White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will address the briefing room Tuesday for the first time since President Biden’s rocky debate performance. 

In the aftermath of Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, Jean-Pierre did hold a press gaggle aboard Air Force One while en route to Queens, New York, on Friday, but Tuesday will be the first time she returns to the White House briefing room to field questions on camera. Biden returned to the White House Monday night after gathering with family at Camp David in Maryland over the weekend. 

During the press gaggle with Jean-Pierre, campaign communications director Michael Tyler referenced Biden’s remarks at a Friday post-debate rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Reading from a teleprompter and addressing a live audience, in contrast with the debate, the president told cheering supporters, ‘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: I know how to tell the truth.’ 

‘Obviously, I think the president said himself he’s not as good as a debater as he used to be. He doesn’t walk or talk as smoothly as he used to. But he knows how to fight like hell. And I think he showed that today in North Carolina,’ Tyler said. ‘And so, that’s what the American people are going to continue to see day in and day out for the remainder of this campaign: a president in Joe Biden who understands he’s never going to stop fighting for the American people, and he’s never going to stop contrasting that against Donald Trump, who every single day is clearly fighting for himself. 

‘So, I think the President is honest about his own performance. But as far as what last night’s debate actually provided for the American people, it — it crystallized the threat — it begins to crystallize the threat that Donald Trump poses,’ he added. 

After a string of campaign events in New York and New Jersey on Saturday, first lady Jill Biden and the president’s children and grandchildren gathered at Camp David reportedly to encourage the president to stay in the race despite uproar within the Democratic Party questioning whether the current commander-in-chief is a viable candidate to nominate for a second term. 

Reports said Biden’s family on Sunday blamed campaign staffers, arguing they did not adequately prepare the president for the CNN debate against former President Trump. 

According to a new report by Politico on Tuesday, a senior administration official claimed that some of President Biden’s top officials are ‘scared s—less’ of displeasing him in daily briefings. 

‘It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’’ a senior administration official told Politico on background. ‘It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared [s—less] of him.’

The official told Politico that Biden is unwilling to take advice from outside his small inner circle, becoming increasingly isolated from wider public opinion and input.

‘He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it,’ the official reportedly told Politico.

White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates pushed back on the Politico report’s claim that staff are afraid of the president, telling Fox News Digital, ‘That’s simply not who [Biden] is.’ 

Jeane-Pierre’s White House press briefing is scheduled to start Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. ET.

Fox News’ Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.

Ralph Nader, the Green Party’s presidential nominee in 2000, urged Judge Juan Merchan to sentence former President Trump to prison, calling the judge the ‘last best hope’ to preserve the republic.

On Monday, Nader shared a link to the letter on X, which is his plea to the judge on why a prison sentence is imperative.

‘In light of the Supreme Court blocking all avenues of accountability for Trump with its decision in Trump v. United States, Judge Merchan is the last best hope to preserve the Republic from its overthrow by Donald Trump,’ Nader posted.

The letter, dated June 28, 2024, was signed by both Nader and attorney Bruce Fein. It starts out by pointing to July 11, 2024, and stressing its importance in terms of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.

‘The future of the United States will be materially influenced by your sentencing Donald J. Trump,’ the two attorneys wrote. ‘He was found guilty of 34 felonies under New York law and twice found guilty of violating your constitutionally irreproachable ‘gag order’ to protect trial participants from death threats, harassment, defamation, and stalking.’

Nader and Fein remind Merchan the law gives him the discretion to sentence Trump to up to four years in prison, based on the circumstances of the felonies, among other things, adding that the case for prison time is ‘open and shut based on the character of the offender alone.’

‘Mr. Trump threatens a counter-revolution against the American Revolution and the United States Constitution in favor of executive absolutism indistinguishable from French King Louis XIV,’ Nader and Fein wrote. ‘On July 23, 2019, Mr. Trump proclaimed, ‘Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.’ On December 4, 2022, Mr. Trump bugled that whenever he decrees that an election has been fraudulent, ‘termination of…the Constitution’ is justified.’

The two continued to plead their case to sentence Trump to prison, proclaiming to Merchan that Trump had not disowned threats of a civil war on social media by ‘MAGA ruffians’ after he was convicted of 34 felonies.

‘As to a hammer everything looks like a nail, to Mr. Trump every legal or political adversity is a corrupt witch hunt aiming at the destruction of America,’ Nader and Fein wrote.

