Latest news with #andHisDisastrousChoicetoRunAgain
UPI
26-06-2025
- Politics
- UPI
GOP's Comer subpoenas Jill Biden aide in panel's probe of Joe Biden's mental health
1 of 3 | Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on Thursday issued a subpoena to a former Jill Biden aide in his panel's probe into Joe Biden's mental health. File Photo (2024) by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo June 26 (UPI) -- Republican House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer on Thursday issued a subpoena to a former Jill Biden aide in his panel's probe into Joe Biden's mental health. The subpoena targeted Anthony Bernal, a former assistant to the president and senior adviser to the former first lady, calling for him to appear for a deposition on July 16 as part of Comer's probe into what his press announcement called "the cover-up of President Joe Biden's mental decline and potentially unauthorized executive actions." Comer's announcement on the subpoena said Bernal was reportedly so close to the former first lady that he was referred to as her "work husband." A day earlier, Bernal had notified Comer's panel that he would not take part in its requested interview. Comer on Thursday said that Bernal previously had confirmed that he would appear "for a voluntary transcribed interview" on Thursday. However, Comer said, the White House Counsel's office informed Bernal that it was waiving executive privilege for the committee's investigation. At that, Bernal refused to appear. In a subpoena cover letter, Comer said, in part, to Bernal that "the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requested that you -- because of your role as a senior aide to former President Joe Biden -- appear for a transcribed interview on June 11, 2025, broadly regarding 'the extent of your influence over the former President and your knowledge of whether the former President was personally discharging the duties of his office.' "Given your close connection with both former President Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, the Committee sought to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden's fitness to serve from the American people," the letter continued. "You have refused the Committee's request. However, to advance the Committee's oversight and legislative responsibilities and interests, your testimony is critical. Accordingly, please see the attached subpoena for testimony at a deposition on July 16, 2025." Bernal was one of the sources cited in Jake Tapper's book Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. That book also has been referenced by Comer in his panel's investigation into Joe Biden's mental health. In May, Comer announced his investigation, citing general concerns about Biden's age and mental capacity after the president's troubled performances and missteps on the campaign trail, which eventually resulted in Joe Biden withdrawing from his presidential run. Comer's investigation also launched as renewed interest in Biden's health erupted after the former president announced he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into Joe Biden's cognitive state, alleging that White House aides covered up his mental decline.
New York Post
18-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Jake Tapper ripped on C-SPAN while plugging book on Biden's decline: ‘I really don't like you'
CNN anchor Jake Tapper faced sharp criticism from a caller on C-SPAN Tuesday over his new book about former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline, with the woman accusing him of unfair coverage and bias toward the current president, Donald Trump. Tapper appeared on Tuesday's edition of 'Washington Journal' to discuss 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' the bestselling book he co-wrote with Axios reporter Alex Thompson. During the C-SPAN call-in show, Tapper was confronted by Sarah, a caller from Virginia who voiced frustration over what she saw as one-sided reporting. 4 A C-SPAN caller bluntly told CNN anchor Jake Tapper 'I don't really like you' while he was plugging his book about former President Biden's decline on Tuesday. C-SPAN 'I watch you on CNN,' she began. 'But right now, I really don't like you. I think you're doing a disservice to Joe and also to the American people.' Sarah questioned why Tapper hasn't applied the same level of scrutiny to Trump's behavior and fitness for office. 'When are you going to examine what is going on with Trump? Joe Biden conducted himself for four years taking care of the United States. He took meetings. He went overseas. He negotiated with other leaders,' she said. 'This president has been pure chaos, which indicates to me that there is something wrong with him. We will never get a straight answer on his medical examinations, what medication he is on, and yet you have gone after Joe Biden with a vengeance that… I'm very disappointed in you.' The caller said she used to enjoy Tapper's show 'The Lead,' but that his recent focus had changed her view. 'And I think right now you ought to start writing another book examining Trump and how erratic [he is] and what he is doing, calling out the National Guard, the Marines, and everybody,' she added. 'When has a president ever done that? It's pure erratic!' Tapper, who has acknowledged that he failed to adequately devote scrutiny to the question of Biden's fitness while he was president despite apparent signs of his decline, responded calmly, defending his coverage and encouraging viewers to tune into his daily CNN broadcast. 4 Tapper appeared on Tuesday's edition of 'Washington Journal' to discuss the book he co-wrote with Alex Thompson of Axios. Joe Biden via REUTERS 'Sarah, as you know from watching my show on CNN, we cover President Trump every day for two hours — every day from 5 to 7 Eastern — and we cover all the things you talk about, in terms of the current president's behavior,' he said. He pointed to past instances where Trump confused public figures, saying, 'We have covered the times that he has confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley.' 'I think some of the questions about President Trump's behavior have more to do with personality than with cognitive decline,' Tapper added. 'Whatever lessons we've learned from covering President Biden, we would apply to any politician,' he continued. 'So I'm sorry if I'm disappointing you by covering President Biden. But journalists, we are supposed to cover stories that we think the American people have a right to know, that we think will enhance their understanding of how the country is run.' Tapper closed the exchange by reaffirming his belief in the book. 