Ian Sams worked as an aide and spokesman for former President Joe Biden, and was often asked to defend the president’s physical health and cognitive abilities – but according to recent testimony, Sams only actually met with then-President Biden face-to-face on two occasions.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), House Oversight Committee Chairman, laid out the details after hearing Sams’ testimony on Thursday — remarking in particular that he himself may have spent more time with Biden than Sams had.
“Ian Sams, a top Biden White House spokesman, just admitted to Congress he barely ever interacted with Joe Biden — yet he was the loudest voice insisting Joe was ‘fit,’” Comer captioned a video of himself speaking with reporters after Sams’ testimony.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 Ian Sams, a top Biden White House spokesman, just admitted to Congress he barely ever interacted with Joe Biden—yet he was the loudest voice insisting Joe was “fit.”
Ian parroted talking points from Biden’s handlers, not firsthand experience. <a href="https://t.co/ySil6MPcg5">pic.twitter.com/ySil6MPcg5</a>
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/1958561904273584520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Ian Sams, who was the White House spokesperson for a significant amount of Joe Biden’s time as president, interacted with him two times,” Comer told C-Span. “I interacted more with Joe Biden than Joe Biden’s spokesperson.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepJamesComer</a>: &#8220;Ian Sams, who was the White House spokesperson for a significant amount of Joe Biden&#8217;s time as president, interacted with him two times&#8230;I interacted more with Joe Biden than Joe Biden&#8217;s spokesperson.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/x47pgyXsk1">pic.twitter.com/x47pgyXsk1</a>
— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1958571479269867772?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Think about this: I had more face time with Joe Biden than his own spokesman Ian Sams did. In fact, Special Counsel Robert Hur probably spent more time with Joe Biden than Ian Sams did. Ian Sams had no standing to say Joe Biden was ‘on top of his game,’” Comer added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Think about this: I had more face time with Joe Biden than his own spokesman Ian Sams did.
In fact, Special Counsel Robert Hur probably spent more time with Joe Biden than Ian Sams did.
Ian Sams had no standing to say Joe Biden was ‘on top of his game.’ <a href="https://t.co/WNpPLsq1zn">https://t.co/WNpPLsq1zn</a>
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/1958590530306363429?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The fact that Sams had no regular, in-person contact with his boss did nothing to deter him from putting up a vigorous defense of his capabilities — a defense that the public now knows was baseless.
As former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer pointed out, “In July 2024 the same Ian Sams said: ‘When I deal with him, he’s sharp. He’s asking tough questions.’”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In July 2024 the same Ian Sams said:
“When I deal with him, he&#8217;s sharp. He&#8217;s asking tough questions.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/J27Dsul4nb">https://t.co/J27Dsul4nb</a>
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanspicer/status/1958617242691625107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Comer released a full statement following Sams’ testimony:
<blockquote>Ian Sams frequently spoke publicly and with apparent authority about President Biden’s mental fitness and state of mind. However, Mr. Sams admitted he had very limited interaction with the President—identifying only two in-person meetings, one virtual meeting, and one phone call. In fact, Special Counsel Robert Hur probably spent more time with President Biden than Mr. Sams did.
Rather than drawing conclusions from firsthand experience, Mr. Sams received much of his direction from the White House Counsel and Biden’s inner circle. Mr. Sams repeatedly made broad public claims about the President’s cognitive condition, but he was not in a position to make these claims based on such limited contact.
Mr. Sams’s testimony raises serious questions about who is truly calling the shots in the White House. We will continue to press for answers to ensure full transparency for the American people.</blockquote>

Special Assistant To The President And Spokesperson For The White House Counsel’s Office Ian Sams Speaks To The Press

Aide Defended Biden’s Mental Capacity Dozens Of Times. Here’s How Many Times He Met With Biden.

