The Supreme Court ruled Monday in Trump v. United States that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

“The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive,” he said.

“The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party,” he continued.

Read the supreme court opinion.

The question stemmed from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal election interference case in which he charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

Those charges stem from Smith’s months-long investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election result.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued he should be immune from prosecution from official acts done as president of the U.S.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”

“Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President … the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent,” she said.

Smith’s case against the former president and its trial have been pending amid the high court’s consideration of the issue.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, former President Trump said, “I have been harassed by the Democrat Party, Joe Biden, Obama and their thugs, fascists and communists for years, and now the courts have spoken.”

“This is a big win for our Constitution and for democracy. Now I am free to campaign like anyone else. We are leading in every poll—by a lot—and we will make America great again,” he said.

The justices heard arguments from Trump attorney John Sauer and Michael Dreeben, a Justice Department attorney representing Special Counsel Jack Smith, on April 25 on whether presidents should have “absolute immunity.”

During those arguments, both liberal and conservative justices focused on the broader implications of the question for future presidents but raised sharply different concerns.

Justice Samuel Alito questioned the repercussions of charging a former president.

“Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possible nullity after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent,” Alito asked, “will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail,” he said.

Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Biden, asked if the “potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office?”

“If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential full penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country,” she said.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh summed up the stakes for the court’s decision: “This will have huge implications for the presidency.”

“I’m not talking about the present, so I’m talking about the future,” Kavanaugh said.

And Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed during questioning: “We’re writing a rule for, yes, for the ages.”

As for Alito’s question, the former president has repeatedly claimed that he is being prosecuted by his political opponents, warning Americans and voters that all cases against him, in all jurisdictions, are being brought by his opponent — President Biden — and being done in coordination with the White House.

Meanwhile, the ruling comes after a New York jury found Trump guilty on all counts of falsifying business records in the first degree stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation.

Hunter Biden is suing Fox News for its The Trial of Hunter Biden series, according to a Sunday court filing in New York County Supreme Court.

Biden’s attorneys said the “series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain.” They’re also taking issue with the outlet’s publication of photos “depicting him in the nude … as well as engaged in sex acts.”

The lawsuit fulfills a threat made by Biden’s lawyers that they would sue over the series, which the network took down in April.

The series on Fox Nation, its streaming service, offered a fictionalized version of what a trial against Biden might look like. The television personality overseeing it, Judge Joe Brown, warned viewers that what they were seeing was not a real trial and that Biden was not facing charges.

“Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden’s personality through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information,” the lawsuit notes.

“Indeed, the entire miniseries is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case. … While using certain true information, the series intentionally manipulates the facts, distorts the truth, narrates happenings out of context, and invents dialogue intended to entertain. Thus, the viewer of the series cannot decipher what is fact and what is fiction, which is highly damaging to Mr. Biden.”

Biden’s attorneys cite three causes of action: a violation of Biden’s civil rights due to the intimate images “disseminated and published” by Fox, alleged intentional infliction of emotional distress by Fox, and Fox News’s alleged unjust enrichment from the series.

Biden’s attorneys also cite the Dominion Voting Systems judgement against Fox News as to “not be the first time that Fox knowingly engaged in unlawful conduct.”

Biden is seeking punitive and compensatory damage awards, an order directing Fox News to “take down, remove and delete any publication of an Intimate Image of Mr. Biden,” a permanent injunction enjoining defendants from publishing, disseminating, disclosing, posting, or uploading any intimate images of Biden, and disgorgement of profits from The Trial of Hunter Biden, among other things.

Meanwhile, Biden is dealing with litigation against him as well, as he was recently convicted in his gun trial and faces more criminal charges in his California tax case.

House Republicans on Monday filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Merrick Garland for the audio recording of President Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel in his classified documents case, asking the courts to enforce their subpoena and reject the White House’s effort to withhold the materials from Congress.

The lawsuit filed by the House Judiciary Committee marks Republicans’ latest broadside against the Justice Department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign. The legal action comes weeks after the White House blocked Garland from releasing the audio recording to Congress by asserting executive privilege.

Republicans in the House responded by voting to make Garland the third attorney general in U.S. history to be held in contempt of Congress. But the Justice Department refused to take up the contempt referral, citing the agency’s “longstanding position and uniform practice” to not prosecute officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.

The lawsuit states that Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., made a “last-ditch effort” last week to Garland to resolve the issue without taking legal action but the attorney general referred the Republicans to the White House, which rebuffed the “effort to find a solution to this impasse.”

The congressional inquiry began with the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s report in February, which found evidence that Biden, a Democrat, willfully retained and shared highly classified information when he was a private citizen. Yet Hur concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.

Republicans, incensed by Hur’s decision, issued a subpoena for audio of his interviews with Biden during the spring. But the Justice Department turned over only some of the records, leaving out audio of the interview with the president.

“The audio recordings, not the cold transcripts, are the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview,” the lawsuit reads. “The Committee thus needs those recordings to assess the Special Counsel’s characterization of the President, which he and White House lawyers have forcefully disputed, and ultimate recommendation that President Biden should not be prosecuted.”

On the last day to comply with the Republicans’ subpoena for the audio, the White House blocked the release by invoking executive privilege. It said that Republicans in Congress only wanted the recordings “to chop them up” and use them for political purposes.

Executive privilege gives presidents the right to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of decision-making, though it can be challenged in court. Administrations of both major political parties have long held the position that officials who assert a president’s claim of executive privilege can’t be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, a Justice Department official told Republicans last month.

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte cited a committee’s decision in 2008 to back down from a contempt effort after President George W. Bush asserted executive privilege to keep Congress from getting records involving Vice President Dick Cheney.

It’s unclear how the lawsuit will play out. Courts have not had much to say about executive privilege. But in the 1974 case over President Richard Nixon’s refusal to release Oval Office recordings as part of the Watergate investigation, the Supreme Court held that the privilege is not absolute. In other words, the case for turning over documents or allowing testimony may be more compelling than arguments for withholding them. In that context, the court ruled 8-0 that Nixon had to turn over the tapes.

When it came to the Watergate tapes, the Supreme Court said it had the final word, and lower courts have occasionally weighed in to resolve other disputes. But courts also have made clear they prefer that the White House and Congress resolve their disagreements without judicial intervention, when possible.

Despite his public support for the president, Barack Obama is privately lobbying to get rid of Joe Biden, telling insiders he cannot defeat Trump, according to what Tucker Carlson described as an “unusually good source.”

Biden got completely embarrassed during Thursday night’s debate, spreading panic amongst top Democrats and leading the New York Times to insist that he should step aside.

Despite the backlash, Obama tweeted his support for Biden, asserting that “bad debate nights happen” and that people should still stick with him. However, Obama is reportedly saying very different things in private.

