Fox News Sunday 05-25-2025
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I'm Shannon Bream. High stakes talks underway as the U.S. tries to bridge the gap in a nuclear standoff with Iran. We hope that we can reach an agreement with Iran. It will not be easy, but that's the process we're engaged in now. Diplomats working around the clock as Israel weighs launching an attack if the talks don't go well. And here in Washington, President Trump's big, beautiful bill finally gets the green light from divided House Republicans. The bill is passed. The

But now must survive the Senate. Senate Democrats will oppose this morally bankrupt bill with every fiber in our being. The Senate's got to do its work, and we will, and there'll be changes. With just three votes to spare, I'll talk with Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who's a hard no for now, and ask Speaker Mike Johnson if he can defy expectations again once the Senate makes its changes. Then...

The Biden cover-up. Democrats backtrack while the GOP targets the former president's inner circle. Alex Thompson, co-author of Original Sin, joins us only on Fox News Sunday. And...

Two Israeli embassy staffers murdered in D.C. as pro-Palestinian protests rage on college campuses. And as the Trump White House tries to terminate Harvard's student visa program, a judge says not so fast. We'll bring in our Sunday panel to discuss the escalating standoff. Plus, Gary Sinise giving back this Memorial Day weekend. Just showing up, letting them know that we appreciate what they're doing.

We're grateful for them, and we don't forget about what they're going through. While honoring the memory of his late son. All right now on Fox News Sunday.

Hello from Fox News in Washington. As we honor our heroes this Memorial Day weekend, we begin with a look at your headlines. Ukraine says Russia has launched its largest drone and missile attack ever on the country overnight, killing at least 12 people. Moscow says Ukraine fired more than 100 drones into Russia during that same period. It all comes as the two countries swapped hundreds more prisoners of war this weekend.

FBI and state authorities in Louisiana are still looking for five of the 10 inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail nine days ago. The reward for information leading to their arrest has increased to $20,000 each.

And here in the nation's capital, thousands of motorcyclists showing their appreciation. For the fallen service members, we are honoring this Memorial Day weekend as part of the annual Rolling to Remember ride. It kicks off at the Pentagon in Virginia. That group is calling for a better accounting of America's prisoners of war and those still missing in action.

In a moment, we will get the very latest on President Trump's big, beautiful reconciliation bill as it heads to an uncertain fate in the Senate. With two Republicans with some serious differences over the bill as it currently stands, Senator Rand Paul and House Speaker Mike Johnson. But first, we turn to Lucas Tomlinson in Bedminster, New Jersey, where the president is staying this holiday weekend. Hello, Lucas.

Shannon, after a big win on Capitol Hill, President Trump addressed the graduates of West Point's class of 2025, where he told the military it's back to basics, and that includes no nation building. Gone are the days where defending every nation, we are putting America first. Fresh off the House, passing by a single vote, a key pillar of President Trump's economic agenda, which costs nearly $4 trillion, it's

Passage in the Republican-controlled Senate is not certain. Well, listen, I mean, the Senate's going to want to put its own stamp on this. We'll write our own version of the bill. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson claims Trump's big, beautiful bill won't add to the nation's nearly $37 trillion debt. We can both grow the economy and control the debt. In addition to tax cuts, the bill also includes billions for Trump's mass deportation operation, the Pentagon's Golden Dome missile defense shield,

and billions more for weapons, shipbuilding, and protecting the southern border. We fought for other countries' borders, but we didn't fight for our own border. We're getting rid of the distractions, and we're focusing our military on its core mission.

Crushing America's adversaries, killing America's enemies and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before. On top of blaming his predecessors for overseas conflicts, Trump blamed anti-Semitism and the anti-FADA movement leading to the brutal murder of a couple who worked at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Police say 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez admitted to gunning down Yaron Lashinsky and Sarah Milgram outside the Capitol Jewish Museum just a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. Yaron had planned to propose to Sarah this week in Jerusalem.

The Trump administration continues to engage Iran over its nuclear program. Enrichment remains a big sticking point. Shannon. Yeah, more of that in the show a little bit later. Lucas Tomlinson in Bedminster, New Jersey. Thank you. We turn now to Trey Yanks, who is live in Tel Aviv, Israel. Hello, Trey.

Shannon, good morning. There is hope that an agreement can be reached between the United States and Iran aiming to avoid a much larger war. Negotiators met for a fifth time this weekend to iron out the details of a possible nuclear deal. The Trump administration is walking a difficult line between keeping officials in Tehran at the table and keeping their key Middle East ally Israel happy. While there is a focus on conflict and diplomacy, Israel is still mourning the death's

of those two Israeli embassy staffers murdered last week in Washington, D.C. A funeral was held today in a private ceremony in Jerusalem for one of the victims, Yaron. Shifting now to the war between Israel and Hamas, the Middle East remains on edge with hopes of diplomatic solutions fading. Israeli fighter jets and drones continue to hammer the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, killing dozens of Palestinians, including nine children from the same family. Their mother, a pediatrician, reportedly collapsed at the hospital yesterday.

as she received their bodies and overnight thousands of israelis gathered in tel aviv to call for an end to the fighting and the release of the remaining fifty eight hostages still held by hamas the for and for the return of citizens adopted on his watch he prefers flattening gaza at the cost of creating another fifty eight souls will be missing in actions

We are approaching 600 days of war between Israel and Hamas, and still there is no end in sight. Shannon. All right, Trey Yanks reporting from Israel. Trey, thank you very much. Joining us now, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Welcome back to Fox News Sunday. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Okay, I want to get to some foreign policy, but first, what's going down here in Washington as the big, beautiful bill, as it's been called, is now heading to you in the Senate. The Hill says this.

