Former President Trump touted the success of a San Francisco fundraiser Thursday evening as a major shift in support and a ‘great testament’ to his accomplishments after raising $12 million and landing the endorsement of a top Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

Trump told Fox News Digital that tech leaders who hosted the fundraiser, David Sacks and Chamath Paliphapitiya — two high-profile figures in Silicon Valley and co-hosts of the ‘All In’ podcast — are ‘very unhappy’ with President Biden.

‘These are brilliant guys — AI guys — these are the guys that are doing all the things you read about,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘These are just a brilliant group of people. And they can’t relate to Biden because he is a stupid person — and I have a high IQ.’ 

‘They don’t like dealing with an IQ that’s like, you know, 1/3 of theirs, because it is a difficult thing when someone has an IQ of 180, it is difficult to deal with a man with an IQ of 70 — or maybe lower,’ Trump said, slamming his opponent. ‘Biden is a very low IQ individual.’ 

Trump told Fox News Digital that Sacks’ ‘strong’ endorsement ‘is a great testament to what I’ve accomplished.’ 

‘David Sacks — the king of that world — David Sacks and the group that we were with are the most respected people in San Francisco from both a business and high tech standpoint,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘They love our country and they understand what’s happening into the future with technology better than any group, anywhere in the world.’ 

‘One of the primary reasons for the endorsement was the four years that we had in office, which was the best four years ever for high tech, which will play an increasingly important role in the future of our country, especially as it relates to AI and all of the other new and brilliant technologies coming right at this moment,’ Trump said. ‘It is a very exciting time and it is a great honor to have the most brilliant minds supporting, by far, the most brilliant leader.’

Sacks endorsed Trump Thursday night. 

‘My reasons rest on four main issues that I think are vital to American prosperity, security and stability — issues where the Biden administration has veered badly off course and where I believe President Trump can lead us back,’ Sacks said Thursday. 

Tickets at the sold-out event ranged from $50,000 per person to get in the door all the way up to $500,000 per couple for special access as part of the host committee. The event was sold out. The event was held at Sacks’ multimillion-dollar home in the tony Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.

Trump said the fundraiser was attended by ‘the most powerful group of industrial intellects from the heart of San Francisco.’ 

‘They liked the job I did, number one, and now, don’t forget, I wasn’t a politician when I started, so it is hard get support when you aren’t a politician,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘But for four years, they did better than they’ve ever done — they had less regulation, and they are a group that cannot stand regulation because it hinders their path to growth.’ 

Meanwhile, Trump described driving through traditionally blue San Francisco. 

‘When Secret Service took us through the middle of San Francisco, there were thousands of people waving,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘We’re talking the heart of San Francisco — people were screaming on the streets with love. It was a very nice thing to see.’

Trump added: ‘I was really surprised. There wasn’t one bad thing or one bad shout… We got a lot of love yesterday. The meeting was amazing.’ 

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

President Biden’s Cabinet members circled the wagons in response to an alarming Wall Street Journal article portraying Biden as mentally ‘slipping.’ 

The piece, which ran Tuesday, included examples of gaffes and instances of low energy during private meetings. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was direct, telling Fox News Digital, ‘The article was BS.’

‘The president is utterly on his game,’ she added. ‘He is the wisest, most knowledgeable person in the room. He asks the toughest questions and has the keenest insights on the complex questions brought to him. He is sharp, thoughtful and wise.’

Fox News Digital contacted every member of the cabinet and many were quick to respond for this article.

Earlier this year, a report from Biden’s own Department of Justice’s special counsel called him an ‘elderly man with a poor memory’ at the end of an investigation into his mishandling of classified documents dating back to his Senate tenure, which ultimately saved him from having charges brought against him by Special Counsel Robert Hur.

At 81, Biden is the oldest sitting president, and his critics say his age has caught up with him cognitively. If he is re-elected in November, he will be 86 when his second term ends.

Biden has been prone to gaffes going back to when he was vice president, but the frequency and nature of his verbal missteps in recent years appear to be more significant. 

In May, Biden seemed to have a break with reality when he confused the timing of the COVID pandemic by a factor of years when he said, ‘And when I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and, what happened was Barack said to me: ‘Go to Detroit — and help fix it.’’ The pandemic happened years after Biden’s time as vice president.