Biden Administration

Joe Biden

Media

Politics

White House

Mark Crosby arrived in court last week to attend the sentencing of the man who punched and kicked him in the head outside of a Baltimore Planned Parenthood prepared for his attacker to get a light sentence. 
Before the sentencing began, Crosby, 75, sat outside the courtroom holding up photos of his bloodied face as his assailant, 28-year-old Patrick Brice, paced nervously down the hall. Crosby also carried with him the blood stained shirt he was wearing when he was attacked and a list of peaceful pro-life protesters who were jailed during the Biden administration. 
Brice was convicted earlier this year of second-degree assault and reckless endangerment charges for attacking Crosby and then 84-year-old Dick Schaefer as they stood outside a downtown Baltimore Planned Parenthood facility urging women not to get abortions. Surveillance <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-full-video-shows-lead-up-to-brutal-attack-of-elderly-pro-lifers-by-man-who-dodged-prison?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=EXCLUSIVE%3A+Full+Video+Shows+Lead-Up+To+Brutal+Attack+Of+Elderly+Pro-Lifers+By+Man+Who+Dodged+Prison">footage shows</a> Brice getting into an argument with Schaefer before tackling him to the ground and turning around and attacking Crosby. 
Crosby asked people standing outside of the courtroom, including reporters and supporters, if what happened to him looked like a misdemeanor. 
In the end, his prediction that Brice would get a light penalty came true. Baltimore City Circuit Judge Yvette Bryant <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/man-who-brutally-beat-elderly-pro-lifers-dodges-prison-time?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Man+Who+Brutally+Beat+Elderly+Pro-Lifers+Dodges+Prison+Time">sentenced him</a> to just one year of home detention with work and other allowances, and three years of probation. 
&#8220;What about my rights and my well-being?&#8221; Crosby shouted as Bryant left the courtroom. 
Crosby later told The Daily Wire that he believed the light sentencing was because of the fact that Baltimore is a “criminal-friendly” city and run by pro-abortion officials. Crosby was represented by the Thomas More Society, which decried the sentencing. 
“This was not a minor altercation between two parties with differing views on abortion. It was a vicious, targeted assault on two senior citizens whose only ‘offense’ was praying for expectant mothers and offering life-affirming alternatives to abortion,” Thomas More Society President Tom Brejcha said.
“One of the victims was knocked unconscious. The other suffered broken facial bones and a lifelong eye impairment. This was an act of cowardice and cruelty, and sheer mayhem. This crime deserves far more serious consequences than a ‘get out of jail free’ card and a one-year home detention that amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.”
Brice&#8217;s sentancing contrasted sharply with those of the dozens of peaceful pro-life protesters who were prosecuted by the Biden administration. Many of those defendants were sentenced to years long prison sentences for violating the Freedom to Access Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). 
The law, signed by President Bill Clinton to supposedly guarantee access to both abortion facilities and crisis pregnancy centers, has been used disproportionately against pro-lifers. The Biden administration paired FACE charges with a Reconstruction-era conspiracy against rights law that allows for prison sentences of over 10 years. 
Biden’s Justice Department successfully prosecuted these cases across the country — from Michigan to Tennessee to Washington, D.C. — and got lengthy prison sentences for multiple defendants. 
One woman, Lauren Handy, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-life-activist-sentenced-to-over-four-years-in-prison-over-protest-at-d-c-abortion-facility">was sentenced</a> to 57 months in prison for her role in an October 20 sit-in at the notorious D.C.-based Washington Surgi-Clinic late-term abortion facility. Handy helped lead a protest inside the facility that involved the group singing, praying, locking arms in front of the facility’s staff entrance, and attaching themselves with ropes and chains to block doors inside the building.
They were convicted of FACE Act charges and conspiracy against rights.
Many of Handy&#8217;s co-defendants also received lengthy prison sentences including John Hinshaw (21 months in prison), William Goodman (27 months), Jonathan Darnell (34 months), Herb Geraghty (27 months), Jean Marshall (24 months), Joan Bell (27 months in prison), Paula Paulette Harlow (24 months), and Heather Idoni (24 months). 
Biden’s Department of Justice <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/seven-defendants-sentenced-federal-conspiracy-against-rights-and-freedom-access-clinic">claimed</a> that the protest “resulted in injury to a clinic nurse.” But the Thomas More Society, which defended Handy, <a href="https://www.thomasmoresociety.org/news/thomas-more-society-files-emergency-appeal-of-lower-court-decision-denying-lauren-handys-release-from-jail-pending-sentencing#:~:text=Lauren%20Handy%2C%20et%20al.,for%20Release%20Pending%20Sentencing%2C%20here.">argued</a> differently. 
“The only basis for a finding of the use of force was when an overzealous clinic worker rushed at the pro-life advocates and tried to forcibly remove them from the clinic waiting room, resulting in her twisting an ankle,” the legal group said. “There was no allegation that Ms. Handy or her co-defendants intended to harm anyone. In fact, Ms. Handy and her co-defendants were united in their commitment to non-violence.”
In another prosecution brought by the Biden administration, six pro-lifers <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-life-demonstrators-found-guilty-face-up-to-11-years-in-federal-prison">were convicted</a> in Tennessee of the FACE Act and conspiracy against rights. Their protest involved the demonstrators signing, praying, and sitting in front of doors in a hallway outside of an abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee.  
Two of those defendants, including 64-year-old <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pardoned-pro-life-activist-says-hes-running-on-adrenaline-and-the-holy-ghost-after-trump-pardon">Calvin Zastrow</a> and 75-year-old Chet Gallagher, were sentenced to prison. Heather Idoni, one of their codefendants, was also sentenced to serve a prison sentence to run concurrently with her sentence from D.C.
Another FACE Act defendant was Bevelyn Williams, who was sentenced in New York to 44 months in prison.  
This all changed after Trump took office and he <a href="https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1386366/dl">issued pardons</a> for the FACE Act defendants, meaning that Handy and the other imprisoned pro-lifers were freed. The Justice Department also issued a directive to only enforce the FACE Act in cases of extreme violence.
Crosby believes that the Trump administration should get involved in his case and look at prosecuting what happened to him and Schaefer as a hate crime as he believes that he was targeted for his religious and political beliefs.

MixCollage-14-Aug-2025-01-14-PM-6596

This Man Dodged Prison For Beating Two Pro-Lifers. Biden Jailed Pro-Lifers Over Peaceful Protests.

Abortion

Baltimore

Department of Justice

FACE Act

Planned Parenthood

Pro-Life Movement

Tennessee

Washington D.C.

People associated with the January 6 Committee who did not receive preemptive pardons from former President Joe Biden may be contacted to answer some questions, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official suggested on Sunday.
Ed Martin, the Trump administration&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ed-martin-planned-to-clean-up-dc-now-hes-setting-his-sights-on-the-whole-country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">weaponization czar</a> working under the supervision of Attorney General Pam Bondi, briefly spoke about probing the now-defunct panel at the end of an <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6377014112112" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview on Fox News</a>.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
BARTIROMO: What about the January 6 committee? Did they destroy evidence? Is there criminality there?
ED MARTIN: Of course. Trust me, a lot of people did not get a pardon that were involved in the select committee, and they ought to be keeping an eye on their mailbox. <a href="https://t.co/xRelaTtlyp">pic.twitter.com/xRelaTtlyp</a>
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1957101509935525999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Real quick, what about the January 6 Committee? Did they destroy evidence? Is there criminality there?&#8221; asked &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures&#8221; anchor Maria Bartiromo.
&#8220;Of course. We&#8217;re all in that, too,&#8221; Martin replied. &#8220;And, trust me, a lot of &#8230; people did not get a pardon that were involved in the select committee, and they ought to be keeping an eye on their mailbox, because there&#8217;s a lot to be asked about.&#8221;
Biden announced during the final hours of his presidency in January that he <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/20/statement-from-president-joe-biden-15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pardoned</a> the lawmakers and staffers who served on the January 6 Committee, along with D.C. and U.S. Capitol police officers who testified before the Democrat-led panel, among others.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
&#8220;Baseless and politically motivated investigations wreak havoc on the lives, safety, and financial security of targeted individuals and their families,&#8221; Biden said in a statement at the time. &#8220;Even when individuals have done nothing wrong — and in fact have done the right thing — and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances.&#8221;
As the Trump administration is looking into whether aides improperly used autopen to sign off on executive actions in an effort to conceal Biden&#8217;s health issues, Bartiromo asked Martin if the pardons were legitimate.
&#8220;Well, yes, I&#8217;m the pardon attorney, so I have — I&#8217;m in that, too,&#8221; Martin said, referring to his other job at DOJ. &#8220;I can tell you we&#8217;re investigating how the pardons were granted. It was not like anything in the history of America what Joe Biden — not Joe Biden, his staffers did, not just with the autopen, but with faking him out on the memos.&#8221;
He continued, &#8220;More to come, Maria. I&#8217;m telling you, Pam Bondi has let us loose, and when this comes out, it&#8217;ll take the whole of these people&#8217;s hoaxes down. And we&#8217;re doing it bit by bit. And it&#8217;s fantastic. It&#8217;s a great privilege.&#8221;

Ed Martin

Trump Weaponization Czar Puts January 6 Committee Associates On Notice

Congress

January 6 Committee

U.S.

