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Outgoing President Joe Biden is expected to conclude what will likely be his final major international trip as president this week, leaving Latin America following a series of embarrassing episodes including his bizarre departure into the Amazon Rainforest and G20 organizers omitting him from a group photo of world leaders on Monday.
The post Sidelined, Ignored, Forgotten: Joe Biden Irrelevant at His Last Major Global Summits appeared first on Breitbart.
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A terminated employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in a Monday interview that she was being “framed” for allegedly advising a survivor assistance team in Florida to skip homes with campaign signs in support of President-elect Trump.
In an interview on NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live,” the former agency employee, Marn’i Washington, denied wrongdoing and said she was simply following orders.
“So firstly, I’m being framed. There’s no violation of the Hatch Act. I was simply following orders,” Washington told Abrams, when asked whether part of the guidance she offered her team was to avoid homes advertising Trump, and if so, why.
“I did not vote for Kamala Harris so there is no political plight on my part. I was simply following orders,” she added.
Washington sought to pin blame on her supervisor.
“I execute orders. I don’t create policy. I do not reinvent the wheel. My record shows that,” Washington later said in the interview.
Washington and FEMA Director Deanna Criswell were named in a lawsuit filed by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) last week, claiming they “agreed” to deny Trump supporters relief after Hurricane Milton.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Fort Pierce, Fla., asks for unspecified damages and a declaration that the two FEMA officials unlawfully conspired to violate Floridians’ civil rights.
“While the facts will continue to come out over the weeks and months, it is already clear that Defendant Washington conspired with senior FEMA officials, as well as those carrying out her orders, to violate the civil rights of Florida citizens,” the complaint read.
House Republicans have also opened a probe into the incident, and Criswell is slated to testify about the incident before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee later on Tuesday morning. The committee last week asked Criswell to brief members on the incident and on FEMA’s response to it.
The committee also asked FEMA to provide documents and information about the agency’s effort to reach and aid homes that were skipped because of the incident, along with other communications.
“As the FEMA Administrator, you are responsible for leading the Nation’s efforts to prepare for, protect against, and respond to natural disasters. The Committee is troubled that under your leadership FEMA failed to aid all Americans, regardless of party affiliation,” Republican House lawmakers said last week in a letter shared with The Hill.
Criswell confirmed the termination earlier this month and condemned the incident, saying, “This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation. This was reprehensible.”
Washington said in an interview with journalist Roland S. Martin early last week that the federal agency was scapegoating her and that homes were skipped because of “verbal abuse” by those Trump supporters.
“They all alleged that these actions were made on my own recognizance and that it was from my own political advances. However, if you look at the record, there is what we call a community trend,” Washington said. “And unfortunately, it just so happened that the political hostility that was encountered by my team — and I was on two different teams during this deployment — they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage.”
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
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Veteran journalist Bob Woodward said Monday that President-elect Trump appears to be trying to recreate the “imperial presidency” by selecting appointees with little relevant experience to their nominated posts.
Woodward criticized Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” The former White House press secretary-turned-cable host asked him directly whether he thinks the Fox News host was equipped to do the job.
“Somebody should get that job who knows the military and has had also management experience,” Woodward said of Hegseth. “From what I read about him, no, he doesn’t.”
He added that he did not think Hegseth had the necessary management experience to lead the Pentagon, and he suggested Trump intentionally picked the news host with that in mind.
“I have known, over the reporting time I’ve had for five decades, 16 secretaries of defense, going back even before I was a reporter, Robert McNamara. And they have to know management. They have to know what the responsibility is,” Woodward said. “They have to know where the levers of power are. And in this appointee, I see none of that.”
“Now, you have to ask yourself, why wouldn’t Trump want somebody who at least has some experience? He’s trying to re-create the imperial presidency,” he continued. “He is trying to say, Ah. I can do whatever I want. It’s up to me alone.”
When Psaki responded saying, “And he doesn’t want them to have the power,” Woodward added, “He doesn’t want to share it.”
