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

From The Center Square
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.
International
No more shoes off: Trump ends TSA’s decades-old rule

MxM News
Quick Hit:
The Trump administration is phasing out one of the most despised airport security policies in America: the requirement to remove shoes during TSA screening.
Key Details:
- Passengers will no longer be required to remove their shoes at airport security checkpoints in coming weeks.
- The change is rolling out at Baltimore, Fort Lauderdale, Cincinnati, Portland, Philadelphia, and Piedmont Triad airports.
- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the policy reversal on Tuesday morning.
Diving Deeper:
The Trump administration announced it is ending the much-loathed Transportation Security Administration rule requiring passengers to remove their shoes during security checks, a mandate that has frustrated Americans since its introduction nearly two decades ago.
The change is being implemented first at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, Fort Lauderdale International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Portland International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, and Piedmont Triad International Airport in North Carolina, according to CBS News. The policy will expand to additional airports nationwide in the coming weeks.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared the news on X, posting, “Big news from [the Department of Homeland Security]!” Tuesday morning. A TSA spokesman told The New York Times that “TSA and DHS are always exploring new and innovative ways to enhance the passenger experience and our strong security posture,” suggesting the policy change is part of broader improvements under President Trump’s leadership.
The policy to remove shoes was first instituted in 2006, stemming from the December 2001 attempt by Richard Reid, known as the “shoe bomber,” to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami. Reid was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges, but critics have argued the policy punishes every American traveler for the actions of one terrorist nearly 25 years ago.
Before the update, travelers in the TSA PreCheck program were already exempt from removing shoes, belts, and jackets. Now, under President Trump’s directive to reduce pointless regulatory burdens, the policy is being eliminated for all travelers.
Daily Caller
USAID Quietly Sent Thousands Of Viruses To Chinese Military-Linked Biolab

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Emily Kopp
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shipped thousands of viral samples to a lab in Wuhan over the course of a 10-year program even though it had no formal agreement with the lab in place, according to previously unreported documents.
The documents show that USAID funded the exportation of 11,000 samples from Yunnan Province, where some of the closest relatives of the COVID-19 virus circulate, to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, with no apparent plan for ensuring the samples were not misdirected to bioweapons and remained accessible to the U.S. government.
A $210 million USAID public health program called PREDICT, steered by the University of California-Davis, collected viral samples in countries throughout the globe but lacked long-term storage when funding dried up, according to rudimentary plans in 2019.
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USAID’s sample dispensation plan for China is sparse: “No need [sic] information from Yunnan. They were never an official lab partner for PREDICT. All samples they helped collected [sic] are sent to, tested, and stored in Wuhan.”
The “lab” refers to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was a close partner of USAID contractor EcoHealth Alliance and a slated partner for a PREDICT-like program supported by the State Department. The lab has poor biosafety practices and ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
One of the closest known relatives of the COVID virus is among the viruses sampled with USAID funding.
“Investigations involving USAID’s former funding of global health awards remain active and ongoing,” a senior State Department official said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The American people can rest assured knowing that under the Trump Administration we will not be funding these controversial programs.”
The internal documents were obtained through a FOIA lawsuit brought by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit newsroom and public health research group.
The shuttering of USAID – which was officially completed Tuesday – has ignited a debate about its net impact on global health. A study in The Lancet projected an association between a dropoff in USAID funding and 14 million deaths based on an epidemiological model.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that USAID spending has often undermined rather than strengthened American interests.
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio said. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
The now-defunct agency’s connection to the Wuhan lab complicates its global health legacy.
“The USAID $210 million contract for PREDICT should have included contractual terms that required all samples, or at least copies of all samples, be transferred to and stored by a US government facility,” said Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright told the DCNF. “The PREDICT grift did none of this.”
UC Davis did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Today marks the first day of the State Department's America First foreign assistance rebranding initiative, led by @SecRubio.
Consistent branding will ensure contributions made by the the United States will be immediately recognized as American.
"The redesign is very simple,… pic.twitter.com/HZnbOxU0Sq
— Department of State (@StateDept) July 2, 2025
Did USAID Fund COVID’s Ancestor?
Many of the viruses stored at the lab in Wuhan may have been sampled with U.S. funding yet remain out of reach for U.S. government entities investigating the origins of COVID.
The samples were set to be preserved for testing – with human samples preserved for 10 years – the documents show. But the documents suggest that requirement was never incorporated into a formal contract with USAID.
The two scientists supervising the samples were: Ben Hu, a virologist at the WIV, who reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms in 2019; and Peter Daszak, a scientist who was debarred from federal funding after the U.S. government deemed him a threat to public safety for inadequate oversight of the research in Wuhan.
Hu and Daszak did not reply to requests for comment.
The documents show PREDICT contractors discussing viral samples taken from wildlife and stored in India, Liberia, Malaysia, the Republic of Congo and China. Some of the samples were stored in virus-transport media (VTM), which allows researchers to store live viruses for later use in the lab.
“It’s not rocket science to require a contract and supporting paperwork which establishes a relationship, testing protocol, and chain of custody, when one is sending out lab samples,” said Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who specializes in ensuring the integrity of government programs, in an interview with the DCNF. “In any scientific endeavor, you need confidence in your results. That requires paperwork to prove your methodology is sound.”
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