Another Dem lawmaker calls on Biden to drop out of the race, warns of ‘utter catastrophe’
Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., joined a growing list of Democratic lawmakers who are calling for President Biden to exit the presidential race.
“Mr. President, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude,” Quigley told MSNBC. “The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this.”
The representative’s comments come days after he suggested the President take into account the down ballot effects of his debate fiasco.
On Tuesday, Quigley responded to concerns about Biden’s leadership as a growing number of media voices called on the president to withdraw after his poor debate with former President Trump.
“I think [Biden’s] four years are one of the great presidencies of our lifetime,” Quigley said on CNN. “But, I think he has to be honest with himself.”
Fox News Digital’s Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report.
Ahead of President Biden’s taped interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., called on the Commander in Chief to participate in an extended live interview as soon as possible.
“I look forward to seeing President Biden’s taped interview with George Stephanopoulos,” Sherman posted on X. “It’s important that the President also have an extended LIVE interview as soon as possible.”
The lawmaker continued by saying despite popular belief, Democratic Party rules do not require pledged delegates to vote for Biden at the Democratic National Convention, scheduled to take place from Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, Illinois.
“Party rules require delegates’ votes, ‘reflect the sentiments of those who elected them,’ at the time the delegates cast their ballots,” Sherman wrote. “Democratic Primary voters have on overarching sentiment: We need a candidate who will beat Donald Trump.”
Sherman joins a growing list of Democratic lawmakers who are beginning to doubt Biden can beat Trump in the upcoming presidential election, after last week’s poor debate performance.
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden if he watched last week’s debate, to which he replied, “I don’t think I did.”
Stephanopoulos sat down with Biden for an interview which will air on ABC at 8 p.m.
A part of the interview was aired on “World News,” in which the president was asked about the debate.
Stephanopoulos asked Biden if the night of the debate was a bad episode or a sign of a more serious condition.
“It’s a bad episode,” Biden said. “No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing. It was a bad night.”
The ABC host asked Biden why there was not enough time to prepare, given the fact that the President returned from Europe 11 to 12 days before the debate and spent six days at Camp David.
“Because I was sick, I was feeling terrible,” Biden said, explaining that he was tested for COVID and other infections, but it was determined he had a “really bad cold.”
After Biden acknowledged he was sick and had a bad night, Stephanopoulos asked him if he watched the debate afterwards.
“I don’t think I did, no,” Biden replied.
Still, Biden accused President Trump of lying 28 times. But in terms of how the debate ran, Biden said it was “no one else’s fault but mine”
The full interview is scheduled to air on ABC at 8 p.m. on Friday.
President Biden said Friday he was completely ruling out the option of dropping out of the race and that he had spoken to at least 20 members of Congress who told him to continue with his campaign.
The president spoke at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, and before leaving on Air Force One, he answered a few questions from reporters.
One reporter asked Biden if he was going to drop out of the presidential race or if he was ruling that out.
Biden told the reporter he was “completely ruling that out,” and when asked if he had spoke to members of Congress, he confirmed that he had.
But the President would not say who he had spoken to, only saying he had spoken to at least 20.
When asked what the members of Congress told him to do, Biden said, “They’re telling me to stay in the race.”
Adding onto that, Biden fielded a question about Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who is reportedly pooling together a group of Democratic lawmakers to go over to the White House on Monday and try to convince the president to bow out.
“Mark Warner, in my understanding, is the only one considering that,” Biden said
Andy Sabin said he and other major Republican donors want President Biden to remain in the race, adding they see a “landslide victory” if that remains to be the case.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto interviewed Sabin during “Your World” on Friday afternoon, and during the show, Cavuto said donors typically begin to pull back when they feel there is little chance the candidate they are backing has a shot.
Sabin, Cavuto said, was backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis early in the Republican race, but when donors started to back off, the governor bowed out of the race. The host then asked if the same type of thing, in terms of donors backing out, was happening with Democrats, but on a larger scale.
“We, the Republican donors, would like to see Joe Biden stay in the race,” Sabin said. “We see a landslide victory. We see him bringing in the down ticket, the Senate and the House.”
Sabin also said he has already posted Trump signs in his yard, in the left-leaning town of East Hampton, on the East End of Long Island.
He also said the Vice Presidential pick is “extremely important,” expressing his desire to have Tim Scott on the ticket with Trump in November.
A man held a sign reading, “Pass the Torch, Joe,” as President Biden
spoke at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday.
The president was met by a crowd that held Biden-Harris campaign signs when he took to the stage on Friday afternoon.
But mixed into the background was a guy holding a hand-written white sign, reading, “ Pass the Torch, Joe.”
This came as some members of the Democratic Party are looking for the president to step out of the race, fearing he will not be able to beat former President Trump in November.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is working to gather a group of Democratic senators and ask President Biden to step out of the presidential race, according to reports.
The Washington Post reported that two people familiar with Warner’s effort claim he is saying to other Democratic senators that Biden cannot remain in the election after his poor debate performance last week.
Warner also reportedly told lawmakers he is concerned Biden will not be able to beat former President Trump.
The senator’s spokesperson told the Washington Post, “Like many other people in Washington and across the country, Senator Warner believes these are critical days for the president’s campaign, and he has made that clear to the White House.”
Still, the spokesperson did not deny or confirm if Warner thinks the president needs to drop out.
President Biden, while speaking at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, answered critics who are calling on him to bow out of the race, saying he is running and will “win again in 2020,” moments after blasting former President Trump for misspeaking five years ago.
Biden acknowledged his performance in a debate against former President Donald Trump last week was not his best performance, adding since then, there has been a lot of speculation about what he plans to do.
“What’s Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? Is he going to drop out? What are you going to do?” Biden told the crowd. “Well, here’s my answer: I am running and I’m going to win again.”
He continued, saying some are trying to “push” him out of the race.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race,” Biden firmly said. “I’ll beat Donald Trump. I will beat him again in 2020. By the way, we’re going to do it again in 2024. Yeah, I learned long ago, when you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Moments before misspeaking, Biden slammed Trump for a statement he made in 2019 about the Revolutionary War.
Biden brought up a speech Trump made where he claimed George Washington won the Revolution by “taking control of the airports from the British.”
“Talk about me misspeaking, airports and the British, in 1776,” Biden said. “It’s true. He is a stable genius.”
The Trump camp did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Biden also said he was not going to let a 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work, before boasting about changes he made.
The president also spoke to critics who say he is too old to be president.
“You probably also noticed a lot of discussion about my age,” Biden said. “I know I look 40. I keep seeing all those stories about I’m being too old. Let me say something…I wasn’t too old to create over 15 million new jobs.”
The comments come as members of the Democratic Party have called on the president to step out of the presidential race after a poor debate performance between he and former President Trump.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, publicly urged President Biden to listen to the American people and look into whether he is the best person for the party to defeat former President Trump in the November election.
“President Biden saved our democracy in 2020 and has done an outstanding job over the last four years,” Healey said in a statement distributed by her political committee. “I am deeply grateful for his leadership. And I know he agrees this is the most important election of our lifetimes.”
The governor acknowledged the President has to decide what the best way forward is for the Democratic Party.
“Over the coming days, I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump,” she said. “Whatever President Biden decides, I am committed to doing everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump.”
Healey is the first governor to make a public statement suggesting Biden exit the race, and her comments come after she and other Democratic governors met with the president at the White House.
