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Former President Trump addressed the Republican National Convention on Thursday in Milwaukee, his first speech since the assassination attempt last week – and it had a number of major moments.

Trump pays tribute to fallen firefighter.

Trump paid tribute to firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed in last week’s assassination attempt on Trump, calling the Pennsylvania father a ‘fine man.’

‘Tragically, the shooter claimed the life of one of our fellow Americans, Corey Comperatore, and seriously wounded two other great warriors.. David Dutch and James Copenhaver. I spoke to all three families of these tremendous people – our love and prayers are with them, and always will be,’ Trump said. ‘ Corey, a highly respected former fire chief… was accompanied by his wife Helen… and two precious daughters. He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets… what a fine man he was.’

Trump then walked over and kissed Comperatore’s firefighting helmet which was placed with his turnout coat on the stage next to the former president as a tribute before asking for a moment of silence.

‘There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others,’ Trump said. ‘This is the spirit that forged America in her darkest hours, and this is the love that will lead America back to the summit of human achievement and greatness.’

Trump retells assassination attempt

At the beginning of the speech, Trump retold in great detail the assassination attempt against him. A somber Trump told the crowd his version of events.

‘In order to see the chart, I started to turn to my right, and was ready to begin a further turn, which I’m lucky I didn’t, when I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me, really hard, on my right ear,’ Trump recalled. ‘I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that – it can only be a bullet,’ – and moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down, and my hand was covered with blood, just blood all over the place. I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack, and in one movement, proceeded to drop to the ground.’

‘There was blood pouring everywhere, and yet, in a certain way I felt very safe, because I had God on my side,’ Trump continued. ‘The amazing thing is that prior to the shot, if I had not moved my head at the very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be with you tonight.’

Despite shots ringing out at the crowded rally, attendees did not ‘run for the exits or stampede,’ Trump noted, but instead ‘tens of thousands of people stood by and didn’t move an inch. In fact, many of them bravely, but automatically, stood up looking for where the sniper would be, and then began pointing at him.’

Because of this, Trump said, ‘many lives were saved.’

‘But that isn’t the reason they didn’t move – the reason is that they knew I was in serious trouble, they saw all of the blood, and thought I was dead, and they just didn’t want to leave me, and you can see that love written all over their faces,’ he said.

‘I am not supposed to be here tonight,’ Trump said, as the crowd shouted back, ‘Yes you are.’

Trump pays tribute to Melania

Trump took a moment out of his speech to pay tribute to his wife Melania, saying he was ‘deeply honored to be joined by my amazing wife.’

He then referred to her letter to America, in which she called for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt against her husband.

‘I am thinking of you, now, my fellow Americans,’ she wrote. ‘Dawn is here again. Let us reunite. Now.’

The former president praised the letter.

‘And Melania, thank you very much. You also did something really beautiful. A letter to America calling for national unity. And it really took the Republican Party by surprise. I will tell you, it was beautiful,’ he said.

‘Some very serious people said that we should take that letter and put it as part of the Republican platform. That would be an honor, wouldn’t it?’

Trump shows illegal immigration chart that he believes saved his life

Trump displayed a chart showing the number of illegal immigrant crossings into the U.S. that had been on display during his speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, and that crucially he turned his head to look at as a gunman opened fire.

‘ Last time I put up that chart, I never really got to look at it,’ he said to laughs from the crowd. ‘But without that chart, I would not be here today.’

‘I said ‘you got to see this chart’. I was so proud of it. And by the time I got to there, I never got to see it that day. But I’m seeing it now, and I was very proud.’

Trump uses Biden’s name

Trump went off script and used President Biden’s name once, and quickly said he wouldn’t do it again.

‘If you took the 10 worst presidents in the history of the United States, think of it, the 10 worst and added them all up… they will not have done the damage that Biden has done.’

‘I’m only going to use the term once. Biden. I’m not going to use the name anymore. Just one time.’

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Speaker Mike Johnson is expressing confidence that Republicans have enough momentum to win the White House in November – no matter who the Democratic presidential candidate is.

‘As President Trump has said, he was, they had sort of prepared in the mindset that they would run against Biden, but it doesn’t matter. I mean, if they put Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, she’s the co-owner of all the policies, it’s not any better,’ the Louisiana Republican told Fox News Digital in a Thursday interview.

