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Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Pezeshkian to celebrate ‘very close’ relationship

Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Pezeshkian to celebrate ‘very close’ relationship

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, hailing the “very close” relationship between Russia and Iran.  The meeting comes as Iran braces for an Israeli response to its missile attacks on Tel Aviv earlier this week.  “We are actively working together in the international arena, and our assessments of events taking place in the world are often very close,” Putin said, as reported by Russia’s state news agency TASS. The cooperation between the two sanctioned nations has sparked renewed alarm in the West. U.S. officials have said Tehran is supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to use in its fight against Ukraine.  In return, Russia is suspected of providing Iran with sensitive nuclear technology – as it draws nearer in its capabilities to being a fully nuclear-armed state.  “Russia is the world’s largest nuclear power. It holds an advantage even with the United States when it comes to nukes, especially in the tactical warhead realm and, obviously, it can share,” Rebekah Koffler, former senior official in the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital. “Nuclear is not the only capability – strategic capability of concern – there’s also cyber and space weapons,” she said.  Former President Donald Trump launched the U.S. Space Force in August 2019 to counter Russia and China’s capabilities in space. “Russia has, again, one of the world’s most robust counter space weapons and has a developed, mature space warfare doctrine,” Koffler went on.  BIDEN, NATO HEAD CLAIM A STRONGER OBAMA RESPONSE TO CRIMEA INVASION MAY HAVE PREVENTED UKRAINE WAR “Nuclear weapons do not work without satellites. Whatever Iran has right now, however close they are in terms of developing the actual capability, can’t do anything without a satellite network. You can’t do targeting, you can’t do command and control, missile warning, all that stuff, you cannot negate the adversaries command and control capability, and that is what Russia can, and probably has, to some extent, provided to Iran, although there’s no conclusive analysis.”  During the gathering, Putin reportedly backed up Pezeshkian’s condemnations of Israel. Pezeshkian said that Israel must “stop killing innocent people” and blamed the U.S. and European Union for supporting Israel in the war.  The pair met on the sidelines of an international conference in Turkmenistan. Pezehskian agreed to visit his counterpart in Russia, according to state-run RIA news agency. “Economically and culturally, our communications are being strengthened day by day and becoming more robust,” Pezeshkian was cited as telling Putin by Iran’s official IRNA news agency. “The growing trend of cooperation between Iran and Russia, considering the will of the top leaders of both countries, must be accelerated to strengthen these ties,” he said. NORTH KOREA TROOPS NOW FIGHTING FOR RUSSIA IN UKRAINE, SEOUL SAYS  The meeting represents a stark reorienting for Putin, who in the past has been the “most pro-Israel president in Russian history,” according to Koffler. But both Russia and Iran face steep sanctions from the U.S.  Around 20% of the Jewish population in Israel are Russian expatriates. “Jewish people, traditionally, are very smart, highly educated, highly employable. And with Russia having a demographic issue, Putin ideally wants those people, or their children or their grandchildren to come back to Russia,” Koffler explained.  The Israeli Prime Minister was initially resistant to providing arms to Ukraine when Russia invaded. But the Pentagon tapped into a little-known stockpile of U.S. weapons stored in Israel for its defense to help fill Ukraine’s request for artillery last year.  The U.S. has offered Ukraine over $100 billion in arms assistance over the course of the war. Russia views Israel, which is also armed by U.S. supply, as squarely in the camp of the Americans.  “It’s not Iran that pushed Russia. Iran has no influence. Russia has always been the top dog in that relationship,” said Koffler. “But it’s Russia that oriented itself towards Iran as a result of the Biden administration’s policies.”

