DEBATE TAKEAWAYS

BIDEN REPLACEMENT TALKS 

Democrats are so panicked over President Joe Biden’s faltering debate performance some are actively discussing what was once unspeakable: replacing him on the ticket.

Three strategists close to three potential Democratic presidential candidates said they had been bombarded with text messages throughout the debate. One adviser said they received pleas for their candidate to step forward as an alternative to Biden.

Another adviser said they had “taken no less than half a dozen key donors texting ‘disaster’ and [the] party needs to do something,” but acknowledged that “not much is possible unless” Biden steps aside.

They were among more than a dozen Democrats who spoke with POLITICO, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely.

One major Democratic donor and Biden supporter said it was time for the president to end his campaign. This person described Biden’s night as “the worst performance in history” and said Biden was so “bad that no one will pay attention to Trump’s lies.”

“Biden needs to drop out. No question about it,” the donor said in a text message, proposing an alternate ticket led by the governors of Maryland and Michigan.

Nonetheless, the likelihood of a brokered convention or Biden stepping aside are unlikely, a reality that even those who privately complained about Biden’s performance acknowledged.

“Only one guy can decide, and it’s him,” said one Democratic strategist.

CNN FLASH POLL: TRUMP WON

Registered voters who watched CNN’s presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump largely think Trump outperformed Biden, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS, with most saying they have no real confidence in Biden’s ability to lead the country. At the same time, a majority who tuned in say it had little or no effect on their choice for president.

Debate watchers say, 67% to 33%, that Trump turned in a better performance Thursday. Prior to the debate, the same voters said, 55% to 45%, that they expected Trump to turn in a better performance than Biden. And in 2020, Biden was seen by debate watchers as outperforming Trump in both of their presidential debates.

Republicans who watched the first 2024 debate expressed broad confidence in Trump’s performance, the poll finds, with Democrats less sanguine about their party’s presumptive nominee. A near-universal 96% of GOP debate watchers say Trump did the better job in the debate, while a more modest 69% of Democratic debate watchers view Biden as the night’s winner.

MEDIA’S REACTION

New York Times: Biden Struggles as Trump Blusters

Drudge Report: Operation: Replace Biden — Debate Catastrophe

Politico: Biden Bombs, Trump Pounces

Washington Post: Biden struggles, Trump deflects questions

CNN: Biden’s poor showing and Trump’s repeated falsehoods

NBC News: A ‘hoarse’ Biden stumbles over his words during shaky performance

ABC News: Biden falters in high-stakes debate, Trump spews falsehoods

CBS News: Biden struggles early in presidential debate with hoarse voice

Axios: Biden blunders dominate combative debate with Trump

Daily Beast: Biden’s Re-Election Is Doomed by Disastrous Debate

HuffPost: Biden Primetime Disaster — Full Dem Panic — Biden Replacement Talk

President Biden has a cold, a White House official told The Hill amid the first presidential debate.

“He has a cold, started slow but obviously had started to hit his stride,” another source, who is familiar with Biden’s campaign, told The Hill.

Biden started the debate speaking very quietly, and the campaign was hit with questions about what was considered a slow start.

He faces a high-stakes moment with this debate, challenged to ease voters’ concerns about his age and whether he has the mental fitness for another four years in office. Biden, 81, would be 86 at the end of a second term, and former President Trump would be 82.

The president lost his train of thought early on in the debate, searching for the word “Medicare” at the end of his sentence.

“Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with, the eh, COVID. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with,” he said, freezing up. “Look…Medicare.”

This was the moment the debate ended.

Biden: “Making sure we make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with covid, excuse me, with umm dealing with everything we had to deal with. Look, we finally beat medicare.” pic.twitter.com/lQAq6HcOIA

— T.J. Moe (@TJMoe28) June 28, 2024

Trump replied to the president’s trip-up moment, saying, “he did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he’s destroying Medicare.”

Moments later, Biden appeared to misspeak at the end of an answer about immigration. Trump took a jab at him, saying, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Pete Arredondo, the former chief of the school district police in Uvalde, Texas, has been criminally charged and arrested over his actions on that day when law enforcement delayed entering the school and neutralizing the shooter.

A Uvalde County grand jury indicted Arredondo and another former district officer, Adrian Gonzales, on multiple felony charges of abandoning or endangering a child in response to their botched response to the massacre which comes 25 months after the shooter murdered 19 students and two teachers.

Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell impaneled a grand jury in January to determine if charges should be brought against any of the roughly 400 law enforcement officials who responded to the shooting at Robb Elementary School, the Texas Tribune reported.

Authorities were held back for nearly an hour and a half before federal Border Patrol agents stormed the classroom and killed the suspect.

The U.S. Department of Justice released a 600-page report earlier this year reviewing the failures of law enforcement’s response to the shooting.

“Chief Pete Arredondo of the UCISD Police Department (UCISD PD) directed officers at several points to delay making entry into classrooms 111/112 in favor of searching for keys and clearing other classrooms,” the report said.

“At several points, UCISD PD Chief Arredondo also attempted to negotiate with the subject. … Chief Arredondo, who became the de facto on-scene commander, was without his radios, having discarded them during his arrival, and communicated to others either verbally or via cell phone throughout the response.:

Of the hundreds of law enforcement officials who arrived at the school, many “believed that the subject had already been killed or that UCISD PD Chief Arredondo was in the room with the subject” because of poor communication of those who were in charge at the scene.

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered the Bible and the Ten Commandments to be incorporated into the curriculum at public schools in the state.

During a State Board of Education meeting, Walters revealed that his staff had been “looking at Oklahoma statute” and academic standards in the state regarding this decision, adding that the Bible “is a necessary historical document” that can be used to teach children about the history of the United States, among other things.

“It is crystal clear to us that in the Oklahoma Academic Standards under Title 70, on multiple occasions, the Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system,” Walters explained.

Walters continued to describe the Bible as being a “foundational” document that was “used for the Constitution and the birth” of the U.S.

“We also find major points in history that refer to the Bible, that reference the Bible,” Walters added. “We see multiple figures when….whether we’re talking about the Federalist Papers, Constitutional, conventional arguments, and Martin Luther King Jr., who use it as a tremendous impetus for the Civil Rights Movement.”

Walters continued to explain that a memo would be issued providing direction for schools in “every school district” of the state to “adhere to.”

“Every teacher, every classroom in the state, will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom to ensure that this historical understanding is there for every student in the state of Oklahoma,” Walters stated.

In response to Walters’ announcement, Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a statement pointing out that “public schools are not Sunday schools.”

The organization is described as being the “only organization dedicated solely to defending the separation of church and state,” according to the website for Americans United.

“Public schools are not Sunday schools,” Laser said. “Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has repeatedly made clear that he is incapable of distinguishing the difference and is unfit for office. His latest scheme – to mandate use of the Bible in Oklahoma public schools’ curriculum – is a transparent, unconstitutional effort to indoctrinate and religiously coerce public school students.”

This comes a week after Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms in public schools and at state-funded universities.

The Labour Party hopes that is just what Britain wants and needs after 14 years of Conservative rule. Starmer, the left party’s 61-year-old leader, is the current favorite to win the country’s July 4 election.

“A vote for Labour is a vote for stability — economic and political,” Starmer said after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election on May 22.

If opinion polls giving Labour a consistent double-digit lead are borne out on election day, Starmer will become Britain’s first Labour prime minister since 2010.

A lawyer who served as chief prosecutor for England and Wales between 2008 and 2013, Starmer is caricatured by opponents as a “lefty London lawyer.” He was knighted for his role leading the Crown Prosecution Service, and Conservative opponents like to use his title, Sir Keir Starmer, to paint him as elite and out of touch.