The president has, on several occasions, referenced dead people as being alive. In 2022, at a White House event, Biden called out former Rep. Jackie Walorski during a speech, ‘Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?’ Walorski had died in a car crash the previous month.

At a campaign rally in February, Biden told the audience, ‘Right after I was elected, I went to a G7 meeting in southern England. And I sat down and said, ‘America is back!’ and Mitterand from Germany — I mean France — looked at me and said, ‘How long you back for?” Mitterand was president from 1981 to 1995 and died in 1996.

In 2021, Biden claimed he had spoken with the late German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who had died in 2017, while recalling past conversations during fundraising events.  

Late Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal published a report detailing instances in which the president has demonstrated a lack of clarity in private meetings with staff and members of Congress.

Many of those who work most closely with the president are coming forward to say The Wall Street Journal got it all wrong.

Officials at the highest levels of government echoed Granholm’s sentiment, like Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

‘I’ve worked for President Biden for 22 years,’ Blinken told Fox News Digital. ‘Now as then — in strategy discussions and in meetings with foreign leaders — his depth of knowledge, fluency with policy and politics and ability to cut to the chase and argue his case are exceptional. He’s invariably one step ahead of us.’

Attorney General Merrick Garland vouched for the president’s mental acuity on domestic issues.

‘I have complete confidence in the president,’ Garland said. ‘As a member of the president’s Cabinet and the National Security Council, I have consistently seen firsthand his ability to navigate issues of extraordinary complexity that are of the utmost importance to our national security.

‘I have also seen him tackle domestic policy issues, clearly and decisively guiding us through complicated questions to reach results that benefit the American people.’

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also objected to the assertion that the president is in a state of mental decline, telling Fox News Digital in a statement, ‘Both in Washington and in meetings with world leaders around the globe — including during strenuous negotiations with President Xi — I’ve always seen President Biden to be extremely well-informed, in command of the facts and very effective in advancing American interests.’

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pushed back on the narrative, too. 

‘I strongly disagree with the characterization in the story,’ Mayorkas said. ‘I come fully prepared for my meetings with President Biden, knowing his questions will be detail-oriented, probing and exacting. In our exchanges, the president always draws upon our prior conversations and past events in analyzing the issues and reaching his conclusions.’ 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin concurred with Mayorka’s assessment, saying, ‘As someone who has watched President Biden make tough national security decisions and seen his commitment to keeping our troops safe, I have nothing but total confidence in our commander-in-chief.’

Gina Raimondo, the former Rhode Island governor and current commerce secretary, came out in full support of her boss, saying, ‘I’ve spent countless hours with President Biden, discussing everything from our strategic competition with China to the technical aspects of the CHIPS for America program, and in every conversation he’s been sharp, focused and insightful. I could not disagree more with the false portrayal of the president in that article. There is nobody I’d rather have leading our country today.’

Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough also came to Biden’s defense.

‘President Biden is not only as sharp and incisive as ever, he’s holding VA accountable every day — he’s holding me accountable every day — to deliver for veterans,’ McDonough said, ‘That article is completely inconsistent with the man I’ve been serving for 12 years.’ 

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement, ‘I have been in dozens of personal and larger meetings with President Biden, and I always note that his ability to simultaneously handle difficult issues is astounding.

‘President Biden has always had a depth of understanding of policies at every level and always remembers to bring the policies back to how they are helping the American people.’

It is not surprising that President Biden’s most senior advisers are countering the narrative that the president’s mental acuity may be waning. But the talk of his decline started well before the Wall Street Journal article. Former President Trump and his supporters have sustained a long attack on Biden’s cognitive state. Trump has referred to his opponent as ‘Sleepy Joe’ since 2019.

Those attacks may have been effective in shaping public opinion. According to a Pew Research poll released in late April, just 21% of respondents are extremely or very confident in Biden’s mental fitness to act as president, with 16% somewhat confident and 62% having little or no confidence.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) research division posted several videos on X that appeared to show President Biden in ‘a perpetual state of confusion’ following his speech in Normandy on Thursday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

The RNC research account, which is managed by former President Trump’s campaign and the RNC, rattled off several posts on X of the president in Normandy, with one video showing Biden bending down at one point, seeming to be uncertain whether it was time to sit down.

‘Awkward,’ the RNC captioned the video. 