Hunter Biden legal saga is ‘real war’ that ‘preoccupied’ outgoing president, new Woodward book claims

Hunter Biden legal saga is ‘real war’ that ‘preoccupied’ outgoing president, new Woodward book claims

President Joe Biden’s decision to exit the presidential race in July was motivated in no small part by the high-profile struggles that plagued his son, Hunter Biden, in the final years of his first term — leaving him with a “crushing” sense of guilt that those close to the outgoing president say plagued him more than the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. In his new book, “War,” famed Watergate reporter Bob Woodward offers readers an intimate look inside both the Trump and Biden presidencies at some of their most vulnerable moments; offering a rare, split-screen view into the thinking of two very different leaders as they stared down some of the biggest foreign policy challenges and security risks in modern memory.  Fox News obtained an early copy of the book ahead of its release next week.  Woodward’s book captures the more intimate moments of both presidencies, as well. For Biden, this includes the aftermath of his disastrous performance at the first presidential debate in June — watched by an estimated 51 million people — and the torrent of pressure it unleashed within the Democratic Party for Biden to exit the race.  Among party leaders and donors, it crystallized long-held fears that Biden, 81, was no longer fit to hold his own in a second match-up against Donald Trump. Their panic was matched only by their sense of urgency and the ticking clock they had to select a suitable nominee. BIDEN WON’T PARDON HUNTER, WHITE HOUSE REAFFIRMS, BUT CRITICS AREN’T SO SURE As Woodward reports, Biden struggled mightily to accept that consensus — first, by attempting to brush off his catastrophic performance as a bad night and an event he could recover from in the months ahead. The tsunami of pressure on him to drop out only got stronger. In fact, according to Woodward, Biden was leaning in the direction of staying in the race on July 4, when he met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a private lunch. Blinken, who had shown up to the lunch prepared for a difficult conversation, told Woodward that Biden still believed he could win a second term as president — a title he had chased all his life and finally achieved.  In his telling, among the factors ultimately driving his decision to bow out was the scrutiny and legal troubles surrounding his son Hunter. The toll his son’s troubles had taken was apparent when the two met, Woodward reports. Blinken, in his telling, spoke frankly to Biden about dropping out. “I don’t want to see your legacy jeopardized,” he said.  ’60 MINUTES’ DEFENDS HANDLING OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP COVERAGE AS IT HITS TRUMP FOR SKIPPING INTERVIEW Sensing little headway, Blinken then tried a different approach. “Do you really want to be doing this for the next four years?” he asked. Biden’s first term included overseeing the U.S. recovery from a global pandemic, the first war on European soil since World War II, and the start of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Each day was charged with turmoil and lasting consequence. And yet, those close to Biden say it was his younger son, Hunter Biden, whose struggles seemed to weigh most heavily on the president. Hunter’s troubles are described in the book as Biden’s “real war”: a constant source of preoccupation for the president, who was constantly fighting against his fatherly instincts to protect his son, his “beautiful boy,” as he called him — and to reconcile the deep sense of guilt he felt, in knowing his presidency had been a driving factor behind much of the scrutiny surrounding his son. POLITICAL STORM: ON TRUMP ‘ONSLAUGHT OF LIES,’ BIDEN URGES FORMER PRESIDENT TO ‘GET A LIFE, MAN’ For Biden, this knowledge left him “heartbroken” and affected him more than the major crises playing out abroad in Europe and the Middle East, sources told Woodward. These things took the president “off an even keel,” preoccupied him and taken “a lot out of him” in recent years.  In describing the president’s inner turmoil to Woodward, Blinken himself teared up, thinking of his own relationships with two young children. Biden, Blinken explained, “desperately” wanted to pull Hunter “out of the abyss” — to reel him in, to protect him — but his attempts and best efforts had failed. The book does not detail the extent to which Hunter’s legal woes and investigations were directly involved in the president’s decision to step down, which was likely the result of myriad factors, internal party pressures, and deeply personal considerations. The White House did not respond to Fox News’s request for comment on the matter. The book offers an unflinching look at one of the president’s most emotionally difficult struggles, one which staying in the race would have ultimately exacerbated.  “War” will be out on bookstore shelves October 15. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Lead counsel hits new Dem effort to ‘delegitimize’ Supreme Court amid senator’s report on Kavanaugh probe

