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Former President Joe Biden is undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment as part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, a spokesperson told CBS News.
Biden’s office announced in May that he had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. He underwent surgery for skin cancer in September.
NBC News was the first to report.
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
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Former President Joe Biden is undergoing a new phase of treatment for an aggressive form of cancer that was diagnosed in May, a spokesperson said Saturday.
“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” according to the spokesperson for the former president.
The radiation treatment is expected to span five weeks and marks a new point in his care, a source familiar told NBC News. He has already been taking a pill form of hormone medication.
Last month, Biden, 82, also had a skin cancer treatment known as Mohs surgery. A large bandage on his forehead was visible in public appearances at that time.
Following that procedure, his physician wrote in a memo that “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed” and that “no further treatment is required.”
The former president announced in May that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already metastasized to his bones.
His office said at the time that he was pursuing several treatment options to ensure “effective management” of the illness.
In a post on X after he shared his diagnosis, Biden said, “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
At the time, multiple oncologists told NBC News that given the nature of his cancer and the fact that it had already metastasized, it was possible that Biden’s affliction had gone undiagnosed for years.
Men his age are not usually screened for prostate cancer, with the American Cancer Society recommending that men in their 50s and 60s get screened every two years. It’s unclear whether Biden was screened for prostate cancer during his last medical exam in office, which took place last year.
The former president, who turns 83 next month, is said to be “doing well.”
In 2023, while he was still in office, Biden had a skin lesion removed during a routine physical exam that was later found to be cancerous. A physician at the time said that no further treatment was required.
Biden left the White House in January, just months after he suspended his re-election campaign last year, endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, for re-election instead.
His re-election campaign and the final months of his presidency were marred by allegations that he was too old to run again and that he was not mentally fit. The former president and his family have repeatedly denied these claims.
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Kelly O’Donnell | NBC News and Nick Duffy | NBC News
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Former President Joe Biden is undergoing a new phase of treatment for an aggressive form of cancer that was diagnosed in May, a spokesperson said Saturday.
“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” according to the spokesperson for the former president.
The radiation treatment is expected to span five weeks and marks a new point in his care, a source familiar told NBC News. He has already been taking a pill form of hormone medication.
Last month, Biden, 82, also had a skin cancer treatment known as Mohs surgery. A large bandage on his forehead was visible in public appearances at that time.
Following that procedure, his physician wrote in a memo that “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed” and that “no further treatment is required.”
The former president announced in May that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already metastasized to his bones.
His office said at the time that he was pursuing several treatment options to ensure “effective management” of the illness.
In a post on X after he shared his diagnosis, Biden said, “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
At the time, multiple oncologists told NBC News that given the nature of his cancer and the fact that it had already metastasized, it was possible that Biden’s affliction had gone undiagnosed for years.
Men his age are not usually screened for prostate cancer, with the American Cancer Society recommending that men in their 50s and 60s get screened every two years. It’s unclear whether Biden was screened for prostate cancer during his last medical exam in office, which took place last year.
The former president, who turns 83 next month, is said to be “doing well.”
In 2023, while he was still in office, Biden had a skin lesion removed during a routine physical exam that was later found to be cancerous. A physician at the time said that no further treatment was required.
Biden left the White House in January, just months after he suspended his re-election campaign last year, endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, for re-election instead.
His re-election campaign and the final months of his presidency were marred by allegations that he was too old to run again and that he was not mentally fit. The former president and his family have repeatedly denied these claims.
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Kelly O’Donnell | NBC News and Nick Duffy | NBC News
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Former President Joe Biden is undergoing a new phase of treatment for an aggressive form of cancer that was diagnosed in May, a spokesperson said Saturday.
“As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,” according to the spokesperson for the former president.
The radiation treatment is expected to span five weeks and marks a new point in his care, a source familiar told NBC News. He has already been taking a pill form of hormone medication.
Last month, Biden, 82, also had a skin cancer treatment known as Mohs surgery. A large bandage on his forehead was visible in public appearances at that time.
Following that procedure, his physician wrote in a memo that “all cancerous tissue was successfully removed” and that “no further treatment is required.”
The former president announced in May that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had already metastasized to his bones.
His office said at the time that he was pursuing several treatment options to ensure “effective management” of the illness.
In a post on X after he shared his diagnosis, Biden said, “Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”
At the time, multiple oncologists told NBC News that given the nature of his cancer and the fact that it had already metastasized, it was possible that Biden’s affliction had gone undiagnosed for years.
Men his age are not usually screened for prostate cancer, with the American Cancer Society recommending that men in their 50s and 60s get screened every two years. It’s unclear whether Biden was screened for prostate cancer during his last medical exam in office, which took place last year.
The former president, who turns 83 next month, is said to be “doing well.”
In 2023, while he was still in office, Biden had a skin lesion removed during a routine physical exam that was later found to be cancerous. A physician at the time said that no further treatment was required.
Biden left the White House in January, just months after he suspended his re-election campaign last year, endorsing his vice president, Kamala Harris, for re-election instead.
His re-election campaign and the final months of his presidency were marred by allegations that he was too old to run again and that he was not mentally fit. The former president and his family have repeatedly denied these claims.
President Joe Biden spoke for the first time since his cancer diagnosis at a Memorial Day event in Delaware. NBC10’s Tim Furlong attended the event and got a chance to speak to the former president.
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By MATTHEW BROWN and MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans have voted to roll back restrictions on mining, drilling and other development in three Western states, advancing President Donald Trump’s ambitions to expand energy production from public lands.
Senators voted 50-46 Thursday to repeal a land management plan for a large swath of Alaska that was adopted in the final weeks of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. Lawmakers voted to roll back similar plans for land in Montana and North Dakota earlier this week.
The timing of Biden’s actions made the plans vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to terminate rules that are finalized near the end of a president’s term. The resolutions require a simple majority in each chamber and take effect upon the president’s signature.
The House approved the repeals last month in votes largely along party lines. Trump is expected to sign the measures, which will boost a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.
Trump ordered approval of the Ambler Road project earlier this week, saying it will unlock access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals that the United States needs to compete with China on artificial intelligence and other resource development. Copper is used in the production of cars, electronics and even renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.
The road was approved in Trump’s first term, but was later blocked by Biden after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.
