Seven months after a train derailed in eastern Ohio, there are still questions over just how damaging the accident was to the East Palestine community.

Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate their homes after train cars spilled toxic chemicals. Emergency response teams decided to release and burn the materials to prevent the tank cars from exploding. 

The clean-up from the event is still ongoing, and some Ohio lawmakers and residents say the effort has taken too long.

‘They’re frustrated. They’re certainly frustrated by the pace of the cleanup,’ Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said. ‘Of course, we’re still dealing with the economic devastation… declining home values. Small businesses had to shut down for the next five years. So there’s a lot of worry and a lot of frustration. But I think that we’ve got to keep at it.’

Ohio’s state Senate minority leader, Nickie Antonio, a Democrat, says residents she has spoken with are appreciative of the help they have received thus far from Norfolk Southern and government officials, but they hope that assistance stays there for as long as they need it. 

‘They want to make sure that people are there for the long haul. And we don’t know how long that’s going to be,’ Antonio said.

She visited the site in May and met with residents and those working to clean up the area. 

‘When you ask the folks on the ground why it’s taking so long, they say that they’re trying to be as thorough as possible,’ Antonio said. ‘My hope is that that’s true. It’s a very big area that they’re addressing. And it was a catastrophic event.’

Vance has met with residents in East Palestine several times since the derailment happened in February. Shortly after the event, he posted a video online from Leslie Run Creek showing what appeared to be chemicals in the water. 

Since then, sampling and monitoring is still taking place at that location and others. The EPA administrator has also advised the public should avoid those creeks.

‘The only thing I know is that the clean-up continues,’ Vance said. ‘They’re taking toxic water out of the creek bed, putting it in these vats. Hopefully over time the creek will get cleaner. But if you talk to residents on the ground, they still are worried that if they go spend too much time in the creek, maybe they’ll start to feel some symptoms.’

One of the major concerns for residents has been whether drinking water in East Palestine is safe. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency says on its website, ‘There is no indication of risk to East Palestine Public Water customers.’ 

However, it cautions that anyone who uses well water should have it tested before drinking it. Some independent testing has recorded possible contaminants in some drinking water.

‘I think the inconsistencies with those testing reports lead to people… using a lot of caution,’ Antonio said. ‘In the long run, I think that testing needs to continue and to a point where conclusive evidence shows that the water is safe. I don’t think they have conclusive evidence right now.’

Vance agrees and says while city water testing has been reassuring, a lot of work needs to be done to make sure the well water is safe.

‘These chemicals take a while to seep into the water supply. Once they’re there, they’re there for a long time. We’re going to be testing the water in East Palestine for the next six years,’ Vance said. ‘There are resources out there to get people clean water. They should not be forced to drink dirty water, even if they’re just worried about it.’

Norfolk Southern estimates its response to the derailment will cost at least $803 million. That money will be used to remove hazardous chemicals from the area but does not include funds to compensate the community for any long-term health effects. Ohio lawmakers are calling on the federal government to help out. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has sent a request to the Biden administration for a disaster declaration, which so far has not been addressed.

‘Only the president can do it. It shows complete negligence,’ Vance said. ‘I think that he sees this community not as a Biden community, and therefore he’s not doing anything for it. It is shameful conduct. When you’re the president, you serve the people no matter who they voted for. And East Palestine deserves much better from their government.’

Vance and others have also criticized President Biden for not visiting East Palestine.

‘There is no chance in hell that if the president of the United States saw this community as a community that supported him, saw it as foundational for his re-election prospects, that he would be ignoring it in the way that he has,’ Vance explained. ‘I don’t see any other explanation other than it is political.’

Antonio disagrees that the president’s actions are political, but she does hope he eventually visits the community.

‘I have not seen the response be partisan. I have seen the response be about the people of East Palestine and the first responders and the residents. I think too often it’s an easy deflection to go right to partisan politics. I don’t think that’s the case here,’ Antonio said. ‘I will say that I do hope that the president visits at some point, because I think it would be important for the people of East Palestine and the people in the state of Ohio to see our commander in chief on the ground, to see the work that’s been done so far, and perhaps to have that consideration for the emergency declaration. So I hope he does come.’ 