President Trump&#8217;s push to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/22/republicans-free-market-energy-00465122">boost energy</a> affordability by slashing green regulations and climate lawfare has been a powerful yet undercovered plank of his second term. Drastically changing course from the energy-restrictive policies of “Bidenomics” is a key factor that propelled Trump back to the White House. To keep pace with MAGA on energy independence, Congress is launching a fresh <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-investigates-bloomberg-philanthropies-for-partisan-activism-with-state-attorneys-general/">probe</a> into the complex network and funding of lawsuits aimed at undermining affordable energy projects.
It’s a move that could finally reset climate and energy policies to benefit the American consumer above lawyers.
For the last decade, state attorneys general&#8217;s offices across the country have waged lawfare against energy producers and suppliers, using state statutes to <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/state-ags-rebuked-for-soliciting-billionaires-in-climate-cases/">issue lawsuits</a> seeking maximum financial penalties for climate liability, including <a href="https://stateline.org/2024/04/04/after-a-long-slog-climate-change-lawsuits-will-finally-put-big-oil-on-trial/">high-profile cases</a> in Hawaii and Minnesota against oil and gas giants.
Many lawyers and staff in these offices have been trained by ideological climate change university <a href="https://stateimpactcenter.org/ag-work/ag-actions">programs</a> like the State Energy &amp; Environmental Impact Center at NYU, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the giving arm of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s financial empire.
In the probe announced <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-investigates-bloomberg-philanthropies-for-partisan-activism-with-state-attorneys-general/">in July</a>, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is putting the congressional microscope on these shady programs, revealing how harmful they have been to keeping energy costs low. They’ve already demonstrated the significant influence these programs had within President Biden’s administration.
“The Bloomberg-NYU partisan agenda will likely hurt working-class Americans in the name of the partisan globalist climate-agenda,” said Comer, adding that the partisan climate law agenda “undermines faith” in the impartial justice system.
It’s no coincidence that David Hayes, the former executive director of NYU’s climate litigation program, was a <a href="https://www.law.nyu.edu/news/david-hayes-biden-special-assistant-president-climate">top climate advisor</a> to Biden in his single term.
It’s the right moment to seek <a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2025/07/22/house-gop-takes-aim-at-dcs-climate-lawsuit-eed-00465782">accountability</a> for the failed energy policies of the Biden Administration and the well-funded law school networks that sustain and push petty climate litigation, and both the legislative and executive branches are right to do so.
Our judicial system has been captured by ideological interests that seek to force consumers to live with fewer and costlier options when it comes to powering their homes and businesses.
The climate lawfare brigade purports to care about climate change and the environment, but their only goal so far has been to try to extract high-dollar settlements from energy suppliers. These symbolic wins for climate activists serve to drive up energy and electricity prices for consumers, as energy companies divert more resources to legal fees than to innovation and investment in new solutions.
Who is the winner in this scenario? Not everyday Americans.
Although consumers read headlines about “<a href="https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2018/03/case-questions-climate-change-culpability">climate culpability</a>&#8221; and <a href="https://stateimpactcenter.org/ag-work/pro-environment-federal-litigation">settlements</a> with energy companies brokered by blue-state AGs, these are cases about money and ideological points more than proving wrongdoing.
There is no attention paid to actual climate solutions that would benefit society at large. As we’ve seen from climate lawsuits <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article296546349.html">filed</a> against nuclear energy providers, a power source that is close to the most renewable and <a href="https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48480/R48480.2.pdf">sustainable</a> energy source on the planet, it’s really not about finding cleaner power sources either.
This is the same movement that notched a big win <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165475">last week</a> with the International Court of Justice issuing a ruling to mandate all countries curb their emissions or be held economically and legally liable in international law, a laughable case that the US will rightly <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/24/rubio-eliminates-climate-office-00308505">ignore</a>.
Ultimately, radical activists must reconcile with the fact that no one entity or person will ever be found to be the singular cause of climate change, because we’ve all been clients and willing customers. That&#8217;s why the Environmental Protection Agency is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/winning-trumps-epa-wrecks-the-radical-green-agenda">now moving to scrap</a> the 2009 &#8220;endangerment finding&#8221; for greenhouse gas emissions. A lawless administrative state has created a set of policies that incentivize the petty lawsuits being funded by fringe climate activists.
This makes the Comer investigation even more critical to all Americans concerned about the cost of living, and further underscores why we should consider federal lawfare liability reforms that would put most of these frivolous cases to rest. <a href="https://consumerchoicecenter.org/floridas-liability-lawfare-reform/">Some states,</a> such as Florida and Georgia, have already done this.
The Trump Administration and Congress have to stay laser-focused on this issue, as well as other kitchen-table concerns that drove Americans to the polls last November. Affordability, particularly when it comes to keeping consumers’ lights on, should always be top of mind.
* * *
Yaël Ossowski writes about energy policy and is deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center in Washington, D.C.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP

Trump’s Energy Reset: Dismantling Biden’s Climate Lawfare Legacy

Climate Change

Energy

James Comer

Opinion

President Trump

The House Judiciary Committee this week revealed that under the Biden administration, the FBI spied on a Catholic priest who refused to disclose private conversations with a parishioner who was arrested.
FBI employees at the Richmond field office discussed the priest’s ordination, recruitment efforts, location, and credit card information through email. They also communicated with their London office to monitor him during a trip to the United Kingdom, according to the <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/pdfs/judiciarycommitteereport.pdf">report</a>.
They launched a “formal investigative assessment” against the priest after he refused to answer whether a parishioner had expressed “desires and plans to commit violence.” The employee wrote in an email to the counterterrorism unit at FBI headquarters that the priest “became very uncomfortable and started incoherently stuttering.”
He said the priest “requested to speak with the church’s leadership and attorneys” and “refused to speak with us any further but has continued to speak with [the parishioner] while in prison, and even attempted to visit him.”
He also incorrectly stated in his email that the priest’s communications were “not considered privileged” since the parishioner “has not completed his catechism or been baptized in the Church.”
Virginia law <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title19.2/chapter16/section19.2-271.3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">protects</a> confidential communications between ministers of religion and any “persons they counsel or advise.”
“The priest-penitent privilege rightly protects communications between a clergy member and an individual seeking spiritual guidance,” the House Judiciary Committee report notes. “It is not dependent on the individual achieving certain milestones in his or her spiritual life.”
The report determined that the Richmond office’s investigation was unlawful: “There appeared to be no legitimate law-enforcement purpose for investigating this priest.”
The report, which was compiled by the Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, was issued in response to a 2023 leaked <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/fbi-anti-catholic-memo.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a> from the Richmond FBI field office that revealed the agency attempting to link “Radical-Traditionalist Catholic ideology” to violent racism and the “far-right white nationalist movement.”
It found that the Richmond office was gathering intelligence on “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics &#8220;(RTC), a group which, the committee notes, FBI staff couldn’t even define.
A presentation titled “Traditionalist Catholicism Overview” outlined their “core ideology and beliefs.”
“Core concepts” included the Traditional Latin Mass, “conservative family values/roles,” a “rejection of modernity,” and a “tendency toward isolationism.”
It alleged that radical Catholics’ main tenets include the “belief that mainline Catholicism is illegitimate” and were accused of holding “hardline positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, and interreligious dialogue.”
It also claimed that RTC contains “apocalyptic overtones,” “rigid fundamentalism [and] integralism,” and an “undertone of antisemitism.”
In its information gathering, the FBI used “politically biased and anti-Catholic source material,” the report notes. Many of the articles they cited openly accuse Catholics of being white supremacists. One article titled “The Catholic Church has a Visible White Power Faction” from Sojourner, a progressive Christian publication, was <a href="https://sojo.net/magazine/august-2020/catholic-church-has-visible-white-power-faction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taken down</a> at one point because of misleading statements that editors claimed “called into question the entire substance of the article.”
The FBI also relied heavily on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a “far-left, anti-religion group that focuses on labeling conservative leaning groups as &#8216;hate&#8217; groups.” The SPLC considers groups like Focus on the Family, a global evangelical ministry widely popular in Christian circles, to be hate groups for opposing LGBTQ and abortion.
“The FBI analysts who developed the Richmond memorandum relied on literature with an inherent prejudice against people of faith and those with widely-held, deeply personal views of the sanctity of life,” the Committee notes.
Though former FBI director Christopher Wray minimized the significance of the 2023 memo, saying that it was a single product of a single office, the committee found that the Richmond office was working with FBI headquarters and that its “religious liberty abuses were more widespread than the FBI initially admitted and led the public to believe.”
Employees worked with FBI headquarters to develop a “Strategic Perspective Executive Analytic Report” for external use. They pitched the project to headquarters in December 2022, a month after the memo was created. It was later abandoned after the memo was leaked to the public.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) said in a <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/265497/judiciary-committee-fbi-spied-on-catholic-priest-for-not-divulging-info-on-parishioner" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> to the Catholic News Agency that lawmakers “knew the Biden-Wray FBI was targeting Catholics, but new documents obtained by the committee — thanks to the leadership of FBI Director [Kash] Patel — shows that it was worse than anyone thought.”
“Contrary to Director Wray’s statements, the targeting of Catholics went beyond the Richmond Field Office and extended not to just offices across the country but around the world.”