The Biden-era restrictions also included a block on new mining leases in the nation’s most productive coal-producing region, the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. On Monday, the Trump administration held the biggest coal sale in that area in more than a decade, drawing a single bid of $186,000 for 167.5 million tons of coal, or about a tenth of a penny per ton.
Trump has largely cast aside Biden’s goal to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels extracted from federal land. Instead, he and congressional Republicans have moved to open more taxpayer-owned land to fossil fuel development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue. The Republican administration also has pushed to develop critical minerals, including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.
A decision on whether to accept the recent bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. is pending, and the lease cannot be issued until the Montana land plan is altered. The dirt-cheap value reflects dampened industry interest in coal despite Trump’s efforts. Many utilities have switched to cheaper natural gas or renewables such as wind and solar power.
Administration officials expressed disappointment that they did not receive “stronger participation” in the Montana sale. In a statement, Interior Department spokesperson Aubrie Spady blamed a “decades long war on coal” by Biden and former Democratic President Barack Obama.
Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana said the repeal of the land-management plan in his state was “putting an end to disastrous Biden-era regulations that put our resource economy on life support.”
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska called the Biden-era plan for 13 million acres in the central Yukon region “a clear case of federal overreach that locks up Alaska’s lands, ignores Alaska Native voices … and blocks access to critical energy, gravel & mineral resources.”
The GOP legislation “restores balance, strengthens U.S. energy & mineral security and upholds the law,” Sullivan said in a statement.
Democrats urged rejection of the repeals, arguing that Trump’s fossil fuel-friendly agenda is driving up energy prices because renewable sources are being sidelined even as the tech industry’s power demands soar for data centers and other projects.
“We are seeing dramatic increases in the price of energy for American consumers and businesses and the slashing of American jobs, so that Donald Trump can give an easy pass to the fossil fuel industry,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
Last week, the administration canceled almost $8 billion in grants for clean energy projects in 16 states that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in the 2024 election.
Ashley Nunes, public lands specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, said Republicans were unleashing “a wholesale assault on America’s public lands.” Using the Congressional Review Act to erase land management plans “will sow chaos across the country and turn our most cherished places into playgrounds for coal barons and industry polluters,” she said.
Brown reported from Billings, Montana.
Originally Published:
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Former United States Vice President Kamala Harris was back in Atlanta on Wednesday night. Harris, who also served as the former Attorney General of California and United States Senator, was on her tour for her latest book, “107 Days.” The book is a diary-like rehashing of her historical presidential run that ended with a loss to the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
The line outside the Tabernacle was reminiscent of the lines outside the many arenas, stadiums, and event spaces in Georgia that Harris spoke at during her campaign. The line stretched down Luckie Street and around the corner. It was clear that Harris remained popular in Atlanta.
Upon taking the stage, Harris, in one of her signature looks, a pant suit, said, “It’s good to be back in the ATL.”
The evening’s moderator was social media influencer and Spelman College alumna, Lynae Vanee.
Harris’s 107-day campaign was self-described as “American history.” By the looks and sounds of the capacity crowd in attendance, it has left an indelible mark on Georgians. Between applause and laughter from the crowd, Harris retold stories from her book and acknowledged that she had her toughest day at the end of the campaign on Election Day.
“It took a lot of time for me to think, reflect, and feel,” said Harris of her new post-election reality. “Writing this book was part of what helped me do that.”
On more than one occasion, Trump was mentioned by name and in jest. On one more serious note, Harris said of the current administration’s actions towards immigrants, for example, “I predicted all of this.”
That comment was followed by loud applause.
“When this is over, meaning his presidency, there will be a lot of debris,” she added.
During the conversation, Harris discussed portions of the book, including the pages in which she invited Megan Thee Stallion to perform at a campaign event at the Georgia State University Convocation Center. Harris got pushback from people who supported her and Megan, but thought the rapper wasn’t a good look, Harris recalled.
“I did ask her to come, and I was happy to have her because she is very talented,” said Harris of the Houston-born rapper. “It wasn’t traditional, and it didn’t comport with what people thought was the norm.”
Nothing about Harris’s campaign was normal, and she would have Hip-Hop performers, actors, actresses, and the like make appearances on her campaign throughout the 107 days. Many of these moments are in her book. Other moments described in “107 Days” include former running mate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the vetting of a potential running mate, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, her relationship with her family, and her relationship with other people in the White House.
With 91 days till Election Day, Harris shared the sights and sounds of the first time she and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, took the stage in Philadelphia. “The roar that met us when we walked out onstage was so deafening we could barely hear ourselves,” Harris recalled (page 100).
In the book, Harris also reveals behind-the-scenes moments from the campaign and her relationship with former United States President Joseph R. Biden, her running mate and friend. One revelation that will get readers’ attention is the lack of support for her campaign by members of Biden’s camp (pages 40-41), and her suspicion that former First Lady Jill Biden hadn’t gotten over some of the barbs Harris and Biden exchanged during the 2019 presidential primary (page 39).
The former vice president was reflective during her time on stage.
“During the 107 days I did not allow myself, nor was there any room for reflection,” Harris said of the whirlwind that was her life last year.
Harris also added that losing that election brought on emotions that she hadn’t felt since she lost her mother.
“I was grieving for our country, because I knew what was going to happen,” she said.
There was no grieving this evening, however. Harris was showered with applause from the start to the finish of her time on stage.
“This is true talk right here,” she said. “It may get worse before it gets better. But we cannot afford to put the blanket over our head and say, ‘Wake me up when it’s over.’ If we give up, then all is lost. We cannot let our spirits be defeated by one election.”
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Donnell Suggs
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The FBI analyzed the phone records of more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers as part of an investigation into efforts by President Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to information released Monday by GOP senators.
The records, which the FBI analyzed in 2023, enabled investigators to see basic information about the date and time of phone calls but not the content of the communications, the senators said. The data encompassed several days during the week of Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to halt the certification of the election results.
A document dated Sept. 27, 2023, lists nine Republican lawmakers whose records were allegedly scrutinized: Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, as well as Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania.