He loves soccer — still plays the sport on weekends — and enjoys nothing more than watching Premier League team Arsenal over a beer in his local pub. He and his wife Victoria, who works in occupational health, have two teenage children they strive to keep out of the public eye.

Born in 1963, Starmer is the son of a toolmaker and a nurse who named him after Keir Hardie, the Labour Party’s first leader. One of four children, he was raised in a cash-strapped household in a small town outside London.

“There were hard times,” he said in a speech launching his campaign. “I know what out of control inflation feels like, how the rising cost-of-living can make you scared of the postman coming down the path: ‘Will he bring another bill we can’t afford?’

“We used to choose the phone bill because when it got cut off, it was always the easiest to do without.”

Starmer’s mother suffered from a chronic illness, Still’s disease, that left her in pain, and Starmer has said that visiting her in the hospital and helping to care for her helped form his strong support for the state-funded National Health Service.

He was the first member of his family to go to college, studying law at Leeds University and Oxford, and practiced human rights law before being appointed chief prosecutor.

He entered politics in his 50s and was elected to Parliament in 2015. He often disagreed with party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist, at one point quitting the party’s top team over disagreements, but agreed to serve as Labour’s Brexit spokesman under Corbyn.

Starmer has faced repeated questions about that decision, and about urging voters to support Corbyn during the 2019 election.

He said he wanted to stay and fight to change Labour, arguing that “leaders are temporary, but political parties are permanent.”

After Corbyn led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019 — the latter the party’s worst result since 1935 — Labour picked Starmer to lead efforts to rebuild.

His leadership has coincided with a turbulent period that saw Britain go through the COVID-19 pandemic, leave the EU, absorb the economic shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and endure economic turmoil from Liz Truss’s turbulent 49-day term as prime minister in 2022.

Voters are weary from a cost-of-living crisis, a wave of public sector strikes and political turmoil that saw the Conservative Party dispatch two prime ministers within weeks in 2022 — Boris Johnson and Truss — before installing Sunak to try to steady the ship.

Starmer imposed discipline on a party with a well-earned reputation for internal division, ditched some of Corbyn’s more overtly socialist policies and apologized for antisemitism that an internal investigation concluded had been allowed to spread under Corbyn.

Starmer promised “a culture change in the Labour Party.” His mantra is now “country before party.”

Starmer was a strong opponent of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, though now says a Labour government would not seek to reverse it.

Critics say that shows a lack of political principle. Supporters say it’s pragmatic and respects the fact that British voters have little desire to revisit the divisive Brexit debate.

Now Starmer must persuade voters that a Labour government can ease Britain’s chronic housing crisis and repair its fraying public services, especially the creaking health service — but without imposing tax increases or deepening the public debt.

To the dismay of some Labour supporters, he watered down a pledge to spend billions investing in green technology, saying a Labour government would not borrow more to fund public spending.

“A lot of people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, betraying socialist principles. And a lot of people on the right accuse him of flip-flopping,” said Tim Bale, political scientist at Queen Mary University of London.

“But, hey, if that’s what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer’s character. He will do whatever it takes — and has done whatever it takes — to get into government.”

The party has surged in the polls under his leadership, which has helped keep Starmer’s internal critics onside.

At the party’s conference in October he showed a flash of passion, telling cheering delegates: “I grew up working class. I’ve been fighting all my life. And I won’t stop now.” He also showed remarkable composure when a protester rushed onstage and showered Starmer with glitter and glue.

Some have likened this election to 1997, when Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide victory after 18 years of Conservative rule.

Bale says Starmer lacks Blair’s charisma. But, he said, “given the turmoil that Brits have had to endure since the Brexit referendum in 2016, a bit of boring wouldn’t go down that badly, I think, with the public.”

Japanese scientists have used human cells to develop an equivalent to living skin that can be attached to robotic surfaces to flash a realistic—if creepy—smile.

The University of Tokyo researchers published their findings this week along with a video of the gooey-looking pink material being stretched into an unsettling grin.

They used a “skin-forming cell-laden gel” to create a “robot covered with living skin”, their study in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science said.

The biohybrid robot specialists hope the technology will one day play a role in the invention of androids with human-like appearances and abilities.

“We also hope this will help shed better light on wrinkle formations and the physiology of facial expressions,” and help to develop transplant materials and cosmetics, the team led by professor Shoji Takeuchi said.

Watch:

This smiling face is made from living human skin cells: part of an experiment to let robots show emotion.pic.twitter.com/myo7gegdP5

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) June 27, 2024

The new material could signal a departure from traditional humanoid robots covered with genuine-looking skin often made of silicone rubber, which cannot sweat or heal itself.

The scientists’ goal is “to endow robots with the self-healing capabilities inherent in biological skin”, but they are not there yet.

In previous studies, they grafted collagen onto a cut on lab-grown skin covering a robotic finger to demonstrate how it could be repaired.

But they said conducting similar repair tests on their smiling robotic skin “is a future challenge”.

To create what they described as a “natural smile” that moves fluidly, they gelatinized the skin-like tissue and fixed it inside the robot’s holes, a method inspired by real human skin ligaments.

CNN, which is hosting the first presidential debate on Thursday, has put in place rules that other news outlets and YouTube political commentators say are unusual and restrictive.

The division of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is providing a live feed of the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump to other networks, and those outlets must run it in full screen, with the CNN logo visible, according to terms the network distributed. Other channels aren’t allowed to cut away from the debate, or air analysis during commercial breaks.

The rival networks must refer to the event as the “CNN Presidential Debate.” All promotions, advertisements and TV listings must refer to it as the “CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast.”

This debate is different in that it’s being held by CNN and not through the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit that normally sponsors them and has its own rules.

CNN bans White House pool reporters from debate room

The White House Correspondents’ Association wrote to CNN on Tuesday requesting that the network allow their representatives to sit in the studio during the debate, a request the network denied, according to a person familiar with the letter and response. CNN cited security and space concerns.

The network is allowing a limited number of still photographers in the debate room. Some 800 others will be watching a feed in a building across the street from the main studio.

The concern among the other networks is that something could happen in the debate room that only CNN journalists would witness. Unlike past contests, this debate doesn’t have a live audience and microphones of the other candidate will be muted when one is speaking. That could mean rival journalists miss gestures and asides during CNN’s coverage, or something more serious like a medical emergency involving one of the candidates.

CNN Threatens YouTube Channels and Podcasts Covering Debate

Tim Pool revealed that CNN has warned any YouTube channels that intend to live stream the debate while providing commentary for viewers that this would not be permitted under copyright.

“Confirming that we are offering digital platforms the ability to stream the debate only via CNN YouTube,” said a CNN spox to Pool in a message. “We are not granting digital entities the right to stream the debate on their own YouTube channels. I hope that helps.”

Pool also had a phone call with CNN, arranged by YouTube, which he discussed on air. He said that he’d received a message from YouTube last week “asking to hop on a phone call to discuss the RNC and the presidential cycle.” During that call, which happened on Monday, he “briefly spoke with some individuals at YouTube… who made it clear that CNN reached out and is expressing concern, I don’t know the full extent, but making it known that YouTube better contact their news programs over the CNN debate.”

Pool and his team have previously streamed and commented on presidential debates in the past. After one debate, which had been broadcast on Fox, the network claimed that they had copyright protection for the content and made threats against several channels. Those threats were eventually dropped.

“Now of course, like all presidential debates,” Pool continued, “which is the epitome of civic responsibility, of civic participation. We will provide live commentary and fact-checking on this presidential debate as we have done for every other so long as the show has been around.

“In a show of good faith,” he said, “YouTube asked me to reach out to CNN to see if if there was anything they would be looking for in this regard. Because apparently they are asking other networks who are doing the exact same thing to abide by certain restrictions.” Pool reached out, only to find that the network insisted that they would not allow anyone on YouTube, other than those who had been granted specific permission.