Rosary Beads in Hands of Catholic Woman

Biden FBI Spied On Catholic Priest Who Refused To Disclose Private Conversations With Parishioner

Catholic Church

Christopher Wray

Virginia

Hunter Biden suggested that his father, former President Joe Biden, had taken Ambien to help him sleep before his disastrous debate performance that led to him dropping out of the presidential race last summer.
The scandal-ridden younger Biden made the revelation during a three-hour <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBbkt2vYC4M">interview</a> with Andrew Callaghan’s “Channel 5” YouTube show.
&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what. I know exactly what happened in that debate,&#8221; Hunter Biden told the YouTube personality.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hunter Biden appears to suggest President Joe Biden had been given Ambien before the debate last year and ended up looking like a &#8220;deer in the headlights.&#8221;
There are no public records that indicate Biden was prescribed Ambien. <a href="https://t.co/Xp1EL076gw">pic.twitter.com/Xp1EL076gw</a>
— Rusty (@Rusty_Weiss) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rusty_Weiss/status/1947316036455285237?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;He flew around the world, basically, the mileage that he could have flown around the world three times. He&#8217;s 81 years old. He&#8217;s tired as s***. They gave him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he&#8217;s a deer in the headlights, and it feeds into every f***ing story that anybody wants to tell,&#8221; Biden said.
Ambien is the brand name for Zolpidem, which is known for its cognitive side effects, including <a href="https://www.verywellhealth.com/can-ambien-affect-your-memory-3015265#toc-does-it-really-affect-the-memory-ambien-amnesia">memory</a> loss, sleepwalking, and <a href="https://deserthopetreatment.com/sedatives/ambien-addiction/memory-loss/">impairment</a> after waking up.
Ambien was never included in any of Biden&#8217;s medical records that were released to the public, although other medications were <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health-Summary-2.28.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com">listed</a>.
Biden’s behavior during the last years of his presidency sparked concerns among the public that he might already be experiencing cognitive decline.
His shaky and confused performance during his June 27 debate against President Donald Trump last year threw the presidential race into chaos.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Biden: &#8220;Making sure we make every single solitary person eligible for what I&#8217;ve been able to do with covid, excuse me, with umm dealing with everything we had to deal with. Look, we finally beat medicare.&#8221;
Trump: &#8220;Well he&#8217;s right. He did beat medicaid. Beat it to death.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/FL152ERLiR">pic.twitter.com/FL152ERLiR</a>
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1806496676506657136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Influential Democrats, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), pressured Biden to abandon his reelection bid and endorse a candidate with a better chance of beating Trump.
Ultimately, Biden dropped out a few weeks later in July and endorsed Kamala Harris, who ended up losing every swing state as well as the popular vote.
Hunter Biden expressed frustration with the speculation surrounding his father&#8217;s mental state.
&#8220;If this was a conspiracy, Andrew, you know this, somehow the entirety of a White House, in which you&#8217;re literally living on top of each other has kept their mouth shut about what? What&#8217;s the conspiracy? That Joe Biden got old?&#8221; Biden said during the YouTube interview.
Earlier this month, Biden’s former doctor pleaded the Fifth before the House Oversight Committee, which subpoenaed him to testify in an investigation into the alleged cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline. On Wednesday, a Jill Biden aide also pleaded the Fifth in the same investigation.
The Biden officials’ refusal to testify has only fueled speculation about a cover-up and heightened concerns about the legitimacy of executive actions taken by Biden during his last years as president.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-BIDEN-ARRIVAL

