A History Worth Reading

because when the US does these things, they take place in all of our names whether we want it, or not. It’s part of why the power for these things lies in our legislature. The power does not rest with the executive unless the legislature votes to give it.

‘You don’t brag about wiping out 60‑70,000 people’: the men who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki‘

Stephen Walker Sun 22 Jun 2025 07.00 EDT

This summer will mark 80 years since the attacks stunned the world. Today, every one of the crew members who carried out the bombings is dead. Here, one of the last writers to interview them reopens his files

Stephen Walker

Sun 22 Jun 2025 07.00 EDTShare

‘It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining on the buildings. Everything down there was bright – very, very bright. You could see the city from 50 miles away, the rivers bisecting it, the aiming point. It was clear as a bell. It was perfect. The perfect mission.”

I’m sitting in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco opposite the navigator of the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. The year is 2004, and Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, aged 83, has agreed to be interviewed for a book I’m writing for the 60th anniversary of that fateful mission. Van Kirk informs me, with the trace of a smile, that this will probably be the last interview in his life.

We have spent the afternoon looking through wartime logbooks from his 58 overseas combat missions. Now, between servings of dim sum, he is telling me about the 59th, the one that wiped out a city, along with well over 100,000 people.

“The instant the bomb left the bomb bay, we screamed into a steep diving turn to escape the shockwave. There were two – the first, like a very, very, very close burst of flak. Then we turned back to see Hiroshima. But you couldn’t see it. It was covered in smoke, dust, debris. And coming out of it was that mushroom cloud.”

The crew of the B-29 bomber Enola Gay. Stephen Walker interviewed Theodore ‘Dutch’ Van Kirk, navigator (1); Tom Ferebee, bombardier (2); Paul Tibbets, pilot (3); Bob Lewis, co-pilot (4); George ‘Bob’ Caron, tail gunner (5); and Robert Shumard, assistant engineer (6). Photograph: Photogquest/Getty Images

He stops a moment, awe visibly registering on his face. “The city was gone. It was only three minutes since we’d dropped the bomb.”

Van Kirk died in 2014. In the years since we met, all the other crew members who flew on the missions to Hiroshima, and to Nagasaki three days later on 9 August, have also died. Meanwhile, the numbers of hibakusha, those who survived the attacks, are rapidly dwindling. We are passing into a twilight of history. As we approach the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings, this biological fact seems disturbingly relevant. Twenty years ago, the world was a dangerous place. Today, it’s more so. More nations are developing nuclear weapons with few, if any, effective international controls. Tactical nuclear strikes have been explicitly threatened by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. And, just in the last week, war has broken out in the Middle East over fears that Iran may be very close to having a bomb. In such times, perspective matters. The shocked testimony of those like Van Kirk needs to be heard. History has lessons to teach us.

It was this thought that prompted me to reopen my files, to reread the transcripts of interviews with some of the crew members of both attacks. Much of this material was untouched for two decades; nothing relating to the Nagasaki mission was published. Here were some of the last testimonies of those who did the unthinkable. They were in their 80s or 90s, nearing the end of their lives. How did they remember it?

On 4 August 1945, Charles “Don” Albury, a 24-year-old B-29 pilot, was summoned to a secret briefing on Tinian, a Pacific island 1,500 miles south of Japan. Then the biggest bomber base in the world, Tinian was a jump-off point for a conveyor belt of the almost daily destruction of Japan. About 300,000 people had already died and 9 million were now homeless.

But Albury’s outfit had yet to take part in the attacks. Known as the 509th Composite Group, they occupied a secret compound on a far corner of the base. “Security was very, very tight,” Albury told me when I met him at his home in Orlando, Florida. Then aged 83, he grinned mischievously. “I remember one time the base commander got too near one of our planes. A guard nearly shot him.”

Even the 509th’s crews knew nothing about their ultimate missions. And they had been training for almost a year. First in Utah, later on Tinian: “We kept dropping practice bombs and flying these crazy steep turns. We did it day after day. For months.” But nobody told them why, and few dared ask. Those who did could find themselves swiftly dispatched by their leader, Paul Tibbets, a battle-hardened bomber pilot, to hardship posts above the Arctic Circle. “You learned to keep your mouth shut,” said Albury.

But in that 4 August briefing a part of the secret was about to be revealed.