Trump-Biden Debate Thursday at 9 PM: Everything You Need to Know

The GOP-led House voted on Wednesday to defund Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a Biden administration official who was impeached by the lower chamber earlier this year in a rebuke of his handling of the border crisis.

A group of 193 Republican lawmakers voted to pass the amendment that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) sponsored for appropriations legislation that aims to provide tens of billions of dollars to the Homeland Security Department (DHS) in the next fiscal year.

All voting Democrats, 172 of them, and one Republican opposed the measure. Seventy-two members, including 28 Republicans and 44 Democrats, did not cast a vote on the amendment when it was brought to the House floor.

“The House just passed my amendment to defund the office of the DHS Secretary,” Biggs said in a post to X. “Alejandro Mayorkas — who was impeached earlier this year — doesn’t deserve a single penny from American taxpayers.”

Reporter Anthony Adragna underscored it likely faces long odds. “Similar efforts have been adopted in the past, only to be stripped out as the House and Senate resolve differences between their versions of spending legislation,” he wrote for POLITICO.

A different amendment from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), which would have reduced Mayorkas’ salary to $1, failed to pass. Another of her offerings to block DHS from partnering with the State Department for “Safe Mobility Offices” did succeed.

House lawmakers approved the impeachment resolution by a 214-213 vote in mid-February, making Mayorkas the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876. Three Republican lawmakers broke ranks and joined Democrats in opposing it.

The two articles they passed accused Mayorkas of “willfully and systemically” refusing to comply with federal immigration laws and alleged he “breached the public trust” with false statements and obstructing lawful oversight of DHS.

However, in April, the Democrat-controlled Senate voted to quash the articles shortly after members of the upper chamber were sworn in as jurors and fought over how to conduct the trial. The impeachment managers did not even have a chance to speak.

Back in January, Mayorkas claimed he was facing “false accusations” that “do not rattle me and do not divert me from the law enforcement and broader public service mission to which I have devoted most of my career and to which I remain devoted.”

Former First Lady Michelle Obama privately has expressed frustration over how the Biden family largely exiled her close friend Kathleen Buhle after Buhle’s messy divorce from Hunter Biden, two people familiar with the relationship told Axios.

The family tensions — and the former first lady’s disdain for partisan politics — are partly why one of the Democrats’ most popular voices hasn’t campaigned for President Biden’s re-election, the sources said, even as former President Obama has been a willing surrogate.

Michelle Obama also was initially reluctant to campaign for Biden after he became the Democratic nominee in 2020, people familiar with the situation told Axios.

Biden’s team says the relationship between the families is strong, pointing to public displays of camaraderie that continue today. But the sources told Axios that the relationship changed in 2015.

That was when then-Vice President Biden was weighing a presidential run, and President Obama was not encouraging it.

It also was the year Biden’s son Beau died of cancer, setting off years of tumult within the family that included Hunter Biden and Buhle’s divorce in 2017.

This year Barack Obama has attended fundraisers and appeared in videos for President Biden’s re-election effort, but Obama has done so solo, without his popular spouse.

Obama attended a reception at a state dinner for Kenya’s president at the White House in May, without the former first lady.

The former president regularly praises and boosts Biden in posts on X, but Michelle Obama hasn’t posted about Biden’s re-election campaign since he got in the race (she re-posted his announcement).

Instead, she’s largely focused on the non-partisan voter registration group, When We All Vote.

In the fall of 2017, Barack Obama — without Michelle — attended a fundraiser in Wilmington, Del., for the Beau Biden Foundation, a children’s advocacy group.

The fundraiser featured much of the Biden family at a time when Hunter Biden, who was recently divorced from Buhle, was dating Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden.

After the event, the former president privately described the Biden family dynamics there as “weird sh*t,” a person familiar with his remarks told Axios.

Obama’s office initially declined to comment to Axios about the remark, but later denied the former president said it.

Michelle Obama, who had become friends with Buhle during the Obama administration, privately told others that she felt Buhle had been wronged.

Buhle had to deal with Hunter’s drug use and infidelity — and then Biden family members blamed Buhle for some of the salacious details of his behavior becoming public.

Michelle Obama’s absence from the campaign trail to this point in 2024 isn’t just about her relationship with Buhle — it also reflects her longstanding distaste for partisan politics.

Speaking about his daughters at a splashy Hollywood fundraiser for Biden this month, Barack Obama said: “Michelle drilled into them so early that you would be crazy to go into politics.”

The Biden-Obama family relationship is complicated, but there are moments of warmth.

This week, Jill Biden attended the memorial service for Michelle’s mother, Marian Robinson, a source familiar with her travel told Axios.

A spokesperson for Michelle Obama added that Jill Biden “graciously” joined the memorial.

Seven years ago, Joe Biden became emotional when Barack Obama surprised him with a Presidential Medal of Freedom during Obama’s last few days in office.

Despite her initial resistance, Michelle Obama did participate in the 2020 campaign after Democrats privately argued to her that the stakes were too high for her to sit out.

She didn’t go out on the stump like Barack Obama did, but she engaged through When We All Vote, which she launched in 2018, gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention, and posted on social media supporting Biden’s campaign.

The former first lady could still hit the campaign trail this year, and there have been discussions between the two camps about it.

Top White House aide Anita Dunn and top Michelle Obama aide Melissa Winter recently had lunch and talked about specific ways Biden’s campaign could involve the former first lady, two people familiar with the matter told Axios.

Asked whether Michelle Obama would speak at the Democrats’ August convention in Chicago — her hometown — a spokesperson for her declined to comment.

Hunter Biden wrote in his 2021 memoir that Michelle Obama and Buhle became “close” during the Obama administration and “worked out together at the gym and often had evening cocktails at the White House, at both formal and informal events.”

That friendship has continued.

When Buhle published her own memoir in 2022 she used Michelle Obama’s publisher, and several of Michelle’s former communications aides were hired to coordinate the book’s rollout.

The famously insular Bidens disapproved of Buhle writing the book with some unflattering details about the family, but Buhle’s defenders noted that she wrote it only after Hunter’s own book had included intimate details about their marriage and his addictions.

Michelle appears to mention Buhle in her 2022 book, “The Light We Carry,” writing: “My friend Kathleen and I keep regular morning dates to walk by the river.”

Crystal Carson, a spokesperson for Michelle Obama, reiterated that the former First Lady supports Biden’s re-election and added: “she is friends with Kathleen and with the Bidens. Two things can be true.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates told Axios: “The Biden and Obama families are like family to one other, and whomever made these claims about that relationship isn’t familiar with it.”

In 2015, the Bidens were all grateful for Barack Obama’s moving eulogy for Beau Biden.

The families’ relationship became increasingly tense over the next two years, however, when the president discouraged Joe Biden from running for president in 2015, and Hunter and Buhle’s marriage began to spiral.

At Hunter’s recent felony gun trial, Buhle testified that they separated in early July 2015 — weeks after Beau’s funeral — when she found a crack cocaine pipe at their home and he confessed to using the drug.

Barack Obama’s aides have long privately argued that he saw his role in 2015 as a sounding board as Biden considered running— and that Obama was focused on being there for Biden as he grieved Beau’s death.

But Biden felt that his boss preferred Hillary Clinton, as Biden suggested in his post-vice presidential memoir, “Promise Me, Dad” — and more explicitly told special counsel Robert Hur in his interview last year.

Biden recalled that in 2015, “a lot of people … were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president …. He just thought that [Clinton] had a better shot of winning the presidency than I did.”

Hunter Biden, meanwhile, had grown to resent the Obama White House over issues beyond Buhle’s relationship with Michelle Obama, according to his memoir.

