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Biden refers to Harris as ‘VP Trump’ during mistake-filled NATO presser

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News conference held as more Democrats call on Biden to step aside

In his first news conference since his critically panned debate performance two weeks ago, President Joe Biden on Thursday made numerous mistakes while talking for about an hour. He answered questions from 10 hand-picked reporters focused mostly on his fitness for office, but included issues such as the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine.

“I’ve been given a list of people to call on here,” Biden said when the Q&A portion of his news conference began, later mistakenly referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”

News outlets since Biden’s performance in the late June debate against former President Donald Trump have reported that Biden is tightly controlled by White House staff, some saying as efforts to hide the president’s cognitive decline. Because of Biden’s recent gaffes, many Democrats have called on Biden to step aside and allow the party to choose another candidate to run against Trump in November. Biden has been defiant, insisting he will stay in the race.

“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job that I started,” Biden said after he was asked whether his refusals to back out of the race might backfire and cost the Democratic Party the Oval Office, as well as down ballot races in Congress. Republicans hold a slight majority in the U.S. House, and Democrats in the Senate. Either or both could flip in November, depending on voter sentiment.

When asked if Harris was ready to become president if Biden did decide to step aside, the president said, “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think she’s not qualified to be president. Let’s start there.”

Trump quickly mocked Biden for the flub on his Truth Social account.

“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president,” Trump posted. “Good job, Joe.”

Biden also lost his train of thought several times during the news conference, ending his answers with “well, anyway” without finishing his response.

When asked if he was capable of performing the job of the presidency for another four years, Biden said he was but, “I’ve just got to pace myself more.”

Earlier in the day, Biden mistakenly called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin” during an introduction. Vladimir Putin is president of Russia, which invaded Ukraine more than two years ago.

Biden’s news conference came after he addressed the NATO summit on Thursday, highlighting the U.S.’ commitment to providing aid to Ukraine and the importance of unity among NATO members. Biden hosted the summit and the various world leaders in Washington, D.C. this week.

When asked during the news conference if he would reconsider the U.S. allowing Ukraine to use U.S. weapons in its war with Russia, Biden mistakenly said, ““I’m following the advice of my commander-in-chief.” As president, Biden is commander-in-chief of the U.S. military. He soon followed, “My, the chief of staff of the military, as well as the secretary of defense and our intelligence people.”

NATO is now 75 years old and holds the position as the world’s most powerful and far-reaching deterrence pact.

“The fact that NATO remains the bulwark of global security did not happen by accident,” Biden said at the summit’s opening ceremony Wednesday. “It wasn’t inevitable. Again and again, at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion, progress over retreat, freedom over tyranny and hope over fear. Again and again, we stood behind our shared vision of a peaceful and prosperous Transatlantic community.”

According to the U.S. Defense Department, NATO has provided at least $175 billion to Ukraine, including guns, fighter jets, ammunition and training.

Trump has long been critical of the alliance, highlighting an over-reliance on U.S. monetary aid and defense funding.

Trump’s threats of non-protection over members not paying their dues has many in Europe worried about his commitment to the alliance.

“‘If we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said ‘absolutely not,'” Trump said at a campaign rally in South Carolina, remarking an interaction he had with one supposed member president.

Though a unilateral withdrawal from the alliance is not possible, there has been speculation about plans that would restructure the alliance so as to rely less on U.S. funding and defense platforms.

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Dr. Phil Joins Tom Homan and ICE For Midnight Arrests Of Illegal Alien Criminals

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Thomas English

Show host Dr. Phil joined border czar Tom Homan and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in a raid across the Chicago metropolitan area late Sunday night.

The television psychologist, whose full name is Phil McGraw, was filmed interrogating an alleged illegal Thai national alongside Homan and a posse of ICE officers during the Chicago operation. The video comes after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and ordered agencies to ramp up immigration enforcement, with ICE announcing 956 arrests on Sunday alone.

“This is an example of sanctuary cities, right?” Homan said. “We’ve got an illegal alien convicted of sex crimes involving children, and he’s walking the streets of Chicago … this is what we’re dealing with.”

“You’ve been charged with sex crimes with children?” Dr. Phil asked the alleged illegal alien.

“Not really,” the alleged illegal alien said.

“Not really?” Dr. Phil said. “And never been deported. Huh.”

“Let’s take him in and process him, lock him up,” Homan told nearby agents.

Dr. Phil said in an X post Sunday that he would be embedded in the Chicago operation, which aimed to target 270 “high-value targets” around Chicago.

“It’s a pretty high-risk mission we’re going on,” he said. “This truly is a targeted ICE mission, because they’re not sweeping neighborhoods like people are trying to imply.”

 

“These are known criminals and terrorists. We’re talking about murderers, child traffickers, child rapists. We’re talking about bad actors, both in the countries they’ve come from, and since they’ve been here in the United States,” the daytime television personality continued.

Dr. Phil — who spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in October — has previously  signaled conflicted feelings about the president. He seemed to walk back his endorsement of Trump in an ambiguous interview with Piers Morgan in November, saying he “doesn’t like a lot of what he says or does.”

ICE has announced over 2,000 immigration-related arrests throughout Trump’s first week in office. Colombian President Gustavo Petro initially refused to accept U.S. deportation flights into his country over the weekend, but immediately capitulated after Trump threatened steep tariffs against the country.

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Cyberattack on Ukraine Exposes The Dangers of Digital ID Systems

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Digital ID systems risk becoming massive vulnerabilities in the face of modern cyber threats.

Ukraine’s reliance on its new digital identity systems has become a warning about the dangers of digital ID, as a recent cyberattack exposed critical vulnerabilities in the country’s digital infrastructure.

Last month, several key government databases were taken offline, disrupting essential services like legal filings and marriage registrations. Officials assured citizens that the controversial Diia, the government’s widely used e-governance app, would soon be restored, but the incident laid bare significant risks within the app’s centralized backend platform, Trembita.

This breach, the most serious since Trembita’s launch in 2020, raises urgent questions about the security of Ukraine’s growing dependence on digital IDs and is a clear warning to other countries that are rushing to embrace the controversial tech.

Trembita, the platform enabling Diia’s operations, functions as a digital network connecting government databases. While officials insisted it operated as designed during the breach, cybersecurity experts are sounding alarms.

Mykyta Knysh, a former Ukrainian security official, described the platform’s centralized architecture as a dangerous “single point of failure.” Warnings about these risks had surfaced before — security analysts cautioned in 2021 that consolidating sensitive personal and administrative data under Diia would leave Ukraine exposed to large-scale attacks.

The Russian hacking group XakNet has claimed responsibility for the attack.
This highlights a broader danger inherent in Ukraine’s ambitious digitalization efforts, spearheaded by the Ministry of Digital Transformation under the Zelensky administration.

While consolidating government services into the smartphone-based Diia app has streamlined access for millions of citizens, the breakneck pace of implementation has left little time to address critical security gaps.

The compromised registries contained highly sensitive data, including personal addresses, family connections, and financial assets.

Beyond military implications, the breach exposes the inherent risks of digital ID systems. Security analysts have pointed out that a central repository of personal data, as seen in Ukraine’s system, creates lucrative targets for hackers. If exploited, such data could fuel identity theft, phishing campaigns, or even more devastating cyberattacks, undermining public trust in digital governance.

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