International
‘Tripping, Freezing, Forgetting’: Foreign Media Says ‘Distracted’ Biden Is Getting Worse Ahead Of 2024 Election
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By JAKE SMITH
Several foreign media outlets have published stories in recent months raising concern about President Joe Biden’s health ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Biden and his administration maintain that his health is in stable condition and that he is capable of defeating former President Donald Trump in November. But Biden’s recent performance, remarks during press briefings and on-camera appearances have been called into question by a number of major international media outlets, who point to the increasing concern among U.S. voters about his age and mental status.
“Biden isn’t the man he used to be,” a June editorial story from The Independent, a U.K. newspaper, reads. “A failure to take the mounting evidence seriously risks not only a collapse of trust in the White House that will affect future presidents but the specter of real crises during a second Biden term.”
“[Biden has an] inability to function well,” a news story published on Monday by the Hindustan Times, an Indian outlet, reads. “He has come under the spotlight several times for his gaffes, mixing up names of people, and struggling to recall simple words,” reads a separate piece from March.
Biden and his campaign team have downplayed age and health concerns, sometimes leaning into his age as a positive given his decades of political experience. Regardless, Biden’s fitness has remained an issue among swaths of voters; a New York Times/Siena poll conducted in March found that over 70% of voters believed that Biden’s age makes him “ineffective” or incapable of handling the duties of the Oval Office.
“Biden’s main opposition has come from anxiety over his age and health,” a news story in the Chinese-state media outlet Global Times from March reads.
International media outlets especially covered concerns surrounding Biden after Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report in February regarding Biden’s possible mishandling of classified documents. The report recommended not pursuing charges against Biden because he presented himself as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and a jury would likely find him not guilty.
Biden held a press conference the same day the report was released and criticized Hur’s report, but made a series of slip-ups during remarks and shouted at reporters, which some media outlets claimed highlighted Hur’s findings.
“The events underscore the unenviable challenge facing Biden’s aides, who know every verbal slip can exacerbate the biggest liability the president faces — voters worrying he’s not up to the task,” a editorial story from The Japan Times in February reads, claiming that the Biden campaign is “attempting to make it to November free of major gaffes.”
“The numerous references in the report to Joe Biden’s failing memory… give unprecedented force to questions about his physical and mental capacity to stand again,” a news story from French outlet Le Monde wrote about the Hur report. “The worrying episodes are increasing.”
Biden’s behavior was called into question by a number of foreign media outlets at the Group of Seven G7 summit on Friday, in which he stood alongside the leaders of the other G7 nations for a photograph before appearing to wander off and be brought back to the group by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“Joe Biden’s ‘unusual behavior’ at the G7 leaves leaders ‘alarmed’ and ‘bemused,’” a Monday news headline from Sky News Australia reads.
“The video was widely circulated on social media and sparked debate, with some questioning Biden’s ability to serve another term,” a news story from India Today on Friday reads, claiming that Biden has appeared “dazed” in recent public appearances.
A Pew Global Research survey published on June 11 found that international confidence in Biden’s ability to conduct foreign policy is falling; adults surveyed in 14 nations including Israel, Japan, the U.K. and Australia said their confidence in Biden had “dropped significantly” since 2023. Less than half of respondents in dozens of countries surveyed said that Biden is properly handling the global conflicts of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.
The large survey was conducted with thousands of respondents across dozens of countries. The typical margin of error for each country’s survey was between 0% and 5%.
Biden’s mental and physical fitness has been the subject of constant attacks by Trump and his campaign team ahead of the elections in November. The two are expected to face off on the debate stage in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27.
“Amid the urgent issues for discussion in the first debate between the candidates in the forthcoming US presidential election, age is being weaponized by both contenders,” a Telegraph editorial story on Sunday reads. “But Biden, perhaps distracted by Presidential duties… is late to the party when it comes to throwing shade on a person for being old. His apparent lapses – tripping, freezing, forgetting people’s names, and aimless wandering – most recently at last week’s G7 meeting in Italy – have been gleefully exploited by his opponents.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)
Across countries on three continents, a 1% increase in vaccine types before age one corresponded to a 0.47% increase in autism prevalence.
A new cross-national study from Italy’s National Research Council, spanning multiple developed countries across three continents, has identified a remarkably strong association between early-life vaccine intensity and autism prevalence. The number of vaccine types and doses administered before 12 months showed exceptionally high correlations with national autism rates.
A 1% increase in vaccine types before age one corresponded to a 0.47% increase in autism prevalence.
The correlation is enormous — r = 0.87 for vaccine types and r = 0.79 for vaccine doses. In regression models, vaccine intensity alone explained 81% of the variance in autism prevalence across nations.
This is not an isolated signal. It directly corroborates earlier U.S. state-level data from DeLong (2011) — and aligns with the 107 positive-association studies catalogued in the McCullough Foundation’s Landmark Autism Report.
Key Findings
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Coccia used cross-national 2021 autism incidence data paired with WHO-reported infant vaccine schedules. Countries were grouped into relatively comparable healthcare and surveillance systems (North America, Europe, and advanced Asian nations) to reduce detection and reporting bias. The primary exposures were:
- number of vaccine types given ≤12 months, and
- total number of doses delivered ≤12 months.
