Biden doctor Kevin O'Connor pleads Fifth rather than answer questions about ex-prez's health
Biden's longtime personal physician exited the House Oversight Committee grilling just an hour after it started, with O'Connor's attorney David Schertler telling reporters, 'No comments to press.'
'Dr. O'Connor pleaded the Fifth Amendment,' Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) later revealed. 'I'm gonna read the first two questions that were asked.'
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Dr. Kevin O'Connor — seen here with Biden while serving as vice president — pleaded the Fifth to the question, 'Were you ever told to lie about the president's health?'
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'Were you ever told to lie about the president's health? He pleaded the Fifth Amendment,' the chairman said. 'Did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duties?'
'I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up,' he declared.
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The Trump White House had declined Tuesday to invoke executive privilege over any of the former White House doctor's testimony.
'There's more and more evidence that comes out every day that would suggest that the president was in a pretty severe mental decline, so we're going to ask about that,' Comer had said before the deposition.
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'We can't have the physician's office not being truthful about the health condition of the president,' he added, noting that this was part of a larger investigation into who in the Biden White House was authorized to use an autopen that signed executive actions and pardons.
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Schertler, a top criminal defense lawyer, also represented former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci during his testimonies before the Oversight's Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic last year.
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Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
It's Trump's economy now
Presented by With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco Good Sunday morning. It's Zack Stanton. Get in touch. THE CONVERSATION: Within days of her election in November, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), faced backlash from some House Republicans for being transgender. In the face of those attacks, McBride has sought ways to forge ties across the aisle, animated partly by her hope of bringing 'a sense of kindness and grace' to Congress despite the 'reality TV show nature' of today's politics, she tells Playbook's Dasha Burns on today's episode of 'The Conversation.' Listen in: The two also discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, how the Democratic Party can rebuild its coalition without 'reinforcing right-wing framing' over 'culture war' issues and why her pursuit of bipartisan legislation is in part a direct response to President Donald Trump. Watch the full episode … Subscribe to 'The Conversation' on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify DRIVING THE DAY WELCOME TO THE VIBE SHIFT: For months, Trump has boasted that under his leadership, America is the 'hottest' country in the world. (He repeated that claim overnight in a social media post at 1:49 a.m.) Now, he's at risk of being burned by those expectations. On Wednesday, new GDP numbers showed that in the first half of the year, the economy grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3 percent. On Thursday, new inflation numbers showed that the personal consumption expenditures price index jumped by 2.6 percent in the year ending in June — an acceleration of the inflation rate from April. On Friday, the new jobs report showed that net hiring has 'plummeted over the past three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May,' in the words of the AP. And behind those topline numbers was a striking datapoint, the WSJ's Te-Ping Chen and Harriet Torry note: 'The number of people unemployed for at least 27 weeks topped 1.8 million, the highest level since 2017, not counting the pandemic's unemployment surge.' This morning, it's clear that a new consensus is emerging: For all the talk of a new 'Golden Age,' there are abundant signs that the economy, while at times glittering, may not be gold. Simply put: 'Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year,' AP's Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber write. '[T]his is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post.' Indeed, nearly 200 days into his second term, even members of Trump's administration are signaling that the window during which Biden could be blamed has now passed. The 'Trump economy has arrived,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday. 'Biden's first quarter is behind us, and growth is already accelerating.' Trump has made himself central to the economy. 'After campaigning on a pledge to free business from worrying about Washington's dictates, Trump has made public policy — and his own norm-busting behavior — the primary variables affecting the $30 trillion U.S. economy, economists said,' WaPo's David Lynch and Abha Bhattarai report. Washington, they write, is now 'the focus of business and investment decision-making.' That's unlikely to change anytime soon. Among the reasons why, two loom large: the coming economic impact of Trump's tariffs, and new concerns about the reliability of government economic statistics going forward. ON THE TARIFFS: 'Companies are starting to shift more tariff-related costs onto consumers,' NYT's Sydney Ember reports in an A1 story this morning. 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There are trade ministers who want to talk more and see how they can work in a different way with the United States, but I think that we have, we're seeing truly the contours of the president's tariff plan right now with these rates.' — National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on the jobs numbers on 'Fox News Sunday': 'When the data are unreliable, when they keep being revised all over the place, then there are going to be people that wonder if there's a partisan pattern in the data. … And so, I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the [Bureau of Labor Statistics], somebody who can clean this thing up.' — Sen. 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Bill Cassidy's (R-La.) office … Jay Caruso … Rachael Shackelford Dussuau … Reuters' Brad Brooks … Ken Nahigian … DNC's Emma Bailey … James Wegmann of Stand Together … Jacob Weisberg of Pushkin Industries … Andrew Craft … POLITICO's Jasmine Turner and Bemi Ukuedojor … Dmitri Mehlhorn … Sydney Hilbush of Rep. John Garamendi's (D-Calif.) office Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@ or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump reveals $200 million golden ballroom in ‘modernized' White House East Wing