After Obama picked Biden to be his running mate for the 2008 election, Obama’s team made Hunter quit his job as a lobbyist because of concerns about the optics.

Hunter wrote in his book that quitting that job felt like “riding the escalator without an exit. I once again had huge expenses and no savings, and now I had to bust my ass to build another career from scratch.”

Hunter also noticed how some Obama staffers undercut and subtly mocked his father.

After fuming at some of the slights, Hunter wrote: “I didn’t hang around the White House much; I didn’t want to be in the position of walking into a barbecue on a Sunday with the president and the White House staff after reading about someone throwing my dad under the bus.”

“I knew I couldn’t control my temper and keep my mouth shut.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday officially affirmed a lower court injunction that allows abortions in medical emergencies to continue in Idaho, one day after inadvertently posting the opinion online briefly before scrubbing it.

Technically the case will go back to a lower court for further evaluation, but the decision by the high court ensures that Idaho doctors can continue to perform emergency abortions for the time being.

Its decision was per curiam — an unsigned opinion — meaning that the majority opinion was not assigned to a specific judge. However, Alito penned a dissent and was joined in part by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas. This is why some describe it as a 6–3 decision.

The move drew criticism from both ends of the ideological spectrum on the Supreme Court, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Samuel Alito wanting the high court to make a decision based on the merits of the case, albeit with those two justices reaching different conclusions.

At issue in the Idaho case is the extent to which federal law trumps state law on abortion.

The Biden administration argued that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban — which has a carveout for the life of the mother — to allow for a broader exemption when the women’s health is at risk.

“If anything, the need for a clear answer to the Supremacy Clause question has only increased in the intervening months,” Jackson wrote in her partial concurrence, partial dissent.

“We have granted certiorari and heard argument. We have had ample opportunity to consider the issues.”

“Despite the clarity of the legal issue and the dire need for an answer from this Court, today six Justices refuse to recognize the rights that EMTALA protect.”

In his dissent, Alito conveyed a similar sentiment about the high court’s decision to effectively punt but called for the court to rule in favor of Idaho.

“The text of EMTALA shows clearly that it does not require hospitals to perform abortions in violation of Idaho law,” he wrote. “To the contrary, EMTALA obligates Medicare-funded hospitals to treat, not abort an ‘unborn child.’”

That opinion drew a rebuke from liberal Justice Elena Kagan, who said Alito’s dissent “requires a brief response.”

“His primary argument is that although EMTALA generally obligates hospitals to provide emergency medical care, it never demands that they offer an abortion—no matter how much that procedure is needed to prevent grave physical harm, or even death,” she wrote.

“That view has no basis in the statute.”

Polling and data guru Nate Silver revealed former President Trump was solidly favored to win the White House in his first presidential election forecast on Wednesday.

“The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden),” Silver, who formerly ran polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight, wrote in his “Silver Bulletin” substack.

Silver’s forecast model, based on 40,000 simulations, found Trump had a 65.7% of winning the electoral college, compared to Biden, who had a 33.7% chance. However, Biden is slightly favored to win the popular vote. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the presidency with a slew of narrow swing state wins.

“If the Electoral College/popular vote gap looks anything like it did in 2016 or 2020, you’d expect Biden to be in deep trouble if the popular vote is roughly tied,” Silver wrote.

Silver noted that his model adjusts “for whether polls are conducted among registered or likely voters, the presence or absence of [Robert F. Kennedy] Jr., and house effects,” and added that his polling averages “weight more reliable polls more heavily.”

The data expert wrote that there was still time for Biden to turn things around and suggested the president give the nomination to Vice President Harris or someone else at the Democratic convention. However, he wrote, “Disclaimer: that also might be a terrible idea.”

“And he’s really not that far behind,” Silver wrote of Biden.

“But the race isn’t a toss-up. That’s at best a white lie — a convenient fiction that allows everyone to shirk accountability for their forecasts and their decisions.”

Silver was acclaimed in 2012 for correctly picking the winner of every state between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and confidently forecasting an Obama victory.

He was bullish on Hillary Clinton in 2016 but cautioned Trump had a reasonable chance.

In 2020, FiveThirtyEight’s model gave Biden nearly a 90% chance of winning the presidency on the eve of the election.

Silver said earlier this month that the Democratic Party would have been “better served” if Biden decided not to seek a second term.

“Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval (37.4%) at 538 yesterday. Dropping out would be a big risk. But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask,” Silver posted on June 10.

Silver argued the president needed to consider stepping aside if he’s still struggling in the polls in August.

“It’s not a great situation for Ds either way, but you have to do due diligence on the question. It’s an important election, obviously. It shouldn’t be taboo to talk about,” he wrote on social media in May.

Tucker Carlson went to the land Down Under and got verbally entangled with local journalists, drawing rave reviews from conservatives in the United States.

The former top-rated Fox News host who later started his Tucker Carlson Network, a streaming platform, was in Canberra, Australia, on Tuesday to speak and ultimately spar with various media members on various topics, including the “great replacement theory,” Russian President Vladimir Putin and the efficacy of vaccines in a post-COVID world.

Carlson was there as part of the Australia Freedom Conference, described by local media as a multicity, sold-out live tour sponsored by local mining magnate and billionaire Clive Palmer, who has expressed right-wing talking points from the U.S.

In a roughly six-minute video, a female reporter from the Australian Associated Press asked Carlson about the great replacement theory and how he mentioned it on his former Fox News show some “4,000 times,” which Carlson refuted, asking for citations.

“I said native-born Americans are being replaced, including Blacks,” Carlson said. “African Americans have been in the United States in many cases for over 400 years, and their concerns are every bit as real and valid and alive to me as the concerns of white people whose families have been there 400 years.

“I’ve never said that whites are being replaced, not one time, and you can’t cite it. We just met, but when our relationship starts with a lie it makes it tough to be friends,” he said.

Holy shlit Tucker Carlson just committed a homicide on live television pic.twitter.com/9CJEGhGdes

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 26, 2024

The great replacement theory is espoused by some extreme conservatives who express fears about nonwhites and immigrants gaining more clout and undermining or “replacing” whites in Western nations while assuming more political power and dominating culture, according to the National Immigration Forum.

Carlson went on to tell the reporter to take his response at “face value.” He brought up the U.S. birth rate to “tell the whole story,” saying the U.S. population is growing because of immigration and not more domestic births. “Happy people have children,” he added.

“You don’t just go for the quick sugar fix of importing new people. Like, that’s my position,” he said. “If you think that’s racist, that’s your problem.”

When the reporter said she wasn’t calling him “racist,” Carlson said her statements were indicative of a larger media environment consisting of “slurs” and implications that negate credibility.

She then brought up the theory again and its connection to a 2023 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, that resulted in 10 deaths.

“Oh God! Come on!” Carlson said. “How do they get people this stupid in the media? I guess it doesn’t pay well. Look, I’m sorry, I’ve lived among people like you for too long. I don’t mean to call you stupid. Maybe you’re just pretending to be.”

He went on: “My views are not bigoted against any group. They’re honest, they’re factual, and that’s not hate, that’s reality…. How dare you try to tie me to some lunatic who murdered people? How dare you, actually.”

Carlson was then asked about supporting gun control. He responded that a sovereign person has a right to defend themselves and their families, adding that he is “opposed to harming anyone.”

The reporter then asked if he “harbors any responsibility” for hate crimes, to which he laughed while some in the crowd jeered.

“I’m sorry, I’m trying to be charitable,” Carlson said. “I was, like, maybe you’re just pretending to be dumb. Now, I don’t think it’s an act.

“I got here and the country is so unbelievably beautiful, and the people are so cheerful and funny and cool and smart. I’m, like, your media has got to be better than ours. It can’t just be a bunch of castrated robots reading questions from the boss, and then it turns out it’s exactly the same. Maybe even a tiny bit dumber.”