President Biden said in March that he would visit East Palestine. So far, that has not happened. He said over the weekend he hasn’t had the occasion to go and that ‘there’s a lot going on.’

Former President Trump is the only presidential candidate to visit the East Palestine site.

‘We’re going to find time to come back if necessary. If they don’t come back and give you the treatment that you need, we will be back,’ Trump said during his February visit.

He has not yet returned to the area. Both he and President Biden have praised a bipartisan railroad safety bill from Vance and Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

‘It would give proper notice to the firefighters who are dealing with these hazardous materials. You get firefighters who are dealing with a chemical fire in East Palestine. They had no idea what was on the train,’ Vance said.

One local fire chief in East Palestine said his crew waited 45 minutes before knowing what chemicals were on the train.

‘That’s got to change,’ Vance said. ‘The second thing is it would increase the safety inspection requirements so that these string crashes happen less frequently in the first place.’

An average of around three train derailments happened per day in 2022. While most of those were not major events, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say more needs to be done.

‘Providing a higher level of rail safety is absolutely imperative. And that’s a bipartisan issue,’ Antonio said.

Both Antonio and Vance hope the East Palestine community continues to receive the help it needs.

‘You’re not forgotten and you’re never going to be forgotten by me,’ Vance said. ‘I can’t do my job if we can’t hold Norfolk Southern’s feet to the fire and we can’t get Washington, D.C., to wake up unless we’re hearing their stories.’

Texas sent a 12th bus filled with migrants to Los Angeles, which arrived Monday morning nearly a week after city leaders voted to pursue legal action against the Lone Star State.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’s office said the bus arrived at about 7:15 a.m. on Monday at Union Station.

FOX 11 in L.A. reported that the bus was carrying migrants, including 23 men, 20 women and 21 children, all from Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia and Venezuela.

‘The city has continued to work with city departments, the county and a coalition of nonprofit organizations, in addition to our faith partners, to execute a plan set in place earlier this year,’ said Zach Seidle, the city’s deputy mayor of communications and spokesperson for the mayor. ‘As we have before, when we became aware of the bus yesterday, we activated our plan.’

The bus arrived nearly a week after the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to pursue a lawsuit and criminal probe against Texas over its migrant bussing program.

Council members requested the city attorney’s office investigate whether Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has committed crimes through the program and whether the lawsuit is justified.

Abbott’s program has delivered a total of 435 migrants to L.A. since buses started arriving on June 14. In total, the program has sent more than 30,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities across the U.S., including New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

In a statement to Fox News Digital last Thursday, Abbott’s office highlighted L.A.’s status as a sanctuary city as a reason to send migrants there, adding that migrants on the buses sign a multi-language consent waiver that shows their destination.

‘The LA City Council members are complete hypocrites,’ Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said in the statement. ‘In June, they unanimously voted to become a sanctuary city, welcoming migrants to the city. Texas began busing migrants to sanctuary cities like Los Angeles last year to provide relief to our overrun and overwhelmed border communities.’

‘Instead of complaining about dealing with a fraction of the border crisis our small border towns deal with every day, the City Council should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border – something the President continues failing to do,’ he added.

L.A. City Council members approved a motion on June 9 to formally establish the city as a sanctuary city.

Abbott has continued to orchestrate the trips because Texas’s border region is ‘overwhelmed’ with immigrants who cross the Mexican border illegally.

Anders Hagstrom of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.

Texas is pushing back against the Biden administration after they say the government’s push to classify a lizard as an endangered species could have a devastating impact on the state’s oil and gas industry.

In a recent letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas General Land Office Commissioner Dawn Buckingham wrote that the classification of the dunes sagebrush lizard (DSL) as an endangered species ‘could have a crippling impact on the oil and gas industry.’

‘Although the proposed habitat of the DSL is not well or clearly defined, it appears to be located primarily in the Permian Basin of far West Texas, which is the beating heart of Texas’ – and the country’s – oil and gas industry and, therefore, one of the primary sources of revenue for education in Texas, by way of the School Fund and the PUF,’ the letter states.

The letter states that ‘listing the DSL will surely bring with it a designation of critical habitat as well as rules strictly limiting, or even prohibiting, surface activities that are necessary for oil and gas exploration and production.’