Autism prevalence per 100,000 children served as the outcome, and general vaccination coverage rates were statistically controlled so only vaccine intensity and timing were isolated.
The results were striking but unfortunately expected:
- Countries such as the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore give ~15 vaccine types and 20 doses before age one — and have the highest autism prevalence (~1,273 per 100k).
- Countries like Norway, Finland, Denmark, Italy, and the UK give ~8 vaccine types and 9 doses — and have significantly lower autism rates (~834 per 100k).
- A 1% increase in vaccine types before age one corresponded to a 0.47% increase in autism prevalence.
- The regression model (log–log) explained 81% of the variance.
Coccia then used quadrant mapping to classify nations:
- Critical Risk Zone: high vaccine intensity + high autism (U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore)
- Protection Zone: low vaccine intensity + low autism (Nordic countries)
- Transitional Zone: countries on track to move upward as vaccine intensity rises (Italy, UK)
The conclusion is clear: Early-timed and compound vaccination strongly tracks with rising autism rates.
How DeLong (2011) Fits In
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DeLong’s analysis of CDC data found that each 1% rise in U.S. childhood vaccination coverage was associated with ~680 additional cases of autism and speech/language impairment nationwide.
Where DeLong examined state-level associations between how many children were fully vaccinated and subsequent autism/SLI prevalence, Coccia provides the first true cross-national dose–response analysis — showing that the number of vaccine types and doses given before age one powerfully predicts national autism prevalence.
Both studies point in the same direction:
more vaccination in early life → higher autism prevalence.
How This Strengthens the McCullough Foundation’s Landmark Autism Report
 |
Our Autism Report reviewed 136 vaccine-related studies:
- 107 studies inferred positive associations between vaccination or vaccine components and ASD/NDDs.
- All 12 vaccinated vs unvaccinated studies found better neurodevelopmental outcomes in completely unvaccinated children, including far lower rates of autism.
- Found strong, consistent increases in cumulative vaccine exposure during early childhood and the reported prevalence of autism across successive birth cohorts.
 |
We concluded:
Combination and early-timed routine childhood vaccination constitutes the most significant modifiable risk factor for ASD, supported by convergent mechanistic, clinical, and epidemiologic findings, and characterized by intensified use, the clustering of multiple doses during critical neurodevelopmental windows, and the lack of research on the cumulative safety of the full pediatric schedule.
Coccia independently arrived at a highly similar conclusion:
This study offers a critical contribution to the ongoing discourse on vaccine safety and neurodevelopment by identifying a statistically significant association between early-life vaccine intensity and national autism rates.
All evidence points to the same conclusion:
Early, clustered vaccination is the strongest modifiable driver of rising autism rates.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
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Daily Caller
‘Holy Sh*t!’: Podcaster Aghast As Charlie Kirk’s Security Leader Reads Texts He Allegedly Sent University Police
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The person in charge of the security detail for Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk says he warned Utah Valley University (UVU) police about access to a rooftop days before Kirk’s assassination, shocking podcaster Shawn Ryan on Monday.
Kirk was assassinated during a TPUSA event at UVU on Sept. 10, during which he was debating attendees. Brian Harpole of Integrity Security Solutions read Ryan texts during the episode of “The Shawn Ryan Show” of him allegedly flagging for UVU’s police chief the rooftop used by Kirk’s alleged assassin on Sept. 8, two days before the assassination.
WATCH:
“We have some correspondence with the chief of the school uh on that day, on Monday, before Charlie was killed and why this hadn’t come out and why he won’t stand up like a man and admit this, I don’t know, but he’s watching a bunch of men lose their careers and he’s okay with it,” Harpole told Ryan. “On Monday before, this correspondence went to Chief Long. ‘Hello, Chief Long. We received this message today from the student group. ‘There is a student roof access pretty close to where CK will be set up at the Utah Valley. (The Sorenson Center has a couple of staircases that go up to walkways on the roofs.)’”
“He comes back and the so, for edification, the Sorenson Center was the building in front of the Losee Center and so, he comes back he says you want uh access to the roof and came back and said I was told students have access above us,” Harpole continued. “If this is true it would be nice to either have it controlled access or allow one of my guys to be there as well if possible. He comes back and his last correspondence was, ‘I got you covered.’ What else am I to do when a command level person from an accredited police department says, ‘I’ve got this area.’?”
Text exchange between Brian Harpole and UVU police official. (Screenshot/YouTube/Shawn Ryan Show)
“That was the chief of police for the UVU Police Department. We’ve called him. He’s never called us back,” Harpole added as Shawn Ryan responded by saying “Holy shit.”
UVU did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Video released of the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Kirk shows the alleged gunman making his escape by dropping off the roof and fleeing. Authorities arrested Tyler Robinson, 22, early on Sept. 12, accusing him of fatally shooting Kirk.
“Probably literally all they had to do is post anybody at that stairwell,” Harpole said.
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