While she is the first governor to publicly make such statements, several members of the Democratic Party have begun calling for the president to take a bow and let another candidate take on Trump in November.
This week, three House Democrats publicly called on Biden to step aside from his re-election bid, while more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress and governors publicly raised serious concerns about whether Biden could continue as the party’s standard-bearer.
Facing a slew of red flags in post-debate public opinion polls and a growing chorus of prominent Democrats urging the president to quickly decide whether he can successfully continue his campaign, the next few days could potentially make or break Biden.
White House aides and staffers involved with President Biden’s debate preparations now claim that the president’s “cold” was worse than previously known.
In the immediate aftermath of Biden’s widely-panned debate performance
, the Biden communications team told reporters that a cold was to blame for the president’s raspy voice and difficulty stringing sentences together versus former President Trump.
Now, with mounting concerns over the 81-year-old president’s age and Democratic officials calling on Biden to step aside, Politico reports that Biden’s illness “was more physically uncomfortable and disruptive to debate preparations” than the White House had said.
“Biden woke up with a bad cold two days before the debate and could barely speak, according to five people with knowledge of the prep sessions at Camp David,” Politico reported. “He did a short mock debate with a small group of aides before going back to his room to rest, canceling the additional prep sessions that day.”
The lost day forced Biden’s team to cram another prep session in on Thursday, before the president flew to Atlanta for the debate. But aides had no idea at the time how Biden’s performance would cause a political earthquake.
“Watching his first answer, I thought: He’s visibly nervous. It was the combination of nerves, the cramming in of all the prep at the end and then the cold,” said one of the people familiar with the preparations, according to Politico. “That’s how we got where we are.”
Despite the purported severity of Biden’s illness, White House staff made no public mention of the cold until midway through the debate, and by then it was too late to prepare the American people for what they saw.
Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., slammed the Biden campaign for its response to criticism of President Biden’s debate performance last week.
Peters called Biden’s re-election team “arrogant” following last Thursday’s debate, which has led to calls from many within the party and liberal media for Biden to suspend his 2024 presidential campaign.
“We needed a boost from Thursday. We didn’t get it. And the campaign has been very, I think, arrogant in their response,” Peters said during a Wednesday interview with CBS 8 San Diego.
In the face of mounting pressure to drop out, the president and his allies have insisted that Biden will stay the course and beat former President Trump in November. During the White House July 4th celebrations, Biden said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
When asked whether the president would drop out of the race, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recently replied, “absolutely not.”
Peters, who refused to say whether he wants Biden to step down, told the CBS affiliate, “As much as I love Joe Biden, in those swing states, he’s having a hard time.”
A New England Democrat has said that President Biden should “step aside” and do as former President Washington did to make way for new leaders.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D–Mass., joined the growing list of liberals calling for Biden to end his re-election bid after the recent presidential debate in Atlanta.
Concerns over Biden’s cognitive health following his performance at the debate sparked growing calls among Democrats for the president to drop out of the race.
“President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s footsteps, and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump,” Moulton told WBUR Thursday.
Moulton was referring to when President Washington voluntarily stepped down from the role in 1797 after eight years, setting the precedent that a president should only serve two terms in office.
The congressman joins at least two other Democratic representatives in officially calling for the president to step down as the nominee.
Anonymous Democratic lawmakers admitted that President Biden has long shown signs of cognitive decline in their interactions with him, as Biden faces increasing pressure to drop out of the race following his shaky debate performance.
“The country saw [at the debate] what those of us who have had personal interactions with him have all known for the last 2½ years,” one Democratic senator told NBC News.
Biden’s halting performance at the debate last week reinforced concerns about his age and fitness for office that have been growing for months. The Biden campaign has been working damage control with major donors this past week, as political allies, high-profile donors, media pundits and editorial boards demand he step down.
Another Democratic lawmaker told NBC News that as many as 40 Democratic lawmakers have been texting one another since the debate, each one believing it’s time for the president to bow out.
Biden has resisted these calls thus far, telling a supporter at the White House July 4 celebration on Thursday that he’s “not going anywhere.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also faced an onslaught of questions about Biden’s fitness for office at Wednesday’s press briefing. She said the administration has been “transparent” about Biden’s health and dismissed the debate as a “bad night.”
However, anonymous Democratic lawmakers in the NBC report said the president’s debate performance wasn’t a one-off and was consistent with concerning behavior they’ve seen throughout his term.
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos landed President Biden’s first interview since his disastrous debate performance, putting a spotlight on the longtime host’s partisan past and recent on-air editorials.
Stephanopoulos’ ties to Democrats run deep; he rose to political prominence decades ago as a top aide in Bill Clinton’s White House.
In 1994, a New Republic feature headlined, “The Kids Are Alright: Well, sort of. In Praise of the Stephanopoulites,” detailed Stephanopoulos’ close friendship with Ron Klain, who went on to be a longtime ally of Biden’s.
His relationship with the Clintons became a sore spot during the 2016 presidential cycle, when Stephanopoulos was caught giving money to the Clinton Foundation and had to recuse himself from hosting primary debates.
Stephanopoulos joined ABC after resigning from the Clinton White House shortly after the president’s 1996 re-election. He swiftly rose through the ranks as an analyst and correspondent and now hosts “This Week” and “Good Morning America.”
In 2018, Stephanpoulous’ high-profile interview with former FBI Director James Comey, the first interview Comey gave since his abrupt firing by then-President Trump a year earlier, was heavily criticized for a massive editing job. The full transcript released by ABC News revealed it chose not to air several key moments during its Sunday night special, such as when Comey ripped former President Barack Obama.
In 2020, Stephanopoulos failed to ask then-candidate Biden about his son Hunter’s scandalous laptop during an ABC town hall in the days leading up to the presidential election.
Earlier that year, Stephanopoulos was caught on camera making a throat-slash gesture as ABC cut away from then-President Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow taking questions from the press during coverage of Trump’s first Senate impeachment trial.
During the 2024 election cycle, Stephanopoulos ratcheted up his hostility towards Trump, sparring with several Republicans for vowing to support their party’s presumptive nominee.
Trump is currently suing Stephanopoulos for defamation after he said several times on air that the former president was “found liable for rape” when Trump was actually found civilly liable for sexual abuse in the Carroll case. ABC has stood by Stephanopoulos.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Brian Flood contributed to this update.
Daily Caller columnist Will Pierce
, a former Biden supporter and Democratic campaign fundraiser, told “Fox & Friends” Friday that the DNC is facing a potential election disaster as prominent party donors declare their checkbooks are closed until the president is replaced on the 2024 ticket.
“I would be in a panic mode, because this is the thing – you know, as we’re going into Q3, this is make or break when it comes to fundraising for political fundraising. And now that you have these donors that are leaving, where’s this money coming from? If you’re Democratic staff or the Democratic committee overall, how are you going to fund not only the top of the race, but your down ticket races?” Pierce said.
“It’s just a very disastrous thing. And right now, the Democratic Party, instead of stepping up and saying, ‘Hey, what’s good for the party and for the country,’ they’re looking to say, ‘Oh, no, let’s just have Biden serve.’ It’s a very ridiculous moment right now.”
Fox News Staff contributed to this update.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom dodged the question when a reporter asked if he would support Vice President Kamala Harris should President Biden drop out of the 2024 race.