Buckingham’s office told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration has provided no evidence of changes to the drilling in the area that would justify updating a 2012 finding that the two-inch lizard does not meet the threshold of an endangered species.

‘As Texas’ land commissioner, I steward over 13 million acres of rich Texas lands on behalf of the taxpayer,’ Buckingham told Fox News Digital. ‘Many of these state lands are rich in natural resources and produce billions of dollars in benefits for Texans. The reckless actions by Biden and his USFWS directly threaten the quality of every Texas public school child’s education. If Biden adopts this proposal, I will do everything in my power to protect Texas energy and Texas education.’

Buckingham’s office says the Permanent School Fund Land in Texas helps fund public education in the state and sent $2.1 billion in royalties toward that effort last year alone.

‘This could cripple what is now a very healthy job environment,’ Doug Robison, president of ExL Petroleum in Midland, Texas, said in 2011 when environmental groups began pushing for the lizard to be federally protected.

In the letter, Buckingham also said that the population of the DSL has been increasing in the area over the last few years due in part to conservation efforts by the state that the federal government is being accused of ignoring.

‘With an increasing and thriving population that can even persist in ‘highly degraded areas’, the DSL is not in need of the federal protections offered by the Rule; particularly when doing so risks crippling Texas’ oil and gas industry,’ the letter states. ‘Unfortunately, USFWS has not yet considered those impacts (as it is required to do): ‘Careful assessments of the economic and environmental impacts that may occur due to a critical habitat designation are not yet complete.’

‘The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will respond to private correspondence privately,’ the Department of the Interior told Fox News Digital.

The Biden administration is to review comments from all parties before deciding on moving forward with the rule within the extended deadline of Oct. 2, 2023.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is signaling that he is serious about pushing through some form of regulatory framework for artificial intelligence when Congress is back from its August recess. 

Schumer is planning on kicking off a series of bipartisan ‘AI Insight Forums,’ he told Senate Democrats in a letter on Friday morning, in a bid to get lawmakers caught up on the rapidly advancing tech. His first, on Sept. 13, is expected to feature tech leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, among others. 

‘These forums will build on the longstanding work of our Committees by supercharging the Senate’s typical process so we can stay ahead of AI’s rapid development,’ Schumer said. ‘This is not going to be easy, it will be one of the most difficult things we undertake, but in the twenty-first century we cannot behave like ostriches in the sand when it comes to AI. We must treat AI with the same level of seriousness as national security, job creation, and our civil liberties.’

The New York Democrat has made AI regulation a marquee goal of his razor-thin majority this Congress, convening a bipartisan AI working group dedicated to getting their colleagues caught up enough to discuss regulatory efforts. 

A member of that working group, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., praised the forum series to Fox News Digital and affirmed they would help put lawmakers ‘in the driver’s seat’ on AI.

‘The AI Insight Forums will be a comprehensive way for Congress to explore key policy issues, opportunities, and threats related to artificial intelligence as we develop potential legislative solutions,’ Young said. 

‘The Forums’ style will allow us to explore, with the help of experts and stakeholders, a wide range of topics at a deep level while keeping committees of jurisdiction and their members in the driver’s seat when it comes to the legislative outcomes.’

‘With the rapid evolution of AI in recent years, this process could not be more timely and needed,’ Young said.

It’s the second set of learning sessions that Schumer is rolling out for senators. Before the August recess, his bipartisan working group rolled out a series of informational briefings on AI, culminating in the first-ever classified all-Senate briefing on AI and national security in July.

But despite the relatively bipartisan sentiments toward putting up guardrails on AI, not everyone in the Senate is on board.

‘I am concerned China is investing heavily in AI. I’m also concerned that Democrats want to impose such stringent regulations on the development of AI that it stifles innovation in the United States, and allows China to take the lead,’ Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital after the classified July briefing. ‘That would be a generational mistake.’

The ambitious regulatory push comes during a major crunch time for the Senate. The chamber has to work out some sort of spending deal with the GOP-led House to avoid a government shutdown by Sept. 30, in addition to reauthorizing the FAA, FISA and other critical programs by the year’s end. 

President Biden told reporters Sunday he was ‘disappointed’ Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly will not attend the upcoming G20 summit scheduled to take place in India this week. 

