The FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on Wednesday morning about large Fourth of July celebrations.

The security organizations say the biggest threats are lone offenders and small groups, who may have a larger agenda, and find large events such as holiday gatherings “attractive” targets, according to a bulletin.

“The political environment of the country certainly doesn’t help,” Aaron Katersky, a security correspondent, told ABC News.

“The police are being told by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to be on watch for these types of things that are notoriously difficult to guard against.”

Katersky added that big cities including New York and San Francisco are likely potential targets.

He added that citizens should proceed with caution, however they should not panic.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings on the Fourth of July have steadily increased over the past three years.

The organization tallied a total 80 mass shootings that occurred over the past three years between July 1-7, according to Mark Bryant, the executive director of the nonprofit that tracks US shootings.

The group defines a “mass shooting” as a shooting that kills or injures four or more people, not including the shooter.

Last year, in 2023, there were 28 mass shootings over the July 4th week, followed by 27 in 2022 and 25 in 2021.

President Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week.

The president, who the ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for re-election, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend — including an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — must go well.

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, said the ally, referring to Mr. Biden’s halting and unfocused performance in the debate. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said the claim was “absolutely false” and that the White House had not been given enough time to respond.

The conversation is the first indication to become public that the president is seriously considering whether he can recover after a devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta on Thursday. Concerns are mounting about his viability as a candidate and whether he could serve as president for another four years.

A top adviser to Mr. Biden, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation, said the president was “well aware of the political challenge he faces.”

Campaign officials were nervously watching polls, recognizing that bad numbers could fuel the crisis. A CBS News poll on Wednesday showed former President Donald J. Trump edging ahead of Mr. Biden since the debate with 50 percent to 48 percent nationally and 51 percent to 48 percent in battleground states.

Mr. Biden is slowly reaching out to Democratic elected officials and has a meeting with Democratic governors at the White House scheduled for Wednesday evening.

He is also continuing to reach out to people he has long trusted and has told at least one person that he is open to the possibility that his plans to move on from his debate performance — and flip the focus back to his challenger, Mr. Trump — may not work.

Several allies of Mr. Biden, who has huddled with the family and advisers since the debate on Thursday, have underscored that the president is still in the fight of his political life and largely sees this moment as a chance to come back from being counted out, as he has done many times throughout his half-century career.

But he is also cleareyed, they said, about his uphill battle to convince voters, donors and the political class that his debate performance was an anomaly.

California Democratic delegate Areva Martin told media personality Stephen A. Smith that passing over Vice President Kamala Harris as President Biden’s replacement should he withdraw from the race would destroy the party.

“If you pick a White man over Kamala Harris, Black women, I can tell you this, we are going to walk away,” Martin said Tuesday. “We are going to blow the party up.”

As speculation over Biden’s status as leader of the party grows, Democrats are openly divided over who is qualified to run against former President Trump in the months before the election.

“Who are we agreeing [to]?” Martin asked Smith. “There’s a long list of Democrats, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, the list goes on and on.”

“Where is their consensus?” she continued. “You’ve got to build consensus. And there is not consensus right now.”

“So where are we getting agreement from on whom this ideal Democratic candidate should be?” Martin said. “Tell me that.”

Martin, a civil rights attorney, said that the Biden administration deserved credit for its diversity.

“Joe Biden, when he gets re-elected, which my prediction is that he will, he brings with him Kamala Harris, the most diverse administration in the history of this country,” she said. “Y’all need to just stay the course. We got more Black judges appointed under Joe Biden than anyone, even President Barack Obama.”

Martin also compared the presidential race to a sports match, saying that Biden is the “star player” and deserves support.

“I don’t know anything about sports, but I know you don’t give up on your star player in the middle of a game,” she told Smith.

“We are almost at the finish line. We have an opportunity to save this democracy. And I bet you, [if] you blow up Joe Biden, you might as well give Donald Trump the keys to the White House and let him start ruling the country in August,” she said.

A new national poll from CNN indicates that three-quarters of voters say the Democratic Party would have a better chance of keeping the White House with someone else other than Biden at the top of the party’s ticket.

And the survey, released Tuesday by CNN, suggests that Harris performs slightly better than Biden in a match-up with Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee.

The poll was conducted entirely after Biden’s extremely rough performance during last Thursday’s face-to-face showdown between the two major party contenders.

President Biden’s campaign is intensely trying to quell speculation that he may drop out of the 2024 race following his lackluster debate performance last week.

Most top Democrats have voiced support for Biden continuing in the race, while members of his family, including first lady Jill Biden, have declared they also want him to remain a candidate, casting doubt on the potential for replacing Biden.

But if Biden were to step aside, several prominent Democrats could be waiting in the wings as possible successors.

Here are the top possible Biden replacements:

Kamala Harris

If Biden were to decide against seeking reelection, Vice President Harris would be the most obvious choice to replace him. Harris has defended Biden and emphasized his ability to serve another term in recent days, as have most other top Democrats who could be considered.

Serving in the country’s second-highest office has given her some amount of executive governing experience, and Biden choosing her as his running mate already made her one of the top possible candidates for the 2028 nomination.

With the presidential primaries concluded, Harris is also the only possible contender who could claim some past electoral mandate for the nomination, with the country having indirectly elected her as first-in-line to the presidency four years ago and Democratic voters backing Biden this year with the knowledge that she is the running mate.

But Harris has some vulnerabilities. Her favorability rating has often been even lower than Biden’s, though she has improved somewhat in the past couple months and has a higher net approval rating than Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight.

She also could be dogged with criticisms of the Biden administration’s policies like immigration, on which she was spearheading an initiative.

Still, Democrats could take a hit by passing over the first female Black vice president as its nominee when having the chance because Black voters will be a key constituency. A poll last month showed Harris would perform better with Black voters than Biden.

Gavin Newsom

If Harris were to be passed over, the California Gov. Gavin Newsom would almost certainly be at or near the top of many Democratic delegates’ list to be the nominee.

Newsom has become one of the most prominent Democrats in the country over the past few years, in part because of his defense of Biden and his sparring with prominent Republicans, most notably Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Despite ongoing speculation of Newsom having presidential ambitions, he has repeatedly denied interest in running for president in 2024. Following Biden’s debate, he appeared in the spin room to argue against ditching Biden just because of one performance and called talk of Biden being replaced “unhelpful and unnecessary” in a fundraising pitch for the president on Friday.

But if Biden were to step aside, Newsom would very likely receive significant calls to throw his hat in the ring.

He would be able to run on a record as a two-term governor of one of the largest economies in the world and tout many accomplishments during his tenure for the left in the solidly blue state. He also has overcome an attempt to recall him and is seen as a top possibility to run in 2028.

