Ben Carson: Older presidents need annual mental tests
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The Hill
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- The Hill
Could a Congressional stock trading ban become law this year?
It's back. The conversation around a potential congressional stock trading ban reignited Wednesday. A Senate committee advanced a measure, which President Trump later warned was a trap set by Democrats. When first asked about the measure, the president said he needed to see the details, but also called for an investigation into Nancy Pelosi. NewsNation's Blake Burman spoke with Rep Seth Magaziner (D-RI), who has bipartisan legislation addressing this issue.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
Ex-Biden ‘Politburo' aide Steve Ricchetti tells Oversight panel former prez was ‘fully capable,' no one usurped his powers
WASHINGTON — Steve Ricchetti, an ex-top aide to former President Joe Biden and member of his purported 'Politburo,' testified before the House Oversight Committee that his old boss was 'fully capable' of discharging his duties and that no one 'usurped' his executive powers. Ricchetti, 68, the former counselor to the president and staunch Biden fan, testified before the GOP-led panel for about eight and a half hours Wednesday as part of its probe into the 46th president's mental acuity and use of autopen. 'Let me be clear: At all times during his presidency, I believed that President Biden was fully capable of exercising his Presidential duties and responsibilities, and that he did so,' Ricchetti testified during his opening statement, per multiple reports. 'Neither I, nor anyone else, usurped President Biden's constitutional duties.' Advertisement 'I firmly believe that at all times during my four years in the White House, President Biden was fulfilling his constitutional duties. Did he stumble? Occasionally. Make mistakes? Get up on the wrong side of the bed? He did – we all did.' 3 Steve Ricchetti voluntarily cooperated with the GOP-led House Oversight Committee and sat for hours of testimony Wednesday. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Ricchetti is now the seventh Biden confidant to come before the panel and claims he did so voluntarily to combat the 'false narrative that President Biden was mentally unable to perform his Constitutional duties.' Advertisement The 68-year-old has long been in Democratic politics, having worked on Biden's campaign, served as his chief of staff during the latter half of his vice presidency, and as the White House deputy chief of staff for operations in the Clinton administration. For four years, Ricchetti played a critical role in shepherding Biden's legislative agenda. In the book 'Original Sin,' Ricchetti was described as one of five members in Biden's core inner circle, dubbed the 'Politburo' and described as the 'ultimate decision-makers' surrounding the 46th president. At one point, Ricchetti personally rang up a reporter to push back against claims from multiple sources about Biden's condition, according to the book. Advertisement 3 Former President Joe Biden has shrugged off concerns about his age and use of autopen. AP He also railed against actor George Clooney in the wake of the actor's stunning op-ed against Biden last July. 'Ricchetti read it and was furious. Internally, he threatened to shut Clooney down—some of his colleagues thought he sounded like a mob boss,' authors Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper recounted. Back in May, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) began blasting out requests to former Biden aides to assist in a probe of the former president's use of autopen to sign key documents and whether they helped participate in a 'cover-up' of his mental cognition. Advertisement Ricchetti was summoned for testimony last month. Behind closed doors on Wednesday, Ricchetti took aim at the GOP-led Oversight panel, accusing it of participating in a 'concerted effort by the Administration and its Congressional allies to diminish the record of the former President.' 'I am not aware of any effort to use the autopen on important documents without the President's knowledge and consent,' Ricchetti added in his opening statement. 'I am not aware of any effort to keep important information from the President.' 'Senior White House staff kept the President fully informed so that he could provide direction and make all important decisions.' Biden, for his part, declared in a statement provided by his office that 'I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations.' 'Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false.' 3 Steve Ricchetti was widely seen as being part of former President Joe Biden's innermost circle during his administration. AFP via Getty Images Asked about Ricchetti's testimony, Comer indicated that the Biden official was not very forthcoming. Advertisement 'He didn't tell us a whole lot of what you wouldn't expect,' the Kentucky Republican told Fox News 'Ingraham Angle' host Laura Ingraham. 'His testimony wasn't consistent with others who have actually testified,' Comer added, noting that about half the former White House officials the committee has brought in have asserted their Fifth Amendment rights. 'All their testimony is inconsistent,' Comer continued. 