‘I am disappointed, but I’m gonna get to see him,’ Biden told reporters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, without elaborating. 

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced on Aug. 22 that Biden will travel to New Delhi, India, from Sept. 7-10 to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit.

Biden and Xi last met at the prior G20 summit hosted in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022. 

Washington-Beijing relations have taken a nosedive since then, after a Chinese spy craft traversed the continental United States earlier this year. Biden has sent several diplomats and even Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to China in recent months in an apparent effort to smooth tensions. Yet, the U.S. president had stood by his categorization of Xi as a ‘dictator’ despite Beijing’s outcry, including during a question and answer period alongside Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in June.

Approaching reporters after he attended mass at St. Edmond Roman Catholic Church, the president also said Sunday he was aware of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s video announcement Sunday that he would ask parliament this week to dismiss Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. However, Biden said he had no further comment publicly on the development. 

One reporter asked, ‘What do you want to achieve in India and Vietnam?’

‘I want a little more coordination,’ Biden responded. ‘I think they both want closer relations with the United States and that could be very helpful.’ 

In announcing his travel last month, the White House said Biden and G20 partners ‘will discuss a range of joint efforts to tackle global issues, including on the clean energy transition and combating climate change, mitigating the economic and social impacts of Putin’s war in Ukraine, and increasing the capacity of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank, to better fight poverty, including by addressing global challenges.’ 

While in New Delhi, Biden ‘will also commend Prime Minister Modi’s leadership of the G20 and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including by hosting it in 2026,’ the White House said. 

Meanwhile, Xi addressed the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services CIFTIS via video in Beijing Saturday. 

Xi is apparently skipping this week’s Group of 20 summit in India as bilateral relations remain icy.

Instead, Premier Li Qiang will represent China at the gathering, the Foreign Ministry said Monday in a brief notice on its website.

Relations between China and India have grown frosty over their disputed border, and three years ago the tensions resulted in a clash in the Ladakh region that killed 20 Indian soldiers. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets. Frictions have also risen over trade and India’s growing strategic ties with China’s main rival, the United States. Both India and China also have expelled the other’s journalists.

India recently overtook China as the world’s most populous nation, and the two are rivals in technology, space exploration and global trade.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Some on the right and left have claimed that former President Trump could be disqualified from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot. Several legal experts dismiss that theory as not just implausible but potentially dangerous.

The legal theory goes that Trump could be blocked from the ballot point as Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the Disqualifications Clause — bars individuals who ‘have engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ against America, or aided those engaged in such, from holding office.

The section also includes a provision allowing Congress to ‘remove such disability’ via ‘a vote of two-thirds’ in each chamber.

However, the argument for the Disqualifications Clause does not hold water, according to multiple legal experts.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says there ‘are good faith arguments in favor of this claim’ but he views the theory as ‘not simply dubious but dangerous.’

‘The amendment was written to deal with those who engage in an actual rebellion causing hundreds of thousands of deaths,’ Turley said. ‘Advocates would extend the reference to ‘insurrection or rebellion’ to include unsupported claims and challenges involving election fraud.’

Turley said he has long criticized Trump’s January 6 speech, but he views the violence at the Capitol that day as ‘a protest that became a riot.’ That definition would be crucial to applying the 14th Amendment, according to Turley, and Trump has not been found guilty of insurrection or incitement to rebellion.

‘According to these advocates, Trump can be barred from the ballot without any charge, let alone a conviction, of insurrection or rebellion,’ Turley said.

Turley said the proponents ‘also argue that there is no action needed from Congress’ and thus, ‘state and federal judges could just bar those who are deemed as supporting rebellion through their election challenges and claims.’

Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital that it is his opinion that there are no legal grounds to keep Trump off the ballot via the 14th Amendment.

Von Spakovsky said that liberals were making the same argument against several conservatives prior to the 2022 midterm elections, citing the January 6 Riots.

‘They were all unsuccessful,’ Von Spakovsky said. ‘And every discussion that I’ve seen of this ignores the fact nobody ever mentions that they talk about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as if it currently exists.’

