(WASHIGNTON) — As Donald Trump turns 78 on Friday, his campaign is trying to paint 2024 rival President Joe Biden as mentally incompetent by distorting a moment from Biden’s trip overseas this week to the G7 summit that has gone viral on social media.
“From Italy to the United Kingdom to New York, millions of people around the world woke up to headlines about Crooked Joe Biden’s cognitive decline on full display at the G7 Summit,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.
Leavitt was referring to a skydiving demonstration Biden attended on Thursday alongside other world leaders gathered in Italy. Footage from the event was selectively edited in a misleading way by the New York Post.
The Post made it seem as if Biden was speaking to no one before the Italian prime minister ushered him back to the group. In a caption, the New York Post wrote that Biden appeared to “wander off” and someone needed to “pull him back to focus.”
“Biden was seen staring off into the distance and wandering around like a brain-dead zombie, and even had to be ushered by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni,” Leavitt claimed.
The edited video posted by the tabloid to X had 4.7 million views as of Friday afternoon.
It was flagged by the social media platform, which provided additional context that the video had been cropped.
The unedited footage shows a different picture: a skydiver had just landed in the spot Biden walked toward moments before and the president went to approach him to give him a thumbs up. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni then brought Biden back to the group so one of the skydivers could brief them.
Another angle of the moment shows the skydiver Biden was addressing when he walked away.
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates, in a post to X, said the “Murdoch outlets are so desperate to distract from” Biden’s record that “they just lie.”
“Here, they use an artificially narrow frame to hide from viewers that he just saw a skydiving demonstration,” Bates wrote. “He’s saying congratulations to one of the divers and giving a thumbs-up.”
Bates also posted his own video that showed Biden walking toward the skydiver to praise him.
Polls show age is a major issue among voters this election cycle when it came to both candidates, though more appear to have concerns about Biden, who turned 81 last year.
A recent Marquette University poll found 79% of respondents said the phrase “too old” describes Biden “very or somewhat well,” compared to 54% who said the same about Trump.
ABC News’ Soorin Kim, Lalee Ibssa and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(LAS VEGAS) — Not all birthdays are worth celebrating in the eyes of former President Donald Trump, who marks his 78th birthday on Friday.
“There’s a certain point at which you don’t want to hear ‘Happy Birthday.’ You just want to pretend the day doesn’t exist,” Trump quipped to his supporters last week at a rally in Las Vegas after they broke out in song for him ahead of his birthday.
Still, the former president is not missing out on the chance to campaign on his birthday — marking his 78th with a sold-out speech in West Palm Beach Friday evening in front of his most fervent supporters: members of his “Club 47” fan group.
On Thursday, Trump also received an early birthday celebration from congressional Republicans, who sang for him during their closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, sources told ABC News. They presented him with a cake with the numbers “45” and “47” as they rallied behind him in a show of force ahead of November’s election.
However, in an election year where age remains a focal points for both candidates, Trump has attempted to highlight mental fitness and competency instead of age as he edges closer to the age of his opponent, President Joe Biden.
“Joe Biden is not too old to be president. I know a lot of people that are older than me. They’re at the top of their game. It’s not even close. But he is too incompetent,” Trump said in a video posted on his social media platform last week.
Trump repeated his claim that Biden is incompetent — not old — during his most recent rally in Las Vegas, even questioning the sitting president’s intelligence.
“This guy — there’s just something missing,” Trump said. “There always has been — by the way, he always had the worst and dumbest foreign policy.”
Trump was able to fend off his younger Republican challengers during the primary as they launched attacks on his age, calling for a new generation of leadership.
“I feel my mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago. Is that possible? I really do,” Trump said at a rally in January, responding to criticisms from former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley about his age. “Now Biden can’t say that, you know he can’t say that.”
Trump said something similar at a New Hampshire rally in January.
“I feel like I’m about 35 years old. I actually feel better now than they did 30 years ago. Tell me, is that crazy?” Trump said. “I feel better now. And I think cognitively I’m better than I was 20 years ago. I don’t know why.”
He has also routinely bragged about “acing” the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, a test doctors use to uncover early signs of cognitive impairment, while in the White House.
