Welcome to the online version of From the Policy Deska nightly newsletter that brings you the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News politics team on the campaign, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, senior political reporter Alex Seitz-Wald reveals an effort by operatives tied to a GOP consulting firm to help get Cornel West on the ballot in a key battleground state. Plus, Washington correspondent and chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell reviews the state of the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
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Agents with ties to the Republican Party are helping Cornel West get to the polls in a key state
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Cornel West’s independent presidential campaign is broken. His former campaign manager says he knows nothing about voting access. And west spent more in graphic design than in collecting petitions in his most recent campaign finance report.
But tens of thousands of signatures were collected in the famous left-wing academic’s name in key states, thanks to self-organized grassroots volunteers — and some help from outside agents linked to a Republican consulting firm.
Democrats fear the potential for West to siphon votes away from President Joe Biden in places where he is on the ballot in a close election, and some Republicans are publicly discussing ways to boost West and other minor candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Stein in hopes in dividing the anti-Donald Trump coalition.
In North Carolina, a new party formed in the state to get West on the ballot announced Monday that its “all-volunteer effort” had yielded more than 30,000 signatures, despite having virtually no oversight and not receiving “a cent” of funding. West campaign.
But internal emails obtained by NBC News, social media posts and other evidence suggest that someone on the outside — although it’s not clear who or how much, if anything, he spent — was trying to help West get to the polls in North Carolina. North, even if its base allies were not fully aware of it.
Emails from election officials show that the pro-Western Justice for All Party authorized three people to collect and deliver signatures for them across the state — and all three are current or former employees of a Republican political firm based in Colorado called Blitz Canvassing.
Blitz Canvassing has worked for several Republican House and Senate candidates and has received more than $14.6 million in payments working for Never Back Down, the leading super PAC that supported former GOP presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, according to campaign finance reports.
Inside the tense state of Israel-Hamas negotiations
By Andrea Mitchell
A week after the president announced what he described as a new Israeli ceasefire and hostage agreement, none of the parties involved can even agree on who proposed it – much less whether it could ever become a reality.
The US and Israel are taking opposite measures to pressure Hamas to accept the deal: the US through diplomacy, Israel through military action. Secretary of State Antony Blinken burned down the phone lines to get all Arab leaders and the G7 to support the plan. Now, Blinken is following up on those calls, announcing today that he will travel to the Middle East next week – his eighth trip to the region since the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahudespite having agreed to the deal as a member of Israel’s War Cabinet, he has evaded it ever since and continued to attack Rafah.
US officials say privately that Netanyahu’s tactics are misguided and constitute primarily a political response to prevent far-right ministers from overthrowing his coalition government if he ends the war. Arab diplomats told NBC News that both Hamas and Israel are open to “phase one” – a six-week pause in hostilities accompanied by the release of hostages and the exchange of Palestinian prisoners.
But, they say, Hamas wants the ceasefire to be permanent in the second phase, a condition Israel will not accept.
Israel also opposes Hamas playing any role in Gaza after the war. The US and Hamas do not want Israel to remain there as a security force. All of this further damaged the already difficult relationship between Biden and Netanyahu. The president further inflamed these tensions by telling Time magazine “there is every reason” for people to conclude Netanyahu was prolonging the war for his own political survival.
Biden tried to clean this up later, telling NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez he doesn’t think Netanyahu is playing politics.
But with the administration sending Middle East negotiator Brett McGurk to the region – and CIA director William Burns making a midweek detour to Doha to meet with Egyptian and Qatari counterparts – ensuring a cease -fire and the release of hostages acceptable to both Israel and Hamas will require diplomacy at a much higher level. I’ll be on the ground with Blinken next week reporting on his effort to get a deal across the finish line.
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback – like or dislike – send us an email at newsletter@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