Von Spakovsky noted the two-thirds vote provision allowing Congress to ‘remove such a disability’ under the Disqualifications Clause and argued that the legislature already has removed the clause.

‘In 1872, they passed . . . the Amnesty Act, and it removed the Section three disqualification, with certain exceptions, including anybody who had served in two of the Congresses just before the Civil War, and members of the military, for example, who had been in the Union Army and had served the Confederacy,’ Von Spakovsky said.

‘In 1898, Congress passed a second amnesty act that completely got rid of all of those exceptions,’ he added. ‘So the Disqualification Clause, it’s gone. It’s not valid anymore.’

Push to bar Trump from ballot gains steam

However, despite any challenges, some legal scholars say that there are paths to prevent Trump from being on the ballot, and the idea continues to gain attention.

Center for American Progress Action Fund senior fellow Michael Sozan told Fox News Digital, ‘This must not become a partisan matter.’

‘Following the plain language of the Constitution, Donald Trump and other officials who were involved in the January 6 insurrection are disqualified from holding future public office,’ Sozan argued. ‘This conclusion is supported by a wide range of respected constitutional law experts — across the ideological spectrum.’

‘There are multiple paths to formally carry out Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The most straightforward way is for state election officials to disqualify Trump from appearing on their state’s ballot. No doubt, this will be challenged in court — but if Supreme Court justices are serious about applying the Constitution’s plain words, they will agree with the disqualification.’

However, even if efforts to take to remove Trump from the ballot begin, there’s no guarantee they will succeed, according to Fox News contributor and former deputy independent counsel Sol Wisenberg.

Wisenberg told Fox News Digital that there ‘is a legal path for states to TRY to remove Trump from the ballot,’ but he believes ‘that it will fail.’

‘I think the issue will make it to the federal courts, because it is likely that at least one Democratic state official will make the determination to take Trump off the ballot,’ Wisenberg said. ‘I believe the case will make its way fairly rapidly to the U.S. Supreme Court.’

‘I expect the Court to hold that a Presidential candidate cannot be removed from the Presidential ballot without: 1) some sort of enabling legislation passed by Congress that sets up a judicial process for determining whether that candidate has engaged in insurrection or rebellion; and 2) an actual trial under said statute,’ Wisenberg continued.

‘There is already one such statute, in place. It is Title 18 U.S. Code, Section 2383, covering rebellion or insurrection,’ he added.

Title 18, Section 2383 of the U.S. Code says that whoever ‘incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.’

Several states are seeing calls to ban Trump from the ballot, but it is unlikely that the proposals will be taken up.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said on a podcast this week that the state Supreme Court ruled ‘there’s no statutory process in federal law to enforce Section 3 of the 14th amendment’ and that ‘you can’t enforce it.’

‘That’s what the Arizona Supreme Court said, so that’s the state of the law in Arizona. Now, do I agree with that? No, that’s stupid,’ Fontes said, noting that he would ‘follow the law’ in Arizona, even though he disagrees with it.

Additionally, despite being a vocal GOP critic of former President Donald Trump, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu — along with other state party officials — is staying away from a long-shot effort to keep Trump off the presidential ballot.

Bryant ‘Corky’ Messner, an attorney and prominent Republican who won the 2020 Republican Senate nomination, thanks in great part to Trump’s support, is mulling a lawsuit if Trump later this year files to put his name on the New Hampshire primary ballot. 

Messner is very publicly questioning the former president’s eligibility to run for the White House, and cites Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. That section disqualifies those who’ve taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again if they’ve ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ against the U.S. ‘or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed reporting.

The National Rifle Association responded this week to the Biden administration’s proposed rule requiring more background checks to combat rising gun violence, saying it was just another step to attack ‘law-abiding gun owners.’

Last year, Biden signed the most significant gun control bill in nearly 30 years, which incentivized states to pass red flag laws and expand background checks for 18- to 21-year-olds.

But last week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) proposed a rule requiring those who sell firearms online or at gun shows to be federally licensed and to run background checks on buyers before completing transactions.

The rule came in response to President Biden’s executive order to Attorney General Merrick Garland to develop and implement a plan clarifying the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing firearms, requiring them to obtain a federal firearms license.