“Only about 2% in this room can do it, but I did it. I did it very easily,” Trump said about his results on the test at an event in Las Vegas in January. “But I got mocked — they said, ‘Oh, that’s so easy.’ It’s not easy. It’s not easy. Go home and try doing it.”
The Trump campaign has started fundraising off the former president’s birthday, blasting out numerous fundraising emails to followers, asking them to sign his virtual birthday card and a donation in celebration of his birthday.
“Birthdays are incredibly important in our family, and we’re counting on your help to make President Trump’s birthday celebration his BIGGEST one yet! Our goal is to collect 1 MILLION signatures from Patriots like YOU wishing him a ‘happy birthday,’ but we’re missing yours,” the email reads.
The Biden campaign is using Trump’s birthday to highlight his stumbles throughout his professional and political life, releasing a list of “78 of Trump’s historic … ‘accomplishments,'” which include his felony convictions as well as digs at his business ventures into steak, vodka and water.
“Happy birthday, Donald. You’re a crook, a failure, a fraud, and a threat to our democracy, economy, rights, and future,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer said in a statement. “On behalf of America, our early gift for your 79th: Making sure you are never President again.”
Biden has repeatedly been forced to defend his mental fitness and age due to persistent gaffes; however, his campaign has leaned into his old age, highlighting how it shows he has extensive experience to address the nation’s problems.
In a campaign ad released earlier this cycle, Biden acknowledged his advanced age directly.
“Look, I’m not a young guy,” Biden said with a chuckle at the start of the ad, speaking directly to camera. “That’s no secret. Here’s the deal, I understand how to get things done for the American people.”
On Biden’s 81st birthday in November, the Trump campaign released a limited, generic physical exam from Trump’s doctor.
“It is my opinion that President Trump is currently in excellent health, and with his continued interest in preventative health monitoring and maintenance, he will continue to enjoy a healthy active lifestyle for years to come,” Dr. Bruce Aronwald wrote in the letter.
Trump’s physician added Trump’s physical exams were “well within the normal range” and his cognitive exams “were exceptional.”
However, while Trump and his campaign look to highlight Biden’s gaffes and blunders, the presumptive Republican nominee has had his own share of slip ups.
Throughout the campaign trail, Trump has mixed up former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Haley — and former President Barack Obama with Biden. Both times, the campaign has attempted to clean up his comments by stating “its a distinction with a difference.”
And as Trump often boasts about his strong mind and ability to talk off the cuff, at his most recent rally in Las Vegas, where he claimed the teleprompters weren’t working because of the high heat temperatures, the former president delivered a freewheeling, tangent-filled speech.
Yet still, despite the fact that polls show that voters agree that both Biden and Trump are too old to hold office for another term, they show more concern for Biden’s mental fitness compared to Trump.
In a Marquette University poll from last month, 79% of respondents said the phrase “too old” describes Biden “very or somewhat well,” compared to 54% saying the same of Trump.
In another poll from ABC News/IPSOS in May, people were asked which personal attributes apply to either candidate more. Trump led Biden on mental sharpness 42%-23% with 34% saying it applies to neither. On physical health, Trump again led Biden 42%-20%, with 37% applying the word to neither.
(MILWAUKEE) — Former President Donald Trump’s comments reportedly calling Milwaukee a “horrible city” continue to spark debate as Republicans and Trump’s campaign dispute the characterization of his comments, and Democrats persistently amplify his words — including through a new billboard campaign in the city.
In his closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Thursday, Trump called Milwaukee, which is hosting the Republican National Convention next month, a “horrible city,” sources told ABC News.
The comments, first reported by Punchbowl News, attacked Milwaukee — a major city in a key battleground state in the 2024 election where both Trump and President Joe Biden are working to woo voters.
Trump clarified his comments in an interview with WITI-TV, the Milwaukee Fox News station, on Thursday.
“It was very clear what I meant. I said, we’re very concerned with crime,” Trump said. “I love Milwaukee, I have great friends in Milwaukee. The crime numbers are terrible and we have to be very careful.”
Trump’s campaign spokesperson also punched back on the reports, arguing that Trump’s words were taken out of context.
“He was talking about how terrible crime and voter fraud are,” said campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung.
In another statement, the campaign wrote that it was a “total lie” that Trump called Milwaukee a “horrible city.” However, they went on to add, “President Trump was explicitly referring to the problems in Milwaukee, specifically violent crime and voter fraud,” suggesting he did make comments about the city, just not in the way some were interpreting it.
