Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) backed President Joe Biden’s sharp criticisms of the Supreme Court in an interview Sunday, specifically calling out Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, whom he said was on the “grift.”

“I think it would be irresponsible for the president not to talk about the fact that this court is becoming brazenly corrupt and brazenly political,” Murphy told host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s up to the American people this election to do something about that. It’s also up to Congress to step up and pass a code of conduct, a code of ethical conduct, for this court before it’s too late.”

At his star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday evening, Biden railed against the Supreme Court as “so far out of step” and warned that “one of the scariest parts” of a second term for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is the potential appointment of two more justices to the bench. He made a crack at Alito by saying Trump would appoint more justices “flying flags upside down” and referred to Thomas’ arguments that the court “should reconsider” its past contraception and same-sex rulings, according to pool reports.

Murphy stood behind Biden’s comments, referencing expensive gifts and luxury travel expenses Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and others have lavished on Thomas over the years — as well two controversial flag displays associated with Jan. 6 flown at Alito’s homes.

“There’s a crisis on the court,” Murphy said. “What Justice Thomas is engaged in is just a grift, right? He’s got a major political player on the outside who absolutely has political and business interests at the court paying off a justice.”

“Justice Alito is openly displaying affiliation with political causes in public,” he added.

Biden has been reluctant to publicly address concerns of judicial ethics regarding the Supreme Court justices. The president has avoided directly addressing the Alito scandal out of fear that his attacks of the judiciary could be seen as politically motivated and appear too close to Trump’s own tactics, POLITICO reported last month. He has also sidestepped questions about whether Thomas should recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases brought before the Supreme Court.

Some Democrats have disagreed with Biden’s approach.

Recently, Biden has ramped up his focus on the Supreme Court, using the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the three Trump-appointed conservative justices who ruled in support of it as a foothold to mobilize voters around reproductive rights.

While Thomas and Alito were both appointed much before Trump’s presidency, both have helped maintain the court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority, including in last week’s decision to nix a ban on bump stocks for guns that was enacted by the Trump administration.

A former Trump-era senior Pentagon official questioned Sunday whether German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “really knows what he’s talking about in the American context” after he offered strong praise for President Joe Biden at the G7 summit.

Elbridge Colby — who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development from 2017 to 2018 and is poised for a major national security role if Donald Trump is elected again — posted on X: “I think staying out of each other’s elections is better.”

“What message are Republicans supposed to take about the current Berlin government?” Colby wrote.

On the sideline of the G7 summit in Italy on Saturday, Scholz praised Biden as “one of the most experienced politicians in the world” and “a man who knows exactly what he is doing” in an interview with Axel Springer media outlets. (POLITICO is owned by Axel Springer.)

He spoke highly of Biden’s domestic and international policies, saying they’ve promoted “proper economic development,” “peace and security” and “togetherness and cohesion” in the U.S.

The chancellor also told reporters that he thought Biden was likely to win in November and called speculation over the outcome of the American elections “a bit strange.”

“Is the Chancellor in a position to comment on the U.S. economic and social cohesion situations?” Colby wrote in response, bashing Scholz’s “remarkable” comments. “I think this would elicit laughs if not outright scorn from many Americans.”

He added that “it’s wildly inappropriate to comment on domestic American politics and elections.”

Concerns about the future of American leadership and the possible return of Trump hung over the heads of the U.S.’ closest allies at the G7 summit over the weekend. The Biden administration’s hesitance to equip Ukraine with more advanced weaponry and Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO, among other worries, have had international allies on edge in the leadup to a close 2024 race.

Colby, a front-runner to be the potential Trump administration’s national security adviser, has centered on countering China in his foreign policy and largely minimized American involvement in other global affairs — including Russia and Ukraine. He has previously criticized British Foreign Secretary David Cameron for pushing for aid to Ukraine in a trip to D.C., labeling it an “astounding intervention into the American system.”

Democrats hold deeply divided views on the pro-Palestinian student protests that have roiled college campuses in recent months, according to a new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll, and a generational gap appears to be driving the fault line.

While 50 percent of surveyed Gen Z and millennial registered voters say they hold a favorable view toward the campus demonstrations, the same is true for only 44 percent of all Democrats, with 36 percent of Democrats feeling unfavorable. The poll, conducted in the waning days of universities’ spring terms, shows younger voters are splitting from the Democratic base to support student activists and express more sympathy for Palestinians.