'So we're going to put the pieces together, and we're going to release all the transcripts, and we're going to issue a report, and hopefully we'll be able to determine whether or not Joe Biden had any idea who was using the autopen and what they were using it for.' The Trump administration has opened multiple probes into Biden's use of autopen that dovetail with the Oversight Committee's work. Advertisement Other aides to appear before the powerful investigative panel, including former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain; Jill Biden's powerful former chief of staff Anthony Bernal; former presidential physician Dr. Kevin O'Connor; Ashley Williams, former special assistant to the president and deputy director of Oval Office Operations; and Neera Tanden, the former White House director of the Domestic Policy Council. Several of the Biden aides have pleaded the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions from the Oversight Committee. The powerful investigatory panel is slated to hear from former senior adviser Mike Donilon on Thursday.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Ukraine: Scenes from the ground
Robert Sherman is a White House correspondent for NewsNation. He is reporting from Ukraine. Subscribe to his newsletter: Frontlines with Robert Sherman here. (NewsNation) — A quick flip through my passport and short glance up at me. The border guard's eyes met mine for hardly more than a moment. Then. Thump. The sound of a stamp imprinting into the thin page serves as the wordless welcome back into Ukraine. The crossing from Poland was complete, and we were off. Greetings from war-torn Ukraine, where I will be for the next few weeks. It's my first time back here since the start of the war in 2022. VIDEO: Back in Ukraine Some things are eerily similar, others strikingly different. For example, as we passed through Lutsk just over the border, sirens started to blare. I had just come from Israel during the so-called 12-Day War where Israelis were taking the risks quite seriously. Those 12 days, we ran into the bunkers countless times, joined by civilians holding their loved ones tightly as tears streamed down their cheeks, fearing the lethality of Iran's capabilities. Here in Lutsk? No such fear. The sirens didn't stop the young couple we saw from taking photos outside the castle in town. Nobody ran for shelter. While alerts went off, they encompassed a wide region and the average Ukrainian there (in this case rightly) believed the threat wasn't coming their way. That's different than the early days of the war. I remember being here when places like Lutsk, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk would be routinely targeted, especially sensitive sites like the airports. So, that's an evident change. People in Western Ukraine, at face value, feel largely safe as life attempts to carry on in the new normal. But tonight, our team is heading to Kyiv, which we'll be using as our main base of operations. The capital has been quiet the last few evenings, but nevertheless every night people barricade themselves underground in the subway stations. That's a different new normal than in Lutsk. Something that hasn't changed? The checkpoints we encounter every few miles along the highway. The pressure was on in the early days to root out and identify Russian spies and saboteurs. That objective remains the same, roughly three and a half years intothe war. VIDEO: What's New, What's the Same? All of next week, we will have some exclusive reporting on NewsNation that we'll be sharing with you across our platforms. We'll be showing you a different side of the war than you've seen in the past — and why American officials are looking on anxiously as war changes rapidly before our eyes. But of course, there's the elephant in the room: There's a new president in the White House. There are new foreign policy aims. And there is a renewed push to bring this war to an end. Just this week, President Trump announced he is imposing a 'new deadline' on Russia to make progress towards peace. 'I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today,' the president said to reporters in Scotland on Monday. 'There's no reason in waiting. It's 50 days, I want to be generous, but we just don't see any progress being made.' That would make the deadline sometime around August 7-9, based upon the president's words. Will Russia comply? Do Ukrainians believe peace is possible? How are things different with the 47th president sitting in the Oval Office? All questions we hope to answer. But I'd like to open this up to you all as well. What questions do you have about Ukraine? From the geopolitics to the day to day, I'd like to know where your curiosity is guiding you. When I was 25 years old, I found myself on a plane to Europe the day Russia invaded. That experience changed me forever. I documented many of those stories in my upcoming book, 'Lessons from the Front,' which you can pre-order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Bloomsbury. I'm interested to find out what else is new and what has changed since my last time here in Ukraine. If you have a question or observation, please write to me at rsherman@ or through any of my social media channels such as Facebook, X, Instagram or TikTok. More to come soon.