Nine days earlier, on 26 July, President Truman had delivered his ultimatum to Japan in the Potsdam declaration: either surrender unconditionally, or face “prompt and utter destruction”. The means of that destruction was not specified. And Japan had not surrendered.

If I live for 100 years I will never get these few minutes out of my mind

(snip-MORE)

Some good, bad, and really ugly news from Joe My God.

Trump Loses Yet Another Round Against Harvard

Senate Parliamentarian Nixes GOP’s Food Stamps Plot

Senate Parliamentarian Nixes Limits On Suing Trump

Hawley: Medicaid Cuts Present “Nightmare Scenario”

Dodgers Donate $1M To Families Impacted By ICE

Trump Reverses Again On ICE Raids At Farms: I Don’t Want To Hurt Our Farmers, They Keep Us Happy And Fat

Trump Demands Special Prosecutor Over 2020 Election

GOP Rep. Randy Fine Compares Mamdani To Iranian Supreme Leader: He’ll Turn NYC Into Shiite Caliphate

“Zohran Mamdani would do to New York City what Khomeini and Khamenei did to Tehran,” Fine said. “We cannot let radical Muslims turn America into a Shiite caliphate.”

HHS Threatens To Defund California Over Sex Ed

Perkins: If We Don’t Attack Iran, God Will Smite USA

Loomer: You’re Not MAGA If You Don’t Hate Muslims

Vance Mocks Sen. Alex Padilla By Calling Him “Jose”

So much for saving government money which they all claimed while shredding our government with the illegal doge. Hugs

Megabill Would Trash $10B In New USPS Electric Trucks

The proposal is unlikely to generate much revenue for the government; there is almost no private-sector interest in the mail trucks, and used EV charging equipment — built specifically for the Postal Service and already installed in postal facilities — generally cannot be resold.

“The funds realized by auctioning the vehicles and infrastructure would be negligible. Much of infrastructure is literally buried under parking lots, and there is no market for used charging equipment,” Peter Pastre, the Postal Service’s vice president for government relations and public policy, wrote to senators this month.

Read the full article. $10 billion into the sewer to please their Glorious Leader. Something something DOGE.

Stephen Miller’s Fingerprints Are on Everything in Trump’s Second Term

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-c1e0e924?st=yCayfj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

The deputy chief of staff has played an outsize role in immigration—and amassed more power than almost anyone else at the White House

By

Josh Dawsey

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Rebecca Ballhaus

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June 20, 2025 9:00 pm ET

Stephen Miller spoke at an April event in Warren, Mich., marking President Trump’s first 100 days in office. Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed.

When a federal judge in March told the Trump administration to turn around flights of deported migrants headed to El Salvador, senior officials hastily convened a Saturday evening conference call to figure out what to do.

If they didn’t return the passengers, they would be defying a court order, some administration officials worried. Miller, who is President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, pushed for the planes to keep flying, which they ultimately did. The judge would later say that allowing officials to defy court judgments would make a “solemn mockery” of the Constitution.

The 39-year-old immigration hawk, who has been by Trump’s side since the 2016 campaign, has emerged as a singular figure in the second Trump administration, wielding more power than almost any other White House staffer in recent memory—and eager to circumvent legal limitations on his agenda.

He has his own staff of about 30 and a Secret Service detail, which White House officials said was because he had received death threats and serves as homeland security adviser. He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums. He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.

Miller had considerable sway in Trump’s first term. But when aides at the time suggested promoting Miller to a leadership role at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.

His influence has expanded sharply since, thanks largely to his steadfast loyalty to Trump. This account of Miller’s tenure is based on interviews with current and former White House officials, Trump advisers and other prominent Republicans.

Some of Miller’s colleagues said they were alarmed by some of the legal maneuvers that Miller has proposed for executing the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, and Trump has gently ribbed him for being too “happy” about deportations.

Miller, who has written or edited every executive order signed by Trump in his second term, attended a May event of the Make America Healthy Again Commission. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.

His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Miller’s portfolio covers almost every issue Trump is interested in. In recent months, he talked to CEOs about a coming tariff announcement; joined a meeting between Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Trump about the company’s antitrust case; and met with other tech companies on artificial intelligence.

Even some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries.

There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.

The aggressive posture has started to spark some voter backlash, with polls showing Trump’s approval rating on immigration and deportations has turned negative.