Gretchen Whitmer

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer first came to office in 2018, boosted by the slogan “Fix the Damn Roads,” which put a pragmatic focus on repairing the state’s infrastructure. Since then, she has become a rising liberal star in the Democratic Party.

Her easy reelection victory in 2022 brought with it Democratic majorities in the state House and Senate, marking the first time in decades that Democrats had a trifecta of power in Michigan. She was also reelected alongside the passage of a ballot measure enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution, an initiative she championed.

Whitmer has been able to notch key victories, including the repeal of the state’s decades-old abortion ban and a “right-to-work” law to prop up unions.

Still, Whitmer has been among the clearest of the rumored choices that she is not angling to replace Biden and is fully behind him.

Politico reported the Whitmer called Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on Friday to make clear she was not responsible for her name being floated as a possible replacement and is willing to help Biden with the campaign. She appeared in an ad supporting the Biden-Harris ticket that she posted Sunday on her account on the social platform X.

Pete Buttigieg

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was relatively unknown when he first began his run for president in 2020 but gained traction and popularity as “Mayor Pete,” having served as the mayor of South Bend, Ind.

Buttigieg became a close advocate for Biden throughout 2020, culminating in his selection as Transportation secretary, making him the first openly gay Cabinet secretary. His success has raised speculation that he may try for another presidential run down the line.

In particular, he had a high-profile moment in 2021 as Congress passed and Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure law into effect.

Buttigieg’s youth would also be a sharp contrast to Biden despite having less experience than some other rumored possibilities. But he struggled in 2020 with rallying minority, and especially Black support, and could face controversy over the administration’s handling of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment.

Josh Shapiro

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro gradually rose to higher office in his home state before being elected state attorney general and eventually governor in 2022. He has developed a reputation over his career as a more moderate Democrat but was elected after running on key liberal issues, like protecting abortion rights and raising the minimum wage.

His ability to comfortably win the governorship in the battleground by almost 15 points, as well as his youthful energy, has sparked rumors he could be a future face of the party, possibly running for the Oval Office in four years.

But he would also likely get some attention this year if Biden were to end his presidential bid. He has been one of Biden’s top surrogates and called on his fellow Democrats to put in the work necessary to get Biden elected, saying “hand-wringing” and “fretting” are not the answer.

“Democrats, stop worrying and start working. We all have the responsibility here to do our part,” Shapiro said during a Friday interview on MSNBC.

JB Pritzker

As the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker is already set to receive some attention next month as the host governor of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. This, along with his rising national profile, could yield some support for his name to be placed in contention for the nomination.

Pritzker is in his second term as the head of the strongly Democratic-leaning state and has been an ardent defender of Biden throughout the 2024 campaign. Also one of Biden’s top surrogates, he defended the incumbent following special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents and pushed back against Democrats planning to vote for anyone other than Biden in November.

Pritzker also received attention after his abortion-rights group announced a $500,000 investment into efforts to enshrine abortion rights into the Florida state constitution.

But as with other Biden surrogates rumored as future presidential candidates, Pritzker has remained behind Biden.

As the debate was wrapping up on Thursday, Pritzker argued on X the choice was “clear” in picking Biden over Trump, saying, “Voters face a stark choice in November. A president with the experience to fight for hardworking families across the country vs a 34-count convicted felon who cares only about himself.”

Andy Beshear

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) pulled off an impressive reelection victory in his ruby-red state last year, improving his margin by a few points over his first election in 2019.

That thrust his name into the national conversation as someone who may have a future in the party, even though he will be term-limited in the next election. The governor is widely popular, only in his mid-40s and managed to win statewide as a Democrat twice in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since the 1990s.

Beshear addressed the possibility of Biden being replaced Monday, telling reporters he will support Biden as long as the president remains the Democratic nominee.

“The debate performance was rough. It was a very bad night for the president, but he is still the candidate. Only he can make decisions about his future candidacy. So as long as he continues to be in the race, I support him,” he said.

When pressed on whether he could replace Biden, Beshear said talk of serving is “flattering” but is a “reflection of all the good things going on in Kentucky.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently flew over 100 Chinese illegal migrants back to their country, the agency announced.

In a press statement released Tuesday, the DHS explained that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “conducted a removal flight” carrying Chinese nationals over the weekend. The flight carried 116 Chinese migrants, according to the Associated Press.

The DHS disclosed that the flight was its first large charter flight since 2018. The agency’s statement did not disclose details about the migrants, but it referenced efforts to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt illicit human smuggling.”

“DHS continues to work with the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security and National Immigration Administration on additional removal flights,” the department said.

The number of encounters with Chinese migrants at the U.S. southern border has skyrocketed in recent years. Border officials arrested more than 37,000 Chinese migrants in 2023, and encounters with Chinese nationals have increased by more than 6,000% since 2021.

The press release also promised to deliver “tough consequences” for illegal migrants, and referenced measures that President Biden has taken to curb illegal immigration at a time when the president is being heavily criticized over his border policies.

The DHS also said that the flight is the result of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s “continued efforts to engage the [People’s Republic of China] on areas of mutual interest.”

“DHS regularly engages counterparts throughout the hemisphere and around the world to accept repatriations of nationals without a lawful basis to remain in the United States and take other steps to reduce irregular migration, promote safe, lawful, and orderly pathways, and hold transnational criminal networks accountable for abusing our lawful trade and travel systems and the smuggling and exploitation of vulnerable people,” the statement read.

“To that end, the United States also welcomes the recent announcement from Ecuador to require visas for passport holders from the PRC given smugglers’ efforts to exploit that route.”

Mayorkas also added that Americans “should not believe the lies of smugglers.”

“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” he said.

Hurricane Beryl is predicted to rip through six US states, according to one terrifying model.

The ferocious category five storm already left six people dead and caused significant damage after 165mph winds battered parts of the Caribbean.

Previous modelling suggested that the hurricane could skim Texas at the weekend.

Parts of the Lone Star State have since officially been added into the hurricane’s forecast cone by the National Hurricane Center, with locals in southern parts warned to brace for heavy rains and gusty winds from Monday.

However, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky could now also be swept up in the storm’s path, one model presented by hurricane expert Dr Levi Cowan shows.

At least five of the so-called spaghetti models now indicate the hurricane will lash the US.

Spaghetti models are strands showing the potential path of tropical cyclones.

For Beryl, most of the five models which impact the US show Texas in the firing line, but one additional path suggests Louisiana could see some impact too, with one possibility the storm sweeping all six states.

‘It’s really dependent on where the hurricane is launching from by the time we get to Friday if it’s coming off the Yucatan Peninsula far enough North, it may continue gaining latitude and threaten the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico, that could mean northern Mexico or Texas and the US Gulf Coast could be threatened,’ Dr Cowan said.