From an unusually good source: Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention. Obama will not say whom he supports, nor as of yesterday afternoon had he met personally…

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) July 1, 2024

“From an unusually good source: Obama’s tweet supporting Joe Biden was disingenuous. In private, Obama is telling people Biden can’t win, and he is therefore in favor of an open convention,” Tucker Carlson posted on X.

“Obama will not say whom he supports, nor as of yesterday afternoon had he met personally with Biden to deliver the message,” he added.

Carlson made it clear that relations between the Obamas and Bidens have “deteriorated further,” and that Jill Biden is driving her husband’s reckless decision to stay in the presidential race.

“In the hours and days after the debate, she kept her husband cloistered away from anyone who might convince him to drop out. Jill Biden is the driving force behind her husband’s reelection campaign, just as she was in 2020, when other members of the family (including Biden’s sister Val) considered him too impaired to run.”

“The next generation of potential Democratic candidates understands all this as an opportunity and they’re circling, particularly Gretchen Whitmer, who is promoting herself aggressively.”

Meanwhile, the Biden family held a crunch meeting at Camp David yesterday during which they urged the president to stay in the race despite his shocking debate performance.

Rather ludicrously, Jill Biden and others are telling Joe Biden that not only can he continue his campaign and defeat Trump, but is also fit to serve another four years.

Yes, they seriously believe that a man who is already clearly showing signs of dementia in July 2024 can be the most powerful man in the world with the nuclear codes until January 2029, at which point he will be 86-years-old.

Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl whose body was found in a creek in north Houston in June, was sexually assaulted, results from the Houston Forensic Science Center confirmed on Monday.

Sources told ABC13’s Courtney Fischer the district attorney’s office received the results from HFSC on Sunday.

Johan Jose Martinez Rangel, 22, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, are charged with capital murder in Jocelyn’s death. The girl was strangled.

Both men have been arrested, and at last check, remain in jail on $10 million bond.

According to Texas law, because of Jocelyn’s age, both men were not eligible for the death penalty.

However, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said last week that if sexual assault were found, that would make the case death penalty eligible, and the state would then be able to ask for no bond.

Investigators said they believe Jocelyn snuck out of her home around 10 p.m. Sunday, June 16.

According to court documents, the two suspects asked her for directions after encountering her on Kuykendahl Road.

Court documents allege that the men then lured Jocelyn underneath a bridge, where they kept her for two hours. She was tied up, had her pants taken off, and was strangled, officials said.

A bystander found her body floating in a creek shortly before 7 a.m. on June 17.

The state added that Jocelyn and the men were seen on video at about 12:57 a.m. on June 17 walking down by the bayou. At 3:04 a.m., only the two men emerged.

An autopsy confirmed her cause of death was strangulation.

The state said it interviewed witnesses who told them they saw the men at Ojos Locos hours before Jocelyn’s murder.

According to another witness, Pena confessed he and Martinez did something bad after partying and were looking for money to leave town.

Both men worked construction and allegedly asked their boss for the funds after explaining what happened, the lead prosecutor told ABC13.

It was also revealed in court on Monday that Pena told authorities he tried to tell Martinez to stop, but then Martinez allegedly put his arm around Jocelyn’s neck and covered her mouth.

After she died, Martinez allegedly tied her up and told Pena to put her body in the water to remove any DNA. Martinez also reportedly admitted to changing his beard to avoid attention and had a bite mark and scratches on his arm.

After days of investigation, authorities arrested the two men at 13355 Northborough Drive, the Canfield Lakes Apartments.

The suspects, who are Venezuelan nationals, were in the U.S. illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, said, adding that they didn’t know when or where they entered the country.

According to the agency, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended Martinez near El Paso on March 14, but he was released that same day on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear.

U.S. Border Patrol arrested Pena on May 28, also near El Paso. On the same day he was apprehended, a judge also ordered Pena to appear in court later.

Both suspects are placed under ICE holds. So even if they were able to post bond, they can’t go anywhere.

UPDATE: Booking photos of Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel, 22, and Franklin Pena, 26, now charged with capital murder in the death of 12-yr-old Jocelyn Nungaray on June 17.

More info at: https://t.co/p4IMEWpTaI#HouNews https://t.co/e701fBDHdl pic.twitter.com/2a3yELHMKf

— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) June 21, 2024

#NEW: The 2 suspects were caught by border patrol weeks before they’re accused of murdering a 12-year-old. According to ICE on March 14, Martinez was apprehended by Border Patrol near El Paso. That same day he was released on an order of recognizance with a notice to appear https://t.co/cyfktxzxgB

— Brooke Taylor (@Brooketaylortv) June 21, 2024

Longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon was taken into custody Monday after surrendering at a federal prison to begin a four-month sentence on contempt charges for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack.

Bannon arrived at the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, around noon and was formally taken into federal custody, the Bureau of Prisons said.

Speaking to reporters, Bannon called himself a “political prisoner,” said former President Donald Trump was “very supportive” of him and slammed Democrats, including Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“I am proud of going to prison,” Bannon said, adding he was “standing up to the Garland corrupt DOJ.”

Shortly before he arrived to surrender, a small group of supporters, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, gathered on the side of the road outside the prison. They cheered as Greene and Bannon spoke during a news conference, holding up flags and signs supporting Bannon as a small group of protesters shouted, “Lock him up!” and “traitor!”

A judge had allowed Bannon to stay free for nearly two years while he appealed but ordered him to report to prison Monday after an appeals court panel upheld his contempt of Congress convictions. The Supreme Court on Friday rejected his last-minute appeal to stave off his sentence.

A jury found Bannon guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and a second for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement in the Republican ex-president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Defense attorneys have argued the case raises issues that should be examined by the Supreme Court, including Bannon’s previous lawyer’s belief that the subpoena was invalid because Trump had asserted executive privilege. Prosecutors, though, say Bannon had left the White House years before and Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the committee.

Bannon’s appeal will continue to play out, and Republican House leaders have put their support behind stepping in to assert the Jan. 6 committee was improperly created, effectively trying to deem the subpoena Bannon received as illegitimate.

Another Trump aide, trade adviser Peter Navarro, has also been convicted of contempt of Congress. He reported to prison in March to serve his four-month sentence after the Supreme Court refused his bid to delay the sentence.

Bannon is also facing criminal charges in New York state court alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges, and that trial has been postponed until at least the end of September.

The Supreme Court on Monday wiped existing rulings around two state laws that aim to prevent tech companies from banning users over potentially harmful rhetoric.

The move prolongs a debate over whether Republicans will be able fight what they view as “censorship” by leading social media platforms.

The Court sent the issue back to lower courts for further review, arguing that the previous rulings failed to properly explore whether the content moderation laws would be unconstitutional under all circumstances.

Texas and Florida have passed legislation that Republican lawmakers claim will stop tech companies including Facebook parent Meta; X, formerly known as Twitter; and Google’s YouTube from stifling conservative opinions.