Several White House staffers said Miller always takes the most “extreme” view of any issue, and his positions have cost the administration in court. In Trump’s first 100 days back in office, courts issued nationwide injunctions in 25 cases against the federal government, compared with six in his entire first term and four during the Biden administration, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Several cases have already reached the Supreme Court, which has ruled against Trump on some immigration cases.

“I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,” said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.

Miller has responded to the courts’ intervention by denouncing it as “judicial tyranny.” His allies argue illegal border crossings are down to almost zero because his aggressive proposals are deterring migrants.

“Stephen Miller is one of President Trump’s most trusted and longest serving aides for a reason—he delivers,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.

In the wilderness

Miller stuck by Trump when many staffers quit their jobs after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He had helped draft Trump’s speech that morning, and worked until 12 p.m. on Jan. 20—the day Trump’s first term ended—telling the officer taking his badge he would be back in four years.

“Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue is the greatest address in the world, and though we now leave these gates, rest assured, this is not goodbye,” he wrote to colleagues.

Three months later, Miller launched a nonprofit, America First Legal, aimed at countering what Miller described as a “years-long, one-sided legal assault” by the left. “Now, we must turn the tables,” he said at the time.

Over the next four years, it filed dozens of lawsuits, many of which are ongoing, categorized on its website under topics including “DEI,” “Woke Corporations” and “Women’s Sports.” The group’s targets are now under fire from the Trump administration, too.

Miller speaking with reporters outside the White House in January. Photo: Francis Chung/Press Pool

In 2022, the group called on the Education Department to stop distributing federal funds to universities where it alleged antisemitism was festering. Three years later, the Trump administration would do just that at universities including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.

In 2024, Miller’s group helped 16 Republican-led states sue the Biden administration over a policy that protected illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens from deportation. A judge ruled in the states’ favor, and the Trump administration overturned the policy this year.

By the time Trump returned to the White House, the group had about two dozen lawyers on staff and had raised more than $60 million from donors, whose identities it doesn’t disclose. The group paid Miller more than $500,000 last year, according to his financial disclosure.

Meanwhile, Miller continued to play an active role across the Republican Party, even if his outreach wasn’t always welcome.

Congressional aides fielded lengthy calls from Miller about illegal immigration, often without any specific requests. One likened him to a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast. Others said he would call to scold aides about how they had framed a social-media post on a particular issue or criticizing the way they had worded a press release.

As a House committee prepared for then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to testify, Miller came to the Hill to play the role of Mayorkas, aides said. During the prep, he answered questions as the secretary—but also chimed in to give lawmakers advice on questions.

Miller was determined to kill a bipartisan bill pushed by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma in 2024 on the border and regularly called House Speaker Mike Johnson.

He also called the Republican National Committee to offer his advice on how the party should communicate on immigration, sometimes offering his thoughts on what the RNC chairman could tweet, people familiar with the discussions said.

He was a regular visitor to Mar-a-Lago during the campaign, meeting with Trump above his ballroom. Campaign aides say Miller always wanted to talk more about immigration. Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, and his other aides wanted to keep the message on the economy. Trump staffers started displaying ominous photos of migrants at his events.

Some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Hundreds of orders

In the first term, Trump was largely unprepared to govern. Miller regularly complained then that others in the administration tried to block his immigration decisions, and outside lawyers would stymie their efforts. This time, Miller came in determined to correct that.

He brought hundreds of proposed orders to the White House as well as his own staff. Russell Vought, the onetime treasurer of America First Legal, is now the White House budget chief. Reed Rubinstein, the group’s senior vice president, was nominated as legal adviser of the State Department. Matt Whitaker, a board member, is the U.S. permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

He now tells other staffers how to behave around Trump, people who have heard his comments say, and upgraded his office from one on a different floor to one steps from the Oval Office.

During the first term, Miller would push for hard-line policies that others blanched at, including advocating for several dozen countries to be added to the travel ban list of seven, a former administration official said. People laughed, but he was serious, the official said. This time, Trump announced a ban that covered a dozen countries.

He keeps in Trump’s good graces by giving Trump ideas—but more importantly, helping the president carry his own out.

Administration officials noted how Miller shut down discussion about whether the U.S. should bomb Houthi targets in a Signal chat that was accidentally shared with The Atlantic’s editor in chief. As the vice president and top national security officials discussed options, Miller weighed in.

“As I heard it, the president was clear,” Miller said. “Green light,” he added.