‘But if it crosses farther down say if it’s a weaker storm then it would likely continue West more into Eastern Mexico.’

Beryl’s path will be determined by the level of pressure over the southeast.

If this drops, it will allow the storm to move northwards potentially spelling disaster for the US.

Gulf Coast residents are being urged to keep an eye on the record-breaking storm, which is the earliest every category five hurricane ever in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Central American basin.

On Wednesday, Beryl was roaring toward Jamaica, with islanders scrambling to make preparations.

In Kingston, people boarded up windows, fishermen pulled their boats out of the water before sitting around a table to play dominoes beside a bay, and workers dismantled roadside advertising boards to protect them from the expected lashing winds to come.

A hurricane warning was in effect for Jamaica, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Beryl was forecast to weaken slightly over the next day or two.

However it is predicted to be at or near major-hurricane strength when it passes near or over Jamaica, near the Cayman Islands on Thursday and into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Friday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Jamaica was under a state of emergency as the island was declared a disaster zone hours before the impact of Hurricane Beryl.

Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that the disaster zone declaration will remain in effect for the next seven days. Holness also announced an island-wide curfew between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

Security forces ‘will be fully mobilized to maintain public order and assist with disaster relief.

As soon as the hurricane has passed, the security forces have developed strategic plans to counter any potential threat of looting or any other opportunistic crimes,’ Holness warned.

An evacuation order was also issued for communities across Jamaica that are prone to flooding and landslides. Holness urged Jamaicans to move away from low-lying areas.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Haiti’s southern coast and the Yucatan´s east coast. Belize issued a tropical storm watch stretching south from its border with Mexico to Belize City.

Late Monday, Beryl became the earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic and peaked at winds of 165 mph Tuesday before weakening to a still-destructive Category 4.

Early Wednesday, the storm was about 125 miles southeast of Kingston. It had maximum sustained winds of 145 mph and was moving west-northwest at 20 mph, the center said.

A report published by anti-Israel media bias watchdog HonestReporting alleges that a Gaza-based CNN freelance journalist was associated with a Hamas-run entity. Abdel Qader Sabbah appeared in photographs with senior Hamas leaders online and actively praised terrorists while also carrying out unnamed tasks for the terror organization, the report claims.

The report cites CNN’s platforming of Sabbah’s work. He has also worked for the Associated Press, and his platforming casts doubt on the journalistic integrity of the network and the Hamas terror group’s ties to it. The report also raises concerns about journalistic standards and vetting practices of reporters for the media network, in addition to the story content published by the outlet.

 

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The media watchdog identified evidence of Abdel Qader Sabbah’s Hamas affiliation on his personal Facebook page, where he identified himself as a freelance journalist, director, and photographer.

Throughout his profile, Sabbah’s links himself to senior Hamas leaders, such as Mahmoud A-Zahar, in a 2018 post. A-Zahar called for “world domination with no Zionists,” the report said.

His selfie with A-Zahar was accompanied with a caption referring to him as a teacher of literature.

In 2023, he flaunted a promotional project he completed for the Directorate’s academy, which MEMRI added trains Hamas security systems. The video was later publicly shared on the official page of the Hamas-run interior ministry.

Self-inciminating online

The report cited other Facebook posts calling those who carried out deadly terror attacks as heroes. One such example was Izz A-Din Al-Masri, who carried out a suicide attack at a Jerusalem restaurant in 2001 that left 16 dead, including children.

He also had been consistent about resharing Hamas armed wing propaganda videos as well as publicly made anti-Israel sentiments.

Sabbah also reshared content censoring media production around Hamas launch points and fighters.

The report revealed that Sabbah’s profile is awash with affiliations with members of the terror organization and the content they produced to share their hate of Israel and Jews.

Armed attackers killed a woman in front of her horrified husband as they attempted to rob the couple outside an upmarket Newport Beach mall, police have said.

The 68-year old woman, named as Patricia McKay from New Zealand, and her husband had been outside a Barnes & Noble at the Fashion Island mall when they were approached by two men at around 3.30 pm on Tuesday.

A ‘struggle’ ensued, with one of the men fleeing the scene on foot and firing several rounds with a handgun as he did so, according to reports.

The woman was then dragged into the parking lot as the two men got into a Toyota Camry being driven by a third man.

The suspects then ran over McKay as they drove away from the scene, firing shots as they led the police on a high-speed chase, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Oberon told DailyMail.com.

No one was struck by the gunfire, police confirmed.

Cops began following the men in a cross-county pursuit shortly after the violent attack.

They chased them into Los Angeles County after a pair of suspects jumped out near Los Alamitos, CBS reports.

The suspects’ car reached speeds of 110mph in the chase on the 105 freeway. Two jumped out of the car and began running around a neighborhood in South Gate.

Police found one of the men hiding behind trash cans outside a house and arrested him.

They also tracked down and arrested two other suspects in the fatal attack.

CALIFORNIA CRIME HELL: 69-year-old wife killed in front of her terrified husband after armed robbers attack them at a Newport Beach mall before she is savagely dragged into a parking lot & then run over by the suspect’s car. pic.twitter.com/U1JLE8fhZd

— Dapper Detective (@Dapper_Det) July 3, 2024

Newport Beach Police officials identified the suspects as Jaden Cunningham, 18, of Lancaster, Malachi Eddward Darnell, 18, of Los Angeles, and Leroyernest Joseph McCrary, 26, of Compton.

All three were booked on suspicion of homicide, robbery with a firearm and conspiracy.

The woman’s husband was not injured in the attack, police said, and the gunfire did not result in any other injuries.

‘It is a shock,’ Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Oberon said. ‘It just doesn’t happen normally here.’

Mayor Will O’Neill said he was ‘furious’ after hearing news of the attack, which he described as ‘staggering’.

‘I’m horrified. I’m mourning the loss of someone who died inside of our city because of crime… This is a tragedy and I’m furious.

‘Newport Beach is a safe community and we’re mourning the loss of someone,’ he said.

‘Frankly, to hell with these guys. … These are thugs. Every community is now dealing with this. We have to do better as a society. We cannot tolerate this.’

Hunter Biden has joined meetings with President Joe Biden and his top aides since his father returned to the White House from Camp David, Maryland, on Monday evening, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The president’s son has also been talking to senior White House staff members, these people said.

While he is regularly at the White House residence and events, it is unusual for Hunter Biden to be in and around meetings his father is having with his team, these people said. They said the president’s aides were struck by his presence during their discussions.

A federal jury in Delaware found Hunter Biden guilty last month on gun-related charges.

He remains under indictment accused of tax-related felonies, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Shortly after the jury found him guilty, he returned to his home in California.

