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.

Voters across mainland France have begun casting ballots Sunday in the first round of exceptional parliamentary elections that could put France’s government in the hands of nationalist parties.

As reported previously, the outcome of the two-round elections, which will wrap up on July 7, could impact European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine, and how France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force are managed.

As Epoch Times notes, many French voters are frustrated about inflation and economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, which they see as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s nationalist National Rally party has dominated all pre-election opinion polls.

A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, is also posing a challenge to Mr. Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic.

There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, during the two-round voting.

Polls opened at 0600 GMT and will close at 1600 GMT in small towns and cities, with an 1800 GMT finish in the bigger cities, when the first exit polls for the night and seat projections for the decisive second round a week later are expected.

The participation is already running high, underlining how France’s rumbling political crisis has energized the electorate. By midday, turnout was at 25.9%, compared with 18.43% two years ago – the highest comparable turnout figures since the 1981 legislative vote, Ipsos France’s research director Mathieu Gallard said.

Macron voted at a polling station in Le Touquet, a small seaside town in northern France, along with his wife, Brigitte Macron. Earlier, Ms. Le Pen cast her ballot in her party’s stronghold in northern France.

The vote takes place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in France, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in the 2022 elections.

After a blitz campaign, voting began early in France’s overseas territories, and polling stations opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Sunday. The first polling projections are expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), when the final polling stations close, and early official results are expected later Sunday night.

Voters who turned out in person at a Paris polling station said issues from immigration to inflation and the rising cost of living were on their minds.

“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, a 44-year-old voter. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.”

Mr. Macron called the early elections after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally.

Pre-election polls suggested that the National Rally party is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Mr. Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in a power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”

While Macron has said he won’t step down before his presidential term expires in 2027, cohabitation would weaken him at home and on the world stage.

The results of the first round will give a picture of overall voter sentiment, but not necessarily of the overall makeup of the next National Assembly. Predictions are extremely difficult because of the complicated voting system, and because parties will work between the two rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others.

The party has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France and wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality.

In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed at 5 p.m. local time due to an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew that authorities on the archipelago have extended until July 8.

Violence there flared on May 13, leaving nine people dead after two weeks of unrest, due to attempts by Mr. Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which the Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them. They have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific territory in 1853.

Voters in France’s other overseas territories from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, French Polynesia, and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots on Saturday.

In his preview of what to expected, Goldman trader Alex Stott writes that voting booths in large cities will close at 8pm and results will trickle in during the evening. Some candidates may already secure their seat after the first round if they win more than 50% of expressed votes which total at least 25% of registered voters. We only saw 5 of such cases in 2022, out of 577 seats. In the vast majority of cases, two or more candidates will advance to the second round on July 7. The rule is that the two candidates with the most votes and any candidate totalling at least 12.5% of registered voters qualify to the second round.

Polls point to a significant increase in turnout (from 46% in 2022 to around 65%) which would place the threshold for qualifying at 19% of expressed votes.

All three main political groups currently poll at-or-above this threshold—the RN at 36%, the NFP (left coalition) at 28%, and Ensemble (Macron allies) at 20%—which will likely give rise to many more three-way races.

Pollster Odoxa is predicting 120 to 170 three-way races, compared to 8 in 2022.

Aside of the results, the focus will be on voting instructions from political leaders and unsuccessful candidates. Most parties will likely support each other in a matchup with the RN, except between LFI and Ensemble/LR which will likely adopt a neutral stance. It is also likely that this support pattern extends to candidates dropping out in three-way races. This will make the RN-Ensemble/LR-LFI set-up particularly salient and difficult to read.

The deadline for dropping out is Monday, 1st July at 6pm Paris time. A simple benchmark for performance is the first round vote share, which polls tend to accurately predict.

It is likely that Ensemble would need to finish first or second in at least 80-100 constituencies to retain a chance of meeting current seat projections of 70-120.

Barring a large surprise, calling an absolute majority for the RN is likely to remain difficult even with first round results and voting instructions in hand.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) editorial board called on President Biden to end his reelection bid after “his alarming performance” at Thursday night’s debate.

In a piece published online Saturday evening, the board said the incumbent Democrat should step aside “for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century.”

“Biden’s candidacy was grounded in his incumbency and the belief of Democratic leaders and pollsters that he stood the best chance of defeating Trump in November. That is no longer the case,” the board wrote. “That reality may be difficult to accept for a man whose personal and political lives have been defined by resiliency, but it is the truth.”

The board touted the “courage and dignity that have defined Biden’s political career,” but added, “Biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he shuffled off the stage Thursday night.”

The editorial comes amid heightened concerns among some in the Democratic Party about leaving Biden on the ticket after his shaky performance during the first presidential debate against former President Trump on Thursday.

During the debate, Biden’s voice was raspy, and sources close to Biden said he had a cold. He stumbled through some of his answers and, at one point, appeared to lose his train of thought mid-sentence.

Biden and close allies have sought to assuage public concerns following the debate, saying Biden had a bad night but that one debate performance does not define a person’s term in office, but the AJC editorial board said, “These responses are insulting to the American people.”

“This wasn’t a bad night; it was confirmation of the worst fears of some of Biden’s most ardent supporters — that after 36 years in the U.S. Senate, eight more as vice president and a term in the White House, age has finally caught up to him,” the board wrote.

The AJC editorial board warned of what it characterizes as the imminent threat Trump poses to the republic. The board chastised Trump for lying throughout the debate – more than 30 times, according to a CNN fact check – but stressed the evermore importance of having a strong candidate atop the Democratic ticket.

“Trump’s performance Thursday night should have prompted leaders in his party to repudiate his falsehoods. But it didn’t.

“Biden has pledged to do all he can to prevent Trump from returning to the White House. The election is still four months away,” the board wrote. “If he truly hopes to defeat Trump, he must pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders and urge the party to nominate another candidate at its convention in Chicago in August.”

Nikki Haley, the runner-up to Donald Trump in this year’s GOP nomination race, said Democrats need to dump President Biden as their presumptive nominee following his halting debate performance as she reiterated her calls for cognitive testing of all federal candidates.

But the former South Carolina governor, in a Wall Street Journal interview, said Republicans shouldn’t assume replacing Biden would inherently help Trump.

“They are going to be smart about it: they’re going to bring somebody younger, they’re going to bring somebody vibrant, they’re going to bring somebody tested,” she said. “This is a time for Republicans to prepare and get ready for what’s to come because there is no way that there will be a surviving Democratic Party if they allow Joe Biden to continue to be the candidate.”

Haley also said she spoke about a week ago with Trump—the former president and presumptive Republican nominee—for the first time since she left the race in early March.