“Yeah, I don’t even like playing in the hypothetical, because last night was about sort of locking down any doubt or ambiguity. And then we start running in different directions, zig zag, you know, all that kind of speculation and that gets in the way of progress,” Newsom said Thursday while in South Haven, Michigan, for an appearance at the Van Buren County Democratic Party’s Fourth of July reception.
Pundits have floated Newsom as a potential alternative to Biden, should the 81-year-old president decide against continuing his re-election campaign after his disastrous performance at the CNN Presidential Debate. But first he would have to upset Harris, who is Biden’s heir apparent.
Rather than affirm his support for the vice president, Newsom called the question a distraction.
“It’s a legitimate question that I respect and appreciate it. But if you can appreciate my point of view that it’s very unhelpful and it’s exactly the question and answer that the Republican Party right now wants us to have in that kind of two way conversation, give and take. I’m not going to play into that. Joe Biden’s our president, he said he’s all in. I double down, saying I’m all in. And not only that, I’m here with you to prove it.”
Liberal magazine The Economist
stunned social media users on July 4th with an eye-popping new cover story that slammed President Biden over his age and fitness for office.
Most notably, the cover story featured an image of an elderly person’s walker with a presidential seal on it next to the words: “No way to run a country.”
“Oh my, The Economist goes for the jugular,” BBC journalist Julia Macfarlane posted to X on Thursday.
Shared on X, the outlet’s new cover gained significant attention on the platform, getting over 1 million views in just a few hours. In addition to the provocative cover image, The Economist’s corresponding piece — a column from the editorial board — took Biden to task for his debate performance, stating it proved he is “unfit” to be president.
The board began by stating, “It was agony to watch a befuddled old man struggling to recall words and facts. His inability to land an argument against a weak opponent was dispiriting. But the operation by his campaign to deny what tens of millions of Americans saw with their own eyes is more toxic than either, because its dishonesty provokes contempt.”
It continued, “Democrats argue, rightly, that Mr Trump is unfit to be president. But the debate and its aftermath have proved Mr Biden unfit, too. First, because of his mental decline. Mr Biden can still appear dynamic during short, scripted appearances. But you cannot run a superpower by autocue. And you cannot put an international crisis on hold because the president is having a bad night.”
“Should someone who cannot finish a sentence about Medicare be trusted with the nuclear codes?” the outlet also asked.
The editorial followed several others published by The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution urging Biden to drop his re-election bid following the CNN Presidential Debate against former President Trump on June 27.
Fox News Digital’s Gabriel Hays contributed to this update.
An Axios reporter said Thursday that that one of the keys to remaining a longtime member of President Biden’s staff is not delivering bad news.
Axios reporter Alex Thompson suggested that there was something conspicuous about how some specific aides were reportedly blamed for the president’s debate debacle that has prompted calls for him to drop out of the 2024 race.
President Biden’s family reportedly blamed certain members of his staff for his rocky debate performance last week. “The family’s criticism was directed specifically toward Anita Dunn, the senior adviser who frequently has the president’s ear; her husband, Bob Bauer, the president’s attorney who played Donald Trump in rehearsals at Camp David; and Ron Klain, the former chief of staff who ran point on the debate prep and previous cycles’ sessions,” Politico reported, citing sources briefed on the family’s conversations.
“I do find it really striking the fact that, you know, Anita and Bob, while their names are being out there and blamed, they’re also the ones that have been around him for the shortest amount of time,” Thompson said on CNN. “And I mean, they’ve been with him since 2015, but you know, Steve Ricchetti, Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon have been with them for decades and are not being blamed in this conversation, which is really striking.”
While the reporter said that the latter set of aides have been credited for being able to “speak truth to power” there is a “feeling among a lot of Biden world that they are much less willing to do that to Joe Biden than Anita and Bob and Ron Klain have been.”
He argued that “part of this is because there’s a culture within parts of Biden world that if you raise problems, that it can be deemed as potentially disloyal.”
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this update.
President Biden told a crowd of supporters on the Fourth of July that he has no plans to drop out of the election, despite continued struggles and gaffes during unscripted events.
The president delivered his July 4th remarks on Thursday from the White House’s South Lawn. He spoke with the aid of a teleprompter largely without incident — with the notable exception of one moment he went off-script.
“I was in that World War I cemetery in France — the one that one of our colleagues, the former president, didn’t want to go and be up there. I probably shouldn’t say,” Biden said to the White House audience. “At any rate, we got to just remember who the hell we are. We’re the United States of America.”
But the Biden campaign is unbothered by the president’s gaffes and has doubled-down on its assertion that he will stay in the race.
At one point, a South Lawn attendee called out in support of Biden from the crowd, saying, “Keep up the fight. We need you!”
Biden responded, “You got me, man. I’m not going anywhere.”
Fox News Digital’s Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this update.
Former President Trump on Thursday challenged President Biden to another debate, this time with 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.
“Let Joe explain why he wants Open Borders, with millions of people, and many violent criminals from parts unknown, pouring into our once great Nation, or why he wants Men Playing in Women’s Sports, or demand ALL ELECTRIC VEHICLES within five years, or why he allowed INFLATION TO RUN RAMPANT, destroying the people of our Country, and so much more. It would also, under great pressure, prove his ‘competence,’ or lack thereof. Likewise it would be yet another test for me. What a great evening it would be, just the two of us, one on one, in a good, old fashioned Debate, the way they used to be. ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!!!”
ABC News is scheduled to host the second debate between Biden and Trump on Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 9 p.m. ET. The network has not yet announced the moderators for that debate.
A Democratic senator who discussed the party’s movement toward Vice President Kamala Harris as the best alternative candidate to President Biden explained their reasoning with an extended football metaphor.
The unnamed lawmaker told CNN that Biden is like a star quarterback who needs to be taken off the field and Harris his backup.
“We start talking in the huddle: ‘Do we put in the backup QB?’ The backup knows our team, the backup knows the plays, the backup has played in the NFL,” the senator said. “The crowd in the stands full of passionate fans starts chanting: ‘Put in the kid from Alabama!’ ‘Put in the QB from Wisconsin!’ All just because the backup threw an interception earlier. But we know the backup and have confidence in them.”
The senator said some fans, i.e. Democratic donors and party strategists, want to draft unproven talents, like Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, to run a national campaign without the experience Harris has already having done so.
“I just want to say to all the fans: ‘Do you not get that they’ve only played college, they’ve never played a single play in the NFL? They don’t know our team or the plays?’” the senator said. “The players are like, ‘That’s nuts. Let’s see if our star quarterback is coming back.’ But if he doesn’t, the idea of our suddenly drafting someone from a school with a different playbook who hasn’t played a single game in the NFL is a huge risk.”
A New York Magazine article published Thursday described multiple instances indicating President Biden’s decline has been treated like a “dark family secret for many elite supporters,” such as him not remembering the names of longtime friends.
President Biden’s widely criticized performance in last week’s debate has opened the floodgates of commentators questioning his ability to serve. New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi added to the pile-on in a grim piece headlined, “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden”, based on months of interviews that caused a major stir on social media.
Among numerous accounts of her work covering Biden in the past few years, Nuzzi wrote that those “who encountered the president in social settings sometimes left their interactions disturbed. Longtime friends of the Biden family, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, were shocked to find that the president did not remember their names.”
She wrote one account of a guest who had attended a White House event last year, who allegedly realized Biden would not be able to make it through the entire reception, making the guest suddenly “open to an idea that they had previously dismissed as right-wing propaganda: The president may not really be the acting president after all.”