Earlier this month, Leavitt, the press secretary, interviewed Miller at a private event for Republican donors at the Four Seasons in Washington.

Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.

Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.

Miller smiled in response, and then left to return to the White House.

Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com and Rebecca Ballhaus at rebecca.ballhaus@wsj.com

From Roger

I got a lot from reading and re-reading this. I tried to comment there, but WordPress sigh. Anyway, as a show of respect, here is this. Very good info and commentary

History Taps Us On The Shoulder. In Our Embarrassment We Hurry For Justifications

Pride Month display at NYC’s Stonewall National Monument excludes transgender flags

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/stonewall-national-monument-transgender-flags-missing/#originhttps3A2F2Fwwwgooglecom2Fcapswipeeducationwebview1dialog1viewportnaturalvisibilityStateprerenderprerenderSize1viewerUrlhttps3A2F2Fwwwgooglecom2Famp2Fs2Fwww-cbsnews-comcdnampprojectorg2Fc2Fs2Fwwwcbsnewscom2Fnewyork2Fnews2Fstonewall-national-monument-transgender-flags-missing3Fusqpmq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM25253Damp_kit1

The transgender flags that usually adorn the Stonewall National Monument in New York City during Pride Month were missing this year, so some New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands.

This comes as the National Park Service is accused of actively erasing transgender visibility and history.

“It’s a terrible action for them to take”

During June, Pride flags are placed around the park’s fence. They usually include a mixture of rainbow LGBTQ+ flags, transgender flags and progress flags, which have stripes to include communities of color.

Photographer and advocate Steven Love Menendez said he created and won federal approval for the installation nine years ago. Within a few years, the National Park Service was picking up the tab, buying and installing flags, including trans ones.

Pride flags fly in the wind at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan’s West Village on June 19, 2023 in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

This year, however, Menendez said the National Park Service told him to change the protocol.

“I was told … only the traditional rainbow flag would be displayed this year,” he said.

Now, no transgender or progress flags are among the 250 rainbow flags installed around the park.

“It’s a terrible action for them to take,” Menendez said.

Earlier this year, the National Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from the Stonewall National Monument’s website.

“I used to be listed as an LGBTQ activist, and now it says ‘Steven Menendez, LGB activist,'” Menendez said. “They took out the Q and the T.”

“I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history”

Many visiting the monument said they are opposed to the change.

“I think it’s absurd. I think it’s petty,” said Willa Kingsford, a tourist from Portland.

“It’s horrible. They’re changing all of our history,” Los Angeles resident Patty Carter said.

Jay Edinin, of Queens, brought his own transgender flag to the monument.

“I’m not going to stand by and watch us be erased from our own history, from our own communities, and from the visibility that we desperately need right now,” he said.

The transgender flags that usually adorn the Stonewall National Monument in New York City during Pride Month were missing this year, so some New Yorkers are taking matters into their own hands.CBS News New York

He is not the only one bringing unauthorized flags to the park. A number of trans flags were seen planted in the soil.

National Park Service workers at the park told CBS News New York they are not authorized to speak on this subject. CBS News New York reached out by phone and email to the National Park Service and has not yet heard back.

Dave Carlin

Dave Carlin has covered major national news stories and events in the past four decades including Superstorm Sandy and its tri-state impacts, Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina and Iniki on Kauai, Hawaii. He also covered the Space Shuttle Program, 1989 San Francisco Earthquake, numerous Southern California wildfires, the trial and execution of serial killer Ted Bundy in Florida, the 1994 police shooting death of Tyke the eacaped Cirus Elephant on the streets of Honolulu, 2009’s Miracle on the Hudson, the NYC Mayoral administrations of Bloomberg through Adams and more.

Bill White: In Trump’s world facts are inconvenient, irrelevant

Bill White: In Trump’s world facts are inconvenient, irrelevant

My wife and I recently returned from a Danube River cruise — no, it’s not blue, the waltz notwithstanding — and we had a wonderful time.

One of the many pleasures of these relatively small river cruises is all the interesting people you get to meet from around the world. This time around, we spent most of our time with Canadians and Australians, who seemed to enjoy our company once they determined we shared their low opinion of our president.

When one of the Canadians we dined with several times learned that we had signed on for a “Sound of Music” tour of Salzburg, Austria — featuring fountains, mountains, cityscapes, trees, a church and other locations from the movie — he told a nice story about an Austrian who emotionally described to him his love for their traditional folk song, “Edelweiss.”

