The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court over allegations against Israel. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

‘These individuals directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without consent from the United States or Israel,’ Rubio said. 

The sanctions against the Hague-based court are related to Trump Feb. 6 executive order. 

He signed the executive order punishing the ICC in response to its May 2024 arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity amid Israel’s ongoing conflict against Hamas. 

Rubio said the four ICC judges ‘actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel.’

‘The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,’ he said. ‘This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.’

He said the United States will take ‘whatever actions we deem necessary’ to protect its sovereignty, that of Israel, and other U.S. allies from ‘illegitimate actions by the ICC.’

Rubio noted that member states of the court, ‘many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices’ and to push back against the court for its ‘disgraceful attack’ against the U.S. and Israel.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the ICC. 

The ICC only prosecutes cases when domestic law enforcement authorities cannot or will not investigate. Israel is not a member of the court. 

Despite the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the court has no police powers to enforce warrants, instead choosing to rely on cooperation from its member states.

As criticism mounts from within former President Joe Biden’s world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as ‘kinda dumb’ — a tweet he deleted but later stood by.

Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was Biden’s ‘architect’ of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term ‘net neutrality’ in 2002.

In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: ‘from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb.’

‘[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,’ Wu added in the trashed tweet.

The X account ‘I work with my word’ replied to the original tweet, calling it ‘pretty racist,’ and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained.

Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was ‘full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them.’ 

In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will ‘meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why.’

After Wu’s original tweet, fellow former Biden advisor Symone Sanders Townsend wrote on X that Democrats ‘going on the record or on background to call Karine ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ have crossed a line.’ ‘You can have a valid criticism about how she did the job, but let’s not walk down the road of disrespect,’ Sanders Townsend said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006.

The former Biden advisor was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York’s lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission.

Jean-Pierre on Wednesday announced that she left the Democratic Party and has become an independent while revealing her upcoming book: ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden’s orbit besides Wu, including one who said, ‘I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings.’

‘At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,’ Jean-Pierre said of her new independent streak.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Following news that two Chinese nationals were charged with allegedly smuggling a ‘dangerous biological pathogen’ into the United States to study at a U.S. university, Fox News Digital spoke to an expert on China who said the arrests should be a wake-up call to the country. 

‘I was entirely unsurprised, which is a sad commentary, but it speaks to the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP wants to kill Americans,’ Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute focusing on U.S. and China relations, told Fox News Digital after FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrests of the two Chinese nationals. 

‘Look at what they’ve done with smuggling fentanyl precursors into our country to kill Americans, look at the effects of them failing to stop the spread of COVID-19,’ Sobolik said. ‘Dead Americans. The fact that they want to target Americans here within the United States with pathogens and with bioweapons. This is the Chinese Communist Party. This is what they do. They’re in a cold war with the United States. They want to become the most powerful nation in the world and they wanna make the world safe for their tyranny and unsafe for freedom. And they’re coming for us here at home.’

The couple are accused of smuggling a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which scientific literature classifies as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon,’ according to the Justice Department. Federal prosecutors note that the noxious fungus causes ‘head blight,’ a disease of wheat, barley, maize, and rice, and ‘is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year.’ 

The Justice Department also says fusarium graminearum’s toxins cause vomiting, liver damage, and ‘reproductive defects in humans and livestock.’ 

According to the criminal complaint, one of the accused allegedly received Chinese government funding for her work on the pathogen in China. 

The couple are accused of bringing the pathogen into the U.S. to study at a University of Michigan laboratory, which raises more concerns about Chinese nationals infiltrating American universities.

Last month, a bombshell report out of Stanford University shed light on the influence of spies from the Chinese Communist Party that the student newspaper says have likely infiltrated the prestigious institution and other universities nationwide to gather intelligence.

‘American higher education is addicted to the Chinese Communist Party,’ Sobolik told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s addicted to easy money that has come from Beijing for decades. It’s addicted to international students that pay full tuition, many of which are then coerced and pressured by the Chinese embassy and consulates and other networks to spy for the party and report back.’