House GOP leaders spent weeks in delicate talks with Republican holdouts before cobbling together a fragile agreement. The critical voices of the House debate are cautioning their upper chamber counterparts not to alter their design too severely or it will never get through the House on its return. We'll talk about some of your specific objections, but how much does that worry factor into your calculus, whether or not what you do in the Senate can get back through the House?

You know, the bigger a bill, the more it includes, the more difficult it is to get everybody to agree to things. I supported the tax cuts in 2017. I support making them permanent. So I support that part of the bill. I support spending cuts. I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic. But I still would support the bill, even with wimpy and anemic cuts.

if they weren't going to explode the debt. The problem is the math doesn't add up. They're going to explode the debt by the House says $4 trillion. The Senate's actually been talking about exploding the debt $5 trillion. This year in September, when our fiscal year ends, the deficit will be about $2.2 trillion. Now, people used to always say, the Republicans would say, well, that's Bidenomics, that's Biden's spending levels.

when March, every Republican, virtually every Republican other than me, voted to continue the Biden spending levels, which are going to give us a $2.2 trillion deficit. Now, if you increase the debt ceiling $4 to $5 trillion, that means they're planning on $2 trillion this year and more than $2 trillion next year.

That's just not conservative. So I've told him if they strip out the debt ceiling, I'll consider, even with the imperfections, voting for the rest of the bill. But I can't vote to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. There's got to be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong and deficits are wrong and wants to go in the other direction. The idea that we're going to explode deficits and the projections are now looking at over $3 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years –

I think is just, you know, not a serious proposal. So, you know, the debt ceiling is going to come sooner or later. And Republicans, many of them and those who advocate for including the debt ceiling being raised within this measure, say take it off the table now, because otherwise you're going to have really knock down, drag out fights with Democrats further down the road. They're going to have more leverage when you're facing that debt ceiling. So do you seed something by taking it out of this bill and leaving it for further debates? That may be to Democrats advantage down the road.

Well, they want to take it out of this bill because it is a walk of shame. Every time the debt ceiling raises, the people who've been voting for the spending have to walk in shame to the front of the House or the front of the Senate and say, yes, I've been voting for all these deficit spending and now I'm willing to vote to raise the debt ceiling. But I would say the opposite. I offered an amendment two weeks ago to raise the debt ceiling for three months.

That's $500 billion, believe it or not, for three months. And the reason I do it every three months and force the vote is it's a point of leverage. It's an inflection point at which we can look back at leadership and say, hmm, you promised you were going to cut spending. Oh, you promised tomorrow. You promised next week. You promised next year. But you know what? You're not doing it, so I'm not going to raise it again. So this leverage would work. If you do it for two years, you're right. It goes through all the elections, goes on the back

burner and the debt accumulates like it always had. This is more of the same. This is what the Democrats have always done. And this is the Republicans using the same playbook. OK, let's talk about things where some of your GOP colleagues there in the Senate are worried about too many cuts to specific programs. They're worried about impact on Medicaid. They're worried about SNAP.

And really this idea that if you add work requirements to make it tougher to access those assistance programs, millions of people could be thrown off of health insurance. They could lose their access to food and medical coverage and insurance. So as a physician yourself, where do you stand on those arguments?

Well, see, on the one hand, you can offer people free stuff. You can say, I'll give you free health care. And people, oh, thank you for free health care. But what you don't tell them is we're borrowing the money from China to pay for your health care. So we run a deficit, $2 trillion, which leads to inflation, which leads to rising prices, which squeezes you on the other side. So the bottom line is there is no free lunch. You can offer people free stuff.

But if you're borrowing money to do it, you end up punishing them with inflation. The same people that are getting the free stuff are also being punished by inflation and never seem to creep out of poverty or climb up out of poverty. So it's a bait and switch. It isn't good. But I do think the deficit is a threat to our country. I think it's the greatest threat to our national security. And so I think you can't do this.

We bring in about $5 trillion in revenue, and we spend $7 trillion. That's about what we do. The $5 trillion is consumed by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other welfare programs. The mandatory programs consume all of it. So the people say, well, we're taking this off the table, and we're not going to touch any of those programs. Well, they're just not, frankly, serious. I'm all for the doge cuts, and I'll vote for every one of them.