'We are proud of this book,' he said, adding that CNN would continue to cover current events in the days ahead. 4 The book alleges that White House aides worked to conceal the then-president's deteriorating mental and physical condition during his time in office. REUTERS 'Washington Journal' is a live, daily call-in program on C-SPAN that gives viewers the chance to directly engage with elected officials, journalists, policy experts and other public figures about current political and policy issues. It typically airs every morning, seven days a week, and covers a wide range of topics including legislation, national events, and public affairs. The show is known for its unfiltered, interactive format whereby viewers call in and ask questions or share opinions live on-air — often divided by political affiliation. 'Everyone knows that C-SPAN callers are cranky and that's part of the charm of the show,' a media source told The Post. Unlike many news programs, 'Washington Journal' maintains a nonpartisan approach, providing a neutral platform for discussion and civic engagement. 4 The book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' has become a bestseller. AFP via Getty Images The book alleges that White House aides worked to conceal the then-president's deteriorating mental and physical condition during his time in office. Since its release, Tapper has made headlines by calling the alleged cover-up 'worse than Watergate' and describing Hunter Biden as acting like the 'chief of staff of the family.' He has also stated that 'conservative media was right' to raise concerns about Biden's age. House Republicans have already cited the book to justify an expanded investigation into what they claim is a cover-up of Biden's health. A representative for Tapper declined to comment when reached by The Post.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Obama's Doctor Gives Telling Update on Biden's Health Amid His Aggressive Cancer Diagnosis
Ever since former President Joe Biden announced his cancer diagnosis, there have been questions about his health. This is pretty much on par for the course; the same has happened to public figures like King Charles and Kate Middleton, too, after their own diagnosis. It's just that a lot of the conversation regarding Joe Biden's health has to do with the question of whether he should have run for a second term in office. It matters not that, in the end, Kamala Harris took over or that she lost the election anyway. Now, Barack Obama's former physician is adding to the questions surrounding Biden. Jeffrey Kuhlman said in an interview that the former President's doctor should have given him a cognitive test during his final year as president due to his age. The last report by White House physician Kevin O'Connor in February 2024 didn't include any mention of neurocognitive testing. Biden was 81 at the time. More from StyleCaster Obama Just Got Roped into Diddy's Trial in Shocking Claim King Charles Responds to Joe Biden's 'Aggressive' Cancer After Their Eerily Similar Diagnoses Related: Here are the celebrities who support Donald Trump 'Sometimes those closest to the tree miss the forest,' Kuhlman said of O'Connor, who also expressed that such a test would have given voters a clearer picture of whether Biden was up for another 4 years in the Presidency. 'It shouldn't be just health, it should be fitness,' Kuhlman said. 'Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?' But Kuhlman stopped short of saying there was a conspiracy, calling O'Connor 'a good doctor' who seemed to do his best to 'give trusted medical advice.' 'I didn't see that he's purposely hiding stuff, but I don't know that,' he added. 'Maybe the investigation will show it.' This criticism comes as Republicans subpoenaed O'Connor and President Donald Trump ordered White House attorneys to determine if Biden's inner circle tried to conceal his alleged cognitive decline. Biden's diagnosis is of metastatic prostate cancer, the kind of diagnosis that sheds no light on his mental health, but reports about Biden's alleged decline have run rampant even before he stepped aside to allow his Vice President, Kamala Harris, to run. These claims were in many ways strengthened by the book published by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, titled Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. The book is based on interviews with Democratic insiders. Biden's response to this whole thing was telling. During a Memorial Day event, the former President said. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he told reporters. Meanwhile, his granddaughter, Naomi Biden, called the book 'political fairy smut.' The Republicans will continue to investigate the matter, but the facts remain that Joe Biden isn't President anymore, and he didn't even stay in the race until the end in 2024. If there was, indeed, a cognitive decline on his part, it clearly hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans and, perhaps, the party in power should be thankful for that. Best of StyleCaster The 26 Best Romantic Comedies to Watch if You Want to Know What Love Feels Like These 'Bachelor' Secrets & Rules Prove What Happens Behind the Scenes Is So Much Juicier BTS's 7 Members Were Discovered in the Most Unconventional Ways
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
CHICAGO – The journalists behind the bombshell book about Joe Biden's cognitive decline continue to face tough questions about the media's failure to report on it sooner. Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," appeared in Chicago as part of their book tour and were confronted with an audience question submitted by Fox News Digital about the reckoning the media has been facing in recent weeks and months regarding their role in the Biden scandal. "I mean, it was a failing of the press," Thompson responded Thursday. "'I'd say, on the most basic level, if the press was completely on this story, then the debate would not have been such a shock." Biden Book Author Reveals How White House Staff Truly Felt About Karine Jean-pierre As Press Secretary The Axios reporter insisted newsrooms aren't a "monolith" and dismissed the notion that there was any coordination between news outlets in covering up for Biden, jokingly telling the Windy City crowd "they can't even plan a happy hour." "There are a lot of really great reporters and there are a lot of great reporters in the Biden White House," Thompson said. "And it does frustrate me a bit when there's this broad brush painted by, in my opinion, some bad-faith right-wing people trying to be like, 'They were all in the tank.' That being