Lead counsel hits new Dem effort to ‘delegitimize’ Supreme Court amid senator’s report on Kavanaugh probe

A new report led by Judiciary committee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., is “nonsense” and “the continuation of the Democrats’ lawfare against Justice Brett Kavanaugh,” according to the chief counsel on nominations for Republicans at the time.  “We followed the normal procedures for a Supreme Court nominee to do his background investigation,” said Mike Davis, the former chief counsel for nominations to former Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “And the Senate does its own investigation.” Davis is also founder and president of the Article III Project.  ‘OUT OF MONEY’: WHISTLEBLOWERS ALLEGE LACK OF SECRET SERVICE FUNDS, DELAYED PAYMENTS, TOP SENATOR REVEALS Whitehouse is among a number of other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who have made significant efforts to investigate the personal relationships of Supreme Court justices, namely Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, as well as call on them to recuse from high-profile cases.  Critics have claimed the inquiries and demands made by the senators are in an effort to undermine the conservative justices and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.  Whitehouse released a 32-page report on Tuesday, revealing their conclusions from a six-year investigation into the FBI’s probe of Kavanaugh when he was a Supreme Court justice nominee.  According to the report, Judiciary Committee Democrat members Whitehouse, now-Chairman Durbin, and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and then-Sens. Patrick Leahy and Kamala Harris sought information on the FBI investigation following Kavanaugh’s ultimate confirmation. In a statement, Whitehouse said, “In 2018, I pledged to Christine Blasey Ford that I’d keep digging, for however long it took, and not give up or move on from Senate Republicans and the Trump White House’s shameful confirmation process for Justice Kavanaugh. A full, proper investigation is the bare minimum that victims who come forward – like Dr. Ford and Deborah Ramirez – deserve. This report shows that the supplemental background investigation was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, to give political cover to Senate Republicans and put Justice Kavanaugh back on the political track to confirmation.” FOR WISCONSIN DEMS, A 2024 WIN IN THE BATTLEGROUND STATE IS YEARS IN THE MAKING “The lack of FBI investigative standards helped the Trump White House thwart meaningful investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh, denying Senators information needed to fulfill their constitutional duties. The FBI must create real protocols so Senators and the American people get real answers – not manufactured misdirection – the next time serious questions about a nominee emerge late in the confirmation process.” The report alleged that the FBI’s routine screening of the nominee on behalf of then-President Donald Trump was “flawed and incomplete,” the White House prevented “the FBI from interviewing relevant witnesses and following up on tips,” and that the administration “refused to authorize basic investigatory steps that might have uncovered information corroborating the allegations.” The Democrats noted in the document that Trump had told reporters at the time that the FBI was “all over” the probe of Kavanaugh, adding, “They have been all over it already. They have free rein to do whatever they have to do.” Davis told Fox News Digital in an interview, “It’s just a silly premise that these senators think that the FBI was going to solve crimes in this particular nomination. That’s not their role here.” He also noted that the provision of the report to the Senate for their review was a courtesy that began with President Clinton.  “The Senate is not supposed to just rely on the FBI. The FBI does not work for the Senate. The FBI works for the president,” he said.  “They’re trying to figure out whether the nominee has the character and fitness to serve,” he emphasized.  Davis also recalled that the investigation into Kavanaugh was re-opened on the request of a few Republican senators and additional witnesses were interviewed. Those Republicans were apparently satisfied with the additional interviews and voted to confirm.  SEE IT: WISCONSIN DAIRY FARMER SAYS ‘NO QUESTION’ TRUMP ADMIN WAS ‘MUCH BETTER’ THAN BIDEN-HARRIS Davis claimed that Democrats in the Senate “refused to cooperate” during Kavanaugh’s confirmation procedure. “We had witnesses come in for live testimony, including Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh,” he pointed out. “They came in for live testimony. And the Senate Democrats are saying that the FBI didn’t investigate all the tips that came in.” “There were thousands and thousands and thousands of tips that came in. Those tips were printed. Every one of those tips was printed, and it was delivered to the Senate for every senator to review,” he explained.  Not only could every senator access all the tips, Davis claimed, but they could have also asked for an investigation or “done the investigation themselves with their own staff.” Additionally, he remarked that “almost every one of those tips were utter garbage.”  “An alien crash-landed in my house and said that Brett Kavanaugh sexually abused me,” he joked about the described nonsensical tips.  The report is “a pathetic attempt by Sheldon Whitehouse to try to intimidate and cowl the Supreme Court justices before they may have to decide on crucial election cases, with the election coming up,” Davis said. “Maybe Senator Sheldon Whitehouse had one too many Mai Tais at his all-White beach club when he concocted this latest conspiracy theory,” he added. A spokesperson for Grassley, who was Judiciary chairman at the time, said in a statement, “This report doesn’t offer any legitimate, substantive new ground. It’s important to remember, it comes from the same office that strongly pressed claims by a man who alleged he saw Justice Kavanaugh attack a woman on a boat. When committee investigators looked into the matter, the man admitted he lied and was subsequently subject to criminal referral for false statements and obstruction of Congress.” “It’s also important to note the FBI’s confidential investigation not only failed to corroborate any of the allegations against Justice Kavanaugh, including Ms. Ford’s, it undermined them. Senator Whitehouse might recall saying he, himself, was ‘satisfied’ with the FBI’s investigation – all these