The states argue the laws ensure all users have equal access to the platforms, while the tech companies, which are represented by groups including NetChoice, say they violate the companies’ free speech rights.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion, and no justices dissented. She wrote that the lower courts had previously argued how the laws would apply to the largest social media platforms such as Facebook, and in doing so, they failed to consider how it might affect “other kinds of websites and apps” such as Uber or Etsy.

“Today, we vacate both decisions for reasons separate from the First Amendment merits, because neither Court of Appeals properly considered the facial nature of NetChoice’s challenge,” Kagan wrote.

Texas and Florida introduced the laws in 2021 after former President Donald Trump was banned from Twitter because of inflammatory posts surrounding the results of the 2020 presidential election and the ensuing riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump is now the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential race.

The laws in Texas and Florida were enacted before Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acquired Twitter for about $44 billion in 2022. Musk allowed Trump to return to Twitter that November.

Police appeared to opt out of taking action as San Francisco’s Pride march attendees openly performed oral sex on each other and engaged in disturbing sexual acts, including urinating on one another, during Sunday’s pride parade, social media video shows.

One attendee laid down in an inflatable pool in a designated area called “The Fetish Zone” and let a woman pee on him. Another man wearing only a dog collar and a small cloth around his genitals stood in the pool and clapped, video that reporter Savanah Hernandez posted to Twitter shows.

“The Fetish Zone” was designated as an 18+ zone but parade officials were allegedly not checking IDs, according to Hernandez.

San Francisco PRIDE- A man lies in an inflatable pool of urine in The Fetish Zone where attendees are encouraged to pee on him. pic.twitter.com/f8dMdfeVCn

— 🔥⭐️Edwin⭐️🔥 (@Nuked4Every1) July 1, 2024

Another nude man appeared to stand with his genitals hanging out while children walked by during the parade, video TENET Media’s Tayler Hansen posted to Twitter shows.

TENET Reporter @TaylerUSA confronts a man who was nude in front of countless kids and was continuously waving at them throughout the San Francisco Pride Parade.

He continued to say the kids “just happened to be there” and “as long as you’re not doing anything sexual there’s… pic.twitter.com/GC2tmQlYny

— TENET Media (@watchTENETnow) June 30, 2024

“Oh it’s legal here,” the man told Hansen when he confronted him about it. “A lot of people are doing it.”

Hansen pointed out the man was right next to a child while nude.

Another video from TENET appears to show a man urinating into another man’s mouth in “The Fetish Zone.”

There were children marching in the parade from multiple groups, including the Boy Scouts, according to TENET Media.

Multiple School Districts and Boy Scouts Of America March in San Francisco Pride right past a nude man.

Multiple children look directly at him and he waves at them. pic.twitter.com/uVJJjN0lZU

— TENET Media (@watchTENETnow) June 30, 2024

Hansen asked members of San Francisco Police who were stationed at the event about the legality of the lewd behavior.

“Right across the fence you have a zone where people are giving each other blow jobs in public and pissing on each other in public. Is that legal?” Hansen asked.

The police said the event was technically not public despite the fact that it was taking place on a public street.

“It’s a pick your battle day. They want us to maintain civility on the outskirts of it,” one of the officers told him.

As expected, Le Pen’s conservative (or in the world’s of the liberal media, “Far Right”) National Rally (RN) party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on several days of horsetrading before next week’s run-off.

The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed. That was ahead of both far-left and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron’s Together alliance, whose bloc was seen winning a paltry 20.5%-23%, a far cry from his crushing victory several years ago. The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled left-wing coalition, was projected to win around 29% of the vote, the exit polls showed.

The exit polls were in line with opinion polls ahead of the election, but provided little clarity on whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN will be able to form a government to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron after next Sunday’s run-off.

The RN’s chances of winning power next week will depend on the political dealmaking made by its rivals over the coming days. In the past, centre-right and centre-left parties have teamed up to keep the RN from power, but that dynamic, known as the “republican front,” is less certain than ever.

If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the top two contenders automatically qualify for the second round, as well as all those with 12.5% of registered voters. In the run-off, whoever wins the most votes take the constituency.

According to Reuters, the high turnout on Sunday suggests France is heading for a record number of three-way run-offs. These generally benefit the RN much more than two-way contests, experts say.

Sure enough, the horsetrading began almost immediately on Sunday night. In a written statement to the press, Macron called on voters to rally behind candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic”, which, based on his recent declarations, would exclude candidates from the RN and from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party.

The problem, of course, is that Macron’s party was crushed in the recent European parliamentary elections precisely because the people have had enough with “clearly republican and democratic” puppets of the World Economic Forum and want actual change.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said the second-placed NFP alliance will withdraw all its candidates who came third in the first round.”Our guideline is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally,” he said. It is, however, unlikely that many will care what the French socialists want: after all, last week the French socialist leftist alliance said it would raise the top marginal income tax rate to 90% if it were to take over the government.

Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old RN party president, said he was ready to be prime minister – if his party wins an absolute majority. That’s right, a 28 year old kid may soon be a prime minister of the 2nd largest European economy. He has ruled out trying to form a minority government and neither Macron nor the NFP will form an alliance with him.

“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.

While the RN is seen winning the most seats in the National Assembly, only one of the pollsters – Elabe – had the party winning an absolute majority of 289 seats in the run-off. Experts say that seat projections after first-round votes can be highly inaccurate, and especially so in this election.

Voter participation was high compared with previous parliamentary elections, illustrating the political fervour Macron aroused with his stunning decision to call a parliamentary vote after the RN trounced his party in European Parliament elections earlier this month.

His decision plunged France into political uncertainty, sent shockwaves around Europe and prompted a sell-off of French assets on financial markets.

A longtime pariah, the RN is now closer to power than it has ever been. Le Pen has sought to clean up the image of a party known for racism and antisemitism, a tactic that has worked amid voter anger at Macron, the high cost of living and growing concerns over immigration.

At 1500 GMT, turnout was nearly 60%, compared with 39.42% two years ago – the highest comparable turnout figures since the 1986 legislative vote, Ipsos France’s research director Mathieu Gallard said.

In short, the people have had enough and they finally want to be heard.

President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said on Sunday, NYT reported.

Mr. Biden huddled with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David while he tried to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety. While his relatives are acutely aware of how poorly he did against former President Donald J. Trump, they argued that he could still show the country that he is capable of serving for another four years.

Mr. Biden has also been soliciting ideas from advisers about how to proceed, and his staff has been discussing whether he should hold a news conference or sit for interviews to defend himself to change the narrative, but nothing has been decided yet.

One of the strongest voices imploring Mr. Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, said one of the people informed about the discussions, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father that he knows — scrappy and in command of the facts — rather than the stumbling, aging president Americans saw on Thursday night.