Carlson posted the exchange on his website, referring to the local media as an “adversarial press corps.”

Some conservatives on X (formerly Twitter) heralded Carlson’s statements.

“WATCH: Tucker NUKES Liberal ‘Reporter’ after asking her to give an example to back up her claim,” posted Benny Johnson.

“Tucker was great before this – but now he will for sure go down as one of the greatest of all time. Meet the GOAT,” wrote Lara Logan, a former 60 Minutes correspondent who has expressed conspiracy theories.

“Tucker Utterly Stumps Reporter By Simply Asking For A Citation,” wrote the conservative media outlet The Daily Caller.

“Tucker just annihilated one of the stupidest Reporters I’ve ever heard,” wrote Liz Churchill. “These Communist B****** are absolutely shameless. Lol.”

Before Carlson’s visit, the Australian Institute of International Affairs warned that his presence would mean more mimicking of Kremlin propaganda. Carlson met with Putin in February for a lengthy interview on the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO and other topics.

“With ticket prices as high as $275, attending Carlson’s events isn’t cheap,” a June 21 article on the institute’s website said. “But the real price Aussies will pay for his paranoid, divisive, and racist propaganda tour is the effect on Australian communities.

“Unfortunately, this is not satire; Carlson and his allies represent the greatest threat global fascism has posed since World War II,” the article went on. “Thankfully, in a society known for its culture of mateship, early indications show that Australians are rejecting these polarizing events, but how Australia responds to the ongoing threat remains crucial.”

In Australia, Carlson also had a back-and-forth with Sydney Morning Herald political correspondent Paul Sakkal about Putin. Sakkal dubbed him a “useful idiot” for the Russian leader.

The conversation quickly moved on to vaccines. Sakkal said they saved millions of lives during the pandemic, but Carlson didn’t buy it.

“Oh, yeah. Safe and effective,” Carlson said. “This is why everyone loves the media. It’s like a time capsule. It’s like you’re the last Japanese soldier on Okinawa thinking the war’s still going on. No, it didn’t save millions of lives.”

The Supreme Court took what could have been a heated topic at Thursday’s presidential debate off the table by pushing its decision on former President Trump’s legal immunity case for at least 24 hours.

Trump’s legal woes are at the center of both candidates’ campaigns. For President Biden, it’s because he knows some voters might shy away from backing a convicted felon. For Trump, it’s because he claims to be the victim of politically motivated prosecutions.

The court is down to its final cases of the term, with the question of presidential immunity looming largest on the outstanding docket.

Trump’s two federal cases — one on his alleged efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election and the other on his handling of classified documents after his time in the White House — hinge on the court’s decision.

During more than two hours of oral arguments in April, a majority of the justices appeared poised to grant the presumptive GOP nominee at least a partial victory, but they did not seem to be aligned with the “absolute immunity” argument Trump has pushed.

Several justices seemed to agree that presidents can’t be prosecuted for “official acts” — a core topic of the oral arguments that explored whether Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were official or unofficial.

The court will most likely kick the case back to lower courts, Axios’ Sam Baker reports.

Biden’s re-election campaign and its surrogates have characterized November’s election as a choice between democracy and lawlessness, seizing on Trump’s conviction.

A ruling preceding the debate could have propelled Trump’s legal cases to the forefront when the two candidates face off for the earliest-ever presidential debate.

Debate topics will likely center around the economy, immigration, abortion rights and foreign policy.

Biden has openly criticized the Supreme Court for its recent controversial rulings and has capitalized on the court’s election-year cases, with his team most recently campaigning on the court’s decision to dismiss a closely watched abortion case involving an Idaho law.

“The stakes could not be higher and the contrast could not be clearer,” the president said in a statement following the court’s Thursday ruling. “My Administration is committed to defending reproductive freedom and maintains our long-standing position that women have the right to access the emergency medical care they need.”

The nation’s highest court has held onto a slew of bombshell case decisions for the end of its term and will hand all of them down in the coming days.

So far, the Supreme Court has dropped opinions in major cases related to guns, abortion access and social media.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Chief Executive Tim Wentworth is taking the struggling chain in a new direction, planning to close a substantial number of poorly performing stores and pulling back on the company’s plunge into the primary-care business.

Shares of the pharmacy chain plummeted 25% Thursday, after The Wall Street Journal reported Wentworth’s plans and the company failed to meet Wall Street’s expectations for quarterly earnings and lowered its guidance for the full year.

Walgreens will close a significant share of its roughly 8,600 stores in the U.S., Wentworth said in an interview with the Journal. The company hasn’t settled on a final number of locations to close, he said, but it is reviewing about a quarter of its stores that aren’t profitable and could shutter a “meaningful percent” of those over the next few years.

Wentworth also said Walgreens will reduce its stake in primary-care provider VillageMD, and will no longer be the company’s majority owner.

Walgreens, however, will stick with some of its other units and isn’t currently planning to unload its overseas pharmacy chain Boots or Shields Health Solutions, a specialty pharmacy firm, Wentworth said. He said Walgreens expected that it would be able to reassign staffers so that its U.S. retail footprint reduction didn’t result in a meaningful loss of jobs.

“We recognize where we are is a turnaround,” Wentworth said. “We recognize that we need to be focused on what are the parts of the business that we believe are contributing and have a future, and some of those need to change.”

Wentworth gave the Journal details about the company’s turnaround plans after Walgreens conducted a strategic review and ahead of reporting quarterly results that reflect the chain’s challenges.

Walgreens is a 123-year-old company and one of America’s most ubiquitous retailers, with stores that are neighborhood staples. Yet it has struggled for years because of financial pressures in its core pharmacy business.

Like other pharmacies, Walgreens has been facing smaller revenue growth from prescription drugs, which had been a major driver of sales. Pharmacies have also faced greater reimbursement pressure from the firms, known as pharmacy-benefit managers, that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and employers.

Retail pharmacies have been losing money on certain high-priced drugs that have become more widely used, while bleeding shoppers to telehealth outfits that prescribe medicines and online pharmacies like Amazon.com, which owns its own pharmacy business.

The big chains have been closing unprofitable stores in response to investor concerns that they have overexpanded. They are, meanwhile, dealing with labor agitation from disgruntled pharmacists, and their efforts to grow through buying up doctors’ practices have faltered.

Wentworth took over as CEO last October after a career spent largely in the business of managing drug benefits. Since taking the helm, he has replaced several of Walgreens’s top executives with a new team.

He is expected to lay out details of the company’s plans for a strategic pivot in an earnings call Thursday with analysts.

One main takeaway from Walgreens’s strategy review, he said, was, “retail pharmacy is central to our future and to our overall customer and patient experience. It enables many other things, but it has to change.”

Walgreens’s earnings for its fiscal third quarter showed the extent of the company’s troubles. The results fell short of analysts’ projections, reflecting worse-than-expected consumer spending and a tweak in a key industry pricing index that is squeezing reimbursement to pharmacies.

Wentworth also said Walgreens is losing money on filling prescriptions for the fast-growing GLP-1 class of diabetes and weight-loss drugs, a category that includes blockbusters Ozempic and Mounjaro.

Walgreens said fiscal third-quarter sales were $36.4 billion, up 2.6% from a year earlier. Net earnings were $344 million, up nearly threefold from a year ago and reflecting better operating income, the company said.

The company lowered its full-year 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to between $2.80 and $2.95 per share.

Under review for closures, Wentworth said, are Walgreens stores that are close to one another. The company could efficiently serve consumers with fewer locations in those areas, he said.

Walgreens is also looking at stores dealing with theft and other issues. The company wants to work with cities to try to make those stores sustainable with steps such as “investing in public safety so that our customers and employees feel safe,” Wentworth said.