‘This latest action by the Biden administration is yet another step in their campaign to attack law-abiding gun owners,’ NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Executive Director Randy Kozuch said. ‘The Bipartisan ‘Safer Communities’ Act’s passage is now a pretext to require government permission before exercising a constitutional right.’

‘It’s a stark reminder to legislators: give gun controllers any legislative tool, no matter how benign, and they’ll use it to shred the Second Amendment,’ he added. ‘The Biden Administration will clearly use all the tools at their disposal to interfere with our freedoms while doing nothing to stop the violent criminals responsible for America’s recent crime surge.’

ATF Director Steve Dettelbach said last week that the number of people engaging in the firearms sales business and not registering as federal firearms licensees has increased, accusing these sellers of making money off the books, with illicit firearms sales.

The Associated Press reported that the bureau estimates the rule would affect between 24,500 and 328,000 sellers and targets those in the business of selling guns, not with personal gun collections.

A recent AP-NORC poll conducted between Aug. 10-14, 2023, found that nearly two-thirds of the public is in favor of stricter gun laws, compared to just a third of Republicans.

The survey also found more than three-quarters of the 1,165 adults polled nationwide think preventing mass shootings and reducing gun violence is important, and most believe restricting gun access would result in fewer mass shootings, murders and violent crime.

Republicans remain unconvinced that restricting gun access would result in fewer mass shootings and less violent crime, the poll found.

Gun rights groups like the NRA have argued the proposed rule would do little to stop gun violence. The same advocates have quickly sued over other ATF rule changes that they argue infringe on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Biden had an explosive reaction when he was told the president of Afghanistan had fled Kabul ahead of the Taliban’s takeover of the city in 2021, according to a new book.

On Friday, Aug. 12, 2021, Biden left D.C. for what was expected to be a mid-August vacation to Camp David. Three days later, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told him the news that the then-president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, had fled as the Taliban was poised to march into the capital.

‘Biden exploded in frustration’ when he heard the news and exclaimed, ‘Give me a break!’ according to the forthcoming book ‘The Last Politician’ by journalist Franklin Foer, which describes the inner workings at the White House during the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Biden wasn’t the only one on vacation when Ghani escaped and it became clear to the world that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan would be far more chaotic than the administration expected.

The Biden White House had expected a gradual handover of responsibility to the Afghan government until Aug. 31, 2021, when the Taliban would begin to take an active role in governing the country. Instead, the Taliban rapidly took over territories as the U.S. moved out of various bases and were marching on Afghanistan before Ghani fled, fearing for his life.

However, in the first weeks of August 2021, multiple high-ranking White House officials left for vacation. Biden went to Camp David. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the Hamptons. And then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki took her family to the beach.

On Aug. 16, 2021 — the day after Ghani fled Kabul — a U.S. C-17 military transport aircraft filled with evacuees took off from then-Hamid Karzai International Airport, but some people on the crowded runway grabbed on to the landing gear in a desperate attempt to escape as the plane took off.

Upon seeing the ‘images of Afghans falling from the sky,’ which became some of the most dramatic scenes of the evacuation, Psaki knew she had to leave her family vacation, Foer wrote.

According to Foer, Psaki wrote to then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain: ‘I’m contemplating coming back,’ and Klain responded: ‘I’m sorry. I think you need to.’

Foer’s book notes that Biden took an active interest in the evacuation, throwing out ideas to get more people on planes and out of the country and asking to be updated when individual people had made it safely out of the Afghanistan.

The Biden administration evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan as the country collapsed under Taliban pressure. However, that ‘improvised feat of logistics’ failed to overcome the impression that the Biden administration was reacting slowly, Foer wrote.

The White House was ‘stung’ by the fact that the toughest criticism was not just coming conservative media but also from ‘the columnists and venerable reporters that Biden’s inner circle respected and tended to heed,’ Foer’s book states.

Foer writes that ‘[i]n the thick of the crisis, Biden didn’t have time to voraciously consume the news, but he was well aware of the tough coverage. ‘We’re getting killed,’ he would admit. It frustrated him to no end.’

However, the criticism did nothing to change Biden’s mind about leaving Afghanistan nor change his detestation for ‘the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy elites,’ Foer said. ‘After defying their delusional predictions of progress for so long, [Biden] wasn’t going to back down now.’

