Principals

1. White House helps Israel
2. McCarthy doesn’t rule out return
3. Schumer presses Xi
4. China’s fishing industry abuses
5. RFK Jr. goes indie
6. Special counsel interviews Biden

PDB: One family’s harrowing experience in Israel

Biden to speak on Israel … House speaker candidates to pitch themselves… WaPo: W.H. considers attaching Ukraine funding to Israel aid request

— edited by Benjy Sarlin, Jordan Weissmann and Morgan Chalfant

The White House is giving Israel military aid and hostage help

The White House announced that at least 11 American citizens were killed by Hamas terrorists in Israel over the weekend — and that more Americans may be among the kidnapped hostages in Gaza. “We have to accept the grim possibility that some are,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters. His comments came after Israel began a “siege” of Gaza and a Hamas spokesman threatened to kill hostages in response to Israeli strikes. Kirby said the Biden administration is sharing intelligence and deploying government experts to help advise the Israeli government on recovering the hostages. Former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Semafor over the weekend that he believes U.S. special forces should participate in rescue operations — an idea Kirby ruled out on Monday. The U.S. is “surging” military assistance to Israel, including air defense ammunition, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters. “This is ISIS-level savagery that we have seen committed against Israeli civilians,” the official said. The U.S., U.K., France, Italy, and Germany issued a joint statement expressing “steadfast and united support” for Israel. Nevertheless, Israel’s military campaign could take months and will test the commitments of its western allies, Semafor’s Jay Solomon writes.

The speaker’s race is up for grabs

The speaker’s race remains wide open, Kadia Goba writes, to the point that Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t even bat down the idea of taking back his old job when reporters asked him about it on Monday. “I’ll allow the conference to make whatever decision,” he told a press gathering. Republicans are set for a key candidate forum tonight where potential speakers will pitch themselves to colleagues. But as of now, neither of the two official contenders, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, have sewn up nearly enough support for a win (Jordan has 47 endorsements while Scalise has 23, according to CNN’s whip count). That’s fed comeback talk among McCarthy die-hards, who’ve suggested that the party should rally back around him so Congress can address the crisis in Israel (the House can’t pass legislation until it picks a speaker). But the chances of a triumphant return by the Californian remain remote, Kadia writes, since members who helped oust him last week aren’t softening their positions. Some are predicting a long fight ahead: “I don’t think we’ll get a speaker this week,” Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio warned reporters. “I mean, the math is hard for us.”

Schumer raises concerns about U.S. business, fentanyl with China’s Xi Jinping

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer engaged in a rare act of direct diplomacy with Chinese officials, leading a congressional delegation to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing over the weekend. In a statement shared early with Semafor that Schumer will release this morning, he says that he pressed Xi to stop the intimidation of U.S. businesses by Chinese authorities, take more aggressive action to stop the flow of fentanyl to the U.S., and open the Chinese market up to more American companies. “Our delegation made clear that America is not seeking a confrontation with China, but we will remain steadfast in our commitment to promoting stability in the region, freedom, and democratic principles, and vigorously defend our values around the world,” Schumer’s statement reads. The meeting — which also involved Schumer criticizing China’s response to the attack on Israel — will likely buoy some hopes for an easing of tensions between the U.S. and China. It was Xi’s first meeting with U.S. congressional leaders in nearly a decade, according to Bloomberg.

U.S. scrutiny of Chinese fishing grows

An investigation that exposed human rights abuses throughout China’s fishing industry has some Washington lawmakers calling for more restrictions on seafood imports from China, Semafor’s Morgan Chalfant reports. The findings are the culmination of a four-year probe by reporter Ian Urbina’s Outlaw Ocean Project. Urbina and his team found that major American grocery stores, restaurant chains, and food service companies likely received seafood caught by the Zhen Fa 7, a Chinese ship on which extremely harsh conditions were reported. The investigation, published in the New Yorker, also found that Chinese processing plants rely on Uyghurs from labor camps in Xinjiang, and that those plants have shipped seafood to America. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China is planning a hearing with Urbina to discuss his findings on Oct. 24, a person familiar with the planning said. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who chairs the House select committee on China, in a statement to Semafor called on the U.S. government to suspend imports of tainted Chinese seafood products.

