World
World reaction to US presidential debate: Mockery from China and Russia, concern from allies
America’s adversaries didn’t just think President Biden got pummeled in Thursday’s debate, they claim the United States was the real loser.
Russia, China, Iran and others weighed in after Biden’s faltering performance left viewers stunned. Media outlets in those countries, many of which are government-run, seized on the debate debacle to criticize the U.S.
“Every outlet, big and small, carries a piece describing what happened,” Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital. “Some have more than one. Most of them, if not all, are derogatory of both candidates and mocking America.”
“What [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is seeing is that the American Society is deeply fractured and consumed by its own problems,” Koffler said. “Putin likely believes that Russia wins either way, no matter who wins, because he expects the U.S. to plunge into chaos in the aftermath of the elections, because the country is so divided and polarized.”
“Bottom line, Moscow feels confident that the societal crisis that has engulfed the U.S. is good for Russia,” she added.
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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Putin “was too bored to wake up and watch the U.S. debate,” but that “we have seen media reports about these debates.”
Peskov added that the Kremlin has made no attempt to “assess this debate” or make “official conclusions” and insisted that Russia has “never interfered in the election campaigns of the United States.”
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un visit the Vostochny Сosmodrome in the far eastern Amur region, Russia, September 13, 2023. (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Kremlin via Reuters/File Photo)
Outside the Kremlin, Russian media have reportedly touted the debate as a victory for Russia, with Putin positioned to dictate terms in the war in Ukraine – especially if Donald Trump were to win the White House.
They highlighted Biden’s “half-open mouth, unblinking eyes” and “blank expression on his face.”
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“This is how Joe Biden appeared before an audience of millions,” Russian state TV New York bureau chief Valentin Bogdanov said on Kremlin-backed RT.
The news report especially focused on the reaction from CNN, calling the anchors “powerless” and the Democratic Party in the throes of a “deep panic,” according to East2West.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban jointly meet the press after their talks in Budapest, Hungary, May 9, 2024. (Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
China also took an unfavorable view of the debate. Official media appeared to generally ignore it, but the state-run Global Times labeled it “the most chaotic presidential debate ever” and “like a reality show” while also highlighting the times Biden and Trump talked about China, according to the BBC.
The Global Times most specifically took issue with Trump blaming Beijing for “the raging COVID-19 epidemic and U.S. economic woes.”
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State-owned Beijing News claimed that the debate exposed both candidates’ shortcomings, with a “habitually confused” Biden and Trump spreading “rumors” instead of answering questions directly.
The Xinhua news agency framed the debate within the context of an America “weary of another Biden-Trump match-up” and focusing on Biden’s “several verbal slips” and “unclear” speech, while hitting Trump for failing to answer questions directly while providing statements that “contained many exaggerations and falsehoods.”
President Joe Biden (R) and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Woodside, California, on November 15, 2023. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Chinese social media personalities were even more pointed. Former state media editor Hu Xijin on social media platform X mocked the U.S. presidential debate for proving “very entertaining for many Chinese people,” according to Newsweek.
“Objectively speaking, the low-quality performance of these two old men was a negative advertisement for Western democracy,” he wrote.
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Other social media users described the debate as a “disaster,” “train wreck” and “waste of time, though it should be noted that Chinese media has regularly tried to paint the U.S. as a country in turmoil with an uncertain political future.
Iran’s Republic News Agency did not appear to focus much on the debate as the country holds its own presidential elections this weekend, which dominated coverage, but Middle East expert and The Foreign Desk editor-in-chief Lisa Daftari warned that the mediocre showing at the debate will interest all of America’s rivals.
In this photo released by the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, center with black turban, leads a prayer over the flag-draped coffins of the late President Ebrahim Raisi and his companions who were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday in a mountainous region of the country’s northwest, at the Tehran University campus, during a funeral ceremony for them in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP) (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
“Any American adversary may look at President Biden’s performance as a reminder that the leader of the free world is currently less than competent,” Daftari said. “It’s always been the case that the United States has the ability to defend its interests and bring about stability throughout the world just through deterrence and proper rhetoric and positioning.”