‘It doesn’t matter who they run. Anybody that they would put in that place – this election is not about personalities, it’s about policies and what it means to people.’

It comes as Democratic pressure continues to build on President Biden to drop his re-election bid.

The 81-year-old president is facing calls to duck out of the race after his disastrous debate performance last month. It’s brought out concerns that Biden may not have the physical or mental stamina to run for office nor hold it for another four-year term.

Johnson, who has long accused Biden of not having the mental acuity to hold office, would not say whether the president should leave office right now. But he pointed out that even senior Democrats are apparently moving behind the scenes to push Biden off the 2024 ticket.

‘Look, it’s for him to determine. They’re in real turmoil. On the other side, you hear in the last 24 hours, I’m told that [Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] have all pretty well indicated that he – told him, I guess, or at least implied publicly that he should… not run for re-election,’ Johnson said. 

The trio of top Democrats has made no public indication that they’re pushing Biden to get out of the race, and a White House spokesperson told Fox News on Wednesday after conversations with Schumer and Jeffries, ‘The president told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.’

Meanwhile, there are 20 congressional Democrats publicly calling on Biden to step aside, including Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a top Pelosi ally.

Vice President Kamala Harris is increasingly being viewed as a likely successor to the president, despite similarly struggling with her approval numbers. However, some Republicans have privately expressed concerns that a younger candidate could fare better against Trump.

Johnson said he believes that Trump, on the other hand, is seeing a fresh sense of unity and support ever since the attempt on his life last weekend at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where one rally attendee was killed and two others critically injured.

‘I have done events in 144 cities, in 31 states, they told me, in the last seven months, and there is something happening out there in the country right now. And I think post the failed assassination attempt, there’s even a greater energy out there,’ Johnson said.

‘People feel it personally, and they know what President Trump has had to go through. He has a sympathy factor on top of all the energy that was already there. I think we’re headed for a really strong November for the party.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment but did not hear back by press time.

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Hunter Biden has asked for criminal cases against him in Delaware and California to be thrown out of court, citing the dismissal of a case involving former President Trump and arguing that Special Counsel David Weiss was illegally appointed.

Biden’s lawyers are requesting that both federal cases be thrown out. He was convicted last month on three felony charges related to a handgun purchase in 2018, and a case in California about alleged federal tax crimes is ongoing. 

Biden’s attorneys are arguing that Special Counsel David Weiss was illegally appointed because he was not Senate-confirmed as special counsel. This is the same issue that resulted in the case against Trump over the handling of classified documents thrown out. Both men were prosecuted by special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

In the Trump case, Judge Aileen Cannon found that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional because he was appointed by Garland and not confirmed by the Senate, violating the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The Department of Justice said this week it is appealing that ruling. A spokesperson for Smith had previously said that ‘the dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel,’ and that the Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order.

In the Hunter Biden case, circumstances are different because Weiss was Senate confirmed as U.S. attorney in Delaware, but Biden’s attorneys are arguing that since Trump’s case was dismissed, so should theirs.

‘Based on these new legal developments, Mr. Biden moves to dismiss the indictment because the Special Counsel who initiated this prosecution was appointed in violation of the Appointments Clause as well,’ the request says.

‘The Attorney General relied upon the exact same authority to appoint the Special Counsel in both the Trump and Biden matters, and both appointments are invalid for the same reason,’ the lawyers said.

It means that President Biden’s son is trying to get cases thrown out using a ruling that helped Biden’s presidential rival, and a ruling that is currently being challenged by the Department of Justice.

While the recent decision from Cannon in the Trump case may be persuasive, it is also not binding because it took place in a different federal jurisdiction. But if the motion to dismiss is decided in Biden’s favor, it also benefits Trump, as his team will have another argument to make as they make the case that the Smith appointment was unlawful.

Biden’s team has requested an Aug. 5 hearing for the motion.

Fox News’ Bill Mears, Lee Ross, David Spunt, Jake Gibson, Brooke Singman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Florida Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Fox News Digital that if President Biden bows out of the presidential race and is replaced ahead of the Democratic National Convention, the new candidate would likely have little impact on former President Donald Trump’s shot at winning back the White House this November.

