Biden and Kamala Harris meet in the Situation Room after murder of American-Israel Hamas hostage

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are meeting with the U.S. hostage negotiating team in the Situation Room on Monday morning.

The gathering comes two days after six hostages, including 23-year-old American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were killed on Saturday by Hamas terrorists.

The Labor Day meeting is closed to the press and comes as the one-year anniversary approaches of Hamas’ initial invasion in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deadliest single-day attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Goldberg-Polin was among those taken hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Oct. 7 attack. He and five other Israeli hostages were murdered on Saturday.

Pressure has been mounting for the last year for President Biden to withhold humanitarian aid and force Hamas’ hand in releasing Israeli and other foreign hostages being held by the terrorist group in Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

In the last two weeks after his speech at the Democratic Convention, Biden has been on vacation – first in California and then at his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden relax on the beach in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Saturday, August 31

The U.S. has seized and brought Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane to Florida.

The plane, described by officials as Venezuela’s Air Force One, was seized in the Dominican Republic and brought to the U.S. on Monday and marks the latest escalation with Maduro’s regime.

‘This sends a message all the way up to the top,’ one of the officials described to CNN.

‘Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters,’ they added. ‘We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions.’

Barron Trump ran to his mother after learning his father Donald Trump had been shot during a campaign rally, the former president has revealed.

Trump, during an interview with Fox News’ Mark Levin, shared how his youngest son was ‘outside having a tennis lesson’ when a gunman tried to assassinate him.

The GOP presidential hopeful claims Barron, 18, found out because someone ‘ran up’ to him yelling: ‘Barron! Barron! Your father’s been shot!’

Barron then ran after his mother Melania to ask her what had happened, Trump said, adding that his wife was ‘was actually watching it live’.

Trump, 78, was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, with the bullet just grazing his right ear. He says it was ‘miracle’ and act of God that he survived.

Britain has suspended a swathe of licenses for military equipment destined for Israel over fears it could be used to break international law in Gaza.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the Commons this afternoon that the government is halting 30 out of around 350 lisences in light of new legal advice.

The action, which is likely to affect parts for fighter jets and drones, comes after widespread calls from pro-Palestinian groups for sales to the Netanyahu regime to be halted to prevent more bloodshed in Gaza.

Lammy told the Commons that Israel could be doing more to ensure ‘life-saving food and medical supplies’ reach civilians in Gaza.

‘Facing a conflict such as this, it is this Government’s legal duty to review export licenses,’ he said.

‘It is with regret that I inform the House today the assessment I have received leaves me unable to conclude anything other than that for certain UK arms exports to Israel, there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.’

But he stressed that the action taken under the Export Control Act did not amount to an ‘arms embargo’ or a blanket sales ban.

The White House released an update after President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ met with the U.S. hostage deal negotiation team in the Situation Room after the killing of American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas in Gaza.

Biden, who returned to the White House this morning, ‘expressed his devastation and outrage at the murder’ the White House said.

He also reaffirmed the importance of holding Hamas’s leaders accountable.  

According to the White House, Biden and Harris received an update from the negotiation team on the status of the ‘bridging proposal’ outlined by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.

They also discussed next steps in the ongoing effort to secure the release of hostages including continuing consultations with co-mediators Qatar and Egypt.

The poll by EPIC-MRA shows a razor-thin race with the Republican presidential nominee holding a slight edge in a head-to-head matchup.

The poll has Trump at 47 percent to Harris at 46 percent with seven percent of Michigan voters undecided or declining to say who they support. But there is a 4 percent margin of error, so the presidential hopefuls are essentially in a statistical tie.

Both campaigns have signaled just how important the swing state is with its 15 electoral votes. Biden flipped the state back to blue in 2020 after Trump carried the state in 2016.

The vice president is holding a campaign event in Detroit on Monday. The ex-president held a rally in the state last week.

Hard to believe, but the 2024 presidential election will officially begin this week with the very first ballots going out on Friday.

The key battleground state of North Carolina will begin sending mail ballots to all voters who request them, including military personnel and overseas voters, on September 6.

It’s the first state to start mailing out ballots ahead of the presidential election and comes before Kamala Harris and Donald Trump even go headt-to-head on the debate stage a few days later on September 10.

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now in a legal battle in North Carolina to get his name removed from the 2024 presidential election ballot.

The independent presidential candidate announced at the end of August his decision to suspend his bid in 10 of the most competitive states and endorse Donald Trump’s campaign for a second term.

But RFK Jr. faced a road block on getting off the ballot in North Carolina and is now suing the state’s board of electors to get his name off the ballot so he doesn’t hurt Trump’s chances in the key swing state.

If he can’t get off the ballot in North Carolina, it could undermine RFK Jr.’s decision to suspend his bid in order to benefit the Republican nominee.

Ballots for the presidential race will start sending to voters in North Carolina this week for early and absentee voting.

RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in 10 competitive states last month and endorsed Donald Trump. The two appeared together at a rally in Arizona on August 23 (pictured)

President Joe Biden was back to weighing difficult tradeoffs in stalled ceasefire negotiations as he returned to the White House Monday following his two-week vacation.

The president reworked his travel plans for Labor Day to allow him to hold talks with his hostage negotiating team in the White House Situation Room, days after the horrific killings of six hostages in Gaza.

The new logistics had him flying directly to the White House via Marine One from near his Rehoboth Beach vacation house, on a day that mixed R&R, fraught policy choices, campaign politics.

Upon arrival, Biden was immediately asked by reporters about the strikes in Israel demanding a ceasefire agreement, and whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a deal.