Other family members were trying to figure out how they could be helpful. At least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in getting more involved with the campaign, perhaps by talking with influencers on social media, according to the informed person.

The anger among Democrats was made evident on Sunday when John Morgan, a top Democratic donor, publicly blamed the advisers who managed the president’s debate preparations, citing by name Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.

“Biden has for too long been fooled by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband,” Mr. Morgan wrote on social media. “They need to go … TODAY. The grifting is gross. It was political malpractice.”

He elaborated in a subsequent interview. “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight,’” he said. “I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Members of Mr. Biden’s family were likewise said to be focused on the president’s staff, including Ms. Dunn, a White House senior adviser, and her husband, Mr. Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, who played Mr. Trump during debate rehearsals.

They were asking why Mr. Klain, the former White House chief of staff who ran the preparations, would in their view allow him to be overloaded with
statistics, and they were angry that Mr. Biden, who arrived for the debate in Atlanta with a summer tan, was made up to look pale and pallid, said one of the people, who has been in touch with several members of the family.

But the person said that the president himself was not among those who were upset and that he still trusted Mr. Klain, Ms. Dunn, Mr. Bauer and the others. Other Democrats said it was unfair to blame the staff for the president’s own failings, dismissing what they called typical second-guessing and scapegoating. A couple of Democrats pointed out that family members did not attend the preparation sessions.

After Joe Biden’s horrendous debate performance, current and former aides are saying the quiet part out loud and revealing what the President is like behind the scenes.

The White House and campaign blame a ‘cold’ for Biden’s low and, at times, hard-to-understand speaking voice. Others say this is what the President is like on a day-to-day basis now.

Former White House deputy director of photography Chandler West wrote in an Instagram story: ‘It’s time for Joe to go.’

‘I know many of these people and how the White House operates,’ West added. ‘They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago.’

Biden’s campaign tried to brush-off the issue and claimed the car crash performance was merely a ‘slow start.’

Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed in a tense post-debate interview on what Biden is like every day.

‘The person we saw tonight, the president we saw tonight on that stage: Is that how he is every day?’ CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Harris.

‘The Joe Biden that I work with every day is someone who, as I have said, has performed in a way that has been about bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to compromise in a way that is extraordinary these days, because it just doesn’t happen, but Joe Biden can make it happen,’ she replied, completely avoiding the essence of the question.

West, who was in his position at the White House from January 2021 to May 2022, told Axios: ‘The debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last.’

Reporters have complained for years about access to the president and claim wranglers are working to keep him with as little off-script time with the press as possible.

Speculation is swirling that those closest to the President, mainly First Lady Jill Biden, were shielding him since he took office – especially after his limitations were on full display at the debate on Thursday night.

A former White House residence official told Axios Jill was ‘so protective of the president’ and the first lady’s top aide Anthony Bernal ‘just protects her, and they often wouldn’t let us do anything for them.’

‘The separation between the family and the residence staff was so big, so divided,’ the former official added. ‘It’s not supposed to be and usually isn’t, even in the Trump White House.’

Since the first few months in office, residence staff felt that Biden’s closest allies were trying to keep anything about his health on the down low.

For example, during a very hot independence day celebration on the South Lawn on July 4, 2021, Biden went back into the White House where the door was abruptly shut behind him so butlers and other residence staff were blocked from aiding the President.

Aides suggested Biden was overheated, but it raised suspicion among staff and a consensus that they were creating a barrier around health-related issues.

A poll released Sunday reveals 72 percent of voters don’t think Biden has the cognitive faculties for another term in office. This is a seven percent increase from the same poll taken earlier in June before the debate.

Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has repeatedly brought Biden’s cognitive and physical health into question.

He suggested that debate prep for seven days at Camp David was a way to get the drug cocktail just right before the showdown with Trump.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended President Biden on Sunday during an interview on CNN after the presidential debate, and suggested former President Trump has “dementia.”

CNN host Dana Bash asked Pelosi if there was any part of her that believed Biden should step aside.

“My people are very much Biden-Kamala Harris and this is an opportunity for Joe Biden to go out there and show he has the stamina,” she responded. “And by the way, while the press and for some reason they don‘t – there are health care professionals who think that Trump has dementia, that his connection, his thoughts do not go together. Not only that he just lies, he doesn‘t even know the truth, so if we‘re just talking about mental acuity, let’s be fair about it.”

Pelosi said lawmakers see Biden “up close,” and insisted he was well aware of the issues facing Americans.

“We know how attuned he is to the issues, we know how informed he is. I debate with him about the issues, not debate, but discuss it with him. He‘s right there. So, in any case, it was a bad night. Let’s not sugarcoat that. It was a bad night. It was a great presidency. And that’s what the American people have to choose,” Pelosi continued.

After Pelosi praised Biden and listed several of his accomplishments, Bash told the Democratic lawmaker she made “the argument for Joe Biden‘s reelection in a way that he did not.”

Bash asked if there was a mechanism that would work if Biden wanted to step aside.

“There’s nothing as well, as just as Joe Biden getting up and taking the ball over the finish line. Something else could be chaotic,” Pelosi responded.

“I don‘t say that to say that could never happen because it might, I don’t mean now. I mean, in history it could. But understand this, this is really important for people to understand. Joe Biden has won the nomination. He has won the nomination,” Pelosi said.

Bash pushed back and said he didn’t officially have the nomination yet.

“The roll-call has been happening around the country, because of the timing of the election. It’s a very different year,” Pelosi countered.

Tom Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times and a friend to Biden, called on the former president to drop out, saying the debate made him “weep.”

“If he insists on running, and he loses to Trump, Biden and his family — and his staff and party members who enabled him — will not be able to show their faces,” he wrote.

U.S. military bases in Europe were put on a heightened state of alert over the weekend as installations urged vigilance among their members.

At U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, the Army garrison on Sunday issued a communitywide alert that the force protection threat level was elevated to condition “Charlie” until further notice.

Similar directives were sent to other bases in Germany, including the Army’s Rheinland-Pfalz and Ramstein Air Base, which together form the largest U.S. military community overseas. The Rheinland-Pfalz garrison alert includes Baumholder and outlying installations in Romania and Bulgaria.

Aviano Air Base in Italy also rose its condition level to Charlie, and other installations in Italy introduced enhanced security measures.

The Charlie threat level “applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely,” according to the Army’s website.

Service members and others should anticipate significant delays at gate entry points because of increased security, according to the alerts.

U.S. Army garrison in Stuttgart referred questions about the change in force protection to EUCOM.

EUCOM said in a statement Sunday that it is “constantly assessing a variety of factors that play into the safety of the U.S. military community abroad. As part of that effort, we often times take additional steps to ensure the safety of our service members.”

Military community members should report any suspicious activity, monitor State Department travel advisories and take precautions to minimize personal risk, the statement added.