The company can reassign almost every employee affected by store closures, Wentworth said. “We don’t see this as an employee reduction, we see this as a footprint reduction,” he said.

Wentworth said Walgreens is also focusing on trimming the number of brands it offers and amping up a focus on women’s health, as well as bolstering its loyalty program.

Wentworth said the details of its divestment of VillageMD will be worked out with the management of the primary-care company, and Walgreens will likely retain a stake.

The divestment would mark a change in tack from the direction taken by Wentworth’s predecessor, Rosalind Brewer, who had focused on re-creating Walgreens as a major provider of healthcare. She had taken over from Italian billionaire Stefano Pessina, who had combined Walgreens with Europe’s Alliance Boots, pushed partnerships with firms including VillageMD and is now executive chairman.

In 2021, Walgreens agreed to invest $5.2 billion to gain a controlling stake in VillageMD. The chain took a major write-down on the value of its stake earlier this year.

Being a majority investor in primary-care and specialty-care providers “is a strategy that we are no longer pursuing,” Wentworth said.

The Supreme Court acknowledged Wednesday that it inadvertently posted online a document related to a pending abortion case, which Bloomberg Law obtained before it was removed from the website.

Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe confirmed that a document was “inadvertently and briefly uploaded” to the court website but added that the ruling “has not been released.”

Bloomberg also posted a copy of the document.

The court appears set to allow emergency room doctors in Idaho to perform abortions in certain situations, according to a copy of the decision, Bloomberg reported. The court is likely to dismiss the appeal brought by Idaho officials, Bloomberg said.

In doing so the court would allow a lower court ruling in favor of the Biden administration to go back into effect.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissenting opinion joined by two other conservatives, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, saying the court should not have dismissed the case.

The Supreme Court in January blocked the lower court ruling and allowed Idaho to enforce its abortion law in full while agreeing to hear oral arguments.

Other provisions of the ban are already in effect and would not be affected by the ruling.

The case concerns whether a federal law that regulates emergency room treatment overrides Idaho’s strict abortion ban. If the court dismisses the appeal, it would leave the legal question unresolved.

According to the document posted by Bloomberg, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote separately to say the court should have gone ahead and decided the bigger issue, which is likely to come up in another case in due course and would have an impact on other states with abortion restrictions similar to Idaho’s.

“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she wrote, according to the document.

“While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”

In a separate opinion, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained why she would vote to dismiss the case, saying the court had made a “miscalculation” in taking it up before an appeals court had a chance to weigh in. Part of the confusion was caused by both sides’ altering their legal arguments once the case got to the high court, she added.

Idaho’s law says anyone who performs an abortion is subject to criminal penalties, including up to five years in prison. Health care professionals found to have violated the law can lose their professional licenses.

The federal government sued, leading a federal judge in August 2022 to block the state from enforcing provisions concerning medical care that is required under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

The 1986 law mandates that patients receive appropriate emergency room care.

The Biden administration argued that care should include abortions in certain situations when a woman’s health is imperiled even if death is not imminent.

The Supreme Court is due to issue rulings Thursday and Friday as it reaches the end of its current term. The abortion case is one of 12 argued cases yet to be decided.

CNN’s moderators for Thursday’s presidential debate have deep ties to former intelligence officials who signed the now-debunked letter claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” Real Clear Investigations (RCI) reported Wednesday.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied about leaking false information to one of CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper, about the Trump campaign exchanging information with Russia throughout the election cycle, according to the RCI report.

Tapper, failing to inform the public that the information came from a Clinton campaign-funded dossier, the now discredited Steele dossier, disseminated the information in a January 10, 2017, CNN report co-authored with Carl Bernstein.

Clapper denied leaking the information to Tapper during a July 2017 congressional deposition.

Clapper “flatly denied ‘discuss[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,” the House Intelligence Committee said, according to RCI.

But, after further pressure from Congress, “Clapper subsequently acknowledged discussing the dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,” the House Intelligence Committee wrote in a report of his deposition, according to RCI.

Clapper apparently lied again to the public the day after the CNN story aired, issuing a statement expressing “profound dismay at the leaks that have been appearing in the press” and denied that the leak came from within the intelligence community.

Clapper repeated the same lie to incoming President Donald Trump, according to RCI.

CNN later hired Clapper as a national security analyst, making him Tapper’s co-worker.

Tapper, for his part, won an award for his coverage of the story when he received the Merriam Smith Award for broadcast journalism in 2018 for his reporting on the dossier.

Just an incredible sequence of events here.

-Clapper lied in a deposition about leaking very dubious intel to CNN
-Clapper then admitted he did it
-Tapper won a journalism award for running a credulous story on the leak
-Clapper also misled the public about the leak, claiming… pic.twitter.com/peOcrEtRMj

— Emily Jashinsky (@emilyjashinsky) June 26, 2024

Clapper was also a leading signatory of the infamous “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden Emails,” a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials which casted the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, including evidence of the Bidens’ dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese energy companies, as Russian disinformation.

Another signatory of the letter was Jeremy Bash, the CIA’s chief of staff under Barack Obama from 2009-2011. Bash was married to CNN’s Dana Bash from 1998 to 2007 — the latter will co-moderate Thursday night’s debate with Tapper.

Jeremy Bash was involved in coordinating the effort to craft the Hunter Biden laptop letter, according to RCI.

Former deputy CIA Director Mike Morell testified the purpose of the letter “was to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election,” according to an April 2023 House Judiciary Committee press release.

Morrell sent an e-mail out to intelligence officials in October 2020 that said “We want to give the VP a talking point to use in response,” a May 2023 House Judiciary Committee report reveals.

I was just made aware that CNN’s Dana Bash, who is moderating the first debate, was married to a CIA official who was one of the 51 intelligence agents that signed the fake letter calling Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation” days before the last election…

Small world. pic.twitter.com/AWRDiyGHvA

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) June 25, 2024

The officials released the statement on October 19, 2020, weeks before the 2020 presidential election.

Twitter suspended the account of the New York Post, which broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, and blocked Tweets about the laptop on their platform at the time, based largely on the premise that the story may be “Russian disinformation.”

Despite the assertion from the former intelligence officials that the laptop was disinformation, media outlets like the Daily Caller News Foundation, New York Times, Washington Post and CBS News have verified its contents.

In 2021, NPR issued a correction of a story in which they claimed the laptop had been discredited. “A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect,” the correction reads.

Federal prosecutors used the laptop contents as evidence while trying Hunter Biden on gun charges in June. FBI agent Erika Jensen testified she had seen no evidence the laptop was tampered with. Special counsel David Weiss also said in May the Biden legal team’s defense of questioning the legitimacy of the laptop was a “conspiracy theory with no supporting evidence.”

Aside from Bash’s ties to one of the most prominent figures to sign the debunked letter, CNN’s newsroom also has journalists who parroted the intelligence claims or outright ignored the story.

Tapper made no mention of the laptop story on either of his two CNN shows in October 2020 following the New York Post’s report, according to a Fox News analysis of his show’s transcripts.

He did, however, have on multiple guests who called the laptop story “Russian disinformation” and a “right-wing conspiracy,” according to Fox News.

CNN also hired and promoted Natasha Bertrand, a former Politico reporter who parroted the intelligence letter’s “disinformation” claim, to the role of national security correspondent in February.

There appears to be no consequences for being the Biden campaign’s disinformation scribe. https://t.co/89q67WAoUk pic.twitter.com/zKwnWU7Ukr

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 13, 2024

Bertrand’s story, titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” is still live on Politico’s site with no correction.

Armored vehicles rammed the doors of Bolivia’s government palace Wednesday in an apparent coup attempt, but President Luis Arce vowed to stand firm and named a new army commander who ordered troops to stand down.