It's the golden makeover the White House didn't know it needed. Construction crews will soon break ground on the massive, gilded ballroom that President Donald Trump hopes to use for state dinners and other events before the end of his term in 2029, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed Thursday. Leavitt told reporters that construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom — containing what she described as 'a much-needed and exquisite addition' of 'innately designed and carefully crafted space' — would begin in September. 'The White House is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the world, yet the White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building entrance,' she said. Leavitt added that the new 'White House State Ballroom' would be a 'much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of innately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.' The new event facility will be built on the site of the White House's East Wing, which currently stands between the Executive Residence and Treasury Department headquarters. First built in 1902 and enlarged with a second floor four decades later, it houses offices for First Lady Melania Trump and her staff, the White House Military Office, the White House Visitor Office, and other White House support functions. Leavitt said those offices would be temporarily relocated during the construction. According to Leavitt, the East Wing will be 'heavily changed and reconstructed' once the new ballroom is completed. She also told reporters that the addition to the White House complex will cost approximately $200 million, with the funds to come from President Trump and unspecified private donors. And while it will be 'substantially separated from the main building of the White House,' Leavitt stressed that it will be nearly identical in 'theme and architectural heritage' to the existing facilities. An interior rendering of the ballroom provided by the White House reveals a massive hall with ornate ceilings and chandeliers, replete with gold leaf throughout. The image is reminiscent of the ballroom which Trump had built on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago, the historic 1920s-era Palm Beach mansion that is both a private club run by his family's eponymous hotel and real estate company and his primary residence. Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump has sought to update the appearance of the historic facility to make it more to his liking. He enlisted a cabinetmaker he has previously employed at Mar-a-Lago, who he referred to as his 'gold guy,' to give multiple surfaces in the Oval Office his own Midas touch, leaving the iconic room adorned with ostentatious splashes of pure gold leaf paint in places where there was no such ornamentation before. He has also ordered the iconic Kennedy Rose Garden to be converted into a patio much like the one on which he entertains guests at his Florida social club. The rose bushes that have ringed the area since the Kennedy administration remain, but the grass surface that has been the site of numerous events just outside of the Oval Office has been replaced with paving stones.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Economy is getting worse under Trump's leadership, Americans say in new poll on eve of his tariff D-Day
A new poll shows Donald Trump underwater on the issue of his tariff agenda just as the president announced a new wave of levies affecting dozens of countries. On Thursday night, Trump signed an executive order that sets new tariffs on U.S. trading partners that are due to go into effect on August 7. Canada is one of the countries hardest hit, facing an increased rate of 35 percent. However, while Trump has been gung-ho on threatening other nations with stiffer levies, it would seem voters are not so convinced it is the right approach. Trump won a second term in November boosted by the same issues that propelled him to victory the first time around. Concerns over immigration and the economy were at the forefront of voters' minds, though he received a key boost from the implosion of Joe Biden's campaign.A Times of London/YouGov poll out Thursday said the president's tariff agenda is one of the biggest anchors driving down his approval numbers. Some 48 percent of Americans graded Trump's job performance over the first six months of his administration as poor, compared to just 21 percent who rated it excellent, 16 percent who rated it good and 11 percent who rated it as fair. On the core issue of tariffs, Trump is clearly tanking — despite months of pronouncements from the White House of America's impending 'Golden Age.' Four in ten Americans say that Trump's tariffs will make the country poorer and stifle economic growth. Just 26 percent believe the White House's line about economic prosperity coming down the pike. And most alarmingly for the White House, inflation still ranks as the No. 1 issue for voters. That could prove to be dangerous ground for the president as the summer concludes with potentially sharp increases to consumer prices stemming from the president's reciprocal tariffs. A CBS News poll further dove into the president's declining numbers on the economy. Six in 10 of voters under 30 now say that Trump's policies are harming the economy, and making them worse off financially. Seven in 10 voters in the same category say that they didn't believe the president is focused enough on lowering prices for consumers. If Trump is losing ground with the younger voters he peeled off from Democrats in 2024, Republicans are set for trouble in the midterm elections next year. Polling isn't yet registering significant voter support for the GOP budget reconciliation package, the 'big, beautiful bill', as it's been overshadowed by the president's tariffs and mass deportation agenda, among other issues. Another factor driving down Trump's numbers with younger voters is Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department blew up the investigation into Epstein, a convicted pedophile and sex criminal who died in 2019, when in early July the agency declared that the billionaire financier died by suicide, as had previously been found, and that no evidence linking him to accomplices, other than Ghislaine Maxwell, was uncovered. The sudden declaration that the 'Epstein Client List', which Vice President JD Vance and others in the administration pledged to release, supposedly did not exist at all erupted into a wildfire on the MAGA right, particularly among Trump's younger supporters. Trump then spent the month of July embracing a series of increasingly obvious attempts at distraction, infuriating many and driving speculation even higher. The Times/YouGov poll found that a much larger share of voters, more than four in ten, think that Trump and his team have partially or completely lied in their public statements regarding the case. Less than 20 percent of Americans believe them. Immigration has been another issue where the president has lost ground as the White House and Department of Homeland Security have accelerated mass deportation programs under his second term. Images of immigration enforcement raids have caused massive protests in Los Angeles and alarmed many Americans including Trump-supporting independents around the country. Nearly every poll on the Decision Desk HQ Average, with the exception of two surveys conducted by Republican outfits, now shows Trump with popularity ratings in the negative, some by double digits. Some pollsters have speculated that Trump began at a deficit other presidents escaped in their first six months due in large part to the circumstances of his 2024 victory and the rank unpopularity that the Democratic Party encouraged with its jumbled mess of a re-election campaign for Biden and later Kamala Harris. Coming into 2025, the president was already burdened by some of the highest disapproval ratings of any incoming president in history.
