President Donald Trump sees parallels between Joe Biden’s early surge to the front of the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field and his own runaway success in the 2016 Republican primaries.
In an interview with POLITICO on Friday afternoon, Trump cast the former vice president as a clear, if flawed, front runner, noting that Biden had recently flubbed the name of Britain’s prime minister. And he compared Biden’s early success in a heavily crowded field to his own entry and rapid ascent in the 2016 Republican campaign.

Sen. Rand Paul slammed the Senate Intelligence Committee for subpoenaing Donald Trump Jr. for further testimony in its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, suggesting it could end up being a perjury trap.
“I think it’s a real travesty of justice. I think it’s very unfair to the president and the president‘s family on this. Mueller spend $35 million and two years, and the president was cleared. For the Senate to be calling up the president’s son and putting him in jeopardy by bringing him in and grilling him… I think it’s really a tragedy,” Paul said Sunday on John Catsimatidis’ radio show.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved a new deployment of Patriot missiles to the Middle East, an American official told Reuters on Friday, in the latest US response to what Washington sees as a growing threat from Iran.
The decision further bolsters US defenses and comes after the Trump administration expedited the deployment of a carrier strike group and sent bombers to the Middle East following what it said were troubling indications of possible preparations for an attack by Iran.
The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to say how many Patriot batteries would be deployed. The Patriot missile defense system is made by Raytheon Co. and is designed to intercept incoming missiles.

An Arab Israeli lawmaker rips Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement earlier today that a site has been located in the Golan Heights for the establishment of a new community that will be named after US President Donald Trump.
“It is fitting for the American President Trump that a settlement whose establishment is illegal and contradicts international law will be named after him,” Hadash-Ta’al MK Yousef Jabareen writes on his Twitter account.
“Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty on the Golan Heights is spitting in the face of the world. The transfer of Israeli citizens to the Syrian Golan is a war crime according to the International Criminal Court — a war crime in Trump’s name,” Jabareen adds.
 

A pair of East Jerusalem residents are charged today with planning to carry out a attack on behalf of Palestinian terror group Hamas. A third East Jerusalem man, Issa Bin Nazem Natsheh, was also indicted for a related charge.
Adam Muselmani and Mahmoud Abdel Latif planned to carry out a shooting in Hamas’s name at a beach in Tel Aviv following their releases from prison, the charge sheets say, citing the high number of attacks in Jerusalem and the heavy police presence in the capital.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó on Saturday said he’s instructed his political envoy in Washington to immediately open relations with the U.S. military in a bid to bring more pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to resign.
The leader said he’s asked Carlos Vecchio, who the U.S. recognizes as Venezuela’s ambassador, to open “direct communications” toward possible military “coordination.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee and other committees investigating the Trumps “should subpoena Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner too,” a former federal prosecutor opined after first son Donald Trump Jr. was subpoenaed on Wednesday.
On Thursday, Elizabeth de la Vega, a federal prosecutor for more than 20 years who was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force, shared a Washington Post analysis piece on what could still be learned from Trump Jr. in light of the subpoena he was issued from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“I don’t see Senate Intel doing this, but House Intel and/or Judiciary should subpoena Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner too,” de la Vega tweeted. “No point in holding back on any subpoenas. Send them all out. More impact and more efficient that way.”

Palestinian-American US Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., claimed in an interview that her ancestors provided a “safe haven” for Jews after the Holocaust.
“There’s always kind of a calming feeling when I think of the tragedy of the Holocaust, that it was my ancestors – Palestinians – who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity and their existence, in many ways, has been wiped out… in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-Holocaust, post-tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that in many ways,” Tlaib said.

The gunman who murdered a woman and wounded three others at the Chabad of Poway told a 911 dispatcher he had done it because “the Jewish people are destroying the white race.”
Prosecutors described the call Thursday in announcing 109 hate crime and other charges against John T. Earnest, 19. After escaping the shul where he had shot and killed Lori Gilbert Kaye and injured 3 others, Earnest called 911 from his car and told a dispatcher what he had done. He said he thought had killed some people, and the he did so because “I’m just trying to defend my nation from the Jewish people…They’re destroying our people,” according to the affidavit.
He then told the dispatcher, “the Jewish people are destroying the white race.”

President Trump’s 1987 book “The Art of the Deal” helped make the real estate developer one of the most famous businessmen in America. Now the book’s co-author wants it taken out of print or reclassified as fiction.
Tony Schwartz, the journalist who is credited as the book’s co-author but has made frequent claims he wrote all of the book himself, made those suggestions in a Twitter post on Wednesday, following a New York Times report about Trump’s business losses in the 1980s and ’90s.
“Given the Times report on Trump’s staggering losses, I’d be fine if Random House simply took the book out of print. Or recategorized it as fiction,” Schwartz tweeted.