Biden lashes out at Trump, Supreme Court as more Democrats say he should withdraw – Fox News
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President Biden lashed out at former President Trump and the Supreme Court even as reports say Democrats held a private call during which several lawmakers said Biden should withdraw from the race Monday.
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National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on July 8, 2024. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
White House national security spokesman John Kirby fended off questions about President Biden’s mental fitness from the podium Monday.
While trying to convey Biden’s mental acuity, Kirby said earlier that morning the president had asked him a question about the situation on the European continent that he couldn’t answer.
“I told him I had to get back to him,” Kirby said.
The comments had come in response to a reporter who asked whether the National Security spokesman had seen Biden conduct himself behind closed doors the same way the nation saw him during his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump late last month.
A reporter later pressed Kirby on the matter, asking again whether he had seen similar lapses in judgement behind closed doors.
Kirby said he was “uncomfortable” with these types of questions as it was “inappropriate” to respond to in his capacity as a spokesman for the White House.
“In my experience, the last two and a half years, I have not seen any reason whatsoever, to question or doubt his lucidity, his grasp of context, his probing nature, and the degree to which he is completely, in charge of facts and figures,” Kirby said.
On the anecdote for his interaction with the president earlier in the morning, Kirby said he had to “fess up” when he isn’t in command of “facts and figures.”
“And he asked me some questions this morning, I didn’t have answers for,” Kirby said.
US President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Sunday, July 7, 2024. (Getty Images)
President Biden was defiant in a call with donors Monday, saying he would not step down from the presidential race and was “not going anywhere.”
The president held a call with the Biden National Finance Committee, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jenn O’Malley Dillon, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
Fox News Digital is told the president was defiant, saying that people need to stop questioning him and took only four questions.
Many in the call praised Biden, with one saying the would “crawl over broken glass for him” and others saying, “We love you Joe.”
The White House of Monday made a subtle jab at Bloomberg’s Justin Sink who had previously asked whether President Biden would be doing any “big boy” press conferences.
While rattling off Biden’s schedule this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president will hold a “big boy press conference,” as Sink put it, after speaking to national labor leaders of AFL-CIO and hosting a NATO summit.
White House national security communications advisor John Kirby repeated the line again later in the press conference.
“Thursday afternoon, there’ll be a meeting of the NATO Ukraine Council, after which the president will host an event with President Zelensky and nearly two dozen of our allies and partners who have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine, just as the president did. As you saw in Italy a week or so ago. After that, the president will hold a press conference — I guess a big boy press conference is what we’re calling it,” Kirby said.
President Biden’s Monday letter to House Democrats lashed out at Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., the lone Democrat to challenge President Biden and raise the issue of his age during the Democratic primary.
Biden’s letter did not mention Phillips by name, but rather acknowledges his repeated efforts to draw attention to the president’s age and mental capability.
“This was a process open to anyone who wanted to run,” Biden wrote of the primary. “Only three people chose to challenge me. One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent. Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party.”
Biden’s letter also referenced John F. Kennedy Jr., who is currently running as an independent.
During his campaign, Phillips argued it would be “impossible” for Biden to fulfill his office for four more years.
“At that stage of life, it is impossible ultimately to conduct, to prosecute the office of the American presidency in the way that this country in the world needs right now. That is an absolute truth,” Phillips said at the time.
Senior adviser for the Trump campaign Jason Miller said Monday that former President Trump is narrowing down candidates for his running mate and is close to making his final decision, perhaps as soon as this week.
“It’s almost an embarrassment of riches that there are so many good people,” Miller said on “Fox & Friends” Monday of Trump’s choices for running mate. “And what President Trump has said is that whoever he does pick needs to be able to step in and do the job on day one.”
“It’s almost an embarrassment of riches that there are so many good people,” Miller said on “Fox & Friends” Monday of Trump’s choices for running mate. “And what President Trump has said is that whoever he does pick needs to be able to step in and do the job on day one.”
Miller added that Trump has many “great choices” and that the final decision could happen any time between now and the Republican convention starting on July 15.