Trump, Harris locked in dead heat in 7 battleground states, poll finds: ‘Could not be closer’

Trump, Harris locked in dead heat in 7 battleground states, poll finds: ‘Could not be closer’

A new Wall Street Journal poll has found little separation between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in seven battleground states, prompting a Democratic pollster to say that the 2024 election “really could not be closer.”  The survey of 600 registered voters in each of the states, which was conducted from Sept. 28 to Oct. 8 with a margin of error of +/- four percentage points, found that in a head-to-head contest, Trump and Harris are tied in North Carolina and Wisconsin.  Harris leads Trump 48-46% in Arizona and Georgia, and 49-47% in Michigan, according to the poll. In Nevada, Trump has his biggest swing state lead of 49-43%, while he leads Harris in Pennsylvania 47-46%, the poll also found.  “It really could not be closer,” Democrat Michael Bocian, one of the pollsters who worked on the survey, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s an even-steven, tight, tight race.”  DEMOCRAT STRATEGISTS FRET HARRIS ‘SUGAR HIGH’ IS OVER  Overall, Trump leads Harris 46-45%, with 93% of Democrats and Republicans across the seven states indicating their support for their parties’ respective candidates.  As for independent voters, 40% said they would vote for Harris, compared to 39% for Trump.  On the issues, voters say they trusted Trump more to handle the economy, inflation and immigration and border security.  They preferred Harris when it comes to housing affordability, abortion, healthcare and having someone in the Oval Office who cares about you.  The poll found that 47% of voters believe Trump will stand up better for the American worker, compared to 45% for Harris, and that nearly two-thirds believe the national economy is poor or not so good.  POLL SHOWS HARRIS TAKING A SLIM LEAD OVER TRUMP THANKS TO SUPPORT FROM A SURPRISING GROUP  “This thing is a dead heat and is going to come down to the wire. These last three weeks matter,” Republican pollster David Lee told The Wall Street Journal.  The newspaper cited Lee as saying that around this time in 2020, Biden had polling average leads of more than 5 points over Trump in each of the industrial northern swing states, compared to the narrower margins Harris is facing right now.  However, Bocian says that Trump had a “clear advantage” over Biden in March – the last time The Wall Street Journal polled the swing states – during a period where third-party candidates were having a “massive impact” on the numbers.  “Now the third-party support has evaporated almost completely, and the race is tied in all the states,” he said.