Joe Biden

'Glass houses': Political panel points to Trump's projection of Biden's 'confusion'

Former President Donald Trump has spent the better part of the past few years claiming that President Joe Biden is in some sort of cognitive decline and that he's too old to be president. Trump is just a few years younger than Biden.

But now an MSNBC panel agreed it may have been a projection the whole time.

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U.S. House Republicans unveil bill to fund Israel by cutting IRS budget

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U.S. House of Representatives Republicans on Monday introduced a plan to provide $14.3 billion in aid to Israel by cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, setting up a showdown with Democrats who control the Senate.

In one of the first major policy actions under new House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans unveiled a standalone supplemental spending bill only for Israel, despite Democratic President Joe Biden's request for a $106 billion package that would include aid for Israel, Ukraine and border security.

Republicans plot to butcher the IRS budget to pay for aid to Israel

If Republicans get their way to support interests abroad — the IRS budget will take a hit worth billions of dollars.

On Monday, the House Rules Committee proposed a $14 billion package to help bolster Israel's military as it continues warring with Hamas, and the monies would be slashed from the Internal Revenue Service to stop its efforts to probe deep-pocketed tax cheats, according to the Washington Post.

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Trump has 'far more to lose' as 'unforced gaffes' indicate mental decline: report

Plans by the Republican Party to make President Joe Biden's age a central theme of the 2024 presidential campaign could be heading for a speedbump as presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump stumbles through speeches — raising questions about his mental decline.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday, the panel raised concern after watching clips of the former president mistaking where he was as he gave a speech, while calling a foreign leader a great friend and then linking him to the wrong country.

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders has lowest approval rating of any Arkansas governor in 20 years

Arkansas Republican Governor and former Trump White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has just a 48% approval rating among her constituents in a new poll, making her the state's least popular governor over the last two decades.

Respondents of the 25th annual Arkansas Poll — which queries residents on their approval of both elected officials and major issues like the economy, public education, and health — notably registered their dissatisfaction with Sanders' administration while she's in the midst of a corruption probe. CBS affiliate THV 11 reported that Sanders' approval rating among Arkansans is far below that of former Arkansas governors Asa Hutchinson, Mike Beebe, and her father, Mike Huckabee, who each polled at 57%, 70%, and 66%, respectively, in the first years of their administrations.

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Kevin McCarthy faces primary challenge from Trump-loving MAGA Republican

As if losing his speakership weren't bad enough, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) now faces the prospect of being booted out of Congress all together.

Politico reports that Trump-loving MAGA Republican David Giglio is launching a primary challenge against McCarthy, all while heaping praise on the rebellious eight Republicans who voted to remove the Californian Rep. as speaker.

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Trump launches new attacks on 'true hater' judge after she reinstates gag order

Donald Trump started off the day with a series of posts blaming President Joe Biden for his legal woes and attacking a federal judge overseeing his prosecution in the election subversion case.

District Judge Tanya Chutkan reinstated a gag order Sunday against the former president that prohibits him from publicly targeting court personnel, potential witnesses or the special counsel’s team, but hours later Trump lashed out at her and threatened to prosecute Biden if he wins re-election, and he started off Monday with social media posts on the same theme.

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Mike Johnson deeply linked to 'dangerous, anti-democratic' extremists: scholar

Newly elected House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may come across as “mild-mannered,” “soft-spoken,” but don't be fooled – he has deep and abiding ties to some of the most anti-democratic extremists in U.S. politics, according to one scholar on American religion.

The back-bench Louisiana Republican managed to take over the gavel from ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) following three weeks of chaos, and his lawyerly efforts to help Donald Trump overturn his election loss in 2020 flow from his ties to a broad nondenominational network of religious extremists working to end American democracy, wrote expert Matthew D. Taylor in a new column for The Bulwark.

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'Erratic' Trump weekend comments set off alarms his legal problems are getting to him

Early Monday the "Morning Joe" panel was alternately amused and concerned by comments Donald Trump made over the weekend in multiple speeches that seem to indicate he is in mental decline.

After showing clips of the former president seemingly not knowing whether he was in Iowa or South Dakota --mistaking Sioux City for Sioux Falls -- and making misstatements about Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom he called a close friend, the panel speculated the pressures of multiple criminal trials are finally getting to him.

