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Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview on ’60 Minutes’ on Monday, when she dodged or refused to get specific about her plans for the country.

With less than a month before the election, CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker repeatedly pressed Harris for details on how to pay for her economic proposals, on whether President Biden’s loose immigration policies were a mistake and how a Harris foreign policy might differ from Biden or former President Donald Trump. There were several moments when Whitaker had to ask follow-up questions after Harris did not directly answer his inquiries. 

Overall, the Democratic vice president did not differentiate herself much from her 2020 running mate, the sitting president of the United States. CBS said her Republican rival, former President Trump, backed out of an invitation to appear on ’60 Minutes,’ though the Trump campaign said there was never a formal agreement for Trump to appear on the program.

Here are some standout moments from the Harris interview.

1. Harris’ foreign policy would track with Biden’s

Whitaker asked Harris about the ongoing crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, with Israel under assault from Iranian proxies and Ukraine persevering in the fight against Russia’s invasion. In her answers, Harris did not do much to distinguish her foreign policy from that of the current administration.

On Israel, Harris echoed Biden’s call for the war with Hamas to end, though she acknowledged the Jewish nation’s right to defend itself after the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, when terrorists slaughtered 1,200 people and took 250 captives back to Gaza. 

‘I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end,’ Harris said.

Whitaker pointed out that although the United States has handed billions of dollars to Israel in military aid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted the Biden-Harris administration’s call for a cease-fire with Hamas. When asked if the U.S. holds no sway over Netanyahu, Harris dodged the question and stayed on message, emphasizing the current administration’s diplomatic efforts.

‘The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,’ she said. 

Whitaker pressed, ‘but it seems Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening.’ 

Harris declined to answer that point. ‘We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.’ 

On Europe, Harris stuck with Biden’s position that Ukraine must be involved in any resolution to the war with Russia. 

‘There will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the U.N. charter participating in what that success looks like,’ she said. 

In a definitive statement, Harris said she would not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss an end to the war unless Ukrainian representatives were present. However, she was less specific on whether Ukraine should join NATO.

‘Those are all issues that we will deal with if and when it arrives at that point. Right now, we are supporting Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s unprovoked aggression,’ Harris said. ‘Donald Trump, if he were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now. He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender.’ 

2. Harris would not answer for Biden’s record on immigration

Whitaker confronted Harris on her apparent flip-flop on immigration, noting that she supported Biden’s efforts to reverse Trump’s strict policies even as a historic flood of illegal immigrants crossed the border. Now, the vice president has ’embraced President Biden’s recent crackdown on asylum seekers,’ he said. 

Whitaker asked, ‘If that’s the right answer, now, why didn’t your administration take those steps in 2021?’

Harris responded by pointing to congressional Republicans who backed out of a bipartisan agreement on a border security bill negotiated by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. ‘Donald Trump got word that this bill was afoot and could be passed. And he wants to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem. So he told his buddies in Congress kill the bill. Don’t let it move forward,’ she said.

However, Whitaker pushed back on the vice president, observing that in the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, border arrivals quadrupled and there was no action from Biden or Harris.

‘Was it a mistake to loosen the immigration policies as much as you did?’

Harris did not answer the question but asserted that her administration has offered solutions ‘from day one, literally.’ 

‘We need Congress to be able to act to actually fix the problem,’ she said, again echoing Biden.

3. Harris would raise taxes to pay for her $3 trillion economic plan

To fight inflation, Harris said she intends to ask Congress to pass a federal ban on price gouging for food and groceries. She would expand the child tax credit to $6,000, give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in down payment assistance and offer generous assistance to people starting a small business. 

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that the total cost of her economic proposals would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade. 

‘How are you going to pay for that?’ asked Whitaker.

‘Okay, so the other economists that have reviewed my plan versus my opponent and determined that my economic plan would strengthen America’s economy, his would weaken it,’ Harris answered. ‘But my plan, Bill, if you don’t mind, my plan is about saying that when you invest in small businesses, you invest in the middle class, and you strengthen America’s economy. Small businesses are part of the backbone of America’s economy.’

Whitaker pressed again. ‘Pardon me, madam vice president. The question was, how are you going to pay for it?’

The Democratic candidate’s answer was that the rich must ‘pay their fair share in taxes.’ 