‘American universities need to finally open their eyes and stop being willfully blind to the threat of the CCP. They’re vectors for intelligence gathering. They are vectors for these threats that target Americans on our own soil. That’s unacceptable. If sovereignty means anything, we need to be able to protect Americans within the borders of the United States. And universities cannot continue to be willing accomplices of the Chinese Communist Party.’

A Chinese embassy official said Wednesday he was unaware of the case involving two Chinese nationals charged with smuggling a ‘dangerous biological pathogen’ into the U.S. for university research.

‘I don’t know the specific situation, but I would like to emphasize that the Chinese government has always required overseas Chinese citizens to abide by local laws and regulations and will also resolutely safeguard their legitimate rights and interests,’ said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Embassy in the U.S.

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Charles Creitz contributed to this report

President Donald Trump maintained his belief that former President Joe Biden didn’t have ‘much of an idea what was going on’ when he served as president when asked Thursday to respond to Biden’s dismissal of an investigation into his administration’s use of an autopen. 

‘He was never for open borders. He was never for transgender for everybody. He was never for men playing in women’s sports. I mean, he changed,’ Trump said Thursday from the Oval Office during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. ‘I mean, all of these things that that changed so radically. I don’t think he had any idea… I said it during the debate and I say it now, he didn’t have much of an idea what was going on.’ 

‘Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president, and that is wrong,’ he added. ‘It’s illegal. It’s so bad, and it’s so disrespectful to our country.’ 

Trump sent a memo to the Department of Justice Wednesday directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden administration aides conspired to deceive the public about his mental state, and simultaneously used an autopen to sign key presidential actions. 

‘In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline and assert Article II authority,’ Trump wrote. ‘This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history. The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.’

Biden responded to the memo Wednesday evening, brushing it off as ‘ridiculous’ and a ‘distraction’ put forth by the GOP. 

‘Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,’ Biden said. ‘This is nothing more than a distraction by Donald Trump and congressional Republicans who are working to push disastrous legislation that would cut essential programs like Medicaid and raise costs on American families, all to pay for tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.’ 

Trump continued in his Thursday comments that the Biden administration’s use of an autopen is one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history, remarking that autopens are typically used to send mass amounts of letters – not for official presidential actions. 

‘I sign important documents. Usually, when they put documents in front of you, they’re important. Even if you’re signing ambassadorships or – and I consider that important, I think it’s inappropriate,’ Trump continued. ‘You have somebody that’s devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador. I think you really deserve that person deserves to get a real signature, not a, not an autopen signature.’ 

The president added that he can easily identify autopen signatures from genuine pen-to-paper signatures due to ‘two little pinholes from pulling the paper’ that are found on documents. 

‘I think it’s very disrespectful to people when they get an autopen signature,’ Trump said. ‘Autopens, to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country, and you want to get them back and, you know, people use autopens for that to send, a little signature at the bottom of a letter. We have thousands of them. We get thousands of letters a week, and it’s not possible to, you know, though I’d like to do it myself, but you can’t do it. That’s where autopens start and stop.’ 

Autopen signatures are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature.

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration’s use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.

The reports led to speculation that Biden aides had approved of executive orders and sweeping pardons, not the president. 

A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to restore millions of dollars in grant funding for AmeriCorps and to reemploy thousands of employees, ruling that the administration’s abrupt dismantling of the organization violated federal law. 

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman agreed to reinstate thousands of terminated AmeriCorps employees across 24 U.S. states and D.C., which sued the administration earlier this year over the steep cuts to the agency ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

She also ordered the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funding for AmeriCorps programs, which were also slashed by DOGE earlier this year.

Boardman sided with plaintiffs in ruling that the Trump administration likely violated administrative procedures by ordering the abrupt cancellations and terminations, without a proper notice or comment period. 

While the decision does not require the Trump administration to keep the jobs in place indefinitely, it does require it to provide adequate notice before doing so.

