White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Air Force One en route to Angola on Monday that he could not explain why President Joe Biden had bought an anti-Israel book, except that he “reads broadly.”
Biden was seen leaving a book store in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Friday with his soon-to-be pardoned son, Hunter Biden, holding a book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, by anti-Israel author Rashid Khalidi.
Khalidi recently claimed that Israel had no legal right to respond to the Hamas terror attack of October 7. He was also a close personal friend of President Barack Obama; the Los Angeles Times infamously covered up a video of Obama speaking at a farewell party for Khalidi, after it reported the existence of the video during the 2008 election.
Asked about the book, Kirby said that he “can’t speak to why the president made that particular purchase … but he reads broadly.” Asked whether Biden was actually reading the book, Kirby said that he did not know the answer.
Hunter Biden attended a rally for Israel last year, but it is possible his views, and those of his father, have since changed. Khalidi himself said Biden had bought the book “4 years too late” to change his policies in a pro-Palestinian way.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.