When asked if Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, or North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are the most serious candidates to be Trump’s running mate, Miller said that “President Trump has discussed even more names than that.”
“What we don’t know is who President Trump and his running mate will be running against,” Miller said. “Ultimately, with all the talk this morning about Joe Biden and whether or not he can hang on in the presidential spot.”
“I look ahead as a campaign strategist to what does that vice presidential debate look like,” Miller said, referencing calls from within the media for Biden to withdraw from the race. “We don’t know if that’s going to be Kamala, or maybe they swap her out for someone who’s even more liberal, more extreme, although that might be tough to do,” Miller said.
Democratic strategist Jon Favreau highlighted polls showing that large majorities of Democrats want to replace President Biden on the ticket Monday.
Favreau, who worked at the White House under former President Obama, rejected Biden’s claim that calls for his withdrawal are only coming from “elite” sources. He cited a pre-debate poll from the New York Times that found 64% of all voters wanted Biden replaced, including 48% of people who planned to vote for Biden.
Roughly 55% of Hispanic voters and 66% of black voters also wanted Biden to withdraw.
Another 69% agreed that President Biden is too old to effectively serve as president.
“This is not an elite thing. This is not a media thing. This is not a one-bad-debate-freakout thing,” Favreau wrote. “The voters have been voicing these concerns for months now. Denying them or dismissing them is not the way to overcome them…”
An interview from January of First Lady Jill Biden defending her husband’s ability to serve is being shared online after President Biden’s shaky debate performance last month.
MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski had asked the first lady during an exclusive interview if she was concerned about the president’s “age and health.”
“He can do it,” Biden said. “I see Joe every day. I see him out traveling around this country. I see his vigor. I see his energy. I see his passion.”
Jill Biden also said her husband’s age was an “asset” because he’s “lived history.”
“His age is an asset,” she said as Brzezinski chuckled. “He’s wise.”
“He has wisdom,” Biden continued. “He has experience. He knows every leader on the world stage. He’s lived history. He knows history. He’s thoughtful in his decisions. He is the right man, the right person for the job at this moment in history.”
This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark
First Lady Jill Biden says she is “all in” on President Biden’s re-election campaign Monday as she plans to make three stops in separate states.
“Joe has made it clear he is all in,” she told the crowd in North Carolina. “That’s the decision he’s made. And just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too.”
The first lady will also make appearances at campaign events in Florida and Georgia later Monday, though Biden himself has no public events on his schedule.
Jill’s declaration of support comes as Biden is working to fend off members of his own party who want him to drop out of the race. His critics say his disastrous performance in the debate against former President Trump proves he is no longer fit to hold office.
Biden has so far rejected calls to withdrawal, writing a letter to House Democrats urging them to drop the issue earlier Monday.
President Biden is urging congressional Democrats to stop questioning whether he should end his re-election bid and “move forward as a unified party” in order to defeat former President Trump in their 2024 election rematch.
And the president, in a letter sent to congressional Democrats on Monday as they return from the July 4th holiday recess, reiterated that he’s “firmly committed to staying in this race” and argued that any further questioning of his candidacy “only helps Trump and hurts us.”
Following his extremely rough debate performance a week and a half ago in his first face-to-face showdown with Trump, the president has been attempting to prove that he still has the stamina and acuity to handle the toughest and most demanding job in the world. And he’s trying to prove that he has the fortitude to defeat Trump.
The debate was a major setback for Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in the nation’s history. His halting delivery and stumbling answers at the showdown in Atlanta sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and a rising tide of public and private calls from within his own party for him to step aside as its 2024 standard-bearer.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser
President Biden has no public events scheduled Monday following his call-in interview with MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ despite First Lady Jill Biden hitting the campaign trail hard.
The First Lady will attend three separate campaign events on Monday, traveling to Wilmington, North Carolina; Tampa, Florida and Columbus, Georgia.
Biden’s lack of public events comes as he faces unprecedented scrutiny over his mental health and fitness for office. He wrote a defiant letter to Congressional Democrats reaffirming his commitment to the race and demanding an end to party drama.
