, the new pronouncements reversed the absolute bans on transgender people serving as godparents issued by the Vatican doctrine office in 2015, and on same-sex blessings announced in 2021.

Prominent LGBTQ+ organizations have welcomed Francis’ message of inclusivity, given gay and transgender people have long felt ostracized and discriminated against by a church that officially teaches that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

Starting from his famous “Who am I to judge” comment in 2013 about a purportedly gay priest, to his assertion in January that “being homosexual is not a crime,” Francis has evolved his position to increasingly make clear that everyone — “todos, todos, todos” — is a child of God, is loved by God and welcome in the church.

That judgment-free position is not necessarily shared by the rest of the Catholic Church. The recent Vatican gathering of bishops and laypeople, known as a synod, backed off language explicitly calling for welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics. Conservative Catholics, including cardinals, have strongly questioned his approach.

After his latest statement about trans participation in church sacraments, GLAAD and DignityUSA said Francis’ tone of inclusion would send a message to political and cultural leaders to end their persecution, exclusion and discrimination against transgender people.

For the trans community in Torvaianica, it was a more personal message, a concrete sign that the pope knew them, had heard their stories and wanted to let them know that they were part of his church.

Carla Segovia, a 46-year-old Argentine sex worker, said for transgender women like herself, being a godparent is the closest thing she will ever get to having a child of her own. She said that the new norms made her feel more comfortable about maybe one day returning fully to the faith that she was baptized in but fell away from after coming out as trans.

“This norm from Pope Francis brings me closer to finding that absolute serenity,” she said, which she feels is necessary to be fully reconciled with the faith.

Claudia Vittoria Salas, a 55-year-old transgender tailor and house cleaner, said she had already served as a godparent to three of her nieces and nephews back home in Jujuy, in northern Argentina. She choked up as she recalled that her earnings from her former work as a prostitute put her godchildren through school.

“Being a godparent is a big responsibility, it’s taking the place of the mother or father, it’s not a game,” she said as her voice broke. “You have to choose the right people who will be responsible and capable, when the parents aren’t around, to send the kids to school and provide them with food and clothes.”

Francis’ unusual friendship with the Torvaianica trans community began during Italy’s strict Covid-19 lockdown, when one, then two, and then more sex workers showed up at the Rev. Andrea Conocchia’s church on the main piazza of town asking for food, because they had lost all sources of income.

Over time, Conocchia got to know the women and as the pandemic and economic hardships continued, he encouraged them to write to Francis to ask for what they needed. One night they sat around a table and composed their letters.

“The pages of the letters of the first four were bathed in tears,” he recalled. “Why? Because they told me ‘Father, I’m ashamed, I can’t tell the pope what I have done, how I have lived.’”

But they did, and the first assistance arrived from the pope’s chief almsgiver, who then accompanied the women for their Covid-19 vaccines a year later. At the time of the pandemic, many of the women weren’t legally allowed to live in Italy and had no access to the vaccine.

Eventually, Francis asked to meet them.

Salas was among those who received the jab at the Vatican and then joined a group from Torvaianica to thank Francis at his general audience on April 27, 2022. She brought the Argentine pope a platter of homemade chicken empanadas, a traditional comfort food from their shared homeland.

Showing the photo of the exchange on her phone, Salas remembered what Francis did next: “He told the gentleman who receives the gifts to leave them with him, saying ‘I’m taking them with me for lunch,’” she said. “At that point, I started to cry.”

On Sunday, Salas was seated at Francis’ table in the Vatican auditorium. She said she had woken up at 3 a.m. to make him more chicken empanadas for his dinner. “They’re still hot,” she said.

For Canocchia, Francis’ response to Salas and the others has changed him profoundly as a priest, teaching him the value of listening and being attentive to the lives and hardships of his flock, especially those most on the margins.

For the women, it is simply an acknowledgement that they matter.

“At least they remember us, that we’re on Earth and we haven’t been abandoned and left to the mercy of the wind,” said Torres Lopez.

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Yemen’s Houthi rebels hijack Israeli-linked ship in Red Sea, take 25 crew members hostage

JERUSALEM — Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, officials said, taking over two dozen crew members hostage and raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and took the crew as hostages. The group warned that it would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.

The Houthis said they were treating the crew members “in accordance with their Islamic values,” but did not elaborate on what that meant.