He also criticized Trump’s appointment of former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — who recently joined the Republican Party — to be director of national intelligence. Both nominees have drawn scrutiny in recent days. While news has surfaced that Hegseth was investigated as part of a 2017 sexual assault incident, Gabbard’s Russia-aligned positions have generated concern across the political spectrum as well.
“Well, what’s the goal? What’s the purpose? You know, there are all kinds of people with various political persuasions who have enough experience to run the Pentagon, but he picks someone who isn’t even near it, and you have to say, ‘What is the goal?’” Woodward replied, when asked about Gabbard.
“Having written three books on Trump, spent hours with him, the goal is to give him all the say, all the power,” he continued, adding, “Why do you want somebody who doesn’t know what they’re doing? Check engine light has just gone off, and we pulled into the wrong store.”
“Makes no sense, and it is a form of giving his middle finger to the American people,” Woodward said.
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President Biden was not pictured among other world leaders in the traditional “family photo” at the final Group of 20 summit of his presidency on Monday.
Biden arrived along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after photographers had already finished with the other smiling leaders, who had been positioned on a riser. A senior Biden official said the president did not participate because of “logistical issues.”
“Due to logistical issues, they took the family photo early before all the leaders had arrived. So a number of leaders weren’t actually there when they took the photo,” the official said.
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The official emphasized Biden missed the photo because of bad timing, not because he wanted to avoid taking a picture with some of the U.S.’ top rivals, including Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov or Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Biden’s absence left Jinping front and center among the rows of leaders poised against blue skies and blue water in Rio de Janeiro.
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Lavrov stood in the back row, less visible.
Biden and Trudeau arrived together at the designated spot for the photo, standing and looking about for a time. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also did not join in the group photo, a set piece of such summits.
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Notably, Biden did not arrive via the red carpet ramp used by other world leaders. Instead, he was seen taking a sharp right turn on his way to the gathering, declining to use the ramp which led to the entrance of the building.
The official said the president did not use the ramp “due to security concerns.”
“Several leaders from high threat — from countries that face high threats did not take the open ramp and instead took a different red carpet route,” the official said.
The G-20 summit is a gathering of leaders from the world’s largest economies, who meet to discuss efforts to combat hunger and poverty. In remarks at the summit Monday, Biden called on those present to increase investments in the World Bank, provide debt relief to struggling countries and end conflicts around the world that have contributed to starvation, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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It’s nowhere near what the average corporate CEO earns, but the annual salary of the president of the United States may be the envy of most Americans: $400,000.
That number does not include lodging at the White House, travel on Air Force One, living allowances, entertainment, staff and much more.
When a president leaves office, the checks and other benefits continue.
Here’s a look at some of those benefits, and how they came about.
The Former Presidents Acts of 1958 provides for a pension and several other benefits. All presidents receive money for office space, equipment, staff, travel, entertainment and supplies.
If they were enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program for at least five years, former presidents get the same health benefits as other former government workers.
Ironically, former President Carter, America’s longest-living former president, was not eligible for that program since he was president for only four years and held no other federal government post.
One-term former President George H.W. Bush, who was vice president for eight years, as well as serving in Congress and as an ambassador, was eligible for health benefits but declined them.
Former presidents are guaranteed a funeral with full honors and burial at Arlington National Cemetery. But only two, former Presidents Kennedy and Taft, are buried there.
When President Biden leaves the White House, he will be eligible for the standard annual pension that any cabinet secretary receives: $246,424. But the president also served eight years as vice president and spent 36 years as a U.S. senator from Delaware. All three pensions will total $413,000 a year, more than he made as president.
The federal government places very few limits on multiple pensions, and only a few states ban or limit “double dipping,” in which a government employee retires, collects a pension, and then returns to work in another government job.
For example, Burlington County, N.J., passed a law banning county departments from hiring anyone who is collecting a “taxpayer-funded retirement pension.”
President-elect Trump has received more than $3 million in pension, office, printing, travel, and other allowances since his first term ended.