I had read that the song actually was written just for the movie and had no significance for Austrians, which our guide confirmed the next day. So when our new friend repeated his story at dinner that evening, I politely corrected him, explaining that although some Austrians may have embraced the song — the Edelweiss is their national flower — it was a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation.

I won’t say our friend was crestfallen, but he did seem disappointed. I should add that I have a long tradition of spoiling people’s favorite stories, in part through the urban legend columns I used to write semiregularly.

So here’s the question. Is the truth really that important, if it spoils a good narrative?

After all, we’re in what some people have characterized as the Post-Truth Era, ushered in most recently by Donald Trump, his congressional lapdogs and Fox News but immortalized much earlier by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Falsehoods abound, not just in the White House but all over social media.

Here’s how the European Center for Populism Studies explained the Big Lie technique.

The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique, originally coined by Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” who says “The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one,” and denotes where a known falsehood is stated and repeated and treated as if it is self-evidently true, in hopes of swaying the course of an argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it.

Pssst. If that doesn’t sound familiar, wake up.

Hitler used it to blame his country’s problems on his best available scapegoat, Jewish people. Trump and company have broadened this approach to encompass multiple scapegoats — immigrants, foreigners, transgender people, people who are “woke” because they encourage social justice and care about the future health of our planet — and to big lies involving the 2020 election and so many other subjects that we’re numb to it. He lies about everything, and his supporters don’t seem to know or care.

I remember when the idea of act checking first emerged in political coverage. Instead of just quoting politicians who were fudging the truth, the fact-checkers would point out when they were lying or exaggerating, in the case of The Washington Post by assigning up to four Pinocchios for the most egregious falsehoods.

Some politicians would correct themselves in future pronouncements. Others wouldn’t bother.

Trump, the ultimate Pinocchio, is oblivious to Fact Checking. He just plows ahead — “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!” — repeating the same misinformation over and over at rallies, news conferences, debates. Facts are irrelevant.

Perhaps most amazingly, his long-since-debunked fraud allegations regarding the 2020 election are being incorporated into Oklahoma’s public-school curriculum. Elsewhere, facts about racial injustice, climate change and our nation’s history have been altered or eliminated from public school curricula to suit the MAGA agenda. Kinglike, Trump even is punishing colleges, states and others who won’t go along with his determination to impose “1984”-style Newspeak.

I think at least some Trump followers — particularly Republican elected leaders — know he is lying. But because it suits their preferred narrative, they go along. That’s frightening enough. Even scarier, though, are the people who are too dim, lazy or Foxcentric to figure out that we’re not being overrun by bloodthirsty killer immigrants or that non-straight men and women aren’t a threat to our military, our children or anything else, not to mention that Trump really lost the 2020 election, that the rioters storming the Capitol weren’t the true victims of Jan. 6, that indiscriminate ICE goon squads aren’t the best solution to illegal immigration and that vaccinating our children continues to be a very good idea.

They don’t just accept the lies. They spread them. That’s why we must be advocates for the truth, correcting and even confronting falsehoods, at rallies, on social media, in conversations. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s fueling our country’s descent into unrecognizable autocratic chaos.

“Eidelweiss” may be trivial. But innocent people being demonized? Trust in our elections destroyed? Our constitutional guarantees shredded? Our planet’s climate threatened? Long-dead diseases given new life?History rewritten?

Speak up. The truth is worth defending.

This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. His Threads handle is whitebil2000. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at themorningcall.com/opinions.

Peace & Justice History for 6/21

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjune.htm#june21

Responding to Robert Gagnon

I admit this is long at 44 minutes. I found it worth the watch even though at times Gagnon tries to get technical and uses a circular argument in favor of his predetermined view of homosexuality and the LGBTQ+ spectrum. He is not using the bible to inform him as Reverend Trevors says but instead using it as a weapon for his dislike / hate for anything not superior male inferior female relationships. I find McClellan easy to follow and understand and I like that he leaves his feelings at the door when he tries to understand the texts of that time. He points how Gagnon is using his biases to inform his religion and not his religion forming his biases. The other interesting thing to me is that McClellan seems to have researched the times and cultures of the different passages to see the context they were written in, whereas Gagnon seems to simply impose his modern standards on the words. Hugs

Republicans uncover no new intel on Biden during hearing on his cognitive abilities in office

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republicans-uncover-new-intel-biden-hearing-cognitive-abilities/story?id=122971024

Democrats boycotted the hearing — with some walking out once it began.

