Latest news with #Hawley
Time of India
an hour ago
- Politics
- Time of India
'Couldn't find his way out of his own closet': Biden reportedly seemed disoriented in White House
Senator Josh Hawley, left, and former US President Biden (Image credits: AP) Former US President Joe Biden was so disoriented while in office that he would get lost inside his closet at the White House, senator Josh Hawley claimed. 'This secret service whistleblower actually was assigned to Biden,' the Missouri Republican told Fox News host Sean Hannity. 'I mean, the guy literally stumbling around in the White House residence couldn't find his way out of his own closet,' Hawley continued. 'The president of the United States. This is outrageous. We were lied to.' Hawley cited the alleged incident while discussing his conversations with multiple secret service agents during a separate investigation into assassination attempts against US President Trump. He argued the Biden administration and media were covering up Biden's mental decline, calling it one of the biggest scandals in presidential history. The senator's remarks come as several congressional investigations examine the 82-year-old former president's cognitive condition and whether his staff took on presidential responsibilities without his knowledge. House oversight committee chairman James Comer is investigating reports that Biden's staff may have used an autopen to sign White House directives and pardons without informing him. Comer has also asked Dr Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician, to testify, raising doubts about the accuracy of public health reports released during Biden's term. Earlier this month, Biden revealed he is battling an aggressive form of prostate cancer, prompting questions about whether his diagnosis had been hidden during his time in office. Meanwhile, senators Eric Schmitt and John Cornyn are planning a hearing next month to address concerns over Biden's mental fitness. Cornyn warned on Fox News that the situation presents a constitutional crisis. 'The question is: Who is in charge? Whose finger is on the nuclear button or has the nuclear codes?Cornyn asked. 'Who can declare war? How do we defend the nation when we have basically an absent president? And those are constitutional issues we need to address and correct.' Hawley said Americans were misled by the White House and media about Biden's condition. 'Now we've got to get the facts,' he said, calling the situation 'a huge stain' on the country.
New York Post
6 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Secret Service whistleblower said Biden would ‘get lost in his closet' at the White House: Sen. Josh Hawley
A Secret Service whistleblower claims that former President Joe Biden was so out of it at the White House that he would 'get lost in his closet,' Sen. Josh Hawley revealed Friday. The stunning level of disorientation is an example of why the Democratic cover-up of Biden's mental decline is one of the biggest scandals in presidential history, Hawley argued. 'This Secret Service whistleblower actually was assigned to Biden,' the Missouri Republican told Fox News host Sean Hannity. Advertisement 'He told me that Biden used to get lost in his closet in the mornings at the White House,' Hawley claimed, noting that he spoke to numerous Secret Service agents while investigating the assassination attempts against President Trump. 'I mean, the guy was literally stumbling around in the White House,' Hawley continued. 'The president couldn't find his way out of his own closet. 'This is outrageous. We were lied to.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hawley urges DOJ probe of Chinese trucking company
FIRST ON FOX – Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked the Justice Department on Thursday to investigate a Chinese-owned self-driving trucking company, one of the largest in the U.S., citing allegations that it had shared proprietary data and other sensitive technology with state-linked entities in Beijing. The letter, sent to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and previewed exclusively to Fox News Digital, asks the Justice Department to open a formal investigation into the autonomous truck company TuSimple Holdings, a Chinese-owned company and one of the largest self-driving truck companies in the U.S. In it, Hawley cites recent reporting from the Wall Street Journal that alleges that TuSimple "systematically shared proprietary data, source code, and autonomous driving technologies" with Chinese state-linked entities— what he described as "blatant disregard" of the 2022 national security agreement with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. "These reports also revealed communications from TuSimple personnel inside China requesting the shipment of sensitive Nvidia AI chips and detailed records showing 'deep and longstanding ties' with Chinese military-affiliated manufacturers," Hawley said. Trump Nominates Former Defense Attorney Emil Bove For Federal Appeals Court Vacancy He noted that to date, TuSimple "has not faced serious consequences" for sharing American intellectual property with China, despite having continued to share data with China after signing a national security agreement with the U.S. government in 2022, which was enforced by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Read On The Fox News App "If the reports about TuSimple are accurate, they represent not just a violation of export law, but a breach of national trust and a direct threat to American technological leadership," Hawley said. Trump Admin Working To Fly Back Guatemalan Migrant Erroneously Deported From Us "The American people deserve to know how and why a supposedly U.S.-based company was allowed to serve as a conduit for the transfer of sensitive innovations to the Chinese Communist Party," he added. The letter asks Bondi and the Justice Department to take certain steps to investigate the company's actions, as alleged by the recent reports – including investigating whether TuSimple provided protected information to any Chinese-based entities, and what activities were covered by the company's national security agreement with CFIUS, struck more than two years ago. Hawley also asked Bondi what actions, if any, DOJ has taken to date to ensure that Bot Auto—a new Texas-based self-driving vehicle company staffed by many former TuSimple employees, "is not engaging in similar behavior." According to the Wall Street Journal report, TuSimple's actions helped shape new Commerce Department regulations, which blocked the sale of internet-linked cars and different components with links to China. According to the report, a CFIUS investigation determined TuSimple's tech sharing did not violate the official national security agreement— but the company was fined for other infractions, and ultimately paid out a $6 million settlement. The letter comes as Hawley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, has emerged as one of the Senate's more vocal critics of the Chinese Communist Party, especially as it relates to the conduct of certain U.S. companies, and the sharing of certain intellectual article source: Hawley urges DOJ probe of Chinese trucking company