The disclosure adds new detail to the since-shuttered investigation by the FBI and former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith into the steps Mr. Trump took in the run-up to the Capitol riot to undo his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Mr. Trump was indicted in August 2023 with conspiring to overturn the results, but the case was abandoned after Mr. Trump’s win the following year because of a Justice Department legal opinion that states sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
The subpoena for the phone records was disclosed by several Republican senators, including Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee that oversees the FBI. Grassley said the Sept. 27, 2023, document memorializing the “preliminary toll analysis” was found in response to his request. The investigative step was authorized by a grand jury, the senators said.
Grassley called it a “violation of personal property and people’s rights and the law and their constitutional rights.”
The document suggests the analysis was conducted by an FBI special agent whose name was redacted, and it was authorized by two supervisory agents. It does not say how or why those lawmakers were identified or whether any meaningful tips or leads emerged from that investigative work.
Some of the lawmakers were part of a group of Republicans who planned to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election. After the voting was disrupted by the rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, most of the lawmakers named in the FBI document voted to certify the results, while Sen. Lummis and Rep. Kelly objected to at least one state.
The special counsel’s investigation delved into phone calls between lawmakers and the president on the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, which Smith alleged were part of a last-ditch attempt to talk congressional Republicans into blocking the certification of Biden’s victory. The 2023 indictment against Mr. Trump lists several attempts by Mr. Trump and his alleged co-conspirators to reach senators and representatives by phone. It argued the president “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them, based on knowingly false claims of election fraud, to delay the certification.”
Last year, a final report penned by Smith — which argued the president would have been convicted if not for his 2024 election win — also pointed to phone calls placed by Mr. Trump and members of his circle. It cited toll records from two unindicted co-conspirators who are unnamed but are widely believed to be Rudy Giuliani and one other person.
The senators said they would not be conducting their own investigation because they expected FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino — both Trump loyalists — to review the matter. Grassley suggested that more people at the FBI would be fired over the investigation, saying, “If heads don’t roll in this town, nothing changes.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on social media that he had “grave concerns” about the incident.
“I fully support Senate committees getting to the bottom of this outrageous abuse of power and weaponization of the government,” said Thune, a South Dakota Republican.
CBS News has reached out to theSenate Judicary Committee’s Democratic side and to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for comment.
The Trump administration has taken aim at Smith’s investigation since returning to office. The Justice Department has fired staff members who worked for Smith, and a government body launched an investigation into Smith for allegedly engaging in illegal political activity while on the job — allegations Smith’s lawyers called “imaginary and unfounded.”
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Addressing the nation’s top military generals and admirals, President Donald Trump criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for not sufficiently communicating how powerful the U.S. military is.
“I said we have the strongest military anywhere in the world. I say it. You never heard Biden say that,” Trump said.
Trump’s Sept. 30 statement came at an unusual in-person meeting of top military brass in Quantico, Virginia, and followed remarks by Pete Hegseth, secretary overseeing the Defense Department, which Trump has sought to rebrand as the Department of War.
Trump is wrong about Biden. The former president praised the U.S. military as the world’s best on at least a dozen occasions.
Here are some examples:
Speech to a joint session of Congress, April 28, 2021: “We have, without hyperbole, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”
Speech to the 82nd Airborne Division at Rzeszow, Poland, March 25, 2022: “You’re the finest fighting force in the history of the world.”
Speech at the U.S. Naval Academy graduation and commissioning ceremony, May 27, 2022: “Today you stand ready to assume the title you’ve been working toward for so long: Ensign, the United States Navy. Second lieutenant, the United States Marine Corps. Members of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And that’s no exaggeration. You have earned it. Congratulations.”
Remarks on his nomination of Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 30, 2023: “The steps we’ve taken over the decades to harness the full diversity of our nation have grown our armed forces into the greatest fighting force … in the history of the world.”
Speech at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, June 9, 2023: “Our military is the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And that’s because of warriors like you — and the service and sacrifice of your spouses, kids, and family members.” (This was also shared on Twitter and Instagram.)
Speech in Tempe, Arizona, Sept. 28, 2023: “Our U.S. military — and this is not hyperbole; I’ve said it for the last two years — is the strongest military in the history of the world. Not just the strongest in the world –- in the history of the world.”
Speech at the armed forces farewell tribute for retiring Gen. Mark A. Milley, Sept. 29, 2023: “Americans of every background and creed have stepped forward to be part of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And that’s not hyperbole. You’re the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”
Commencement address to the U.S. Military Academy, May 29, 2024: “You’re about to become full-time members of the most honorable and the most consequential fighting force in the history of the world — that’s not hyperbole — of the world. That’s the truth.”
Speech marking Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery, Nov. 11, 2024. “You are the greatest fighting force — and this is not hyperbole — the finest fighting force in the history of the world.” (Also shared on X.)
Presenting a Medal of Honor, Jan. 3: “It’s been the greatest honor of my life to be entrusted with the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. They’re the finest military in the history of the world.”
White House fact sheet, Jan. 15: “Our military remains the strongest fighting force the world has known.”
Farewell remarks to the Defense Department, Jan. 16: “You are simply the greatest fighting force in the history of the world — in the history of the world. That’s a fact. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.” (This was also shared on Facebook.)
Biden said something similar at least once as vice president, telling U.S. Military Academy graduates May 26, 2012, “America’s unique role in the world requires that we maintain the world’s finest fighting force. That’s a non-negotiable issue. And that’s exactly what this strategy does.”
Asked about Trump’s statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told PolitiFact, “Joe Biden repeatedly degraded our military servicemembers, including infamously looking at his watch” during a dignified transfer of remains. Kelly was referring to a 2021 incident in which Biden and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Dover Air Force Base to receive the remains of U.S. service members who were killed in an August 2021 terrorist attack at Afghanistan’s Kabul airport. Videos and photographs show that Biden checked his watch at least two or three times while standing on the tarmac.
Trump said, “You never heard Biden say” the U.S. has “the strongest military anywhere in the world.”
On at least a dozen occasions when Biden was president — including in speeches to military academy graduates and Medal of Honor winners, at Veterans Day observances and to rank-and-file servicemembers and lawmakers — he said something similar, praising the U.S. military as the world’s best or strongest.
The statement is inaccurate and, given the number of times Biden’s statements contradict Trump’s claim, it’s also ridiculous. Pants on Fire!