AmeriCorps, an agency created by Congress more than two decades ago, had an operating budget of roughly $1 billion prior to this year, when it found itself squarely in the crosshairs of DOGE, the agency previously headed up by Elon Musk and tasked with eliminating wasteful spending.

In granting the preliminary injunction Thursday, Boardman said the 24 states have adequately demonstrated they are likely to suffer ‘irreparable harm’ from the gutting of AmeriCorps, absent court intervention, and that the balance of equities ‘heavily favors’ plaintiffs seeking injunctive relief.

‘Any harm the defendants might face if the agency actions are enjoined pales in comparison to the concrete harms that the States and the communities served by AmeriCorps programs have suffered and will continue to suffer,’ she said in the ruling. 

The preliminary injunction comes after DOGE in April abruptly announced it would be putting roughly 85% of all AmeriCorps staffers on leave.

It also announced mass Reduction of Force, or RIF, for AmeriCorps staff, and sent notice that they were planning to cut $400 million in grants and other funding from the agency. 

In their lawsuit, attorneys general from the 24 U.S. states and D.C. urged the court to reverse the cuts and terminations across AmeriCorps, citing the risk of irreparable harm, as well as the administration’s failure to properly notify employees of their terminations. 

Plaintiffs alleged that the Trump administration and DOGE had acted beyond the scope of their authority in gutting AmeriCorps, an agency created by Congress, without proper notice. 

They also asked the judge to halt the cuts to roughly $557 million in congressionally approved funding.

Importantly, the judge said Thursday that the order only applies to the states that joined the lawsuit. 

The news was praised on social media by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who described it as a victory, noting: ‘Over 200,000 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers work hard every day to care for our communities.’

‘This ruling ensures their valuable work can continue,’ she said.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said the decision to halt the cuts to AmeriCorps will ‘help communities respond to natural disasters, support seniors and veterans, and keep our trails clean across Pennsylvania.’

Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s feud about the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ continued on Thursday when the tech billionaire responded to the president’s criticism in a post on X.

‘Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude,’ Musk wrote in a post responding to Trump’s remarks about him.

While speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that he was ‘very disappointed’ by Musk’s vocal criticisms of the bill. The president claimed that Musk knew what was in the bill and ‘had no problem’ with it until the EV incentives had to be cut.

‘I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it,’ Trump said. ‘All of a sudden, he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate.’

Musk pushed back on the president’s claim in another post on X and said that ‘this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!’

The Tesla founder has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration and Republicans over the last few days because of the legislation that the president has pushed. Musk has taken to calling it the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ and at one point advocated for a ‘Slim Beautiful Bill.’

Earlier on Thursday, Musk highlighted Trump’s old posts that seemingly align with the tech billionaire’s current positions and objections to the Big Beautiful Bill. 

Musk has also faced criticism from House Speaker Mike Johnson, who said on Wednesday that he was ‘surprised’ by the former DOGE leader’s objections to the legislation. The Republican lawmaker said that he and Musk, whom he considers a ‘friend,’ had a ‘great conversation’ about the bill on Monday. Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that Musk was ‘flat wrong’ about the legislation.

Meanwhile, there are several Republicans who have expressed solidarity with Musk, including Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. Additionally, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that Musk was right to be concerned that AMericans are ‘quickly becoming debt slaves.’

Now that the bill has passed the house, it’s up to the Senate to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline.

As criticism mounts from within Biden’s world against former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her new book, one ex-aide lambasted the now-Independent ombudswoman as ‘kinda dumb’ — a tweet he deleted but later stood by.

Timothy Wu, now a Columbia Law professor, was former President Joe Biden’s ‘architect’ of antitrust policy whose faculty bio claims he also coined the progressive term ‘net neutrality’ in 2002.

In a now-deleted tweet, Wu wrote: ‘from a [White House] staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb.’

‘[She had n]o interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,’ Wu added in the trashed tweet.

The X account ‘I work with my word’ replied to the original tweet, calling it ‘pretty racist,’ and the tweet was later deleted, but the reply remained.