‘I definitely think we’re going to see [Democrats] try to push him out, and we’ll see who they replace them with. I think that’s important for Republicans to understand the moment that this is happening. We have the momentum right now this week at our convention, but this race isn’t over [until] November,’ Greene said from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 

‘There could be a total change if they replace Joe Biden with a new candidate. But we have the right policies. We have the right plans in place for Republicans [to] win,’ she added. 

During the RNC this week, Democrats have increasingly called on Biden to drop out of the race, with California Rep. Adam Schiff joining the chorus of traditional allies calling on the president to pass the mantle ahead of the race against former President Trump. 

‘While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,’ said Schiff. 

Greene continued in her comment to Fox Digital that if Biden bows out and is replaced with another Democrat, it would likely not affect Trump’s run, arguing the Biden administration’s record puts a stain on whoever would join the race. 

‘No matter who they put at the top of the ticket, that candidate has to run with the job record that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have brought the several past years because Democrats are fully aligned behind those policies,’ Greene said.

‘I think America really came to one mindset and got resolved behind President Trump and behind the Republican Party after seeing him almost assassinated on Saturday. It’s a moment that everyone will always remember where they were when that happened, similar to 9/11. Everyone remembers where they were when that happened. I also think people are just really fed up with the border invasion that’s happening every day. The fact that people can’t afford food, can’t afford rent and inflation is really crippling a lot of people,’ she said. 

Biden has so far brushed off the calls for him to bow out, but reports are circulating that he’s increasingly considering calling it quits with the 2024 campaign. 

‘Our campaign is not working through any scenarios where President Biden is not at the top of the ticket. He is and will be the Democratic nominee,’ Biden principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks told reporters at a news conference Thursday morning near the site of the Republican National Convention.

The president said in a recent interview with BET that he would drop out if a doctor told him he had a medical condition. 

‘If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,’ Biden said in an excerpt of the interview that was released Wednesday. 

Biden is currently quarantined in his home in Delaware after being diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday afternoon.

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Delegates and guests attending the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Wisconsin are making predictions about President Biden’s political future amid reports he is closer to exiting the 2024 presidential race.

Fox News Digital spoke with multiple RNC attendees outside Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, the site of the convention, and most felt Biden would ultimately drop his re-election bid but that it would matter little when the votes are finally counted.

‘I think [former President] Trump’s going to mop the floor with anybody they put up,’ one attendee said, adding that it seemed Biden was ‘on the way out the door.’

‘I don’t think it really matters. I think whoever they have, their bench is kind of shallow and weak right now.’

Another attendee told Fox he felt vindicated after predicting months earlier Biden wasn’t going to end up being the Democrat presidential nominee.

‘I think Saturday may have changed things slightly, but I doubt it,’ he said, referencing the failed assassination attempt against Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. ‘The globalists have a mission. They don’t care anymore about Joe Biden. … I don’t think it matters who they run. I don’t think they have a shot to win a legitimate election at this point.’ 

Others also predicted Biden would drop out, but some expressed hope he would stay in the race or thought that Democrats couldn’t afford to dump him from the ticket so close to the election.

‘They bet with him, and they keep telling us how far ahead in the polls he is, so they need to keep backing him all the way. I think it’d be disastrous if they change right now,’ she said.

‘I think he understands, and his compatriots understand, he needs to drop out. So, I think he will. I have no idea who they’re going to put up, you know, to replace him. I would hope it wouldn’t be Kamala, but I have no idea,’ another said.

One attendee said it would be ‘totally fine’ if Vice President Harris became the nominee or even California Gov. Gavin Newsom or former first lady Michelle Obama. ‘The people, I think, are waking up to know that that’s just not the party of the people anymore. So, it doesn’t matter.’

The attendees also unanimously praised Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, after his Wednesday convention speech, calling him ’empathetic,’ ‘high energy’ and ‘relatable.’

Reuters reported Thursday that Biden is now ‘soul-searching’ about the future of his candidacy, citing sources familiar with the matter, while NBC News reported a source close to the president as saying, ‘We’re close to the end.’

The reports come after previous reporting from the Washington Post that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Biden he would lose and push the House of Representatives further under Republican control. The Post also reported that former President Obama told his allies that Biden needed to reconsider his candidacy.