The two had a highly combative relationship during the first two months of the year, but Haley said she reached out to Trump to personally offer her support after stating during a public appearance in late May that she would vote for him.

She described it as a “good conversation,” but said there was no discussion of a campaign role for her or participation in next month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. It was the first time the two had spoken since she dropped out of the race. She had urged Trump to be more welcoming to the millions of people who voted for her.

Haley, who served as Trump’s first United Nations ambassador, said Biden’s presence in the White House presents risk for the nation following his debate appearance because his performance projected weakness. “Our enemies just saw that they have between now and Jan. 20 to do whatever it is they want to do,” she said in a reference to next year’s Inauguration Day.

Biden’s campaign didn’t directly respond to Haley’s comments, but issued a statement seeking to embrace her supporters.

“To the millions of Nikki Haley supporters who are tired of Donald Trump and his MAGA allies constantly attacking them, running moderates and independents out of the party, and repeatedly refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 election results, you have a home in President Biden’s coalition,” said a campaign spokesman, Ammar Moussa.

When Haley announced her presidential bid in February 2023, she called for congressional term limits and “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” It was a topic she brought up at virtually every campaign stop for more than a year.

Such tests are typically only administered for people concerned that they or a loved one might be experiencing dementia or other cognitive decline. The questions are designed to evaluate short-term memory, executive functions, language, orientation and other considerations.

In the interview, Haley said the tests could be administered by most doctors and should be voluntarily shared by candidates for federal office. She compared it to the same sort of basic financial disclosure required of candidates.

Washington is “full of older people,” and voters need to know “who is up to the challenge and who is not,” she said.

Haley, 52 years old, said she watched the debate at her South Carolina home with her husband and some friends and quickly realized Biden was in deep political trouble.

“It was shocking, I think, for a lot of people,” she said. “What we saw was that Trump was strong, but I don’t even think that mattered because Biden was so amazingly unfit. The way he lost his train of thought, the way he couldn’t grasp topics of what he needed to talk about.”

Trump made a string of false or misleading statements during the debate, but he largely stuck to the advice of his aides and took a less combative approach.

In the past, Haley has questioned Trump’s mental vitality. In January, while campaigning in New Hampshire, she suggested he has experienced mental “decline,” highlighting how he had mixed her up with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Trump, 78, has taken a cognitive test in the past. He has also called for Biden, 81, to release results from such testing. Polls show Biden has experienced more wariness about his age and mental sharpness among voters than Trump.

Haley alleged that Biden’s aides have hid his mental aging from voters. “What we have seen is so many people around Joe Biden and in his administration kept telling the American people, ‘He’s OK behind closed doors. He’s great behind closed doors,’ even though we were seeing signs that he wasn’t,” she said.

Predicting congressional losses if Democrats stick with Biden, she said they need to make a change. “If they continue down this path and they have Biden as their nominee, they are committing to hurting America,” she said, adding that replacing him on the ticket would be “for the good of the country.”

Hurricane Beryl is forecast to strengthen into a powerful Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Beryl’s center is expected to pass about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Barbados on Monday morning, said Sabu Best, director of Barbados’ meteorological service.

“This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.”

Beryl strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday morning, becoming the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.

Beryl is now only the third Category 3 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic in June, following Audrey in 1957 and Alma in 1966, said hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry.

“Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” he said in a phone interview. “Unusual is an understatement. Beryl is already a historic hurricane and it hasn’t struck yet.”

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.

“So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat,” Lowry said of Beryl.

Beryl was located about 420 miles (675 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbados. It was a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving west at 21 mph (33 kph). It was expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It is expected to weaken by midweek but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.

Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge of up to 9 feet (3 meters) in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.

Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare for a storm that has broken records and rapidly intensified from a tropical storm with 35 mph winds on Friday to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday.

Warm waters were fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher. Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of hurricane season in September.

Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher. If Beryl’s winds reach 125 mph, it would be the second earliest such storm in the Atlantic on record, surpassing Audrey in 1957, he said.

“We have to remain vigilant,” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a public address late Saturday. “We do not want to put anybody’s life at risk.”

Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights.

“Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.”

Mottley said all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned the airport would close by nighttime.

Kemar Saffrey, president of a Barbadian group that aims to end homelessness, said in a video posted on social media Saturday night that those without homes tend to think they can ride out storms because they’ve done it before.

“I don’t want that to be the approach that they take,” he said, warning that Beryl is a dangerous storm and urging Barbadians to direct homeless people to a shelter.

Echoing his comments was Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information.

“I need Barbadians at this point to be their brother’s keeper,” he said. “Some people are vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, St. Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said schools and businesses would remain closed on Monday.

“Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said.

Caribbean leaders were preparing not only for Beryl, but for a cluster of thunderstorms trailing the hurricane that have a 70% chance of becoming a tropical depression.

“Do not let your guard down,” Mottley said.

Beryl is the second named storm in what is forecast to be an above-average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to beat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter, NBC News reported.

Biden’s trip was planned before Thursday’s debate. He and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to join their children and grandchildren there late Saturday.

So far, the party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.

One Democratic House member who believes Biden should drop out of the race — but has yet to call for that publicly — told NBC News that three colleagues expressed the same sentiment to him during votes on the House floor Friday.

House leaders have not wavered publicly, and their aides denied that they are expressing doubts behind closed doors.

“Speaker Pelosi has full confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his inauguration on January 20, 2025,” Ian Krager, a spokesman for the former House speaker said. “Any suggestion that she has engaged in a different course of action is simply not true.”

Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Jeffries, the House minority leader, said her boss has “repeatedly made clear publicly and privately that he supports President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket from top to bottom.”

Brianna Frias said that Clyburn, who is traveling to Wisconsin this weekend to campaign for the president, “has total confidence in President Joe Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket.

“Any reports alleging that the Congressman has expressed anything other than firm support of President Biden are completely untrue,” Frias said.

At the same time, there is an understanding among top Democrats that Biden should be given space to determine next steps. They believe only the president, in consultation with his family, can decide whether to move forward or to end his campaign early — and that he won’t respond well to being pushed.

“The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,” one of the sources familiar with the discussions said, adding: “Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.”

This account of a president and his party in crisis just a little more than four months before an election they say will determine the fate of democracy is drawn from interviews with more than a dozen Democratic officials, operatives, aides and donors. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe matters as sensitive as whether a sitting president might give up his re-election bid and how he could be replaced on the ballot.

Despite delivering a rousing speech at a rally in North Carolina on Friday that calmed some of his allies, Biden was described by one person familiar with his mood as humiliated, devoid of confidence and painfully aware that the physical images of him at the debate — eyes staring into the distance, mouth agape — will live beyond his presidency, along with a performance that at times was meandering, incoherent and difficult to hear.

