“There's just this blind unwillingness to recognize the U.S. does have all the power here – this notion that it’s not really the United States' fault.
It is absolutely the fault of the U.S. government.”
- Annelle Sheline, former Biden official, on Israel’s war on Gaza
This week on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ three former Biden administration officials join Mehdi to explain how Biden’s support for Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza led them to resign.
Also on this week’s show…
Mary Trump weighs in on her uncle Donald Trump’s hush money trial, a looming presidential debate, and the power-hungry Republicans who are desperate to be Trump’s VP. Plus, Mehdi debunks Israel’s latest attempt at genocide denial.
On Biden resignations…
The protests against Biden aren’t just happening outside the White House. They’ve also been happening within, as several Biden administration officials have publicly resigned over the support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Three of them – Tariq Habash, Annelle Sheline, and Hala Rharrit – join Mehdi to discuss why they chose to give up their jobs rather than continuing to work for an administration that was aiding Israel in its brutal assault on Gaza.
“It’s worse than Iraq,” Rharrit, a former U.S. diplomat, told Mehdi, adding how she watched pictures “going viral of U.S.-made bombs that would say USA and then would show the children that were killed by those bombs.”
Tariq Habash was a Palestinian-American political appointee at the Department of Education who resigned in January, making him the first Palestinian-American in the administration to do so.
“After months of trying to communicate with the president, with other people in the administration who were representing the president on these policies, it very much felt like there was an exception for Palestinians in terms of his empathy,” Habash said.
Mehdi’s interview with these three former officials was held just hours before interior department staffer Lily Greenberg Call became the first Jewish political appointee to resign in protest of the war.
On Trump…
As Donald Trump weighs his options for a running mate, top Republicans like J.D. Vance and Tim Scott are keen to earn some brownie points with the former president – flocking to his side at the first ever criminal trial of a former president. Mehdi asks Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s niece, why these GOP members are so desperate for a position that almost got Mike Pence killed.
“The promise of power is so overwhelming for them. They literally think that they’re going to be the exception to the rule. And anybody who pledges to shield Donald Trump ends up getting banished, stepped on, or imprisoned,” Mary said.
Mary Trump also tells Mehdi why she’s worried about Biden agreeing to a debate with Donald Trump, the first of which has been set for June.
“It concerns me that he’s legitimized a man who incited an insurrection against his own government. So by putting him up on that stage with him, he’s essentially normalizing him as the presidential nominee.”
On Israel’s genocide denial…
In his monologue, Mehdi calls out the Israeli PR machine for warping the UN’s reporting on identified bodies into a false narrative about a “fake” death toll in Gaza.
“On May 8th, [the UN] provided a number for reported fatalities – again, over 34,000 – but also included a new subset of 24,686 ‘identified’ fatalities,” Mehdi said. “What they’re pretending is some smoking gun evidence of a Hamas cover-up, is literally just the difference between fully identified bodies and unidentified or partially-identified bodies. That’s it.”
Of course, this is not the first time Israel has tried to undermine the Gaza Health Ministry. But as Mehdi points out, Israel’s accusations are nothing but propaganda, especially when you consider that Israel’s own military relies on the Gaza health ministry’s numbers.
“There has always been one central goal to all this genocide denial and propaganda around ‘lower’ death tolls: to dehumanize the Palestinians who have been killed,” Mehdi said.
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"Worse than Iraq": Three Former Biden Officials Explain Why They Resigned Over War in Gaza