From 2016 to 2024, former President Clinton has received nearly $13 million in pension and other benefits. Former President George W. Bush has been paid just over $12 million in those same eight years. Former President Obama has received about $10.5 million. And Carter, famous for his frugality, has received just over $5 million in that same time.
Clinton, Bush and Obama may also receive pensions from other government positions they held.
To date, no president has ever been denied a pension.
The Former Presidents Act of 1958, which established the current pension and benefits system, denies benefits to a president who has been impeached and convicted by Congress. Former President Nixon avoided that fate by resigning. Clinton and Trump were impeached but not convicted.
Former presidents and their spouses may receive protection by the U.S. Secret Service for life. Eleven years after his resignation, Nixon relinquished his protection — the only former president to do so.
A few years after leaving the White House in 1953, former President Truman lobbied for financial support. Claiming dire financial straits, Truman wrote to then-House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) in 1957 saying he might have to turn to the private sector or some other source beneath the dignity of a former president.
The upshot was the Former Presidents Act of 1958, which established the system of pension, allowances and office expenses in effect today.
But in 2021, University of Colorado Law School professor Paul Campos debunked the Truman “poverty” claim.
“Harry Truman was, as a direct result of being president, a very wealthy man on the day he left the White House, with an estimated net worth, in relative economic terms, of approximately $58 million in 2021 dollars,” Campos wrote.
The professor also claims that Truman misappropriated nearly all of the presidential expense account that Congress set up at the beginning of his second term. Truman also did the thing he claimed he wouldn’t do: Exploit his status as a former president, according to Campos.
“By the time Congress passed the FPA in response to Truman’s various claims that he was at least teetering on the brink of potential financial distress, Truman’s net worth was, in relative economic terms, approximately $72 million in 2021 dollars,” he wrote.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has suggested that she would support banning biological men from women’s spaces in “all taxpayer-funded facilities.”
Greene’s comments come as Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., pushes a resolution to prohibit House members and others from using single-sex spaces in the Capitol or House office buildings that do not align with their biological sex.
“A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House may not use a single-sex facility (including a restroom, changing room, or locker room) in the Capitol or House Office Buildings, other than those corresponding to the biological sex of such individual,” the resolution states, noting that the House sergeant-at-arms is tasked with enforcement.
TRANSGENDER WOMEN TO BE BANNED FROM CAPITOL HILL FEMALE BATHROOMS UNDER NEW HOUSE GOP PROPOSAL
Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, a Democrat who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives during the 2024 election, identifies as transgender.
“McBride, a biological male, does not get a say in women’s private spaces,” Mace posted.
In a post on X, McBride, who will be the first openly transgender member of Congress, said, “Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.”
DELAWARE DEMOCRAT SARAH MCBRIDE PROJECTED TO BECOME FIRST TRANSGENDER MEMBER OF CONGRESS: AP
“This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on,” McBride added in another post.
McBride will be sworn in to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives next year.
“He’s a biological male,” Greene said in a video. “He can go in the men’s room,” she said. There is a “bathroom in his office just like all of us,” she said.
Greene indicated she would support a resolution blocking men from women’s spaces in “all taxpayer-funded facilities.”
“I support banning men from women’s restrooms in the Capitol, but that isn’t enough,” Greene noted in the post on X that also contains the video. “Men should be banned from women’s restrooms in every federal building paid for by taxpayers.”
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Fox News Digital attempted to reach out to McBride for comment.
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A number of large groups of illegal immigrants have been caught at the southern border in recent days, as the number of migrant encounters remains lower than in previous months, but fears persist of a border surge before the Trump administration takes office.
On Sunday, the Texas Department of Public Safety encountered a group of 154 illegal immigrants in Eagle Pass, Texas. The group included six special interest immigrants from Afghanistan and 20 unaccompanied minors.
They were turned over to Border Patrol, Texas authorities said.
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In Arizona, Border Patrol encountered a group of more than 230 illegal immigrants near San Miguel, Arizona. Border Patrol said on Monday the group was “safely transported for processing.”
Numbers have been dropping sharply at the border since June, when President Biden signed a presidential proclamation drastically limiting the number of arrivals who can come into the U.S.