Netanyahu’s office condemned the seizure as an “Iranian act of terror.” The Israeli military called the hijacking a “very grave incident of global consequence.”

Israeli officials insisted the ship was British-owned and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.

Ungar told The Associated Press he was aware of the incident but couldn’t comment as he awaited details. A ship linked to him experienced an explosion in 2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time.

The complex world of international shipping often involves a series of management companies, flags and owners stretching across the globe in a single vessel.

Two U.S. defense officials confirmed that Houthi rebels seized the Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea on Sunday afternoon local time. The rebels descended on the cargo ship by repelling down from a helicopter, the officials said, confirming details first reported by NBC News. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.

Twice in the last month, U.S. warships have intercepted missiles or drones from Yemen that were believed to be headed toward Israel or posing a threat to the American vessels. The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces toward the northern Red Sea last month.

On Nov. 15 the USS Thomas Hudner, another destroyer, was sailing toward the Bab-el-Mandeb strait when the crew saw a drone, reported to have originated in Yemen. The ship shot down the drone over the water. The officials said the crew took action to ensure the safety of U.S. personnel, and there were no casualties or damage to the ship.

Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP showed the Galaxy Leader traveling in the Red Sea southwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, more than a day ago. The vessel had been in Korfez, Turkey, and was on its way to Pipavav, India, at the time of the seizure reported by Israel.

It had its Automatic Identification System tracker, or AIS, switched off, the data showed. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted or to smuggle contraband, which there was no immediate evidence to suggest was the case with the Galaxy Leader.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Persian Gulf and the wider region, put the hijacking as having occurred some 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea.

The Red Sea, stretching from Egypt’s Suez Canal to the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, remains a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. That’s why the U.S. Navy has stationed multiple ships in the sea since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7.

Since 2019, a series of ships have come under attack at sea as Iran began breaking all the limits of its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. As Israel expands its devastating campaign against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip following the militant group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, fears have grown that the military operations could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen.

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California Democratic Party chair vows consequences for pro-Palestinian protesters

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The chair of the California Democratic Party vowed repercussions Sunday for members who took part in a raucous pro-Palestinian demonstration that forced an early halt to meetings the night before.

“Any delegates who actively participated in or aided the furtherance of those activities or events in violation of our party’s code of conduct will be held accountable,” Chair Rusty Hicks told party members gathered for a convention in Sacramento.

Protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza overwhelmed security guards and poured into the convention center on Saturday evening, leading the party to cancel planned caucuses. Earlier in the day, demonstrators shouted over and cut short a forum for U.S. Senate candidates.

Hicks did not elaborate on potential punishments. The party's code of conduct says violators can be barred from attending events or stripped of their delegate status.

The chair said he was “deeply saddened and disappointed” by the disruptions, saying two security guards sustained “minor injuries” and that Jewish attendees “were openly intimidated and harassed.”

“Every delegate, volunteer, staff person and attendee has the right to be safe and to feel safe in the peaceful expression of their own voice and viewpoint,” Hicks said.

The conflict in Gaza has loomed over the convention, highlighting a gulf between progressives demanding a cease-fire and pro-Israel Democrats who have stopped short of that position.

None of the candidates running for an open U.S. Senate seat won the party’s endorsement, which requires a 60 percent vote. Rep. Barbara Lee — the only House Democrat in the race to back a cease-fire — secured a plurality, slightly eclipsing Rep. Adam Schiff.

Many delegates holding cease-fire signs also sported Lee gear. Activists backing a cessation of hostilities called it a moral imperative and warned they would withhold votes from Democrats who did not join them.

Saturday’s turmoil also drew pushback from some Jewish party members who noted protesters chanted “from the river to the sea,” a Palestinian liberation slogan that can be viewed as a call to do away with the state of Israel. Some demonstrators also chanted "intifada, intifada."

The California Legislative Jewish Caucus said in a statement that some Jewish delegates “now believe it is unsafe to participate at all.”

“We fully support the right to protest loudly and vociferously. But storming through security and shutting down a democratic process — particularly with chants calling for the destruction of Israel and appearing to justify the Hamas attack — is completely unacceptable,” the caucus said.

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‘Hard things are hard’: Praise and skepticism of US amid global crises

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — President Joe Biden is confident the United States can handle a world on fire. The reaction from dignitaries at a major international democracy forum: It’s too early to call.