Below the reply, Wu added a new line of commentary, saying the Biden White House was ‘full of genius-level Black women. [Jean-Pierre] was not one of them.’ 

In response to another X user asking Wu whether Trump White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt understands executive policy, the professor said a good ombudsperson will ‘meet with policy staff and try and understand what the administration is doing and why.’

After Wu’s original tweet, fellow former Biden adviser Symone Sanders Townsend wrote on X that Democrats ‘going on the record or on background to call Karine ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ have crossed a line.’ ‘You can have a valid criticism about how she did the job, but let’s not walk down the road of disrespect,’ Sanders Townsend said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Wu via his Columbia faculty office, where he has taught since 2006.

The former Biden adviser was also a Democratic primary candidate for New York’s lieutenant governorship in 2014, and also worked in the Obama administration and at the Federal Trade Commission.

Jean-Pierre announced Wednesday that she left the Democratic Party and has become an Independent while revealing her upcoming book: ‘Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines.’

She was mocked and criticized by several people in Biden’s orbit besides Wu, including one who said, ‘I wouldn’t ignore what Karine has to say, but it’s not an account in which much weight will be invested — just like her briefings.’

‘At noon on that day [that Biden left office], I became a private citizen who, like all Americans and many of our allies around the world, had to contend with what was to come next for our country. I determined that the danger we face as a country requires freeing ourselves of boxes. We need to be willing to exercise the ability to think creatively and plan strategically,’ Jean-Pierre said of her new Independent streak.

Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth kicked off Pride month this year with a shot across the bow of wokeness, as his plan to rechristen a Navy ship honoring gay rights icon Harvey Milk has emerged.

Milk was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978, and in that same year he was gunned down, leaving him a legacy as a martyr to the cause of gay liberation.

Let’s be clear about two things. First, Hegseth is absolutely trolling the woke left with this move and its timing. Secondly, he is absolutely right to do so, because a navy vessel has nothing to do with men having sex with each other and that is the only thing painting ‘Harvey Milk’ on the side of the ship implies.

Harvey Milk is not a hero to everyone in the United States. One can wholeheartedly support equal rights without celebrating homosexuality, and asking naval officers and civilians to serve on the USNS Harvey Milk does just that.

The ship, which transports oil, isn’t named after Milk, who happened to be gay; it’s named after Milk because he was gay, and Hegseth is correct that this is wildly inappropriate. 

Why not the USNS Liberace? Think of the boon it would be to the domestic chandelier industry.

Progressives seem deeply confused these days about why they don’t appeal to young men, and I would like to submit that the USNS Harvey Milk is a pretty good example of why. 

You take some 18-year-old guy, maybe he watched ‘Top Gun Maverick’ a few too many times and wants to be a warfighter, then you point and say, there’s your ship, it celebrates dudes making out with dudes.

Let’s face it, most sailors in the Navy do not want to be sitting in a diner in 25 years wearing a ballcap that proudly states they served on the ‘Harvey Milk,’ and that’s OK.

Predictably, former House Speaker and San Francisco’s own Rep. Nancy Pelosi decried the decision to rename the ship, calling it, ‘a shameful vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers…’

Is there an element of revenge in Hegseth’s action? There might be, because for decades now Americans have been forced to swallow the bizarre notion that who you have sex with is something to be proud of, as if we should all applaud.

For decades now, every June at ballgames and in TV ads, on municipal buildings and subway trains the rainbow flag has been everywhere, demanding your consent to celebrate gayness.

In recent years, as the teal of the trans flag has bled into the rainbow, we have once again been told that we must accept an absurd lie that men can become women, as if this was just some a priori truth.

Not this time, and as America rejects the trans movement, it is also realizing that bending over backwards every June to cheer on homosexuality makes no sense in a society where gay people face little to no discrimination.

A warship has one purpose, to help to destroy our enemies. Everything about the vessel should be directed towards that goal, including the name emblazoned on it. ‘Harvey Milk’ fails that test.