As he frantically fights to salvage his campaign following last week’s disastrous debate performance, the next couple of days may determine if President Biden can survive or fall victim to a rising tide of calls from within his own party to end his re-election bid.
The tests for the 81-year-old president begin on Friday, as he aims to prove that he has the fortitude to defeat former President Trump in their 2024 election rematch.
First up is a rally Friday afternoon in battleground Wisconsin, which will be followed by a sit-down interview with ABC News that will run in prime time on network television. On Sunday, the president and First Lady Jill Biden appear in Pennsylvania, another key swing state he needs to carry to win re-election.
Through it all, the oldest president in the nation’s history will need to show Americans that he still has the stamina and acuity to handle the toughest and most demanding job in the world.
It’s a test Biden decidedly failed last week in Atlanta, Georgia, after his halting delivery and stumbling answers during the debate with Trump sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and spurred calls from political pundits, editorial writers and some party donors for Biden to step aside as the party’s 2024 standard-bearer.
This week, three House Democrats publicly called on Biden to step aside from his re-election bid, while more than a dozen Democratic members of Congress and governors publicly raised serious concerns about whether Biden could continue as the party’s standard-bearer.
Facing a slew of red flags in post-debate public opinion polls and a growing chorus of prominent Democrats urging the president to quickly decide whether he can successfully continue his campaign, the next few days could potentially make or break Biden.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this update.
An Axios report that details how White House aides are “miserable” as Democratic Party influencers call on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race revealed new details into the protective cocoon around the 81-year-old chief executive.
Officials quoted in the report said Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, the first lady’s close adviser Anthony Bernal, and longtime aide Ashley Williams have been assisting Biden when he has a mental lapse.
Once dismissed as normal lapses for any president, now longtime aides wonder if the president’s staff has been hiding the severity of his mental decline from voters.
“Annie, Ashley and Anthony create a protective bubble around POTUS. He’s staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence,” a former Biden aide told Axios. “POTUS relies on staff to nudge him with reminders of who he’s meeting, including former staffers and advisers who Biden should easily remember without a reminder from Annie.”
In a statement, White House spokesman Andrew Bates pushed back on the claims.
“These are standard processes for any White House, regardless of president or party. The claims about these individuals — whose professionalism and character are respected across the administration — are inaccurate,” Bates said.
Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram reports that while many Democrats are afraid President Biden could hurt the party down ballot, many still believe it would be too messy to abandon Biden.
So far, just two House Democrats have officially called on Biden to exit the race. They are Reps. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.
“I’m going to support [Biden], but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility of keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race,” Grijalva said Wednesday.
There are multiple letters circulating among Democratic lawmakers that would call for Biden to step aside in favor of another, likely younger candidate.
Efforts have included both vulnerable Democrats in swing districts and left-wing lawmakers in safe seats, sources told Fox News Digital.
“Everyone is guarded now,” one senior House Democratic member told Fox News. “People may be just doing what they believe is best for them.”
Axios senior media reporter Sara Fischer, a CNN senior media analyst, argued on the network Thursday that President Biden’s upcoming ABC interview won’t be enough to fix his reputation with the American people following last week’s debate.
Biden’s performance in the CNN Presidential Debate has sent some in the Democratic Party into a panic about his chances in November against former President Trump. The president’s appearance and gaffes fueled continued national furor about his ability to serve, leading many of his staunchest supporters to ask him to either step down or prove he has the ability to lead.
While Biden will be giving a post-debate interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Friday, Fischer argued that much more must be done if he wants to reassure voters.
“So one of the things that the president is trying to argue is ‘Don‘t look at this 90 minute debate. Look at my 3.5 years,'” Fischer said. “Well, the challenge also works on the flipside, if you don‘t want us to believe what we saw, then give us multiple examples of you being able to do a live, unscripted interview, so we can see that this was just a one-off, if that‘s what you claim.”
The reporter then argued specifically why Biden’s widely anticipated interview with Stephanopoulos won’t satisfy the American public.
“So, the challenge that they now face is the ABC News interview isn‘t gonna be enough. They‘re going to have to show and demonstrate that he can do this, repeatedly, and by the way, in an unscripted format,” Fischer said. “I can‘t stress that enough.”
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this update.
“All-Star” panelists Juan Williams, Steve Hilton and Daniel Lippman discussed how many Democrats are concerned about President Biden’s re-election chances Thursday on “Special Report.”
Williams, a Fox News senior political analyst, said anxiety in the Democratic Party is “out the roof” after Biden’s bad debate and the attempt by White House aides to run damage control ahead of Biden’s meeting with Democratic governors on Wednesday.
“The notes that came out of there and the headlines in the papers today about, you know, Biden joking about he’s in good health except for his brain, and he’s going to take more naps—it has fed the critics, and it has created an even new level of anxiety among the Democrats,” Williams said.
“These meetings that he’s got tomorrow in Madison, Wisconsin, a rally, he’s got an interview with ABC. And, you know, these are now and even going forward towards next week, just critical events for Biden. He can’t fail. There’s no there’s no room, no margin for any slippage.”
Dozens of voters in four battleground states told the New York Times that they no longer believe he can defeat former President Trump in the 2024 election.
In 80 interviews at Independence Day celebrations, pie-eating contests and political events across Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, more than half of voters who backed Biden in 2020 said he should now drop out of the race following his disastrous debate performance against Trump.
About a quarter of those interviewed said he should stay in, and the rest were unsure, according to the Times.
“He should exit the race,” said Gerry Ford, a 72-year-old engineer from Wauwatosa, Wisc. “The sooner the better.”
He said the Biden campaign has not been transparent since the debate.
“It fulfills all of our suspicions about politicians that they can’t be straight with voters,” he said. “It’s embarrassing for the country.”
Michigan voter Greg Holmes, 71, a retired psychologist, said he went to a campaign event featuring first lady Jill Biden and held a sign that said, “Step Aside Joe!”
“If Biden says and does what I call the right thing, or courageous thing, and passes the baton, I will be ecstatic and fired up for the next person,” Holmes said. “Because I think Trump really represents a terrible, terrible threat to our democracy.”
Emma Due, 18, said she was not excited about casting her first ballot for Biden but likely would because he is not Trump.
“Kamala Harris would carry the torch, and she’s better than Trump,” she told the Times. “There’s a lot of new ideas that younger people express, but it’s not reflected in our candidates.”
“Fox & Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones discussed the pressure on President Biden to step down amid concerns over his age and mental acuity on Wednesday during the The Big Independence Day Special celebration on Fox News.
“Typically we would be talking about the president and just a celebration with his family, seeing the fireworks, him inviting service members to the white House. It would be a pretty calm day. Everybody is in barbecue. No one wants to hear about politics, but it’s different now,” Jones said.
“I mean, the president’s campaign is in trouble right now. Look, I’ve said it very clearly. I don’t think the president is going to get out, because the only person that can decide and force him out is himself, right? And he doesn’t look like he wants to leave this. Also, Kamala Harris is still on the table. And so when you look at the polling number, do Democrats do better with Kamala Harris? Not really. And so all roads lead to Joe. But the fact that we’re having this conversation on the 4th of July, I know a lot of Democrats would prefer to be talking about barbecue.”
An Associated Press article from Wednesday set off X users for what they considered to be an effort to protect President Biden.