That generational divide hits a pain point for President Joe Biden as he struggles to galvanize young voters and unify a base at odds with itself just months before the 2024 presidential election. As Biden looks to piece together a fragile coalition — drawing support from Republicans and independents while shoring up liberal support — he has little room to maneuver on an issue that has become increasingly fractured.

That’s in part because of how complicated voters’ views are of the protests. Even though more than one-third of Democrats say they have an unfavorable view of the campus protests, the poll suggests a significant portion of them may actually support the students’ positions — just not their tactics.

Nearly three-quarters of Democratic respondents, 74 percent, say they broadly believe protesters on campus are “in the right.” But 48 percent of Democrats say they also think activists are “taking things too far,” compared to 26 percent who say students are “doing the right thing” in their demonstrations.

On the other hand, Republicans remain largely united in their opposition: 72 percent hold an unfavorable view of the protest encampments, building takeovers and commencement disruptions against the war in Gaza. Fifty-two percent of Republicans say that protesters are plainly “in the wrong,” and 31 percent believe students are “in the right but taking things too far.”

“There is a right to protest,” Biden said during his first official remarks addressing student protests early last month. “But there is not a right to cause chaos.”

Voters between 18 and 34 years old break with all surveyed Democrats on how universities should respond to protests and where their sympathies lie in the conflict abroad. Just over half of young voters, 52 percent, “strongly” or “somewhat” support the expulsion of students who violated the law or school rules while protesting, compared to 61 percent of all Democrats.

And roughly one-third of young voters say they are equally sympathetic to “both sides” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, much fewer than the 43 percent of Democrats who feel the same way. Voters aged 18 to 34 are the only age group with greater sympathy toward Palestinians than Israelis, according to the poll.

“I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated not just young people, but a lot of the Democratic base,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour after the president’s remarks in May.

The poll does have one potentially positive sign for Biden, though: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the campus protests that have become a proxy for attitudes toward it, are low on voters’ list of electoral issues compared to factors such as the economy, national security and jobs.

Even as the issue has dogged Biden for months, with protests following him at many of his public appearances, pro-Palestinian protests at universities nationwide do not appear to be steering voters’ decision-making this election.

Sixty-seven percent of all voters, and 70 percent of Democrats, say that campus demonstrations are important in deciding their 2024 election vote — nearly 30 percentage points lower than the top-ranked issue, the economy.

Protests have mostly let up as schools have let out for the summer — but tensions are still flaring, including at UCLA on Monday, where 25 protesters were arrested. Demonstrations are expected at the Democratic and Republican national conventions this summer, and they’re likely to return to campuses in the fall.

The poll (toplines, crosstabs) was conducted May 28-29, surveying 3,996 registered voters via online interviews. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

An ex-staffer of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy took a jab at Rep. Matt Gaetz over the Florida Republican’s post on Hunter Biden’s guilty verdict, the latest dust-up in a long-standing feud between the two Republicans.

Gaetz, who has clashed with McCarthy ever since he led the effort to oust the former speaker, wrote on X Tuesday that Hunter Biden’s conviction “is kinda dumb tbh.”

That, however, elicited a response from former McCarthy staffer Maggie Howell, who posted on X, without evidence: “That’s because you also love to do cocaine, sleep with prostitutes, and own guns.”

Following his removal from the speakership last fall, McCarthy has escalated his revenge campaign against Gaetz. In a previous interview with POLITICO, McCarthy threw his support behind Gaetz’s primary challenger — who a top McCarthy adviser helped vet — and called the Floridian “the Hunter Biden of the Republican Party.”

McCarthy and his allies have repeatedly used a sex-trafficking probe federal prosecutors launched into Gaetz in late 2020 as fodder to attack Gaetz. Federal authorities began investigating Gaetz over potential sex crimes related to allegations that he paid women for sex and traveled overseas at least once to party with teenagers under the age of 18. The DOJ later closed the probe without filing charges against him, according to his attorneys and Justice Department officials.

Gaetz has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

When asked for comment, Gaetz posted a screenshot of POLITICO’s request on X and wrote, “My pronouns are ‘Removed McCarthy.’”