:I’m more than the presumptive nominee. I’m gonna been the Democratic nominee,” Biden said
Veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod ramped up his criticism of President Biden’s 2024 campaign on Monday, suggesting former President Trump is hoping to keep Biden as an opponent.
“Trump’s not talking much about Biden’s bad debate,” Axelrod wrote on Twitter. “Trump’s campaign is not blitzing ads about it. And Lara Trump said last week it would be an affront to democracy if Biden were not the nominee. Question: Why do you think they are uncharacteristically holding fire?”
Multiple media figures and Biden allies have called on the president to withdraw from the race after a devastating debate performance last month.
“There are certain immutable facts of life,” Axelrod said in an interview with CNN while discussing Biden’s age and leadership. “Those were painfully obvious on that debate stage. The president just … hasn’t come to grips with it. He’s not winning this race.”
“He seems not to grasp what the big concern is that people have,” Axelrod said.
Axelrod, who formerly served as President Obama’s chief campaign strategist, said that Biden is used to fighting “his way back from political defeats and against the odds.”
Former President Donald Trump will sit down on Monday for his first interview following the debate against President Biden.
The interview with Trump will air on July 8 at 9 PM ET on “Hannity.” Host Sean Hannity is expected to ask the former president about growing calls for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race.
The former president previously appeared for an interview on Hannity to discuss the state of the country and his political campaign after he was found guilty last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records in NY v. Trump.
Hannity asked the former president what he would say to people who believe he wants retribution and will use the justice system to go after his political adversaries if he returns to the White House in 2025.
“No. 1, they’re wrong,” Trump replied. “It has to stop, because otherwise, we’re not going to have a country. Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it’s easy, because it’s Joe Biden and you see all the criminality, all of the money that’s going into the family and him, all of this money from China, from Russia, from Ukraine.”
On Thursday, Trump challenged Biden to another debate, this time with a catch: no moderators.
In a Truth Social post, Trump requested a “no holds barred” and “all on” discussion with Biden about the future of the country.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News’ Nikolas Lanum
President Biden lashed out at Democrats calling for him to drop out of the race on Monday, calling into MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ to share his thoughts.
Biden, defiant and often sounding angry, demanded that his fellow Democrats cut off talk of replacing him as the party’s nominee to go against former President Trump.
“I’m more than presumptive. I’m gonna be the Democratic nominee,” Biden said.
Host Mika Brzezinski questioned Biden about his catastrophic performance in the debate against Trump, and asked whether he had received any cognitive tests afterward.
Biden brushed off the question, however, saying he is tested “every day” by working as president. It was at least the second time Biden has dodged questions about taking a mental competency test in recent days.
The president went on to decry the “elites,” who he says are the only ones calling for him to step aside. He challenged critics to run against him at the Democratic National Convention later this month.
Joe Biden (Getty Images)
President Biden reaffirmed his commitment to his 2024 campaign in a letter to Congressional Democrats on Monday.
The letter rebuked Democratic lawmakers who have called for Biden to withdraw following his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump. Biden urged Democrats to drop the issue and move forwarded in a united fashion.
“This morning, I sent a letter to my fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill. In it, I shared my thoughts about this moment in our campaign. It’s time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump,” Biden wrote.
Biden writes in the letter that he “declines” to step aside and argued it is time for the party drama “to end.”
The letter comes after several high ranking Democrats called on Biden to drop out of the race in a private meeting this weekend.
Hollywood director, actor and major Democratic Party donor Rob Reiner called on President Biden to withdraw from the race on Sunday, joining a long list of high-profile supporters who’ve urged the president to step aside following his debate fiasco last month.
“It’s time to stop f—ing around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to step down,” Reiner posted on X.
The director of “When Harry Met Sally” has been a longtime supporter and donor of the Democratic Party.
He previously praised Biden as a “decent law abiding person” while characterizing former President Trump as a “pathologically lying criminal.”