The article titled “Biden at 81: Often sharp and focused but sometimes confused and forgetful” focused on comments from reportedly two dozen people within the president’s social circle who described a conflicting private and public image.
“He is often sharp and focused. But he also has moments, particularly later in the evening, when his thoughts seem jumbled and he trails off mid-sentence or seems confused. Sometimes he doesn’t grasp the finer points of policy details. He occasionally forgets people’s names, stares blankly and moves slowly around the room,” AP reported.
It continued, “But sometimes, Biden speaks so softly that it is difficult to make out his words even with a microphone. He’ll stop mid-sentence and trail off during speeches. At other times he runs the room, leading the audience, joking and shaking hands with thrilled supporters, in clear command of the moment. His gait is often stiff, but sometimes he jogs.”
The story and its headline spurred intense mockery along with comparisons to CNN’s infamous “fiery but mostly peaceful protest” graphic outside a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in Wisconsin.
“’Senile but mostly sharp’ is the new ‘fiery but mostly peaceful,’” Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik remarked.
“’I don’t understand why people are blaming the media,’” RedState senior editor Joe Cunningham wrote sarcastically.
“The AP is really doing this…” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lamented.
Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick contributed to this update.
Amid growing calls from some Democrats and liberals for President Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance last week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been touted as a possible replacement, raising questions about how she would handle the border crisis.
Whitmer, as a governor of a swing state, has been named as someone who could step into the role of the 2024 presidential nominee for Democrats if Biden were to step down. Previous polling has suggested she would fare the best out of a number of candidates against former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
Should she receive the nomination and win in November, she would step into a federal leadership role at a time when immigration policy and the ongoing crisis at the southern border are top issues for voters and for the country.
Whitmer has been largely supportive of what President Biden has done in terms of immigration policy. When Biden announced additional restrictions on asylum last month, she issued a glowing statement approving of the move and saying that he is “delivering.”
“President Biden’s executive action will help secure our country’s border by making it easier for immigration officers to remove those who are here unlawfully, reducing the burden on our Border Patrol agents. Today’s announcement builds on the president’s work to deploy a record number of border agents and officers to the southern border,” she said. “The American people want real solutions, and President Biden is delivering today.”
Like other Democrats, she also backed Biden’s broader calls for a comprehensive immigration bill to fix what the administration has called a “broken” immigration system.
That plan included sweeping reforms, additional visa pathways, extra funding and a pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. It was rejected by Republicans in part due to the inclusion of an amnesty. Whitmer wants it passed.
“President Biden sent Congress a comprehensive immigration reform plan on day 1 and repeatedly requested more border resources from Congress, only to be blocked by Republicans,” she said last month. “They should stop playing political games and work with the administration on a coordinated, bipartisan federal solution to fix our broken system.”
But in Michigan itself, she has given some indications that she may take a harder line on illegal immigration, certainly tougher than some activists would want.
She has provided multiple National Guard deployments to the border, both during the Trump administration and the Biden administration in support of Texas.
According to her office, she sent 175 personnel between 2020 and 2021, and 37 have been stationed since 2020. She also visited Michigan soldiers at the border in 2022.
Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this update.
Aides from the Biden administration revealed to Axios that the president can only be “dependably engaged” between 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and “is more likely to have verbal miscues and become fatigued” outside his standard operating hours.
These reports have led the presidents critics to suggest he experiences a phenomena observed in some elderly people called “sundowning.”
Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat explained on “Outnumbered” that sundowning can occur in the late afternoon or early evening.
“You see behavior of confusion, of agitation, of aggression, pacing, wandering, sometimes even hallucinations,” Nesheiwat said, cautioning that she is not Biden’s doctor and has not examined or evaluated him.
According to the Mayo Clinic, sundowning is not a disease. Factors that may worsen late-day confusion include fatigue, spending time in an unfamiliar place, low lighting, increased shadows, hunger or thirst, boredom or pain and depression.
Health experts advise that those who experience sundowning keep a regular routine for bedtime, waking, meals and activities to reduce symptoms.
Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Disney family fortune, says she is planning to stop giving donations to Democrats until President Biden drops out of the presidential race, CNBC reported.
The Disney heiress told CNBC on Thursday that she plans to withhold donations to the party she has funded for years until Biden drops out.
“I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. This is realism, not disrespect. Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high,” Abigail Disney said in a lengthy statement to CNBC. “If Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose. Of that I am absolutely certain. The consequences for the loss will be genuinely dire.”
This comes as Biden has vowed to stay in the race and even telling a crowd of military service members and their families at a 4th of July barbecue that “he wasn’t going anywhere.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Abigail Disney for comment.
Hours after the White House told reporters that President Biden had not had any recent medical exams, the president reportedly contradicted his press secretary by telling governors that he had a recent medical checkup.
When pressed about the president’s health during a press briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explicitly told reporters that Biden has not had any medical exams since his last annual physical.
“Has the president had any medical exams since his last annual physical in February?” CNN’s Min Jung “MJ” Lee asked.
“And got – and we were able to talk to the – to his doctor about that, and that is a no,” Jean-Pierre said.
Jean-Pierre reiterated that the 81-year-old president had not received any kind of medical exam.
“He hasn’t had any kind of medical exam?” Jung said.
“No,” Jean-Pierre replied.
Jean-Pierre’s comments came just hours before Biden met with Democrat governors at the White House on Wednesday night.
According to the New York Times, Biden told governors that had seen the White House physician to check on the cold his campaign said that he had during the presidential debate against Trump.
Biden also reportedly told governors that he would no longer schedule events after 8 p.m. so he could “get more sleep,” the outlet reported.
When questioned about the seemingly contradictory comments, the White House sent the following statement to Fox News Digital:
“Several days later, the President was seen to check on his cold and was recovering well,” the White House press office clarified.
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this update.
White House aides and Biden campaign staff are reportedly “miserable” as fear mounts that President Biden will be unable to continue his re-election campaign or serve for a second term.
All eyes are on Biden, 81, to prove that he is up to the task of campaigning against former President Trump as major Democratic Party donors pressure him to drop out in favor of a younger candidate.
“Everyone is miserable, and senior advisers are a total black hole,” an unnamed White House official told Axios. “Even if you’re trying to focus on work, nothing is going to break through or get any acknowledgment” from superiors.
Axios reported comments from a “high-ranking Democratic National Committee official” who said, “The only thing that can really allay concerns is for the president to demonstrate that he’s capable of running this campaign.”
“Everything else feels like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ by his inner circle to prop him up.”
Amid mounting pressure on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, his campaign announced a massive media blitz to the tune of $50 million that will target battleground state voters.
The media blitz will target Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the campaign said.
Additionally, the campaign said it will be executing an “aggressive, targeted campaign” to appeal to young and diverse voters, which also includes an “aggressive travel schedule” for the president.
He will travel to every battleground state along with Vice President Kamala Harris, the first lady and the second gentleman.
The announcement of the “aggressive” campaign comes after Biden told a group of Democratic governors that he plans to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m. so he can “get more sleep,” according to a report from The New York Times.
The 81-year-old president is the oldest in the nation’s history. His disastrous debate performance against former President Trump reportedly left Democrats in a “panic,” with many donors refusing to give money to the party unless Biden drops out.
Despite this, Biden’s campaign boasted about its “record-breaking” $127 million fundraising haul in June, saying they are leveraging “a substantial infrastructure advantage over the Trump campaign and RNC with new efforts on the ground.”