Typically, military commands decline to get into specifics about changes in force protection measures for security reasons.

On Saturday, Spangdahlem Air Base, an installation in rural western Germany, issued its own alert that said 52nd Fighter Wing airmen were prohibited from wearing their uniforms off base as a precaution, and must commute in civilian clothing.

Spangdahlem officials on Saturday said that measures are in place to protect the community but that for “operational security reasons,” the base could not provide more details.

In years past, commands have taken similar action on uniform wearing over concerns about terrorism threats. In 2010, EUCOM issued a directive that temporarily prohibited troops from wearing uniforms off post.

In 2014, EUCOM limited uniform wearing off base to commuting, a restriction that the command began to relax in 2022.

The military sets force protection levels at either Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie or Delta, the highest state of alert. Bravo became common on bases for many years following the 9/11 attacks.

Charlie sets in motion “curtailment plans for nonessential personnel,” according to the Army.

Garrison officials in Stuttgart said that a variety of services would not be available because of the increased threat level. From Sunday until further notice, some of those reduced services included access to some eateries and on-post barber shops.

“Many other services will have significant numbers of employees teleworking or offices will be opened with reduced staff. Customers should maintain flexibility and allow for longer-than-normal service times,” the garrison said in a statement.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have been sounding the alarm on increased terrorism threats, stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

“We’ve seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole ‘nother level after October 7,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in June 4 written testimony before the Senate.

Seven people, including four children — all of whom are believed to be Hispanic — were shot by a Nebraska man who had previously told them to “go back to where they came from” and to “speak English,” cops say.

Billy Booth, 74, fired shots at his neighbors from inside his Crete home just before 7 p.m. Friday before fatally turning the gun on himself, Nebraska State Patrol said.

There were about 15 people inside and outside the home, though most of the victims were outside when they were shot. Three of the victims were adults between the ages of 22 and 43 while four were children ranging in age from 3 to 10, police told KETV and NBC News.

Some of the victims have been treated and released. One is receiving treatment in Lincoln, while two are being cared for at Children’s Nebraska in Omaha. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

All of the victims are believed to be Hispanic, police told NBC.

When police arrived, they found victims suffering from gunshot wounds outside the residence as well as the suspect inside his own home. A shotgun was recovered nearby.

Police said they did not believe there was a dispute in the moments leading up to the shooting but that Booth and the family had a prior history, including disputes over parking and other nuisances — as well as a report from someone who said the suspect “told them to go back to where they came from and to speak English.”

The Crete Police have responded to “several complaints” in the neighborhood since 2021, most of which came from Booth regarding “driving behavior” in the neighborhood, Crete Police Chief Gary Young Jr. said during a Saturday news briefing.

“Not necessarily associated with the victims’ house, but cars driving too fast in the neighborhood, improper parking, nuisance properties, quality-of-life type issues,” Young said. “There was a single report from the victims that the suspect had flipped them off, told them to, ‘Go home’ or ‘back to where they came from,’ to ‘speak English.’”

Police said the family decided not to take the matter further at the time, and the situation had been resolved.

One of the victims’ friends, Joshua Morales, told the KETV he knew of the previous incidents involving the neighbor — and that he believed the shooting was racially motivated.

“[Booth] was supposedly telling [the friend’s] parents to go back to their country, and they got into problems. And I guess until now the dude just shot the house up. I guess it was just a racist thing that happened,” Morales said. “So, I guess the dude that shot them was just racist ’cause he shot a Hispanic family and he told a Hispanic family to go back to their country.”

Morales said, the shooter shot his friend and his friend’s mom, who took four bullets to the back.

A motive for the shooting remains under investigation, police said.

Anti-Israel demonstrators busted through barricades at New York City’s NYC Pride parade Sunday, threw fake blood at a Human Rights Campaign float and temporarily blocked the march, videos show.

The disrupters — including some in masks — included about a dozen people who ended up cuffed by cops.

Red paint could be seen splattered all over Christopher Street in Greenwich Village as the group sat cross-legged blocking the roadway at the intersection of Waverly Place.

“Queers for Palestine” agitators have blocked the NYC Pride Parade.pic.twitter.com/cXaUNJwLRe

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

Writers Against the War on Gaza agitators spray red paint at NYC Pride Parade floats.

Footage: @wawog_now via Instagram pic.twitter.com/h2pjXGosxZ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

Some of the protesters also wore keffiyehs and carried a large banner reading, “No queer liberation without Palestinian liberation” and displayed a large Palestinian flag while chanting, “Shut it down!”

The demonstration unfolded near the end of the parade route, not far from the historic Stonewall Inn, considered the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

After several minutes, a group of about 20 NYPD officers and NYPD Special Operations officers approached the protesters and placed them in zip-tie cuffs one by one.

Some people in the crowd shouted, “Shame!” and hurled epithets at the cops.

Writers Against the War on Gaza members chant “shame” as police arrest agitators at the NYC Pride Parade.

Footage: @wawog_now via Instagram pic.twitter.com/PszOzXbWua

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

The demonstrators did not appear to resist. It was not immediately known what if any charges they are facing.

Before the disruption, tens of thousands braved sweltering humidity and gloomy skies lined the parade route to celebrate the Pride event.

Big smiles were plastered across the faces of marchers and attendees of the annual parade, where rainbow banners and flags were displayed as far as the eye could see as participants danced in the streets, with bubbles and confetti floating up from the jubilant crowd.

The parade, now in its 54th year, kicked off at noon on the corner of 25th Street and Fifth Avenue near Madison Square Park in Manhattan, led by the LGBTQ motor club and followed close behind by a lively marching band and color guard. It was about the size of previous years, observers said.

The theme for this year’s parade, “Reflect. Empower. Unite,” was selected by organizer NYC Pride to encourage advocates and their allies to reflect on challenges the community has faced in the past while empowering them to shape their future.

“The NYC Pride March is how we combat all the negativity; this is the celebration that brings people from every borough in the city and all parts of the world together, in joy, to share the accomplishments, talents and resilience of our community,” NYC Pride Executive Director Sandra Pérez said in statement.

This year also marks the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a series of violent, multi-day demonstrations and clashes between the NYPD and patrons of the inn in June 1969 that is credited with starting the gay-rights movement.

Aside from the small protest, the parade’s reflective theme, along with the sticky weather, seemed to make for a somewhat calmer-than-usual crowd. But the marching bands still had no trouble whipping attendees into a frenzy for a boisterous rendition of Britney Spears’ and Will.i.am‘s “Scream and Shout.”

Mayor Eric Adams was in attendance, wearing a blue ball cap with a rainbow embroidered on it while waving a Pride flag. He was flanked by state Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens at the front of the group.