They then turned their attention to Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming Trump ‘covets dictatorial powers’ like the Russian leader.

‘Your task is to ensure that the sentence matches the character of the offender, including his clear and present danger to the peaceful transfer of presidential power,’ Nader and Fein wrote. ‘Set a standard to which the wise and honest judge may repair with a jail term — at least a serious fraction of the 4-year statutory maximum.’

Nader and the Trump campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter.

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee was found guilty on all 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records in May. The six-week trial stemmed from charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. 

Trump on Monday moved to overturn his criminal conviction in the Manhattan case after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity for official acts committed while in office.

Trump’s sentencing date is set for July 11 – just four days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he is expected to be formally nominated as the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Maria Paronich contributed to this report.

It was just a bad night. You can’t judge a presidency by 90 minutes. It’s the inner circle’s fault for screwing up the debate prep. 

It’s the media’s fault for obsessing on the age issue. It’s the CNN moderators who failed to push back on Donald Trump’s falsehoods. It’s the Democratic Party’s fault for being a bunch of bed-wetters.

The blame-shifting has kicked into high gear as President Biden and his campaign try to minimize the damage from his disastrous debate performance and silence criticism that he is destined to lose the election.

The problem with all the finger-pointing is that 50 million people watched the president struggle to deliver any kind of coherent message or to challenge Trump’s attacks, at times completely losing his train of thought.

No one needed a bunch of pundits to analyze what they could see with their own eyes – a White House incumbent with a vacant stare and his mouth agape.

Now it’s true that the liberal media establishment has proclaimed that Biden should step aside in favor of a younger nominee. That includes the editorial boards of the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as prominent names like Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman, David Ignatius, Nick Kristof and David Remnick.

As for the impact, a post-debate CBS poll found that those who don’t believe Biden has the mental fitness to serve another term jumped from 65% to 72%. 

But Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon put out a memo saying: ‘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.’

Excuse me, this was the debate that Biden wanted, and it was carried out under the no-interruption rules that he demanded. With the Democratic Party in a state of panic and talk of the convention picking someone else, of course it’s going to be covered as a huge story.

Trump also got an assist yesterday from the Supreme Court, which ruled that he has absolute immunity for official acts – such as dealing with the Justice Department – while sending parts of the Jan. 6 indictment back to the trial court, which means more litigation. Trump called it ‘a big win for our Constitution.’

The ‘one bad night’ defense doesn’t hold water. While Barack Obama said he too had a bad night (against Mitt Romney in 2012), he was 51 years old. Nobody was questioning his stamina or mental acuity. It’s very different with a faltering 81-year-old asking for another term.

At a Biden family gathering on Sunday at Camp David, the discussion centered not on whether the president would step aside but how to move past this crisis, the Times reports. And Jill Biden, who in my view is drawing plenty of unfair attacks, is supporting her husband. The couple has always backed each other’s decisions, it’s not realistic to expect her to tell the president to abdicate.

The media are taking plenty of heat for supposedly covering up Biden’s growing infirmities, but they have collectively been making an issue of the president’s age for a long time. With a handful of exceptions, most journalists don’t have access to Biden. They have seen what everyone else has seen on the air, the president increasingly mumbling and stumbling, and now it’s clear why his top advisers have been so determined to shield him from the press – even a softball Super Bowl interview.

Even more stunning is an Axios report saying that most White House officials and even the residence staff, including butlers, were barred from Biden’s presence, so they wouldn’t see his true condition. Think about that. They, led by Jill Biden’s top aide, kept the president bubble-wrapped and isolated from most of those working for him on the taxpayer’s dime. They were therefore shocked at his debate performance.

Now the reason the Democrats are in such freakout mode is their absolute conviction that if Trump wins he will end democracy as we know it and govern as an authoritarian. To this day, liberals fail to understand Trump’s appeal and why, even as a convicted felon, he is leading this race.

But if their fears are well-founded, how can they risk putting Trump back in the Oval Office against an octogenarian who suffered such a humiliating meltdown on debate night? The Democrats regularly accuse Trump of caring only about himself, but aren’t they being selfish as well?

It’s probably too late now, but those who suggested that perhaps Joe shouldn’t run – former Obama-Biden official David Axelrod said last November he should consider dropping out – suffered huge blowback. The White House leaked word that Biden had called Axelrod a ‘prick.’