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this update.
Trump makes move against special counsel in classified docs case, cites SCOTUS ruling
Former President Donald Trump has requested a partial pause in the classified documents case brought against him after a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week found that presidents have substantial immunity for official acts that occurred while they were in office.
Lawyers for Trump asked a Florida court to pause all proceedings in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith — except those that deal with Smith’s gag order request — until the judge can apply the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling to the facts of the case.
“Consistent with President Trump’s pending motion to dismiss based on Presidential immunity, the Supreme Court explained in that it would ‘eviscerate the immunity we have recognized’ if a prosecutor could “do indirectly what he cannot do directly — invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution to nonetheless prove his liability on any charge,” the Friday court filing states.
It adds: “Thus, ‘even when an indictment alleges only unofficial conduct,’ which is not the case here, prosecutors cannot ‘[u]se evidence’ of official acts. Based on this reasoning, like the trial court in the Trump case, Your Honor must undertake the ‘necessarily factbound analysis’ regarding whether alleged conduct ‘is official or unofficial.’”
TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION
Trump referred to the filing as “a really bad day for Deranged Jack Smith, the wacko prosecutor used for Crooked Joe Biden’s attack on his Political Opponent,” in a Friday post on Truth Social.
“Today, as in the past, the Supreme Court gave the Deranged One a high level SPANKING! His ‘real’ bosses, Andrew Weissmann and Lisa Monaco, not to mention Merrick Garland, whose once great reputation has been shattered by these Thugs, and his constant defense of Crooked Joe, must be furious at him,” Trump wrote. “Garland ought to call an end to this never ending HOAX, and let people focus on bringing back Greatness to America!”
The high court on Monday in the case Trump v. United States ruled that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.
SCOTUS WEIGHS MONUMENTAL CONSTITUTIONAL FIGHT OVER TRUMP IMMUNITY CLAIM
In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The case considered by the court was separate from the classified documents case, although Smith is involved in both prosecutions.
“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
Last month, Trump’s lawyers presented arguments over the legality of Smith’s appointment as special counsel and the limited gag order that prosecutors have requested to bar Trump from making comments that they say could endanger the safety of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials involved in the case.
JUSTICE ALITO QUESTIONS WHETHER PRESIDENTS WILL HAVE TO FEAR ‘BITTER POLITICAL OPPONENT’ THROWING THEM IN JAIL
Trump’s lawyers have said any speech restrictions would infringe on the former president’s free speech rights. Cannon initially rejected the prosecution’s request on technical grounds, saying Smith’s team had not sufficiently conferred with defense lawyers before seeking the restrictions. Prosecutors subsequently renewed the request.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon heard hours of arguments on June 24 from lawyers for both sides, with Trump attorney Emil Bove asserting that the Justice Department risked creating a “shadow government” through the appointment of special counsels to prosecute select criminal cases.
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Cannon did not make a decision on Friday and is expected to issue a written order on the matter in the coming days.
Trump faces charges stemming from Smith’s investigation into his possession of classified materials. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts from Smith’s probe, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.
Trump was also charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment from the investigation, an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.
Yankees announcer rips team for participating in national anthem standoff
In the middle of a losing skid, the New York Yankees tried to get some laughs in the dugout.
Ahead of their final game of their three-game set against the Cincinnati Reds, two Bombers participated in a national anthem standoff with two Reds players.
The game is simple: stay on the field from the beginning of the national anthem, forl as long as you can. The first team to head back into the dugout loses.
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But Yankee manager Aaron Boone eventually had enough, telling his players to get back in the dugout, much to the delight of the Reds dugout.
Thus, much like the Yankees on the field, they lost.
Then, about three hours later, the Reds swept them on the field.
The standoff seemed like innocent fun, but their own announcer was not happy with it.
Michael Kay ripped the Yanks on his radio show Friday afternoon, saying the act was “sophomoric nonsense” that “cheapened the organization.”
“What are we, infants? This is the New York Yankees…” Kay began, while also giving credit to Boone for putting a stop to it. “The New York Yankees don’t play games like that. That’s silly, that’s stupid, it’s childish, it’s infantile.”
SHOHEI OHTANI’S 112 MPH HOME RUN HITS YOUNG FAN IN HEAD AT DODGER STADIUM
“Let other ridiculous teams do that,” he added. “Why would the Yankees do that? It’s dumb. . . . It makes the Yankees look small. They’re doing a stareoff like they’re in Williamsport? Like it’s the Little League World Series? The New York Yankees, you’re wearing pinstripes, baby. You don’t do stuff like that. And you’ve been losing and playing poorly, and this is what you resort to? Come on, guys, you’re better than that.”
He even went as far as to call the participants “nudniks.”
New York Mets announcer Howie Rose wasn’t too fond of the game, either.
“Am I hopelessly out of touch or is this nothing more than a juvenile, selfish, meaningless, irrelevant and frankly embarrassing exercise in stupidity?” he posted on X.
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The Yankees have lost 14 of their last 19 games after a red-hot start, and if things don’t go smoothly this weekend against the Boston Red Sox, they could be in jeopardy of dropping to third place in the AL East sooner rather than later.
Two questions the reporters who cover Biden every day need to answer
What did reporters who cover the White House know, and when did they know it?
As President Biden lurches toward a withdrawal from the 2024 election that seems likelier by the hour, the question of the media’s role in hiding his mental decline is taking center stage.
The greatest loser from Biden’s catastrophic meltdown during his debate last week with Donald Trump is not Biden himself.
GREG GUTFELD: MEDIA’S SHOCK OVER BIDEN’S DEBATE PERFORMANCE SEEMS LIKE ANOTHER COVER-UP
Somewhere deep inside, Biden may actually be relieved that he may soon be free of the obligation to perform (or pretend to perform) the world’s most important job.
No, the greatest loser is the media, specifically elite news organizations like The New York Times that have teams of reporters covering the White House. These teams either entirely missed Biden’s sharp cognitive decline — or, worse, actively covered it up.
Either way, a reckoning for the way media outlets have turned into spear-carriers for the Democratic Party may be coming. I hope it will be. It is long overdue.
On Thursday afternoon, New York magazine published a long article about Biden’s decline by Olivia Nuzzi, a Washington correspondent who is its top reporter. Nuzzi wrote in the piece, headlined “The Conspiracy of Silence to Protect Joe Biden,” that top Democrats had talked about Biden’s worsening memory and cognitive problems at least since January.
“Following encounters with the president, they had arrived at the same concern: Could he really do this for another four years? Could he even make it to Election Day?” But the worriers did not want to talk publicly, Nuzzi said. “They were scared and horrified.”
Okay. Those folks want Biden to be president. Their allegiance is to him, not the truth. Thus, the conspiracy. And Nuzzi wrote she could not get these high-ranking Democrats on the record — though it is not clear how hard she tried.
Then, late in the piece, Nuzzi made an extraordinary admission — one whose importance she seems not to have recognized.
She, too, had seen Biden’s decline up close. So had much of the Washington press corps.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE ANSWERS POINT-BLANK IF BIDEN SUFFERS FROM DEMENTIA AFTER DISASTROUS DEBATE
As hard as Biden’s courtiers try to protect Biden, they cannot keep him from every public interaction. The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner is Washington’s premier annual social event, its so-called “nerd prom.”