ByIsabella Murray and Sarah Beth Hensley

June 18, 2025, 2:35 PM

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday digging into the cognitive abilities of former President Joe Biden and claims of whether his aides helped what they say was a cover up of his alleged mental decline — claims the former president and many on his staff have denied.

The probe didn’t uncover any new information on the former president — with Democratic members of the subcommittee boycotting the hearing.

Democratic senators on the committee walked out of the hearing shortly after it began, with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin blasting the panel for even holding the hearing, while he says a number of timely investigations should be going on related to President Donald Trump’s current actions.

“So far this year, the Republican majority on this committee has not held a single oversight hearing, despite numerous critical challenges facing the nation that are under our jurisdiction,” Durbin said.

The GOP panel repeatedly accused Democrats — and the media — of concealing the former president’s alleged real health conditions in order to prevent Trump’s 2024 victory.

“Today’s hearing is about competency, corruption and cover up within the Biden administration. Simply put, the last administration was rudderless from one crisis to another. The Biden Administration failed and folded. The partisan media did their best to cover up those failures,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley claimed.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer listens to questioning during Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearings on how the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution in the Dirksen Senate office building in Washington, DC, June 18, 2025.

Mattie Neretin/Sipa USA via AP

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who was among the witnesses, compared his time working under Trump in his first term to his observations of Biden, praising Trump’s energy and mental focus. Spicer never worked for the Biden administration.

Spicer also criticized “legacy media” for questions raised about Trump’s fitness for office in his first term, while he claims they were not questioning Biden the same way.

“Many, rightly so, believe the media in this country is culpable in covering up the obvious decline of the 46th president and leaders of the free world — the president of the United States. The scrutiny that was baselessly directed at President Trump during his first term was wholly absent from the media coverage of the Biden White House,” Spicer claimed.

Republicans on the committee also focused on Trump — saying he is in command and makes skillful decisions.

“The public is counting on us to ensure this never happens again, because we won’t always be fortunate enough to have a leader like President Trump, who is so unmistakably in command,” Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said.

Joe Biden speaks during a conference of the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled (ACRD) at the Sofitel Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, on April 15, 2025.

Tannen Maury/AFP via Getty Images

In May, Senate Republicans announced their plans to launch the probe into Biden’s mental fitness while in office — including his use of autopen, a mechanical device to automatically add a signature to a document that’s been utilized by several past presidents, including Trump in his first term.

The hearing also comes after Trump earlier this month ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Biden’s administration sought to conspire to cover up his alleged mental state while in office. The move by the White House represents a significant escalation, as it is a directive to the Justice Department to formally investigate.

Biden responded to the Trump order, saying “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency.”

“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” Biden said in a statement.

In May, House Oversight Chairman James Comer requested Biden’s White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, appear for a transcribed interview as part of an investigation into Biden’s mental fitness and use of a presidential autopen while in office. Comer asked O’Connor to sit for an interview on June 25.

Sean Spicer, Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow for Law and Technology Theodore Wold, and University of Virginia Law Professor John Harrison testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the alleged cover up of former President Joe Biden’s alleged incapacity to serve on Capitol Hill June 18, 2025.

Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP

The calls for the probes into Biden also come after the recent release of “Original Sin” by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, claiming the Bidens had a “capacity for denial and the lengths they would go to avoid transparency about health issues.”

In response to the book’s release, a Biden spokesman said “there is nothing in this book that shows Joe Biden failed to do his job, as the authors have alleged, nor did they prove their allegation that there was a cover up or conspiracy.”

On Wednesday morning, Trump — who often criticizes Biden — lambasted the former president’s use of autopen and claimed that Biden didn’t have control while leading the country.

“All these people, all the scum that was around the Oval, you know, the Oval Office, or around the beautiful Resolute desk, telling this guy here, ‘Do this,’ ‘Do that,’ and not even tell him. They just go over to the autopen and sign whatever the hell they wanted to sign,” he said.

Trump claimed that it was aides who were making decisions for Biden — employing the autopen to carry out an agenda.

“He wasn’t for open borders, he wasn’t for transgender for everybody. He wasn’t for men playing in women’s sports. But he has no idea what the hell — he has no idea,” Trump claimed.