said, I do think there were a few things going on that allowed some reporters to miss this. One is, I do think some people let their own personal ideological leanings affect how they reported." Read On The Fox News App "The other thing I will say about the D.C. sort of circuit beyond reporters – D.C. is a liberal town. It didn't always use to be, but it is now. And if you are an aggressive, tough, fair reporter on Donald Trump, you get snaps all around town. If you are invited to every single garden party… You don't get as many yes snaps when you're covering Obama or when you're covering Biden," he continued, adding that the "social incentives" change between covering the Trump administration and covering the Biden administration. Cnn's Tapper Rips Media Smear Campaign Against Hur, Wsj On Biden Decline Without Mentioning Own Network "It's a complicated question," Tapper chimed in. "Yes. I wish I had been more aggressive about it, but I will say when we started writing this book after Election Day 2024, we did not know what we were gonna get or how many people were gonna talk to us… We talked to more than 200 people. And we were surprised at what we learned. Like we did not know that some of this dated back to 2015 after the tragic loss of his son Beau." "And so the idea is that this was all just sitting there waiting for the reporting, I wish it was so, it is not true," Tapper said. While the CNN anchor conceded that "right-wing media" was right in calling out Biden's cognitive decline before the rest of the legacy media, he swiped that sharing viral videos of Biden over the years isn't "investigative journalism." "If any of those outlets actually published any investigative journalism that had cabinet secretaries as we do, or senior White House staffers as we do, etc., saying these things as opposed to just pointing and laughing at him, then maybe I would be more receptive to the argument from them, 'Oh, we all knew this as we reported it at the time,'" Tapper said. Shielding Biden: Journalists Shed Light On The Media's Cover-up Of A Weakened President When asked what their takeaways from their reporting and the entire Biden saga were, Thompson called out journalists who rely on a "moral calculus" when determining whether to cover a major political story. "If reporters are doing a moral calculus, or they start doing some weird calculus where 'If I report this, would it help Trump and that's gonna be bad or good,' that is an endless path that I don't think reporters should be trying to do," Thompson said. "The job and the reporting is, is this true? Can we report it? And it's really up to the country to decide what to do with that reporting. I think sometimes reporters get caught up in thinking about the externalities and the consequences of putting this out into the world." "There are always going to be bad-faith people and bad-faith politicians that are gonna take the reporting and skew it and use it for their own partisan purposes. But if you start thinking that way in saying like, 'Oh, I don't want to report something that's true because bad-faith people are gonna take advantage of it,' I think you just end up in this, like, bad cul-de-sac," he article source: Biden book authors pressed on why the media failed in covering cognitive decline scandal
New York Post
05-06-2025
- Health
- New York Post
House GOP subpoenas Biden doctor, sets sights on Karine Jean-Pierre
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer issued a subpoena Thursday to force Joe Biden's doctor, Kevin O'Connor, to appear for questions about the alleged cover-up of the ex-president's mental decline — and plans to invite Karine Jean-Pierre to appear after she divulged plans for a tell-all book about the 'broken' administration she served as press secretary. Dr. O'Connor refused to sit for a transcribed interview, citing patient-doctor confidentiality, but will now be called in for a grilling on June 27, according to the subpoena. 'In lieu of full compliance, your counsel suggest a set of written interrogatories that would afford them as well as an unnamed medical ethics expert the ability to 'closely evaluate' your answers,' Comer (R-Ky.) wrote to O'Connor. 'This is not acceptable and will not satisfy the Committee's legitimate oversight and legislative needs. Considering these facts, the attached subpoena is now necessary.' 3 Getty Images A source familiar with the House investigation said that the panel expects Jean-Pierre to be invited to give testimony as well — after she said Wednesday that she had left the Democratic Party and plans to release 'Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines' on Oct. 21. 3 David Lienemann/The White House 3 REUTERS O'Connor is the first person to be subpoenaed by Comer as part of his investigation of Biden's mental decline and the alleged concealment of his slipping health. Comer initially sought the doctor's testimony about 'the circumstances surrounding your assessment in February 2024 that former President Biden was 'a healthy, active, robust 81- year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.'' The chairman noted in his latest communication that his committee also was interested in 'whether your financial relationship with the Biden family affected your assessment of former President Biden's physical and mental fitness to fulfill his duties as President.' 'Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee sought to understand if you contributed to an effort to hide former President Biden's fitness to serve from the American people,' he wrote. The oversight panel is in talks with attorneys for four other Biden aides about their potential testimony, including first lady Jill Biden's former chief of staff Anthony Bernal and the president's former West Wing aides Annie Tomasini, Neera Tanden and Ashley Williams. On Wednesday, Comer also requested appearances by former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former de facto West Wing communications chief Anita Dunn and longtime Biden advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti. Biden has brushed off claims that he was mentally fading while in office and last week suggested he was fit enough to beat up journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, the co-authors of 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.' 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent and I can't walk and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' Biden bristled May 30 following remarks in his home state of Delaware — his first public appearance since the May 18 announcement he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.