‘It is not right that teachers and nurses and firefighters are paying a higher tax rate than billionaires and the biggest corporations, and I plan on making that fair,’ Harris asserted. 

Whitaker followed up again, stating, ‘we’re dealing with the real world here’ and observing that Congress has shown no inclination to raise taxes. 

‘I disagree with you,’ Harris responded. ‘There are plenty of leaders in Congress who understand and know that the Trump tax cuts blew up our federal deficit.’ 

‘None of us, and certainly I cannot afford to be myopic in terms of how I think about strengthening America’s economy,’ she continued. ‘Let me tell you something. I am a devout public servant. You know that I am also a capitalist, and I know the limitations of government.’ 

4. Harris says she is a gun owner and that she owns a Glock

After a discussion on foreign policy, Whitaker took ‘a hard left turn’ and asked Harris about her recent admission that she is a gun owner.

‘I have a Glock, and I’ve had it for quite some time,’ Harris said after he asked what kind of gun she owns. ‘And, I mean, look, my background is in law enforcement, and so there you go.’

Harris served as the district attorney of San Francisco from 2004-2011 and was California’s attorney general from 2011-2017 before she was elected to the U.S. Senate and later selected as Biden’s 2020 running mate.

She told Whitaker she has fired her handgun ‘at a shooting range.’ 

5. Harris addresses voter uncertainty about her 

Though Harris had served in government for decades before becoming vice president, she remains a largely unknown figure in national politics. She did not run for president in the 2024 Democratic primary and only became a candidate two and a half months ago, when Biden decided to drop out of the race amid mounting pressure from Democrats concerned that he was too old to win. 

‘A quarter of registered voters still say they don’t know you,’ Whitaker told Harris.  They don’t know what makes you tick. And why do you think that is? What’s the disconnect?’

‘It’s an election, Bill,’ Harris replied. ‘And I take it seriously that I have to earn everyone’s vote. This is an election for President of the United States. No one should be able to take for granted that they can just declare themselves a candidate and automatically receive support. 

‘You have to earn it. And that’s what I intend to do.’

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Vice President Kamala Harris had harsh words for Iran in an interview Monday evening as she said the regime is America’s biggest foe. 

In a sit-down with CBS’ ’60 Minutes,’ the Democratic presidential nominee was asked to name the U.S.’s greatest foreign adversary. ‘I think there’s an obvious one in mind, which is Iran. Iran has American blood on their hands.’

‘This attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles. What we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power. That is one of my highest priorities.’

Harris declined to say whether she would take military action if given proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

‘I’m not going to talk about hypotheticals at this moment,’ she told Bill Whitaker.

The suggestion that Iran was the greatest U.S. adversary raised some eyebrows — as China is thought by many to be foe No. 1. 

‘Iran is our biggest adversary, not China?,’ Mary Kissel, former adviser to ex-Sec. of State Mike Pompeo, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. 

‘Harris is completely clueless for claiming that Iran is America’s greatest adversary rather than China,’ former Trump adviser Steve Cortes said. 

‘Really? It’s not Russia? It’s not China? A middle power is America’s greatest adversary?’ Iranian nuclear researcher Sina Azodi questioned. 

Harris also defended U.S. aid to Israel — at a time when many liberals are calling on her to halt that aid or put conditions on it amid the rising death tolls across Gaza and Lebanon. 

‘The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel,’ she said. 

Harris highlighted threats from ‘Hamas, Hezbollah… Iran,’ asserting it is ‘without any question our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks.’

Still, she held out hope that Israel and its enemies could get to a ceasefire deal. 

‘The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done, which would release the hostages and create a ceasefire.’ She added, ‘We’re not going to stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region, including Arab leaders.’

‘China is the far greater threat just about, I think, everyone’s estimation,’ said Rob Greenway, a former Trump aide and senior director of the National Security Council. ‘If you really do view Iran as a threat, then the behavior they’ve made makes absolutely no sense.’

Former President Donald Trump has blamed President Joe Biden and Harris for loosening sanctions on Iran, which he said made the U.S. adversary ‘very rich in a very short period,’ and prompted the turmoil that began with the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.

During a rally last week, Trump tore into the September 2023 prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Iran that facilitated a detainee swap in Qatar and resulted in the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets from oil sales. 