“It’s a mess,” this person said.

Another person familiar with the dynamics said Biden will ultimately listen to only one adviser.

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

After publication of this report, a source familiar reached out to stress that the Camp David gathering was not a formal family meeting.

“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”

Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s handful of closest advisers, said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” Saturday that Biden has not discussed dropping out of the race with aides and that internal talks have focused on moving forward.

“We had a bad debate,” Dunn said. “What do we do next? You know, the president, above all, is focused on what do we do next? What do I need to go do?”

These private discussions among Biden, his family members and his top advisers are being held against the backdrop of a reckoning for Democrats who were shocked both by Biden’s appearance and the frequency with which his train of thought appeared to veer off track.

His campaign held a conference call Saturday with members of the Democratic National Committee, which a Biden campaign official described as an effort to reassure party officials and demonstrate that his team is communicating with its allies.

“We’re driving this,” the official said.

Biden’s top aides and advisers have told his staff to stay the course in meetings and discussions. Their message, according to one senior administration official: “We’ll weather the storm, just like we always have.”

Sources have described three buckets of Democrats: those who will defend Biden under any circumstances, those who are ready to dump him, and those who are waiting to see what he does — and what his poll numbers look like in the coming days and weeks — before passing judgment. It’s the third bucket that Democratic insiders are monitoring closely.

“Democrats need to take a big breath and look at that polling, look at swing voters,” said one state Democratic Party chair. “Until I see something differently, he’s the person that’s put this coalition together, he’s the person that has the record, he’s the person that beat Donald Trump. Until I see something differently, he’s still the best person to beat Donald Trump.”

The Biden campaign declined to comment for this piece, instead pointing to a memo Saturday from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon that made the case that Biden can still win, pointing to the more than $27 million they raised between debate day and Friday evening.

Notably, however, O’Malley Dillon nodded to the possibility that there might be some tough polling ahead — but said the blame will rest with the media: “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.”

The discussions among some Democrats include weighing what the party’s best path to defeating Trump might be — sticking with an 81-year-old incumbent who could have another moment like Thursday night at any time between now and Election Day, or going with a different candidate whose path to nomination at the party’s convention next month could be a messy process.

Biden insisted Friday that he will remain the party’s standard-bearer in November, telling a crowd at his rally in North Carolina: “I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job.”

The president has spent much of the past 48 hours attending fundraising events with some of the very Democrats most concerned about the impact of his debate performance.

He addressed it head-on at one event Saturday.

“I understand the concern about the debate — I get it,” he added. “I didn’t have a great night.”

Party elites will urge him to exit the race only if they determine that he is “not viable and negatively impacting the House and Senate races,” said one big-time donor who is close to both Obama and Biden.

Inherent in the wait-and-see approach is an acknowledgment that there is no clear replacement for Biden and that his departure could touch off a bloody eleventh-hour intraparty battle that might allow Trump to cruise to victory.

There’s also no feasible way to force him from his perch. All but a handful of the delegates to the Democratic convention were elected on their pledge to nominate him at the party’s convention in August. If he chooses to stand for that nomination, party insiders say, he will get it.

Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for the Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor. Biden is the dominant force at the DNC, and his preference for a successor would surely carry sway.

If Biden were to exit before that, his delegates might do what he asked of them — but they wouldn’t be bound in the same way they are now. In that scenario, the delegates could nominate anyone, and there could be a political brawl at the convention.

“We need to have as much discipline as emotion,” the senior Democratic official said. “It’s not politically smart for Biden to step down.”

Octogenarian President Biden has difficulty functioning outside a six-hour window of daylight, according to an alarming new report.

The 81-year-old commander in chief is prone to absent-minded gaffes and fatigue outside of the hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or while traveling abroad, White House aides told Axios in a bizarre attempt to spin his disastrous debate performance.

The public split screen isn’t new to many inside the White House, where top aides have meticulously stage-managed minutiae such as Biden’s sleep schedule, his orthopedic shoes, his walks to Marine One and his climb aboard Air Force One to try to blunt concerns about his age.

During the 90-minute trainwreck of a presidential debate — which kicked off five hours after the president’s peak performance window, at 9 p.m. — Biden often appeared vacant or slack-jawed, and on several occasions froze mid-thought, misspoke, or struggled to form coherent sentences.

The shocking late-night performance escalated fears about whether Biden is capable of serving another four years. He would be aged 86 by the end of his second term.

Biden attempted to quell voters’ concerns about his mental acuity with a much more energetic speech at a rally Friday in Raleigh, N.C. — during his more preferred time frame in the early afternoon.

“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,” he said to a cheering crowd in the battleground state just after 1 p.m.

“But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done.”

Despite his better daytime showing Friday, Biden has faced a slew of calls from donors and pundits to drop out of the race.

Biden, however, has refused to step aside, suggesting the party leaders will maintain their support for him as well.

Former Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have also publicly expressed their continued support.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Saturday continued to defend the actions that resulted in his prison sentence.

In an interview with NBC News, Bannon continued to assert that the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas “don’t mean anything” and reiterated arguments about executive privilege that have been rejected in courts.

The vocal ally of former President Donald Trump is set to report to prison by Monday to serve a four-month sentence for defying subpoenas to appear before Congress during the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Though Bannon was convicted in 2022, his sentence was put on hold while he sought to appeal the convictions. A last-ditch effort to appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected earlier this week, meaning Bannon has to report to prison by July 1.

When asked what his endgame is, Bannon told NBC News it was “victory or death of this republic.”

“If we don’t win the — first of all, they shred the Constitution. It is the death of the constitutional American republic we know,” he continued.

It’s a claim he made earlier this month during his speech at the conservative Turning Point USA conference.

“Ladies and gentleman, it’s very simple: victory or death!” Bannon said during his speech as the audience cheered.

Bannon’s prison sentence stems from being held in contempt of Congress after defying the Jan. 6 committee’s request for testimony and documents. White House records had shown that Bannon had multiple conversations with Trump on or immediately before Jan. 6.

He continued to reject a question from NBC News about the content of those conversations, calling them “personal and private” and pointing to executive privilege claims, which the Jan. 6 committee said would not prevent him from having to testify.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro has remained behind bars since March on a four-month prison sentence. Navarro was convicted of the same charges as Bannon.

Amid all of the Democratic panic-texting prompted by President Joe Biden’s shaky debate performance Thursday, one name was curiously absent from many of those conversations: Vice President Kamala Harris.

Names including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer trended online as potential replacements for Biden on the Democratic ticket, while Harris — by several measures the most obvious and best-positioned candidate — was left to publicly defend Biden at the single worst moment of their four-year-old political partnership.