‘In fact, everything he’d witnessed from his seat in the Situation Room confirmed his belief that exiting a war without hope was the best and only course,’ Foer writes.

Foer’s book recounts the first two years of Biden’s presidency from his inauguration through the 2022 midterm elections. The book is to be released Tuesday by Penguin Random House.

–>

Bonsoir.

‘Table pour 218, s’il vous plait?’

Welcome to the Impeachment Bistro.

This is where impeachment is on the menu.

Better hope you’re not famished when you walk in.

Perhaps boissons until the meal is ready?

It’s a long tease for Republicans. The GOP has talked impeachment for months to sate the appetite of its conservative, often pro-Trump, but vehemently anti-Biden base.

President Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and even Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have been on the bill of fare for impeachment.

But obviously, most Republicans interested in impeachment are angling for the President. And they’re simultaneously trying to contain angry conservatives demanding impeachment back home.

‘If you hang on just a little bit longer, I think you’ll see it really quickly,’ implored Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., on Fox Business about impeachment. ‘So be patient for just a little bit longer.’

It’s hard for Republicans to keep the expectations in check as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., began talking about impeachment in earnest earlier this summer. He’s done so for nearly two months.

‘I would move to an impeachment inquiry if I found that the attorney general has not only lied to the Congress, the Senate, but to America,’ said McCarthy in July about Garland and the Hunter Biden case.

At the time, McCarthy was trying to quash an effort by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to force the House to vote on the spot on impeaching President Biden. Boebert’s effort came without any formal investigation, review, depositions, hearings or official preparation of the resolution. Boebert just deposited the measure on the floor. McCarthy moved to kill it.

To McCarthy, Boebert’s plan was impeachment tartare. Uncooked and politically unfit to ingest. 

The Speaker argued that if the House were to pursue impeachment, it must be fully prepared and appropriately garnished. For McCarthy, impeachment of the president is too serious to just throw flippantly throw it on the Congressional grill and expect lawmakers to consider it a bona fide meal.

But McCarthy’s remarks about Garland were just an impeachment apéritif. 

A few days later, the California Republican pivoted from the attorney general and to the president of the United States.

‘This is rising to the level of an impeachment inquiry,’ McCarthy said about Biden on Fox in July.

McCarthy followed up that political amuse bouche with this offering about Mr. Biden and his son’s business dealings.

‘When more of this continues to unravel, it rises to the level of an impeachment inquiry where you would have the Congress have the power to get to all these answers,’ said McCarthy.

Then Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced four formal articles of impeachment for the President. But unlike Boebert, Steube didn’t just plop his articles on the floor.

McCarthy hasn’t gotten to the impeachment le plat principal yet. But he’s certainly well into the impeachment hors-d’oeuvres.

‘If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far, it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,’ said McCarthy last week on Fox.

After this much palette preparation, some Republicans are salivating. It’s hard to see how McCarthy doesn’t push ahead with impeachment of the President. The anticipation of the gourmet meal is too great on the right. In fact, if McCarthy doesn’t serve up the impeachment version of pheasant under glass, his own goose may be cooked.

The right isn’t going to go for any petit-dejeuner or a croque monsieur at this stage.

If you’ve ever been to a restaurant where the waiter keeps coming over, pouring more wine and telling you please be patient, the meal is coming, you usually know something is up in the kitchen.

The same is true on Capitol Hill.

This meal just isn’t ready yet. That is, unless you’ll settle for some crudites. And if you follow politics closely, you know that hasn’t worked out well recently.

It’s hard to see exactly what impeachment looks like, since McCarthy has signaled that he’d like to begin some sort of formal inquiry later this month.

Launching a formal impeachment investigation requires the House to vote on an impeachment resolution. In fact, House GOPers railed against Democrats who were in the majority in 2019 for not voting to begin an official impeachment inquiry until late October of that year. Some Republicans have suggested that they could do an impeachment inquiry – without taking a vote on a formal investigation. This will be about the math. Republicans hold a narrow four-seat majority. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., is now likely out for a while, suffering from cancer. The worst-case scenario for McCarthy would be to put some form of a measure regarding impeachment on the floor and watch it fail. 