‘If they have somebody who was kidnapped, it’s always $6 billion. Whoever heard of that?’ Trump said. ‘Somebody else gets like $4,000.’

Iran said it had reached a ‘good understanding’ to access the money from a Qatari bank account on Monday.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, has long claimed it has not rolled back sanctions on Iran. But ‘it’s not enforcing any sanctions,’ according to Greenway. Iran is now bringing in nearly $36 billion per year from oil sales.

Last week, Iran rained down 200 missiles toward Tel Aviv, many of them intercepted by both Israeli Defense Forces and U.S. capabilities. Though Iran’s proxies have long attacked both Israeli and U.S. postures, it was the regime’s first direct attack on Israel since April. 

Harris was sharply critical of Trump for pulling out of the Iran deal in 2018. President Joe Biden campaigned on returning to the deal, but failed to do so in office. 

‘[Iran] made a tremendous amount of money. They have had doors opened by the U.S. administration,’ Greenway said. 

The Trump administration’s policies ‘brought them to the brink of financial collapse.’ 

After Biden rolled back sanctions on Iran, the regime went from 500 centrifuges needed to make a nuclear bomb to 7,000. It went from 5% enriched uranium to 60% (90% is needed for a nuclear weapon.) It went from exporting 400,000 barrels of oil per day in 2019 under the Trump administration’s harsh sanctions to 1.7 million barrels per day today.

Reports also suggest renewed activity in two nuclear weaponization sites in Iran – Sanjarian and Golab Dareh.

Last week, Biden warned Israel to make sure its response to the Iranian missile attacks was ‘proportional,’ and urged them not to go after Iranian nuclear facilities.

Trump on Friday said Israel should go after the nuclear facilities.

While speaking at a campaign event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, he said when Biden was asked about Israel attacking Iran, the president answered, ‘’As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.’ That’s the thing you wanna hit, right? I said, ‘I think he’s got that one wrong. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit?’’

He added nuclear proliferation is the ‘biggest risk we have.’ 

Trump said when Biden was asked about Israel and Iran: ‘His answer should have been: ‘Hit the nuclear first. Worry about the rest later.”

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Increased support from Republicans appears to be one factor fueling Vice President Kamala Harris with four weeks to go until Election Day in her White House showdown with former President Trump, according to a new national poll.

The vice president and Democratic presidential nominee stands at 49% support among likely voters nationwide, with the former president and GOP nominee at 46%, in a New York Times/Siena College survey released on Tuesday.

According to the poll, Harris stands at 47% and Trump at 44% in a multi-candidate field. Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Chase Oliver each grabbed 1%, with roughly 7% supporting another candidate or undecided.

Harris’ edge – which is within the survey’s sampling error – is up from the New York Times/Siena poll from last month, when the two major party nominees were deadlocked at 47%.

The top-line number in the new poll is in the range of most other national surveys, which indicate the vice president with a slight edge over Trump.

The poll indicates Harris’ support among Republican voters stands at 9%, up four points from last month.

As she turns up the volume on her efforts to court Republicans disgruntled with Trump, Harris last week teamed up with the most visible anti-Trump Republican in the town that claims to be the birthplace of the GOP.

Harris campaigned in battleground Wisconsin with former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a one-time rising conservative star in the GOP who, in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol, has vowed to do everything she can to prevent Trump from returning to power.

‘I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris,’ Cheney told the audience as she formally endorsed the Democrat presidential nominee. ‘As a conservative, as a patriot, as a mother, as someone who reveres our Constitution, I am honored to join her in this urgent cause.’

Harris praised Cheney as a leader who ‘puts country above party and above self, a true patriot.’

The campaign event took place in Ripon, Wisconsin, where a one-room schoolhouse was designated a national historic landmark due to its role in holding a series of meetings in 1854 that led to the formation of the Republican Party.

The new poll also indicated Harris consolidating her support among older voters, and for the first time taking a slight edge over Trump in being identified as the candidate of change.

That’s crucial in a race where voters have repeatedly shared with pollsters that they think the country’s headed in the wrong direction. And the Trump campaign, feeding off such polling data, has repeatedly tied Harris to President Biden and their administration in the nearly three months since she replaced her boss at the top of the Democrats’ 2024 ticket.