That was to the chagrin of some Harris allies, who are privately expressing frustration that her name is not being mentioned in the same company as other ambitious Democrats. But they can do little about it: Harris is laboring under a de facto mandate to defend him.

“There’s nothing that she could do externally that would be wise,” Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo said. “Her best strategy is to internally just be an amazing VP.”

She had to perform the role of good soldier almost immediately after the debate, with postmortem interviews having been pre-scheduled with CNN and MSNBC.

As Harris watched Biden’s face-plant, she and her team realized her response would be even more closely scrutinized, according to three aides granted anonymity to describe private discussions — and she quickly made clear to her staff that they shouldn’t try to sugarcoat how badly her running mate had performed.

Harris told her advisers her role was simple, the aides said: project confidence as quickly and clearly as possible as a leader of the party, while preserving credibility by recognizing how weak the debate had been.

“She wanted to have an acknowledgment of what everybody was seeing,” one senior Harris aide said.

Harris’ other two objectives were to zero in on attacking Trump, the aide said, and, perhaps more importantly, move the conversation away from the debate and toward Biden’s record.

“The president said himself that it was not his best performance,” Harris said at a campaign rally on Friday afternoon, before ripping former President Donald Trump for lies he told during the debate.

Harris went on to offer a familiar defense of Biden, one heard from many Democrats who have interacted with him closely.

“I see Joe Biden when the cameras are on and the cameras are off, in the Oval Office negotiating bipartisan deals,” Harris said. “I see him in the Situation Room keeping our country safe, [and] on the world stage meeting with world leaders who often ask for his advice.”

Some allies of the first Black and South Asian woman to be vice president fumed Friday about the lack of attention Harris drew as a possible replacement — not a surrogate — for Biden, passed over in the Beltway chatter for the likes of Newsom, Whitmer and even Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

“The fact that people keep coming back to this is so offensive to so many of us,” one veteran Democrat and Harris ally said. “They still don’t get that the message you’re saying to people, to this Democratic Party, is, we prefer a white person.”

Another added, “If they think they are going to get through South Carolina bashing an effective and qualified Black woman vice president — their instincts are as bad as I thought they were.”

Their frustration is unlikely to translate into an aggressive push for a change atop the ticket, as they are painfully aware that even acknowledging the possibility Biden might step away would spark a potential feeding frenzy. In other words, amid all the wishcasting surrounding other ambitious Democrats, Harris world can’t make her case without making things worse for Biden.

“Her doing anything externally is going to just hand reporters stories,” Trujillo said. “If she gets any text messages saying something critical, my best advice would be to not reply.”

Her biggest asset, in any case, isn’t a marketing machine — it’s political reality. Were Biden to leave the presidential race, hopping over Harris to any other potential candidate would present significant practical challenges. Only Harris, for instance, would have access to the coffers of the campaign she’s already a part of. Any other candidate would be faced with the tall task of building an infrastructure in a matter of months.

“It’s very hard to go from the minors to the Super Bowl, and compared to running for president, everything else is semi-pro,” said Jamal Simmons, a veteran Democratic operative and former Harris communications director.

There’s also the fact that Harris, despite a rocky couple of years in the polls, still has the highest name ID of any plausible Biden replacement. A recent POLITICO poll found that 41 percent of Democratic voters chose Harris as a hypothetical 2028 nominee. The next closest was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, with 15 percent, and Newsom, with 14 percent.

Harris’ allies and aides believe that the VP has strengthened her profile in recent months, becoming more adept and confident after months of official and campaign travel. They’re also not shy about pointing out the optics of substituting any other candidate (likely White, possibly male) for Harris — a move that they suggest would upset not only Black delegates at the convention but also Black voters with whom the Biden campaign is already on shaky ground.

Still, she faces skepticism from the Democratic rank-and-file, who have been repelled by Harris’ weak polling numbers and see any of the more-popular-if-lesser-known governors as preferable.

“We actually have to win this election,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a party leader. “We should put someone up who would not only be a good president, but be a good candidate.”

There are no plans for Harris to go on a Biden defense tour, aides said. She is instead focused on fundraising in the coming days, where she will be in contact with now-jittery donors who are expected to bankroll Biden’s reelection. It will be an opportunity for her to both defend Biden and also make an impression, if only implicit, about her suitability as a replacement.

That is a delicate balancing act she might need to perform for weeks — perhaps until the late-August convention — as the ramifications of Thursday’s debate play out in the polls and on the hustings.

“If she didn’t, imagine what people would say: ‘Well, hold up, even the VP is not defending him.’ But it’s also important that people see and hear from a number of different voices and faces and the people who are in the conversation,” one Democrat close to the White House and campaign said.

President Biden is facing criticism from Gold Star families after falsely claiming during Thursday’s CNN Presidential Debate that he’s the “only president this century, this decade, that doesn’t have any troops dying anywhere in the world.”

Biden, after denying that 13 American service members were lost in Afghanistan, also said during the debate that “when he [Trump] was president, they were still killing people in Afghanistan. And he didn’t do anything about that.”

Darin Hoover, Gold Star father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover who was one of those 13 American service members killed in action on August 26, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan, had a strong reaction to Biden’s debate claims.

The younger Hoover, 31, was engaged to be married when he was killed. It was his third tour in Afghanistan.

“I knew Afghanistan was going to come up sooner or later,” said Hoover in an interview with Fox News Digital, recalling the debate.

“You know, the stumbling, bumbling buffoon that we have in the White House had the audacity to say that under his watch that no military members have died.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital after the initial publication of this story, a White House spokesperson said, “President Biden cares deeply about our service members, their families, and the immense sacrifices they have made. That’s why the President attended the dignified transfer of the 13 brave service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan on August 26, 2021; as well as, of the three who lost their lives in Jordan earlier this year.”

“As he said then and continues to believe now: Our country owes them a great deal of gratitude and a debt that we can never repay, and we will continue to honor their ultimate sacrifice,” the spokesperson added.

The Gold Star dad added, “the rage, the absolute disgust that I got, from hearing him say that–I started yelling back at the TV. Just out of frustration. He’s never acknowledged, not one time, any of our kids. He’s never said their names. Even to this day, I doubt very seriously that he even knows their names.”

Taylor’s mother, Kelly Barnett, had this to say to Biden: “What I would say to them is shame on you using our children as a pawn. It just makes me sick.”

“It’s sickening, but it goes to the way that we’ve been treated the past three years. It’s three years–we’re going on three years now. And it’s just disrespect after disrespect. This is probably the cherry on top.”

Hoover said the Biden administration sent the 13 Afghanistan Gold Star families letters – a year later.

“All the 13 families get a canned letter. It said the same exact same thing. And it looked like it was a photocopy of all of that. It was basically, we’re sorry that your service member had died, and that’s been it. We’ve had absolutely nothing before, nothing since,” Hoover added.