Throughout the first quarter of the 21st Century, progressives have made enormous gains in American society, and they have generally assumed that once their new norms are established, they cannot be undone.

Hegseth, as he has done before by restoring the names of army bases changed by progressives, is showing that we can indeed go back. History is not a one-way ratchet that only turns left.

Progressives are firmly convinced that everything is an occasion for activism, that their preferred lifestyle and worldview should be threaded into every aspect of our lives. This is wrongheaded in general, but especially so in regard to warfare.

Hegseth is popular with soldiers and vets alike because he understands that his primary job is to kill the enemy while keeping his guys alive. It’s not to promote gay rights, it’s not to foster social justice, it is to destroy.

By all means, name a community center or a clinic after Harvey Milk, but not a warship. Those willing to put their lives on the line aboard deserve better.

There is mounting evidence that Joe Biden was president in name only during much of his time in office. In his stead, a cabal of top White House staffers appears to have secretly operated a de facto presidency, making crucial decisions without a shred of constitutional authority.  

If proven true, it would call into question the validity of pardons and executive orders issued under his name but without his knowledge or consent. For this reason, it is imperative that Biden’s closest advisers answer questions under oath and others in his orbit be forced to disclose what they knew or observed.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into the pardons, commutations and clemencies granted in the waning days of Biden’s presidency, including preemptive pardons gifted to a half dozen members of his own family along with his shifty son, Hunter Biden. The probe focuses on whether the elder Biden was competent and whether others were taking advantage of his seemingly diminished mental state.  

At the same time, the House Oversight Committee is intensifying its own inquiry into the alleged ‘cover-up’ of Biden’s cognitive decline. Of particular interest in both investigations is ‘the potential unauthorized use of autopen’ for many executive actions, said Oversight Chairman James Comer.

Did rogue actors commandeer the device from a clueless Biden to advance their own political and personal agendas? Was national security jeopardized in the process? Let’s call it, ‘The Case of the Runaway Autopen.’ Solving it won’t be easy, given Washington’s proclivity for concealment, deception, obstruction and lies.       

Comer has requested that five former Biden aides, including his physician Kevin O’Connor, sit down for transcribed interviews.  If they resist, subpoenas will be issued. While Biden might assert Executive Privilege to keep them mum, President Trump could override the privilege just as Biden did to Trump after his first term. Assuming he is sentient, Joe might now wish he had not done so.  

The issue of whether pardons and executive orders could be invalidated is not as simple as some legal experts have opined. They assert, for example, that nothing can be done because there is no constitutional mechanism to revoke or overturn pardons once granted. That is only half true.

There is a well-established legal basis for annulling documents. It is founded in common law.  It is called fraud. Under statutory law, it is known as forgery. (See 18 USC 471 and 495). Each are crimes that would render the signed instruments inoperative and unenforceable.    

Just ask the U.S. Supreme Court, which long ago declared unanimously, ‘There is no question of the general doctrine that fraud vitiates the most solemn contracts, documents, and even judgments.’ (United States v. Throckmorton, 98 US 61, (1878))  There exists no exception for presidential documents.  

But let’s back up.

An autopen is a mechanical device that activates a robotic arm with a pen attached. It imitates a person’s signature, although it is identifiable by a consistent impression on the paper. Past presidents have utilized the autopen for a variety of documents. It is perfectly legal but with an important caveat —there must be consent by the purported ‘signator.’ In this case, that’s Biden.     

If the 46th president never consented or, worse, had no knowledge of the autopen’s use for any given document bearing his signature, it could be deemed null and void under law. If Biden was not even competent or mentally fit to provide knowing consent, the result is the same. 

Two decades ago, the Justice Department formally approved presidential deployment of the autopen, but only if a President personally ‘directs’ a subordinate to affix his signature to a specified document. However, the DOJ cautioned that the chief executive may never ‘delegate’ the actual decision to approve and sign any document with the device. That right rests exclusively with a president.   

