Joe Biden heads to the Situation Room with Kamala Harris after Hamas hostages were found dead

By Katelyn Caralle, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are meeting with the U.S. hostage negotiating team in the Situation Room on Monday morning.

The gathering comes two days after six hostages, including 23-year-old American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were killed on Saturday by Hamas terrorists.

The Labor Day meeting is closed to the press and comes as the one-year anniversary approaches of Hamas’ initial invasion in Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deadliest single-day attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Goldberg-Polin was among those taken hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Oct. 7 attack. He and five other Israeli hostages were murdered on Saturday.

Pressure has been mounting for the last year for President Biden to withhold humanitarian aid and force Hamas’ hand in releasing Israeli and other foreign hostages being held by the terrorist group in Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

In the last two weeks after his speech at the Democratic Convention, Biden has been on vacation – first in California and then at his beach house in Rehoboth, Delaware.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden relax on the beach in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Saturday, August 31

The distraught parents of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin have broken their silence after learning he was killed by Hamas.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was kidnapped by terrorists from the Nova Festival – where he was celebrating his birthday with friends – on October 7 last year, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel. He lost part of an arm in the attack.

His parents Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, just 12 days ago, begged Hersh to ‘stay strong’ and ‘survive’ in a gut-wrenching speech at the Democratic National Convention that saw the couple call for a ceasefire deal.

But yesterday the the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) confirmed that the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas have been recovered from Gaza with Hersh being among the deceased.

Hersh’s family confirmed his death in a statement on Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza. They said: ‘With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.’

In wake of Hersh’s murder, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will sit down with US hostage negotiators today to push for a deal that ‘secures the release of the remaining hostages’.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

President Joe Biden ended his two-week vacation on Labor Day as he flew back to the White House from his Rehoboth Beach vacation home.

Biden has been mostly out of sight since he flew to California following his speech to the Democratic National Convention August 19th. He has spent the last week in Delaware, relaxing on the beach and reading newspapers, venturing out to go church, and commenting on the tragic killings of six hostages in Gaza.

On Monday, he received the President’s Daily Brief at home, then boarded Marine One to fly back to the White House – dodging holiday traffic on the roads. He has plans to meet with hostage negotiators in the Situation Room this morning along with Vice President Harris. Then he flies to Pittsburgh, where he will join Harris at a campaign event.

There are indications the public will be seeing more of Biden even though he is no longer seeking reelection. He heads to battleground Wisconsin Thursday – his first trip there since dropping out of the race.

Clooney, whose op-ed in the New York Times appeared to be one of the prompts for Biden to quit running, said: ‘The person who should be applauded is the President, who did the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington, and that’s true.

‘All the machinations that got us there, none of that is going to be remembered, and it shouldn’t be.

‘What should be remembered is the selfless act. It’s very hard to let go of power, we have seen it around the world.

‘For someone to say: ‘I think there is a better way forward’ – all the credit goes to him. All the rest will be forgotten.’ He added: ‘I’m very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now which many people are surprised by, and I think we are very excited for the future.’

By Emily Goodin, Senior White House Correspondent

Kamala Harris will jet off to Detroit on Monday morning for a campaign push with two stops ending alongside the man she replaced: Joe Biden.

Harris and Biden will connect in Pittsburgh, Pennslyvania, to rally union members in the critical battleground state crucial in deciding the 2024 race.

The date and sitting for their first sighting together is significant: It’s being held on Labor Day in a must-win state.

But their trip is being overshadowed by the war in the Middle East.

Before leaving for her stop, Harris will join Biden on Monday in the Situation Room to meet with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team to discuss the efforts to free the remaining hostages.

Trump was speaking at the Moms for Liberty convention in Washington on Friday when he expressed skepticism over this piece of Harris’s biography, which she has used to proclaim her ordinary background.

‘She also said, “I worked at McDonald’s.” Turned out she didn’t work at McDonalds,” the former president mentioned to the audience.

‘Did anyone see that?’ he continued. ‘After an exhaustive study that took about 20 minutes, they found out she never worked there.’

Tim Walz appeared to make a quick escape Saturday when asked about the discovery of six slain hostages in the Gaza Strip.

The Minnesota governor was posed the question at his home state’s state fair in St. Paul, hours after the bodies were found in an underground tunnel in the Rafah area of the city.

From the footage, it was unclear whether the potential vice president heard the inquiry, but as soon as it was uttered, he bid onlookers farewell.

The captives – identified Saturday as Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Master Sgt Ori Danino – were among the more than 200 taken by militants on October 7.

Five were taken from the targeted Israeli music festival, and another from a nearby farming community. The IDF said all were ‘brutally’ murdered ‘a short while’ before troops were able to locate them.

Tim Walz’s older brother has warned that the Democratic vice presidential hopeful is ‘not the type of character’ you want in the White House.

Jeff Walz, 67, took to Facebook last week to share his concerns about his younger brother running alongside Kamala Harris.

‘The stories I could tell,’ he stated in one of the posts, a five-word warning that may send shudders down the spines of staff at Harris HQ.

The married father-of-two was urged to throw his weight behind the Trump campaign by other Facebook users when he declared Friday evening: ‘I’m 100% opposed to all his ideology.’

Jeff, who lives in Freeport, Florida, with his wife Laurie, followed up that post by replying to others who told him to ‘speak up … at this pivotal moment in history.’

An historian who’s been called the ‘Nostradamus’ of predicting winners of presidential elections has dropped a major hint as to who he thinks will take the White House come 2025.

Allan Lichtman, who has correctly called nine out of the 10 last elections, said in a YouTube livestream Thursday he is nearing his ‘final prediction’ for the 2024 race.

‘You don’t have to be patient for a whole lot longer. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend … and within days after that the prediction should be out,’ the American University professor said on the stream with his son, Sam. ‘And this will be a final prediction.’

While being coy about his ultimate forecast, Lichtman gave away a big clue by slamming a rival pollster, Nate Silver, who recently said Trump was his favorite.

‘I just saw today the most absurd prediction,’ Lichtman said, referring to Silver.

The latest polling suggests that Kamala Harris has received little to no convention boost, showing Donald Trump ahead of the vice president in several crucial swing states.

A Trafalgar Group survey of seven of the toughest contests – considered by experts to be Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada – show Trump either in the lead or even with Harris.

The Trafalgar survey, which is considered by polling aggregators to lean Republican, also shows Harris almost even with Trump in Michigan, with the former president eking out a 47% to 46.6% lead.