One of the people familiar with the matter said Hunter Biden has been closely advising his father since the family gathered over the weekend at Camp David after Thursday’s debate. This person said Hunter Biden has “popped into” a couple of meetings and phone calls the president has had with some of his advisers.

Another person familiar with the matter said the reaction from some senior White House staff members has been, “What the hell is happening?”

Asked to comment, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement, “Hunter came back with the President from their family weekend at Camp David and went with the President straight into speech prep,” referring to Biden’s preparation with aides for remarks about the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity.

Hunter Biden’s presence in and around his father’s meetings comes amid questions about whether Joe Biden should continue his re-election campaign.

NBC News has reported that Hunter Biden is among the immediate family members urging the president to stay in the race. He is at the White House this week to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday with the Biden family, two people familiar with his plans said.

Some White House staffers have been forced to tiptoe around President Biden when briefing him on certain topics because they want to avoid eliciting his wrath and are “scared s–tless” of him, a new report says.

“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’”a senior administration official told Politico, referring to how some of the 81-year-old president’s aides feel they have to walk through a minefield before briefings to avoid him getting angry with them.

“It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing,” the source said. “Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared s—less of him.”

Biden “doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it,” the source said.

The White House vehemently rejected the characterizations of the president, with Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates stressing to The Post on Tuesday, “That’s simply not who he is.”

In the past, allegations have emerged about Biden having a hair-trigger temper and reaming out aides — sometimes with profane language — when vexed by certain developments.

The president’s temper has flared publicly on occasion, too, including when faced with tough questions from The Post.

Other aides have reportedly sought to bring a colleague with them to meetings for moral support.

Biden has leaned on a very tight-knit inner circle that has tried to provide cover for him from the media and other groups.

His protective go-to people include senior adviser Anita Dunn, former chief of staff Ron Klain, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed.

The Post learned that Biden’s son Hunter also has been participating in West Wing meetings this week, after the president’s disastrous debate against GOP foe Donald Trump.

Since President Biden’s embarrassing showing, the White House has faced tough new questions about the protective bubble around him and his cognitive state.

“There’s definitely groupthink,” an adviser to a Democratic donor told Politico, referring to Biden’s inner circle, which has been shielding him.

“They’ve known each other a long time.”

“Any reasonable person watching the debate would have concerns, and dismissing them is, to a lot of people, patronizing,” the source said, referring to some Dem elite who have publicly claimed there’s nothing to see here when it comes to Biden’s mental awareness.

A Democratic operative added of the group, “They don’t take dissent.

“If you try, then you don’t get invited to the next call, the next meeting.”

A senior House Democrat described the Biden team as “pretty insular” and one that “doesn’t really care what anybody says.”

Biden’s debate performance has thrust Democrats into disarray, panicked over their chances of winning the presidency again come Nov. 5 while finger-pointing over the whole ordeal.

Exacerbating concerns is the fact that many prominent Democrats claim Biden hasn’t reached out after the debate to reassure them or give a sense of direction during the firestorm.

A senior Democratic aide told The Post that the president isn’t directly reaching out to any of his party’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“You can’t have the problem you’ve had — then go to a campaign rally and think the box is checked,” a Democratic strategist remarked, contending that Biden could have eased concerns by going on the Sunday TV talk shows.

But a White House official pushed back on the claims, telling The Post, “There has been meaningful outreach at a senior level.”

Staffers dispute characterizations of Biden’s briefing behavior

Some current and former staffers also publicly disputed the characterizations of Biden’s behind-the-scenes behavior during briefings.

“I personally helped brief President Biden many times and this was not my experience. In fact, it was the opposite — we were overinclusive about flagging downsides of any recommended course of action so he could fully evaluate costs and benefits,” wrote Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council, on X.

I personally helped brief President Biden many times and this was not my experience. In fact, it was the opposite — we were overinclusive about flagging downsides of any recommended course of action so he could fully evaluate costs and benefits. https://t.co/qms1rrs67b

— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) July 2, 2024

“Does he ask hard questions to make sure ideas hold up? Sure. If that makes you uncomfortable you shouldn’t be briefing the President of the United States.”

Bates also knocked the claims as “unfair distortions of processes that exist in every administration.

“In every administration, there are individuals who would prefer to spend more time with the president and senior officials,” Bates said in a statement.

“President Biden fights hard for families every day, working with a wide range of team members at what he is proud is the most diverse White House ever — and achieving historic results for the American people because of his determination, values, and experience.”

A White House official also told The Post that “the president actively seeks input from a wide range of staff who have had different experiences.

“On [Air Force 1], he’ll sometimes go seat to seat, checking in with folks on their portfolios, how they think a trip went, etc. He’s also very inquisitive to [National Security Council} and domestic policy subject matter experts who rotate in and out,” the official added.

“The group of people in briefings or prep meetings can be eight to 10 at times.”

The president’s campaign claims he will still participate in a Sept. 10 debate against Trump and hosted by ABC News.

Biden also has agreed to sit down for an interview with ABC that will get trickled out on air later this week.

The president has acknowledged his debate shortcomings but insisted, “I would not be running again if I did not believe with all of my heart and soul that I can do this job.”

Joe Biden will sit down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos for his first interview since the fallout from his dismal debate performance.

Stephanopoulos will interview Biden on Friday, with the “extended” interview, as ABC News terms it, set to air on Sunday on This Week and Good Morning America on Monday. The first portions of the interview will air on World News Tonight on Friday evening, with more on the weekend editions of GMA.

Another interview coup for former Bill Clinton aide and longtime ABC anchor Stephanopoulos, news of the sit-down comes as calls have become louder and louder for the 81-year-old POTUS to either step aside from his rematch against Donald Trump or order a dramatic reset of his clearly faltering campaign. Having said that, Stephanopoulos has proven the go-to guy for Biden when the president has hit the political rocks.

Back in the summer of 2021, ABC News had an exclusive interview between Stephanopoulos and Biden as the administration’s tumultuous exit from Afghanistan turned into a tragic and humiliating retreat.

With silence from Biden’s Hollywood ringleader Jeffrey Katzenberg, dozens of deep pocket donors have expressed dismay and even outrage at the president’s rambling and disjointed appearance with Trump on CNN on June 27. Biden has since appeared at rallies and fundraisers and, after a stay at Camp David, returned to the White House on Monday, when he delivered a statement on the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. He declined to take questions from reporters.

At the White House briefing today, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that will change next week, when Biden does a press conference during the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. The summit with 31 other members of NATO will take place from July 9-11, but Biden will be doing his press conference solo and will take questions from multiple reporters, Jean-Pierre said.

Today, President Biden made a short trip from the White House to the DC Emergency Operations Center HQ for a briefing on some of the extreme weather hitting the nation this 4th of July week. As has been the case with almost all of Biden’s public appearances since the debate debacle, the president took no questions from the media.