I have covered Joe Biden since the 1980s, when he enjoyed talking to journalists at length, and profiled him when he launched his first White House campaign in 1987, which ended in a plagiarism scandal. He also flamed out in 2008, only to be named Obama’s running mate, and the press declared him toast in 2020 when he finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire – before a huge win in South Carolina sent him hurtling toward the nomination.

Biden has spent his adult life trying to become president. Flying around on Air Force One is addictive. He still thinks he’s the only Democrat who can beat Trump. 

He is not going to walk away from the White House, even though much of his party thinks he should.

A recent poll has found that President Biden’s core supporters are now doubting whether he should stay in the 2024 presidential race.

The poll was conducted by USA TODAY/Suffolk University between Friday and Monday. Pollsters utilizing a probability-proportionate-to-size method telephoned 1,000 respondents living in all U.S. states.

The survey found that more four in ten Democrats said that the Democratic Party should intervene and replace Biden as the nominee. Overall, 54% of the voters polled were in favor of Biden dropping out.

The poll also noted that Trump’s base ‘appeared more solid immediately after the debate,’ according to a press release published by Suffolk University. Only 14% of Republicans said that the Republican Party should replace Trump as nominee, even after his recent conviction.

Pollsters also noted that Trump won the debate, by a margin of nearly five to one, or 50% to 11%. Among Biden supporters, only 28% said that the sitting president won.

‘Most voters cited mental sharpness as a factor in their opinion on the debate performance of both candidates,’ the release noted. ‘Those criticizing the 81-year-old Biden’s performance used words like ‘confused’ and ‘incoherent.” 

‘Supporters of Trump, who is 78, praised their candidate with words like ‘coherent/articulate’ and ‘cognizant/present.’

Biden’s weak debate performance continues to rattle the Democratic Party. On Monday, one of Biden’s longtime Senate colleagues called for a new nominee.

Speaking to Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin called Thursday’s debate ‘a disaster from which Biden cannot recover.’

‘Of course, Trump’s answers were meandering, gobbledygook, and full of lies, BUT they were said with force and directness,’ he said. ‘I also think all incumbent Democratic Senators should write to Biden asking him to release his delegates and step aside so the convention can choose a new candidate.’

‘A couple of governors may need to do the same.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden and Trump campaigns, but did not immediately hear back.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

President Biden slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States, saying it means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do, in a speedy address Monday evening.

The president spoke for less than five minutes – four minutes and 40 seconds to be exact – before turning his back to the press and walking away. 

‘This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States,’ Biden said.

The Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Biden continued his address, saying that the American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on democracy on January 6th makes him ‘unfit’ for public office and the highest office in the land.

‘The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,’ Biden said.

Biden also spoke about the character of the nation’s first president, George Washington, and how he believed power was limited, not absolute.

Biden wrapped his speech and dodged questions from reporters as he left abruptly. 

Reporters shouted questions at Biden, asking him if he plans to drop out of the presidential race following his debate with Trump. 

Biden has not taken questions from the press and has used teleprompters at his events, including a fundraiser in the Hamptons, following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week.

‘Today’s Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes – The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James’ shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf’s ‘case.’ PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!,’ Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social. 

The former president was charged in August 2023 by Special Counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Trump has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

Trump shared his reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on his presidential immunity case, saying it’s a ‘big win for our constitution and democracy,’ according to his Truth Social page. 

‘THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS A MUCH MORE POWERFUL ONE THAN SOME HAD EXPECTED IT TO BE. IT IS BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND CLEARS THE STENCH FROM THE BIDEN TRIALS AND HOAXES, ALL OF THEM, THAT HAVE BEEN USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR, OR WITHER INTO OBSCURITY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!’ Trump posted. 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is headed to New Hampshire to headline a Democrat campaign event just days after the Biden-Trump presidential debate, fueling more speculation that he may be preparing to step in if Biden backs out of the 2024 race. 

The July 8 event, called the ‘Blue Summer Campaign Kick-Off,’ is being spearheaded by the New Hampshire House and Senate Democrats.

New Hampshire is a key swing state in the general election and Newsom, who is a top surrogate for President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, will also be campaigning for the president and other Democrats up and down the ticket during his stop in the Granite State, according to sources familiar with his plans.

‘We look forward to welcoming Governor Newsom to New Hampshire to campaign on behalf of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as we work to once again defeat Donald Trump,’ longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley said in a statement.