Hunter Biden Suggests Dad Was On This Drug During Debate

Biden

Hunter Biden

The House pulls the plug on NPR and PBS in a late-night funding fight as President Donald Trump&#8217;s plan gets final approval. Another top Biden aide pleads the Fifth in a congressional hearing about the former president’s competency. And we talk to the president of the Chicago Fed about the upcoming interest rate vote and the feud between Trump and Powell.
It’s Friday, July 18, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here: 
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<h2>Congress Approves Funding Cuts To PBS &amp; NPR</h2>
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Topline: In the early hours of Friday morning, the House gave final approval to President Trump&#8217;s plan to claw back $9 billion in funding to global aid and government-funded media after the Senate narrowly passed a measure early Thursday. It now heads to Trump&#8217;s desk.
In June, the White House formally requested that Congress rescind $1.1 billion in funding that had already been allocated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. Early Thursday morning, after hours of debate, the Senate voted 51-48 to approve the measure. 
Democrats say NPR and PBS represent America’s commitment to a free press and provide essential services for all people, particularly those in rural communities. They also argue that public broadcasting plays a major role in emergency preparedness and community safety.
“When a flood happens, when a tornado touches down, when a hurricane makes landfall, people need immediate, up-to-date alerts to stay safe,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer(D-NY) argued in a speech on the Senate floor. “All too often, public broadcasting is the only way for people to hear what’s going on. It’s a matter of life and death.&#8221;
Republicans say that’s a ridiculous argument given how many ways people now receive warnings about natural disasters.
“All broadcasters are required to broadcast emergency alerts,” Tim Graham, host of NewsBusters at the Media Research Center told The Daily Wire. “Today, everybody&#8217;s going to get emergency alerts on their cell phone. So the idea that you need NPR to learn of a flash flood alert – I mean, first of all, you have to assume that there&#8217;s a huge number of people listening to NPR at 10 p.m. &#8230; It’s just not true.”
Republicans have argued for decades that NPR and PBS are not balanced news sources and that both organizations lean heavily to the Left. “Recently, we counted labels,” Graham told The Daily Wire. “[The PBS Newshour] used &#8216;far-Right&#8217; labels 42 times as often as they used &#8216;far-Left&#8217; … And the interesting thing here was that Donald Trump got elected with a Republican Congress, they could see the writing on the wall, and PBS and NPR made no attempt to move to the center to try to be fairer, to try to be more balanced. If anything, they have doubled down in 2025. They were basically suggesting they didn&#8217;t care what the Republican opinion was on their product.”
<h2>Biden WH Aide Pleads The Fifth In Congressional Testimony</h2>
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Topline: Former first lady Jill Biden’s top aide testified to Congress on Wednesday. Anthony Bernal, who has been close to the Biden family since 2008, pleaded the Fifth seven times in response to investigators&#8217; questions.
Bernal, Jill Biden’s chief of staff, refused to answer a slate of questions around former president Biden’s health – instead invoking his Constitutional right to avoid self-incrimination. Bernal was a top trusted aide in the Biden White House – Jill often referred to him as her “work husband.”
When asked by the House Oversight Committee if President Biden was fit to exercise his duties, Bernal said, “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer the question pursuant to my Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution.”
Last week, Biden’s White House doctor Kevin O’Connor refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment rights and <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/doctor-patient_privilege">doctor-patient privilege</a>. Legally, invoking the Fifth is <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/532/17.html">not</a> an admission of guilt, and most criminal lawyers <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE">highly discourage</a> their clients from sharing anything with authorities that might conceivably be used against them. Nevertheless, many Republicans are concerned about the concerted coverup of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and want to know who was running the Biden administration if he wasn’t.
In their book, &#8220;Original Sin,&#8221; a deep dive into the Biden White House and his re-election effort, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson described Bernal as “[one of] the Bidens’ eyes and ears, the keepers of the flame, the protectors of the myth. &#8230; As we researched this book, it was difficult to find many Bernal defenders. … He freely trash-talked senior, mid-level and junior aides. … Some described him as the worst person they had ever met.”
Despite their reticence, Bernal and O’Connor could be compelled to testify by Congress – if they were offered immunity for any crimes revealed by their testimony, then the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination would no longer apply, although in O’Connor’s case, doctor-patient privilege could shield him from certain questions.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told Fox News that Bernal could not say that Biden was mentally well without lying under oath, which is why he pleaded the Fifth. Comer also suggested that he would like to see more of Biden’s inner circle testify before his committee, including Jill Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
<h2>Federal Reserve Meeting</h2>
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Topline: As President Trump ramps up pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the Fed is preparing for a meeting at the end of the month to decide whether to cut interest rates – as the president is demanding.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), spoke to The Daily Wire shortly before the upcoming July 29-30 meeting and offered his perspective on current economic data.
Goolsbee described the latest inflation data as &#8220;a little bit of a mixed bag,&#8221; noting positive trends in services and housing inflation, but expressing wariness about &#8220;actual physical goods&#8221; where &#8220;tariffs are going to increase the prices a bit.&#8221; Despite this, he remains &#8220;still hopeful that we&#8217;re in a pretty solid place on the economy,&#8221; citing sustained growth and &#8220;close to full employment&#8221; as key strengths, with the primary goal being to keep &#8220;inflation on path back to 2 percent.&#8221;
A public dispute between President Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell has brought the issue of central bank independence into sharp focus. Goolsbee, while unable to speak for the entire Fed, voiced his unease about such arguments. He emphasized that the reason &#8220;all the rich countries of the world have an independent central bank – that&#8217;s independent of political interference – is precisely because if you look at places where they don&#8217;t have central bank independence, inflation is higher, unemployment is higher, growth is worse.&#8221; He underscored the imperative that interest rate decisions &#8220;should be rooted in that dual mandate: stabilizing prices and maximizing employment,&#8221; adding, &#8220;That&#8217;s the critical element, should be economic conditions that drive the decisions.&#8221;
Regarding the immediate outlook for interest rates, Goolsbee maintained his usual cautious stance ahead of the meeting and further data, stating, &#8220;I don&#8217;t like tying our hands before the meetings.&#8221; However, he indicated a general inclination toward lower rates if conditions allow. He noted that his view prior to April 2 was that &#8220;we got pretty close to stable full employment. We got inflation trending down to 2% — and in an environment like that, I think rates can go down a fair bit more than from where they are today.&#8221;

MRN 7.18.25 Thumbnail V1

Morning Brief: Congress Cuts Funding For PBS & NPR, Biden’s Decline Investigated, Fed Meeting

Donald Trump

Economy

Inflation

Jerome Powell

Jill Biden

National Public Radio (NPR)