“We need a new mayor!” a handful of hecklers yelled out at the sight of Hizzoner.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was spotted wearing a pair of whistles around his neck and carrying a bullhorn as he marched down Fifth Avenue, triumphantly raising his fist as he passed by the crowd.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James were also spotted along Fifth Avenue during the parade.

A group of a few hundred marchers showed their support for Israel, waving flags that combined the Star of David and the Pride rainbow. They flashed peace signs as they walked, some wearing shirts that said “Jewish queer pride!”

A flatbed truck bearing large “FREE PALESTINE” banners on either side also carried a group of about a dozen anti-Israel marchers wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags.

BREAKING: Pride Parade in NYC brought to a halt as Pro-palestine protesters BLOCKED it pic.twitter.com/xvDG9k8DnO

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 30, 2024

The group on the truck cheered and shouted slogans, but the parade crowd seemed indifferent to their presence.

The streets along the parade route became a labyrinth of barricades, which were difficult to navigate but helped disperse people from the crowded sidewalks. The roadways were flooded with entrepreneurs hawking brightly colored Pride merch, as well as plenty of spiked juice drinks and ice cream for the overheated crowd.

One enterprising peddler was Andre Mason, who had a feeding frenzy on his hands at his merchandise stand where customers lined up to buy Pride-themed paper fans at $22 a pop emblazoned with words such as “Vogue” and “YASSS!” among some more off-color designs.

“I’m here to sell my merchandise but also to engage with the community,” said Mason, who told The Post he didn’t get to see much of the parade because business has been booming.

“People gotta work — it’s New York!” he said.

Employees of stores along the parade route had the best seat in the house, with many of them seen crowding their shop’s windows to sneak a peak at the march.

The parade made its way down Fifth Avenue before turning west onto Eighth Street and continuing onto the Village’s Christopher Street, passing the Stonewall National Monument.

President Biden was joined by Gov. Hochul and superstar gay singer Elton John on Friday to mark the grand opening of the monument’s new $3.2 million visitor center.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men poured into the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday night to protest against mandatory military conscription, part of a rekindled debate roiling the country after Israel’s top court ruled that the military must start drafting religious students.

Many black-clad demonstrators gathered outside a yeshiva, or religious school, to hear rabbis exhorting the community over loudspeakers in Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, to stand strong against outside pressures to enlist. Some carried banners and stuck posters with anti-draft slogans on street lamps and bus stops.

“We all declare to the court: we’ll die, we won’t enlist,” read one poster. A bike was plastered with dozens of stickers declaring “To jail and not to the army.”

One young Haredi, what the ultraorthodox call themselves, threw an armful of fliers into the air with a message: Call a hotline number if you witness “any attempted kidnapping of a Haredi boy into the army.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling last week that there was no legal basis for exempting ultra-Orthodox religious scholars struck at a core issue for the community, which has long argued that they contribute to the state by preserving Jewish traditions and providing the state with divine protection through prayer.

The decision raises the political stakes for the two ultra-Orthodox political parties upon which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s thin parliamentary coalition rests. Carving out military-service exemptions and protecting full-time, lifelong Torah study is one of their key political goals. Without that their religious leaders say they have no reason to be in the government, experts say. But the parties also know they are vulnerable if they leave the government and open the door to new elections.

They would prefer to pass fresh legislation to establish broad-based military exemptions for religious study, but the effort is being hampered by pushback from within Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Many secular politicians are less willing to swallow a political compromise that they feel unequally distributes the burden of military service during Israel’s continuing war effort in Gaza and a growing threat from Lebanon.

The court ruling also threatened the financial backbone of the ultra-Orthodox community by blocking government funding for religious students without a valid military exemption. The decision could affect tens of thousands of current religious students and tens of millions of dollars in funding, putting further pressure on Netanyahu’s coalition.

Ultra-Orthodox young people have been exempt from a broad-based mandatory national draft since the state’s 1948 founding. The controversial policy has long been a point of contention, but Israel’s war against Hamas has renewed the controversy as hundreds of thousands of reservists are called up for multiple tours of duty. Many mainstream Israelis feel like they are shouldering unequal burdens and risks that the ultra-Orthodox community escapes.

Experts said that the chief concern among the ultra-Orthodox community is that the army will be a slippery slope leading its men to join secular society.

Israel’s military has a longstanding social role alongside its national defense mission. It absorbs new immigrants, Israelis on the fringe and others and teaches them Hebrew and mainstream liberal Israeli culture.

“The army today is a melting pot for Western culture,” whereas Haredi communities maintain themselves through strict isolation, said Israel Cohen, a political commentator for the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama. “This is the big fear.”

Many protesters said they planned to devote their lives to studying the Torah, which they say contributes to protecting the Jewish people.

“The Torah is the beginning,” said Neria Revivo, 28, a full-time student who planned to study for the rest of his life. He said he was unsure whether he would ever take a paid job.

The protesters were all male, ranging from toddlers to the elderly. A few women stood on the edge of the crowd. Two young boys walked along clutching a dozen banners on wooden sticks, before tossing the pile onto the ground. One read: “Israel’s Army is a Zionist brainwashing cult,” referring to secular Jewish culture.

The Haredi groups organizing Sunday’s protest and various others since last week’s ruling are among the community’s most extreme. Many in the groups refuse to vote or participate in formal politics.

Mainstream ultra-Orthodox communities are committed to preserving military exemptions for Torah scholars, community insiders said, but might be open to sending some men who aren’t serious religious scholars to the military.

One official with United Torah Judaism, one of Israel’s two ultra-Orthodox parties, said “there’s a quiet understanding” that men who aren’t actively studying might have to join the military.

However, the military still hasn’t come up with a feasible plan on how to accommodate the religious requirements for ultra-Orthodox men, said Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, an expert on ultraorthodox issues for the Israel Democracy Institute.

Expected changes would enable Haredi men to maintain their gender-segregated, strictly kosher and Sabbath- and prayer-friendly lifestyles, and to emerge from service without mainstreaming into Israel’s secular culture. Without such an infrastructure, the community has been able to postpone grappling with whether to support a limited form of enlistment, experts say.

Israel’s Attorney General’s Office, however, is pushing the issue, advising the military to prepare to draft some 3,000 new Haredi soldiers starting in July. Fewer than 2,000 Haredi soldiers currently serve in the military, Ravitsky Tur-Paz said, most of whom are no longer adhering to an ultraorthodox lifestyle.

“I’m not against the army,” said protester Sagi Samuelov, 30, whose non-Haredi brothers served while he studied in yeshiva. But “the army has to respect the Haredim.”

A few years ago Klaus Schwab, the octogenarian founder of the World Economic Forum, decided the organization needed a youthful makeover.

So he singled out a group of employees over 50 years old and instructed his human-resources chief to get rid of them all, according to people familiar with the matter. This, he explained, would lower the average age of the workforce. The HR chief, a seasoned former World Bank executive named Paolo Gallo, declined, pointing out that there has to be a reasonable explanation for firing somebody, such as poor performance. Not long after, Schwab fired Gallo.