Reiner’s call for Biden to withdraw comes shortly after he hosted a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris, Deadline reported. The Los Angeles event took place two days after Biden’s politically devastating debate, in which the president was seen visibly confused at times, mouth agape, and frequently unable to complete sentences.
Biden’s performance has caused widespread concern about his candidacy among Democrats who now believe he is not equipped to govern for another four years, let alone defeat Trump in November. An onslaught of media outlets and high-profile Democrats have since called for him to step aside from re-election, and more reports have emerged of behind-the-scenes decline. Biden has insisted he is staying in the race.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News’ Yael Halon
Former President Trump’s approval rating has surpassed 50%, as the presumptive Republican nominee leads President Biden on voters’ top two issues, according to a new poll.
The poll by USA TODAY/Suffolk University was conducted on a sample of 1,000 registered voters between June 28 and 30, after Biden’s stalled and stumbling debate performance against Trump sent shock waves through the Democratic Party. It shows 51% of respondents said they approve of Trump’s job performance as president from 2017 to 2021, compared to 41% who said they approve of Biden’s current job performance.
Regarding two of the top issues of the 2024 campaign, the economy and immigration, more registered voters said they believed Trump would do a better job than Biden.
The poll found 53% of registered voters trust Trump to handle immigration compared to 40% who said the same for Biden.
Respondents also viewed Trump as more capable than Biden of handling national security, 52% to 42%, and on dealing with China, 51% to 41%.
Biden scored higher than Trump on just two of the six key issues the poll asked about: race relations and healthcare. The poll found 51% of registered voters believed Biden is the better candidate to handle race relations, compared to 41% who said the same for Trump. On healthcare, Biden scored better than Trump, 50% to 40%.
Trump is leading Biden overall 41% to 38%, a three point jump for the Republican since USA TODAY’s previous poll in May, though that’s within the bounds of the poll’s 3.1% margin of error.
President Biden, reeling from a disastrous debate performance and calls to step aside, addressed a Black church service in Pennsylvania on Sunday, acknowledging the “world’s looking to America.”
Speaking from a stage at Mount Airy Church of God in Christ in northwest Philadelphia, the 81-year-old Biden laughed off concerns about his age, joking, “I know I look 40” but “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“I, honest to God, have never been more optimistic about America’s future if we stick together,” Biden said.
The president, later on in his remarks, also addressed the upcoming NATO summit in Washington, D.C.
“I’m about to host the NATO nations in Washington. We put them together,” Biden said. “The world’s looking to us. Not a joke. The world is looking to America not to carry their burden, but to lead their hopes.”
“When I ran for the first time for president, I said something basic. I said, we have to bring back dignity and hope in America, number one,” the president added, wrapping up his remarks.
“Number two, we have to give working class and middle class people, like the family I came from, a shot and build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down,” Biden said. “And thirdly, we must unite America again. That’s my goal. That’s what we’re going to do. God bless you all and may God bless our troops.”
This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News’ Danielle Wallace
President Biden is relying on his allies in the black caucus and unions as his last line of defense amid his crumbling campaign, according to a new report from Politico.
Biden is facing growing calls to withdraw from the race from members of his own party, though lawmakers in the black caucus have so far remained staunchly in his camp. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., urged her fellow caucus members to support Biden during a call this week.
“The people Joe Biden fights for — middle-class labor union members, Blacks, Latinos — they know he fights for them and they’re going to stay in the fight for him,” Biden adviser Anita Dunn told the outlet.
Biden’s loyalists say the Democratic base has no desire to see Biden leave the race, arguing that drama over his candidacy is limited to Washington.
White House staff remain in a dour mood following President Biden’s debate performance, and many have now turned to gossip about anonymous senior staffers who have been cited in the New York Times and elsewhere saying the president should drop out of his race.
The staffer was described by the Times as having worked with Biden during his presidency, vice presidency and 2020 campaign. When asked about the individual, one senior White House official told CNN, “They shouldn’t be in the White House. Period.”
The staffer went on to insist that no one in the White House is considering the possibility of Biden dropping out. Nevertheless, reports of a somber mood at the West Wing and executive offices continue to spill out into the public.
