The 2021 botched withdrawal from Afghanistan on President Joe Biden's watch sparked widespread calls for his top advisers and military leaders to resign. Nobody did.
However, according to Fox News, in a bombshell revelation admitted to The Washington Post's David Ignatius, Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, reportedly offered to resign in the wake of the disastrous situation that resulted in numerous dead American soldiers.
The news came as Ignatius spoke with Sullivan and other top Biden advisers as their roles come to an end.
Sullivan's offer to resign was met with resistance by the president, according to the other aides the Post columnist spoke with.
Ignatius reported that the early disaster in Biden's presidency immediately created a rift and turmoil behind the scenes of the president's national security team.
Fox News reported:
Ignatius reported that the Afghanistan withdrawal "broke the early comity" of the Biden administration's national security team, and created a riff between Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Sullivan weighed in on the "challenge" of the Afghanistan troop withdrawal.
"You cannot end a war like Afghanistan, where you’ve built up dependencies and pathologies, without the end being complex and challenging," Sullivan told Ignatius. "The choice was: Leave, and it would not be easy, or stay forever."
Sullivan added, "Leaving Kabul freed the [United States] to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in ways that might have been impossible if we had stayed."
Jake “Sullivan offered to resign” after the Afghanistan withdrawal, @IgnatiusPost reports.
If true, that would be very different from what many advisers told me for THE INTERNATIONALISTS, which is that no one in admin offered to resign. https://t.co/8YqMrVyxA6
— Alex Ward (@alexbward) December 31, 2024
Sullivan provided Ignatius a self-assessed performance review of his time in the Biden administration.
"Are our alliances stronger? Yes. Are our enemies weaker? Yes. Did we keep America out of war? Yes. Did we improve our strategic position in the competition with China while stabilizing the relationship? Yes. Did we strengthen the engines of American economic and technological power? Yes," he said.
Fox News reached out to both the National Security Council and the White House in the wake of the published interview. Neither responded.
Earlier reports indicated that nobody offered to resign in the wake of the withdrawal. So, somebody's lying.
Donald Trump will hold a victory celebration in Washington D.C. one day before his second inauguration on January 20th.
The rally, Trump's first in D.C. since the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021, marks an incredible reversal in fortune for the 45th and 47th president.
When Trump left the White House almost four years ago, he was accused of inciting an "insurrection," and many believed his political career was essentially over.
But Trump persevered through a second impeachment, a social media ban, multiple criminal prosecutions, an attempted ballot ban, and even assassination attempts to win re-election in a historic political comeback.
The symbolism of Trump's triumph will be complete when he's sworn in as the 47th president on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, facing the National Mall.
Before he puts his hand on the inaugural Bible, Trump will meet with thousands of supporters at D.C.'s Capital One Arena on January 19 to celebrate his comeback. The arena holds around 20,000 people.
The Trump rally, his first since winning the 2024 presidential election, begins at 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 19th, with doors open at 11 a.m.
"Join President Trump at Capital One Arena for a victory rally you'll never forget!" the website for Trump's inauguration says.
Over the past four years, Trump was regularly accused of fomenting a violent insurrection at his rally at the Ellipse on January 6th, 2021, when he passionately urged his supporters to "peacefully and patriotically" protest the 2020 election results.
Trump has pledged to pardon many of the more than 1,500 people charged over the January 6th riot, which includes many non-violent protesters, on his first day back in the Oval Office.
"I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes," he told TIME for his Person of the Year interview, adding the "vast majority" of January 6th defendants have been mistreated.
Trump is beginning his second term with newfound popularity and Americans reporting optimism about his plans for the next four years, which include massive deportations of illegal aliens.
Meanwhile, Trump's opponents are mostly resigned to his victory, in contrast with his first term, which faced a massive and coordinated "resistance" that included rioting in D.C.
Trump's second inauguration will have a shade of solemnity because of the death of former president Jimmy Carter, who passed away on December 29, less than a month before Trump's swearing-in. Flags will be lowered in Carter's honor on the day of Trump's inauguration, a coincidence Trump said Democrats are "giddy" about.
"Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The ISIS-inspired terrorist attack on New Year's Day in New Orleans has raised fresh alarm about mass immigration and the state of U.S. national security under outgoing president Joe Biden.
The vehicle that Shamsud Din Jabbar used to murder more than a dozen people reportedly crossed the southern border in November.
Fox News was first to report that the truck entered the U.S. two days before the attack.
The network later retracted that timeline and said the truck crossed into America on November 16. It is also unclear if Jabbar was the one driving at that time.
In the aftermath of the Bourbon Street massacre, Trump is calling the attack a warning about the dangers of having a porous southern border.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on New Year's Day.
Trump's critics have taken a victory lap after it came to light that the suspect was not an illegal immigrant, but a U.S.-born Army veteran.
Still, Trump and his allies have pointed to Jabbar's radical Islamist ideology as an example of a foreign threat that was "imported."
"Islamist terrorism is an import. It is not 'homegrown.' It did not exist here before migration brought it here," Trump adviser Stephen Miller wrote on X.
The attack has brought new criticism of the FBI and its priorities under President Biden, who repeatedly claimed that domestic threats from white supremacists ranked at the top as dangerous criminal aliens poured across the border during his administration.
"The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than focusing on protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself," Trump wrote in another post.
The FBI said Thursday that Jabbar likely acted alone, after officials initially suggested he may have had collaborators.
The man rented the truck on December 30 in Houston, authorities believe, before driving to New Orleans. An ISIS flag was found in the vehicle after the attack, and Jabar also released videos declaring allegiance to the group before the attack.
Is that Melania doing the Trump dance?
After years of rumors about her marriage to Donald Trump, Melania left little doubt that she supports him all the way at a joyous New Year's Eve celebration.
The famously low-key First Lady let loose with her own version of the Trump dance at the Mar-A-Lago gathering, where she was seen beaming alongside her triumphant husband, the former and future president.
The vibes were ebullient as the Trump family capped off an emotional year for the Trump family and indeed the nation, which bore witness to a miracle on July 13 when Trump survived assassination by inches.
Melania did not speak at the Republican National Convention days later, where she made an elegant entrance set to Beethoven.
The First Lady was seen gently bopping to the Village People's "YMCA" and singing along to the unofficial MAGA anthem on Tuesday night while her husband performed his signature arm-thrusting move with gusto.
Melania's participation in the MAGA dance party delighted Trump fans online, who shared their surprise at seeing the First Lady show off her fun side.
"Never in my life did I think Melania Trump would be jamming to YMCA on New Year's," one user wrote.
"Melania even does the Trump dance elegant," another observed.
BREAKING: Melania Trump debuts her very own YMCA Trump dance at last night Mar-a-Lago NYE celebrations 😂
What a fun night! President Trump and her father, Viktor, by her side. All smiles ❤️ pic.twitter.com/qR1JgdBfxy
— FLOTUS Report (@MELANIAJTRUMP) January 1, 2025
Melania is famously private, and she has long been the target of rumors concerning her marriage, with many speculating that she doesn't really love her husband.
Over the course of the 2024 campaign, the elusive First Lady grew more outspoken as she vigorously condemned political violence against Donald and the abuse of government power against him and his family, especially the FBI raid of Mar-A-Lago in 2022.
But Melania is prepared to leave the darkness of the Biden years behind - and so is the rest of the country after her husband's re-election, which has filled Americans with newfound optimism.
The president-elect, looking trim in a tuxedo, shared his hope for 2025 as he made a red-carpet entrance with his glamorous wife.
"Just a great year, I think we're gonna do fantastically well as a country," he said.
"There's a light over the whole world, not just our country. There's a lot of very happy people," he added.
Veteran CBS reporter Jan Crawford called Joe Biden's "obvious cognitive decline" the biggest news story that the mainstream media failed to report in 2024.
"Under covered and underreported, that would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate," Crawford told a roundtable of Face the Nation.