Soon the soldiers pulled back, along with a line of military vehicles, as hundreds of Arce’s supporters rushed the square outside the palace, waving Bolivian flags, singing the national anthem and cheering.

Arce, surrounded by ministers, waved at the crowd. “Thank you to the Bolivian people,” he said. “ Let democracy live on.”

Hours later, the Bolivian general who appeared to be behind the rebellion, Juan José Zúñiga, was arrested after the attorney general opened an investigation. It wasn’t immediately clear what the charges were against him.

However, in a twist, Zúñiga claimed in comments to journalists before his arrest that Arce himself told the general to storm the palace in a political move. “The president told me: ‘The situation is very screwed up, very critical. It is necessary to prepare something to raise my popularity’,” Zúñiga quoted the Bolivian leader as saying.

Zúñiga sajd he asked Arce if he should “take out the armored vehicles?” and Arce replied, “Take them out.”

Justice Minister Iván Lima denied Zúñiga’s claims, saying the general was lying and trying to justify his own actions for which he will face justice.

Prosecutors will seek the maximum sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison for Zúñiga, Lima said via the social media platform X, “for having attacked democracy and the Constitution.”

Wednesday’s rebellion followed months of tensions, with economic hardship and protests growing ever stronger as two political titans — Arce and his one-time ally, leftist former President Evo Morales — battled for control of the ruling party.

Still, the apparent attempt to depose the sitting president appeared to lack any meaningful support, and even Arce’s rivals closed ranks to defend democracy and repudiate the uprising.

The spectacle shocked Bolivians, no stranger to political unrest; in 2019 Morales was ousted as president following an earlier political crisis.

As the crisis unfolded Wednesday, military vehicles flooded into the plaza. Before entering the government palace, Zúñiga told journalists: “Surely soon there will be a new Cabinet of ministers; our country, our state cannot go on like this.” Zúñiga said that “for now,” though, he recognized Arce as commander in chief.

Zúñiga did not explicitly say he was leading a coup, but said the army was trying to “restore democracy and free our political prisoners.”

Shortly after, Arce confronted Zúñiga in the palace hallway, as shown on video on Bolivian television. “I am your captain, and I order you to withdraw your soldiers, and I will not allow this insubordination,” Arce said.

Surrounded by ministers, he added: “Here we are, firm in Casa Grande, to confront any coup attempt. We need the Bolivian people to organize.”

Less than an hour later, Arce announced new heads of the army, navy and air force amid the roar of supporters, and thanked the country’s police and regional allies for standing by him. Arce said the troops who rose against him were “staining the uniform” of the military.

“I order all that are mobilized to return to their units,” said the newly named army chief José Wilson Sánchez. “No one wants the images we’re seeing in the streets.”

Shortly after, the armored vehicles roared out of the plaza, tailed by hundreds of military fighters as police in riot gear set up blockades outside the government palace.

The incident was met with a wave of outrage by other regional leaders, including the Organization of American States, Chilean President Gabriel Boric, the leader of Honduras, and former Bolivian leaders.

Bolivia, a country of 12 million people, has seen intensifying protests in recent months over the economy’s precipitous decline from one of the continent’s fastest-growing two decades ago to one of its most crisis-stricken.

The country also has seen a high-profile rift at the highest levels of the governing party. Arce and his one-time ally, Morales, have been battling for the future of Bolivia’s splintering Movement for Socialism, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of elections in 2025.

Following Wednesday’s chaos, reports on local media showed Bolivians stocking up on food and other essentials in supermarkets, concerned about what will come next.

But addressing supporters outside the presidential palace, the country’s vice president, David Choquehuanca, vowed: “Never again will the Bolivian people permit coup attempts.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced a national recall of certain coffee products over the risk of a potentially deadly contamination.

Snapchill, a Green Bay, Wisconsin-based coffee manufacturer, recalled all of its canned coffee products due to the potential presence of Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that can produce a fatal neurotoxin.

Nearly 300 canned coffee products from 147 brands are affected. The products range in sizes from 7oz to 12oz cans and have been distributed nationwide at retail stores and online.

The FDA said that Snapchill’s current manufacturing process could lead to the growth of botulinum toxin. The toxin, if ingested, can cause a rare form of food poison with symptoms that include general weakness, dizziness, double-vision, trouble speaking or swallowing, difficulty breathing, and constipation.

Symptoms can appear from six hours to two weeks after someone eats food containing botulinum toxin.

The FDA warned consumers experiencing these symptoms to seek immediate medical attention.

So far no illnesses have been reported and Snapchill has said it’s unaware of any cases of their products actually containing botulinum toxin. The company is currently working with the agency to clear its manufacturing process.

The FDA recommends consumers who have recalled products to destroy them or return them for a full refund.

This summer, the FDA also issued a recall of several ice cream brands.

Here are the 147 coffee brands hit by the recall:

• 41 & Change
• Alchemy Roasting
• Amavida
• Baba Java Coffee
• Bent Tree Coffee
• Big Iron
• Big Mouth Coffee
• Big Shoulders
• BKG
• Black Acres
• Black Nerd
• Blind
• Bold Bean
• Bolt Coffee
• Borealis
• Brandywine
• BRL
• Broadsheet
• Burwell
• Cafe Ammi
• Cape Cod Coffee
• Carrier
• Cerberus Coffee
• Coffee Hound
• Coffee N Clothes
• Coffee Project NY
• Color Coffee
• Connect Coffee
• Copper Horse
• Coterie Coffee
• Crankshaft Coffee
• Cup to Cup
• Dave’s Coffee
• Dayglow
• Daysol Coffee
• Dead Sled
• Doughnut Plant
• Downeast Coffee
• Dreamy
• Driply
• East End
• Eclipse Coffee Roasters
• Electro Brew Coffee Co.
• Element Coffee
• Emergency Medical Coffee
• Enderly
• Euphoria Coffee
• Farmhouse
• Fazenda
• Fika
• Fire Grounds
• First Crack C/O Sound Coffee
• Five & Hoek
• Five Star Roasters
• Flight
• Gay Awakening Coffee
• George Howell
• Gigawatt
• Goldberry Roasting Company
• Gooseneck Coffee Co.
• Gryphon Coffee
• Heady Cup
• Heart Coffee
• Heine Bros
• Helm
• Honest Coffee
• Hustle N’ Grind
• Intelligentsia
• Joe Bean
• Kahawa 1893
• Kaldi’s
• Kawaha 1893
• Knowledge Perk
• Kribi Coffee
• Kuva Coffee
• La Cosecha
• Lanna Coffee
• Larrys Coffee
• Little Wolf
• Ludwig
• Mad Priest
• Madcap Coffee
• Maple Leaf Coffee Roasters
• Medici
• Metric
• Mighty Good Coffee Co.
• Mocha Joe
• Molon Labe
• Mudd LLC
• Neighbor Coffee
• New Hampshire Coffee Roasters
• Northern Coffeeworks
• OFFSET Coffee
• Others Coffee
• Opus Coffee
• Oye Coffee
• Paper Plane Coffee Co
• Peaks Coffee Co
• Perkatory
• Perla
• Pettibone
• Pink Elephant
• Play Coffee
• Quartertone Coffee
• QUIVR
• Rabble & Lion
• Radial Coffee
• Ragged
• Rarebird
• Red Rooster
• Retrograde Coffee
• Rock City
• Rockford Coffee
• Rusty Dog
• Sacred Grounds
• Saltwater
• Seaworthy Coffee
• Sepia Coffee
• Shirazi Dist.
• Slacktide
• Sleeping Giant Coffee Roasters
• Slow Bloom Coffee
• Snowy Owl
• Southeastern Roastery
• Spot Coffee
• Springline
• Square One Coffee
• Stack St.
• Summit Coffee
• Sur Coffee
• The Boy & The Bear
• The Well Coffeehouse
• Three Tree Coffee Roaster
• Tinker
• Tipico
• Touchy Coffee
• Traction
• True Love Coffee Co.
• Underwood
• Upshot
• Verb
• Victoria Coffee
• Vivid
• Waypost
• White Bison
• White Rhino
• Wild Goose Coffee

The dollar rose to its highest level since November amid speculation that the Federal Reserve will break with other central banks by keeping interest rates elevated, giving global investors an incentive to shift cash to the US to capture higher bond yields.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index climbed as much as 0.4% to a nearly eight-month high, extending the currency’s advance this year as the Fed’s policy leaves a wide interest-rate gap with other major economies. That difference has been particularly pronounced with Japan, driving the yen to the weakest since 1986 and sparking risks of another intervention by the Japanese authorities.