Arguing that ‘Trump has grown increasingly unhinged in his campaign for power,’ Buckley emphasized that ‘it’s never been more important to mobilize Democrats across the state to defeat him and re-elect our President, Joe Biden, who has consistently fought for and delivered for New Hampshire.’

Newsom assured reporters in the spin room after Thursday night’s presidential debate that he remained firmly behind Biden — who has faced significant criticism even from members of his own party for a lackluster performance.

‘I will never turn my back on President Biden,’ Newsom said on Thursday in a comment that appeared designed to dispel rumors that he’s running a shadow campaign. ‘I don’t know a Democrat in my party that would do so. And especially after tonight, we have his back.’

Newsom added: ‘I spent a lot of time with him. I know Joe Biden. I know what he’s accomplished in the last three and a half years. I know what he’s capable of. And I have no trepidations.’

Leading up to the debate, rumors continued to swirl that Newsom, a possible future contender for his party’s presidential nomination, had been tapped as a Biden surrogate leading up to the November presidential election.

When pressed if he was ‘ready to take on Donald Trump’ – a question that hinted at the rumors that he could be a potential replacement for Biden – Newsom again denied any ulterior motives.

Last year, Biden told a group of world leaders that Newsom ‘could have the job I’m looking for’ if he wanted it, a joking reference that nevertheless alluded to Biden’s diminished approval rating and the rising discontent within his party.

‘I want to talk about Governor Newsom. I want to thank him. He’s been one hell of a governor, man,’ Biden said during a welcome reception for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in San Francisco. ‘Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants. He could have the job I’m looking for.’

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., also accused Newsom of running a shadow campaign for the presidency last year, roughly around the same time that Newsom engaged in a debate with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that was hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity. 

‘Let me say something that might be uncomfortable,’ Fetterman said at a Democratic Party dinner in Iowa. ‘Right now there are two additional Democrats running for Pennsylvania, excuse me, running for president right now. One, one is a congressman from Minnesota. The other one is the governor of California. They’re both running for president, but only one had the guts to announce it.’

Biden has given no indication that he plans to drop out of the race. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser, Stepheny Price, Aubrie Spady and Cameron Cawthorne contributed to this report.

In their dissents from the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, the court’s liberal justices suggested that the majority opinion allows for a slew of alarming scenarios — including a president ordering a Navy SEAL team to ‘assassinate’ his political rival or even poisoning one of his own cabinet members.

The high court on Monday ruled 6-3 that a president has substantial immunity for official acts that occurred during his time in office. It’s a decision that has significant implications for former President Trump, whose prosecution on charges related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach and alleged 2020 election interference spurred the Supreme Court to hear the case. 

But although the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly stated that the president ‘is not above the law’ and immunity is only a factor when it involves an ‘official act’ — the justices sent the case back to lower courts to determine if the acts at the center of Trump’s case were ‘official’ — the ruling raised a series of frightening possibilities, according to the trio of dissenting justices.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan wrote in the primary dissent that the court’s majority opinion ‘makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.’ 

‘The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,’ Sotomayor wrote. ‘Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.’

She continued: ‘Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.’

Sotomayor added that the majority decision has ‘shifted irrevocably’ the relationship between the president and the American people, being that ‘in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.’

Yet another startling scenario is included in a footnote from a separate dissent authored by Jackson.

Noting that the president’s removal of a cabinet member would constitute an official act, Jackson says that ‘while the President may have the authority to decide to remove the Attorney General, for example, the question here is whether the President has the option to remove the Attorney General by, say, poisoning him to death.’

She adds: ‘Put another way, the issue here is not whether the President has exclusive removal power, but whether a generally applicable criminal law prohibiting murder can restrict how the President exercises that authority.’

Sotomayor’s conclusion summed up the prevailing tenor of her and Jackson’s writings: ‘With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’

Both dissents were taken to task in the court’s majority opinion.

‘As for the dissents, they strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today…,’ Roberts wrote.

He added: ‘Coming up short on reasoning, the dissents repeatedly level variations of the accusation that the Court has rendered the President ‘above the law.’’

Adding that the dissents came ‘up short on reasoning,’ Roberts wrote that the ‘positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President ‘feels empowered to violate federal criminal law.”

Sotomayor’s dissent swiftly reverberated throughout social media. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election, posted on X that she agrees with Sotomayor’s stand against the ‘MAGA wing’ of the high court. 

‘It will be up to the American people this November to hold Donald Trump accountable,’ Clinton wrote.