The sheer volume of suspected Biden autopen usage merits closer scrutiny. The growing number of descriptive accounts of his worsening mental infirmities and incoherence magnifies the need for an intensive investigation. 

If his aides deliberately obscured their boss’s health problems, did they also circumvent his permission for orders issued under his name? Did they act on their own because they knew Biden was not cognizant or otherwise feared his confused response? Americans deserve honest answers. But expecting to get them from highly secretive political operatives is fanciful at best.

House Speaker Mike Johnson recently recounted his first private meeting with Biden last year during which the President had no idea that he signed an executive order weeks earlier pausing the exports of liquified natural gas. When Johnson pressed him, a stunned Biden insisted, ‘I didn’t do that!’ The speaker patiently explained that he did and a copy could be retrieved, yet the President insisted, ‘No, I didn’t do that.’  

‘He genuinely did not know what he had signed,’ said Johnson later. ‘And I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble —who is running the country?’ Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know.’  

It is possible that the executive order was signed by autopen without the consent or knowledge of the president. In the alternative, did Biden sign something that he was incapable of understanding? Perhaps his aides willfully misrepresented its contents. Or maybe Biden was so mentally impaired that he couldn’t remember what he had for breakfast, much less having signed an export ban that cratered American GDP by upwards of $200 billion.

It is beyond curious that the preemptive pardons handed out like Halloween candy to Dr. Anthony Fauci, members of the J-6 committee and six of Biden’s immediate relatives all bear the unique marks of an autopen. By contrast, Hunter Biden’s pardon almost certainly resembles his father’s genuine and shaky signature. Why the difference? Did Biden verily approve or direct the group pardons? Or did someone command the autopen without assent?

There is substantial and compelling evidence that Biden was sliding further and further into mental decay as his presidency progressed. Americans are right to wonder just who was running the country. Biden himself seemed to answer the question during several of his rare public outings.  

In one memorable appearance he said, ‘Sorry, but I’ll get in trouble with my staff if I don’t do this the right way.’  In another, a confused Biden turned to staffers and asked, ‘Am I allowed to take questions? Where’s my staff?’ On a still another occasion he mumbled with regret, ‘I thought when I got to be President, I’d get to do things I wanted to do, but my staff tells me what I can’t do.’ These are stunning confessionals.   

There is no need to recite the myriad of instances where Americans witnessed a faltering and enfeebled Biden wandering around a stage lost and bewildered. He was not ‘compos mentis.’ His mental faculties dwindled. His ability to think and communicate vanished. It all came crashing down on the night of June 27, 2024. The disastrous presidential debate reinforced the truth of his withering condition.     

It is increasingly apparent that a coterie of unelected White House aides who connived to hide Biden’s declining state were the ones making vital decisions behind the scenes. They reportedly called themselves the ‘Politburo,’ a nod to the ruling committee of the communist party in the former Soviet Union. The symmetry is not coincidental; it is revealing. They maneuvered and manipulated in a culture of dishonesty.

With Biden mentally incapable of fully performing the demanding duties of his high office, it seems that others took it upon themselves to arrogate his authority. This would constitute a shameful abuse of power that contravenes our constitutional framework. It merits comprehensive investigations by both Congress and the Department of Justice.

In responding to the probes, Biden issued a statement on Wednesday insisting, ‘I made the decisions about pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,’ adding that ‘any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.’ The denial is no surprise. But is it more of the same pretense and cover-up that came to define his presidency? Did Joe even write that statement?

Almost five years ago in my August 2020 podcast, I warned that if Joe Biden was elected, he would become a ‘Marionette President’ controlled by unscrupulous White House puppeteers making critical decisions for the nation. I wasn’t prescient, only paying attention to what was plainly visible.

What is so confounding —and equally alarming— is how long the deceitful charade lasted. As it slowly unravels, we are reminded that calculating lies rarely endure the engine of truth.

Elon Musk’s diatribe against President Donald Trump’s ‘one big, beautiful bill’ continued Wednesday as Senate Republicans embarked on their own course to tweak and reshape the gargantuan legislative package.