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Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is urging former President Trump to emphasize unity in his speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) on Thursday night.

Mace, a Trump ally and unofficial surrogate for his campaign, suggested she wanted to see a plan from Trump to not only appeal to all factions of the GOP but voters outside of it as well – especially groups that traditionally do not vote Republican.

‘I want to hear him unifying the party, unifying the nation, especially in the wake of the attempted assassination on Saturday,’ Mace told Fox News Digital in an interview after her own RNC speech.

Trump is taking the RNC stage on Thursday to formally accept the GOP nomination for president for 2024. 

He’s expected to have modified his speech after the failed attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last weekend. A 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a rooftop outside the rally perimeter, killing one attendee and injuring two others.

The primetime address will be his first speech since the assassination attempt.

Mace suggested the address should not focus on partisan divides but rather on appealing to a broader group of voters.

‘It’s important that we all come together. But this isn’t a fight for the left or the right. Each side has their own,’ she said. ‘This is, how do we attract independent voters? How do we attract women? How do we attract [people] to the left of center, centrists and moderates, and know that they have a home within our party?’

‘And that can unify a party, that can unify the country. And when he gets elected, it’ll be a landslide.’

Mace herself has been known to buck the traditional party line on occasion, forcefully calling on Republicans to take a clearer stance on women’s issues like abortion exceptions and sexual assault accountability.

During her Wednesday night RNC speech, Mace pointed out that she was both a single mom and a rape survivor.

‘To women tonight who can relate, please know – you have a friend and a sister in me,’ Mace said. ‘And I will fight like hell for you.’

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MILWAUKEE — The Rev. Lorenzo Sewell, who will deliver a speech to Republicans at the RNC on Thursday night, spoke to Fox News Digital about why Black voters are gravitating toward former President Trump despite some denials from Democrats.

‘The increase is happening,’ Sewell said about the shift in Black voters toward Trump despite some Democrats, including Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson this week, downplaying the shift.

‘When President Donald Trump came to our church last month, you could see Black people there. We know the increase is happening beyond a shadow of a doubt, because in my church, I saw with my own eyes rappers, preachers, teachers, those who aren’t necessarily affiliated with the church, come and listen to President Donald Trump. So, we know it’s happening.’

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released last month found that support for Biden among Black voters has dropped roughly 20 percentage points in the swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania since the last election. 

Fox News polling showed that Biden led Trump by 64 points with Black voters in July 2020. Today, Biden’s lead has shrunk to 42.

When asked by Fox News Digital what makes Trump different from previous GOP presidential candidates who couldn’t resonate with Black voters, Sewell said, ‘He’s not a typical politician.’

He was willing to come to a community that most Republicans would not come to. President Donald Trump, I think him being a New Yorker, I think it serves him well, right? Him having that cultural awareness and cultural intelligence, where in cities like mine, Detroit, where it’s so polarizing in terms of the Black and white vote.’

‘He’s willing to jump in and willing to get his hands dirty, and he’s willing to have a plan, right? When you look at the Platinum Plan and you look at [what] President Donald J. Trump did regarding that plan in terms of making sure that Black entrepreneurs had resources, Black churches got resources,’ Sewell continued. ‘That’s why I believe he resonates, and if we were to be honest, back in the day, everyone wanted to be Donald Trump, right? Let’s keep it real, right? So, I believe that’s some of the reasons why he resonates.’

Sewell, who grew up amid drugs and gang violence in a home where his father went to prison and brother was murdered, told Fox News Digital that he attended the RNC to speak up for ‘forgotten’ people in Michigan that are ‘disenfranchised’ and ‘marginalized’ and explained that he hopes Black voters watch the RNC and look up information about the Republican Party.

I would just Google the Republican Party. Look at 170 years ago how patriots stood up to stop slavery,’ Sewell said. ‘I would just Google Black Republicans, and I would look at some of the greatest leaders in our culture, in our context, people like Thomas Sowell and others that were willing to stand up, even patriots during post-Reconstruction where Black Americans were Republican.