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For the first time since being elected in May, Pope Leo XIV waded into U.S. politics Tuesday, criticizing those who say they’re against abortion but support the death penalty, saying that’s “not really pro-life.”
Leo, a Chicago native, was asked late Tuesday about plans by Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich to give a lifetime achievement award to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin for his work helping immigrants. The plans drew objection from some conservative U.S. bishops, given the powerful Democratic senator’s support for abortion rights.
Leo called first of all for respect for both sides, but he also pointed out the seeming contradiction in such debates.
“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion but says I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” Leo told reporters. “Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Leo, whose words echoed a common Catholic argument often made in discussions about abortion, spoke hours before Cupich announced that Durbin had declined the award.
“I am not terribly familiar with the particular case. I think it’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done during, if I’m not mistaken, in 40 years of service in the United States Senate,” the pope told reporters on Tuesday in response to a question from EWTN News.
In his comments about the Illinois dispute, Leo made no mention of President Trump, whose administration has carried out a surge of immigration enforcement in the Chicago area.
Still, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt weighed in and disputed concerns raised by Pope Leo about the treatment of immigrants, saying that she “would reject there is inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants in the United States under this administration.”
The administration, Leavitt said, “is trying to enforce our nation’s laws in the most humane way possible.”
Church teaching forbids abortion, but it also opposes capital punishment as “inadmissible” under all circumstances. U.S. bishops and the Vatican have strongly called for humane treatment of migrants, citing the Biblical command to “welcome the stranger.”
Responding to a question in English from the U.S. Catholic broadcaster EWTN News, he said there were many ethical issues that constitute the teaching of the Catholic Church.
“I don’t know if anyone has all the truth on them but I would ask first and foremost that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics to say we need to you know really look closely at all of these ethical issues and to find the way forward in this church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear,” he said.
Cupich was a close adviser to Pope Francis, who strongly upheld church teaching opposing abortion but also criticized the politicizing of the abortion debate by U.S. bishops. Some bishops had called for denying Communion to Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights, including former President Joe Biden.
Biden met on several occasions with Francis and told reporters in 2021 that Francis had told him to continue receiving Communion. During a visit to Rome that year, he received the sacrament during Mass at a church in Francis’ diocese.
Durbin was barred from receiving Communion in his home diocese of Springfield in 2004. Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki has continued the prohibition and was one of the U.S. bishops who strongly objected to Cupich’s decision to honor the senator. Cupich claims Durbin as a member of the Chicago Archdiocese, where Durbin also has a home.
In his statement announcing that Durbin would decline the award, Cupich lamented that the polarization in the U.S. has created a situation where U.S. Catholics “find themselves politically homeless” since neither the Republican nor the Democratic party fully encapsulates the breadth of Catholic teaching.
He defended honoring Durbin for his pro-immigration stance, and said the planned Nov. 3 award ceremony could have been an occasion to engage him and other political leaders with the hope of pressing the church’s view on other issues, including abortion.
“It could be an invitation to Catholics who tirelessly promote the dignity of the unborn, the elderly, and the sick to extend the circle of protection to immigrants facing in this present moment an existential threat to their lives and the lives of their families,” Cupich wrote.
Paprocki, for his part, thanked Durbin for declining the award. “I ask that all Catholics continue to pray for our church, our country, and for the human dignity of all people to be respected in all stages of life, including the unborn and immigrants,” Paprocki said in a Facebook post.
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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
FIRST ON FOX: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uncovered that the Biden administration placed some Americans who resisted the COVID-19 mask mandate or were involved in the events of Jan 6, 2021, on prolonged TSA watchlists, including some on a no-fly list typically reserved for suspected terrorists.
Fox News Digital acquired the findings of an internal investigation conducted by the agencies that showed that then-President Joe Biden’s TSA initiated “Operation Freedom to Breathe” in September 2021, roughly six months after the CDC relaxed the COVID-19 mask mandate, which targeted Americans who previously resisted mask mandates set forth by the Biden Administration.
The initiative placed 19 Americans on various levels of intensive watchlists, with more than half added to the highest severity no-fly list, preventing them from boarding a flight in the U.S. entirely. Eleven of the individuals remained on watchlists until April 2022, when the national mask mandate was lifted by the Biden administration.
“Biden’s TSA Administrator [David] Pekoske and his cronies abused their authority and weaponized the federal government against the very people they were charged with protecting,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News Digital.
NEW TSA PROGRAM LAUNCHED TO ELIMINATE DOUBLE SCREENINGS FOR INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS
TSA revealed that the Biden Administration targeted some individuals who resisted the mask mandate or were involved with the events of Jan 6, 2021, by putting them on severe TSA watchlists. (Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg / Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“Biden’s TSA wildly abused their authority, targeting Americans who posed no aviation security risk under the banner of political differences,” Noem added. “President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against the American people, and we are making good on that promise.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Pekoske, but did not receive a response.
Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security oversee TSA. (Getty Images/Alex Brandon)
FBI’S PATEL CLARIFIES ROLE OF HUNDREDS OF AGENTS ON JAN 6, SAYS WRAY LIED TO CONGRESS
The investigation also concluded that Biden’s TSA placed roughly 280 individuals allegedly involved in the Capitol protests on Jan 6, 2021, on watchlists, including five on a no-fly list.
Biden’s TSA ignored internal concerns raised by career intelligence officials and TSA’s Chief Privacy Officer that placing individuals on the list “is clearly unrelated to transportation security,” and that “TSA is punishing people for the expression of their ideas when they haven’t been charged, let alone convicted of incitement or sedition,” according to emails from a top privacy official at TSA dated Jan 13, 2021, obtained by Fox News Digital.
Another TSA intelligence employee also expressed worry over watchlisting individuals allegedly involved in the Capitol protest, saying most individuals who were arrested “are technically curfew breakers,” and that “I hope we don’t end up adding them [to a watchlist] on just the arrest,” according to an internal email obtained by Fox.
Some individuals were placed on a no-fly list, which completely barred them from boarding a plane in the U.S. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
FEDERAL JUDGE DUMPS PETER STRZOK LAWSUIT OVER FBI FIRING FOR ANTI-TRUMP TEXTS
Internal emails said that TSA mainly relied on the George Washington University Program of Extremism academic database and social media, rather than traditional sources like the FBI and local police, to determine which individuals should be placed on watchlists.
