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Washington (AFP) - The White House on Monday bluntly warned Israel that its occupation of Palestinian land must end, dismissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges. In unusually tough language that underscores the fracture in relations between Washington and Israel, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said "an occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end." McDonough criticized Netanyahu's pre-election pledge to block the creation of a Palestinian state -- the supposed end goal of decades of fruitless peace talks -- and he questioned Netanyahu's efforts to undo the damage. "We cannot...

Obama sent his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, to J Street where he brought the crowd to their feet when he said this: “An occupation that has lasted more than 50 years must end.” Mark Levin was right. Obama is definitely going full Mussolini and he’s using Netanyahu’s campaign rhetoric as the excuse to couch it in. POLITICO – White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made clear in a speech to a left-leaning Israel advocacy group that President Barack Obama isn’t letting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu off the hook for his dismissal of a two-state solution. That stance,...

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough today called for an end to Israel’s “occupation” of the Palestinians and vowed that the Obama administration won’t “pretend” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t make his campaign remarks about no two-state solution. McDonough thanked the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” — as J Street bills itself — and pro-Palestinian lobbying group for the “important work you do around the country,” calling it “an organization that, in the best tradition of the American Jewish community, shares a set of values about the type of country that we are – a democracy where all of our...

Chief of Staff Denis McDonough says that Israel’s government must match up ‘words with actions and policies,’ warns Netanyahu’s statements can’t be willed away WASHINGTON — White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough called for the end of Israel’s “50-year occupation” and doubled down on the Obama administration’s critique of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a warmly received speech to the lobbying group J Street in Washington Monday. Speaking to the dovish group’s national conference, McDonough became the latest in a series of Washington officials to highlight the administration’s displeasure with Netanyahu, while also talking up the permanence of US-Israel...

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to reassert control over the domestic political debate surrounding sensitive negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the White House penned a letter Saturday night warning senators to hold back on legislation that would detract from the president’s ability to affect and approve a final agreement with Iran. The letter, written by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), reiterates a veto threat of the bill, while insisting that Congress will have a say in reviewing and affecting the ultimate outcome. But in far more detailed and foreboding...

White House officials have been holding private meetings this week aimed at soothing lawmakers’ concerns over the U.S. posture in Syria, the future of the American military presence in Afghanistan and defense spending. The meetings come as a frustrated White House seeks to push back at criticism of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. But the White House outreach appeared to be having little effect on some lawmakers’ concerns. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described Tuesday night’s White House meeting with chief of staff Denis McDonough and national security adviser Susan Rice as...

The Talk Shows January 25th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill, Adam Schiff, D-Calif, and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.; former Gov. Jon Huntsman, R-Utah.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan consulted the White House before directing agency personnel to sift through a walled-off computer drive being used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to construct its investigation of the agency’s torture program, according to a recently released report by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General. The Inspector General’s report, which was completed in July but only released by the agency on Wednesday, reveals that Brennan spoke with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough before ordering CIA employees to “use whatever means necessary” to determine how certain sensitive internal documents had wound up in...

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Thursday morning slammed a provision in the pending spending bill that would repeal a piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and expressed doubt that enough Democrats could support the package if that rider remains. “I just spoke to Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats believe this is an odious provision that should not be included. Many of us feel the same way,” said Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “[Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)] can take it out in the bat of any eye, and I hope he will....

Liberal House Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against President Obama over the fate of an enormous year-end government spending bill. With just hours to go before a scheduled government shutdown, the Democrats launched a lobbying blitz to counter calls made by Obama and other White House officials urging passage of the bill. Leading the charge was Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, who is up in arms over the face that Obama has agreed to accept a GOP rider to undo parts of the 2010 Wall Street reform law as part of...

In a rare break from President Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted the White House on Thursday for putting its weight behind the $1.1 trillion government funding package. In a speech decrying the “cromnibus” on the House floor, Pelosi, the minority leader, noted that Republican defections have given the Democrats significant leverage in the debate and wondered why the White House wouldn't use that power to fight the conservative policy riders that have sparked the Democrats' outcry. “I'm enormously disappointed that the White House feels that the only way they can get a bill is to go along with this,”...

The fight over the “cromnibus” began as an internecine battle within the Republican Party — which is nothing new for the GOP on Capitol Hill when it comes to budgets. Over the past few hours, though, it’s turned into a civil war among Democrats, especially between progressives in Congress and the White House. Barack Obama spent the afternoon on the phone attempting to whip enough House Democrats to vote for the bill, while Nancy Pelosi declared herself opposed to the bill and whipped her caucus to stand firm. As noted in an update in the earlier post, Obama sent his...

I was prepared to offer a sympathetic interpretation of the White House’s preemptive attempts to assuage liberal anxiety ahead of the midterms by dismissing them as mere bravado. The administration’s claim that it would mount a “counter offensive” in the wake of likely midterm losses struck me as posturing – the president, I reasoned, surely could not be so self-absorbed that he believes he will poses enough political capital after the midterms to press for, much less enact, his agenda. This was surely a message aimed at a particularly narrow audience. But the president’s post-shellacking presser on Wednesday was a...

p>The Talk Shows September 14th, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C; Michael Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; former Secretary of State James Baker; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Secretary of State John Kerry; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Education Secretary Arne Duncan.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; Harkin; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Rep. John...

The Obama administration has apologized for bypassing Congress before it released senior Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay as part of a controversial prisoner exchange. The expression of regret was a major shift for the White House, which had previously offered a defiant defense on why it could not adhere to the notification provisions of a 2013 law. SNIP White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said Monday that Congress knew well in advance that the president might release detainees from Guantanamo in exchange for Bergdahl. “We’ve been consulting with members of Congress about this effort, including the potential transfer of...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough defended the White House reaction to the scandals emerging from Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals around the country, saying on CBS' "Face the Nation" that President Obama "is madder than hell - I've got the scars to prove it." In an interview with CBS News Chief White House Correspondent, McDonough said that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is the right person to lead the investigation into reports that veterans have been put on secret waiting lists to hide the number of people who were not being treated within the VA's goal of 14 days. Several...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that Friday's resignation of Robert Petzel, a top Veterans Affairs official, was not a voluntary exit. "There is no question that this is a termination of his job there before he was planning to go," McDonough told CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett for an interview to air on "Face the Nation" this Sunday. Petzel, the undersecretary for health care at the VA, handed in his resignation to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki Friday. He had already announced his intention to retire this year and President Obama earlier this month...

Taking firm advantage of the term’s cloudy meaning, Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, announced on Face the Nation this weekend that he was vexed by a “very chilling story in the New York Times today about the impact of climate change on droughts in the West – California, which is now seeing some pretty serious developments as a result of climate change.” “So,” McDonough concluded, “we’ll be looking at that.”

Full title: David Gregory: "Do You Ever Wonder Why The President Doesn't Get Credit For An Economy That Is Rebounding?" DAVID GREGORY: The issue of the economy is a big one. Do you ever wonder why the president doesn't get more credit for an economy that is rebounding? What's the disconnect here? DENIS MCDONOUGH, WH CHIEF OF STAFF: I don't spend a lot of time wondering about credit for the president. He doesn't. ......

In a Thanksgiving missive that reads more like a love letter to the man than a newspaper article, the Washington Post has announced that Denis McDonough, the White House Chief of Staff, is now in charge of the healthcare hairball. “McDonough is now holding evening meetings every day with key players in the health care rollout,” says the Post, “offering support even as he holds agency leaders accountable.” Support and accountability? Wow. Evening work too. Whoa. In Obama’s White House? If I were McDonough, I’d get my resume ready. Perhaps when he’s looking for work next time, he can just...