“Everyone deals with trauma differently. Maggie’s response to being fired after her boss’s removal from the Speakership is coping and seething hysterically on X all day. Quite sad!” Joel Valdez, Gaetz’ campaign manager, wrote in a statement to POLITICO.

Last month, the House Ethics Committee subpoenaed the DOJ for records tied to the panel’s ongoing investigation into Gaetz over allegations of drug abuse and sexual misconduct with a minor.

Gaetz has described the committee’s investigation as retaliation for leading the charge to overthrow McCarthy as speaker. In private, some of McCarthy’s allies have suggested attempting to push Gaetz out from the House pending the panel’s findings, according to previous reports.

Sudan may soon become the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis,” World Food Programme executive director Cindy McCain cautioned Sunday.

The escalating civil war between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group has killed at least 15,000 people and displaced over 8 million since April 2023. Already facing the worst displacement crisis in the world, Sudan is on the brink of the world’s largest hunger crisis, according to the World Food Programme.

In an interview with Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” on CBS, McCain stressed the importance of maintaining safe access and open crossings to transport humanitarian aid as the “forgotten crisis” in Sudan rages on.

“We cannot get food in, we can barely get food in, we certainly aren’t getting it in at scale, and you see the results of what can happen if people aren’t fed. We’re also coming into the lean season, which makes it very difficult many times for our trucks to even operate if they can get in,” McCain said. “We need safe and unfettered access.”

More countries are stepping up to support Sudan as the crisis could have “catastrophic effects” in destabilizing that region of Africa, McCain said. But even with the United States as the largest donor to the World Food Programme, President Joe Biden’s policy on Sudan is struggling amid pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers to do more to help end the war.

McCain also said southern Gaza is on the verge of famine as severe hunger continues to impact the northern area of the strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously denied that Palestinians are starving in Gaza and disputed that Israel is to blame for the lack of humanitarian aid entering the region. Israel has allowed more trucks to access northern Gaza to provide more food, McCain said, but “we need a ceasefire” to prevent famine in the south.

The World Food Programme’s operations are now on pause in Gaza out of concern for the safety of its workers after two warehouses “were rocketed yesterday,” she said. One man was injured, according to McCain, who said she did not know who fired the rockets.

“That’s why a ceasefire is necessary,” McCain said. “We can’t continue this in a way because what almost happened in the north with famine could happen in the south. And so that’s what we're trying to avoid right now.”

“It's very difficult to operate there.”

Days after President Joe Biden apologized to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the delay in U.S. funding to Kyiv, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he is pushing for the seizure of Russian assets to provide additional aid to Ukraine.

“There’s $300 billion sitting in Europe from Russian sovereign wealth assets that we should seize and give to Ukraine. We have Russian money in America we should seize. We should make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law,” Graham told Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

“When I suggested that to President Zelenskyy, he lit up like a Christmas tree,” he added. “Making Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law would be a very big blow to Russia.”

Graham, a longtime Russia hawk, is one of staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the Senate among his party. During months of wrangling in Congress over a $95 million foreign aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Graham was part of a handful of Republicans who flipped their prior opposition to the bill.

He emphasized to Brennan that “we’ve got a chance to reset this war” now that the United States is providing significant aid to Ukraine, including a new $225 million package in military assistance that President Joe Biden announced Friday. Amid Biden’s state visit to France and some simmering disagreement between him and French President Emmanuel Macron on the war in Ukraine, the White House released a joint roadmap Saturday committing to support efforts by the G7 to tap into profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine.

Graham acknowledged, however, that the Biden administration would be unlikely to sign off on his suggestion to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

“Either we’re going to help Ukraine or we’re not. It’s now time to give them the F-16s, let them fly the planes, long-range artillery to hit targets inside of Russia,” Graham said. “Go after Putin’s assets, wherever they’re at, all over the world. Go on the offensive.”

The senator expressed hopes that Ukraine will regain “military momentum” this summer and criticized how “slow” and “indecisive” the United States has been in offering support to Ukraine.

“But if we went after the assets that Putin has all over the world, take his money that’s stolen from the Russian people and help the victims in Ukraine, I think it would do a lot to end this war,” Graham said.