‘No,’ was Biden’s stern reply.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter:

During her visit to Pittsburgh, PA this afternoon Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to say U.S. Steel should remain domestically owned and operated. That’s according to a Harris campaign official.

The vice president will also stress her commitment to always have the backs of American steel workers.

Harris is headed to Pittsburgh for her first joint campaign event with President Biden since she became the Democratic presidential nominee.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

President Joe Biden ended his two-week vacation on Labor Day as he flew back to the White House from his Rehoboth Beach vacation home.

Biden has been mostly out of sight since he flew to California following his speech to the Democratic National Convention August 19th. He has spent the last week in Delaware, relaxing on the beach and reading newspapers, venturing out to go church, and commenting on the tragic killings of six hostages in Gaza.

On Monday, he received the President’s Daily Brief at home, then boarded Marine One to fly back to the White House – dodging holiday traffic on the roads. He has plans to meet with hostage negotiators in the Situation Room this morning along with Vice President Harris. Then he flies to Pittsburgh, where he will join Harris at a campaign event.

There are indications the public will be seeing more of Biden even though he is no longer seeking reelection. He heads to battleground Wisconsin Thursday – his first trip there since dropping out of the race.

Clooney, whose op-ed in the New York Times appeared to be one of the prompts for Biden to quit running, said: ‘The person who should be applauded is the President, who did the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington, and that’s true.

‘All the machinations that got us there, none of that is going to be remembered, and it shouldn’t be.

‘What should be remembered is the selfless act. It’s very hard to let go of power, we have seen it around the world.

‘For someone to say: ‘I think there is a better way forward’ – all the credit goes to him. All the rest will be forgotten.’ He added: ‘I’m very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now which many people are surprised by, and I think we are very excited for the future.’

By Emily Goodin, Senior White House Correspondent

Kamala Harris will jet off to Detroit on Monday morning for a campaign push with two stops ending alongside the man she replaced: Joe Biden.

Harris and Biden will connect in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, to rally union members in the critical battleground state crucial in deciding the 2024 race.

The date and sitting for their first sighting together is significant: It’s being held on Labor Day in a must-win state.

But their trip is being overshadowed by the war in the Middle East.

Before leaving for her stop, Harris will join Biden on Monday in the Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss the efforts to free the remaining hostages.

Trump was speaking at the Moms for Liberty convention in Washington on Friday when he expressed skepticism over this piece of Harris’s biography, which she has used to proclaim her ordinary background.

‘She also said, “I worked at McDonald’s.” Turned out she didn’t work at McDonalds,” the former president mentioned to the audience.

‘Did anyone see that?’ he continued. ‘After an exhaustive study that took about 20 minutes, they found out she never worked there.’

Tim Walz appeared to make a quick escape Saturday when asked about the discovery of six slain hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The Minnesota governor was posed the question at his home state’s state fair in St. Paul, hours after the bodies were found in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of the city.

From the footage, it was unclear whether the potential vice president heard the inquiry, but as soon as it was uttered, he bid onlookers farewell.

The captives – identified Saturday as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino – were among the more than 200 taken by militants on October 7.

Five were taken from the targeted Israeli music festival, and another from a nearby farming community. The IDF said all were ‘brutally’ murdered ‘a short while’ before troops were able to locate them.

Tim Walz’s older brother has warned that the Democratic vice presidential hopeful is ‘not the type of character’ you want in the White House.

Jeff Walz, 67, took to Facebook last week to share his concerns about his younger brother running alongside Kamala Harris.

‘The stories I could tell,’ he stated in one of the posts, a five-word warning that may send shudders down the spines of staff at Harris HQ.

The married father-of-two was urged to throw his weight behind the Trump campaign by other Facebook users when he declared Friday evening: ‘I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology.’

Jeff, who lives in Freeport, Florida, with his wife Laurie, followed up that post by replying to others who told him to ‘speak up … at this pivotal moment in history.’

An historian who’s been called the ‘Nostradamus’ of predicting winners of presidential elections has dropped a major hint as to who he thinks will take the White House come 2025.

Allan Lichtman, who has correctly called nine out of the 10 last elections, said in a YouTube livestream Thursday he is nearing his ‘final prediction’ for the 2024 race.

‘You don’t have to be patient for a whole lot longer. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend … and within days after that the prediction should be out,’ the American University professor said on the stream with his son, Sam. ‘And this will be a final prediction.’

While being coy about his ultimate forecast, Lichtman gave away a big clue by slamming a rival pollster, Nate Silver, who recently said Trump was his favorite.

‘I just saw today the most absurd prediction,’ Lichtman said, referring to Silver.

The latest polling suggests that Kamala Harris has received little to no convention boost, showing Donald Trump ahead of the vice president in several crucial swing states.

A Trafalgar Group survey of seven of the toughest contests – considered by experts to be Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada – show Trump either in the lead or even with Harris.

The Trafalgar survey, which is considered by polling aggregators to lean Republican, also shows Harris almost even with Trump in Michigan, with the former president eking out a 47% to 46.6% lead.

The distraught parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin have broken their silence after learning he was killed by Hamas.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was kidnapped by terrorists from the Nova Festival – where he was celebrating his birthday with friends – on October 7 last year, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel. He lost part of an arm in the attack.

His parents Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, just 12 days ago, begged Hersh to ‘stay strong’ and ‘survive’ in a gut-wrenching speech at the Democratic National Convention that saw the couple call for a ceasefire deal.

But yesterday the the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed that the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas have been recovered from Gaza with Hersh being among the deceased.

Hersh’s family confirmed his death in a statement on Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza. They said: ‘With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.’

In wake of Hersh’s murder, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down with US hostage negotiators today to push for a deal that ‘secures the release of the remaining hostages’.