First up: Biden Diagnosed with Aggressive Prostrate Cancer

Joe Biden’s office announced on Sunday that the former President has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.

The statement made clear that Biden intends to receive treatment, and that the cancer appears to be sensitive to hormone therapy, “which allows for effective management.” It added, “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”

Some are skeptical that Biden’s condition is news to him and his family. Urologist Dr. David Shusterman told News Nation that the type of metastasizing cancer the former president has takes years to develop. Shusterman says that “this is what I typically would see in a VA hospital, where a patient hasn’t had medical attention in 10 years, presents to an emergency room with bone pain, and then they find that it’s metastatic prostate cancer.”

Additionally, Biden caused confusion when he seemed to announce that he had cancer during a July 2022 press conference at a coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts. According to the Associated Press:

At one point during his speech, he discussed the impact of environmental pollution from oil refineries near his hometown, sharing an anecdote about his childhood.

“And guess what? The first frost, you knew what was happening. You had to put on your windshield wipers to get, literally, the oil slick off the window,” Biden said, according to a White House transcript of his remarks. “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up (with) have cancer and why can — for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”

At the time, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said that Biden was referring to the skin cancer he had removed before he became president. Biden also had a lesion removed from his chest that was found to be a basal cell carcinoma. Studies suggesting that coal tars and coal-tar pitches increase the risk of various forms of cancer, including kidney, skin, bladder and lung cancer. Other studies specifically cite coal-burning power plants as a potential risk factor for non-melanoma skin carcinoma.

President Trump reacted to the news on Truth Social, writing that “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis. We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

Iran Questions Trump’s Commitment to Diplomacy

After months of threatening to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, Trump has softened his rhetoric on Iran. Much to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chagrin, the President is now pursuing diplomatic means to secure a new nuclear deal, and a fourth round of Iran-U.S. negotiations ended in Oman last Sunday.

Just last week, the President claimed that the United States was getting very close to securing a deal, and that Tehran “sort of” agreed to the terms. "We're getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this... there [are] two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don't want to do it the second way," Trump said, implying that war is the second option.

“They have to move quickly,” Trump warned Iran “or something bad’s going to happen.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wasn’t amused by Trump’s threats and accused the President of lying. Khamenei said the his remarks "aren't even worth responding to" and that they are an "embarrassment to the speaker and the American people.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called out Trump for claiming to want peace while making violent threats: "Which should we believe?" Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. "On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing."

Former President Barack Obama had secured a nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which ended Tehran’s uranium enrichment program. But Trump reneged on the deal in his first term in 2018, assassinated Iran’s top officer Qasem Soleimani and and took a more hawkish approach to Israel’s foe.

Share

Now Trump wants to avoid war and accomplish his own nuclear deal. But he’s running into a brick wall in regard to Iran’s uranium enrichment program. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff told ABC’s This week that the Trump Administration “have one very, very clear red line — and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability. We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this...”

That appears to be a non-starter for Iran. While Khamenei’s adviser Ali Shamkhani said Iran would dispose of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and commit to never building nuclear weapons, Tehran will not sing onto a deal that requires them to reduce their highly enriched uranium stockpile to a level below what was agreed under Iran's 2015 nuclear pact.

More talks are expected to come soon.

House Committee Advances Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”

The House Budget Committee passed a huge tax cut and immigration spending bill that’s represents the core of President Trump’s agenda.

The bill includes:

• work requirements for Medicaid recipients

• an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are set to expire in December

• an end to taxes for tips and overtime wages

• tax deductions for auto-loan interest payments

• hundreds of billions of dollars in spending for immigration enforcement

The tax cuts, coupled with new spending, would increase nation’s debt, which currently amounts to $36.2 trillion, by a minimum of $2.5 trillion over the next decade. Other analysis puts the figure at $5 trillion.

Previously, Republican Congressmen Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen and Andrew Clyde, who are all in the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, had blocked the bill for adding to the deficit. Trump had urged lawmakers to “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”

The four self-described fiscal conservatives voted to “present,” instead of yes or no on Sunday night, which advanced the legislative package 17-16. But their hesitance to vote yes foreshadows the fight ahead as the legislation gets closer to a floor vote in the House. GOP leaders can only lose two votes on the House floor if all lawmakers are present and voting.

Roy and Norman, who both voted “present” on Sunday night, also sit on the Rules Committee. If they vote against the bill, it would prevent it from consideration on the House floor. However, that seems unlikely as both jovially announced that House Speaker Mike Johnson had agreed to accelerate the timeline for Medicaid work requirements.

Leave a comment