One individual, a national guardsman deployed to the Capitol for Biden’s inauguration on Jan 20, 2021 and was not present at the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021, was added to a no-fly list because of bad intelligence from Biden’s FBI.
Another individual, the wife of a federal air marshal who was also not present at the Capitol on Jan 6, was added to a watchlist due to additional bad intelligence from the Biden FBI.
Secretary Kristi Noem is referring the case to the Department of Justice and for Congressional investigation. ((Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images))
TRUMP ANSWERS WHETHER COMEY INDICTMENT IS ABOUT JUSTICE OR REVENGE
Americans allegedly involved with the events of Jan 6, 2021, who were not tied to unrelated, individual incidents, were removed from various watchlists on June, 28, 2021.
A majority of Americans allegedly involved with the events of Jan 6, 2021, who were placed on watchlists were removed from them on June, 28, 2021, though some who had been charged remained watchlisted until they were cleared.
Sources at TSA say the Biden administration’s targeting of Americans is the most expansive use of putting U.S. citizens on a no-fly list in history.
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Noem told Fox News Digital that the agency will be “referring this case to the Department of Justice and for Congressional investigation.”
Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris revealed in her new political memoir, “107 Days,” that she was stunned by then-President Joe Biden’s debate response about his administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which left 13 service members dead.
Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump in 2024 was viewed as an abject failure, with the Democratic president tripping over his words, losing his train of thought and displaying a raspy voice attributed to a cold during the event.
Harris argued that Biden whiffed an easy question on the military and omitted any acknowledgment of the 13 U.S. service members who died during the Afghanistan withdrawal. She also pointed to his claims that he was “the only president this century” and “this decade” who did not have any troops “dying anywhere in the world.”
KAMALA HARRIS REJECTS IDEA THAT BUNGLED ‘VIEW’ INTERVIEW WAS TIPPING POINT IN CAMPAIGN
Harris in her book, however, identified those who were killed as “13 marines,” — except it was not all Marines who died during the withdrawal. Eleven Marines, one soldier and one Navy corpsman were killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate.
Harris explained in her book that Biden first faced a question on the economy during his debate in June 2024, which she said was rushed, with Biden showing “no light in his eyes, no expression in his voice.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris published a book Sept. 23, 2025, recapping her experiences on the 2024 campaign trail while also taking shots at former President Joe Biden. (Saul Loeb/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The next question was on the military, and included Biden omitting an acknowledgment of the horrific attack that plagued his administration as one of its greatest failures.
“He’s got so much material on this—Trump calling our fallen soldiers ‘suckers and losers,’” Harris wrote of what ran through her head when Biden was asked about his role as commander-in-chief.
President Joe Biden during his debate against President Donald Trump June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“He managed to get off that line but had stepped on it earlier by saying no one had died in wars overseas on his watch, seeming to forget the thirteen marines who died in the bomb blast at the airport during the evacuation of Afghanistan. I’d been on Air Force Two when it happened, and we had to change our flight plan to get back to DC in the face of that tragedy. How could he overlook that day?” she wrote, expressing her surprise over the response, but misidentifying those who were all killed as members of the Marines Corps.
“I know his deep feelings for those men and women. It’s personal to him,” she added.
Taliban fighters celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Aug. 14, 2024. (Siddiqullah Alizai/The Associated Press)
The Biden administration repeatedly came under fire for its handling of the Afghan withdrawal. It was viewed as paving the road for adversaries such as Russia to invade Ukraine, as the U.S. looked weak on the international stage, critics such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said at the time. The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan upon the U.S.’ withdrawal.
The families who lost loved ones during the botched withdrawal previously slammed Biden and Harris for their deaths, including launching a scathing defense attack against Harris when she was running for president. Parents and other loved ones claimed that the “administration killed my son” and that they “have not seen any support from you or your administration.”
KAMALA HARRIS COMPLAINS ABOUT ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ LACK OF SUPPORT FROM BIDEN’S COMMS TEAM, INNER CIRCLE
Biden added fuel to the fire of the botched withdrawal criticisms when he appeared on a tarmac during a dignified transfer ceremony of those killed in 2021 and was seen looking at his watch.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ office for comment on the section of the book, including a response as to why Harris stated the 13 service members were all identified as “marines,” but did not immediately receive responses. Biden’s office declined to comment.
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris listens during an event with President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Sept. 26, 2024. (Susan Walsh, File/AP Photo)
Harris’ book, “107 Days,” hit store shelves Tuesday and reflects on the former vice president’s truncated presidential campaign cycle after Biden dropped out of the race amid mounting concern over his mental acuity.
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Harris is set to go on tour promoting her book in cities such as New York, San Francisco and London.
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The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would have been “impossible” for Ukraine to have carried out the 2022 explosions that sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines without U.S. President Joe Biden and his administration knowing in advance.
Ukraine has denied any involvement in the major attack on the Russia-to-Europe gas infrastructure. German prosecutors, investigating the incident, arrested a 49-year-old Ukrainian national in August 2025. The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of masterminding the attack.
“Who, so to speak, facilitated this—it is obvious that without the knowledge of President Biden’s administration in the United States, such actions on the part of Ukraine and the Kyiv regime would have been impossible,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, originally in Russian, state-run news agency RIA reported.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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Former Vice President Kamala Harris broke her silence on the chaos following former President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race just three and a half months before Election Day.
Harris previewed her upcoming book “107 Days” with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Monday night describing Biden’s move as “recklessness” and admits she has regrets about not pushing him harder to reconsider.
“So when I write this, it’s because I realize that I have and had a certain responsibility that I should have followed through on,” Harris told Maddow. “So when I talk about the recklessness, as much as anything, I’m talking about myself. There was so much at stake, and at the time I worried it would come off as being completely self-serving.”
Then-Vice President Kamala Harris gives remarks alongside then-President Joe Biden on Aug. 15, 2024, in Largo, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The comments marked the first time Harris has publicly admitted doubts about how she handled the political earthquake.
Harris says the decision left her with just over 100 days to strategize and face off against President Donald Trump. She says the scenario was “unprecedented.”
Her last-minute entry left Democrats scrambling while Trump had been building his war chest for months and hammering down his opponent on the campaign trail.