But, you know, the administration now is afraid to send him back because Republican leadership on both sides is like, we're not sure we can pass a $9 billion cut. And so what we're really stuck with is the math doesn't work. All the great Doge stuff, all the great stuff Elon Musk has done is out there. And people are going to wake up in about two months and say, how come the deficit's still $2.2 trillion?

Where did the savings go? People are going to be very disappointed, conservatives, and I'm the one ringing the alarm saying they're not doing anything. They're not sending us a rescission package. They're not cutting spending. Somebody has to stand up and yell, the emperor has no clothes.

And everybody's falling in lockstep on this. Pass the big, beautiful bill. Don't question anything. Well, conservatives do need to stand up and have their voice heard. This is a problem we've been facing for decades now. And if we don't stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going. The senator or excuse me, the speaker is coming up. So we'll we'll ask him about all of your concerns.

Before you go, I want to quickly ask you about this. You're chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. We've been hearing a lot about then Congresswoman, now director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard being put on a TSA fly list or a watch list. Will you be able to tell us who put her on the list and are there other lawmakers on the list?

And not today, but I will tell you, I'm going to get to the bottom of this. This is offensive to every principle of civil liberty in our country. What we do think happened is that she was put on the list for a speech violation for her First Amendment speech, for her political opinions, I believe, while she was a congresswoman.

But then she was protected. So they put her on the list and then said, oh, well, we don't spy on congressmen until she wasn't a congressman. And then she automatically popped back up as someone we're going to spy on. So some I think there may be other congressmen. I'm going to find out whether any congressmen or senators on the list because they're protected from being spied on until they leave office. Then we spy on them. This is a real problem.

I've been trying to get the information on this for close to a year. I sent letter after letter to the Biden administration and got nothing. What I can tell you is the Trump administration is cooperating. I think they want to get to the bottom of this. I want to find out who the person was, what their name was, and what their arguments were for putting Tulsi Gabbard on this list. And they need to be let go and never, ever put in his position again. But the program needs to be reformed also. We should not have anybody in America on a watch list because of their speech.

Well, we will look for answers as you get them. Please share them with us, Senator. Great to see you today. Thank you. OK, joining us now, Speaker of the House. Speaker, welcome back. Let me start with what the senator had to say there. He said the cuts are wimpy and anemic and that the national debt is actually one of our greatest issues of national security. Doesn't think you guys are taking this seriously?

Well, I agree wholeheartedly with what my dear friend Rand Paul said. I love his conviction and I share it. The national debt is the greatest threat to our national security and deficits are a serious problem. What I think Rand is missing on this one is the fact that we are quite serious about this. This is the biggest spending cut, Shannon, in more than 30 years. We're going to cut over $1.5 trillion in spending. And it's a

big leap forward. The last time we had a spending cut was three decades ago when it was only $800 billion, even adjusted for inflation. This is the biggest spending cut, I think, in the history of government on planet Earth. Now, is it enough? Of course not. But we have a very delicate balance and we have to start the process. I liken this to an aircraft carrier.

You don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes a mile of open ocean. And so it took us decades to get into this situation. This is a big step to begin to turn that aircraft carrier. One important point about what he said, it sounds like his biggest objection is the fact that we are extending the debt ceiling.

That's a critically important thing to do. We have to do it. We're not going to get any Democrats to assist on that. So to get it through the Senate and make sure we don't crash the U.S. economy and default on our debts for the first time in history, it has to be part of the reconciliation package. And that's why President Trump and all the other Republicans in Congress, House and Senate, understand the necessity of this.

Real quick, important point here. It does not mean that we're going to spend more money. We're extending the debt ceiling to show to creditors, the bond markets, the stock market, that the Congress is serious about this. President Trump is dialed in 100%. He is a visionary leader. He does not want to spend more money, and he has the same concern about the national debt

that Rand Paul and I do. That's why we're not going to be spending to that level. We're just sending a message to our creditors around the world that we're serious about all of this. But you know what critics have said in the past, especially when they've been on the conservative side, they've said, you know, when you call up and get an extension of your credit on your Visa or MasterCard or whatever it is, you may say, I'm not intending to spend that money, but I do want my credit level to go up. And the fact is you may become more comfortable with spending money when you have that leeway.

Well, that might be true, but it doesn't apply here because you've got Republicans and fiscally responsible leaders in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House, of course, as well. You know, Russ Vogt is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, long seen as a strict fiscal hawk, as I liken myself to be as well. And Rand Paul is one who has applauded and said great things about Russ Vogt's perspective. Russ said about two weeks ago that the criticism on fiscal grounds about this bill is...

is profoundly inaccurate so russ says this is a historic step forward as do many other economists it was really important here to to point out janet is that uh... some of the estimates for example by the c_b_o_ the congressional budget office are wildly inaccurate there they're assuming that historically low growth rate in the economy the elements of the big beautiful bill the reason we're so excited is because it will be jet fuel to u_s_ economy this is going to foster a

a pro-growth economy again, to get job creators and entrepreneurs and risk-takers moving again, expanding their businesses, adding more jobs. Wages will go up. We'll have more manufacturing in the U.S. because of all the policies that we put into this legislation. It's a long time coming. And remember, not theoretical. We did this before in the first Trump administration. We brought in the greatest economy in the history of the world, not just the U.S., after just those first two years. Because we cut taxes and cut regulations, we're doing it again and on steroids this time.