There was a time when the words "cognitive decline," in connection to Biden, could only be found in right-wing media sources.
Mainstream liberal outlets downplayed concerns about Biden's health throughout most of his single term and well into his doomed presidential campaign, even as members of the public repeatedly expressed concern about his mental sharpness.
Everything changed on June 27, when Biden debated Donald Trump on CNN in front of the nation. Biden's frail appearance alarmed viewers and sent Democrats, and Biden's media sympathizers, into a tailspin.
That was the point when, as Crawford noted, Biden's decline became an "undeniable" reality - and a dangerous liability for Democrats.
Biden, after weeks of resistance to his own party, ended his re-election campaign and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris, who lost decisively to Trump.
Crawford told Face the Nation that the election may had a totally different trajectory if Biden had faced public pressure earlier on to step aside.
"We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats," she said.
In the final weeks of his presidency, more detailed reports of Biden's diminished capacity have leaked to the press.
Crawford cited a recent report in the Wall Street Journal about the extensive steps the White House took to isolate Biden from the public and his own staff throughout his four years in office.
Crawford pushed back on co-panelist Robert Costa after he echoed Biden's talking points about feeling "sick" at the debate.
"President Biden has said repeatedly he was sick during the debate June 27 in Atlanta and he’s always been fine and he leaves fine," Costa said.
Crawford shot back, "FIFTY people the [Wall Street Journal] interviewed."
Crawford is correct about Biden's story being downplayed - but she is wrong to call the story "underreported," which implies that journalists somehow missed it by mistake. As she herself said, Biden's decline was obvious.
The story wasn't underreported but covered up by a partisan media that has lost all credibility.
A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump has ordered President Biden to stop auctioning off border wall parts, in a blow to the lame duck president's scramble to undermine Trump's immigration plans.
The Biden administration said it would abide by the ruling, which bars the sale of border wall materials for 30 days, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) said.
The order came after Paxton requested a hearing to determine whether Biden is in violation of a previous injunction requiring the administration to use statutorily obligated funds on border wall construction.
Paxton's move followed reports that the Biden administration is scrambling to sell unused border wall parts before Trump returns to office.
As part of the court's ruling, Paxton won the right to access documentation proving the Biden administration's compliance with the May injunction.
“We have successfully blocked the Biden Administration from disposing of any further border wall materials before President Trump takes office,” Paxton said in a statement.
“This follows our major victory forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his Administration accountable for illegally subverting our Nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially where their actions are clearly motivated by a desire to thwart President-elect Trump’s immigration agenda,” he added.
Trump's lawyer John Sauer urged the judge to stop Biden, arguing his actions would undermine the executive authority of the incoming president, who has pledged to restore border security.
“If the current Administration is selling off border-wall materials at rock-bottom prices, imposing financial losses on the United States in an attempt to defeat the pro-wall policy of President Trump, it is unlawfully encroaching on the incoming Administration’s exercise of the Executive Power,” Sauer said.
The reversal of Trump's hardline immigration policies led to the largest influx of immigrants in American history, with an average of 2.4 million per year on Biden's watch. Biden moved on day one of his presidency to cancel the construction of Trump's southern border wall.
Biden's immigration moves faced fresh scrutiny in December after the Daily Wire obtained footage of unused wall parts being transported on flatbed trucks. The administration has reportedly been selling the material at severe discounts on an auction site, GovPlanet.
Trump hailed the judge's ruling as a "crucial win" after calling Biden's effort to scrap the parts "criminal."
“It’s very expensive, and now it’s about double the price of what it would have been six years ago, and the administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar, knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up,” he added.
President-elect Donald Trump's critics and haters will find any possible reason to be triggered and upset over his election win.
That was evidenced in a hilarious manner recently after Margaret Hartmann, a senior editor at The Intelligencer, griped that Trump would be inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Fox News reported.
Hartmann had her Trump Derangement Syndrome on full display in the piece, describing the situation as "depressing" that Trump would take office on the holiday for the late Mr. King.