Biden will be attending a campaign fundraiser in nearby Virginia this evening. Whether or not the president will be using a Teleprompter with his remarks before contributors is not known right now. The president’s reliance on the Teleprompter in such private events as well as his policy speeches and campaign stops has emerged in recent days as a flashpoint for both critics and fans.

Demands for a reassuring response on Biden’s capacity to run a coherent campaign against much indicted Trump, who has a lead in the polls, have been met in the fallout from last week with conference calls and Zoom meet-ups from top staffers like Jennifer O’Malley Dillon. Offering platitudes and polling estimates, the plethora of calls have come in place of direct communication from Biden himself or his long term inner circle – a situation that has caused even more anxiety, top donors tell us.

Interestingly, despite the pleas from some of Biden’s most loyal supporters, the president’s network interview will not be live. Additionally, even with a scattering of events on the president’s schedule for the Independence Day holiday, there is no other interview or town hall on the calendar for Biden – yet.

At the briefing, Jean-Pierre said that “we want to turn the page on this.” She acknowledged voters’ concerns over Biden’s age, but gave a terse “no” when asked if the president was in the early stages of Alzheimers or any form of dementia. She also suggested that reporters should ask the same question of Donald Trump.

“I have an answer for you. Are you ready for it? It’s a no. And I hope you’re asking the other guy the same exact question,” Jean-Pierre said.

“Most incumbents, for their first debate, it doesn’t go well,” she said, calling Biden’s performance a “bad night” while noting that the president has also acknowledged his debating skills and speaking style are not what they used to be. “With age comes wisdom and experience,” she said.

But reporters peppered Jean-Pierre over just what happened on Thursday evening. It’s a question that Stephanopoulos likely will ask. She said that he had a cold and continues to have one, but said that he was not taking cold medication.

All the networks have standing offers to interview the president. The choice of ABC News follows Biden’s last major sit down interview, with the same network. He spoke with World News Tonight anchor David Muir at the Normandy anniversary celebration last month.

Scientists have identified a potential new target for treating Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The discovery promises to halt or even reverse the disease process.

Alzheimer’s disease affects roughly 5.8 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The progressive disease is the most common form of dementia and is associated with memory loss and cognitive decline in regions of the brain involved in thought, memory and language.

The disease is thought to be caused by the abnormal buildup of proteins in and around the brain cells.

Today, there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s, although recently approved treatments do exist that can slow the disease’s progression.

“Strategies to treat Alzheimer’s disease to date have largely focused on pathological changes prominent in the late stages of the disease,” Scott Selleck, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, said in a statement.

“Although recently [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]-approved drugs have shown the ability to modestly slow the disease by targeting one of these changes, amyloid accumulation, drugs that affect the earliest cellular deficits might provide important tools to stop or reverse the disease process.

“We are interested in understanding the earliest cellular changes that are found not only in Alzheimer’s, but shared across other neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).”

In a new study published in the journal iScience, Selleck and colleagues from Penn State have identified a key molecule during these early stages of disease progression that may act as a potential target for future Alzheimer’s treatments.

The discovery centers around a group of cell-signaling molecules called heparan sulfate-modified proteins, which have previously been implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. However, their exact role has remained unclear.

Heparan sulfate-modified proteins can be found both on the surface and in between animal cells. Among their many roles, they seem to play a key role in regulating a cellular recycling process called autophagy.

This process is known to be compromised in the early stages of several neurodegenerative diseases. And when autophagy isn’t working properly, cells can’t get rid of their dysfunctional or damaged components as easily, reducing their ability to repair themselves.

“In this study, we determined that heparan sulfate-modified proteins suppress autophagy-dependent cell repair,” Selleck said.

The team found that disrupting the structure and function of these heparan sulfate-modified proteins increased levels of autophagy in their respective cells. What’s more, reducing the function of these proteins also appeared to improve the function of the cell’s mitochondria (which are responsible for energy production in the cell), and reduced the build-up of fatty compounds inside the cells—both of which are early signs of other neurodegenerative diseases.

“We demonstrate that reduced autophagy, mitochondrial defects and lipid build-up—all common changes in neurodegenerative disease—can be blocked by altering one class of proteins, those with heparan sulfate modifications,” Selleck said.

“These findings suggest a promising target for future treatments that could rescue the earliest abnormalities that occur in many neurodegenerative diseases.”

Donald Trump raised $331 million in the second quarter, a fundraising haul that leaves him with more cash on hand than President Joe Biden, a development likely to intensify Democratic anxiety about the incumbent’s campaign.

That amount, raised by Trump and the Republican National Committee, surpasses the $264 million Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised in the quarter. The campaign said it now has nearly $285 million cash on hand compared to the $240 million reported by Biden — a stunning reversal in a fundraising fight that saw the president’s war chest crush his rival’s for months.

“Winning this quarter brought us a cash on hand advantage,” said top Trump campaign officials Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles in a joint statement, jabbing at a “Biden burn rate that grows while yielding no tangible results for them.”

Trump outraised Biden in the months of April and May, the first time he won the monthly money race. But the presumptive Republican nominee fell short in June, with Biden raising $127 million to his $112 million.

Trump’s cash advantage, though, deals a blow to Biden at a time when his campaign is facing intense scrutiny from fellow Democrats in the wake of a calamitous debate that has spurred calls for him to step aside and let another candidate run.

Biden’s campaign has reacted angrily to calls from party members, lawmakers and media personalities calling for him to not seek reelection. Biden at fundraisers over the weekend sought to reassure donors that he is able to beat Trump and he plans to speak with Democratic governors on Wednesday.

His campaign on Monday released their June and quarterly fundraising totals in a bid to show strength and ease donor anxiety. Officials said that Biden had enjoyed his best fundraising month yet and that the reelection team managed to build up their cash even as they made investments in paid media and staffed offices in battleground states.

Biden’s campaign said it raised $38 million in the four days starting on June 27, the day of the debate. Trump’s campaign said it raised $8 million on the day of the event, but didn’t release updated totals.

Trump, for his part, has erased Biden’s fundraising advantage by ramping up appeals to deep-pocketed donors and harnessing Republican anger over his May 30 conviction in a Manhattan trial for hiding hush-money payments. The campaign said Trump raised $52.8 million online in the 24 hours after the verdict making him the first former US president in history found guilty of a felony.

Trump’s financial situation was weaker earlier in the campaign, when his coffers were drained by legal challenges and a contested primary that drew more than a dozen challengers.

Some of the party’s biggest donors have opened their checkbooks for Trump. Crypto billionaires Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss each made donations in Bitcoin worth $844,600 to the Trump 47 Committee, which raises money for his campaign and the Republican Party. Billionaire Miriam Adelson of Las Vegas Sands and Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman both donated to it in May.