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hawley stakes ground as chief GOP defender of Medicaid
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is staking out his spot as a populist defender of Medicaid in opposition to the steep cuts contained in the House-passed megabill to fund President Trump's domestic agenda. The senior senator from Missouri — who as the state's attorney general once signed on to a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act — has made his position clear: He will not support a bill that cuts Medicaid benefits. Hawley has long warned his party against Medicaid cuts; the $800 billion question is whether other senators will join him. He joined with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) during a marathon series of votes on the budget resolution in April to introduce an amendment that would have stripped the House's directive to find $880 billion in savings. The amendment was not adopted, but Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also voted for it. Earlier this month, Hawley wrote in a New York Times op-ed that slashing health care for the working poor 'is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.' 'Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs,' Hawley wrote. 'More than that, our voters depend on those programs.' Hawley is adamant that Republicans take President Trump seriously when he says they should not touch Medicaid benefits and instead focus on 'waste, fraud and abuse.' 'We ought to just do what the president says,' Hawley said late last week, after the House passed its version of the bill. He cited concerns about the impact the House bill's Medicaid provisions — most notably a freeze on provider taxes — would have on rural hospitals. Missouri health experts said about 10 rural hospitals closed in the years leading up to the expansion vote. Ever since, there haven't been any closures. Hawley also said he spoke with Trump, who reiterated his desire for Congress not to cut Medicaid benefits. 'His exact words were 'don't touch it, Josh.' I said hey, we're on the same page,' Hawley told reporters. In a CNN interview earlier this month, Hawley called a provision requiring increased beneficiary co-pays 'basically a hidden tax on working poor people who are trying to get healthcare.' Outside observers said Hawley hasn't suddenly become a defender of ObamaCare, but his Medicaid position reflects the changing politics of the low-income health care program. Lower-income, working-class people on Medicaid are now a major part of the GOP base, which has become more populist since the emergence of Trump. Missouri is a ruby-red state that Trump won handily in 2024, but those voters also overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure in 2020 to expand Medicaid. 'All the research shows that there are more people in rural areas on Medicaid than in urban areas. And I think [Hawley's] picked up on that. … These are his voters, and he seems to be speaking out of a populist position,' said Timothy McBride, a health economist and professor at Washington University's School of Public Health. The legislation that passed the House late last week would cut nearly $800 billion from Medicaid through a combination of provisions that include work requirements on 'able-bodied adults' through age 64 without dependents, a freeze on provider taxes, more frequent checks of people's eligibility, and reducing federal Medicaid payments to states that provide health care coverage for migrants without legal status. Congressional scorekeepers estimated the bill would result in close to 10 million people losing insurance coverage. The legislation doesn't make specific changes to the federal matching rate for Medicaid expansion, as hard-liners pushed for, but it is still designed to penalize expansion states. There are 1.3 million people receiving Medicaid benefits in Missouri, including 350,000 people covered by Medicaid expansion. Leighton Ku, a professor and director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, estimated the state would lose about $2.4 billion in federal funding over a decade. Unless the state repeals its expansion, which can't be done without another ballot measure, Missouri will need to find some other way to pay for that coverage. 'So that's going to create hardship for Missouri, because … Missouri is otherwise a pretty red state, so they don't like doing things like raising taxes,' Ku said, meaning they'd likely have to cut other benefits. 'This is one of the things that is causing Senator Hawley some concerns.' But experts and advocates said they remain perplexed by Hawley's support for work requirements. Hawley and other GOP lawmakers argue the work requirements do not qualify as a cut to benefits. They say work requirements will make the 'able-bodied' individuals who choose not to work contribute to society. But experts say almost all beneficiaries are already working. 'The people who are typically affected [by work requirements] are not young guys playing Xbox. It tends to be middle-aged and older women,' said Ku. 'Paperwork gets in the way.' The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the work requirements would save the federal government $280 billion over six years, at the cost of millions of people losing insurance. 'I think that it's great that he is sticking up for Medicaid, that he's voicing concerns that are important to his constituents,' Christi Lero, a Medicaid ambassador for the left-leaning Missouri Rural Crisis Center, said. 'But what's also important is the method to go about protecting Medicaid. These job requirements are really just a different avenue to cut Medicaid. And we know that.' But as in the House, there are competing factions in the Senate calling for even steeper cuts to Medicaid. It's not clear how leadership will try to satisfy all camps. The House's legislation front-loads much of the savings to satisfy the conservatives. Scaling back Medicaid cuts would also upset the delicate balance that got the bill across the finish line in the House. Conservatives are already warning that they won't swallow an erosion of their hard-fought, deficit-cutting victories. Al Weaver contributed to this story. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sen. Ron Johnson says there's enough opposition in the Senate to hold up Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill
WASHINGTON — As the Senate prepares to consider the sprawling domestic package that House Republicans passed last week, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he thinks there are 'enough' Republicans to 'stop the process' in order to prioritize stronger reductions in spending and the national deficit. The Wisconsin Republican has criticized the bill's impact on the deficit, characterizing outsize spending as 'mortgaging our children's future.' The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the bill would add $2.3 trillion to the federal deficit over 10 years. Johnson said in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' that congressional Republicans should examine spending 'line by line, like DOGE has done' to find areas to eliminate. The senator's criticism comes as the Senate is gearing up to consider changes to the House bill, which passed by a single vote, setting up another fight over government deficit levels, funding for programs and attempts to rein in spending ahead of Republicans' goal to send a final version of the bill to President Donald Trump's desk by July 4. Several Republicans in the Senate have expressed skepticism about aspects of the bill for what they view as inadequate spending cuts or shrinking Medicaid access and have promised to change it. Any changes to the bill would need to be approved by the House before it goes to Trump. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in an interview on 'Fox News Sunday' that the current spending cuts in the bill 'are wimpy and anemic,' adding that he 'still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren't going to explode the debt.' 'The problem is the math doesn't add up,' Paul said, adding that 'they're going to explode the debt.' Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has also criticized potential Medicaid cuts. The bill, if passed in its current form, is expected to rescind health coverage for about 8.6 million people, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. Hawley told NBC News shortly after the House passed the bill that 'the Senate will basically write its own version of this bill, and I just want to make sure that there are no Medicaid benefit cuts.' In an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this month, Hawley accused a wing of the Republican Party of wanting 'Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor.' 'But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal,' Hawley said. When asked during a Sunday interview on CBS News' 'Face the Nation' to respond to Hawley's comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that 'we are not cutting Medicaid' but instead 'working in the elements of fraud, waste and abuse.' The House speaker repeatedly defended the bill's impact on people who would lose Medicaid coverage, instead casting the bill as targeting waste, fraud and abuse among Medicaid users. He said in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' that the Republican-led bill was not cutting Medicaid, arguing that 'the numbers of Americans who are affected are those that are entwined in our work to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse.' The speaker pointed to 'illegal aliens on Medicaid,' saying that 'Medicaid is not intended for non-U.S. citizens.' Certain non-U.S. citizens are allowed to enroll in government health care options. Johnson also criticized 'young men, for example, who are on Medicaid and not working.' He argued that people were committing 'fraud' by 'choosing not to work when they can.' Anchor Jake Tapper asked Johnson whether he believed that if any of his constituents were to lose benefits like Medicaid, it would be because they should not have received those benefits 'because they were committing waste, fraud or abuse.' 'Yeah,' Johnson answered. 'Look, my district, as every district in America, has people who are on the program who shouldn't.' Democrats have seized on potential Medicaid cuts, blasting Republicans' domestic policy bill and working to characterize the GOP as willing to cut health insurance options for poor people while increasing the wealth of Americans with higher incomes. NBC News previously reported that during negotiations over the bill last week, Trump visited House Republicans and instructed them, 'Don't f--- around with Medicaid,' according to two lawmakers present. The House speaker said during multiple Sunday-morning interviews that he has urged Senate Republicans to make as few changes to the bill as possible. The House and Senate will ultimately need to reconcile different versions of the bill before it heads to Trump's desk to be signed into law. 'I had lunch with my Senate Republican colleagues on Tuesday, their weekly luncheon, and I encouraged them to remember that we are one team,' Johnson said on CBS News. 'It's the Senate and the House Republicans together that will deliver this ball over the goal line, so to speak. And I encouraged them to make as few modifications as possible, remembering that I have a very delicate balance.' The bill passed the House 215-214, with two Republicans opposing the bill, one voting 'present' and two missing the vote. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized the bill last week, saying that 'Trump promised to love and cherish Medicaid.' 'Instead, his One Big Ugly Bill represents the largest healthcare cut in our country's history,' Jeffries said in a statement. 'Millions of people will lose their Medicaid coverage and hardworking American taxpayers will be forced to pay higher premiums, copays and deductibles.' This article was originally published on