In September, there were 101,790 encounters at the border, the lowest number since February 2021, and there have been no major signs of a significant increase in numbers since then.
However, while numbers remain lower than in previous months, there have been concerns that the change in administrations may lead to a surge at the border as migrants attempt to enter the U.S. before a perceived tougher administration enters office. Large, cartel-coordinated groups may be a sign of that activity beginning to heat up.
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The Biden administration reportedly held a meeting in which officials raised concerns about what a former President Donald Trump victory may mean for the border.
According to the NBC News report, officials asked if the government were prepared for a possible spike in immigration, with immigrants preparing to enter the country at the last minute.
Migrants would unlikely be motivated by the prospect of a Trump administration, when there have been promises of historic deportations and a crackdown on sanctuary cities, but would instead be motivated by an effort to take advantage of what may be lighter border security than what they believe will be in place under the Republican administration.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS
The Trump administration has pledged to ramp up border security and to launch a mass deportation operation when it gets into office in January. It has also pledged to end the use of parole programs by the Biden administration that allow migrants to enter in via the expanded “lawful pathways.”
The administration is already planning to expand immigration detention in order to facilitate the operation, including setting up centers near major metropolitan areas.
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Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said regulators under President Biden should quit doing their jobs to allow President-elect Trump a “fresh slate” when he takes office in January.
In a letter to Biden on Sunday, Scott said Americans “across the country rejected your administration’s radical economic agenda and delivered President Trump and the incoming Congress a clear mandate to usher in a new era of government.”
“Given this mandate,” Scott wrote, “it is incumbent upon you and your administration to ensure that President Trump can implement the agenda the American people voted for by allowing him to take office on January 20th with a fresh slate.”
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“To ensure an orderly transition, federal financial and housing regulators should suspend any rulemaking and nomination related activities,” Scott said.
As the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Scott said he is calling on the agencies overseen by the committee to “cease all rulemaking, including the finalization of any pending or proposed regulations or guidance, and to comply with federal record retention laws and preserve all agency documents, records, and communications.” He also demanded that all pending nominations within the committee’s purview be withdrawn.
“I will not vote for, or advance, any nominees put forth in front of the Committee by your administration,” Scott wrote. “Next Congress I look forward to confirming President Trump’s nominees who will bring about economic opportunity to all Americans.”
Copied on the letter were Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell.
In addition to focusing on the Trump transition, Scott, who was elected as the incoming chair of the Senate Republican campaign committee last week, has taken on a role of looking to increase the GOP majority in the 2026 elections.
After his fellow GOP lawmakers in the Senate chose him to chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee over the next two years, Scott told reporters that his “passion” is to make sure that Trump “does not have two years with a Republican majority in the Senate, he has four years in control.” Scott told Fox News Digital that “what we’re going to do is defend the seats that we have and expand the map so that we can increase the majority brought to us by the Trump victory.”
Republicans won back control of the Senate in this month’s elections, ending four years of majority control by the Democrats. It is expected that once a mandated state recount is completed in the Senate contest in Pennsylvania – where GOP challenger Dave McCormick leads Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by roughly 17,000 votes – the Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate come January.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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Retired U.S. Army Major Mike Lyons says Ukraine’s new ability to use missiles to strike deeper into Russia will only have “some impact.”
“It’s probably too late to have a significant impact,” Lyons said during an appearance on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
“It’ll allow Ukraine to attack fixed military targets that were out of range before,” he continued. “So, Russia has moved some military targets that were close to the border out of the way of the artillery and other short-range fire capability that they had.”
Lyons added, “But now, this will allow them to go after targets deeper inside of Russia.”
The retired general also questioned the timing of the decision.
“I’m not sure why we didn’t allow this two or three years ago. We’ve been managing this conflict instead of letting Ukraine try to win it,” he said.
President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia, easing limitations on the longer-range weapons as the Kremlin deploys thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its attack, according to a U.S. official and three other people familiar with the matter.
Russian officials warned Monday that Biden’s decision adds “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.
Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.
It also came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others. Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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