Images captured from space show the growth of Cuba’s electronic eavesdropping stations that are believed to be linked to China, including new construction at a previously unreported site about 70 miles from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, according to a new report.

The study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, follows reporting last year by The Wall Street Journal that China and Cuba were negotiating closer defense and intelligence ties, including establishing a new joint military training facility on the island and an eavesdropping facility.

At the time, the Journal reported that Cuba and China were already jointly operating eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials, who didn’t disclose their locations. It couldn’t be determined which, if any, of those are included in the sites covered by the CSIS report.

The concern about the stations, former officials and analysts say, is that China is using Cuba’s geographical proximity to the southeastern U.S. to scoop up sensitive electronic communications from American military bases, space-launch facilities, and military and commercial shipping.

Chinese facilities on the island “could also bolster China’s use of telecommunications networks to spy on U.S. citizens,” said Leland Lazarus, an expert on China-Latin America relations at Florida International University.

Authors of the CSIS report, after analyzing years’ worth of satellite imagery, found that Cuba has significantly upgraded and expanded its electronic spying facilities in recent years and pinpointed four sites—at Bejucal, El Salao, Wajay and Calabazar.

While some of the sites described by CSIS, such as the one at Bejucal, have previously been identified as listening posts, the satellite imagery provides new details about their capabilities, growth over the years and likely links with China.

“These are active locations with an evolving mission set,” said Matthew Funaiole, a senior follow at CSIS and the report’s chief author.

The report comes amid growing concerns about Great Power competition in the Caribbean and elsewhere in Latin America, where Washington for decades has tried to prevent rivals from gaining military and economic advantage.

China is building a megaport on Peru’s Pacific coast. Russia, meanwhile, recently sent a nuclear-powered submarine, capable of firing Kalibr cruise missiles, and a frigate to Cuba’s Havana harbor.

In its annual threat assessment released in February, the U.S. intelligence community said publicly for the first time that China is pursuing military facilities in Cuba, without providing details.

Chinese officials stress that the U.S. has a vast global network of military bases and listening posts. “The U.S. is no doubt the leading power in terms of eavesdropping and does not even spare its Allies,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, wrote in a statement. “The U.S. side has repeatedly hyped up China’s establishment of spy bases or conducting surveillance activities in Cuba.”

The report says that two of the sites near Havana—Bejucal and Calabazar—contain large dish antennas that appear designed to monitor and communicate with satellites. The report notes that while Cuba doesn’t have any satellites, the antennas would be useful for China, which does have a substantial space program.

The newest dish antenna was installed at Bejucal in January, said the report, which found that and other infrastructure upgrades at the sites over the last decade.

The most recent of the four sites, still being built and not previously known publicly, is at El Salao, outside the city of Santiago de Cuba in the eastern part of the country and not far from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo.

Construction there began in 2021, and the site appears designed to hold a large formation of antennas known as a circularly disposed antenna array, which can be used to find and intercept electronic signals, the report said.

The site, when completed, could potentially monitor communications and other electronic signals coming from the Guantanamo base, said Funaiole.

The U.S. and Russia have largely abandoned this sort of antenna array in favor of newer technologies, but China has been building them at several militarized outposts in the South China Sea, he said.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated its largest overseas site for electronic spying, known as signals intelligence, at Lourdes, just outside Havana. The site, which reportedly hosted hundreds of Soviet, Cuban and other Eastern-bloc intelligence officers, closed down after 2001, and its current status isn’t clear.

China has played a larger role on the island in more recent years, and according to a White House statement last year, conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019.

Ivanka Trump has opened up for the first time about her father’s court battles during a podcast episode where she also shed a tear talking about her ‘impossibly glamorous’ late mother Ivana.

During an on-camera interview with Lex Fridman, the 42-year-old spoke about the Donald Trump’s long series of legal entanglements and reveals why she decided to step away from her father’s 2024 campaign.

‘On a human level, it’s my father and I love him very much, so it’s painful to experience, but ultimately, I wish it didn’t have to be this way,’ Ivanka revealed.

Donald Trump faces charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into election interference and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, as well as charges for mishandling classified documents in Florida.

Separately, Trump, 78, faces charges for election interference in Georgia. He has pleaded not guilty on all charges.

Later on the podcast, Ivanka also grew visibly emotional as she was asked about her mother, who died July 2022 at the age of 73.

When asked about whether she missed her, Ivanka said: ‘So much. It’s unbelievable how dislocating the loss of a parent is.

‘And her mother lives with me still, my grandmother who helped raise us, so that’s very special.

Pausing to fight back tears, she added: ‘And I can ask her some of the questions that I would’ve… Sorry. I wanted to ask my own mom, but it’s hard.’

Ivana Trump was an Olympic skier and model who was married to Donald Trump from 1977 to 1990. Her daughter described her as ‘a remarkable, remarkable woman’.

‘She was a trailblazer in so many different ways, as an athlete and growing up in communist Czechoslovakia, as a fashion mogul, as a real estate executive and builder,’ Ivanka said.

‘Just this all-around trailblazing businesswoman. I also learned from her, aside from that element, how to really enjoy life. I look back and some of my happiest memories of her are in the ocean, just lying on our back, looking up at the sun and just so in the moment or dancing.

‘She loved to dance, so she really taught me a lot about living life to its fullest. And she had so much courage, so much conviction, so much energy, and a complete comfort with who she was.’

‘I have these vignettes in my mind, seeing her in action in different capacities, a lot of times in the context of things that I would later go on to do myself,’ Ivanka added.

‘So I would go almost every day after school, and I’d go to the Plaza Hotel and I’d follow her around as she’d walk the hallways and just observe her.

‘And she was so impossibly glamorous. She was doing everything in four-and-a-half-inch heels, with this bouffant. It’s almost an inaccessible visual.’

Ivanka was a senior advisor in Trump’s administration from 2017 until 2021, but she said she’s taking a step back from politics and has not been heavily involved in his second bid for the White House.

Along with her half-sister sister Tiffany, she recently celebrated her father’s 78th birthday by sharing a series of photos in sweet tributes on Instagram.

Trump’s eldest daughter first stated publicly that she would be absent from her father’s 2024 campaign back when Donald announced his third run for the White House in 2022.

She said at the time: ‘I love my father very much. This time around, I’m choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,’ the former White House adviser said. ‘While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.’

Fridman asked Trump to elaborate on her statement now that Donald has again clinched the Republican nomination and now may be the favorite to win in November.

‘It was a decision rooted in me being a parent, really thinking about what they need from me now. Politics is a rough business and I think it’s one that you also can’t dabble in, I think you have to be either all in or all out.’