The campaign then includes a series of tweets from Republican members from Wisconsin inside the room who agree with the campaign’s description that Trump was not making a blanket disparaging statement about the city.
Republicans — including those from Wisconsin — quickly jumped to Trump’s defense, insisting the former president was talking about crime and election security.
“@realdonaldtrump was specifically referring to the CRIME RATE in Milwaukee,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden posted on X after the meeting.
Rep. Glenn Grothman told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Trump “was concerned about the election” and “felt we need to do better in urban centers around the country.”
Rep. Bryan Steil claimed on X that Trump “did not say this” in the conference meeting.
“There is no better place than Wisconsin in July,” Steil said.
The front page of Friday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel featured Trump’s words front and center: “Trump: Milwaukee ‘horrible.'”
Biden’s campaign and other Democrats are also teeing off on Trump’s comments.
Biden’s campaign is starting to sell merchandise, including stickers and T-shirts that read “(NOT) a horrible city” on top of the Wisconsin state outline as well as “I love Milwaukee” T-shirts where the heart is replaced with beer, an homage to the many breweries around the state.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee announced that the group has paid to put up billboards around Milwaukee with Trump’s reported comments criticizing the city.
The billboards, which will launch in 10 different locations across the city, feature the quote that Trump is reported to have said during Thursday’s closed-door House Republican meeting: “Milwaukee, where we are having our convention, is a horrible city.”
In a post on X, Biden responded to Trump’s comments with a photo of him with the Milwaukee Bucks after they won the 2021 NBA Championship.
Trump’s rivals are accusing him of abandoning the pivotal swing state — including Wisconsin’s Democrats.
“If Donald Trump thinks Milwaukee is so horrible, then he shouldn’t come to our city,” Wisconsin Democratic Coordinated Campaign Manager Garren Randolph said in a statement. “Milwaukee — our state’s largest and most diverse city and home to more than 577,000 people, the Bucks and Brewers, and the country’s best beer — deserves better than a convicted felon, racist, and wannabe dictator who hates us and our values.”
Trump is scheduled to hold a campaign event in Racine, Wisconsin — 30 miles south of Milwaukee — next Tuesday, where he will focus his remarks on inflation and immigration. In just over a month, Trump will return to Milwaukee to accept the Republican nomination at the party’s convention.
(WASHINGTON) — Bump stocks, the firearm modification banned by the federal government until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the regulation Friday, have generated controversy ever since the device was created over how they change the way semi-automatic weapons are fired.
The modification replaces the back of a semi-automatic rifle, which is usually held up against the shoulder, and allows the weapon to slide back and forth.
Typically, semi-automatic weapons can discharge only one bullet per press of the trigger. However, with the bump stock attached, the user can use the motion and energy from the kickback as the weapon slides back and forth and rapidly fires more bullets.
A shooter can keep a finger still as the recoil and bump stock move the trigger back and forth, according to weapons experts.
A bump stock modified semi-automatic can fire 400 to 800 rounds per minute, experts said. By comparison, a fully automatic weapon, which is prohibited for civilian use, shoots 700-950 rounds per minute.
Gun control advocates have called for the device to be banned after it was used in several shootings, including the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting where 58 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.
It is the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
A year later, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Justice to reclassify bump stocks to fall under the federal definition of “machinegun” and ban their sale, a drastic change in their policy which explicitly allowed the sale and use of the modification.
More than 700,000 bump stocks were sold since 2009.
However, the policy change was challenged in court by Michael Cargill, a Texas gun owner and weapons store owner, who contended the federal government overstepped its authority and bump stocks did not render semi-automatics as automatics.
“An agency within the federal government can’t come out and actually turn millions of people into felons overnight or ban a product. We have to go to Congress to do that.” Cargill told ABC News in February.
The Supreme Court’s conservatives agreed with Cargill Thursday and struck down the ban.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department on Friday said it has declined to prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland for contempt of Congress, according to a letter obtained by ABC News.
The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to send a contempt referral to the Justice Department. House Republicans had demanded Garland turn over the audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur to the House Oversight and Judiciary committees and Garland refused.
“Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” the Justice Department said.
The letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson cites what it called longstanding policy against prosecuting an attorney general.