In part of Biden’s speech to D-Day veterans, he appeared to misspeak while urging allies to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, saying that hundreds of thousands of Russian military personnel were killed in Ukraine.

‘They’ve suffered tremendous losses with Russia – the numbers are staggering, 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded,’ he said.

Later, Biden claimed in an ABC interview with David Muir that he’s known Vladimir Putin ‘for over 40 years,’ notwithstanding the fact that Putin served as an undercover KGB intelligence officer for the Soviet Union throughout the entire 1980s.

‘I’ve known him for over 40 years. He’s concerned me for 40 years. He’s not a decent man,’ Biden told Muir.

Another video showed Biden walking off with his wife, Jill, as the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, continued to greet and chat with World War II veterans. In a hot mic moment, Biden appeared to say to Macron, ‘My advance team said I gotta be the first one to leave,’ in another video capturing the interaction. 

Questions about Biden’s mental acuity circulated this week after The Wall Street Journal’s bombshell report that interviewed 45 lawmakers and administration officials about Biden’s mental performance.

Biden, 81, is the oldest person to hold the presidency and has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do his job. Many Republicans and even some Democrats said the president showed his age in private meetings.

Most of the people interviewed by the outlet who were critical of Biden’s performance were Republicans, although some Democrats said the president showed his age in several exchanges. These interviewees participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, including administration officials and other Democrats who did not express concerns about how the president handled the meetings.

White House officials, however, dismissed many of the accounts from people who have met with the president or been briefed on those meetings, saying such criticisms were motivated by partisan politics.

‘Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,’ White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. ‘Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.’

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report. 

The ‘Russian information operation’ narrative that was pushed by dozens of former intelligence officials and amplified by the Biden campaign a couple weeks before the 2020 election took a major blow this week when the federal government entered Hunter Biden’s laptop into evidence for his gun trial.

After years of the authenticity of the laptop being downplayed by former intel officials, prominent Democrats, and the White House, Hunter’s laptop was officially entered into evidence by Biden’s Department of Justice and is being used to attempt to prove that Biden was addicted to drugs at the time he purchased a gun in 2018, a violation of federal law. 

The laptop was introduced by prosecutor Derek Hines and handed to FBI agent Erika Jensen, who explained earlier this week how the FBI authenticated the laptop and extracted data. For the gun trial, she testified about dozens of text messages, metadata, photos and short videos found on phones and iCloud accounts belonging to Biden. 

One of the most significant denials of the authenticity of the laptop came two weeks before the 2020 presidential election when 51 former intelligence officials claimed in a letter that the laptop may have been fabricated by Russia to influence the presidential election. 

The crafting of that memo, which was ultimately published by Politico, involved coordination between the Biden campaign and the former officials, House Republicans concluded in an investigation.  

Fox News Digital previously reported that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken last year saying, ‘Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election.’

Morell also said that he received a call from Biden’s White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, who was serving as the chairman of the 2020 campaign at the time, following the Oct. 22 debate. Morell said the call was to thank him for spearheading the letter.

According to the GOP’s report, former CIA senior adviser Nick Shapiro drafted a media pitch and shopped the letter to The Associated Press, The Washington Post and Politico. He then forwarded the letter to then-Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates, who is currently the White House deputy senior press secretary, tipping them off before publication and saying, ‘This is what I gave them.’ 

‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,’ Bates tweeted after the Politico story was published, including a link to the article.

‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,’ tweeted Jen Psaki, who later became Biden’s White House press secretary.

‘If we see tonight from Donald Trump these attacks on Vice President Biden’s family, I think we need to be very, very clear that what he’s doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation,’ said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager who later served as White House communications director.

Indeed, Biden brought up the letter during his final debate against former President Donald Trump, saying the laptop was a ‘Russian plant’ and a ‘bunch of garbage.’

‘There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,’ Biden said at the time. ‘… Five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except his good friend Rudy Giuliani.’ 

Kerri Kupec Urbahn, Fox News Legal editor, posted on social media on Tuesday that the prosecution’s introduction of the laptop was a key moment in the case.

‘Biggest takeway from court today: the laptop is real, we saw it with our own eyes, it belongs to Hunter Biden, and the FBI/DOJ are using information extracted from it in the gun case,’ Urbah said. ‘Curious if the 50+ intel experts plan to put out an updated letter in time for this year’s debates.’