Inauguration Day, which falls on Jan. 20, sometimes falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, given that it's on the third Monday in January every year.
Clearly desperate for anti-Trump material to write and whine about, Hartmann held nothing back on the drama front as she described how depressing it was that the Biden administration is coming to a close and that Trump will take office on the federal holiday.
"If you’re not a big fan of Donald Trump, you’ve probably gotten used to hearing a lot of stupid and/or depressing political news in recent months," she wrote in her piece for New York magazine's The Intelligencer.
She added, "I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but as the Biden administration comes to a close, there’s another unpleasant fact that may not have dawned on you: The second Trump inauguration will take place on January 20, 2025, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day."
Hartmann, who like most other Democrats are hyper-focused on race, expressed her disappointment that Vice President Kamala Harris -- who was destroyed by Trump at the ballot box -- won't get her day in the sun.
"So, if Kamala Harris had become the first Black woman elected president…Yup," Hartmann wrote.
Fox News noted:
But instead, Hartmann regrets, "we’ll be swearing in the guy who spent the first MLK Day of his presidency golfing, and who recently bragged that his pre-insurrection speech on January 6, 2021, drew a bigger crowd than King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech (which isn’t true)."
During his first term, Fox News pointed out that Trump honored MLK Jr. in marking the 50th anniversary of King's assassination.
"This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. King, who was tragically assassinated on April 4, 1968," Trump said in a White House proclamation in January 2018.
"As we approach this solemn milestone, we acknowledge our Nation’s continuing debt to Dr. King’s legacy. Dr. King advocated for the world we still demand — where the sacred rights of all Americans are protected, rural and urban communities are prosperous from coast to coast, and our limits and our opportunities are defined not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. We remember the immense promise of liberty that lies at the foundation of our great Republic, the responsibility it demands from all of us who claim its benefits, and the many sacrifices of those who have come before us."
Of course, Hartmann must have forgotten to mention that part.
Shocking video footage rocked the New York prison system last week after it was revealed that New York prison guards beat a handcuffed inmate to death.
According to the New York Post, the fatal attack, which is now under investigation by Attorney General Letitia James, shows the guards beating the inmate unconscious before stripping him to his underwear.
He was ultimately killed after three corrections officers punched, kicked, and stomped inmate Robert Brooks while he was handcuffed.
The fatal attack took place on Dec. 9 in an examination room at upstate prison Marcy Correctional Facility.
New York AG Letitia James released a statement after making the video public, saying, "I do not take lightly the release of this video especially in the middle of the holiday season.'
"My deepest condolences go out to Mr. Brooks’ family," the New York AG said.
The video of the beating, which eventually led to Brooks' death the next day, is difficult to watch and went viral over the Christmas holiday, sparking massive backlash and many calling for the immediate prosecution of the officers.
Warning, the video may disturb some readers:
NEW: Body-cam footage released showing New York correctional officers smirking as they "fatally beat" a man in handcuffs.
Sickening.
43-year-old Robert Brooks passed away on Dec 10 at Wynn Hospital in Utica, NY.
The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigations… pic.twitter.com/BwLPnOS9fH
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 27, 2024
The NY Post added:
The videos, taken from four jail guards, show the officers surrounding Brooks, who was handcuffed from behind, in the exam room before three of them begin punching him in the face and stomach and even stomping him in his lower torso area.
The outlet added:
Brooks was eventually taken to Wynn Hospital in Utica and declared dead from “asphyxia due to compression of the neck,” in the early morning of Dec. 10, Syracuse.com reported, citing the Onondaga County Medical Examiner’s Office.
AG James reportedly met with the Brooks' family to personally show them the footage of the incident.
She vowed to investigate the case "thoroughly" and has already ensured the investigation is happening.
Many on social media have called for the firing and prosecution of the correctional officers allegedly involved in the fatal incident. Only time will tell what happens to them.
Democrats have one last opportunity to stop Donald Trump from taking office, according to two liberal lawyers.