The poll was conducted Sept. 29-Oct. 6, with 3,385 likely voters nationwide questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

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President Joe Biden praised GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for being ‘cooperative’ and doing a ‘great job’ in his response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, despite Vice President Kamala Harris slamming DeSantis for ‘playing political games’ instead of doing his job in response to the storms.

NBC News reported Monday that DeSantis was denying phone calls from Harris’ team. ‘People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games with this moment, in these crisis situations, these are the height of emergency situations, it’s just utterly irresponsible, and it is selfish,’ Harris told reporters Monday. 

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s opinion about the GOP Florida governor’s response to Hurricane Helene and his preparation for Milton, diverged substantially from that of his vice president’s. 

‘The governor of Florida has been cooperative. He said he’s gotten all that he needs. I talked to him again yesterday, and I said – no – you’re doing a great job, it’s all being done well and we thank you for it,’ Biden said at a press conference from the White House Tuesday. ‘There was a rough start in some places, but every governor, every governor – from Florida to North Carolina – has been fully cooperative and supportive.’

After a DeSantis staffer told NBC on Monday that the Florida governor had chosen not to take the vice president’s call, DeSantis later clarified that he was never even aware Harris was trying to contact him. 

DeSantis also shot back at Harris’ claims that he was playing politics with the storm, accusing her of being the actual culprit of engaging in political gamesmanship.  

‘I’ve worked on these hurricanes under both President Trump and President Biden. Neither of them ever tried to politicize it. She has never called on any of the storms we’ve had since she’s been vice president until apparently now,’ DeSantis told ‘Fox & Friends’ Tuesday morning following reports of the vice president’s criticism. ‘Why, all of the sudden, is she trying to parachute in and inject herself when she’s never shown any interest in the past? We know it’s because of politics, we know it’s because of her campaign.’

‘Harris is not even in the chain of command. She has no role in this,’ DeSantis added. ‘The idea that I should be, like, worrying about her when I’m focused on the task at hand is just quite frankly absurd.’

Biden, who has had multiple phone calls with DeSantis since Hurricane Helene began barreling down on the Southeast, told him and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor to ‘call him directly’ if any further support is needed. DeSantis, meanwhile, noted Tuesday morning that ‘every’ one of his federal requests for more support have been answered.  

DeSantis pointed out as well that, at the state level, he has been reallocating resources as necessary to help Florida’s smaller communities that have fewer resources. 

Gov. DeSantis’ office declined to comment to Fox News Digital on the record, but pointed to the governor’s comments on both ‘Fox & Friends’ and ‘Hannity,’ respectively. Fox News Digital also reached out to the Harris campaign for comment, but did not receive a response in advance of publication time. 

As Florida continues to clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, it is now preparing for a potentially even worse storm in Hurricane Milton and is calling on millions of residents to evacuate.

‘Helene was a wake-up call – this is literally catastrophic,’ Castor said Tuesday. ‘And I can say without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die.’

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The Supreme Court offered clear support Tuesday for continued federal regulation of so-called ‘ghost guns’ that can be assembled from kits into a working firearm without a background check or the usual serial numbers.

At issue in oral arguments was whether the devices meet the federal definition of a ‘firearm’ and ‘frame and receiver,’ and whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) exceeded its authority to regulate and enforce their sale.

Ghost guns are do-it-yourself functional weapons that are often purchased online, and marketed by some sellers as easy to assemble.

The Justice Department said more than 19,000 hard-to-trace ghost guns were seized by law enforcement in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.

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That was driven in part by recent technological advances, many containing polymer-based unassembled firearm components.

Final home assembly typically requires the use of some readily available tools, including drilling holes and milling or sanding the unfinished frame or receiver, which enable the installation of parts.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the rising sale of untraceable ‘ghost guns’ had created a ‘public safety crisis’ with an ‘explosion’ of crimes committed using them.

Several justices in the 75-minute argument appeared to back much of the Biden administration’s arguments, suggesting nearly complete parts meet the ordinary definition of a firearm subject to regulation.

‘What is the purpose of selling a receiver without the holes drilled in it?’ said Chief Justice John Roberts, rejecting suggestions the kits were marketed at the weekend gun hobbyist. ‘Drilling a hole or two, I would think, doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends. My understanding is that it’s not terribly difficult for someone to do this.’

Justice Brett Kavanaugh — who could be the key deciding vote — raised concerns someone ignorant of the law might inadvertently sell or buy a ghost gun kit.