Let me ask you about a couple of things that are going to be tough in the Senate that may change and may impact your ability then to have the votes when this comes back. SALT is one of them, this extension of the amount of state and local taxes people can deduct off of their federal returns. On this issue, Senator Kevin Cramer says this, there's not one Republican in the United States Senate who gives a blank about SALT.

Are you worried about that and other changes that you had to cobble together to get this passed in the House and what, you know, the Senate may do to your big, beautiful bill?

Well, look, Kevin Cramer, good friend, there's a lot of House Republicans who feel the same as well, people from deep red districts and red states. But the reality is in the House that our majority is made up by our members who serve in states like California and New York, Republicans elected in very difficult, close districts there. And they've got to provide some relief for their folks. And so I think we reached a good equilibrium point over Republicans.

more than a year of discussion and negotiation and planning for a big reconciliation bill we balance the interest of a very diverse uh republican caucus over 220 members of course in the house and and i've encouraged the senate my senate colleagues i went to their senate republican luncheon on tuesday and i encouraged them along and and reminded them that we're one team here house and senate republicans working together because we must we have small margins of both chambers

But I encourage them to modify the package that we're sending over there as little as possible because we have to maintain that balance. And it's a very delicate thing. But I think we'll get this job done. All right. June is going to be a busy month. We'll be watching very closely. Mr. Speaker, thanks for your time.

Thanks, Jan. All right. Another week, another legal showdown as a federal judge blocks the Trump administration's decision to bar Harvard from enrolling foreign students over allegations it hasn't protected Jewish students amid anti-Semitic harassment. Our Sunday panel on the latest scuffle between the president and higher ed. They are up next.

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Harvard brought these consequences upon themselves.

They have promoted and allowed violent activity on campus. He's acting exactly like the unhinged anti-Israel campus protesters that he claims to be opposing, right? He's performative. He's cruel. He's illogical. Two sides of the debate over Harvard and yet another dust-up with President Trump, the administration attempting to bar the prestigious institution from enrolling international students.

The move was predictably swiftly halted by a federal judge, but will likely turn into a lengthy court battle. So let's talk about it with our Sunday group. Mario Parker, Bloomberg managing editor for U.S. economy and government. Former Biden White House special assistant and director of message planning, Megan Hayes. Doug High, former RNC communications director and founder of Douglas Media. And former Bush national security official, Michael Allen. Welcome.

Welcome to all of you. OK, so the move was attempted. We didn't think it would take long, less than 24 hours, to get a federal judge to say you can't do this. But here's how Harvard's president described it. They say the revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence

and to submit to the federal government's illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body. Doug, that's not how the administration would describe what they're doing. No. No, not at all. And I do some work with colleges, and this obviously is an issue that comes up not just with Harvard, but a whole lot of public and private universities. And I think on the legal merits, Harvard probably will win, ultimately, if this goes the full way through the courts. Harvard should be in a good place.

But universities also have to be introspective here. And what we've seen is what I've seen up close is they don't understand not only that they're unpopular throughout the country, but why they're unpopular throughout the country. As a proud Tar Heel, I look at what North Carolina did when they had campus protests. Students wouldn't let the American flag hit the ground. The next day, the chancellor was on campus and raised the flag back up on the flagpole and said, we're not going to tolerate this here. That's an example of how to do it right.

And I would tell and have told public and private universities, figure out how to get this right so you can move forward and foreign students aren't threatened with revocation of their status and important research funding for cancer and Alzheimer's isn't threatened as well. And Megan, your specialty has been messaging. So what about these schools? Because some of them, we look at how this showdown has happened with Columbia. They've really modified how they've handled recent dustups on their campus as well. So there are a couple of case studies on how to do this.

Right. And I think that this is just part of Donald Trump's retribution to civil society. He started with the law firms, then he went to the media, then he's in the arts and humanities with the Kennedy Center. Now he's at universities. It's taking away independent thought. He wants people to think how he thinks and only what he thinks. But do you think that the anti-Semitic protests, that he has a point, him aside and if you don't like his policies, that colleges have to manage that better? Absolutely.

Absolutely. But that doesn't mean you go after one third of the campus. That means you go after those people who are breaking the rules and breaking the law. A lot of the people who have been on these college campuses don't even go to school there. I think at GW, seven people out of the 40 or so that were arrested were actually students. So go after those kids. Go after those foreign students who have visas here. You don't go after an entire campus and their entire student body of foreign foreign students.

So, Michael, it gets to the question about how much obligation a university has to police and handle these situations. They need to take this very, very seriously because I think what we've seen of late, particularly with the terrorist attack here in Washington, D.C., is that the globalized, the intifada narrative, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, is inciting violence.