‘When you think about Frederick Douglass and how he advised Abraham Lincoln, that’s what I would do. I would take the time to do a quick five-minute Google search about Black Republicans and see that Black people have always been Republicans. It’s the Democrats that have these identity politics and try to confuse Black America into thinking that Black people don’t vote Republican. We always have, and Donald Trump, he’s bringing the Black vote back again.’

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The U.S. military has started shutting down operation of the hugely expensive and troublesome pier into the Gaza Strip, citing difficulties with distribution as a key factor in the decision. 

‘This chapter might be over in President Biden’s mind, but the national embarrassment that this project has caused is not. The only miracle is that this doomed-from-the-start operation did not cost any American lives,’ Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said in a statement issued after the project’s closure. ‘I have been calling for an end to this election-year gimmick since its primetime inception at the State of the Union.’

‘While I am glad it has finally concluded, we cannot buy back the $230 million needlessly spent, and significant questions remain about the Biden administration’s poor planning for this mission,’ Wicker stressed. 

President Biden, during his State of the Union speech in March, pledged to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to the territory as millions remain displaced while Israel continues to hunt Hamas. 

The Pentagon announced that the completion of the piers – one that would remain several miles offshore while the other acted as a causeway onto the Gazan shore – were completed around May 9 but faced difficulty during deployment over the following week.

The Pentagon estimated the cost of the pier’s construction at roughly $230 million, with many congressional members publicly criticizing the effort: Wicker previously told Reuters that the operation had proved to be a ‘dangerous effort with marginal benefit.’ 

Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital in an interview in May that the project was ‘unnecessarily putting our people in harm’s way. It’s costing a lot. It’s pulling assets that should be used elsewhere, and I just don’t think it’s going to accomplish anything near what he’s promised.’ 

The U.N. halted distribution from the pier in the first weeks of June, citing the need for a ‘thorough assessment of the security situation … to ensure the safety of our staff and our partners.’ 

‘The maritime storage mission involving the pier is complete, so there’s no more need to use the pier, particularly because, we’re able to implement a more sustaining pathway, to Ashdod,’ Deputy Commander of U.S. Central Command Vice Admiral Brad Cooper told reporters in an off-camera/on-record briefing Wednesday. 

Sonali Korde, Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, added, ‘The key challenge we have right now in Gaza is around the insecurity and lawlessness that is hampering the distribution once aid gets into Gaza, into the crossing points.’ 

Now, the pier project appears to have run its course, and humanitarian aid will be delivered through a maritime corridor in Cyprus to Ashdod before going into Gaza – a fully civilian-run operation. 

Cooper explained, ‘In the past few weeks, we’ve begun utilizing this new hybrid pathway from the sea and land to deliver aid from Cyprus to the port of Israel, then into north Gaza via the U.N. and WFP. And it’s been successful.’

‘Israel has been fully supportive of this effort, and in the last several weeks, we’ve successfully delivered more than 1 million pounds of aid into Gaza via this route,’ Cooper added. 

The White House referred all questions to press gaggles and conferences happening today, during which Deputy State Spox Vedant Patel defended the decision to pursue the pier project and claimed that the operation ultimately proved successful. 

‘We believe that this effort was successful, and, specifically, because the peer and its existence and the work that happened through it impacted aid delivery to northern Gaza,’ Patel said. ‘It successfully delivered millions of pounds of aid to the people who need it. Nearly 19 million, as I mentioned, and its use helped, overall, the increased flow of aid and alleviate conditions in northern Gaza.’

‘Not at all to say that the situation is resolved or conclusive or anything like that, but overall, it was an effort that we believe was successful,’ he added. 

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Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance on Thursday spoke about his personal experiences with Christianity and the importance of social conservatism.

Vance gave a speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s God & Country Breakfast, where he attempted to quell concerns that the Republican Party is drifting away from religious and socially conservative voters.

‘There has been a lot of rumbling in the past few weeks that the Republican Party of now and the Republican Party of the future is not going to be a place that’s welcoming to social conservatives. And really, from the bottom of my heart, I want to say that is not true,’ Vance told the audience.

He added, ‘Social conservatives have a seat at this table, and they always will, so long as I have any influence in this party. And President Trump, I know, agrees.’

The Republican Party has softened many of the social policy pillars within its platform, including the traditionally sacrosanct issue of abortion.