Vice President Kamala Harris introduces President Joe Biden during a campaign rally at Girard College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 29, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
KAMALA HARRIS ADMITS THERE ARE THINGS SHE WOULD’VE DONE DIFFERENTLY IN 2024, FAILS TO ELABORATE
She recalled how “people who seemingly had nothing in common came together by the thousands with an A-level of optimism and, dare I say, joy about the possibilities for America.”
Critics among her own political party questioned whether she could unite Democrats and win over independents with so little time left.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, Democratic presidential nominee former vice president Kamala Harris, former president Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, President Donald Trump and Republican Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
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After deflecting the U.S. Justice Department’s attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on its abusive tactics in digital advertising.
The trial scheduled to begin Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court will revolve around the harmful conduct that resulted in U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google’s digital advertising technology to be an illegal monopoly. The judge found that Google has been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of online publishers that depend on the system for revenue.
Google and the Justice Department will spend the next two weeks in court presenting evidence in a “remedy” trial that will culminate in Brinkema issuing a ruling on how to restore fair market conditions.
Although the judge hasn’t set a timetable for making that decision, it’s unlikely to come down before the end of this year because additional legal briefs and courtroom arguments are expected to extend into November before Brinkema takes the matter under submission.
No matter how the judge rules, Google says it will appeal the earlier decision labeling the ad network as a monopoly. Appeals can’t be filed until the remedy is determined.
The case, filed in 2023 under President Joe Biden’s administration, threatens the complex network that Google has spent the past 17 years building to power its dominant digital advertising business. Besides accounting for most of the $305 billion in revenue that Google’s services division generates for its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., digital advertising sales provide the lifeblood that keeps thousands of websites alive.
If the Justice Department gets its way, Brinkema will order Google to sell parts of its ad technology — a proposal that the company’s lawyers warned would “invite disruption and damage” to consumers and the internet’s ecosystem. The Justice Department contends a breakup would be the most effective and quickest way to undercut a monopoly that has been stifling competition and innovation for years.
Google believes it has already made enough changes to its “Ad Manager” system, including providing more options and pricing options, to resolve the issues the Brinkema flagged in her monopoly ruling.
The legal battle over Google’s advertising technology mirrors another showdown that the company recently navigated after another federal judge condemned its dominant search engine as an illegal monopoly and then held remedy hearings earlier this year to consider how to stop the misconduct.
In that case, the Justice Department also proposed a severe crackdown that would have required Google to sell its popular Chrome browser, but U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta decided a less dramatic shake-up was needed amid a search market being reshaped by artificial intelligence technology in a decision issued earlier this month.
Even though Google didn’t agree with all aspects of Mehta’s decision, the ruling was widely seen as a slap on the wrist — a sentiment that has helped propel Alphabet’s stock price to new highs. The 20% gain since Mehta’s decision helped make Alphabet only the fourth publicly traded company to reach a market value of $3 trillion — an increase of more than $1 trillion since Brinkema branded Google’s ad technology as a monopoly in April.
In an indication that the outcome of the search monopoly case might sway things in the advertising technology proceedings, Brinkema asked both Google and the Justice Department to address Mehta’s decision during the upcoming trial.
As they did in the search case, Google’s lawyers already have been asserting in court papers that AI technology being used by ad network rivals like Meta Platforms is reshaping the way the market works and overriding the need for the Justice Department’s “radical” proposals.
The Justice Department is “fighting for a remedy that would vanquish a past that has been overtaken by technological and market transformations in the way digital ads are consumed,” Google’s lawyers argued leading up to the trial.
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Luigi Mangione’s lawyers urged a judge on Saturday to bar federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, arguing that authorities prejudiced his case by turning his arrest into a “Marvel movie” spectacle and by publicly declaring their desire to see him executed.
Fresh from a legal victory that eliminated terrorism charges in Mangione’s state murder case, his lawyers are now fighting to have his federal case dismissed, seizing on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s declaration prior to his April indictment that capital punishment is warranted for a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Bondi’s statements and other official actions — including a highly choreographed perp walk that saw Mangione led up a Manhattan pier by armed officers, and the Trump administration’s flouting of established death penalty procedures — “have violated Mr. Mangione’s constitutional and statutory rights and have fatally prejudiced this death penalty case,” his lawyers argued in a court filing.
Mangione’s defense team, led by former Manhattan prosecutor Karen Friedman Agnifilo, implored U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett, an appointee of President Joe Biden, “to correct the errors made by the government and prevent this case from proceeding as a death penalty prosecution.”
Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Mangione. It was the first time the Justice Department said it was bringing a capital case after President Donald Trump returned to office Jan. 20 with a pledge to revive federal executions, which his predecessor Biden had put on hold.
Mangione’s lawyers argue that Bondi’s announcement — which she followed with Instagram posts and a TV appearance — showed the decision was “based on politics, not merit” and, they said, her remarks tainted the grand jury process that resulted in his indictment a few weeks later.
Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented run of 13 executions at the end of his first term, offered his own opinions about Mangione on Thursday — despite court rules that prohibit any pretrial publicity that could interfere with a defendant’s right to a fair trial.
“Think about Mangione. He shot someone in the back, as clear as you’re looking at me or I’m looking at you. He shot — he looked like a pure assassin,” Trump told Fox News.
“There is a high bar to dismissing an indictment due to pretrial publicity,” Mangione’s lawyers wrote in their 114-page filing. “However, there has never been a situation remotely like this one where prejudice has been so great against a death-eligible defendant.”
Federal prosecutors have until Oct. 31 to respond. Mangione is due back in court in the federal case Dec. 5, days after the start of pretrial hearings in his state case. No trial date has been set for either case.
Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson, 50, from behind on Dec. 4, 2024, as he arrived to a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. Authorities say he had a 9 mm handgun and a notebook describing his intent to “wack” an insurance executive.
Mangione’s lawyers contend the simultaneous prosecutions amount to double jeopardy.
In the federal case, Mangione is charged with murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty, as well as stalking and gun offenses.
On Tuesday, the judge in his state case threw out terrorism charges that carried the possibility of a mandatory life sentence without parole. But Judge Gregory Carro rejected the defense’s request to dismiss the state prosecution entirely, saying the double jeopardy argument is premature because neither case has gone to trial or resulted in a guilty plea.
