Former Obama aid and current CNN contributor David Axelrod has made his negative concerns over Joe Biden’s mental acuity quite clear in recent months. Now, several other well-known former figures in the Obama administration are playing pile on the current president, but this time, it’s over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
In addition to Axelrod, Jon Favreau, and Ben Rhodes were among the former Obama administration officials who have dinged Biden in recent weeks for not speaking up about his misgivings about Israel’s handling of the war.
The frustrations from fellow Democrats underscore the growing rift in the party as the war drags into its seventh month. The disapproval from Obama World came after a report suggested Biden was privately “angry” but not willing to change U.S. policy on Israel after the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers by Israeli airstrike.
“The President doesn’t get credit for being ‘privately enraged’ when he still refuses to use leverage to stop the IDF from killing and starving innocent people. These stories only make him look weak,” Favreau, a former assistant to Obama and director of speechwriting, posted on social platform X.
The White House has since sharpened its tone toward Israel. The day after Favreau’s post, Biden told Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. policy will now be “determined” on concrete steps Israel must take to protect civilians and allow additional badly needed humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
But unlike some contingents of Democrats who say Biden has lost their vote in November, Favreau noted in a follow-up post that he would still back the president.
“I’m voting for Joe Biden, campaigning for Joe Biden, love most of what Joe Biden has done, but hate his Israel policy and want it to change. Not sure why that’s hard to get,” Favreau said.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser and speechwriter, echoed a similar sentiment.
“The U.S. government is still supplying two thousand-pound bombs and ammunition to support Israel’s policy. Until there are substantive consequences, this outrage does nothing. Bibi obviously doesn’t care what the U.S. says, it’s about what the U.S. does,” Rhodes wrote on X.
Rhodes is known to be “pro-Palestine,” his anti-Israel stance during the Obama administration earned him the nickname “Hamas,” coined by then-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel because of how critical he was of Israel.