The platform, drafted by the former president and his top aides, was passed on Monday by a committee dominated by Trump supporters, which met behind closed doors in Milwaukee ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention.

The platform, titled ‘America First: A Return to Common Sense,’ is the GOP’s first in eight years, as the 2016 document was duplicated in 2020. Following Trump’s lead, the document spotlights that abortion is best handled by the states. However, for the first time in 40 years, the document makes no mention of a federal abortion ban, which the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has emphasized that he opposes.

Instead, the new platform stresses, ‘We will oppose late-term abortion while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).’

The commitment to IVF accessibility also raised eyebrows, as the practice usually requires the destruction of fertilized human embryos.

Vance himself caused an uproar in pro-life circles last week after saying in an interview with ‘Meet the Press’ that he supports the abortion pill mifepristone ‘being accessible’ after the Supreme Court ruled against pro-life advocates who sued to end its Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. 

Vance’s stance also shocked Catholic groups, since the potential vice-president converted to the faith only a few years ago. 

While failing to address∂ the abortion pill issue during his speech, Vance did offer personal testimony to the audience about his reconversion to Christianity after years of atheism.

‘What really brought me back to Christ was finding a wife and falling in love and thinking about what was required of me as a husband and as a father,’ Vance said. ‘And the more that I thought about those deeper questions, the more that I thought that there was wisdom in the Christian faith that I had completely discarded and completely ignored, but was most relevant to the questions that were presented in my life as a husband and father.’

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

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The walls appear to be closing in on President Biden’s re-election campaign.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly told President Biden in a phone call that polls are showing he cannot defeat former President Trump in November and that him staying in the race could destroy Democrats’ chances of taking the House in November.

The phone call marked the second time Pelosi and Biden spoke since the president’s disastrous debate performance against Trump on June 27, according to a CNN report Thursday citing four sources briefed on the call. The sources also told CNN that the former speaker did not tell Biden to drop out of the race. 

The report came just hours before the Washington Post reported that former President Barack Obama told his allies in recent days that he believes Biden needs to reconsider his candidacy. 

In terms of the Pelosi call, Biden responded by pushing back, telling her he has seen polls that indicate he can win, one source told the outlet. 

Another one of the sources described Biden as getting defensive about the polls and that at one point, Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, Biden’s longtime adviser, to get on the line to talk over the data.

It is unclear when exactly the call took place, but one CNN source says it was held within the last week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.

A spokesperson for Pelosi tells Fox News Digital that the congresswoman would not comment on private conversations with the president. 

‘Speaker Pelosi respects the confidentiality of her meetings and conversations with the President of the United States. Sadly, the feeding frenzy from the press based on anonymous sources misrepresents any conversations the Speaker may have had with the President,’ the spokesperson said in a statement. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Pelosi is a longtime Biden ally. She led House Democrats for the entirety of Biden’s two terms as vice president and served as House speaker for the first two years of his presidency, ushering major pieces of Biden’s agenda through Congress, including the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

In the wake of the debate, Pelosi said she would support whatever the president decided to do, although several reports indicate that she was encouraging lawmakers to continue to put pressure on Biden to reconsider his decision to run for re-election.

Biden has faced mounting calls to step aside since his disastrous debate performance and his campaign has been in disarray ever since. The campaign had believed that the attempted assassination of Trump, in which he sustained a wound to the right ear, had tamped down calls for Biden to step aside.

But on Wednesday, influential Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff called on Biden to drop out, telling Fox News Digital in a statement that he has ‘serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.’

Reuters, citing a top White House source with direct knowledge of the matter, reported earlier Thursday that Pelosi backed Schiff’s call for Biden to drop out of the race, although her office did not address the report when asked by Fox News Digital. Schiff and Pelosi both represent California districts in the House.

‘Nancy is all over this. She doesn’t miss. Schiff wouldn’t move without her approval,’ the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

Last week, a number of House Democrats told The Hill that Pelosi was advising members in their conference against rallying to Biden before there is a broader discussion over whether he is the best candidate to defeat Trump. 

‘I did have a conversation with her, she is very concerned,’ one House Democratic lawmaker told The Hill. ‘It’s not like she’s like, ‘We’re sticking with this guy.”

Fox News’ Brian Flood and Chris Pandolfo, as well as Reuters contributed to this report. 

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