“The US economy remains resilient, and the case for an imminent rate cut isn’t clear unless the data soften, meanwhile, central banks elsewhere are cutting,” said Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale SA.

“With political uncertainty threatening to play a role in market from now until the end of the year, it’s hard to see why the dollar turns lower this year at all.”

While the European Central Bank and Bank of Canada kicked off their monetary easing cycles in early June, the US central bank has continued to hold interest rates at the highest level in more than two decades.

Elections in France and the UK in coming weeks as well as the US presidential election later in the year are adding volatility to the market.

The yen has been the worst performer against the dollar this year, losing about 12% in value, followed by the Swiss franc and the Norwegian krone. The euro fell more than 3% this year.

“We don’t see the dollar strengthening meaningfully from here but it’s hard to argue it will reverse significantly in the short term,” said Nathan Thooft, a senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management in Boston. “It is hurting global economic growth at these levels.”

Still, speculative traders have been loading up on contracts that would benefit from a stronger dollar, the most recent Commodity Futures Trading Commission data suggest. Over the last two weeks through June 18, they’ve added more than $12 billion worth of bets on greenback gains.

The end of the quarter rebalancing was also supportive of the dollar on Wednesday.

The Department of the Interior published a guide to “inclusive language,” exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, that tells bureaucrats to avoid gendered terms like “husband,” “son,” and “daughter,” and even instructs them to use the “they/them” pronouns for individuals rather than assume someone’s gender, Daily Wire reported.

The 24-page document, called the U.S. Department of the Interior Inclusive Language Guide and published this month “for official use only,” details what terms bureaucrats should use or avoid when discussing gender and sexuality.

The guide includes a list of 104 different terms that the Interior recommends bureaucrats replace with alternate, approved words. “Husband” and “wife,” for example, should be replaced with “spouse, partner, significant other,” the federal agency says. “Daughter” and “son” should also be replaced with “child” or “kid” according to the guide, which even asks bureaucrats to replace “cockpit” with “flight deck.”

The revelation comes as the executive agencies of federal government have been transformed under the Biden administration, with agencies from Interior to the National Security Agency embracing and institutionalizing the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda.

Another section of the guide asks bureaucrats to use “identity-first” language, substituting “blind person” and “amputee,” with “a person who is blind,” and “a child with an amputation.” The Interior guide even tells bureaucrats to refrain from assuming anyone’s gender and to instead refer to everyone with the pronouns “they/them” to “avoid making assumptions.”

“When referring to individuals whose identified pronouns are not known or when the gender of a generic or hypothetical person is irrelevant within the context, use their name or a singular ‘they’ to avoid making assumptions about an individual’s gender,” the document reads. “It is recommended to use ‘they,’ ‘them,’ ‘their,’ for example. In informal writing, such as emails, plural pronouns may be used as a shortcut to ensure gender inclusiveness.”

The plural pronoun is said to be a superior alternative to the phrase “he or she,” because it implies “an exclusively binary nature of gender and exclude individuals who do not use these pronouns like gender non-conforming people.” Phrases such as “ladies and gents” are seen as problematic, with the document asking speakers to instead address crowds with “hey team.”

Interior asks bureaucrats to go to even greater lengths to avoid “terms that imply binaries” like “opposite sex” and “opposite gender,” because “some individuals do not identify with either gender or these phrases would then ignore the existence of those individuals.”

It even states that bureaucrats should avoid using the term “preferred pronouns” since it implies that gender identity is a choice. “Pronoun use requires specificity and care on the user’s part, and staff should always use the person’s identified pronouns,” the document states. “Staff should refrain from the term ‘preferred pronouns’ because it implies a choice about one’s gender. Use ‘pronouns’ or ‘identified pronouns’ instead.” It also advises eliminating the use of gendered honorifics entirely, saying titles like “Mr.” and “Ms.” should always be forgone.

The guide also suggests elimination the following words and phrases:

• Replace “Aunt/Uncle” with “Parent’s sibling”
• Replace “male” with “all genders”
• Replace “ladies” with “everyone”
• Replace “gay” with “LGBTQIA+ person”
• Replace “transgender” with “transgender person”
• Replace “opposite sex” with “different sex”
• Replace “woman/women” with “person, people, individual, individuals”
• Replace “sex change” with “transition”
• Replace “father/mother” with “parent, caregiver, care provider”

Interior’s guide to inclusive language is just one way in which the agency has embraced and far-left dogma and embedded it in its policies and practices. The federal agency is also celebrating pride month with a lesson on “LGBTQ American Sign Language” where bureaucrats will be taught sign language for “ally,” “drag queen,” and other LGBT vocabulary terms.

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh previously revealed that bureaucrats at the DOI performed a poem called “I am Diversity” in which the government employees recited lines like “I’m diversity, embrace me and we’ll journey far. I’m diversity, include me and we’ll reach the shining star.”

I have exclusive footage from a Department of Interior event where a poem called “I Am Diversity” was performed. It’s as bad as it sounds. pic.twitter.com/Pzy8licjda

— The Matt Walsh Show (@MattWalshShow) April 12, 2024

The same department also celebrated “transgender day of visibility” by showing a documentary pushing for increased LGBT inclusion in the field of marine biology, the Daily Wire previously revealed.

“Transgender Day of Visibility is an internationally recognized event that is celebrated annually on March 31st to help raise awareness and increase understanding of the challenges, importance and struggles of our transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming communities,” an email obtained by The Daily Wire states. “The Department will mark this important occasion by showing a short documentary called ‘Diving for Rays: A Queer Conservationist’s Story.”

One far-left bureaucrat, an associate communications director at the White House, was recently promoted from his former post as the communications director for the DOI. Named Tyler Cherry, the Biden administration official has a troubling social media history. “Time to recall that the modern day police system is a direct evolution of slave patrols and lynch mobs,” Cherry posted to X, formerly Twitter, in 2015. “Praying for #Baltimore, but praying even harder for an end to a capitalistic police state motivated by explicit and implicit racial biases,” he also said.

Cherry, who crossdresses and identifies as non-binary, also tweeted “Abolish ICE,” making a call to disband a law enforcement component within the Department of Homeland Security that plays a critical role in enforcing immigration law. The communications official also made posts complaining about white people and “the occupation of Palestine.”

The DOI is just one of several federal agencies that has swung to the left and institutionalized ideological dogma under the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden has signed multiple executive orders institutionalizing the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology within the federal agencies and has even worked to enable gender transition attempts among government employees.

Former President Donald Trump has pledged to purge far-left bureaucrats who may otherwise undermine his agenda from his executive agencies if he is reelected in November. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, touting his plan. “The deep state must be brought to heel.”

Trump’s allies are preparing to fill the void left by outgoing bureaucrats, with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 assembling a personnel database that could step into the administration in the event of a Trump victory.