Hoover has made efforts to meet with Biden on behalf of the 13 lost on August 26, 2021. He said, “as much as we tried it in the past, when we’ve been going before Congress to try and get a meeting, it’s been denied because he’s a chicken.”

“[Biden] doesn’t want to deal with us. He knows that we’re in his face, but he doesn’t want to deal with us,” said Hoover.

According to the St. Charles County Veterans Museum in Missouri, Hoover was bestowed awards including the Purple Heart and the Afghanistan Campaign Medal after 11 years of service to the Marine Corps.

Sixty-eight percent of independent voters want President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race after his disastrous debate performance, a JL Partners poll found on Friday, while 32 percent said he should remain the Democrats’ nominee.

Pressure mounted on Biden to step down after his Thursday performance, as many Democrats and media members displayed hysteria following his performance. A Biden campaign official said Biden will remain in the race. Biden will also reportedly participate in the ABC News debate in September.

Among independents, 41 percent of Biden 2020 voters believe he should drop out of the race, the poll found.

Forty-four percent of independents said they plan to vote for former President Donald Trump, up about four points after the debate.

In contrast, Biden lost support, the poll found. Only 24 percent said they intend to vote for Biden, down from 28 percent before the debate.

The poll sampled 805 independent voters immediately after the debate. The survey did not include a margin of error.

The post-debate polling appears to confirm pre-debate polling.

Sixty-four percent of voters believe the Democrat party should replace Biden as its nominee, a New York Times/Siena poll found this week, underscoring a lack of enthusiasm behind the president’s reelection campaign.

The poll asked voters, “Do you think Joe Biden should remain the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, or should there be a different Democratic nominee for president?”

• Yes: 29 percent
• No: 64 percent

Among Democrats, a slim majority said Biden should remain on the ticket:

• Yes: 52 percent
• No: 45 percent

An overwhelming amount of independents said Biden should not remain on the ticket:

• Yes: 21 percent
• No: 71 percent

Twenty percent of voters believe Biden’s America is headed “off on the wrong track,” the poll also found, while 70 percent said Biden is too old to be “an effective president.”

When asked which candidate is expected to win in November, former President Donald Trump led Biden by ten points (48-38 percent).

The Times poll sampled 1,226 registered voters from June 20-25 as has a margin of error of 3 points.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 27 recommended forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines for virtually all Americans.

“CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 this fall and winter whether or not they have ever previously been vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine,” the agency said in a statement.

The COVID-19 vaccines now available, which are also broadly recommended, target the XBB.1.5 strain. But observational data indicate they provide short-lived protection against COVID-19 infection and hospitalization.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials, acting on advice from their advisers, recently directed vaccine manufacturers to produce COVID-19 vaccines with updated formulations.

Updated vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna will target the KP.2 variant, while an updated shot from Novavax will target the JN.1 variant.

The updated formulations are expected to be available in September.

CDC advisers earlier Thursday unanimously advised the CDC to recommend the forthcoming vaccines to virtually all Americans, even though no clinical efficacy or safety data are available for them.

Data from animal testing suggest that the vaccines trigger higher levels of antibodies than the shots currently available, manufacturers said previously.

CDC advisers considered a risk-based recommendation that would only say certain groups receive one of the vaccines but ultimately opted for what is known as a universal recommendation.

Dr. Jamie Loehr, one of the members, said before the vote that the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating young people, who are generally at little risk from COVID-19, had him leaning towards a risk-based approach. He changed his mind, though, after listening to a presentation from a CDC researcher.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said that members should not “get too caught up in cost-effectiveness currently.” She said, “If we compare it to other vaccine-preventable diseases it seems like a really good investment.”

Each dose of a new shot could cost up to $130, according to estimates presented during the meeting.

Pooled effectiveness estimates from studies of the currently available vaccines, which target the XBB strain, and the last slate of shots, which were bivalent, found that effectiveness against hospitalization due to COVID-19 was below 50 percent, the original threshold laid out by regulators.

Researchers with the CDC and other institutions have also found the protection wanes over time, one reason U.S. officials have turned the COVID-19 vaccine model into a once-a-year update similar to the influenza vaccination program.

Many Americans took the original COVID-19 vaccines but most have opted against receiving the newer shots. As of May 11, just 14.4 percent of children and 22.5 percent of adults have received one of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, according to CDC surveys, which also found that many doctors have stopped recommending the shots because they’re focused on promoting other vaccines and worry recommending COVID-19 vaccination could increase hesitancy among patients to receiving the other vaccines.

Experts said in Thursday’s meeting that the message needs to be that people need another shot.

“We have to keep saying that over and over and over again—you need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus,” Carol Hayes, who represents the American College of Nurse-Midwives as a liaison to the CDC panel, said during the session.

The CDC estimated that up to 116,000 hospitalizations from COVID-19 will be prevented over the next year with universal vaccine recommendations, assuming an initial 75 percent effectiveness against hospitalization.

The effectiveness was projected in certain scenarios to drop to 50 percent after three months, the CDC said.

The KP.2 strain is the dominant strain in the United States as of May 25, according to CDC data. The closely related KP.3 strain, and the JN.1 variant, are also causing a number of cases.

Modeling through June 22 projects the rise of a new strain called LB.1.

A new Bloomberg report reveals that retailer Target is finally cracking down on thieves by lowering the staff intervention threshold from $100 to $50. Target management has complained on earnings calls about ‘shrink’ in recent quarters and surging thefts that have squeezed margins.

People familiar with the new policy say employees will soon be able to intervene and halt criminals from leaving the store with as little as $50 in stolen goods.

The previous threshold was $100. They say the new policy will be enforced this summer.

Target operates nearly 2,000 stores in the US and has warned investors countless times about damaging shrink—inventory loss due to theft, damage, and other factors—which has squeezed profit margins.

In March, Target Executive Vice President Michael Fiddelke said the company lost $500 million more in shrink in 2023 than in 2022.

The company expects shrink to a peak in 2024 as it works with policymakers and various cities to address out-of-control thefts.

Progressive lawmakers in states that ignored law and order only emboldened criminals to pillage retail stores as criminal and social justice reforms backfired. California decriminalizing thefts under $950 has been one of the biggest policy failures.

The National Retail Federation has previously stated that shrink accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021. Failed progressive policies have sparked unprecedented levels of theft.

Bloomberg data shows that the number of ‘shrink’ mentions on earnings calls began rising in 3Q22, peaking at nearly 600 in 3Q23, but remains elevated.

In response, retailers have shut down stores in crime-ridden areas and locked up entire aisles of high-value items.

A lawless society, due to failed progressive policies, cannot economically thrive. It’s time for Americans to demand law and order.