Johnson responded to the letter and announced on Friday the House will “move to enforce the subpoena of Attorney General Garland in federal court.”
“It is sadly predictable that the Biden Administration’s Justice Department will not prosecute Garland for defying congressional subpoenas even though the department aggressively prosecuted Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing. This is yet another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration,” he said in a statement.
After Wednesday’s House vote, Johnson called the outcome “a significant step in maintaining the integrity of our oversight processes and responsibilities.”
“It is up to Congress – not the Executive Branch – to determine what materials it needs to conduct its own investigations, and there are consequences for refusing to comply with lawful Congressional subpoenas,” he said in a statement.
Garland, in response, said it was “deeply disappointing that this House of Representatives has turned a serious congressional authority into a partisan weapon.”
President Joe Biden asserted executive privilege over the recording of his Hur interview.
The Justice Department said executive privilege holds in this case as has in many others.
For example, the Justice Department took the same position in 2019 after then President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege after Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr did not turn over certain documents to the House Oversight Committee.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will head to Los Angeles on Saturday for a multimillion-dollar event that aims to shore up support for the Democratic ticket with a star-studded show of celebrity campaign surrogates.
The event will include headliners Julia Roberts and George Clooney, along with former President Barack Obama. Audience members will also see appearances from actors Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn, Jack Black, Sheryl Lee Ralph and a surprise musical guest to end the show.
Similar to the format of the campaign’s New York fundraiser, host Jimmy Kimmel will moderate a conversation between Obama and Biden to talk about the stakes of this election.
Heading into the event, the campaign raised $28 million according to the campaign, the largest Democratic fundraiser in history.
The Biden campaign has confirmed that Keegan-Michael Key, Connie Britton, Misha Collins, Jeri Ryan, Jonathan Del Arco, Mandana Dayani, Blake Cooper Griffin and Adam Met will also be in attendance at the fundraiser.
“This Saturday we are going to see an unprecedented and record setting turn out from the media and entertainment world,” said Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg in a statement. “The enthusiasm and commitment for Biden/Harris couldn’t be stronger. We all understand this is the most important election of our lifetime.”
Tickets for the fundraiser ranged anywhere from $250 to $125,000, but grassroots donors can pay as little as $10 to virtually join the event.
Attendees will be treated to one of the president’s favorite desserts: Ice cream. It will be supplied by a famous L.A. hotspot, Craig’s Restaurant in West Hollywood.
The event comes on the heels of Biden’s G7 trip to Italy where a bilateral security pact was signed on Thursday between the United States and Ukraine. Biden also met with Pope Francis during his time abroad.
The president, who dodged questions about his son’s trial and a cease-fire deal in Gaza at the press conference he held jointly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, will be leaving the conference early to attend the West Coast fundraiser.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Biden campaign both held fundraisers on Wednesday in London, according to sources familiar.
While Trump was not there, his son Donald Trump Jr. acted as a surrogate while actress Holly Vance hosted. Biden’s fundraiser was hosted by Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.
Both candidates are gearing up for what is expected to be a heavily-watched first debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta on June 27.
The Biden campaign told ABC News that every dollar from Saturday’s fundraising haul will be used to open offices, hire organizers and launch paid media campaigns.
Biden raised $10 million in May during his West Coast swing in San Francisco and Seattle, according to the campaign. The amount is relatively small compared to Trump’s $27.5 million he raised during his own West Coast swing earlier this month, which went through San Francisco, Beverly Hills, New Port Beach and Las Vegas, according to a campaign official.
Biden will have another large fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton on June 18 at the home of former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, according to a source familiar with the planning. Former Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Clinton will join her husband along with first lady Dr. Jill Biden. The event will have a reception followed by a more exclusive dinner for big-dollar contributions.
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday invalidated a Trump-era ban on bump stocks, ruling the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority in creating the regulation.
The 6-3 opinion was authored by Justice Clarence Thomas. The court’s three liberal justices, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented.
The court ruled a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock is not a “machinegun” under federal law because it does not fire more than one shot “by a single function of the trigger.”
Thomas added, “even if it could, it would not do so ‘automatically.'”
