Latest news with #politicalscandal
Fox News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Seth Meyers mocks media frenzy over Biden 'cover-up,' says his age was 'worst-kept secret'
NBC "Late Night" host Seth Meyers mocked the idea of former President Joe Biden's declining health being a major political scandal, claiming it "was the worst cover-up in American history." Questions about Biden's health have resurfaced after the release of "Original Sin," a new book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson, which alleges that Biden's inner circle concealed the president's flailing health and cognitive decline for years, despite telling the public that he was mentally sharp and fit for office. Meyers ripped the media for paying attention to the Biden "cover-up" when, according to him, "The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are rapidly dismantling American civil society and turning the country into a reclusive oligarchy." "But I don't want to talk about any of that and neither does the media. We both want to talk about something way more important. Joe Biden is, and has been, for a while, very old," he said sarcastically. After playing a montage of figures calling the cover-up a media scandal, Meyers joked, "They're right. This is the biggest scandal in history, bigger than Watergate, bigger than Iran-Contra, bigger than the Teapot Dome Scandal." The late-night host argued that the president's advanced age wasn't a secret and the majority of Americans were against him running for re-election in the 2024 campaign, believing him to be too old to serve again. "Now, you might be thinking to yourself, 'Wait, didn't everybody already know that Joe Biden was old?'" Meyers asked. "'Didn't poll after poll show that the vast majority of Americans, including a clear majority of Democrats, thought he was too old to run for reelection, and wanted someone else? Didn't he biff it so bad in the debate that his own party undertook an unprecedented effort to successfully force him out of the race?'" "'Weren't Democrats ultimately punished for Biden's disastrous choice to run again when they got their asses kicked in the November election?'" he continued. "'Didn't Seth play that clip of Biden falling up the stairs, like, 1,000 times?'" "This was on TV, everyone saw it," he said of Biden stumbling while walking up the stairs of Air Force One in 2021. "If this was a cover-up, if this was the worst [bleep] cover-up in American history. It was the worst-kept secret since Mika and Joe," he joked, referring to the relationship of "Morning Joe" co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough who wed in 2018 after years of co-hosting the morning MSNBC show. "This was only like Watergate if the break-in had been live-streamed on Twitch," Meyers added. After poking fun at reports that Biden got lost in his closet in the White House, Meyers turned serious. "It was just a disastrous political choice. And the people who deserve criticism for that are Biden, the aides who convinced him and themselves that he should ignore reality and run again," he concluded. Meyer's Monday night show appears to be the first time he referenced the Biden cover-up revelations from Tapper's book, according to Grabien transcripts. Meyer and fellow liberal late-night hosts Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel have all welcomed Biden for friendly interviews. Most recently, Biden was on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" in February 2024, just days after the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur's report. Hur was heavily attacked by the media at the time for calling Biden a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory" in his report. During his February 2024 interview of Biden, Meyers gently broached the subject of Biden's age before quickly moving on to other topics. After Hur's report was released a few days later, Meyers called the special counsel's comments a "gratuitous hypothetical" and stressed that Hur was a "Republican attorney" who "was originally appointed by Trump." "If that kind of language was appropriate in a legal finding, then prosecutors could have done the same thing to Trump," Meyers said before repeatedly drawing attention to President Donald Trump's mental acuity.