‘What about the seller, for example, who is truly not aware, truly not aware that they are violating the law and gets criminally charged?’

But Kavanaugh also signaled some backing of the government’s position, telling Prelogar, ‘Your statutory interpretation has force.’

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The 1968 Gun Control Act was revised in 2022 to regulate the growing market for certain ‘buy build shoot’ kits.

The law defines a ‘firearm’ to include ‘any weapon… which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,’ as well as ‘the frame or receiver of any such weapon.’

The administration said it was not seeking to ban the sale or use of these kits, merely requiring them to comply with the same requirements of other commercial firearms dealers. That includes serial numbers on the parts and background checks on the purchasers.

A federal appeals court late last year struck down the updated rules, after a legal challenge from kit sellers and buyers, but the Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court.

Gun rights groups say that the rule is ‘unconstitutional and abusive,’ arguing the ghost gun kits consist of ‘non-firearm objects.’

Attorney Peter Patterson said only Congress can change the law over ghost gun regulations and added that 42 of 43 unlicensed manufacturers of the kits would be driven out of business if the rules go fully into effect.

The devices can also be made from 3D printers or from individual parts. That is part of separate legal challenges in the lower courts.

 SCOTUS kicks off historic term under scrutiny amid ethics code debate

In oral arguments, the high court wrestled with questions about the ease of assembling a ‘ghost gun’ from a kit, and whether judges should even be involved in the matter.

‘I’m worried about… the Court taking over what Congress may have intended for the agency to do in this situation,’ said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. ‘I think it can’t be assumed that the agency exceeds its authority whenever it interprets a statutory term differently than we would such that all we have to do as a part of this claim here today is just decide what we think a firearm is.’

But others on the court questioned whether a bunch of unassembled parts really made them into a gun.

‘Here’s a blank pad and here’s a pen, all right? Is this a grocery list?’ asked Justice Samuel Alito.  ‘If I show you — I put out on a counter some eggs, some chopped-up ham, some chopped-up pepper, and onions. Is that a western omelet?’

Justice Amy Coney Barrett then appeared to blunt Alito’s argument, focusing on do-it-yourself kits.

‘Would your answer change if you ordered it from HelloFresh, and you got a kit, and it was like turkey chili, but all of the ingredients are in the kit?’ she asked, mentioning the ready-to-cook meal kits delivery service.

Barrett also appeared skeptical of the legal alternatives to the ATF rules, proposed by Patterson, the lawyer representing the gun rights supporters.

‘It seems a little made up,’ she said.

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Prelogar claimed the new rules had led to a dramatic drop in the online sales of the ready-to-assemble weapons.

The ATF’s rule requires unfinished parts of a firearm, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun, to be treated like a completed firearm. These parts need to be licensed and must have serial numbers.

The rule also requires manufacturers to run background checks before selling these parts, as they are required to do for whole commercial firearms.

The Supreme Court had previously allowed the regulation to remain in effect while the lawsuit continued through the courts, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voting with the three liberal members of the court to form the majority.

The justices have been revisiting the Second Amendment in recent years, after the conservative majority in 2022 made it easier to carry handguns outside the home for protection.

In June, a federal ban on bump stocks, devices that can convert semi-automatic rifles into weapons that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute, was struck down by the high court.

But that same month, the justices upheld a federal ban on firearms possession for people subject to certain domestic violence restraining orders.

The case is Garland v. VanDerStok (23-852). A ruling is expected by summer 2025. 

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Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant canceled a visit with Pentagon officials scheduled for Wednesday, amid a rapid escalation of the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters during a briefing Tuesday that the Pentagon was informed Gallant had postponed his trip to Washington, D.C.

‘Minister Gallant was traveling to the U.S. and the secretary welcomed him to the Pentagon to host him here for a bilateral meeting,’ Singh said. ‘

One reporter asked Singh about reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Gallant not to go to Washington, which Singh said she was aware of, but preferred to stay out of Israeli politics.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, she noted, has a ‘great relationship’ with Gallant, and the two have spoken in the neighborhood of 80 times.

‘The remain in constant communication, whether it be an in-person meeting here, or, you know, meetings, phone calls that need to be done remote,’ Singh explained. ‘That relationship still maintains and can be done…at any time, any place in the world…’

When asked if there were tensions between Austin and Gallant, Singh pushed back.