Key points from the Kansas Attorney General’s legal report on the case against Pfizer:

1. Pfizer misled the public.

• In May 2021, Pfizer advertised to Kansans on Facebook about its “life-saving vaccines” and its “cures.” Upon information and belief, Pfizer intended for Kansans to think of its COVID-19 vaccine when it discussed “life-saving vaccines” and “cures.” Pfizer ran three different ads between May 4, 2021 and June 1, 2021 that received 165,000 to 190,000 impressions.”
• Pfizer received emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine in individuals 16 years of age and older on December 11, 2020.
• Pfizer received FDA approval on August 23, 2021. From 2021 to 2023, Pfizer received emergency use authorizations in children from six months to 15 years of age.

2. Pfizer used confidentiality agreements to conceal critical data relating to the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine.

• Pfizer effectively had a veto over the federal government’s communications.

3. Pfizer used its confidentiality agreements with the US government and others to conceal, suppress, and omit material facts relating to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, including the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

4. Pfizer used an extended study timeline to conceal critical data – the study was repeatedly delayed.

• Pfizer planned to provide researchers with access to patient-level data and full clinical study reports 24 months after study completion. Protocol C4591001
• Pfizer estimated that it would complete the study by January 27, 2023, but that estimated date fell back to February 2024 because of a late vaccination of a single study participant (out of 44,000 participants).
• Pfizer’s control of the data allowed the company to selectively publish results for which the underlying data could not be independently evaluated.

5. Pfizer says it will make data from vaccine trials approved in the US available 18 months after the primary study completion date. Pfizer, Data Access Requests.

• Upon information and belief, Pfizer has still not made its complete study data available to researchers.

6. The FDA did not make the safety and effectiveness data for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine immediately available.

• The FDA denied expedited processing of PHMPTA’s FOIA request and claimed in litigation that it would take 55 years—until 2076
• In January 2022, a federal judge rejected the FDA’s proposed production of 500 pages per month and ordered the FDA to instead produce 55,000 pages per month

7. Pfizer destroyed the vaccine control group.

• Pfizer planned to follow COVID-19 vaccine study participants, both vaccine and placebo recipients for 24 months to monitor the safety and effectiveness of its vaccine.
• Once the FDA approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine through an emergency use authorization in December 2020, Pfizer unblinded the study participants and offered vaccine placebo recipients the option to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine
• Only 1,544 placebo participants had not received the vaccine as of March 13, 2021, just 7% of the original placebo group.

8. In its press release announcing emergency use authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer did not disclose that it had excluded immunocompromised individuals from its COVID-19 vaccine trials.

• Instead, in “Important Safety Information” in its press release, Pfizer noted that
• “[i]mmunocompromised persons, including individuals receiving immunosuppressant therapy, may have a diminished immune response to the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”

9. Pfizer knew its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis.

• Pfizer maintained its own adverse events database that “contain[ed] cases of [adverse events (AEs)] reported spontaneously to Pfizer, cases reported by the health authorities, cases published in the medical literature, cases from Pfizer-sponsored marketing programs, non-interventional studies, and cases of serious AEs reported from clinical studies regardless of causality assessment.”
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained more adverse event data than VAERS because it included both information in VAERS and information not in VAERS.

10. The United States military detected a safety signal for myocarditis.

• In early 2021, the U.S. military noticed cases of myocarditis in male military members occurring within four days of administration of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. When the Department of Defense reviewed its health system data for 2021, it found that “[t]hose who were recently vaccinated had a rate ratio that showed their incidences of myocarditis and pericarditis were 2.6 and 2.0 times higher compared to those who were never vaccinated.”
• On March 3, 2021, Israel’s Ministry of Health contacted the CDC about myocarditis and pericarditis connected to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine: “We are seeing a large number of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in young individuals soon after Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. We would like to discuss the issue with a relevant expert at CDC.”
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer had knowledge of the medical reports in Israel related to its vaccine and myocarditis and pericarditis because Israel agreed to share medical data with Pfizer.
• At the time of Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla’s January 18, 2023 denial of any safety signals, the CDC’s website reported that “[d]ata from multiple studies show a rare risk for myocarditis and/or pericarditis following receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines
• According to a leaked confidential February 2022 Pfizer document, “[s]ince April 2021, increased cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in the United States after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna), particularly in adolescents and young adults (CDC 2021).”

11. After Pfizer obtained FDA approval through emergency use authorization to provide its COVID-19 vaccine to 12-15-year-olds in August 2021, Pfizer decided to study “how often” its vaccine may cause myocarditis or pericarditis in children by testing 5-16-year-olds for troponin I.

• Pfizer warned children participants that after receiving Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine,“[y]ou might get chest pain, shortness of breath, or feelings of having a fast-beating, fluttering or pounding heart. You may need to come in to see the study doctor for further assessments if you have these symptoms.”
• Pfizer press releases did not disclose an increased risk of myocarditis from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine until November 2021. Posts falsely claim Pfizer ‘officially admits’ heart inflammation is COVID jab side effect in 2023,
• Upon information and belief, at the time of Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla’s January 2023 representation that Pfizer had not observed a single safety signal related to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer was aware of a safety signal relating to myocarditis and pericarditis.

12. Upon information and belief, Pfizer also detected a safety signal relating to strokes.

• Days before Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla denied any safety signal, the CDC’s and FDA’s “surveillance system flagged a possible link between the new Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent COVID-19 vaccine and strokes in people aged 65 and over, . .
• Although CDC later suggested a link was “very unlikely,” a FDA study found that individuals 85 years or older who received both a flu vaccine and Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine“saw a 20 percent increase in the risk of ischemic stroke.”

13. Pfizer’s knowledge of a safety signal for increased fatalities

• Upon information and belief, Pfizer also detected a safety signal relating to deaths. As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained 1,223 fatalities after taking Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

14. Pfizer only tested the booster shot on 12 trial participants who were in the 65- to 85-year-old age range.

• Pfizer should not have represented that the booster was “safe” for 65- to 85-year-olds after only testing 12 trial participants in that age range.

15. Pfizer did not test the booster on any participant older than 85 years old.

• Pfizer should not have represented that the booster was “safe” for individuals 85 years old and older when it had not tested any trial participants in that age range.

16. Pfizer did not publicly release adverse event data from its database.

• As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s adverse events database contained 158,893 adverse events (from 42,086 case reports) from its COVID-19 vaccine.
• As of February 28, 2021, Pfizer’s database contained 1,223 fatalities after taking Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, although Pfizer did not make causality findings.
• Pfizer was receiving so many adverse events reports that it had to hire 600 additional full-time staff and expected to hire more than 1,800 additional resources by June 2021
• Pfizer had such a backlog of adverse events that it might take 90 days to code “nonserious cases.” Pfizer did not know “the magnitude of underreporting

17. Pfizer announces study on pregnant women but omits material facts already in its possession.

• More than 1-in-10 women (52) who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during their pregnancy reported a miscarriage, many within days of vaccination.
• Six women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during their pregnancy reported premature deliveries; several babies died.