In an op-ed for The Hill, attorneys Evan Davis and David Schulte claim that "insurrectionist" Trump is disqualified from serving as president again.
Without a trace of irony, the lawyers are demanding that Democrats delegitimize Trump's victory when Congress meets to certify the election results on January 6th, 2025.
The scheme is based on the 1887 Electoral Count Act. This is the same law that was amended after the January 6th, 2021, riot to clarify that the vice president's role in certifying the results is only ceremonial.
Under the Act, Congress can object to electoral votes if 20% of each chamber signs a petition, the lawyers wrote for The Hill.
"If the objection is sustained by majority vote in each house, the vote is not counted and the number of votes required to be elected is reduced by the number of disqualified votes. If all votes for Trump were not counted, Kamala Harris would be elected president," they wrote.
The lawyers echo an argument that was previously made by Democrat Jamie Raksin (Md.) at the height of the failed anti-Trump lawfare campaign.
Raskin, at the time, suggested that Congress would have to delegitimize a Trump victory if the Supreme Court refused to block him from the ballot.
The justices ultimately ruled unanimously against an effort by Colorado to enforce the so-called "insurrection ban" in the 14th Amendment.
“They want to kick it to Congress, so it’s going to be up to us on Jan. 6, 2025, to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified, and then we need bodyguards for everybody and civil war conditions,” Raskin said at the time.
Raskin's trash talk has been quieted by Trump's resounding victory, however, which has left Democrats broken and demoralized.
Compared to his shocking 2016 victory, which was met with a protest movement, riots, and objections in Congress, Trump's epic comeback has resulted in little resistance so far, leaving just a handful of "election deniers" who refuse to face reality.
If Democrats want to start winning again, attempting to block Trump from office after he won the popular vote is surely a bad way to go about it.
Democrats must accept that voters rejected them, and that there are no magic words they can say to make Trump - and the people who support him - disappear.
South Africa is facing the potential loss of its trade privileges with the United States as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to shift foreign policy in a tough new direction.
Republicans in Congress are pressuring Trump to remove South Africa from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which provides trade benefits for eligible developing countries, Fox News reported.
South Africa's critics have called for a more transactional approach with the country, which has fostered close ties with American rivals such as China and Russia despite its official policy of "non-alignment."
South Africa was accused of trying to please China when it asked Taiwan to move its unofficial embassy out of Praetoria, the South African capital.
South Africa has meanwhile accused Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) has enjoyed warm ties with Russia that date to the apartheid era.
On the trade front, South Africa is part of BRICS, an economic alliance including Russia and China that has pushed to challenge the U.S. dollar. The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, called Russia a "valued ally" at a BRICS summit in October.
"We continue to see Russia as a valued ally, as a valued friend who supported us right from the beginning, from the days of our struggle against apartheid," he said.
South Africa's moves have caused critics to label the country an emerging member of a new, anti-Western alliance with Russia, China, and Iran.
Republican Jim Risch (Id.), the incoming chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Fox News Digital, "I remain concerned about South Africa’s efforts to cozy up to Russia, China and Iran, including Iran’s terror proxies, and the impact this has on U.S. national security — a vital element in AGOA eligibility. The country’s foreign policy actions will remain a focus of my oversight efforts."
Criticism of South Africa has also come from Republicans destined for Trump's Cabinet, like Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl.), Trump's nominee for Secretary of State.
“The South African government is making a grave mistake by caving to Beijing’s demands,” he wrote on X on 24 October. “South Africa should not fall victim to Communist China’s diplomatic bullying tactics.”
Currently, South Africa gets trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allows South Africa to export duty-free items like oranges and cars to the U.S.
Trump is known for using extreme pressure against countries that take advantage of the United States, and ahead of his second term, he has threatened 100% tariffs against South Africa and other countries in BRICS if they attempt to create their own currency.
"We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy," Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump has issued similar tariff threats against Canada and Mexico, in part to force them to cooperate on controlling America's borders.