‘I don’t think there’s tension,’ she said. ‘You can have direct conversations with your friends. You’re not always going to agree on everything, but that doesn’t mean that there’s tensions.’

During an exchange with Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst on Sunday, Gallant promised that Israeli forces are considering all options in terms of its response to Iran’s attacks against Israel — even potentially striking Iranian nuclear sites.

The interview came days after Israel invaded Lebanon as part of a mission to eliminate Hezbollah, on the heels of several successful strikes against the terrorist group. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last weekend — prompting Iran to launch 181 retaliatory missiles in response.

‘At the moment, everything is on the table,’ the Israeli official said. ‘Israel will respond to the unprecedented Iranian attack in the manner of our choosing, and at the time and place of our choosing.’

President Biden told reporters last week that he would not support a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but said Israel had the right to act ‘proportionately’ to Iran. On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris vowed to send $157 million of ‘additional assistance’ to Lebanon, which, she claimed, is ‘facing an increasingly dire humanitarian situation.’

Amid the White House’s response to the IDF’s recent strikes, Gallant emphasized that he hopes the United States continues to cooperate with the Israeli military.

‘It is important for us to hold discussions on strategic cooperation between our countries and defense cooperation in light of the threats posed by Iran and its proxies,’ Gallant said. ‘We are powerful when we are aligned, and I want to make sure of it.’

Fox News Digital’s Andrea Margolis, Trey Yingst, Greg Norman, Stephen Sorace and Michael Lee contributed to this report.

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A group that has labeled Vice President Harris a ‘pro-genocide candidate’ has endorsed third-party presidential candidate Jill Stein in the 2024 contest.

The ‘Abandon Harris’ campaign says America, as well as presidential candidates Harris and former President Trump, is supporting an ‘Israeli project of Palestinian annihilation’ and urges Muslim Americans and those who oppose genocide to cast their ballot for the Green Party this year.

‘In October 2023, under the darkening shadow of the U.S.-backed Israeli project of Palestinian annihilation, the Abandon Harris campaign – formerly Abandon Biden – was born. Our movement remains dedicated to ensuring that the American people, especially the Muslim-American community, recognize the responsibility we share in standing up against oppression and using all our power to stop genocide – wherever it may arise,’ the group declared in a press release.

‘We are confronting two destructive forces: one currently overseeing a genocide and another equally committed to continuing it. Both are determined to see it through. We call on Muslim-Americans and all those who stand firmly against genocide to vote for the Green Party in 2024,’ the press release states.

Stein has expressed her gratitude to the group and its support of her candidacy.

The Abandon Harris campaign says on its website that its ‘current goal is to hold Harris accountable for her continued support of genocide.’

‘It’s painfully obvious that Kamala Harris can only sound articulate and firm when parroting US support for Israel,’ the group wrote in an August post on X. ‘She fumbles through everything else, but when it comes to endorsing the killing of Palestinians, she suddenly finds a pristine level of eloquence,’ the post added.

Israel launched a war effort last year in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks perpetrated by Hamas terrorists who committed atrocities that included rapes, kidnappings and murders.

‘What Hamas did that day was pure evil – it was brutal and sickening,’ Harris said in a statement marking the one-year anniversary of the attack on Monday. ‘I will do everything in my power to ensure that the threat Hamas poses is eliminated, that it is never again able to govern Gaza, that it fails in its mission to annihilate Israel, and that the people of Gaza are free from the grip of Hamas,’ she declared in the statement.

‘Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7 launched a war in Gaza. I am heartbroken over the scale of death and destruction in Gaza over the past year – tens of thousands of lives lost, children fleeing for safety over and over again, mothers and fathers struggling to obtain food, water, and medicine. It is far past time for a hostage and ceasefire deal to end the suffering of innocent people. And I will always fight for the Palestinian people to be able to realize their right to dignity, freedom, security, and self-determination,’ Harris said in the statement.

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Shares of backup power generation company Generac Holdings surged more than 7% on Monday as Hurricane Milton rapidly strengthened into a Category 5 storm.

Hurricane Milton is forecast to move north of the Yucatan Peninsula on Monday and Tuesday before crossing the Gulf of Mexico to approach the west coast of Florida by Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Tampa Bay could face a storm surge of between 8 feet and 12 feet, according to forecasters.