Fox News
7 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Tapper reveals Democratic sources felt no remorse about covering up Biden decline in interviews for book
Print Close By Hanna Panreck Published May 30, 2025 CNN's Jake Tapper said during an interview on Wednesday that the many Democratic sources he and Axios reporter Alex Thompson spoke to for their book about the cover-up of former President Biden's decline didn't really express remorse or acknowledgment that a mistake was made. "We never got somebody that said, 'We should never have done this. I can't believe we did it. In retrospect, it was a mistake. How arrogant we were.' I mean, even, you know, there was a top aide, a top White House aide, who acknowledged to me that this short 10-15 minute interview I did with Joe Biden in October 2022, he would not have been capable of doing in October 2023. That admission was stunning to me," Tapper said on The Stephen A. Smith Show. He added, "But it did not come with, 'And we really made a mistake, we shouldn't have run him. What an error. I can't believe we did it.' It didn't come with that." Tapper and Thompson's book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," has detailed the length at which those closest to Biden went to cover up his limitations while in office. The CNN host recently said the scandal may even be "worse than Watergate." AXIOS REPORTER PUSHES BACK ON BIDEN'S DENIAL OF MENTAL DECLINE, SAYING WHITE HOUSE INSIDERS DISAGREE Tapper said the sources said they thought Biden was the only one who could beat President Donald Trump. "So I think that most were telling the truth, as much as they had come to terms with it themselves, but I do wonder where they will be in a year, because I heard from one of the people, one of the Democrats I interviewed for the book, who gave me one of the most shocking revelations, and I checked in, 'How are you doing,' they're upset. But they're not upset at us, not upset at the book, they're just upset that it happened and now everybody is talking about it," he added. "They're still working through a lot." Thompson also discussed one interview he did that occurred before the election for the book, who he described as saying that all the former president had to do was win and "occasionally show proof of life and the people around him would run the country." "And their justification was when you, first of all, you're not bringing back Trump. And when people vote for president, they're also voting for the people around them, and some people in the Biden world, that is how they justified keeping this going," Thompson added. Tapper added that view was "crazy." SHIELDING BIDEN: JOURNALISTS SHED LIGHT ON THE MEDIA'S COVER-UP OF A WEAKENED PRESIDENT "That was somebody who worked for the White House before the election, before Biden dropped out, saying like, it's no big deal, he just needs to show proof of life. That was the term, proof of life.' I mean, that's so offensive," Tapper said. The CNN host also accused the former president, and those around him, of being anti-democratic. "And like the idea that Biden thought only he could beat Trump and that he could be president for another four years, both of those are not facts and they both seem odd to me. But the idea that he would deny the Democratic Party an opportunity to have a primary system that would produce, among possible candidates, whether you or Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or whoever, that he would deny that to the party, so that this small group of people, including him, and one cabinet secretary said to us that it was, at best, he was a senior member of a board that ran the country. It's anti-democratic, really," he said, speaking to Smith, who has suggested that he was open to a potential bid for the presidency. CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Tapper has admitted that he didn't cover Biden's decline extensively enough since the book's release and has said he looks back on it with "humility." Print Close URL
Fox News
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Broke Biden
Biden's political scandal explodes into public view as Democrats duck for cover, and prove they're on the wrong side of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit Jeffrey Petz
BBC News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
'Shiver Me Timbers' WhatsApp group councillor gets standards brief
A councillor suspended for involvement in a controversial political WhatsApp group has been appointed to her authority's standards watchdog. Brenda Warrington was a member of the 'Trigger Me Timbers' social media chat, in which messages containing derogatory comments about constituents were made, prompting the suspensions of Labour councillors and MPs. Tameside Council Conservatives criticised former council leader Warrington being put onto the committee, which investigates breaches of the code of and Tameside Council have been approached for comment. The Local Democracy Reporting Service reports that at a Tameside Council meeting on Tuesday, Conservative councillor Dan Costello said Warrington was a member of a social media group in which members of the public were "mocked and abused".Costello said the actions of those in the group were not "anything close to high standards of conduct". "In the transcripts from that group Councillor Warrington has over 1,500 contributions. These contributions include descriptions of people as 'idiots', 'stupid', 'peevish' and even as 'bonkers'."Costello said he accepted there was "no constitutional reason" Ms Warrington could not be appointed to the committee, he questioned her Councillor Joe Kitchen, chair of council business, said issues related to the WhatsApp group were under investigation and those enquiries were ongoing. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Polish opposition presidential candidate takes poll hit over apartment deal
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's main opposition presidential candidate was facing mounting criticism on Friday over his acquisition of an apartment from a vulnerable pensioner, as a poll showed a dip in support and the prime minister labelled him unfit for office. The campaign of Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been rocked by allegations that he lied about owning a second property and that he acquired it from a elderly man in return for a promise of care which he did not provide. Nawrocki has called the reports that the elderly man ended up in a state-funded retirement home because he did not provide the care he promised in return for the flat "media lies", but said on Wednesday he would give the property to charity. "In the Polish state, such people... certainly should not seek the highest state honours, the highest dignities, such as the presidency," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski told parliament he believed the scandal had been orchestrated by Poland's secret services to influence the election, without providing evidence. A survey conducted by Pollster on May 7-8 for the Super Express tabloid showed that support for Nawrocki had dipped by more than 2 percentage points since its previous opinion poll in late April. The poll put liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Tusk's ruling Civic Coalition (KO), on 32.3% and Nawrocki on 22.7% ahead of the May 18 first round, with 52% of respondents saying the apartment furore would affect the election outcome. Since the tough-talking amateur boxer-cum-historian entered the race for the presidency he has faced a deluge of negative coverage in liberal media outlets, including the discovery of a television interview in which he appeared in disguise under a pseudonym and praised his own work as a historian.