Nuzzi met Biden, whom she had covered closely and extensively during the 2020 campaign, at a photo session and reception before the dinner. Here is how she describes the encounter:
Try to wrap your head around what happened that night — April 27, 2024, exactly two months before Joe Biden’s infirmities exploded for the world to see.
The reporters who cover the president, who are the eyes and ears of the world on a man who controls a nuclear arsenal capable of killing billions of people, saw his cognitive decline face-to-face.
They didn’t write about what they had seen. They didn’t investigate it.
They joked about it. With each other. Privately. Nuzzi and the rest were part of the “conspiracy of silence” as much as any Democratic donor.
And in June, when even the most tightly controlled public events could not hide Biden’s infirmities, they wrote of “cheap fakes” (meaning, accurate and real videos) and “misinformation.” Only now that the world knows have they turned on Biden — viciously, as I wrote Wednesday.
Every last one of them should be ashamed. And wondering how they allowed their Democratic partisanship and hatred for Donald Trump and in-group thinking to overcome their most basic instincts to chase the truth and give it to the readers and viewers who pay their bills.
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I almost died working as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in Iraq 20 years ago. That’s not an exaggeration. I cannot believe what the Times and the rest of the elite media have become. I am heartbroken today.
This is the last and greatest in a series of media catastrophes over the last several years. They all have in common an unwillingness to admit, much less investigate, hard truths that Democrats find unpleasant.
If it does not provoke a reckoning, nothing will. And places like the Times will lose whatever shreds of credibility they have left.
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A-list actor went undercover to be normal for a day, realized it was terrible
Kevin Bacon is no stranger to fame.
After decades in Hollywood, the prolific actor has become a household name. But he once decided to try life outside the spotlight. To do this, he used prosthetics and accessories to form a disguise, but he didn’t like what happened.
“I’m not complaining, but I have a face that’s pretty recognizable,” Bacon explained in a new interview with Vanity Fair. “Putting my hat and glasses on is only going to work to a certain extent.”
KEVIN BACON, KYRA SEDGWICK MAKE RARE APPEARANCE WITH THEIR ADULT KIDS
To be able to truly be unrecognizable, he said, “I went to a special effects makeup artist, had consultations and asked him to make me a prosthetic disguise.”
With the makeup artist’s help, he was given a new nose and new teeth. After adding accessories, he ventured out to The Grove, a popular outdoor shopping center in Los Angeles.
“Nobody recognized me,” he recalled. “People were kind of pushing past me, not being nice. Nobody said, ‘I love you.’ I had to wait in line to, I don’t know, buy a f—ing coffee or whatever. I was like, ‘This sucks. I want to go back to being famous.'”
As Bacon explained later in the interview, fame was always something he wanted, even as a child.
“My father [Edmund Bacon, an urban planner] was famous in Philadelphia, which, in some ways, is a small pond. But, for me, it was a big pond,” he explained. “I saw him get recognized by people when he would walk down the street, and seeing that was definitely a big driving force in my life.
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“Frankly, I wanted to be more famous than him. And you can lay me down on the shrink’s couch. We could talk about that for a while. But it was definitely a motivator.”
For Bacon, it’s not only about fame. He told Vanity Fair nearly 50 years after his feature film debut in 1978’s “Animal House” he’s still invested in the art of acting.
“Yes, I am still hungry, and I still feel like the best work is in front of me,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a competition. It’s a competition with myself. I probably did this in the past, but I’m not looking at this actor going, ‘I wish I was him’ or ‘I wish I had what he had.’
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“When I reach out to people, it’s not because I’m trying to get a gig. It’s because I feel like being appreciated for what you do as an artist from somebody else is a nice feeling. If there’s somebody that I admire that comes up and says, ‘Hey, I really like that’ or ‘You did a good job,’ it feels good.”
He also criticized the film industry, saying much of it is “hierarchical bulls—” that causes people within the industry to have “this underlying feeling that we need to be competing with each other.”
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“So, wherever I can feel like I’m a member of a community that is supporting each other in creating these things that I think are super important, I want to do that,” Bacon emphasized.
Trump slams Heritage Foundation’s transition plan, claims parts are ‘ridiculous’
Former President Trump attempted to distance himself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Friday, claiming he had nothing to do with it and that parts of it are “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”
Trump disavowed the effort in a post on Truth Social, saying he didn’t know who was behind the initiative that offers recommendations on how a future Republican president can begin to enact conservative changes upon entering office.
“I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it,” Trump wrote. “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Portrayed as a blueprint for a future Republican administration to restructure many parts of the U.S. government, Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, launched in April 2023 and is not associated with Trump’s campaign.
HERITAGE RECOMMENDS DOJ, FBI OVERHAUL FOR NEXT GOP PRESIDENT TO END ‘RADICAL LIBERAL AGENDA’
“As we’ve been saying for more than two years now, Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign,” a Project 2025 spokesperson told Fox News Digital when asked about Trump’s remarks. “We are a coalition of more than 110 conservative groups advocating policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president.
“But it is ultimately up to that president, who we believe will be President Trump, to decide which recommendations to implement.”
Trump’s decision to distance himself from Project 2025 came one day after Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts faced criticism from Democrats for his comments about a “second American Revolution” on former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s radio program.
“[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said, adding that the “radical left” is “apoplectic” because “our side is winning.”
From overhauling the Justice Department and FBI to tackling issues like abortion and immigration, the effort led by the nation’s top conservative think tank is organized into specific chapters for different agencies.
Some of the chapters contained in Project 2025 were penned with the help of former Trump administration officials. For instance, the chapter on the Department of Homeland Security was written by a team led by former assistant acting DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, who argues the agency has become “bloated, bureaucratic, expensive and [has] lost sight of its mission priorities.”
Project 2025 has been used by the Biden campaign and other Democrats to target Trump’s candidacy in the 2024 race for the White House.
Ahead of last week’s debate, the Biden campaign projected a QR code in different places around Atlanta that led to a campaign page tying Project 2025 to Trump.
The Biden campaign described the effort as “the plan by Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins.”
CONSERVATIVE ORG PREPARES AGGRESSIVE PLAN FOR DHS OVERHAUL IF REPUBLICANS WIN WHITE HOUSE IN 2024
“Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately,” the webpage stated.
Among many other claims, the Biden campaign said Project 2025 “Terminates the Constitution,” “Takes Away Reproductive Freedom Nationwide” and “Consolidates Power in the Oval Office.”
Project 2025 accused the Biden campaign of “obsessing” over the effort in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.
“Rather than obsessing over Project 2025, the Biden campaign should be addressing the 25th Amendment,” the spokesperson said.
Other Democrats have also slammed proposals outlined in Project 2025, including Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., who said the plan favoring America-first ideals is “un-American.”
“It’s really un-American,” Dean said during an appearance on “MSNBC Reports” last month. “If you take a look at it, what we pride ourselves on, agencies that support elected officials and government officials who are legislating for a president acting as executive.”
Dean also insisted Project 2025 organizers want to “replace civil servants.”
Despite the proposals outlined in Project 2025, Trump has outlined his own plans to restructure the government if he wins a second term, including staging the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and imposing tariffs on potentially all imports.
Trump’s campaign has previously warned outside allies not to presume to speak for the former president and suggested their transition-in-waiting efforts were unhelpful.
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Project 2025 includes several former senior Trump administration officials, including Paul Dans, the director of the project who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump; Russ Vought, who wrote one of the chapters and served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump; and John McEntee, a senior adviser for the project who previously served as director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office in the Trump administration.