“They’re just kind of: ‘He’s in.’ They’re not veering off that, because once that cracks, that cracks hard,” one senior Democrat in close contact with both White House and campaign officials told CNN.
FIRST ON FOX – House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is demanding that the White House physician appear before Congress to answer questions on President Biden’s “declining mental state,” while also revealing that the doctor has been involved in the Biden family’s business dealings.
Fox News Digital obtained the letter Comer, R-Ky., sent to Dr. Kevin O’Connor on Sunday. Comer is seeking to question O’Connor, given his “connections” with the Biden family, on whether he is “in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the President’s fitness to serve.”
Comer wants to know whether O’Connor’s medical assessments of the president have been improperly influenced by his work with the Biden family with the company Americore.
“After a concerning debate performance by President Biden against former President Donald Trump on June 27, journalists have rushed to report on what Americans have seen plainly for years: the President appears unwell,” Comer wrote.
Comer said that because Americans have been questioning Biden’s “ability to lead the country,” his committee has been investigating circumstances surrounding O’Connor’s February assessment of the president.
Comer noted that O’Connor determined in February that the president “is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old-male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
Comer, though, pointed to reports that O’Connor did not recommend that Biden take a cognitive test.
“The Oversight Committee is concerned your medical assessments have been influenced by your private business endeavors with the Biden family,” Comer wrote.
This is an excerpt of an article by Fox News’ Brooke Singman
White House staffers plan out President Biden’s movements down to the most minute detail even for the simplest of events, providing the president with photos and instructions in large text about where he should go and what he should do, according to a new report from Axios.
In one instance, a pair of photos show the path from a back stage area toward a podium, and instructions read “WALK TO PODIUM” in a bold font.
“It surprised me that a seasoned political pro like the president would need detailed verbal and visual instructions on how to enter and exit a room,” one person who has staffed an event for Biden in the past 18 months told Axios.
“I staffed a simple fundraiser at a private residence, but they treated it like it was a NATO summit with his movements,” the person added.
The White House argued the planning was hardly out of the ordinary for US presidents, however.
“If individuals are not accustomed to seeing advance teams work, that would be a common reaction, whoever the principal is,” the White House told Axios in a statement.
The development comes as Democrats confidence in Biden’s fitness for office continues to crumble in the wake of his catastrophic debate performance against former President Trump.
A reckoning looms. Mark it on your calendar. It will begin Monday night on Capitol Hill.
Maybe punctuated by a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus Tuesday morning. Augmented by the customary Senate Democratic Caucus luncheon Tuesday afternoon.
The reckoning will slip into Wednesday and perhaps Thursday.
We will learn where Democrats stand with President Biden during this reckoning. And we may even learn whether the president is staying in the race or standing down.
It is said that timing is everything. And Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats certainly couldn’t have had worse timing over the past week-plus.
President Biden and fellow Democrats had since 2021 or even 2022 to figure out whether the president was truly a “transitional figure” (as Biden characterized himself) or if it was time to go with someone else. Not after the party burned through the primaries. It shouldn’t have taken until the earliest presidential debate in American history to have a debate of another sort – even though the president’s team pushed for the date and the format of the recent forum on CNN.
That turned out to be poor timing.
The worst thing to happen to Democrats is that the House met last Friday, just hours after the political brownfields site which doubled as the debate stage in Atlanta. That meant that the Capitol Hill press corps spent all Friday morning chasing every House Democrat imaginable through the halls of Congress, peppering them with questions about Biden’s performance.
Never before were Democratic senators so glad the Senate was out that day. In fact, the Senate didn’t meet at all last week.
The worst thing politically for Biden was that the House and Senate were both out over the past week. Congressional Democrats were petrified after the president’s performance at the debate. But the fact that Democrats only had to endure tough questions from reporters at the Capitol for one day bought Biden time he didn’t have. Congress doesn’t return until Monday, and while apprehension about the president intensified, the recess muted those reservations and paused demands for Biden to possibly bow out.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News’ Chad Pergram
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2024 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.