The White House and Biden campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
 

Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar and Emma Colton contributed to this report

Hillary Clinton marked the 80th anniversary of the D-Day operation with a social media post that appeared to cast former President Trump as a threat to democracy on par with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

In an X post on Thursday, Clinton implied that democracy is at stake in the upcoming presidential election, with presumptive Republican nominee former President Trump challenging incumbent President Biden, a Democrat. 

‘Eighty years ago today, thousands of brave Americans fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy,’ Clinton wrote in an X post on Thursday. ‘This November, all we have to do is vote.’ 

The D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, is one of the most famous moments in U.S. military history. It was a turning point in World War II and the beginning of the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany’s control by American and Allied forces. The implication from the failed 2016 Democratic nominee is that her former rival, Trump, is a threat to democracy similar to Hitler’s Third Reich — which sought world domination through conquest.

It wasn’t the first time Clinton has compared Trump to Hitler — in a May 21 post on X she called him, ‘Grifter Hitler,’ and shared an Associated Press article about a video posted to Trump’s Truth Social account that referenced a ‘unified Reich’ among hypothetical headlines if he wins the November election. The Trump campaign said the video was ‘created by a random account online and reposed by a staffer who clearly did not see the word.’ 

A spokesperson for Clinton did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Hillary Clinton is a stone-cold loser who presided over the horrific Benghazi debacle that led to the death of Americans,’ Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital. ‘Nobody takes Hillary seriously because it’s clear she is beclowning herself in order to stay relevant after President Trump crushed her in 2016.’ Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election with 304 Electoral College votes, narrowly winning several key battleground states, although Clinton won the popular vote by a 2.1% margin. 

Democrats and President Biden have consistently attacked Trump as a threat to democracy since the January 6 riots, when a mob of Trump supporters marched on the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and interrupted Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Biden defeated Trump. They have also accused Republicans of acting to disenfranchise minorities through voter ID laws, limits on mail-in ballots and other election regulations Democrats say make it harder to vote. 

Trump has brushed off these attacks, telling Fox News in a recent interview he is the ‘opposite’ of a threat to democracy. 

In issue polling for the presidential election, voters consistently say they trust Biden more than Trump on topics of election integrity, preserving or protecting democracy and ensuring fair elections. A recent Fox News poll found Biden leading Trump by seven points on the issue of election integrity.

However, Trump leads Biden on key issues including the border and immigration, the economy, foreign policy and crime, according to the Fox News Power Rankings Issues Tracker.

The judge presiding over former President Trump’s classified documents case has expanded a hearing for later this month to focus on whether the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unlawful and invalid. 

Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida postponed the trial stemming from Smith’s investigation into Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified records indefinitely. 

Upon postponing the trial, Cannon scheduled deadlines for reports on June 10 and 17 – and a nonevidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss on June 21 – ‘based on unlawful appointment and funding of special counsel.’ 

Cannon has expanded that June 21 hearing to allow amici to argue before the court, as well as Trump defense attorneys and federal prosecutors. 

Former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served under former President Reagan, filed an amicus brief in the case, in which he argues that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Smith as special counsel – a private citizen at the time – is in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. 

‘Not clothed in the authority of the federal government, Smith is a modern example of the naked emperor,’ the brief states. 

‘Improperly appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Bryce Harper, Taylor Swift, or Jeff Bezos,’ they argued. 

Meese argues that the ‘illegality’ of Smith’s appointment is ‘sufficient to sink Smith’s petition, and the Court should deny review.’ 

Meese and company noted in the brief that Smith was appointed ‘to conduct the ongoing investigation into whether any person or entity [including former President Trump] violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021.’

Garland defended his move this week during a hearing on Capitol Hill, arguing that ‘there are regulations under which the attorney general appoint special counsel. They have been in effect for 30 years, maybe longer, under both parties.’ 

‘The matter that you’re talking about, about whether somebody can have an employee of the Justice Department serve as special counsel has been adjudicated,’ Garland argued, adding that he and other special counsel appointments that he and other attorneys general have made cite a regulation that points to a statute. 

Meese, however, in his briefs filed in several points in the Trump cases, argued that ‘none of those statutes, nor any other statutory or constitutional provisions, remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.’