It wasn’t the only example of Schwab engaging in behavior that would violate standard workplace policies of the Forum’s leading corporate partners. One episode still making the rounds among staffers is the time in 2017 he tapped a young woman to lead an initiative for startups. She had discovered she was pregnant, and during her first few days on the job went into Schwab’s office in Geneva to tell him.

Schwab grew upset that she wouldn’t be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she wasn’t suited for her new leadership role. She was pushed out after what the Forum said was a brief trial period.

The World Economic Forum, the organization behind the annual Davos gathering of world leaders and chief executives, says its mission is no less than to improve the state of the world.

But under Schwab’s decadeslong oversight, the Forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and Black people in its own workplace, according to internal complaints, email exchanges and interviews with dozens of current and former Forum employees and other people familiar with the Forum’s practices.

At least six female staffers were pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer when they were pregnant or returning from maternity leave. Another half dozen described sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of senior managers, some of whom remain at the Forum. Two said they were sexually harassed years ago by VIPs at Forum gatherings, including at Davos, where female staff were expected to be at the delegates’ beck and call.

In two more recent incidents, employees registered internal complaints after white Forum managers used the N-word around Black employees. Black employees also raised formal complaints to Forum leaders about being passed over for promotions or left out of Davos.

The Forum declined to make Schwab available for an interview. Forum spokesman Yann Zopf said in a statement that this article would “mischaracterize our organization, culture and colleagues, including our founder.”

In written responses to the Journal, the Forum said it holds itself and its employees to a high set of values, with confidential reporting channels and a thorough investigation process. It said Schwab never created an age limit for employees and that he collaborated with the HR chief to make it possible for people to work beyond the normal retirement age.

It disputed the Journal’s characterization of events and said the organization has zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination and has responded appropriately to any complaints received. It said there have been three reported allegations of racial discrimination since 2020 and that each has been thoroughly investigated and appropriate action was taken.

The Forum added that many of the episodes described by the Journal, including those alleging pregnancy discrimination, involved former employees who had been dismissed for performance reasons or as part of restructurings. A Forum spokesman said women don’t face a higher rate of turnover after parental leave and that at least 150 employees returned from leave to the same or a better job during an eight-year span.

In a memo to staff on May 21, Schwab announced that he planned to step aside as executive chairman, which he indicated was part of a long-planned transition. He said he will stay on as nonexecutive chairman of the board of trustees. The announcement came after Schwab sent a letter to the Journal’s publisher and editor in chief to share concerns about the reporting for this article.

The Forum’s workplace culture is particularly distressing to many employees because of the organization’s public stances promoting gender equality. It publishes an annual “Global Gender Gap Report” that details various countries’ progress toward gender parity. Some of the allegations of mistreatment came from former members of the very team that put it together.

“That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes,” said Cheryl Martin, a former U.S. Energy Department official who served as a top Forum executive.

The Journal interviewed more than 80 current and former employees ranging in tenure from as far back as the 1980s through the present day. Some of them have bonded over what they describe as shared trauma in a WhatsApp group called “WEFugees” that has hundreds of former employees.

“It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after,” said Farid Ben Amor, a former U.S. media executive who worked at the Forum for more than a year before resigning in 2019. “It’s particularly distressing when contrasted with the eagerness and earnestness with which many of us joined the Forum.”

A majority of voters who watched the debate felt Donald Trump could beat several potential Democratic candidates should Joe Biden be replaced on the ticket.

The assertion comes from a series of polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, a company that uses statistical analysis to show the lay of the land in various elections.

One group of polls conducted by the Data for Progress showed Trump beating out a host of big name ‘replacements’ for Biden, which included California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.

In the poll, Trump topped Newsom 47 percent to 44, and beat Harris 48 to 45.

Even more grim news for Democrats was the poll’s prediction that Trump would beat Biden as well, as the president’s campaign continues to spiral following Thursday’s disastrous debate.

In addition to Newsom and Harris, the Data for Progress research, using the responses of more than 1,000 people, had Trump beating Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg 47 to 44 if the election were held today.

Also losing in a hypothetical election against Trump was Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker who only garnered 43 percent to the Republican nominee’s 46.

Other candidates like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker fared only slightly better – both garnered 44 percent to Trump’s 46 – in the same sample set used by Data for Progress.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania also lost by a margin of three percent when pitted against Trump.

The latter two have previously been pegged as potential presidential candidates for the Democratic Party in the past, but both have maintained they are devoted to Biden.

The last poll conducted by Data for Progress Friday found Trump beating Biden by a comfortable three percent, while a poll of 841 registered voters sponsored by the New York Post had Biden falling short by seven percent.

The results come amid an air of uncertainty as to the Democratic Party’s top choice, as Biden’s halting debate performance continues to come into question.

A replacement would be possible but unlikely, experts have said – as the process would be complicated and open the door to the loss of a united front ahead of the slated vote for nominees at their convention in August.

The Democratic National Committee’s official procedures for the convention, adopted in 2022, give the committee the authority to choose a new candidate if either member of the ticket dies or withdraws.

Biden also has the power to bow out of the race himself – by releasing all the pledged delegates he has accumulated.

That’s 3,894 of 3,937 so far, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

In the event of such a choice, those delegates would be free to vote for whomever they chose – with the above half-dozen candidates surfacing as replacements.

The move would lead to an open convention, something unseen in today’s state of politics.

If Biden elects to drop out, he’d also like endorse an intended successor.

The obvious choice would be Vice President Harris, who reportedly has been referred to as a ‘work in progress’ by her president.

A report earlier this year further claimed Harris was still struggling to penetrate what she called the ‘bubble’ of Biden campaign thinking – as Whitmer of Michigan and and Newsom have also often mentioned.

In the event of an open convention, the nominee with majority support from the party’s delegates would receive the endorsement, even if Biden did not peg them as his successor.

As of writing, the president has aired no plans to bow out of the race.

When asked Friday about such a prospect while campaigning in North Carolina, he said: ‘I know I’m not a young man, – 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.

‘But I know what I do know,’ he continued, before receiving a round of uproarious applause. ‘I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.’

‘I know, like many of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up,’ he concluded.

A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.

Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.

Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.

“I was hoping for more of a substantive conversation instead of, ‘Hey, let’s go out there and just be cheerleaders,’ without actually addressing a very serious issue that unfolded on American television for millions of people to see,” said Joe Salazar, an elected DNC member from Colorado, who was on the call. “There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit.”

Many donors, party strategists and rank-and-file DNC members are publicly and privately saying they want the 81-year-old Biden to step aside to allow the party to select a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August. As of now, though, Biden’s closest allies insist he remains well-positioned to compete against Republican Donald Trump and have given no indication they will push him to end his campaign.