The state case will proceed with other charges, including an intentional murder count that carries a potential punishment of 15 years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole. Unlike the federal system, New York does not have the death penalty.
Mangione has attracted a cult following as a stand-in for frustrations with the health insurance industry.
A few dozen supporters — mostly women — packed three rows in the rear of the courtroom gallery at his hearing Tuesday in state court. Some wore green, the color of the Mario Bros. video game character Luigi, and one woman sported a “FREE LUIGI” T-shirt.
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The lost opportunity.
Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Kamala Harris’s memoir about the 2024 presidential campaign, 107 Days, is being released next week. The emerging theme from the excerpts and leaks is that the former vice-president feels snakebit. The title of the book illustrates her complaint that Joe Biden’s reluctance to step aside forced her into a too-brief campaign in which the 46th president’s legacy and continuing interference were insurmountable problems.
The latest take on the book from the Washington Post suggests that to this day Harris doesn’t understand exactly why she lost, or what she might have done differently, particularly with respect to the living ghost of Joe Biden, which haunted her campaign to the very bitter end. Most interestingly, she talks about what many of us consider the great lost opportunity of her general-election campaign, an October 8 appearance on The View:
When she went on “The View” on Oct. 8, Harris was asked what, if anything, she would have done differently than Biden over the past four years. She responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.” The former vice president describes that response as having “pulled the pin on a hand grenade.”
Still, Harris defends her actions against her critics who said she should have done more to distance herself from Biden, saying she did not “want to embrace the cruelty of my opponent.” She also argues that naming one specific policy difference would have created a “backward-looking rather than forward-looking” conversation and “would have limited the definition of the difference between us to that one thing, rather than my unique perspective on a variety of issues.”
Harris reports that her campaign staff knew her answer to the “What you would have done differently” question was a disaster. But she can’t seem to think of anything else she could have done:
In hindsight, Harris writes, she wishes she’d said that, unlike Biden, she would appoint a Republican to her Cabinet.
She actually did make that pledge later in her appearance of The View. It speaks volumes about her sense of imprisonment (or her timidity) that this sort of empty gesture toward bipartisanship was the best she could come up with — then or now — as a declaration of independence from her highly unpopular boss.
Harris could have — should have — shown some public awareness of the need to improve on the Biden administration’s handling of the two issues that were simply killing her campaign: inflation and immigration. Instead, she made the perpetual error that seems to be a systemic problem for Democrats, seeking to evade difficult issues and change the subject to something else. Yes, being Joe Biden’s vice-president made it difficult for Harris to clearly signal how she’d be different aside from her age and identity. But it’s been done before. In October 1968, at almost the exact same stage of his own presidential campaign, the sitting vice-president, Hubert Humphrey, broke with his all-powerful boss, Lyndon Johnson, on the top issue of the day, the Vietnam War, and it took his left-for-dead candidacy to within an eyelash of victory. Considering she was in a much better position than Humphrey was and facing an opponent even less popular than Richard Nixon, Harris could have changed history.
As my then-colleague Jonathan Chait observed even before she flubbed the key question of the campaign on The View, Harris had more control over her destiny than she seems to imagine:
The vice-president has no constitutional power. If the president wants to do something Harris doesn’t like, Harris can’t stop him. She is therefore not responsible for any policies she doesn’t wish to associate herself with.
The vice-presidency is a strange office, lacking any formal authority. Its inhabitants have generally lamented the powerlessness of the job. Harris really ought to stop thinking about her position as a confining dilemma and realize that it is a liberating opportunity to define her campaign as whatever she wants it to be, unburdened by what has been.
Yes, Harris had a difficult task under extraordinary circumstances. But she played it safe when the political climate dictated some risk-taking. Learning now how trapped she felt makes me sympathize with her as a person but not as the leader of a party that needs bolder leadership than she was able to provide when the country needed it most.
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Josh Shapiro has said Kamala Harris will “have to answer” for why she did not publicly alert people to Joe Biden’s declining ability to serve during his term in the White House.
The Democratic Pennsylvania governor was a candidate to become Harris’s running mate when she replaced Biden as the Democratic party nominee for president late in the 2024 campaign after the president dropped his re-election bid, but narrowly lost out to Minnesota governor Tim Walz – whom Harris dishes on in her new book.
Shapiro is also regarded as a potential 2028 candidate for the White House.
Shapiro’s remark came when he was asked by Stephen A Smith on a political podcast about Harris’ memoir 107 Days, published next week but already seen by the Guardian. In that book she draws a distinction between Biden’s ability to govern and to campaign for reelection – and that she had concerns over the later.
Related: ‘Angry and disappointed’: Kamala Harris critical of Joe Biden in new book
Harris also said that Biden’s decision to run for a second term, only turning over the Democratic candidacy after a disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump, was based in “recklessness. The stakes were simply too high.”
Shapiro said he has not read Harris’s account, but added: “She’s going to have to answer to how she was in the room and yet never said anything publicly.”
Shapiro was asked how Americans should feel “when we hear something that we suspected but wasn’t acknowledged by politicians who were looking for our support, and then we find out later we were right, and they should have spoken up, and they should have shown more courage”.
Shapiro said that while he wasn’t present for White House discussions, he looked at the 2024 race from the perspective of Pennsylvania, which Biden ultimately lost.
“If you can’t win Pennsylvania, it’s pretty darn hard to win the national election,” Shapiro continued. “And I was very vocal with him, privately, and extremely vocal with his staff about my concerns about his fitness to be able to run for another term. I was direct with them. I told them my concerns.”
In the book, Harris questions her decision to not confront Biden, explaining that “of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out” and feared that, if she did, it would be seen as “incredibly self-serving” and “poisonous disloyalty”.
In Harris’ account she writes that Shapiro, before she’d interviewed him, had asked how many bedrooms were in the vice-president’s residence and if the Smithsonian would lend Pennsylvania art for display.
Harris writes that she “mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision” and told him that was “an unrealistic expectation” and “a vice-president is not a co-president.”
Harris also writes about her consideration of Pete Buttigieg, saying that he would have been “the ideal partner” as her running mate if he had been “a straight white man”.
“I had nagging concerns that, of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” Harris writes. Then adding a gay man to the ticket: “It was too big a risk.”