Meese’s brief was even mentioned in a question by Justice Clarence Thomas in the Supreme Court oral arguments over Trump’s presidential immunity in Smith’s other case regarding 2020 election interference–which the high court is expected to decide this month.

Presenting arguments on June 21 in Florida on behalf of Meese will be Gene Schaerr; Josh Blackman on behalf of Professor Seth Barrett Tillman; and Matthew Seligman on behalf of constitutional lawyers, former government officials, and ‘State Democracy Defenders Action.’

Meanwhile, Cannon scheduled an additional hearing from June 24 to June 26 and set deadlines for disclosures from the special counsel for early July and the defendants’ speedy trial report for July 19 – the final day of the Republican National Convention.

Trump is set to be sentenced in Manhattan after being found guilty on all counts in New York v. Trump stemming from District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation on July 11. 

Cannon scheduled a status conference for July 22 and another hearing for later that day.

Cannon did not schedule a new trial date.

Trump faced charges stemming from Smith’s investigation into his possession of classified materials. He pleaded not guilty to all 37 felony counts from Smith’s probe, including willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and false statements.

Trump was also charged with an additional three counts as part of a superseding indictment out of the investigation, an additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts.

Trump pleaded not guilty.

Cannon’s move last month to indefinitely postpone the trial comes after Cannon unsealed a slew of documents related to the FBI’s investigation into the former president and the FBI’s raid on his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, estate in 2022.

The documents provided a detailed look into the personnel involved in the raid on Mar-a-Lago and a play-by-play timeline of it. One of the documents is an FBI file that suggests the agency’s investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was dubbed ‘Plasmic Echo.’

Another unsealed FBI memo memorialized the role of Garland in the investigation.

In a document dated March 30, 2022, Garland provided his approval to allow the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents to upgrade to a ‘full investigation.’

‘This email conveys Department of Justice (DOJ) Attorney General (AG) [Merrick Garland] approval for conversion to a full investigation,’ a synopsis of the restricted document reads.

Also, last week, Smith and federal prosecutors admitted in a court filing that documents seized during the raid on Mar-a-Lago are no longer in their original order and sequence.

‘There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,’ Smith’s filing states.  

The prosecutors had previously told the court that the documents were ‘in their original, intact form as seized.’ 

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan is investigating whether that evidence was ‘altered or manipulated.’

Smith also charged Trump in a separate jurisdiction – in Washington, D.C. – out of his investigation into election interference and Jan. 6. Trump pleaded not guilty to those charges, as well.

That trial is postponed indefinitely. The Supreme Court is considering arguments on presidential immunity and whether Trump is immune from prosecution in Smith’s case.

The high court is expected to rule on the matter by mid-June.

A top House Republican lawmaker is so sure that former President Donald Trump’s recent criminal conviction has ensured his reelection that he invited the Manhattan judge who oversaw the trial to his inauguration.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., a staunch Trump ally, blasted the Friday guilty verdict against the former president as ‘irresponsible and unethical.’ 

He told Fox News Digital that he had his son, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, hand-deliver a note to New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s bailiff late last month offering a place as his guest to a potential January 2025 Trump inauguration.

‘My view of inviting him to the inauguration is to show my recognition that what Merchan is doing unintentionally is reelecting …Donald Trump,’ Wilson told Fox News Digital. ‘In fact, I’ve got one of my grandson’s, Houston Wilson, ready to be with him and to make sure he has proper seating.’

Wilson pointed out that both Trump and aligned Republican groups have raked in massive campaign donations since a New York City jury ruled the ex-president was guilty on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Eric Trump announced earlier this week that the campaign brought in over $200 million in the first three days following the conviction.

Trump had been on trial for charges linked to accusations that he falsified documents to cover up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

His allies have long criticized the case as political, and have argued the charges would not have been brought if he was not running for reelection in November.

‘It should be concerning to every American, because if you can convict a former President of the United States on such bogus charges…every American of either party is at risk, whether they be a public official or not,’ Wilson said.

‘Why would it come up during an election year? Of course, it’s totally contrived to interfere with the election.’

Wilson said he didn’t know if Merchan would respond to his invitation.

‘And hey, I mean it to indicate to him that what he has done is wrong,’ Wilson said. ‘I would urge him to come to see the response to the American people. I think people will be polite, but they will certainly let him know that his conduct is unethical and corrupt. Totally corrupt.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the New York City public court system for a response.