Ivanka referenced ‘the cost’ her children would pay from her absence were she to go all in on the campaign trail, adding ‘I’m not willing to make them bear that cost.’

‘As their mom, I think it’s really important that I do what’s right for them. I think there a lot of ways you can serve, the enormity, the scale of what can be accomplished in government service, but I think there’s something equally valuable in helping in your own community.’

She said there was ‘a lot of darkness, a lot of negativity’ in politics and says it’s the opposite of ‘what feels good for me as a human being.’

Earlier on, Fridman asked Trump more about her famous father, wondering how his run for office changed her own life.

‘Nothing about our lives had been constructed with politics in mind,’ she said of when Donald first told her she was running.

‘It was an extraordinary experience, there was so much intensity and so much scrutiny and so much noise. That took, for sure, a moment to acclimate to. I’m not sure I ever fully acclimated to it.’

Ivanka cited ‘the process’ of learning the day-to-day workings of the presidency while on the job as a senior advisor as ‘the most extraordinary’ part of the Washington years.’

She also discussed the pressure to help her father, a neophyte in politics suddenly the leader of the free world.

‘My father had never spent the night in Washington DC before staying in the White House,’ she said.

‘He trusted us and our ability to execute and there wasn’t a part of me that could imagine a 70 or 80 year old version of myself that would have been ok with saying no.’

She also got personal beyond just her mother’s passing and spoke about how she challenges herself.

‘I was the child of two extraordinarily successful people and that could have been debilitating and I saw that in a lot of my friends who grew up in circumstances similar to that,’ she said.

‘They were afraid to try for fear of not measuring up and early on I learned to harness the fear of not being good enough, not being competent enough and I harnessed it to make me better.’

Ivanka was noticeably on the night her father announced his campaign launch in November of 2022. Trump called attention to the other family members in the room including wife, former First Lady Melania Trump and his middle son Eric.

Youngest son Barron, as well as Eric’s wife Lara and Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle were also front-and-center at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ballroom announcement.

Donald Trump Jr. missed the speech due to a flight hiccup as he was returning to Florida from a hunting trip.

Ivanka and husband Jared Kushner have worked to distance themselves from the tumultuous world of politics amid Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and his various legal woes.

They relocated to Florida with children Arabella, 12, Joseph, 9, and Theodore, 8, after Trump left office in January 2021.

It was a change of pace for the 42-year-old, who was heavily involved in her father’s presidency.

She was handed a prominent role in meetings with the G20 and Kim Jong-un, for which she was met with accusations of nepotism.

However, Ivanka has no desire to return to Washington, according to those close to her and her husband.

Ivanka herself voiced her desire for a quieter life in 2022.

‘This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family,’ she said in a statement.

‘I do not plan to be involved in politics. While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena.’

Kushner, meanwhile, was present at Trump’s re-election announcement. He served as Senior Advisor to his father-in-law until Trump left office.

That same year, Kushner launched his Miami-based investment firm, Affinity Partners.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that the U.S. will soon announce an additional $2.3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine, to include anti-tank weapons, interceptors and munitions for Patriot and other air defense systems.

Austin’s remarks came as Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met with him at the Pentagon. And they mark a strong response to pleas from Kyiv for help in battling Russian forces in the Donetsk region.

Of that total, $150 million of the aid will come from presidential drawdown authority (PDA) and the remainder will be provided by Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI). PDA allows the Pentagon to take the weapons from its stocks and send them more quickly to Ukraine; USAI puts weapons on longer-term contracts.

“Make no mistake, Ukraine is not alone, and the United States will never waver in our support,” Austin said as he opened the meeting with Umerov.

“Alongside some 50 allies and partners, we’ll continue to provide critical capabilities that Ukraine needs to push back Russian aggression today and to deter Russian aggression tomorrow.”

The announcement comes just days before the U.S. hosts the NATO summit in Washington and as Ukraine has continued to lobby for military support and acceptance into the alliance.

“We’ll take steps to build a bridge to NATO membership for Ukraine,” Austin told Umerov.

“Hopefully soon Ukraine will receive its invitation,” the Ukrainian minister responded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia had dropped more than 800 powerful glide bombs in Ukraine in the last week alone. And he urged national leaders to relax restrictions on the use of Western weapons to strike military targets inside Russia. In particular, he said, Ukraine needs the “necessary means to destroy the carriers of these bombs, including Russian combat aircraft, wherever they are.”

Austin did not refer to the restrictions in his opening comments, but he told Umerov that they would discuss “more ways to meet Ukraine’s immediate security needs and to build a future force to ward off more Russian aggression.”

Including the latest $2.3 billion, the U.S. has committed more than $53.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Rudy Giuliani – the former New York City mayor, mob prosecutor and Donald Trump ally — lost his license to practice law in his home state Tuesday.

The state appeals court’s decision immediately disbarring Giuliani and ordering “his name stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law” furthers the fall from grace for the 80-year-old once hailed as “America’s Mayor” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The ruling found that Giuliani — who had his New York law license suspended in 2021 — repeatedly made false claims about the 2020 presidential election when he represented Trump and his campaign.

Giuliani “flagrantly misused” his post to make false statements “some of which were perjurious” when he “baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process,” the First Department decision reads.

He “actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant.”

Giuliani — who served as mayor from 1994 until 2001 and was beloved for his response to 9/11 — also faces two criminal indictments for allegedly interfering in the election. He filed for bankruptcy in December after being hit with a multi-million dollar judgement in a Georgia defamation case.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

New York’s Attorney Grievance Committee mounted 22 charges against Giuliani in February 2023, accusing him of lying or misleading “courts, lawmakers, and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection to Trump’s failed effort at reelection in 2020,” Tuesday’s ruling explains.

The disciplinary probe looked at 16 false statements made by Giuliani, including extraordinary claims he made under oath, like when he falsely told the Missouri state legislature in December 2020 that there were over 2,000 court affidavits attesting to first-hand knowledge of election fraud.

Giuliani also made claims that thousands of votes were cast by people who were either dead, felons, non-citizens or underage, that Camden, NJ residents were bussed to Philadelphia to vote illegally and that an imaginary truck from Bethpage smuggled ballots to Pennsylvania.

At his infamous Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference days after the election, Giuliani also claimed that a vote was cast in the name of late heavyweight champ Joe Frazier, who died nine years before the 2020 election.

Giuliani repeated parts of this statement four times months later in radio interviews, according to the court.

Investigators discovered he may have picked up the story from a 2018 blog post he found on the internet, the decision says.

The First Department said 16 of Giuliani’s lies were “deliberate.” The court also didn’t buy that Giuliani was unaware the statements were false when he made them.

Giuliani’s political advisor Ted Goodman said the decision was “politically and ideologically corrupted.”