Generac hit an intraday high of $174.08, up about 8.7% over Friday’s close. The power generation company also hit a new 52-week high.

Hurricane Milton comes on the heels of Hurricane Helene, which killed more than 220 people and wrought devastation across the Southeast, particularly in North Carolina.

Insurance stocks that have weather catastrophe exposure, meanwhile, are falling on potential insured losses tied to Hurricane Milton. Allstate, Travelers and Chubb saw their shares fall more than 3%, while Progressive and AIG all declined more than 1%.

Universal Insurance, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, plunged more than 15% as the catastrophe-prone carrier with Gulf Coast exposure could see heightened hurricane risks.

The shares of property and casualty insurance underwriters and reinsurers should come under pressure as Milton could result in a sharp reduction to their fourth-quarter earnings, Joshua Shanker, research analyst at Bank of America, told clients in a Monday note.

Forecasters have warned for months of an “extremely active Atlantic hurricane season” this year. This is due to warm sea surface temperatures that serve as a fuel source for hurricanes, according to Colorado State University Tropical Weather and Climate Research.

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Projected park closures and disruptions from Hurricane Milton could cut into Walt Disney’s earnings, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

The firm estimated Tuesday that the hurricane, projected to make landfall in central Florida as soon as Wednesday, could reduce earnings before interest and taxes for Disney’s Parks and Experiences segment by about $150 million to $200 million in its current 2025 fiscal first quarter. Goldman’s estimate would exceed the effect on Disney from Hurricane Irma in 2017, which reduced earnings by about $100 million after the parks were forced to close for two days and some cruise ships were disrupted, according to the firm.

Goldman Sachs reduced its estimate for Disney’s fiscal 2025 earnings per share from $5.22 to $5.14. It also estimated that Disney’s first-quarter domestic attendance would take a hit from the storm, projecting a decline of 6% instead of an earlier estimate of down 2%. The firm’s estimates for Disney’s recently ended fourth quarter largely remained the same, with an outlook for earnings per share of $1.16 and a Parks and Experiences segment operating income of $3.8 billion.

As of Tuesday morning, the storm was around 545 miles southwest of Tampa moving at 12 mph. With sustained winds of 145 mph, the storm dropped down to a Category 4 hurricane and could hit the Florida coast as a Category 3.

The storm is projected to make landfall around the Tampa area, which hasn’t been hit directly by a hurricane since 1921. The storm is then projected to head toward Orlando, where Disney World is located, as it decreases in intensity.

Disney has not made any announcements about potential closures. Spokespeople for Disney did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the new earnings estimates.

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It is almost impossible to remember life in Israel before Hamas launched its brutal October 7 attacks a year ago, killing more than 1,200 people and kidnapping more than 250 others. There is little point, because that life is gone for good. And not just because more than 100 hostages are still captive.

The same is true beyond Israel’s borders.

Israel, its enemies and allies are all harbingers and painful witnesses to a remaking of the region’s diplomatic and political architecture on a scale that could rival the upheavals of the Arab-Israeli conflict a half-century ago.

The post-October 7 changes are both inevitable and, in their current chaotic form at least, preventable. The civilian cost is mounting when diplomacy might have saved lives.

A year ago it seemed the political architecture of the region was on the cusp of significant change. Propelled by US incentives, Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed closer than ever to a historic normalization of relations. Diplomacy and the deft skills needed to stitch such a complex deal together were in the ascendency.

But the prospect of approaching peace and prosperity evaporated as Hamas surged through the Gaza border fences at sunrise that Saturday morning. Butchery was afoot.

Irrespective of whether Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was calculating he could torpedo normalization and push the Palestinian cause ahead of regional priorities for peace and economic integration, in the short term he succeeded.

I can remember, with gut-churning clarity, the smell of rotting human flesh as we entered Kfar Aza, about 800 yards from the Gaza Strip. It was October 10, and Major General Itai Veruv of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was leading the first international press access to see the devastation of Hamas’ attacks.

He stood at the gates, quoting General Eisenhower when he reached the Nazi death camps in World War Two: “The first thing he said was bring the press here to see.”

Over the past year Israel has struggled to keep the world focused on those nation-changing events of that bloody weekend.

For the first time, many Israelis realized their state was no longer the safe haven for Jews they had always believed it to be. The idea that whatever prejudice and persecution they may face around the world, in Israel they had sanctuary, was destroyed.