Those best positioned to replace him — Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among them — reiterated their support for Biden after the debate.

Many are anxiously awaiting the first major round of post-debate public polling to determine their next steps.

Polls from CNN and 538/Ipsos conducted soon after the debate found that most debate-watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, just as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on charges in New York that he illegally participated in a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.

In a subsequent appearance on MSNBC, Harrison downplayed the significance of the conference call, which he said was part of a regularly scheduled communication “to talk about the state of the race” and the upcoming national convention with the DNC’s many elected members across the country.

Biden and his campaign have sought to project confidence in the days since Thursday’s debate in which the president, who already faced serious concerns about his physical and mental stamina, offered a performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.

Just after Saturday’s DNC call, the Biden campaign released a memo from senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon insisting that the debate had no tangible impact on the election.

“On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.

She added, “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.”

Meanwhile, Biden spent much of Saturday courting wealthy donors in New York’s famed wealthy enclave of the Hamptons.

“I didn’t have a great night, but neither did Trump,” Biden said of the debate at one gathering in East Hampton.

Of Trump, Biden said, “The big takeaway was his lies.”

Harrison reinforced the president’s message on the DNC call, which spanned roughly an hour. Hannah Muldavin, a DNC spokesperson, said the discussion was a regularly scheduled quarterly conference call with the committee’s membership.

The topics included Biden’s energetic North Carolina appearance the day after the debate and a fundraising surge that produced more than $27 million for the campaign between debate day through Friday evening, Muldavin said.

Harrison did not ignore the debate altogether in his remarks, she said.

He briefly referenced Biden’s comments from his North Carolina speech that he doesn’t debate as well as he used to, but that he knows how to get up when he gets knocked down.

Salazar noted that Harrison also suggested that party leaders always knew the 2024 presidential contest would be close, a regular Democratic talking point that irks Salazar.

“This should not be a close race,” Salazar said, pointing to Trump’s criminal record and long history of falsehoods. “They’re the ones who should be looking for a new nominee, not us. And unfortunately for us, because of our president’s performance on Thursday night, that is now an open discussion.”

Democrat donors and insiders are growing furious that First Lady Jill Biden won’t advise her husband to drop out of the race.

In recent days after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, it seems the person pushing most for him to continue running is his wife.

A chorus of Democrats are openly calling for the presumed Democratic nominee to be replace after stumbling over his words and losing his train of thought multiple times during his Thurday’s night debate with Donald Trump.

But Jill, 73, is insistent that President Biden, 81, continue running for reelection, according to hedge fund manager and market expert Dougie Kass.

And Biden is set to discuss the future of his re-election campaign on Sunday with his family at Camp David, NBC News first reported Saturday night.

A person familiar with the matter told the network Biden will only listen to his wife of almost 50 years.

‘The only person who has ultimate influence with him is the first lady,’ they said. ‘If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.’

His return to the presidential retreat comes after Biden already spent seven days before the debate at Camp David with advisers in debate prep sessions.

On Friday, Jill was mocked for saying at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina that her husband did extremely well at the debate and ‘answered all the questions.’

Some Republicans are going as far to accuse Jill of ‘elder abuse.’

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wy.) slammed the first lady for ‘rolling President Biden out on stage to engage in a battle of wits while unarmed.’

In private, according to The New York Times, the school teacher believes that Biden’s debate performance was just a ‘bad night.’

After the debate and calls for him to step down, NYT columnist Maureen Dowd predicted that Jill and White House staff ‘will build their protective wall ever higher and shoo away reporters.’

Biden also already had crisis talks with former President Barack Obama and his former White House Chief of Staff after the debate.

But top Democratic Party leaders, including Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are still offering public support for Biden despite reports of a different tune behind the scenes.

Some donors skipped Biden’s $250,000-per-head Hamptons fundraiser at hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein’s 18-acre beach estate this weekend after his car-crash debate performance.

‘Lots of people are blaming his wife… for not telling him [to step aside],’ one told the New York Post.

While Biden’s trip to Camp David was planned ahead of Thursday’s shocking performance, the getaway will serve as a break in the campaign trail with his children and grandchildren.

His retreat at the 125-acre country cabin in the hills of Maryland comes as his team keeps insisting that the idea of him dropping out of the race would only ‘lead to weeks of chaos,’ calling the concern of several Democrats the work of ‘bedwetting brigade.’

‘Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought, a source told NBC. ‘No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.’

‘That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose,’ Biden’s deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty argued in an email after the president’s Hamptons visit, which saw the president being faced with people holding signs bearing the same message: drop out.

‘First of all: Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story. Voters voted. He won overwhelmingly,’ Flaherty went on.

‘And if he were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos, internal foodfighting, and a bunch of candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention, all while Donald Trump has time to speak to American voters uncontested.

At the Hampton’s event, the first couple were rubbing shoulders with a slew of moneyed donors – as the Times reported several ‘megadonors’ in Silicon Valley were trying to reach the first lady to sway her to convince Biden to bow out in favor of a younger candidate.

According to Anthony Scaramucci, who attended the fundraiser, Biden used a teleprompter when speaking to donors in the living room of the beach house.

On Friday, Biden continued to defend his cognizance his debate performance the day before, speaking out at a rally in North Carolina. There, he told onlookers that he was still the party’s best bet at beating Trump, despite what millions saw on TV.

‘I know I’m not a young man, 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.

‘But I know what I do know,’ he continued, before receiving a round of uproarious applause.

‘I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.’

‘I know, like many of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up,’ he concluded.

One Democratic House member who spoke to NBC News for its Saturday night piece about how the president will use the visit to reassess his reelection bid said they too believe Biden should drop out, but has yet to call for that publicly.

They said three colleagues expressed the same sentiment during votes on the House floor on Friday, as Biden continued to defend himself in North Carolina.

Members of the House have also not wavered publicly, and their aides have also rejected the idea they are having second-thoughts behind closed doors.

That said, the Democrats could be giving the president space as he mulls his next steps, with Camp David appearing to be a critical juncture in this decision making process as insiders say First Lady Jill holds the most influence out of her husband’s inner circle.

‘The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,’ one of the sources familiar with the discussions told NBC of this already known dynamic.

They added: ‘Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.’

The statements echoed those from insiders aired earlier in the day, after The New York Times reported that in private, she viewed Biden’s bumbling faceoff with his old rival as merely ‘a bad night.’

In the interim, Biden’s top aides have told his staff to stay strong in meetings, airing the mission statement, ‘We’ll weather the storm, just like we always have,’ according to one senior administration official.

The Democratic National Committee’s official procedures for the convention, adopted in 2022, give the committee the authority to choose a new candidate if either member of the ticket dies or withdraws.

Biden also has the power to bow out of the race himself – by releasing all the pledged delegates he has accumulated.

That’s 3,894 of 3,937 so far, according to a tally by The Associated Press.