Buttigieg – who, like Shapiro, Harris and Gavin Newsom, the California governor, are considered likely 2028 candidates – told Politico that he was “surprised” to read the passage from the book suggesting that, as a gay man, he was too risky.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” he said. “I wouldn’t have run for president [in 2020] if I didn’t believe that.
On countering Trump, Shapiro said:
“Some people would say that the only way to deal with it is to fight fire with fire, to replicate his behavior to some degree,” Shapiro said, “just to be able to fend off the onslaught of momentum he appears to be building as his presidency continues.”
But Shapiro pointed to his own election victories in Pennsylvania, winning by “bringing Republicans and Democrats and independents together”.
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Hunter Biden was involved in discussions about pardons toward the end of his father’s White House term, a source familiar with Jeff Zients’ interview with the House Oversight Committee told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Zients met with House investigators behind closed doors for over six hours — the final former Biden administration official to appear in House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer’s probe into ex-President Joe Biden’s use of the autopen.
Comer, R-Ky., is also investigating whether Biden’s top aides covered up signs of mental decline in the former president, and whether executive decisions signed via autopen — including myriad clemency orders Biden approved — were executed with his full awareness.
Zients told investigators that Hunter was involved in some of those pardon discussions and attended a few meetings on the subject with White House aides, the source said.
President Joe Biden embraces Hunter Biden during the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 19, 2024 in Chicago. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
It’s not clear how much say Hunter had in those meetings, or if he was involved in discussions about his own controversial pardon.
The former president issued a “full and unconditional” pardon for his son in early December, just under two months before leaving office.
That’s despite Biden and his staff denying the possibility of such a move on several occasions.
Biden approved nearly 2,500 commutations on Jan. 17, just days before leaving the White House, setting a record for most clemency orders ever granted by a U.S. president — more than 4,200 in total — and the most ever in a single day.
Weeks earlier, he issued pardons for several family members, including Hunter.
‘SHOULD BE PROSECUTED’: HOUSE REPUBLICANS ZERO IN ON BIDEN AUTOPEN PARDONS AFTER BOMBSHELL REPORT
House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer is leading a probe into autopen use by President Joe Biden. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
It had been previously reported by NBC News and other outlets that Hunter sat in on White House meetings with Biden’s aides in the wake of the former president’s disastrous June 2024 debate against then-candidate Donald Trump.
Zients is the final former Biden aide expected to appear before the House Oversight Committee in its autopen probe.
The source familiar with his sit-down told Fox News Digital that Zients “admitted that President Biden’s speech stumbles increased as he aged.”
“He also noted that the president’s difficulty remembering dates and names worsened over time, including during the administration,” the source said.
A second source familiar with Zients’ comments to the House Oversight Committee defended his comments.
“As chief of staff, Jeff’s job was to ensure that the president met with a range of advisors to thoroughly consider issues so that the president could make the best decisions,” the second source told Fox News Digital.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks during an event to welcome his new chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients, in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 1, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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“Throughout Jeff’s time working with him, while President Biden valued input from a wide variety of advisors and experts, the final decisions were made by the president and the president alone,” the second source said.
“Jeff had full confidence in President Biden’s ability to serve as president and is proud of what President Biden accomplished during his four years in office.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Zients’ attorney and the law firm of Abbe Lowell, who was known to have defended Hunter previously, for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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Former Vice President Mike Pence is heading back to school.
Pence, who served as vice president during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House but who later ran against his former boss in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, is joining George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government as a distinguished professor of practice.
The northern Virginia-based school said that Pence will begin teaching undergraduate courses and public-facing seminars starting in next year’s spring semester.
The school, in a Tuesday announcement, also said that Pence will be available via moderated discussions and mentorship programs with students pursuing degrees in political science, law, public administration and related fields.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PENCE RECEIVES JFK ‘PROFILE IN COURAGE’ AWARD
Former Vice President Mike Pence acknowledges his staff members after receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award during a ceremony at the JFK Library in Boston, Sunday, May 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Schar School dean Mark Rozell said that the former vice president’s “disciplined approach to communication and his deeply rooted conservative philosophy provide a principled framework to discussions of federalism, the separation of powers, and the role of values in public life.”
And Pence, in a statement, said that “throughout my years of public service, I have seen firsthand the importance of principled leadership and fidelity to the Constitution in shaping the future of our nation. I look forward to sharing these lessons with the next generation of American leaders and learning from the remarkable students and faculty of George Mason University.”
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The now-66-year-old Pence, a former congressman, was Indiana’s governor when Trump named him his running mate in 2016. For four years, Pence served as the loyal vice president to Trump during the president’s first term in the White House.
Then-President-elect Donald Trump and then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence stand onstage together at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Dec. 1, 2016. (Ty Wright/Getty Images)
However, everything changed on Jan. 6, 2021, as pro-Trump protesters — including some chanting “hang Mike Pence” — stormed the U.S. Capitol aiming to upend congressional certification of now-former President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory, a process overseen by Pence in his constitutional role as vice president.
The attack on the Capitol took place soon after Trump spoke to a large rally of supporters near the White House about unproven claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” due to massive “voter fraud.”
Pence rejected the advice of the Secret Service that he flee the Capitol, and after the rioters were eventually removed from the Capitol, he resumed his constitutional role in overseeing the congressional certification ceremony.
The former vice president has repeatedly refuted Trump’s claim that he could have overturned the presidential election results. Despite that, Trump loyalists have never forgiven Pence, whom they view as a traitor, for refusing to assist the president’s repeated efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Former Vice President Mike Pence formally announced his run for president in Ankeny, Iowa, on June 7, 2023. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Pence in June 2023 launched a presidential campaign of his own, joining a large field of challengers to Trump gunning for the 2024 GOP nomination, becoming the first running mate in over 80 years to run against their former boss.
Pence ran on a traditional conservative platform, framing the future of the Republican Party against what he called the rise of “populism” in the party.
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Among the slim anti-Trump base of the Republican Party, Pence received praise for his courage during the attack on the Capitol, often receiving thanks at town halls during his campaign for standing up to Trump.
While Pence regularly campaigned in the crucial early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, his White House bid never took off. Struggling in the polls and with fundraising, he suspended his campaign just four and a half months after declaring his candidacy.
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