The ATF rule was created in the wake of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history when a gunman opened fire at Las Vegas music festival in 2017. Fifty-eight people were killed and more than 850 others wounded.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson hold a press conference at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, April 12, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump made a rare appearance in Washington on Thursday to lay out his second-term agenda to Republican lawmakers as he continues to stress party unity in the wake of his historic felony conviction and a month from becoming the party’s official nominee.
The former president spent the day just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol to attend a slate of meetings with GOP allies.
First, he huddled with House Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club. The meeting was behind closed doors, but multiple sources told ABC News the former president praised House Speaker Mike Johnson as doing a “good job.”
Trump also criticized the Department of Justice as “dirty bastards” as he aired grievances about his legal challenges.
The meeting unfolded as the Supreme Court handed down a major decision preserving access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Sources told ABC News Trump did not mention the decision directly, but did discuss his view that abortion access should be decided by the states. He also insisted he believed in three exceptions to abortion restrictions: rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
Politically, Trump told Republicans they could have a 40-seat majority in the House if they weren’t so “afraid” of the issue, according to sources.
He also went after Democrats like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Rep. Liz Cheney, sources said. Both Pelosi and Cheney, despite being on opposite sides of the aisle, are staunch critics of the former president.
Later on Thursday, Trump met with Senate Republicans at the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters. After the meeting, he touted party unity in on-camera remarks but took no questions from reporters.
“This is an outstanding group of people. I’m with them 1,000%, they’re with me 1,000%. We agree just about on everything and if there isn’t, we work it out,” Trump said.
In a show of force, Trump was joined by a large group of senators, including Sens. Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, and many others. Sens. Tim Scott and J.D. Vance, two vice presidential hopefuls, were also there to support Trump.
“We want to see just success for our country,” Trump said. “And we don’t have success right now.”
Trump has stayed off the U.S. Capitol campus entirely since he left office shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
His return on Thursday prompted President Joe Biden and Democrats to highlight the riot. The Biden-Harris campaign released a new advertisement claiming Trump is trying to “burn it all down” with footage of the Capitol riot.
The former president said while Democrats accuse Republicans of being “a bad example of democracy,” they’re the ones who “are getting away with murder.”
The Senate Republican discussion marked the first time since 2020 that Minority Mitch McConnell and Trump met face-to-face.
McConnell and Trump have a rocky relationship, heightened after McConnell recognized President Joe Biden’s victory in the wake of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
But McConnell, walking back to the U.S. Capitol building afterward, called it a “positive meeting.”
“He and I got a chance to talk a little bit and shook hands a few times,” McConnell said. “He got a lot of standing ovations. It was an entirely positive meeting. Mitt Romney was there as well.”
Johnson has more openly embraced Trump, who was crucial in supporting him when he faced the threat of being ousted by conservative GOP House hard-liners, saying coordination with Trump is important heading into November’s election and a potential second Trump presidency.
“I think it’s important for the country, to have us, to have close coordination,” Johnson said at a news conference on Wednesday. “I believe he’ll have, can be, the most consequential president of the modern era, because we have to fix effectively every area of public policy.”
At that news conference, Johnson also told ABC News he supports a bill that would allow current or former presidents to move state charges against them into federal court — a measure aimed at showing support for Trump after being found guilty in his hush money trial in a New York state court.
“I think that’s an idea that makes sense. It makes sense to most Republicans, and I think almost everyone will be in favor of that.”
After the Thursday morning meeting, Johnson said that Trump “didn’t bring up that specific piece of legislation.”
“He did talk about his concern about the lawfare that’s been waged against him — and we all know it — and I made the point in my introduction that it’s backfired fantastically,” Johnson said. “President Trump has become a symbol of pushing back against corruption, the deep state of the weaponization of judicial system and that’s a very encouraging development. So, I think that he made the point every time they indicted him, his polls went up.”
However, not every Republican fully welcomed back Trump when he came to the nation’s capital.
Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who have been vocal Trump critics, blamed previous conflicts as a reason for why they couldn’t attend the meeting with Trump.
The two voted with Democrats to impeach Trump for his actions related to Jan. 6.
As he was in Washington, Trump also participated in a moderated discussion at a quarterly meeting of the Business Roundtable, a group consisting of more than 200 CEOs. Business Roundtable spokesman Michael Steel said the group invited both presumptive presidential nominees, but with Biden overseas to attend the G7 summit, White House chief of staff Jeff Zients joined the meeting in his absence.
