WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden insisted again Monday he would not quit the US election race, as the White House denied he had Parkinson’s disease following a disastrous debate performance.
The 81-year-old dared Democratic critics to either challenge him at next month’s party convention in Chicago or back him against Donald Trump in November’s vote.
The president lashed out in both a letter to Congress and a rare call to a television program, at the start of a critical week that includes a NATO summit in Washington where he will face fresh scrutiny.
“I am firmly committed to staying in the race,” Biden wrote in the letter.
“It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party and defeat Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s time for it to end.”
The embattled president followed up by phoning into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” television program to say he was “getting so frustrated by the elites” in the party.
“Any of these guys that don’t think I should run — run against me. Announce for president, challenge me at the convention,” he added.
Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet since the debate but he did speak out Monday on Fox News to say he thinks Biden will resist the pressure and stay in the race.
“He’s got an ego and he doesn’t want to quit,” Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity.
But even as he doubled down, the pressure mounted on the oldest president in US history.
Congressman Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the US House Armed Services Committee, became the sixth Democratic lawmaker to publicly say Biden should step aside.
“I think it’s become clear he’s not the best person to carry the Democratic message,” he told CNN.
Other senior Democrats voiced support for Biden, however.
“I made clear that day after the debate publicly that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. My position has not changed,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.
Biden’s blitz was a clear attempt to lay to rest the spiraling concerns over his health following the June 27 debate against Republican Trump, whom he trails in the polls.
During the debate, Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought, stared blankly and spoke at times incoherently and with a raspy voice. Biden has blamed jetlag and a cold.
The White House has also felt the pressure, with tense exchanges at a press briefing on Monday.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called for “respect” while journalists challenged her refusal to confirm reports that a Parkinson’s specialist visited the White House eight times.
The visits by Kevin Cannard, a neurologist from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where Biden receives his medicals, were recorded in publicly available visitor logs.
“Has the President been treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No, he’s not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s? No,” Jean-Pierre said.
On Monday night the White House went so far as to release a letter from Biden’s personal doctor, Kevin O’Connor, insisting that the president had not seen a neurologist outside his three annual medicals.
The White House also denied reports that NATO allies attending this week’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington had shown concerns about Biden.
“We’re not picking up any signs of that from our allies at all,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
But NATO leaders have been seeking reassurance in any case amid polls forecasting a November victory for Trump.
The former president has long criticized the defense alliance, voiced admiration for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and insisted he could bring about a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
The NATO summit begins on Tuesday, the same day that Democrats, returning to Capitol Hill from a brief recess, hold a caucus meeting where Biden’s fate will be discussed.
The Democrat lags behind Trump in most polls even though his rival was recently convicted of a felony in a porn star hush money case.
Defiant Joe Biden throws down gauntlet to Democrats
https://arab.news/zfdrw
Defiant Joe Biden throws down gauntlet to Democrats
- President dares Democratic critics to either challenge him at next month’s party convention in Chicago or back him against Donald Trump in November’s vote
Sleepy. Divisive. A fan of young Trump: A look at the new plaques on the Presidential Walk of Fame
- “The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has affixed partisan plaques to the portraits of all US commanders in chief, himself included, on his Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House, describing Joe Biden as “sleepy,” Barack Obama as “divisive” and Ronald Reagan as a fan of a young Trump.
The additions, first seen publicly Wednesday, mark Trump’s latest effort to remake the White House in his own image, while flouting the protocols of how presidents treat their predecessors and doubling down on his determination to reshape how US history is told.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement describing the installation in the colonnade that runs from the West Wing to the residence. “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
Indeed, the Trumpian flourishes include the president’s typical bombastic language and haphazard capitalization. They also highlight Trump’s fraught relationships with his more recent predecessors.
An introductory plaque tells passersby that the exhibit was “conceived, built, and dedicated by President Donald J. Trump as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”
Besides the Walk of Fame and its new plaques, Trump has adorned the Oval Office in gold and razed the East Wing in preparation for a massive ballroom. Separately, his administration has pushed for an examination of how Smithsonian exhibits present the nation’s history, and he is playing a strong hand in how the federal government will recognize the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026.
Here’s a look at how Trump’s colonnade exhibit tells the presidential story.
Joe Biden
Joe Biden is still the only president in the display not to be recognized with a gilded portrait. Instead, Trump chose an autopen, reflecting his mockery of Biden’s age and assertions that Biden was not up to the job.
Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election and dropped out of the 2024 election before their pending rematch, is introduced as “Sleepy Joe” and “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
Two plaques blast Biden for inflation and his energy and immigration policy, among other things. The text also blames Biden for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and asserts falsely that Biden was elected fraudulently.
Biden’s post-White House office had no comment on his plaque.
Barack Obama
The 44th president is described as “a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History.”
The plaque calls Obama’s signature domestic achievement “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care Act.”
And it notes that Trump nixed other major Obama achievements: “the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal ... and ”the one-side Paris Climate Accords.”
An aide to Obama also declined comment.
George W. Bush
George W. Bush, who notably did not speak to Trump when they were last together at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral, appears to win approval for creating the Department of Homeland Security and leading the nation after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the plaque decries that Bush “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened.”
An aide to Bush didn’t return a message seeking comment.
Bill Clinton
The 42nd president, once a friend of Trump’s, gets faint praise for major crime legislation, an overhaul of the social safety net and balanced budgets.
But his plaque notes Clinton secured those achievements with a Republican Congress, the help of the 1990s “tech boom” and “despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency.”
Clinton’s recognition describes the North American Free Trade Agreement, another of his major achievements, as “bad for the United States” and something Trump would “terminate” during his first presidency. (Trump actually renegotiated some terms with Mexico and Canada but did not scrap the fundamental deal.)
His plaque ends with the line: “In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
An aide to Clinton did not return a message seeking comment.
Other notable plaques
The broadsides dissipate the further back into history the plaques go.
Republican George H.W. Bush, who died during Trump’s first term, is recognized for his lengthy resume before becoming president, along with legislation including the Clean Air Act and Americans With Disabilities Act — despite Trump’s administration relaxing enforcement of both. The elder Bush’s plaque does not note that he, not Clinton, first pushed the major trade law that became NAFTA.
Lyndon Johnson’s plaque credits the Texas Democrat for securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (seminal laws that Trump’s administration interprets differently than previous administrations). It correctly notes that discontent over Vietnam led to LBJ not seeking reelection in 1968.
Democrat John F. Kennedy, the uncle of Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is credited as a World War II “war hero” who later used “stirring rhetoric” as president in opposition to communism.
Republican Richard Nixon’s plaque states plainly that the Watergate scandal led to his resignation.
While Trump spared most deceased presidents of harsh criticism, he jabbed at one of his regular targets, the media — this time across multiple centuries: Andrew Jackson’s plaque says the seventh president was “unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly as President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”
Donald Trump
With two presidencies, Trump gets two displays. Each is full of praise and superlatives — “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.” He calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a “landslide.”
Trump’s second-term plaque notes his popular vote victory — something he did not achieve in 2016 — and concludes with “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.”
Meanwhile, the introductory plaque presumes Trump’s addition will be a White House fixture once he is no longer president: “The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America.”
