Biden stands by identification as a Zionist: ‘Israel is a safe haven for Jews’
US president doubles down on reelection bid, gives unprecedented detail on Saudi normalization effort; regrets telling donors ‘it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye’

US President Joe Biden reiterated his identification as a Zionist in an interview broadcast Monday, adding that he has also “been very supportive of the Palestinians” and slamming Hamas as “a bunch of thugs.”
Biden also said that Saudi Arabia wants to “fully recognize Israel” in exchange for security guarantees from the US and the establishment of a civilian nuclear facility.
In a separate interview, Biden doubled down on his determination to “get this job done” by running for reelection in November, saying his mental acuity was “pretty damn good.” He also confirmed he would participate in the second campaign debate against his rival in the US presidential election, former US president Donald Trump, in September.
The president has faced growing calls from Democrats to stand down after a disastrous debate performance in June raised intense concerns about his advanced age and mental state.
Biden also said it was a mistake to tell supporters to put his rival, former US President Donald Trump, in a “bullseye,” days before Saturday’s assassination attempt on the Republican nominee.
In an interview with journalist Speedy Morman of the New York-based Complex youth media network held a day before the assassination attempt, Biden said he identified as a Zionist — a distinction he hasn’t publicly highlighted since February.
The term has increasingly become a pejorative on the American left wing, particularly among anti-Israel activists on college campuses, amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza sparked by the terror group’s October 7 onslaught.

The shock assault saw thousands of Hamas-led terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, of whom 116 remain in Gaza, many believed to be dead.
“You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and a Zionist is about whether or not Israel is a safe haven for Jews because of their history of how they’ve been persecuted,” said Biden.
He also lamented the frequent misinterpretation of the term.
“Different people don’t know what a Zionist is,” said Biden, before asking the interviewer whether he knew. Morman smiled, declining to answer.
Asked why US support for Israel was so strong, Biden responded: “If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk. There’s a need for it to be strong, and there’s a need… after World War II… for Jews to have a place that was their own.”
Nonetheless, Biden stressed that though he was continuing to supply Israel with defensive weapons, he was denying Jerusalem 2,000-lb (900-kg) “offensive weapons.”
“I made it real clear,” said Biden. “They cannot use weapons that we provide them… in civilian areas.”

The US president withheld the high-payload weapons in early May, as Israel launched its offensive in densely populated Rafah. The US and other allies had long warned against the operation in the Strip’s southernmost city, where over a million Palestinians sought shelter after being displaced from the Strip’s north and center. Israel has said the offensive was necessary to dismantle Hamas’s last remaining battalions.
Washington recently released some of that shipment, but not the 2,000-lb bombs.
During the interview, Biden also touted his humanitarian efforts on behalf of the Palestinians.
“I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody. I’m the guy that opened up all the assets… I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods, medicine and food through,” said Biden. “I’m the guy that’s been able to pull together the Arab states who agreed to help the Palestinians with food and shelter.”
“I have been very supportive of the Palestinians, but Hamas — they’re a bunch of thugs,” he continued.
“I was over there [in Israel] eight days after the massacre. I saw photos of mothers and daughters being tied in a rope, kerosene poured on their head and then burned to death. Nothing’s happened like that since the Holocaust,” Biden said.

Asked why Arab and Muslim Americans would continue backing him amid his support for Israel, Biden responded, “[For the] same reason why Arab Americans have agreed to support me [until now]. Because it’s the best way to keep peace, the best way to put things together.”
The community, which is highly suspicious of Republican nominee Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, has grown disenchanted with Biden over Gaza, potentially jeopardizing the president’s reelection efforts in Michigan, which has a high concentration of Arab and Muslim Americans. Biden won the crucial swing state by a slim margin in 2020.
“I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. The Arabs are good people. They need help now,” Biden said, pointing to his good working relations with Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia.
“I got a call from the Saudis — they want to fully recognize Israel,” Biden said, referring to widely reported efforts to reach a normalization deal.
Riyadh has not gone so far in public statements. Saudi officials have reiterated that their country will not normalize relations with Israel unless Jerusalem agrees to establish a pathway to a future Palestinian state — a condition that Biden did not mention, and which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has flatly rejected.
Biden said that in return for recognition, Saudi Arabia wants the US to provide it with weapons “if they’re attacked by other Arab nations — one just around the corner.” The US president was apparently referring to Riyadh’s regional rival, Iran, which is not an Arab country.

Biden said that under such a deal Washington would establish a civilian nuclear facility in Saudi Arabia, which the US Army would operate “so they can move away from fossil fuels.”
“That’s a big game changer in the whole region,” said Biden.
A Democratic lawmaker and a senior Republican Senate aide told The Times of Israel last week that the window had closed for the Biden administration to broker an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal before the November presidential election. The officials said there was not enough time before the election for the US Senate to hold the necessary hearings to approve the needed guarantees for Saudi Arabia.
‘I’m only three years older than Trump’
In a separate interview with NBC’s Lester Holt after the assassination attempt on Trump, Biden, 81, defended both his “mental acuity” and his rhetoric about his rival, in his latest push to end calls for him to quit his reelection bid.
Biden delivered an often combative defense of his mental and physical fitness, which nevertheless featured some of the jumbled sentences that have worried Democrats.
“I’m old,” Biden told Holt in the interview at the White House. “But I’m only three years older than Trump — number one. And number two, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good.”

He added: “I understand why people say, ‘God, he’s 81 years old. Whoa. What’s he gonna be when he’s 83 years old, 84 years?’ It’s a legitimate question to ask.”
The one-on-one was announced last week, before the assassination attempt on Trump on Saturday — which inevitably became a key subject of the interview.
Biden told Holt he was wrong when he recently told donors it was “time to put Trump in the bullseye” of his election campaign.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said when asked if he had gone too far with his rhetoric, as a deeply polarized nation reels from the shooting, in which Trump was hit in the ear.
“I meant focus on him, focus on what he’s doing,” Biden said.
But Biden doubled down on what he said was the need to “talk about the threat to democracy” posed by former president Trump.

“Look, I’m not the guy that said ‘I want to be a dictator on Day One,'” he stated, referring to remarks by Trump that alarmed many Americans.
Several prominent Republicans, including Trump’s newly announced running mate JD Vance, have since accused Biden of bearing some responsibility for the assassination attempt because of his language against Trump.
The claims — themselves often incendiary — come as authorities have said they’ve yet to identify the shooter’s ideology, and even as Republicans themselves often use guns in their political imagery.
The interview was screened just an hour before Trump took to the stage with a bandage on his ear at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, his first public appearance since the shooting.
While the attempt to kill Trump has taken some of the focus off Biden over his debate performance, the Democrat’s every move remains closely scrutinized amid calls for him to step aside.

Even as he attempted to strike a statesmanlike image, Biden often showed flashes of irritation.
Asked if the Trump shooting had changed the trajectory of the election, Biden replied: “I don’t know, and you don’t know either.”
Biden sparred with interviewer Holt, asking: “Why don’t you guys ever talk about the 18-20 lies [Trump] told” during the debate.
He also reacted sharply when asked if he would “get back on the horse” and add a third debate, replying: “I’m on the horse, where have you been?”