18. Pfizer’s February 18, 2021, press release also did not disclose other adverse effects on the reproductive systems of women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

• For example, by April 2022, Pfizer knew of tens of thousands of adverse events connected to its COVID-19 vaccine including heavy menstrual bleeding (27,685); menstrual disorders (22,145); irregular periods (15,083); delayed periods (13,989); absence of periods(11,363); and other reproductive system effects.

19. Pfizer’s study on pregnant women failed and the results are secret.

• Pfizer sought to study approximately 4,000 healthy pregnant women. Pfizer and BioNTech Commence Global Clinical Trial to Evaluate COVID-19 Vaccine in Pregnant Women, Feb. 18, 2021. However, Pfizer only enrolled a fraction of this amount (683) in its study.
• Upon information and belief, Pfizer destroyed the placebo control group during the study, preventing Pfizer from evaluating differences in safety and efficacy between vaccinated pregnant women and unvaccinated pregnant women.
• Although Pfizer completed its study of its COVID-19 vaccine on pregnant women on July 15, 2022, it still has not completed the quality control review process for the study.

20. Pfizer concealed critical safety information from the public

• Pfizer only tested its COVID-19 vaccine on healthy individuals. Pfizer’s representations that its COVID-19 vaccine did not have any safety concerns failed to disclose the material facts that it had only been tested on healthy individuals.

21. Pfizer claimed that a “primary endpoint” of the trial of its COVID-19 vaccine was “prevention of COVID-19 regardless of whether participants have previously been infected by SARS-CoV-2.

• Pfizer’s statement was misleading since it had excluded any individual who had been diagnosed with COVID-19 from its vaccine trial.

22. Pfizer misrepresented and concealed material facts relating to the durability of protection provided by its COVID-19 vaccine.

• In November 2020, Pfizer announced, “[p]rimary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95% effective against COVID-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose.”
• Pfizer did not report the absolute risk reduction of its COVID-19 vaccine, which was just 0.84%. On February 25, 2021, when asked in an interview how long Pfizer’s COVID-19 two-dose vaccine provided protection, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla stated, “at six months, the protection is robust.”
• On April 1, 2021, Pfizer issued a press release that celebrated “high efficacy” in

23. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine through up to six months after the second dose. Pfizer and BioNTech Confirm High Efficacy and No Serious Safety Concerns Through Up to Six Months Following Second Dose in Updated Topline Analysis of Landmark COVID-19 Vaccine Study, Pfizer, Apr. 1.

• Pfizer represented that “[a]nalysis of 927 confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 demonstrates BNT162b2 is highly effective with 91.3% vaccine efficacy observed against COVID-19, measured seven days through up to six months after the second dose.”
• Pfizer cited data in its press release that also appears in a Pfizer efficacy summary document.
• In its efficacy summary document, Pfizer reported an 83.7% efficacy rate four months after the second dose of its COVID-19 vaccine. Id. at 68.
• In its efficacy summary document, Pfizer reported blood sample data showing effectiveness continued to wane at six months.

24. Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission even though it knew it had never studied the effect of its vaccine on transmission

• When the FDA issued the Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020, the FDA reported that there was no “evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person.” FDA
• According to Pfizer’s trial protocol, evaluating transmission was not an objective of the trial.

25. Despite admissions by Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla and Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb that Pfizer did not know if its vaccine prevented transmission, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla warned Kansans on multiple occasions that not receiving a COVID-19 vaccine would affect the lives of those around them, thus implying that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission.

• “I repeat once more, that this choice not to vaccinate will not affect only your health or your life. Unfortunately, it will affect the lives of others and likely the lives of the people you love the most, who are the people that usually you are in contact with.” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla CNBC (Dec. 14, 2020).
• “What I would say to people who fear the vaccine is that they need to recognize that the decision to take it or not will not affect only their own lives. It will affect the lives of others. And most likely it will affect the lives of people that they love the most, who are the people that they socialize the most with.” John Micklethwait, Pfizer CEO BLOOMBERG, Jan. 28, 2021.
• June 2021: “I try to explain to them that the decision to vaccinate or not is not only going to affect only your life. . . . But unfortunately will affect the health of others and likely will affect the health of people you like and you love the most. . . . When you try to explain that their fear could stand in the way of protecting their loved ones, I think this is the argument that mostly works. CEO ‘ CBS NEWS (June 15, 2021).
• November 2021: “The only thing that stands between the new way of life and the current way of life, frankly, is the hesitancy to get vaccinated, the people that are afraid to get the vaccines, and they create issues not only for them. Unfortunately, they are going to affect the lives of others and, frankly, the lives of the people that they love the most because they are putting at risk the people that they hug, they kiss, [and] they socialize with.” Pfizer’s Albert Bourla
• In December 2021, a Pfizer press release quoted Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla in a manner that again suggested that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission: “Ensuring as many people as possible are fully vaccinated with the first two dose series and a booster remains the best course of action to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
• Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb also represented to Kansans that Pfizer’s COVID-19 prevented transmission: “And final point, I mean, some of the optimism is also being driven by growing science, suggesting that these vaccines, all the vaccines not only prevent COVID disease, prevent symptoms, but also prevent transmission. So they could have a dramatic effect on reducing the overall tenor of the epidemic.” CBS News, Mar. 7, 2021.113
• In 2022, Pfizer partnered with Marvel to produce an “Avengers”-themed comic book that called individuals waiting for a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine “Everyday Heroes.” See Avengers: Everyday Heroes, 2022.

According to one of the characters in the Pfizer comic book, “it’s also important for entire communities to come together and help fight the threat.” “And that’s exactly what we’re doing today!” says another character. As the group heads to the examination room to get their Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations, the first character announces, “The Avengers are doing their part to help keep us safe. Now it’s time for us to do ours.”

• One of the final pages reinforces the need for individuals to get a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in order to protect the community. “Everyday heroes don’t wear capes! But they do wear a small bandage on their upper arm after they get their latest COVID-19 vaccination—because everyday heroes are concerned about their health. And they’re people who choose to unite with their communities and do their part to help protect against COVID-19.”

26. Pfizer worked to censor speech on social media that questioned Pfizer’s claims.

• Pfizer’s view was that “misinformation spreaders” are “criminals” who have “literally cost millions of lives”
• On July 19, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb claimed social media companies had an “obligation” and an “affirmative responsibility” to prevent the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms.
• Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla called people who spread misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines “criminals” who have “literally cost millions of lives.”