The shooter, the terrorist this past week had a manifesto. He noted that nonviolent protest is not working. I'm worried this is ushering in a new era where people resort to violence. And so I think universities and everyone in society need to take this very seriously and use all tools at their disposal to begin to curb this. And to your point there, the Federalist had a piece talking about linking all of those things together in this conversation. They said, sadly, the murders of...

The two just blocks from here in D.C., they're just the latest in a spate of left wing violence and a foretaste of terror to come. And the training grounds of hatred and radicalism are U.S. college campuses, as we've seen time and time again in recent years. Mario, fair to examine that potential connection.

Well, I mean, the fact is that that message was signal boosted. We saw some of that taking place over the last year or so. This time last year, in fact, during the graduation season with most of these colleges as well, just kind of mainstreaming some of that ideology, whether or not there's a direct correlation, of

course, the Trump administration is going to point toward what's been happening on these college campuses and saying that it's fomented some of what we've seen, unfortunately, play out here in D.C. I want to circle back to before we go on our top story about the big, beautiful bill, where it goes, what happens next. What do you make?

you know, Michael, of what we saw from the senator. He's just one of the abductions, this debt ceiling. But there are many others over there. Ron Johnson and others have been pretty vocal. Well, first, it's a big win for the president. He helped corral the votes. He puts the bully in the bully pulpit. He went after the members and got the bill done. So that's great. It's great that we make the tax cuts permanent. It's great that we do one hundred and fifty billion dollars annually.

in defense spending but on the dead were like a car traveling down the interstate that's running out of gas and we keep skipping exits this will catch up with this our debt crisis will harm our economy in the short if not the short than the medium term and so the senators right we have got to face the facts sooner rather than later it may not be in this particular piece of legislation i think it will be inspired by a crisis in the economy

But that day is coming. Yeah. And we don't want to get there. But both parties have contributed to where we find ourselves today. Yeah, absolutely. And I just think the tactics here might have been a win for Trump, but I'm not sure it was a win for the Republican Party. And you would know this, Doug, more than most people being at the RNC. They made the House members take votes on something that's not going to be the same bill coming out of the Senate. And so that puts their frontline members in a real big risk coming into the midterm elections that Democrats could take control of the House just voting on this one bill. So I think, you know, they they might might be a win for Trump, but I don't think it's a win for the Republicans.

Yeah, one constant in Washington, regardless of parties, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, what the House does and what the Senate does, very different things. Their priorities are never the same. And so we have this back and forth constantly. This was the Obamacare fight as well. And this is obviously what we see with this bill. We'll see it again. Regardless of party, the House and the Senate always disagree. Well, Mario, the speaker told us, I went to the Senate and said, please don't do violence to my bill because...

because I would like to be able to get my members together. I mean, he had a really tricky coalition kind of held together with, you know, bubble gum and paperclips getting this thing done in the house. Oh, yeah, and putty, too. Everything that you could think of to hold it together.

If you have to ask for him not to do violence to the bill, you know that violence is coming, right? You saw Senator Paul. He's clearly a no right now. You've got senators who care less about this SALT deal that Johnson was able to get across the finish line as well. You've got other senators who are worried about the rollback of the tax credit, the green tax credits.

because of jobs that are being brought to their states as well. And then you've got concerns from those like Hawley and others about Medicaid and whether or not those rollbacks and those cuts will be significant to rural hospitals as well, which means that John Thune is going to have to work his own magic.

and see whether or not he can get it back to Johnson. And we're going to pop our popcorn, as only wonky nerds would do, as we watch this all play out in June. All right, panel, thank you very much. Don't go far. Up next, an exclusive conversation with the co-author of a new book making headlines over what many view as a cover-up by President Biden's inner circle, as, you know, others out there now admit they were worried about his mental and physical decline, his ability to actually do his job as president. More on that next.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. I'm going to bring every single person that was involved in this cover-up in front of Congress and ask them all the questions that the American people deserve to have answers for.

That is House Oversight Chair James Comer demanding that former President Biden's doctor and other top advisers either turn over documents or testify on the details of what was really going on with his physical and mental condition while he was running the country. The investigation ramping up in the wake of a new book, Original Sin, which details what many view as calculated years-long effort to conceal the president's decline in the run-up to the 2024 election. Joining me now, the book's co-author, Axios National Political Correspondent Alex DePauw.

Thompson, good to have you with us today. Great to be here. All right. We got to start with the elephant in the room, the media coverage of this. You recently won an award from the White House Correspondents Association for, quote, aggressive reporting on Biden and for providing, quote, important insight into the inner workings of the Biden White House. In accepting the award, you acknowledged.

We missed some of this. There's more that could have been done. But everyday Americans who are watching the kinds of things like we have on the screen now, they'll say, we weren't in Washington. We're not at the White House. We're not covering this every day. We could see this decline in real time. Why couldn't most of the Washington press corps?