(ITALY) — President Joe Biden touted on Thursday several new major U.S. commitments for Ukraine that were announced this week, including a 10-year bilateral security agreement, sanctions to disrupt Russia’s war machine, and a sign-off from the G7 on a $50 billion loan backed by frozen Russian assets.
Biden, in during a press conference in Italy with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the collective efforts by the G7 show that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot wait us out, he cannot divide us, and we’ll be with Ukraine until they prevail this war.”
On the bilateral agreement, Biden said the goal is to “strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capabilities for the long term.”
He reiterated his position that American troops will not fight in Ukraine, but the United States would provide them with weapons.
Zelenskyy called it a “historic day” after signing the “strongest agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. since our independence.”
“This is an agreement on security and thus on the protection of human life. This is an agreement on cooperation, and thus on how our nations will become stronger. This is an agreement on steps to guarantee sustainable peace. And therefore, it benefits everyone in the world because the Russian war against Ukraine is a real, real global threat,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy was asked what his contingency plan is if the next U.S. president does not follow through with this agreement, but he suggested that as long as Americans support Ukraine, so will the American president.
“If the people are with us, any leader will be with us in this struggle for freedom,” he said.
Highlighting the frozen Russian assets, Biden said the plan that’s been agreed to by the G7 is another reminder for Putin that “we’re not backing down.”
“Collectively, this is a powerful set of actions and will create a stronger foundation for Ukraine’s success,” Biden said.
After Biden recently signed off on Ukraine using American weapons to strike in parts of Russia, limiting use to areas near the Russian-occupied Kharkiv region, he was asked if he would consider expanding those parameters to allow for longer-range strikes; he said his policy is still against that.
“It makes a lot of sense for Ukraine to be able to take out or combat what is coming across that border. In terms of long, long-range weapons, longer-range weapons into the interior of Russia, we have not changed our position on that sort,” he said.
Zelenskyy was asked about how long the supplemental support from the U.S. and other nations will get him on the battlefield. He said it’s not a matter of how long the aid lasts, but, more importantly, how long unity among nations will last.
“I think the question has to be, for how long the unity will last? The unity in the United States, together with the European leaders — how these or those elections will influence this unity?” Zelensky said, via translation
“It seems to me that we should look on this exactly this way: to preserve unity, to preserve the integrity of the world, the integrity of the democratic world. Because if Ukraine does not withstand, the democracy, many countries will not be able to withstand, and I am sure of that,” he added.
For his part, Biden pledged that Ukraine will “have what they need.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden said Thursday he would not issue a presidential sentence commutation for Hunter Biden following his conviction earlier this week on federal gun charges.
ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang reported that Biden was asked about the issue following his press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Italy, where the two announced a new security agreement.
Reporters shouting over music pressed Biden, “Would you commute Hunter’s sentence?” and “Mr. President, do you plan on commuting your son’s sentence?”
The president answered with a “no.”
The exchange occurred one day after the White House declined to rule out a commutation.
Hunter Biden was found guilty last week on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs. It marked the first time the child of a sitting U.S. president was criminally convicted.
President Biden has expressed love for his son while committing to respecting the trial’s outcome and repeatedly ruling out a pardon.
During the news conference with Zelenskyy on Thursday, Biden was asked by an Associated Press reporter if he believed his son “was able to get a fair trial.”
“Do you believe the Justice Department operated independently of politics?” the reporter asked.
Biden began his response by stating he was “extremely proud” of his son.
“He has overcome an addition. He is one of the brightest, most decent men I know,” he said. “And I am satisfied that I’m not going to do anything — I said I’d abide by the jury decision and I will do that, and I will not pardon him.”
Hunter Biden, in a statement after the verdict was handed down, said he was grateful for the support he received during the weeklong proceeding. Biden family members, including first lady Jill Biden, packed into the courtroom — though President Biden never made an appearance as he was overseas to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
“I am more grateful today for the love and support I experienced this last week from Melissa, my family, my friends, and my community than I am disappointed by the outcome,” Hunter Biden said on Tuesday. “Recovery is possible by the grace of God, and I am blessed to experience that gift one day at a time.”
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said they respected the jury process but will “continue to vigorously pursue all the legal challenges available to Hunter.”