"I'm just speaking a fact, I'm not trying to be -- I'll be accused of being nasty -- but this is just the truth. If this was Joe Biden, what networks would be on a loop right now playing it and then talking about perhaps having a doctor on about his mental acuity?" co-host Mika Brzezinski offered. "There is such a disconnect in reality here in terms of the two frontrunners for president."

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

"Look, so we have two candidates running for president who are likely to be the nominees of both the parties, who are older than most Americans are comfortable with," Morning Joe contributor Katty Kay replied. "Joe Biden gets an awful lot of attention for his age and a lot of scrutiny, and it is clearly damaging him in the polls which is why he now has a primary challenger which he probably wouldn't if it weren't for the age question. It's a real concern."

"Donald Trump, over the last month or so, has shown, he too, is a man who is nearing 80," she continued. "Maybe that is his age that is coming into play. At the moment it doesn't seem to be impacting him with his supporters, but age has a way of -- we've seen this, Mika, -- you and me, with our parents, right? It catches up on them."

"Let's see how the stress of a campaign, the stress of multiple, very intense legal suits against him affects his health and mental acuity and stamina over the course of the next year," Kay added. "Just because it is not having an impact on him in the polls at the moment doesn't mean it won't in a year, a year out, a year more of trials, and a year more of age. At that age, it makes a difference."

Panelist Johnathan Lemire chimed in, "To Katty's point, both [Trump and Biden] 77 and above. Yes, polls suggest the age doesn't seem to hurt Trump as much as it hurts Biden, but maybe next year, that does change."

"We have seen a number of his erratic statements, behavior, his mistakes --Trump, that is -- it's really picked up in recent weeks," he elaborated. "Those close to him suggest it is the pressure of the trials. The Biden campaign blasted the clip out of him mixing up the Sioux City and Sioux Falls thing, on Twitter/X. This is not the man you want at the helm."

Watch below or at the link.

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Selling hate, vulgarity and violence: How Trump and MAGA overran a quaint Midwest festival

MANSFIELD, Ind. — The name Covered Bridge Festival evokes images of artisans selling their wares under the country sun and live music delighting passersby, all while celebrating quaint structures built more than a century ago to protect the wooden crossing from the weather.

The unsuspecting, however, encounter something much different at this west-central Indiana town, one of several sites for the decades-old event in Parke County.

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Rudy Giuliani nearly targeted by New York AG over Ukraine scheme: report

New York attorney general Letitia James considered investigating Rudy Giuliani years ago over his efforts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine.

The Manhattan district attorney's office received emails last week revealing internal discussions at the attorney general's office in 2020 about the potential investigation, although the idea was quickly shot down, an agency official familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.

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'The same can happen to you': Trump threatens Biden in middle-of-the-night rant

As Donald Trump faces another week of court hearings in both his financial fraud trial in Manhattan and in Florida related to charges of obstruction of justice, he fired off a warning at President Joe Biden long after midnight where he promised retribution should he win reelection in 2024.

This week his children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump will be appearing in the courtroom of Judge Arthur Engoron where they will testify in their own defense after being charged -- with the exception of Ivanka -- in New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million civil suit.

Those worries, as well as two other criminal trials on tap in two other jurisdictions, appear to have triggered the former president to lash out at Biden, blaming him for his legal woes.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

In the middle of the night, he warned Biden he could find himself in the same boat.

"Why didn’t Crooked Joe Biden tell his Injustice Department to file the lawsuits and Indictments against me 3 years ago, instead of right in the middle of my campaign for President? You’re setting a BAD precedent for yourself, Joe. The same can happen to you," he wrote on Truth Social.

He then added, "These Third World Biden Indictments, which should never have been filed, would have been tried and over with years ago. My SleazeBag Opponent shouldn’t be able to do this during my campaign, OR BEFORE THE ELECTION!"

Ex-prosecutor: How long before Donald Trump violates the federal gag order?

Donald Trump used his First Amendment rights to claim he was having his First Amendment rights violated by President Joe Biden's administration.

In one of his many rants on social media Sunday, Trump claimed, The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech. NOT CONSTITUTIONAL!"

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