Well, I would say first, there's a big difference between what you're seeing on the screen there and then what was going on behind the scenes by the inner circle, the Biden White House, to try to shield that part of Joe Biden. But for people in the country that are frustrated with the media coverage, I don't blame them because they were saying there's probably more here and we should have not. Because the media definitely talked about his age and did show those clips. But I do think we didn't.

probe more, probe enough into what was actually going on behind the scenes. And that's what we really try to do in this book. Well, fair to say, though, that those who did publicly question what we were seeing and try to push for more answers, they were often belittled or kind of, you know, condescended to about why they would even ask those questions. I mean, I covered this aggressively back since 2021 and especially through 2023 and 2024. And the book says that, you know, at times I was even frustrated that

There didn't, you know, and I felt a little bit on the outs with, you know, some of my colleagues, not all. I think there are a lot of people that were really trying to cover this story and people in the White House were lying and not telling the truth and obscuring it. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's fair. That's why I made the comments at the speech. I think, you know, this is a good moment for just, like, reflecting on why exactly we missed some of the details that we finally got in this book. Mm-hmm.

So some of those who were pressing at the time in real time for more answers, I want to play a little bit of the responses they were getting from Biden's inner circle. I think you all have called this the cheap fakes video, and that's exactly what they are. They are cheap fakes video. The white wing critics of the president have a credibility problem. The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it.

because he is sharp, intensely probing, and detail-oriented and focused. The president is absolutely sharp, fit on top of his game. People can see that for themselves. You don't have to take my word for it. People can see that for themselves.

people felt like they saw something different when they were looking for themselves. All of those quotations were in 2024. So based on having read your book, what you reported, were those people lying at the time, this idea that they couldn't keep up with President Biden, that he was exceptionally sharp? They weren't telling the truth. And I think the book really conclusively shows what was going behind the scenes. And throughout 2023 and 2024, there were steps taken to increasingly shield Joe Biden, not just from the public,

but from members of his own cabinet, members of his own senior staff. And one White House official who left in 2024 told us that they left in part because they were not comfortable with how they were trying to shield the extent of the decline. Joe Biden that people saw in that debate stage.

I think the book really shows it was not the first time that Joe Biden had acted like that. You can also listen to the tapes from the Robert Herr investigation. I think there's like you can you can sort of hear debate Biden. And there were increasingly frantic efforts to make sure that the public did not see debate Biden. While the public did see that he was aging, I think the debate was a shock to millions of Americans because of the extent of it.

Well, and you mentioned in the book, you talked to a number of cabinet secretaries. I thought this was extremely illuminating and a little bit frightening because some of them told you they didn't think he could handle that 2 a.m. middle of the night phone call. I mean, he's the commander in chief of the nuclear codes. One of them talked about seeing him in person the last year and was shocked by he seemed disoriented. His mouth was hanging open. He seemed out of it.

Did those cabinet officials express any remorse? I mean, did they not have an obligation to say to the American people, we don't think this guy can be the president, much less run for four more years? I mean, there was definitely a lot of self-reflection about what, if anything, they should have done differently. I think there was a feeling, like a lot of members of the Democratic Party that were seeing this or saw moments of him seeming out of it, that going public was not going to change his mind. It was only going to help Donald Trump.

And I think that's how a lot of them rationalize that. Now, whether or not history will judge them, you know, as being right for doing that, you know, we will see. But this is also part of the reason why the White House was shielding him from as many people as possible, including cabinet secretaries, because sometimes, you know, you see him once. Maybe it's just a bad day. You can just say, like, you know, maybe I just had one bad meeting. You're not really sure.

Well, and it did seem like there's so many people who you would have thought would have access to him who didn't because of this inner circle that really much managed his schedule and his time and his access in a way that didn't give a lot of people access.

you know, one on one time with him in the book. You quote a longtime Biden aide basically admitting he shouldn't be running again. They said to you on page 85, he just had to win and then he could disappear for four years. He'd only have to show proof of life every once in a while. His aides could pick up the slack. Who would have been running the White House in a second Biden term? This person went on to say that when you're voting for a president, you're voting for the aides themselves.

around him. But these aides were not even Senate-confirmed aides. These are White House aides. These were unelected people. And one of the things that really, I think, comes out in our reporting here is that if you believe, and I think a lot of these people do sincerely believe, that Donald Trump was and is an essential threat to democracy, you can rationalize anything, including sometimes doing undemocratic things, which I think is what this person is talking about.

about. I want to ask, too, about the president's doctor, because we have this unfortunate news now about his cancer diagnosis. And you write about Dr. Kevin O'Connor several times in the book. But on page 47, you say people around Biden worried that O'Connor, whom almost everyone called Doc, might be too close to his patient. You write about his continued resistance to ever give him a cognitive test.

