Latest news with #JosephBiden
New York Times
21-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Hunter Biden Trashes Democrats He Saw as Betraying His Father
In a pair of podcast appearances over the past several days, Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., appears to be trying to settle scores with Democrats he sees as having contributed to his father's political undoing. Mr. Biden delivered a broad critique of the party last week on the debut episode of a podcast hosted by Jaime Harrison, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, arguing that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they did not remain loyal to his father. In a separate, three-hour-plus podcast released on Monday, the younger Mr. Biden named names, unleashing a profane tirade against a host of perceived enemies, including the senior Biden aide Anita Dunn; the Democratic éminences grises David Axelrod and James Carville; the Obama administration alumni who built Crooked Media, a booming liberal podcast network; the CNN host Jake Tapper; and the actor George Clooney. In a single minute-long clip, he used a version of the same expletive 13 times. His interviewer this time was Andrew Callaghan, a YouTuber previously known for crisscrossing America in an R.V. In the videotaped conversation, Mr. Biden dismissed Mr. Clooney as 'a brand' and Mr. Carville as someone who 'hasn't run a race in 40 years.' Mr. Axelrod, he said, 'had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama, and that was because of Barack Obama.' The former Obama aides behind Crooked Media and its 'Pod Save America' flagship, he said, were 'four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
13-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Excerpts From The Times's Interview With Biden on Clemency Decisions
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke to The New York Times by phone on Thursday about clemency actions he granted toward the end of his term. Mr. Biden did not personally sign the official warrants recording those decisions; rather his White House staff used an autopen device to do so. President Trump and his allies have since called into question Mr. Biden's mental acuity and seized on the use of the autopen. Mr. Trump has denounced the pardons and commutations as illegitimate and claimed that Mr. Biden's staff conspired to run the presidency in his name using the device. Both the Justice Department and congressional Republicans have opened investigations. Mr. Biden granted large batch commutations to reduce the sentences of three categories of federal convicts: shielding about 1,500 people who had been serving home confinement since the pandemic from being forced back to prison; reducing the sentences of about 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders to what they would have received under current policies; and turning the sentences of 37 of the 40 inmates on death row into life without parole. He also granted pardons to several people whose cases have received political attention, including pre-emptive pardons to people who had drawn the ire of Mr. Trump. Among them were members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol attack along with Capitol Police officers who testified before the panel, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and members of Mr. Biden's family. Below are excerpts. I made every single one of those. And — including the categories, when we set this up to begin with. And so — but I understand why Trump would think that, because obviously, I guess, he doesn't focus much. Anyway, so — yes, I made every decision. Because there were a lot of them. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
09-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Ex-White House Doctor Refuses Questions in G.O.P. Inquiry on Biden's Mental Acuity
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s White House physician refused on Wednesday to answer questions for a Republican-led congressional investigation into Mr. Biden's mental acuity. The doctor, Kevin O'Connor, cited both physician-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a statement that one of his lawyers read to the House Oversight Committee at the start of his scheduled closed-door deposition. Dr. O'Connor, who served all four years as Mr. Biden's doctor in the White House, had been subpoenaed by Republicans on the oversight panel who are investigating whether Mr. Biden and his aides concealed mental deficiencies that made him unable to perform presidential duties. The inquiry includes questions about whether Mr. Biden's staff abused an autopen, a device routinely used by presidents to put their signatures to formal documents, to illegally carry out official actions in his name. Presidents have for decades used an autopen to sign all manner of documents, including major legislation; doing so is legal as long as a president authorizes it. President Trump and his allies have been stoking a theory that Mr. Biden suffered from severe age-related decline that left him incapable of making presidential decisions at all, making any action taken in his name via the device legally invalid. In a statement, Representative James Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the Oversight chairman, blasted Dr. O'Connor for refusing to cooperate and suggested he was trying to hide something. 'It's clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden's cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,' he said. 'The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O'Connor would rather conceal the truth.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
How Insularity Defined the Last Stages of Biden's Career
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s aides did not want him to speak with me. For months, as I worked on a book about the 2024 presidential election, I made multiple requests for an interview with Mr. Biden. One of my co-authors had sat down with President-elect Donald J. Trump, and we felt it was critical to talk to Mr. Biden. But the former president's aides said he was working on a memoir, and that would conflict with my book. Yet when I reached Mr. Biden on his cellphone in late March, he answered and agreed to talk. He broke his silence on his successor to criticize the early weeks of Mr. Trump's second term. 'I don't see anything he's done that's been productive,' the former president said. When I asked if he had any regrets about dropping out of the presidential race, Mr. Biden said, in a detached tone, 'No, not now. I don't spend a lot of time on regrets.' Then he hung up because he was boarding an Amtrak train. My brief conversation with Mr. Biden prompted a cascade of concern among his top aides. One screamed at me for calling the former president directly. Others texted furiously, trying to figure out how I had obtained Mr. Biden's phone number. Mr. Biden had seemed open to continuing the conversation, but my subsequent calls went straight to voice mail. His automated greeting simply said, 'Joe.' Two days later, that greeting was replaced by a message from Verizon Wireless: 'The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected or is no longer in service.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
02-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Asks Justices to Let Him Fire Consumer Product Safety Regulators
President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let him fire the three Democratic members of the five-member Consumer Product Safety Commission, which monitors the safety of items like toys, cribs and electronics. A federal law shields the officials, allowing them to be terminated only for 'neglect of duty or malfeasance.' Mr. Trump gave no reasons for removing them when his administration revealed his intentions in May, and has said that congressional limits on his ability to fire leaders of independent agencies are an unconstitutional check on his power to control the executive branch. In an interim order in May concerning the leaders of two other agencies, the Supreme Court appeared to agree. The majority wrote that Mr. Trump could remove officials who exercise power on his behalf 'because the Constitution vests the executive power in the president.' The earlier cases concerned Cathy A. Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and Gwynne A. Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board. Those cases are pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The lower-court judge who ruled that the consumer agency's leaders could not be fired, Judge Matthew J. Maddox of the Federal District Court in Maryland, cited a 1935 Supreme Court ruling in his decision in June. Judge Maddox, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said the 1935 precedent, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, barred the firings. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., rejected the administration's request for a pause of Judge Maddox's ruling in an unsigned ruling on Tuesday. In a concurring opinion, Judge James A. Wynn Jr., who was appointed by President Barack Obama, wrote that Humphrey's Executor had not been overruled and governed the case. In the administration's emergency application, D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, said the court's emergency order in May 'squarely controls this case.' 'If anything,' he wrote, 'this is an even stronger case for a stay. President Trump decided to remove three commissioners who would otherwise make up a majority of the C.P.S.C., and whose actions since their putative reinstatement only underscore their hostility to the president's agenda.'