Diplomats, officials and military leaders gathered at the annual Halifax International Security Forum this weekend to rally the world’s democracies against autocratic forces. This year’s conference centered around the idea that Ukraine’s victory against Russia would make it easier for Israel to defeat Hamas and signal to Beijing that Washington backs its friends.

That put American resolve in the spotlight, as questions about the Biden administration’s ability to stay the course swirled in public panel discussions and hallway conversations.

Fear persists that Israel’s forceful retaliation, and what comes next in Gaza, will distract the U.S. from Kyiv’s needs. Biden is grappling with a funding fight at home, where Democrats express skepticism at more support for Israel while Republicans say assisting Ukraine is a fool’s errand. And the prospect of a potential knock-down, drag-out election bout between Biden and former President Donald Trump could pressure the White House to follow the political winds.

The general consensus, after speaking with 11 U.S. and foreign officials as well as American lawmakers, is that the White House will secure billions in military aid for Ukraine and Israel by the end of the year despite partisan bickering, a sign that official Washington will back Biden’s policies toward both countries. Comments about America’s staying power and the world’s future were mostly optimistic, a far cry from the pessimism that dominated this gathering after the Jan 6. Capitol insurrection and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the six-lawmaker delegation to Halifax, acknowledged it’s a tough spell, but argued that’s always true when the world turns to the United States to handle crises.

“Hard things are hard,” he said on the sidelines of the conference. “Leading the free world has always been hard, and it’s certainly harder than it’s ever been,” Crow continued, citing other challenges like climate change, the rise of artificial intelligence and the spread of disinformation.

Biden, in a Saturday op-ed in The Washington Post, wrote that the United States was the world’s “essential nation” that other countries depend on in moments of global crisis. “If we walk away from the challenges of today, the risk of conflict could spread, and the costs to address them will only rise. We will not let that happen.”

That message resonated with Halifax’s well-heeled attendees, where the dominant theme was an axis of autocrats seeking to dismantle a democratic-led world order. If those nations — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — succeed anywhere, that threatens democracy everywhere, they insisted throughout the weekend. One panel was titled “Victory in Ukraine = Message to the CRINKs,” an acronym devised by the forum’s president, Peter Van Praagh, to tether and delegitimize the four regimes.

Overall, the primary response was that the United States and its allies could withstand the confluence of crises in Europe and the Middle East — assuming another crisis doesn’t crop up.

“There is a glaring awareness that we are not ready should we see further theaters awaken,” said Alicia Kearns, a member of the ruling Conservative Party in the British parliament and chair of the foreign affairs committee.

One of those future theaters could be Taiwan. American and foreign officials rarely broached the subject in Halifax as it’s not the crisis du jour, but concerns about a future Chinese invasion of the democratic island were palpable whenever it came up. Some attendees suggested the Biden administration would be too distracted to adequately arm Taiwan before catastrophe struck.

Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Roy Chun Lee didn’t seem worried. “The commitments from our U.S. colleagues to the war in Ukraine, also the conflict in Israel, is not undermining its ability to deliver on its weaponry commitments. There are delays, but they’re not associated with what’s happening in Ukraine,” he said in a sideline interview, noting the nearly $20 billion weapons backlog Washington has yet to transfer to Taipei.

Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific and the most senior U.S. military representative at Halifax this year, said he was not anticipating a resource crunch in the region. Next year, the Pentagon is planning to deploy a new land-based missile system in the Pacific called “Typhon” that can hit targets up to 1,700 miles away, he said.

Flynn warned that China’s violation of international laws both at sea and in the air is increasingly threatening its neighbors in the Pacific. He also highlighted the U.S. military’s decades-long partnership with Taiwan’s armed forces, including bringing Taiwanese military personnel to the United States to participate in exercises like Northern Strike in Michigan.

“What the Chinese are doing is they are violating the territorial integrity of these countries. And they're trying to seize key terrain, human and physical terrain,” he said.

Tinges of doubt about America’s growing global burdens seeped through even when dignitaries praised what it had accomplished with allies, namely the rally to Kyiv’s side. “The countries have done a lot, but we should not be happy with the result, we should do even more,” said Gen. Martin Herem, Estonia’s top military leader, noting that the European Union has fallen short of its original goal of producing 1 million 155mm artillery shells. “If the American support to Ukraine stops, then we see a frozen conflict.”