But knowing what we know about the president's health, something that, you know, a lot of medical professionals, including Zeke Emanuel, who is no conservative, says he may have had this cancer probably for years. Was Dr. O'Connor too close to him to significantly and accurately probe both his mental and physical health? I mean, Zeke Emanuel not only is no Republican, he also worked on Joe Biden's COVID team. And he basically said that it's almost certain that Joe Biden had this cancer while he was president. So that either means

that he had cancer and his doctor did not catch it, or it means that they did catch it and they didn't disclose it. And so it's raised more questions than not. In terms of, I mean, a lot of people did feel that Kevin O'Connor, while they also believed he was a man of integrity, they also just felt that he had been sort of

you know, brought into this Biden orbit of sort of, you know, they call it a version of a reality distortion field. And, you know, the, the other thing is that Kevin O'Connor was also very involved with Joe Biden's late son, Bo's, uh, cancer treatments. And, you know, that sort of bonded them in a way that I think made people, um,

a little apprehensive. And even people that really love Kevin O'Connor and by all accounts, like he was beloved throughout the White House, you know, even longtime Biden aides have told me that they are skeptical and feel like they don't have all the information when it comes to this cancer diagnosis.

Okay. Well, maybe James Comer will be the one who probes that if this turns into a subpoena situation on the Hill. It's a fascinating read in a way that is almost like you can't turn away from a train wrecker watching happen, having this information that we have now. Alex, thank you very much for coming on. Thanks so much for having me. Original Sin is available anywhere you like to get your books.

So coming up, President Trump threatening stiff new tariffs on the EU and on your iPhone. Plus, we catch up with our old friend Gary Sinise to see the work his foundation is doing to help our men and women in uniform, their families too, and including yours truly. They put me to work, and it was an honor. That's straight ahead. Fantastic. Let's do it. There's your mac and cheese. Get it going. All right. We are good to go. Touches.

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Rules and restrictions may apply. It's time that we play the game the way I know how to play the game. They've taken advantage of other people representing this country, and they're not going to do that any longer.

President Trump reigniting his tough talk on trade, threatening 50 percent tariffs on EU goods and 25 percent on smartphones made overseas and sold here in the U.S. We are back with our panel. All right, Mario, this got the attention of the EU trade commissioner who tweeted in part the EU is fully engaged, committed to securing a deal that works for both. EU-U.S. trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests.

Yeah, well, Donald Trump has long had ire toward the European Union. He tells the story of speaking with Angela Merkel during his first term about how many Chevys or American cars are in the streets of Germany compared to Mercedes-Benzes here as well. Scott Bassett last week said that the president feels as though that the proposals that the EU has put forth are...

aren't as sufficient as the ones that they're getting from other country leading trading partners as well. I mean, so we've been saying that this is heading toward a stalemate. For the EU, the priorities are 27 disparate countries, right? That's a tough thing to do, to corral for one simple trade package when you have 27 different competing interests.

For the Trump administration, though, this is a trading partner behind China. But you get about five billion dollars or so of trade going across the Atlantic between the two countries each year. Trump has felt like the EU has been overly penalizing U.S. tech, etc.,

Whether or not, to Besson's point also, that this lights a fire under the EU remains to be seen. We had heard last week that there were some type of talks that were starting to get some type of progression there, right, with some deals in the framework. Maybe this does light a fire. We'll find out this time next weekend. We absolutely will. Okay, other talks that have been going on this weekend are...

between the U.S. and Iran. They've had their latest round of talks. They've said they've agreed to continue talking. But Wall Street Journal reports there may be this impasse we keep hearing about. Washington insists Tehran can't continue to enrich uranium under a deal. Iranian officials pushed back this week, presenting a united front on their insistence that Iran won't give up enrichment. Michael, the Ayatollah is publicly saying these talks are going to fail. So are we wasting our time?

I don't think we're wasting our time. I definitely think we're at an impasse. But we need to begin to do what President Trump has pledged to do, which is to turn up the volume on the Iranians. We want a maximum pressure sanctions campaign. He's begun to do it. Let's let them bake in this oven for a little while. Their economy is already terrible. I think we'll be able to affect it even more if we can get other countries around the world not to purchase their oil.

But the president is also, his hand is strengthened because Israel is ready to bomb Israel.

Iran as soon as possible. And I think he has the credible threat of military force in his pocket. It's a piece of leverage that he can use to get the Iranians conditioned to eventually make some concessions. So this is starting to get interesting. It is. Axios reports this. Bibi is waiting for the nuclear talks to collapse. And for the moment, Trump will be disappointed about the negotiations and open to giving him the go ahead. Megan, that

launches all kinds of other potential issues in that region should this come to military action. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is Bibi posturing again, but also this is it's ironic because this is similar to the deal that we that Trump pulled out of in 2018. We're trying to get back. So it's a very interesting thing. But I do think that Israel is posturing a little bit and sort of using our talks here to further their own.

Well, and it sounds like maybe the Ayatollah and the prime minister both kind of expect or think that they want these talks to fall apart in some way. But there are a lot of folks on Capitol Hill, Doug, who say if the U.S. gets involved in this in any way, it needs congressional approval and authority. And they're going to press the White House for that. And that's Republicans and Democrats.