What emerged that first week as a scramble to seal the Gaza border and chase down remaining Hamas cells inside Israel soon manifested as a red mist of revenge and retribution against the attackers, and anyone near them.

Israelis’ feelings of vulnerability haven’t gone, while national rage has been refined into a steely logic of regional deterrence, manifested by Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He has interwoven his own political survival, in part to escape accusations he failed to stop Hamas’ attacks, with bombastic new tactics shredding the old rule book and its red lines that previously prevented regional escalation.

It is being called “escalation for de-escalation,” but as October 7, 2024, arrives, de-escalation, and any form of day after plan from Netanyahu, are absent.

The Jewish state’s relations with US President Joe Biden’s White House, its most important ally, are at their lowest ebb in a generation. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, many by US bombs and bullets in Israel’s hands, authorities in Gaza say. IDF killings and arrests of Palestinians, some of them US citizens, in the occupied West Bank are unsustainable for many of Israel’s European allies whom after a year of waiting are beginning to curb arms supplies.

But the pressures on Israel to rein in its survival instincts at a time when it is riven with deep political, religious, and maybe existential divisions are having little obvious traction.

Israel’s wiliest nearby adversary and Iranian mega-proxy Hezbollah – a blight on Lebanese post-civil war democracy – which began escalating cross-border rocket attacks the day after October 7, has undergone a lightening defenestration over the past few weeks. Its leader Hassan Nasrallah and many of his top commanders have been assassinated in Israeli air strikes, its forces partially crippled, ahead of Israel’s launch of its third ground war in Lebanon in the past half-century.

Hamas’ October 7 attacks, if not coordinated in detail with Iran, certainly had its blessing. The theocracy has been the Palestinian terror group’s biggest backer for decades, funneling money, military material and know-how. Iran vows to destroy Israel and chase its biggest ally the United States out of the region.

It uses pro-Palestinian messaging to enflame passions on the ‘Arab street’ in the region, most of whom are Sunni like the Palestinians, and most of whose leaders consider Iran, a Shia theocracy, at best untrustworthy, at worst an adversary. In this way Iran holds off regional rivals.

The past year has revealed the extent of its plans and co-opting of Shia communities to build up pro-Iranian militias. Yemen’s minority Houthis are no longer only anti-Saudi stooges for the Shia clerics in Tehran, but have turned their Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles and drones on Tel Aviv.

Iran has also, aided and fronted by the Houthis, begun blocking Red Sea commercial shipping – more than a thousand miles from Israel – on the pretext of supporting the Gazans.

Tehran’s Shia proxies in Iraq have also answered its calls and begun escalating drone attacks on Israel.

It is a multi-fronted war, escalating faster than would have ever seemed possible a year ago.

Back then rocket sirens in central Israel were not part of daily life. Today parents inside their home shelters in Tel Aviv scan cell phones for messages from their children, serving on the front lines as they too once did.

Each generation here is trained to fight in the defense of the nation; where the country divide is over how long to keep that fight going before switching to diplomacy. The reality is, the longer the escalation goes on, the less control the country and its prime minister will have over the outcome.

Potential regional partners like Saudi Arabia are now demanding a steeper and steeper diplomatic off-ramp for Netanyahu.

The normalization between Israel and the most powerful Gulf state that seemed so close before October 7, is for now out of reach, Netanyahu unwilling and too toxic to be a partner in the deal.

It was a deal that would have given Biden a legacy to be proud of; for Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, MBS, the legitimacy and security he craves; and Netanyahu, an inoculation against a millennia of animus.

Saudi Arabia’s price now is an “irreversible path” to a Palestinian state, which is an anathema to Netanyahu, his extreme nationalist right-wing cabinet, and in the wake of October 7, even further beyond the pale for much of the rest of the country too.

Days before the anniversary, a veteran sage of UAE diplomacy, Anwar Gargash, foreshadowed the influential Gulf state’s direction of travel, saying “the era of militia with sectarian and regional dimensions has cost the Arabs dearly.”

An end to Iran’s proxy powerplays and a path to a Palestinian state. The question is how to get there from here, particularly as the butcher’s cleaver is ascendant over the diplomat.

For now, in the absence of successful peace talks, uncertainty is the new certainty.

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