Herem also drew a parallel between Ukraine and Israel, noting that Ukraine was moving toward better relations with the West while Israel had been doing the same with its Arab neighbors. In the two separate theaters, Russia and Iran feared a loss of influence.

“That was the right time to start the conflict,” Herem said.

Jarmo Lindberg, a Finnish parliamentarian and former chief of defense, said that among NATO allies, “everybody knows what to do, and everybody knows that it should have been done yesterday, but then there's inertia” in stepping up the production of new weapons both to send Ukraine, and replace stockpiles back home depleted by the war.

A delegation from Kyiv echoed those concerns, but expressed some confidence that Congress will find a way to keep the aid flowing.

Russia is “ready for a marathon, so we also have to be ready for a marathon,” said Ukrainian parliamentarian Yehor Cherniev, deputy chair of the Rada’s defense and intelligence committee. Any further delay in passing the Biden administration’s $60 billion Ukraine supplemental request “is a big problem for us, it’s about our survival.”

The five U.S. senators and one House member in Halifax, often holding private sessions with foreign officials in what their staff called the “command center,” said they didn’t hear any skepticism about American resolve behind closed doors. The delegation’s co-leaders, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), said in separate interviews that media outlets have overstated any overarching concerns about bandwidth.

But Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), national co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign, suggested there’s “absolutely” more concern about America’s future — because of Trump’s reemergence. Coons said that a year ago at Halifax, foreign officials would broach the possibility of a Trump return to office in their fourth or fifth question.

“Now they're saying ‘Oh my God, Trump could be president again!’ I'm going, ‘Uh huh, this is going to be close.’ Even the co-chair of the Biden reelection campaign will tell you this is going to be close,” Coons said.

He noted that major legislative questions remained unanswered: “We arrived here having narrowly averted a shutdown of the U.S. government, and we arrived here with a lack of clarity about how Ukraine funding is going to make it through the House and with a robust [funding] supplemental that had been sent up by the president for Ukraine, for Israel, for humanitarian aid, for border security, for the Indo-Pacific.

“I can't look you in the eye and say I am absolutely confident the president’s supplemental will be passed by the end of the year and the NDAA,” Coons continued, using an abbreviation for the annual defense-spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.

Risch, however, said the supplemental would most likely make it through Congress by Jan. 1, a position echoed by most of his colleagues.

It’s not just the state of the U.S. that has Halifax’s faithful concerned. Officials here also expressed that support for Ukraine might hinge on upcoming elections across Europe, including for the European Parliament.

“We all understand that the next nine to 12 months will be critical,” said Hanno Pevkur, Estonia’s minister of defense.

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California Democrats cheer cease-fire call at Sacramento convention

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Democratic Party convention speakers called for a cease-fire in Gaza on Saturday, channeling a progressive stance that has opened fractures within the party.

Delegates cheered and chanted “ceasefire now!” after Dr. Sara Deen, a Muslim leader from Southern California, called for a halt to Israel’s military operation from the main stage of a party convention in Sacramento. Deen was joined by Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs, an interfaith leader who condemned abuses by both Hamas and the Israeli government.

“We stand together acknowledging the thousands of Palestinians and Israelis dead in Israel and Gaza and the occupation,” Jacobs said, condemning Israeli hostages held by Hamas and “Palestinian political prisoners held without charges in Israel.”

The speech did not reflect an official party position. California Democratic Party spokesperson Shery Yang said that speakers prepare their own remarks.

But their call for a cease-fire from the convention stage — and the enthusiastic reaction from delegates — underscored how much of the Democratic Party’s grassroots base has embraced a position that is at odds with President Joe Biden and many prominent Democrats. A small contingent of pro-Palestinian advocates demonstrated outside the event ahead of an anticipated larger action on Saturday.

The issue has permeated California’s U.S. Senate race. Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter have rejected calls for a cease-fire, but Rep. Barbara Lee has demanded it in an affirmation of her progressive status.

Convention delegate Barisha Spriggs said she chose to support Lee over Porter in large part because of their differing stances on the conflict. Spriggs said she became disillusioned with Porter after learning she did not back a cease-fire, which "made me realize she's not progressive."

"Barbara Lee is the only candidate calling for a cease-fire," Spriggs said. "That's a stance on the right side of history."

Democrats will vote this weekend on a Senate endorsement, although it is unlikely that Schiff, Porter, or Lee will clear the 60 percent threshold required to get the nod. The party is not expected to consider a change to its official position on Israel.

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