27. Pfizer worked to conceal and suppress material facts.

• On August 24, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb contacted Twitter to complain about a column written by Alex Berenson that criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci. “This is whats [sic] promoted on Twitter. This is why Tony needs a security detail,”
• On August 27, 2021, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb had a conference call with Twitter employees to discuss Mr. Berenson. Twitter banned Mr. Berenson the next day.
• On Friday, August 27, 2021, Dr. Brett P. Giroir, who served as the assistant secretary for health from 2018 to 2021 and approximately one month as the acting FDA Commissioner in late 2019, posted to Twitter that natural immunity was superior to vaccine immunity. Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Twitter Files: Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb flagged tweets questioning COVID vaccine, FOX NEWS (Jan. 9, 2023).120
• In response, Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb reached out to Twitter’s top lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to complain that the post was “corrosive,” “draws a sweeping conclusion,” and “will end up going viral and driving news coverage.”
• The Twitter lobbyist forwarded Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb’s email to the Twitter “Strategic Response” team, which “later slapped [Girori’s tweet] with a ‘misleading’ label and blocked any ability to like or share the tweet.”
• On December 11, 2020, the same day that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA, a Zoom calendar appointment entitled “Vaccine Disinformation Response” invited personnel at the Department of Health and Human Services, Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies, and Stanford University to discuss “a coalition to respond to COVID-19 vaccine disinformation.”
• Shortly after the December 11, 2020 meeting, Stanford University co-launched the Virality Project. For at least the next year, Stanford and members of the Virality Project pressured social media companies to conceal and suppress information about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, including information about safety and efficacy.

Former President Trump took a victory lap on Truth Social Saturday, saying President Biden “choked” during their CNN debate — and was perhaps in a “trance.”

“I watched a man, first hand, ‘CHOKE’ under tremendous pressure, the likes of which he has never seen before,” Trump said in an early morning post.

“This was a ‘MONSTER’ show, and it could be plainly and openly felt onstage.”

During a campaign rally in Raleigh, NC, Friday, Biden spoke with more verve and energy — something many Democrats publicly wished he brought with him to the CNN debate.

In his post, Trump also acknowledged his rival’s recovery, but said it wasn’t enough.

“His speech on Friday was better, and he seems to be coming out of his trance, but AMERICA must ask itself, with all of the many dangers around, do we really want a President who CHOKES? I don’t think so!” Trump said.

In a follow-up post, Trump, never bashful about self-praise, declared that he had “the greatest debate performance in the long and storied history of Presidential Debates.”

Biden has faced widespread calls to drop out of the presidential debate after his drubbing from Trump — something he had so far adamantly refused to do. Biden has been powering through the debacle with a series of fundraisers, including in New York City, New Jersey and the Hamptons this weekend.

Top allies like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have come out in support of Biden and the possibility of an imminent departure from the race appears increasingly remote.

In a massive decision handed down that will limit the power of unelected agencies in the executive branch to interpret laws that Congress had left ambiguous, and a power Democratic administrations have used to impose additional regulations, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn the 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It authorized a massive shift in power from Congress and the courts to the president,” Henry Olsen noted of the Chevron decision. “Most of the administrative agencies subject to Chevron are run by presidential appointments. These officials might have subject matter expertise, but their knowledge does not negate the fact that they make inherently political judgments, which the Constitution envisioned would be made by elected legislators.”

“Under Chevron, a statutory ambiguity, no matter why it is there, becomes a license authorizing an agency to change positions as much as it likes. Chevron accordingly has undermined the very ‘rule of law’ values that stare decisis exists to secure,” Ed Whelan pointed out.

“During Barack Obama’s presidency … courts increasingly relied on Chevron to uphold a slew of new, progressive regulations,” Slate stated in an article titled, “The Supreme Court Is About to Seize Way More Power From Democratic Presidents.”

The case in which the Court overturned the 1984 ruling was Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The plaintiffs, who are fishermen, sued Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. A subagency of the Commerce Department, the National Marine Fisheries Service, forced the fishermen to “pay the salaries of the federal inspectors that federal law forces them to carry aboard their boats,” the Heritage Foundation explained, adding that the fishermen claimed there was no law that the National Marine Fisheries Service could cite giving them the right to force them to do so.

The National Fisheries Service cited the Chevron decision, saying that the law’s silence gave the agency its right to speak. As a result, inspectors’ salaries ought to be paid by fishermen.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled for the Fisheries Service. But in the petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs asked, “Whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.”

“Under the Chevron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to ‘permissible agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently,” the Supreme Court stated. “In each case below, the reviewing courts applied Chevron’s framework to resolve in favor of the Government challenges by petitioners to a rule promulgated by the National Marine Fisheries Service pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which incorporates the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).”

“The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled,” the Court ruled.

“Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. The Framers anticipated that courts would often confront statutory ambiguities and expected that courts would resolve them by exercising independent legal judgment. Chevron gravely erred in concluding that the inquiry is fundamentally different just because an administrative interpretation is in play. The very point of the traditional tools of statutory construction is to resolve statutory ambiguities. That is no less true when the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own power—perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate,” the Court wrote.

“Today’s decision fixes the decades-long error of handing vague and broad powers to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded after the decision was released. “The Supreme Court’s decision restores the Constitutional power to write the law to where it should be—with the elected representatives of the American people.”

The mother of Jocelyn Nungaray, the 12-year-old girl who was allegedly brutalized and murdered by two illegal migrants, was “shocked” when former President Donald Trump spoke with her 10 minutes before he took the debate stage Thursday, The Post can reveal.

Alexis Nungaray’s best friend, Victoria Galvan, who was with the grieving mother when the two spoke, told The Post that Trump conveyed that there was no one he would’ve preferred to talk to before the debate than her.

“He was like, ‘I’m actually about to come on for a debate’ … He gave his condolences, and he said that he would be reaching back out to her,” Galvan said.

“He wanted to … say that he was praying for Alexis and that he’s been thinking about her and he wanted to reach out. He said that he was going to reach out in a couple days to her … I mean, she was really … we were all shocked,” Galvan said.

After the call, Galvan said she and Alexis, who has been staying with her, were talking about how little Jocelyn would’ve been in disbelief over the former president’s attention to her story.

Jocelyn was allegedly killed by two illegal migrants from Venezuela who have both been charged with capital murder after they tortured her for two hours and dumped her half-naked body into a bayou.

The two suspects crossed the southern border illegally and were released by federal authorities months before Jocelyn was killed.

Trump mentioned speaking with Jocelyn’s family on the debate stage while highlighting several high-profile crimes committed by illegal migrants released into the country under President Joe Biden.