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

There’s an amazing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/us/politics/biden-pardon-autopen-trump.html">story</a> out of The New York Times, where the headline absolutely does not match the content of the story (as per usual arrangement).
The headline stated, “Biden Says He Made the Clemency Decisions That Were Recorded With Autopen.”
Cool. So everything was fine; Biden said that he was going to give clemency or pardons to people. And then he simply said to his people, “Use the auto pen to sign it. I&#8217;m busy today.”
But that is not what the story actually says. It says something quite different.
According to The New York Times:
<blockquote>The full picture of what Mr. Biden did on pardon and clemency decisions, and how much he directed those decisions and the actions of his staff, including the use of the autopen, may come down to tens of thousands of Biden White House emails that the National Archives has turned over as part of the investigation by the Trump White House and the Justice Department. Those emails contain keywords like “clemency,” “pardon” and “commutation” from November 2024 through Jan. 20, 2025, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.
The Times has reviewed several dozen of those emails, which discussed each of the major grants of clemency that were recorded by an autopen near the end of Mr. Biden’s term. But The Times has not seen the full extent of the emails, so it is impossible to capture the totality of information they contain or what else they might show about Mr. Biden’s involvement in the pardon and clemency decisions.
But those that were reviewed by The Times show that the Biden White House had a process to establish that Mr. Biden had orally made decisions in meetings before the staff secretary, Stefanie Feldman, who managed use of the autopen, would have clemency records put through the signing device. </blockquote>
The real story was buried in Paragraph 16 and what followed:
<blockquote>At the end of his term, Mr. Biden reduced the sentences of nearly 4,000 federal convicts and pre-emptively pardoned politically prominent people he considered potential targets of Mr. Trump for criminal investigations.
Mr. Biden said in Thursday’s interview that he had his staff use an autopen for the warrants because he had granted clemency to so many people; the autopen was used, in all, on 25 pardon and clemency warrants from last December to January. Some of the individual warrants included large batches of names because they all fell into the same broad policy category, like reducing the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders who met standards Mr. Biden established.
On Oct. 30, 2024, the emails reviewed by The Times show, Mr. Biden’s White House counsel, Ed Siskel, notified senior staff to expect a flood of lobbying for clemency grants at the administration’s end and laid out a process for an orderly review.
The final step, he wrote: “The president makes the final decision on the final pardon and/or commutation slate.”
Over the next three months, Mr. Biden made four major sets of clemency actions that were recorded with an autopen. &#8230; Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed.
Rather, after extensive discussion of different possible criteria, he signed off on the standards he wanted to be used to determine which convicts would qualify for a reduction in sentence. Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list. Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the autopen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.</blockquote>
What’s amazing is that his aide admitted the quiet part out loud; Biden said, “Here&#8217;s a broad category of people such as nonviolent drug offenders. Go do something about it.” His people scurried around and came up with a list, which kept changing. Instead of informing the President of the United States who was on the list and what their specific crimes were, they just ran it through the auto pen based on a giant category.
That&#8217;s crazy. When you give commutations of sentences, they are for individuals. If you want to pardon everybody in a broad clemency category, as, for example, Jimmy Carter did with draft dodgers, then you have to do that as a broad category. Everybody who dodged the Vietnam War draft was pardoned, or their sentences would be commuted.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2237-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
But that&#8217;s not what Biden did. He didn&#8217;t pardon every single nonviolent drug offender; he pardoned specific drug offenders.
For several years, we did not have a President of the United States; someone else was governing the country, either Dr. Jill Biden, the greatest doctor in all the land, or Hunter Biden, the coke fiend who committed a felony gun crime, or Biden’s advisers like Jake Sullivan.
The fact that this has somehow slipped down the list to somewhere around number ten on the list of scandals that Americans care about is crazy. This should be not only the number one scandal in the country right now, it should be one of the top scandals of all time.
This is far worse than Watergate, which revolved around whether the president had authorized a break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters, an action that came in the aftermath of similar activity LBJ committed in his election against Barry Goldwater.
In this case, you&#8217;re talking about whether the President of the United States’ health condition was covered up by everyone around him, everyone in his cabinet, everybody in the media, who all knew about it.
And we should not allow it to be buried by the media henchmen for the Democratic Party.

US-POLITICS-MILITARY-BIDEN

Don’t Let The Media Bury The Biggest Conspiracy And Scandal Of Our Time

Ben Shapiro

Clemency

Democrats

New York Times

It&#8217;s time to talk about the biggest conspiracy and cover-up in modern American history.
No, I&#8217;m not talking about Jeffrey Epstein.
I am talking about the cover-up that was right in front of us that actually does go all the way to the top.
That cover-up, of course, involves the fact that the president of the United States was mentally deficient for several years and that someone else — we don&#8217;t know who — was actually running the country. 
The smoking gun to that effect was presented on Wednesday in front of Congress. Doctor Kevin O&#8217;Connor, who was former President Joe Biden&#8217;s White House physician, constantly invoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment and physician-patient privilege before the <a href="https://x.com/gopoversight/status/1943063181490032905?s=46">House Oversight Committee</a>.
That is insane.
O’Connor was asked about what he knew and when he knew it about Joe Biden&#8217;s health condition, and he pled the Fifth. He was asked if he was ever told to lie about the president&#8217;s health, whether Biden as president was unfit to execute his duties as president, and he consistently invoked physician-patient privilege and the Fifth Amendment.
Exasperated, one GOP rep asked, “Doctor O&#8217;Connor, is it your intention to decline to answer all questions put to you today by the Committee on the basis of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?”
O’Connor again stated, “On the advice of counsel, I must respectfully decline to answer based upon the physician-patient privilege and in reliance on my right and the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.”
Okay, this is insane.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2235-the-smoking-gun-in-the-biden-cover-up?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
He was claiming, based on two different things, that he would not testify. One, of course, is physician-patient privilege, the idea that you are supposed to keep secret health information that you and your doctor exchange. The doctor is not supposed to talk publicly about that.
But physician-patient privilege should probably not extend to public statements that you make about the health of the president of the United States because you&#8217;re violating patient privilege by even saying that much. If you make a statement that the president is healthy and the president has the following conditions, that&#8217;s a violation of physician-patient privilege.
In any other context, if your doctor went to a bar today and started talking about your specific health issues, even if he said you&#8217;re totally healthy and fine, that would be a violation of physician-patient privilege.
But that&#8217;s exactly what Kevin O&#8217;Connor did. He put out public statements about the health of the president of the United States. Thus, asking him about that should not be an issue.
As far as the Fifth Amendment, which protects against self-incrimination, he was saying that if he spoke, he could find himself in danger of a perjury trap or in danger of committing a crime, which is absolutely astonishing.
Remember, the original question here was, “Were you instructed to lie about the president&#8217;s health at any point?”
That is not a question about the president&#8217;s health. That&#8217;s a question about the lies surrounding the president&#8217;s health. So if he says yes, he might have committed a crime when he told the American people something false or told Congress something false.
We have an explicit amendment to the Constitution that is designed to oust people who are mentally incompetent from this office, which means all members of the Biden cabinet were complicit in the cover-up of his health condition. All Biden cabinet members were complicit in the reality that the president of the United States was not actually the president of the United States. That&#8217;s a scandal. That&#8217;s a cover-up, and requires a much deeper investigation.
It was all out in public view. There was tremendous evidence for it. Yet in 2024, O’Connor said Biden’s mental cognition was “excellent.”
Congress can easily solve this problem. All they have to do is grant him immunity, because then the Fifth Amendment concern goes away. If they say, “Anything you testify on today cannot be used as the basis for your future prosecution,” he can no longer claim the Fifth Amendment because the Fifth Amendment only applies in arenas where you could theoretically be prosecuted for the things that you are saying.
There are also other ways around this. According to the Congressional Research Service, “Under federal statute, when a witness asserts the privilege, the full House or the committee conducting the investigation may seek a court order that 1) directs the witness to testify and 2) grant the witness immunity against the use of his or her testimony.”
So that is presumably the next step.
We already know there was a cover-up. The only question is, who told O&#8217;Connor to cover up the health condition?
Was it Jill? Was it Joe who did that? Also, why was everybody else in the White House complicit in this cover-up? And who the hell was the president of the United States for multiple years?
The American people were lied to. Anybody who was involved in the Joe Biden cabinet that refused to make a move to invoke the 25th Amendment to oust him as president of the United States for mental incompetence needs to be effectively barred from politics forever.
Anyone who&#8217;s a cabinet secretary who rose to that level — the Pete Buttigiegs of the world, for example — needs to be held accountable for not having tried to invoke the 25th amendment, because the American people were robbed of having a president of the United States that they actually elected.
The fact that O’Connor is taking the Fifth Amendment is demonstrative of the lengths to which people surrounding the president will go to maintain their hold on proximity to power.
They shouldn’t get away with it.