The former head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rehashed a similar talking point from his takedown of a previous House GOP government funding bill in December, which, after his input, was gutted and reworked.

The nation’s debt sits at over $36 trillion, according to FOX Business’ National Debt Tracker.

‘Call your Senator, Call your Congressman,’ Musk said among a flurry of posts on X. ‘Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.’

Though Musk’s continued tirade against the bill sent House Republicans into a tizzy, on the other side of the Capitol, senators were busy hashing out the finer points of the legislation.

This time around, Musk, who just ended his four-month tenure as a special government employee rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, may not have the same level of impact, given that senators want their chance to shape the bill.

‘I mean, if Elon was going to give me advice on how to get to the moon, I’d listen,’ said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. ‘You know, if he was going to give me advice on how to raise several billion dollars from other billionaires, I’d listen.’

‘But… he doesn’t govern, you know, and so, to be honest, Elon, he’s not that big a factor,’ he continued. ‘I know he’s a glamorous sort of celebrity, but he’s not a big factor.’

Cramer’s comments came after Senate Republicans heard from the chairs of the Senate Banking, Armed Services and Commerce committees on how they would approach their respective portions of the megabill in a closed-door meeting.

After that meeting, members of the Senate Finance Committee, which will handle the tax portion of the package, met with Trump later to shore up support for the tax package.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R.-Kan., said that the president’s main message during the meeting was to ‘pass the damn bill’ with as few changes as possible. When asked if Trump seemed concerned about Musk’s impact on the bill’s fate, the lawmaker said ‘absolutely not.’  

‘It was almost laugh— more of a laughing conversation for 30 seconds,’ he said. ‘It was very much in jest and laughing, and I think he said something positive about Elon, appreciating what he did for the country.’

Congressional Republicans intend to use the budget reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster, meaning they do not need Senate Democrats to pass the package. However, they do need at least 51 Senate Republicans to get on board.

The Senate’s shot at tinkering with the reconciliation package comes after months of deliberations and negotiations in the House that culminated in a package that Trump has thrown his full support behind.

Some lawmakers want higher spending cuts to the tune of $2 trillion, others want a full rollback to pre-pandemic spending. Then there are pockets of resistance solidifying around cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax credit provisions baked into the House’s offering.

Among the green energy provisions on the chopping block are electric vehicle tax credits. Speculation has swirled that their proposed demise could be the driving force, in part, behind Musk’s anger toward the bill.

‘Any senator with a brain sees Elon’s comments for what they are, a CEO worried about losing business,’ a Senate Republican source told Fox News Digital. ‘The only reason he’s causing a fuss is because we’re getting rid of pork that benefits his electric car company.’

Musk had been pushing for deeper spending cuts until his new demand that the bill be nuked. Currently, the House GOP’s offering sets a goal of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade that, coupled with expected growth, would help offset the roughly $4 trillion price tag of making the president’s first-term tax cuts permanent.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, engaged with some of Musk’s posts on Tuesday and appeared to agree with the tech billionaire’s position that the bill had to go further to cut spending.

‘I think most of what he’s saying is he would like it to do more and be more aggressive to try to address the debt and deficit problem,’ Lee said.

However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found in its latest report that the bill would only cut $1.3 trillion, reduce revenues by roughly $3.7 trillion and add in the neighborhood of $2.4 trillion to the deficit.

Some lawmakers who had found common ground with Musk’s earlier anger with the ‘big, beautiful bill’ still found a common ally on the second day of his rant.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., reiterated to Fox News Digital that he shared Musk’s ‘skepticism’ of the bill. He would not say whether he agreed that congressional Republicans should start from scratch, but noted that his main objection to the bill was a plan to increase the nation’s debt limit by $5 trillion.

‘My main goal is to say, take the debt ceiling and make it a separate vote, and then vote on a separate bill, and then there’s still a need for less spending,’ he said. ‘But I would be very open to supporting the bill if we had more spending cuts and the debt ceiling was a separate vote.’