Case of human plague confirmed in the US, health officials say
A human case of the plague has been confirmed in Pueblo County, Colorado, according to health officials.
The Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment (PDPHE) is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to investigate, according to a press release.
No specific information was provided about the person who contracted the plague.
BUBONIC PLAGUE IN THE US: DO YOU NEED TO WORRY ABOUT CATCHING THE RODENT-BORNE DISEASE?
“We advise all individuals to protect themselves and their pets from plague,” Alicia Solis, program manager of the Office of Communicable Disease and Emergency Preparedness at PDPHE, stated in the release.
What is the plague?
The bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that was likely first introduced in North America around 1900 from rats on ships coming from South Asia, according to Timothy Brewer, M.D., professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA.
“Since its introduction 120 years ago, it has become endemic in ground squirrels and rodents in the rural Southwestern U.S.,” he told Fox News Digital.
Although the disease can affect people of all ages, half the cases involve patients between the ages of 12 and 45, as stated on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
‘ARCTIC ZOMBIE VIRUSES’ COULD BE RELEASED BY CLIMATE CHANGE FROM THAWING PERMAFROST, SOME SCIENTISTS CLAIM
Globally, between 1,000 and 2,000 cases of plague are reported to the World Health Organization each year — although only an average of seven annual cases are in the U.S.
If left untreated, the plague has a fatality rate of 30% to 60%.
With antibiotics, that drops to below 5%.
Symptoms and spread
Symptoms of the plague typically include severe headache, fever and chills, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and swollen lymph nodes, the health department listed.
The plague can spread by droplets from one person infected with Y. pestis to another, according to Erica Susky, a certified infection control practitioner based in Canada.
“The more common risk of exposure in the U.S. is from pets, rodents and fleas,” she told Fox News Digital.
“Pets can sometimes be infected when encountering an infected flea or rodent and may pass it along to their pet owners from a bite or if the pet is ill.”
Another possible source is from hunting, she said — “skinning animals is also a risk, as the bacterium can spread via infected body fluids.”
“Treat pets promptly if they have a flea infestation and seek veterinary treatment if a pet becomes ill.”
Breathing in dust contaminated by dried rodent urine or feces with the bacteria can also spread the infection, according to Brewer.
Preventing the plague
The best means of prevention is to avoid rodents and fleas whenever possible, including dead rodents, Susky said.
“One way to do this is to ensure the home is rodent-proof by eliminating places where rodents may enter and hide,” she told Fox News Digital.
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Whenever possible, pets should be kept indoors, Susky recommended.
If pets are outdoors, they should be leashed.
“Treat pets promptly if they have a flea infestation and seek veterinary treatment if a pet becomes ill,” Susky advised.
Hunters should wear gloves and wash their hands after skinning animals, and should change and wash their clothes afterward, she added.
The PDPHE also recommends keeping pet food in rodent-proof containers and not allowing pets to sleep in bed.
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“If spending time outdoors where one may be bitten by fleas and other insects, repellent should be applied to minimize potential bites, which are a portal of entry for the bacterium if one is bitten by an infected flea,” Susky said.
Anyone who develops symptoms of plague should see a health care provider immediately, Solis advised in the PDPHE alert.
“Plague can be treated successfully with antibiotics, but an infected person must be treated promptly to avoid serious complications or death.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for comment.
Professional tennis player gets 6-year ban for allegedly fixing matches
The International Tennis Integrity Agency announced Friday it had suspended Jasmina Tinjić for six years for allegedly fixing matches.
The ITIA said Tinjić admitted to 23 “breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program,” including “contriving the outcome of matches, facilitating wagering, receiving money in return for not giving best efforts in matches, and failure to report corrupt approaches.”
The 33-year-old Tinjić, ranked as high as 236th in 2013, did not contest the charges relating to “corrupt activity” in 2017 and 2018, the ITIA said.
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The International Betting Integrity Association was flagged in January 2018 while she was playing in a tournament, which led to an investigation.
“Swedish authorities carried out an investigation into various tennis matches Ms. Tinjić played in and for which there was also suspicious betting activity,” the ITIA said in its ruling.
That investigation led to criminal charges against her after she was found guilty of accepting a bribe of 12,000 SEK (equivalent to about $1,160).
It found that several matches in three different countries were fixed. It was also revealed there had been a bank transfer. The ITIA blanked out the name of who made the transfer and other specifics from instances of the alleged match fixing.
Tinjić also failed to cooperate and allegedly tampered with evidence.
“At the time, she was extremely stressed, and suffered from anxiety and depression,” the agency said. “Her financial situation exacerbated these and did not allow her to deal with them properly. She was thus vulnerable and allowed herself to be influenced in a way that would or should not have happened otherwise. For this she expresses her deep regret and anguish.”
Tinjić had already been issued a 4½-year domestic ban in Sweden after a match-fixing investigation there. The ITIA said its six-year ban was backdated to match the Swedish ban and will end May 17, 2028.
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Tinjić won four singles and 12 doubles titles on the ITF women’s tour.
Danny Trejo involved in nasty July 4th brawl after being hit by water balloon
Danny Trejo found himself in a nasty brawl during a 4th of July parade in Los Angeles.
In a video uploaded to Facebook, the 80-year-old “Machete” actor was seen pushing and shoving through a crowd during a parade in Sunland-Tujunga, just outside L.A.
The fight was quickly broken up by bystanders, with one woman screaming, “There’s f—ing kids.”
According to Fox 11 Los Angeles, Trejo and his friend, who were part of the parade and riding in a vintage car, confronted a group of people shortly after being hit with water bottles and water balloons.
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“He was more like confronting. It wasn’t like he went there to hit somebody,” Arnie Abramiam, who caught the brawl on his cell phone camera, told Fox 11. “But then I think once he got hit, he was throwing punches.”
“Another water balloon was thrown at him. Punches were thrown. People fell down. Blood everywhere. I think Mario [the] gentleman got hit. They cut his eye open,” Abramiam said of Trejo’s friend.
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In a video obtained by the outlet, both Trejo and Mario are seen being knocked to the ground.
“He didn’t seem hurt. I think he was more, I don’t think he was physically hurt, I think he was upset,” Abramiam said of Trejo. “He was angry, and angry as a mask for pain. But at the same time, I think the blood was boiling.”
WATCH: ‘MACHETE’ ACTOR DANNY TREJO IN NASTY JULY 4TH BRAWL AFTER BEING HIT BY WATER BALLOON
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“I apologize to Danny, I know you’re a good man. You’re a humble man,” he added. “And thank you for taking your time and coming down to our 4th of July parade. And I’m sorry, on behalf of our community, we love you, we appreciate you, and we thank you.”
A representative for Trejo did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Earlier this year, Trejo marked a major milestone, entering the 56th year of his sobriety journey.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, the actor opened up about how he persevered after he hit “rock bottom” while struggling with alcohol addiction.
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“You got to have people around you that have your best interest, because everybody knows who has an alcoholic problem,” he shared.
He said alcoholics tend to “hide” their excessive drinking.
“But the reality is you know you got a problem.”
In July 2021, Trejo released a memoir, “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood.”
In his book, which he co-authored with fellow actor Donal Logue, the Los Angeles native detailed his abusive childhood, life behind bars, enduring painful loss and finding God.
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