Well, we're hearing that. But what we've seen so often, especially with the Republican House and Republican Senate, is a Republican president, in this case Donald Trump, tends to get what he wants from Congress. So we'll hear some saber rattling and we'll hear some noise. But ultimately, they've gone along with Donald Trump as they would. Democrats did under Obama. Republicans did under Bush and Reagan and so forth. So we'll hear the noise. But ultimately, they'll be in line with administration policy by and large.

Okay, quickly, Michael, before we go, I want to ask you about Russia, too. A lot of drone activity, deaths in Kiev overnight, and it's been a tough weekend where they're swapping prisoners. They're talking, but they're continuing the attack. So is Putin serious? I don't think he's serious at all. He either wants to win on the battlefield, he's not succeeding there, or he wants to win at the negotiating table. He wants us to walk away from the negotiating table. We need to stay there. The president needs to continue to...

Well, he should begin with some sanctions on the Russians. But also, Lindsey Graham has a bill in the Senate with 81 senators. And so that's a big sanctions bill, and that's pressure on Russia. Yeah, and it's hard to get 81 senators to agree on anything. So take your wins where you get them if that's what you want. All right, panel, thank you very much. We'll see you next Sunday. So a truly one-of-a-kind Sunday special as we mark Memorial Day with the help of an old friend, this guy.

We are here at Walter Reed, going to take you behind the scenes with my friend, actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise, to look at the work his foundation is doing to serve our men and women in uniform and their families, too. That's next. Three courses for just $19.99.

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As we bring in the unofficial start of summer, it's sometimes easy to forget the true meaning of Memorial Day, honoring those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free. Gary Sinise has never forgotten that and opted to mark this holiday as he has countless others by giving back to our men and women in uniform through service and song. It's our Sunday special.

Right after September 11th, I started doing USO tours and I would just go out as an actor and kind of wave and shake hands. From astronauts to hard-nosed crime scene investigator. And of course... Lieutenant Dyer!

What are you doing here? Award-winning actor Gary Sinise has endeared himself to generations through his iconic performances. Yet the work he's most proud of hasn't won him Oscars or Emmys, but instead the lasting gratitude of our nation's heroes. Thank you for what you do for us, Beth. For more than a decade, the Gary Sinise Foundation has worked tirelessly to uplift our servicemen and women, veterans, first responders, and their families.

building smart homes, visiting wounded warriors, serving more than a million meals, even bringing yours truly along on his latest visit to Walter Reed. To me, the meal is the second part of it. Really, the first part of it is just showing up, letting them know that we appreciate what they're doing. We're grateful for them and we don't forget about what they're going through.

But most importantly for the lifelong performer, inspiring our heroes and their families through the power of music. That's the Lieutenant Dan Band. Tell me the genesis of the band. I remember I was on my very first tour. It was called Project Salute.

And it was the first big USO tour to Iraq. And I went as an actor and I was just I was Lieutenant Dan shaking hands and that kind of thing. So I was, you know, watching Kid Rock and everybody perform. I just wanted to do that. So after about six tours, handshaking.

They finally, the USO said they would let me take my band. Then when the Gary Sinise Foundation formed and everything, I just folded the band into the foundation. Now we've done probably upwards of 600 shows. We caught up with Sinise at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, where his Lieutenant Dan band played its first ever show at the base. And I've seen the reaction.

that people have to you and they love you. They love the Lieutenant Dan band. What is it like for you to be looking at these audiences all over the world? And today, especially when you're on a military base and to see what it means to these guys and women. It's a great, it's a, it's a real blessing. It's a, to me, it's,

It lifts me up as much as it lifts anybody else up. Sinise is gearing up also to make his 20th appearance at the National Memorial Day concert outside the U.S. Capitol. This year's performance, however, probably more special than any other. It will feature original music written by Gary's late son, Mac Sinise.

a composer who lost his five-year battle with a rare form of cancer last year. You're going to get to hear his music played by the National Symphony Orchestra this weekend. It's an incredible thing. I had sent them a piece of music that Mack had written. It's a piece called The Rise. And it's a very patriotic, kind of anthem-like, Copland-esque piece.

The music will be playing. The veterans will be there. The audience will be applauding. It'll be a powerful moment for me to be standing up there. The proud father. Yeah, it'll be. Mac will be right there with us. And it'll be a great moment.

He leaves behind a legacy of some beautiful music out there. Check it out. By the way, we're grateful for all of the work of the Gary Sinise Foundation, those folks, and the sacrifice, of course, of our men and women in uniform and their families, too.

We've got a programming note for you. Fox News Sunday will be in Boston next Sunday for a special edition of this show from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. That's going to follow that next Monday. I'll be moderating a discussion between Pennsylvania's senators, Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dave McCormick. It's the latest installment of the Senate project, a collaboration between the Edward M. Kennedy Institute and the Orangey Hatch Foundation meant to foster bipartisan dialogue. And you can watch it live. Fox Nation, Monday, June 2nd at 9 a.m. Eastern.

That is it for us today. Thanks for joining us. Have a blessed Memorial Day weekend. We'll see you next Fox News Sunday.