President Donald Trump hit multiple topics and drew laughs in the White House on Monday. Taking questions from reporters, he talked about everything from Joe Biden's autopen scandal to transgender weightlifters.
On the first point, the president commented on a recent New York Times article that revealed Biden's seeming lack of involvement in issuing a variety of eleventh-hour pardons. That includes one for Dr. Anthony Fauci. In short, the former president's chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients, was the one who gave the "approval" for the pardons and use of the autopen to sign them, though the claim is that Biden verbally agreed. That "decision" was filtered through then-White House counsel Ed Siskel to Zients via an email sent to an aide.
SEE: Biden's Autopen Scandal Grows As It's Revealed Who Approved Pardons for Fauci, Others
🚨 TRUMP: “I guarantee Biden knew NOTHING about the pardons signed by the autopen.”
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 14, 2025
“The autopen is maybe one of the biggest scandals that we've had in 50-100 years.”
The “pardons” are NULL AND VOID!
Buckle up, Schiff, Fauci, and Cheney. pic.twitter.com/5fw6GpXbrQ
I'm going to disagree with Nick on his conclusion. The pardons were sketchy, but they are not null and void, and they won't be found null and void. Unfortunately, as long as Biden himself denies he was duped, there is no mechanism by which to overturn the pardons. That power is given directly to the executive in the U.S. Constitution, and the legislative and judicial branches have no ability to challenge pardons or even change how the process works in the future.
I'm going to agree with @McAdooGordon on the issue of the AutoPen and pardons.
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) July 14, 2025
I'm not sure there is any way to make this more clear than has already been the case.
The power to issues pardons is plenary -- meaning the Constitution gives it to the President, with no role to be…
Do I think Biden was making all the decisions on those pardons? I highly doubt it. But the way the power is allocated, there is no requirement for written approval. If Biden says he approved them verbally, and that's what he maintains, then there's nothing else to be done here. So it's a scandal worth exposing, but don't get your hopes up that anything is going to be found null and void. That's not going to happen.
In other news, Trump had jokes when it came to the recently passed reconciliation package.
President Trump: "I said to one guy, he's a very very unattractive man, but he's smart and he's rich. And I said, you better hope we get this Bill passed because your wife will be gone within two minutes."
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 14, 2025
😂 pic.twitter.com/J0NwDIBXfj
President Trump: "Thom Tillis voted no. And they said, 'He was brave, he said no to the president!' But he resigned the following morning." 😂 pic.twitter.com/rY7kOujSyo
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 14, 2025
Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) claims he told Trump that the "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" could end up being his Obamacare, setting up a miserable final two years of his presidency. I guess we'll find out if that's true or not, but the president wasn't swayed, and Tillis is now on his way out the door.
Later in the presser, Trump reprised his reenactment of a transgender weightlifter, and had the room cracking up.
Trump on biological man in women’s lifting: “The man transitioned and he goes up to that thing ... Bing. Bing. Bing … He could’ve done it all day long. Broke the record by 119 pounds.”
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) July 14, 2025
pic.twitter.com/i5dr95QqGz
The president says in that clip that the "whole thing is crazy," and that about sums it up. It remains insane to me that any of this is even an issue. How did we get to a place where mentally ill, dangerously manipulative men can claim to be the opposite sex and then go steal records from women? Heck, we had a male boxer at last year's Summer Olympics beating up women to the cheers of the press.
Trump also hit Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
President Trump on Fed Chair Jay Powell: "I tried being nice to the guy. It doesn't help. He's a knucklehead. Stupid guy. He really is."
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 14, 2025
😂 pic.twitter.com/DbwXsSAV0k
Powell would have to resign since the president only has the power to remove him for cause. Policy disagreements wouldn't typically fall under that description, and Trump seems to agree that all he can do is rhetorically beat him over the head. Still, I get the frustration. Whatever "projections" the Federal Reserve claims to have, inflation has dropped, and the current economic conditions do support lowering interest rates. If that changes, then rates could be raised again, but preemptively holding the economy hostage the way Powell and the rest of the board are seems suspect, especially after they dropped rates for Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election when conditions were worse.
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