There are plenty of House Republicans who are skeptical about the House even flirting with impeachment. They don’t think it will be popular with their voters – especially the 18 House GOPers who represent district President Biden won in 2020. They’re concerned about ‘normalizing’ impeachment – almost flipping the U.S. into a parliamentary system where the legislature holds a vote of ‘no confidence’ for a leader.

Some Republicans would prefer to talk about bread-and-butter issues. And they’re less than convinced that House investigators have revealed any smoking gun that shows that the President benefitted from his son’s overseas business dealings. Some of these same Republicans also know that no matter what the House does, the Democratically controlled Senate will euthanize the impeachment articles rather quickly – perhaps without a trial.

Moreover, McCarthy has insisted that he wants to do impeachment by the book. Not the way Boebert offered up her resolution in June. So McCarthy could need to backtrack if the House somehow forges ahead with impeachment without an impeachment inquiry vote.

This is why some Republicans are treading carefully around impeachment.

‘(McCarthy’s) pushed back on the word ‘impeachment,’’ said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. ‘We’re not doing an impeachment. We’re not looking at impeachment directly. But we are realizing, as the question implies, that there’s enough there, there. There should be a concerted, bipartisan investigation.’

It’s possible that McCarthy could finesse ‘impeachment’ in a way to convince reluctant Republicans to greenlight an impeachment investigation just because they want to ‘get to the facts.’ But actually voting to impeach the President would be a real challenge.

So, back to the kitchen for now.

And if McCarthy doesn’t somehow whip up some impeachment meringue that satisfies the stomachs of some Republicans, the Impeachment Bistro should brace for a series of brutal reviews on Tripadvisor.

GOP presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hammered climate change alarmists in no uncertain terms during Hurricane Idalia’s aftermath.

DeSantis cited an 1896 storm that reportedly had 125 mph winds and Florida’s Labor Day hurricane in 1935, saying during a Sunday press conference that those storms resulted in massive destruction and deaths.

‘So, I think the notion that somehow hurricanes are something new, that’s just false. And we’ve got to stop politicizing the weather and stop politicizing natural disasters,’ DeSantis said. ‘We know from history there’s been times when it’s very busy in Florida, late ‘40s, early ‘50s, you had a lot of hits of significant hurricanes.’

‘So, I think sometimes people need to take a breath and get a little bit of perspective here,’ he said. ‘But the notion that somehow if we just adopt, you know, very left-wing policies at the federal level that somehow we will not have hurricanes, that is a lie. And that is people trying to take what happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people that are suffering. And that’s wrong, and we’re not going to do that in the state of Florida.’

DeSantis declined to meet with President Biden during his trip to Florida in the hurricane’s aftermath. Idalia made landfall early Wednesday morning along Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region as a Category 3 storm, causing widespread flooding and damage before moving north to drench Georgia and the Carolinas.

Earlier in the same press conference in Yankeetown, Florida, a reporter asked DeSantis if he trusted the federal government to help given what happened in Hawaii and East Palestine, Ohio.

‘I think that the state of Florida, we prepare for this stuff. We were prepared. We responded,’ he said. ‘And really what the federal government’s role is just turning on programs Congress has enacted over many, many years. So, it’s basically serving as a checkbook to get people reimbursed for debris clean up, to give people individual assistance. And so, in that sense, I think that has been turned on, I anticipate that that will go smoothly, but most of the nuts and bolts is done by our local communities and by the state of Florida. And that’s really how it should be. Disaster response is really bottom up.’

DeSantis said most people heeded local warnings of dangerous storm surge and chose to evacuate, noting there’s been no coastal fatalities reported.

The governor said there was one traffic fatality in Alachua County, Florida, related to the storm that has been confirmed so far. Categorizing local and state officials working together as the ‘bread and butter’ of hurricane response, DeSantis said ‘the checkbook from the feds is great, and whatever resources are available as the governor, I’m going to pull those levers to be able to help Floridians, but we’re certainly not relying on the federal government to do the day-to-day heavy lifting.’

Biden faced staunch criticism over his response to the Maui wildfires that obliterated the seaside tourist town of Lahaina last month.

The number of people listed as missing from the fires stood at 385 on Friday, according to state officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.