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-FIRE-BIDEN

The Smoking Gun In The Biden Cover-Up 

Fifth Amendment

Health

Kevin O'Connor

Presidency

New <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/politics/biden-aides-election-age.html">reporting</a> reveals an extraordinary isolation campaign by former President Joe Biden&#8217;s closest aides at the end of his term, with staffers screaming at reporters, changing his phone number, and blocking access from panicked Democrats trying to tell him the truth about his failing campaign.
The revelation appears in the recently published <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/754957/2024-by-josh-dawsey-tyler-pager-isaac-arnsdorf/">book</a> by a trio of legacy media reporters, titled &#8220;2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,&#8221; written by Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Dawsey, New York Times White House correspondent Tyler Pager, and Washington Post reporter Isaac Arnsdorf.
Pager, conducting research for the book, managed to obtain Biden’s cellphone number in March 2025. The former president quickly agreed to an interview despite his aides repeatedly turning down similar requests from Page for several months.
Asked if he regretted dropping out of the presidential race, Biden said in a dispassionate tone, “No, not now. I don’t spend a lot of time on regrets.” He then ended the conversation to board an Amtrak train, Pager <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/politics/biden-aides-election-age.html">recalled</a> for the Times.
Pager’s brief discussion with Biden reportedly sparked panic among the former president’s top aides. “After the first call,” the authors <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/bidens-team-scolded-reporters-changed-his-number-after-they-called-personal-cellphone-report/">report</a> in the book, “furious Biden aides repeatedly called and texted [Pager].”
“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,” Pager said.
Although Biden himself initially seemed open to continuing to talk to Pager, the reporter’s calls began to go straight to voicemail.
Within days, Pager’s calls were greeted with a message from Verizon: “The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service.”
The Times reporter writes that this incident is reflective of the insularity of Team Biden throughout his doomed presidential campaign.
Pager reports that instead of confronting Biden with the harsh reality after his disastrous debate performance, his inner circle restricted access to him, making it difficult for even longtime allies, such as Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, to connect with the president.
On his way to a fundraiser after the debate, Biden asked his traveling aides aboard Air Force One what people were saying about his performance.
Rather than providing an accurate assessment, they offered what witnesses described as a &#8220;sanitized version&#8221; of the situation.
According to Pager, Biden’s aides never even allowed him to meet with campaign pollsters, instead presenting Biden with overly optimistic outlooks that alarmed campaign staff.
Following the debate, campaign pollsters presented their findings to Biden&#8217;s advisers, and their conclusion was damning: all polling indicated that Biden had no path to victory, and voters were not convinced that he was up for the job.
This assessment enraged Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the former president and chairman of Biden&#8217;s 2020 presidential campaign, who reportedly preferred a sanitized version of events.
“Two days after the presentation, Geoff Garin, one of the pollsters, checked in with Mr. Ricchetti. Mr. Ricchetti lit into him and said the presentation was out of line,” Pager reported. “It was not their job to tell them there was no path to victory. The pollsters, Mr. Ricchetti said, were supposed to provide the path to win.”
Rep. Pete Aguilar, a top House Democrat from California, confronted Ricchetti in a heated call, asking, &#8220;Do you realize how bad it is? Has anyone told the president how bad it is?&#8221;
When Ricchetti insisted that many members of Congress still supported the president, Aguilar pushed back: &#8220;Steve, has anyone walked into the Oval and told him we could lose everything?&#8221; Ricchetti admitted no one had.
According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/us/politics/biden-aides-election-age.html">The Times</a>, the situation was so dire that reliable Democratic strongholds, including Virginia, Minnesota, and New Mexico, suddenly became competitive – a devastating development that Biden&#8217;s inner circle concealed from him.
When former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met privately with Biden at the White House during this crisis period, she grew frustrated by his insistence that polling showed no real change since the debate.
At one point, Biden called his longtime adviser, Mike Donilon, to refute Pelosi&#8217;s claim that polls showed he would lose to Trump. Donilon got on the line and reportedly contradicted Pelosi&#8217;s assessment.
Campaign adviser Adrienne Elrod was so concerned that Biden wasn&#8217;t getting an accurate assessment that she contacted &#8220;Morning Joe&#8221; hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, knowing the president watched their show on MSNBC every morning.
Days before Biden dropped out, Scarborough aired these concerns, saying, &#8220;The anger I hear are the people who are keeping him in a bubble.&#8221;
Even when confronted directly by donors at a Hamptons fundraiser who challenged him on his debate performance, Biden dismissed concerns as &#8220;one bad night&#8221; and vowed to stay in the race. His closest aides brushed off the concerns as typical donor anxiety.
The controversy over Biden&#8217;s isolation mirrors similar concerns that arose during his presidency, when critics frequently questioned whether his staff was shielding him from unscripted interactions with the press and public.
Throughout his term, the White House faced persistent accusations that Biden&#8217;s handlers were deliberately limiting his exposure to mask cognitive decline – allegations his team consistently dismissed as partisan attacks despite mounting video evidence of verbal stumbles and confusion during public appearances.

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-POLITICS-DEBATE-BIDEN-TRUMP

New Book Reveals Biden’s Inner Circle Took Drastic Steps To Limit Access, Shield Him From The Truth