Republicans want to inoculate voters against RFK Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is leaving the Democratic party for an independent bid and Republicans sound less than pleased. “We declare independence from the cynical elites who betray our hope and who amplify our divisions, and finally, we declare independence from the two political parties,” Kennedy said in a speech in Philadelphia on Monday. Shelby Talcott reported on Friday that Trumpworld plans to “napalm” Kennedy after private polling showed him peeling off Republican votes. “He used to be a fun plaything to hurt Biden, now he is something that could hurt the GOP,” one Trump-aligned operative said. Right on schedule, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel denounced Kennedy on Monday as a “typical liberal” while the party offered 23 reasons for Republicans to oppose him. Democrats are less concerned given Kennedy’s toxic polling with their own voters — even four of his own siblings denounced his campaign as “dangerous to our country” on Monday — but as Dave Weigel reported last week, it’s still not 100% clear how he might impact the race.

Robert Hur visits the White House

President Joe Biden was interviewed by special counsel Robert Hur as part of his investigation into the handling of classified documents found at his home and former office. “The voluntary interview was conducted at the White House over two days, Sunday and Monday, and concluded Monday,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams disclosed late Monday. ABC News reported in late September that Hur, who was appointed in January, and his investigators had questioned as many as 100 witnesses in a sprawling examination of security protocols from the Obama administration when Biden served as vice president, but that Biden himself was not suspected of criminal wrongdoing. The Biden interview could be a sign of the probe wrapping up.

Beltway Newsletters

Punchbowl News: An effort to change the House GOP’s rules so that 217 votes are needed to choose their nominee for speaker is dividing the conference, with supporters of Rep. Jim Jordan “generally in favor” of the change and Rep. Steve Scalise and his supporters are against it.

Playbook: President Biden will soon face the challenge of defending Israel policy from skeptics within the Democratic Party. One Democratic congressman predicted the media would “soon turn away” from the violent images in Israel “and the only images we’re going to see for the next couple of weeks are dead Palestinians.”

The Early 202: One House GOP member described a no staffers, no cell phones meeting on Monday night as a “bloodbath,” with members airing their frustrations and grievances ahead of this week’s speaker vote.

White House

President Biden will give a speech today on the attacks against Israel. The White House also lit up with the white and blue of the country’s flag last night.

Congress

• Semafor’s Kadia Goba reported over the weekend that Steve Scalise is facing trouble picking up support from members in his home state of Louisiana.
• Former President Donald Trump won’t be coming to the Capitol to influence the speaker’s race after all. — Fox News
• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell laid out a four-part plan to support Israel in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, including boosting defense spending to replenish existing inventories and quickly supplying Israel with weapons and intelligence.
• Former Treasury secretary Jack Lew is expected to get his confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to Israel on Oct. 18, after the White House pressed for action on the nomination. — NBC News

Economy

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says she isn’t worried that the dramatic recent selloff of government bonds will cause the financial markets to go haywire. “I haven’t seen any evidence of dysfunction in connection with the increase in interest rates,” she told the Financial Times. “When rates are more volatile, sometimes you see some impact on market function, but that is pretty standard.”
• Semafor’s Gina Chon will interview AT&T CEO John Stankey during our event on broadband connectivity this morning.

2024

• Sen. Tim Scott is delivering a speech on Israel at the Hudson Institute this afternoon. Other candidates, including Nikki Haley, advertised their support for the Jewish state over the weekend, while Mike Pence laid some blame on his Republican opponents, including Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, describing them as “voices of appeasement” who’d signaled America was ready to “retreat on the world stage.”
• Haley has almost double the cash on hand that DeSantis does, after her political operation reported raising $11 million in the third quarter.
• Former Texas congressman Will Hurd suspended his GOP presidential campaign. He endorsed Haley and urged voters, donors, and candidates “to unite around an alternative candidate to Trump.”

Big Read

In The Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg interviews Israeli journalist Amir Tabon about how he and his young daughters survived 10 hours in a safe room after their border community was overrun by Hamas. The answer is, simply put, insane: Tabon’s parents drove down from Tel Aviv with a pistol; took out terrorists in gun battles and rescued civilians en route; and then his father finally loaded up on weapons from wounded soldiers and teamed up with an elderly retired general to shoot their way to the house. You absolutely need to read it in full, including Tabon’s take on the political and military situation.

Blindspot

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets, according to data from our partners at Ground News.

What the Left isn’t reading: A post from Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s X account expressing support for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was deleted and replaced with another that removed the reference.

What the Right isn’t reading: A former Trump Organization executive testified in New York that Eric Trump told him to take steps that ultimately led to the values of certain Trump properties being inflated.

Jay Solomon is Semafor’s global security editor.