“We will be appealing this objectively flawed decision in hopes that the appellate process will restore integrity into our system of justice,” Goodman said.

Giuliani also faces being disbarred in Washington DC, where his law license has been suspended.

He was admitted to the New York bar in 1969 and served as Manhattan US Attorney from 1983 through 1989, where he gained a reputation for successfully prosecuting mobsters.

Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to an election fraud case in Arizona and to the criminal charges in Georgia, in a case also accusing Trump of election fraud.

He also faces serious civil legal problems, including the $148 million judgment for defaming Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss by falsely claiming they carried out election fraud in 2020 in the Peach State.

Giuliani’s creditors in his bankruptcy case are asking a judge to appoint a trustee to oversee his financial affairs claiming the former mayor has been misusing his money that should be going to paying off his debts.

His lawyer recently disclosed that Giuliani is suffering from “possible” 9/11-related lung disease and says his age and health will make it hard for him to get work.

Giuliani lost his job on WABC, where he hosted a radio show, in May for continuing to spout on air that the 2020 election was “stolen,” breaking with company policy, according to station owner John Catsimatidis.

Judge Juan Merchan delayed former President Donald Trump’s sentencing to September.

Originally scheduled for July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention — Trump’s sentencing will now take place on September 18. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office agreed Tuesday to delay Trump’s sentencing in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling finding presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts” taken in office.

“The Court’s decision will be tendered off-calendar on September 6, 2024 and the matter is adjourned to September 18, 2024, at 10:00 AM for the imposition of sentence, if such is still necessary, or other proceedings,” Merchan wrote in the order.

Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts for falsifying business records.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday on Trump’s presidential immunity appeal in his federal Jan. 6 case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. The majority held that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “presumptive immunity” for all official acts.

Trump’s attorneys argued that the ruling means certain evidence introduced during the Manhattan trial involving “official-acts” should have “never been put before the jury.” This evidence included Trump’s tweets and public addresses, his attorneys wrote.

NEW: Justice Merchan delays Trump’s NY sentencing until September. pic.twitter.com/CRg6nnE0qN

— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) July 2, 2024

“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the judge in a filing Tuesday.

Trump’s attorneys will file their motion to set aside the verdict in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling by July 10, according to Merchan’s order. Prosecutors will file their response by July 24.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first elected Democrat to call on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, saying the president “failed” to defend his record and reassure voters that he’s the man for the job during last week’s debate.

Acknowledging Biden’s accomplishments for his party, Doggett said in a Tuesday statement that “many Americans have indicated dissatisfaction with their choices in this election.”

“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said.

“Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” he continued. “Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory — too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what was not turned around in the debate, can be turned around now.”

“President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2020. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024,” he added.

Amid his call for Biden to withdraw, Doggett reflected on the “painful” decision made by former President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election to the White House in 1968.

“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same,” the Texas lawmaker said. “While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional.”

Doggett claimed the president “has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process.”

“My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” he concluded.

Doggett’s remarks come less than a week after Biden’s disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.

Speaking with a raspy voice and delivering rambling answers, Biden struggled during many portions of the debate. Several political analysts noted, however, that the president sharpened his answers as the debate progressed.

Biden’s uneven and, at times, halting performance grabbed the vast majority of headlines from the debate and sparked a new round of calls from political pundits, publications and some Democrats for the president to step aside as the party’s standard-bearer. Top Biden allies have pushed back against such talk as they defended the president and targeted Trump for “lying” throughout the debate.

Biden, on the day after his debate performance, aimed to address Democratic Party panic.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden, at 81 the oldest president in the nation’s history, told cheering supporters at a Friday afternoon rally in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina.

“Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden acknowledged. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”

In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Communications Director Jack Pandol said, “The cowards in the Democratic Caucus have spent every day after the debate in witness protection, too afraid to say what they’re all thinking.”

“Americans remember House Democrats were complicit in covering up and gaslighting the public about the president’s condition, and voters are primed to punish them in November,” Pandol added.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former babysitter Eliza Cooney accused him of multiple instances of sexual assault during her employment with the Kennedy family, according to a Vanity Fair expose.

Cooney’s allegations, which occur at points through 1998 and 1999, show a few instances in which Kennedy made unwanted advances toward her.

In a November 1998 diary entry, she said, “From everything everybody says about the Kennedys + their Babysitters, they had me worried. Like I have to watch out, be careful. And the other night in the kitchen w/ Murray I could have sworn he was touching my leg + hand. It seemed like he thought I was somebody else or wasn’t paying attention. Like he would come to every once in a while and snap out of it or I would move away. It was like he was on something or really tired or was missing Mary or was testing me.”

She later said she discovered Kennedy reading her personal diary, which contained the entry. She said she stopped recording her experiences for fear he would read them. A few months later, after Cooney had taken part in a yoga class with a sports bra and leggings, “Kennedy came up behind her, blocked her inside the room, and began groping her, putting his hands on her hips and sliding them up along her rib cage and breasts.”

Kennedy was interrupted by another worker who said something to the effect of, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do” or “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want your wife to know about.”

“Cooney stayed on the job for a few more months but says the experience damaged her confidence and diverted her from environmental work,” the article says. “At the end of her diary, Cooney wrote a list of things ‘to leave behind in 1999,’ with ‘bad men’ at the top.”

Cooney decided to share her story now because Kennedy is a candidate for president.

In an interview on the YouTube channel Breaking Points, Kennedy responded to the sexual assault allegations by saying, “I’m not a church boy; I am not running like that. … I had a very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”

“Vanity Fair is recycling 30-year-old stories, and I am not gonna comment on the details of any of them but I am who I am,” Kennedy continued.

When pressed by the host of the show whether he is denying the allegation or not, Kennedy said, “I’m not gonna comment on it.”

The independent presidential candidate is also facing criticism for a picture in the story that appeared to show him eating what is reported to be a barbecued dog.

Kennedy laughed when asked about the picture, saying, “The article is a lot of garbage. The picture that they said is of me eating a dog is actually me eating a goat in Patagonia. … They said they have an expert who has identified that as a dog carcass; it’s just not true.”

Democrats quickly seized the opportunity to attack Kennedy as Democratic National Committee spokesman Matt Corridoni posted the photo of Kennedy with the animal, which Vanity Fair said it had a veterinarian examine and subsequently determine that the animal is a canine.

The photo has horrified social media users, with some comparing Kennedy to Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), who received a considerable amount of backlash for reporting that she shot her hunting dog and a goat in her newest book.

Decision Desk HQ’s running polling average has Kennedy polling nationally between about 7% and 9% since April.

The sexual assault allegation against Kennedy makes it so the three top polling presidential candidates, all men, all have at least one sexual assault accusation. Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll, and President Joe Biden was accused by Tara Reade of assaulting her while he was a senator.