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This month marks a bleak anniversary for American families — and a perfect illustration of the cost of Joe Biden’s failures. It was just three years ago, in June of 2022, when gas prices in the United States <a href="https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/leafhandler.ashx?f=m&amp;n=pet&amp;s=emm_epm0_pte_nus_dpg">hit their highest</a> level in history, topping $5.00 per gallon.
That’s back when the Biden White House tried to make you believe this was all just an unavoidable consequence of global events. While they were <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/06/22/remarks-by-president-biden-on-gas-prices-and-putins-price-hike/">trying to spin</a> “Putin’s Price Hike,” the data told a far more damning story: gas prices started climbing immediately after Joe Biden took office. 
From his first day, President Biden declared war on American energy. He canceled pipelines, froze leases, threatened regulations, and proudly signaled to the world that under his administration, fossil fuels were enemy number one.
Predictably, markets responded. American oil production stalled. Investment dried up. Prices began their climb long before Vladimir Putin moved a single tank. By the time Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden’s energy mismanagement had already paved the way for a full-blown price crisis.
Remember: In early 2022, the Biden Administration’s response to Americans struggling with high gas prices was to <a href="https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1501709925168431111?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1501709925168431111%7Ctwgr%5E3f652e74ef31f975ad787de9c56c9e187b56f658%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fclips-of-energy-sec-laughing-off-gas-price-concerns-resurface-as-pain-at-pump-intensifies">simply buy an electric car</a>. As the 2022 midterms approached, Biden faced the political fallout of his own policies.
In response, he didn’t encourage production or unleash American drillers. Instead, he reached for the most cynical tool at his disposal: the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), America’s emergency oil stockpile.
Designed to be used in times of true national crisis — war, natural disaster, or supply collapse — the SPR was never intended to bail out failing politicians. But that’s exactly what Biden used it for. To try and save his party as midterm elections loomed in 2022, the president opened the spigot and <a href="https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/18/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-announce-new-actions-to-strengthen-u-s-energy-security-encourage-production-and-bring-down-costs/">drained nearly 200 million barrels</a> from the SPR, the largest release in American history. He wasn’t trying to fix supply chains or repair his broken energy policy. He was trying to fix polling numbers.
<div id="attachment_937051" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-937051" class="size-large wp-image-937051" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1241459724-864x576.jpg" alt="US President Joe Biden speaks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., US, on Wednesday, June 22, 2022. Biden is asking Congress to enact a three-month gasoline tax holiday, after his administration's previous efforts failed to curb soaring pump prices that weigh heavily on his party's political fortunes. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1241459724-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1241459724-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1241459724-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-1241459724.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
In fact, Biden didn’t even bother pretending otherwise. His own White House press releases framed the SPR release as a response to &#8220;Putin’s price hike&#8221; — ignoring, of course, that prices were already surging well before Russian troops crossed the border. And the timing? Pure politics. As the 2022 midterms approached and Democrats faced the real prospect of losing control of Congress, the White House scrambled to ease prices at the pump in a transparent bid to soften voter anger.
The political gamesmanship went even further behind the scenes. In October 2022, as OPEC considered production cuts that would have sent prices soaring once again, Biden administration officials <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/biden-admin-asked-saudi-arabia-to-postpone-opec-cut-by-a-month-saudis-say.html">secretly begged Saudi Arabia</a> to delay their cuts until after the election. Not reverse the cuts — just delay them long enough to avoid embarrassing headlines before voters went to the polls. The Saudis publicly confirmed the request. The Biden team was never trying to protect American drivers; they were trying to protect Democratic incumbents.
Today, America is paying the price for Biden’s short-term political fix. As war rages in the Middle East — this time with conflict escalating between Israel and Iran — the world sits on the edge of another energy shock. But our emergency reserve, which once held over 700 million barrels, is now dangerously depleted. According to the latest government data, the SPR sits at just <a href="https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_ending_stocks_of_crude_oil_in_the_strategic_petroleum_reserve">over 400 million barrels</a> — barely more than half full. That’s the lowest level in decades. And thanks to Biden’s manipulation, we’re entering this dangerous period with far less of a safety net.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created to give America breathing room during times of global chaos. Joe Biden used it as a campaign slush fund. He drained it to temporarily hide the consequences of his anti-American energy agenda, hoping voters wouldn’t notice the long-term damage. Now, as the world grows more unstable, America is weaker, more exposed, and less prepared — all because one president thought his poll numbers mattered more than the nation&#8217;s energy security.
Joe Biden mortgaged America’s oil security and Left our strategic gas tank dangerously low. The recklessness is breathtaking.
No wonder it’s an anniversary the Left would rather forget.
* * *
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future and is the author of the book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-Surrendered-American-Energy-Independence/dp/B0C87HHRJR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3DVTZR49E34ON&amp;keywords=sabotage+book+larry+behrens&amp;qid=1697814823&amp;sprefix=sabotage+la%2Caps%2C119&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sabotage: How Joe Biden Surrendered American Energy Independence</a>.” He’s also appeared on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News. You can find him on Twitter at @larrybehrens or email at <a href="mailto:larry@powerthefuture.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">larry@powerthefuture.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Strategic Petroleum Reserves Release Ordered By President Biden To Curb Rises Gas Prices

Running On Empty: How Biden Drained America’s Gas Tank

Running On Empty: How Biden Drained America's Gas Tank

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The new United States dietary guidelines, which are expected to be released this month, will remove the daily recommended limit for alcohol consumption.
The new guidelines, drafted by the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services,  “are expected to include a brief statement encouraging Americans to drink in moderation or limit alcohol intake due to associated health risks,” sources told <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-drop-guidance-limit-alcohol-one-or-two-drinks-per-day-sources-say-2025-06-18/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters</a>.
This marks a shift for the guidelines. Since 1990, the daily recommended limits have been no more than one drink for women and up to two drinks for men. It also signals a rebuke of the Biden administration, which took steps to drastically limit the amount of alcohol Americans consume.
In the last month of his term, Biden’s surgeon general expressed a desire to place cancer risk warnings on all alcohol products. Biden had also tapped a secretive board called the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking to revise the alcohol portion of the dietary guidelines.
Sources close to the committee — which contained multiple Canadian citizens —warned it was “close to adopting the World Health Organization’s 2023 <a href="https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declaration</a>: &#8216;No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health,&#8217;” as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-donald-trump-isnt-coming-for-your-tequila-but-kamala-might-be" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously reported</a> by The Daily Wire.
Dietary guidelines are published every five years. The current revision is being led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The intention behind making the change is “to ensure the guidelines reflect only the most robust evidence.”
“The scientific basis for recommending specific daily limits is limited,” one source commented.
The debate surrounding the potential benefits and harms of alcohol is still unsettled. Though some studies indicate an increased risk of <a href="https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/the-link-between-alcohol-and-cancer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cancer</a>, others show that those who consume alcohol in moderation may have a <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2024/12/new-report-reviews-evidence-on-moderate-alcohol-consumption-and-health-impacts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lower mortality rate</a>, and possess a lower risk of heart attack and stroke.
Authors of a Harvard <a href="https://harvardpublichealth.org/policy-practice/is-alcohol-bad-for-you-or-is-alcohol-good-for-you-yes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meta-study</a> concluded that “the data do not justify sweeping statements about the [negative] effects of moderate alcohol consumption on human health.”
&#8220;The hospitality industry has consistently maintained the view that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans should be determined based on a preponderance of sound scientific evidence, free from bias and conflicts of interest,&#8221; Science Over Bias, a coalition of groups involved in the alcohol industry, said in a statement. &#8220;Information on responsible alcohol consumption has been part of the Dietary Guidelines for decades and has provided useful guidance for consumers who choose to consume alcohol and their health care providers.&#8221;

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