“That has not always been the case with the Biden administration, and [Thursday] night’s performance allows for an even more extreme perception of American weakness,” she added.
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“We are looking at many precarious global crises right now, including China invading Taiwan, Iran’s regime possessing and/or using nuclear weapons, Iran’s regime continuing its proxy wars against Israel and Western assets in the region [and] Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine,” Daftari said. “Of course, any one of these current crises may find more momentum between now and the election.”
Reaction even in allied nations was less than glowing, starting with Polish Foreign Minister Radslaw Sikorski’s cryptic message on X, which some have taken to be an unfavorable comparison between Biden and the great Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.
Giorgia Meloni (l-r), Prime Minister of Italy, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan, Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of Great Britain, Charles Michel, EU Council President (hidden), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission President, and U.S. President Joe Biden, watch parachutists at the G7 summit; Biden watches the parachutists on the far right. (Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“Marcus Aurelius was a great emperor, but he screwed up his succession by passing the baton to his feckless son Commodus (He, from the Gladiator) whose disastrous rule started Rome’s decline),” Sikeorski wrote. “It’s important to manage one’s ride into the sunset.”
French news outlet Le Monde described that debate as a “terrible storm” and bemoaned Biden’s obsession with trying to “push his opponent off his hinges” by mocking Trump’s answers to questions, the BBC reported.
German outlet Der Spiegel compared the debate to “a car accident” and half-heartedly applauded both candidates for the “theatrical performance” while claiming that supporters on both sides will feel that their candidate did their job.
Another outlet, Die Welt, lamented that Biden was not an exciting candidate but one who had “common sense and a stable personality” who would keep “normalcy” in the White House.
World
Minnesota braces for what’s next amid immigration arrests and in the wake of Renee Good shooting
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer, Minnesota’s Twin Cities on Sunday braced for what many expect will be a new normal over the next few weeks as the Department of Homeland Security carries out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
Protesters screamed at heavily-armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
There was some pushing and several people were hit with chemical spray just before agents banged down the door of one home on Sunday. They later took one man away in handcuffs.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners in the neighborhood where 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed Wednesday, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but the Twin Cities remained anxious. Minneapolis public schools on Monday will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said on Sunday that the investigation into Good’s shooting death shouldn’t be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened,” Smith said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
“That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn’t be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
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Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
World
Netanyahu and Rubio discuss US military intervention in Iran amid ongoing nationwide protests: report
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to a report.
The two leaders spoke by phone Saturday as Israel is on “high alert,” preparing for the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Iran, according to Reuters, citing multiple Israeli sources. A U.S. official confirmed the call to Fox News Digital but did not provide additional details.
The report comes as nationwide anti-regime demonstrations across Iran hit the two-week mark.
On Saturday, the Iranian regime triggered an internet “kill switch” in an apparent effort to conceal alleged abuses by security forces and as protests against it surged nationwide, according to a cybersecurity expert. The blackout reduced internet access to a fraction of normal levels.
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf issued the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting, “Death to America!” according to The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters on Saturday, writing on Truth Social that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
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In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
At a news conference Friday, Trump said Iran was facing mounting pressure as unrest spreads across the country.
“Iran’s in big trouble,” he said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully.”
The president said the U.S. would respond forcefully if the regime resorts to mass violence.
“We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” he said.
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Protests in Iran intensify for the 12th day. (The National Council of Resistance of Iran)
Fox News Digital reached out to the State Department and White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Emma Bussey, Brie Stimson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
Four killed, 20 injured in overnight Russian strikes across Ukraine
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Russia fired more than 150 drones overnight into Sunday targeting close to two dozen locations across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring 20 more.
Ukraine’s Air Forces say they intercepted 125 drones aerially but confirmed that at least 25 strike drones struck their targets.
They added that Moscow’s latest barrage mainly targeted Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk, all of which were targeted in Saturday’s overnight strikes as well.
Local officials in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia say the strikes targeted residential areas and energy infrastructure. More than 385,000 homes were affected by electric, gas or water outages, at a critical time as temperatures plunged to 10 degrees below Celsius.
Regional lawmakers say service was restored to most of the affected households and areas by Sunday morning, but added that emergency work was still being carried out to restore power to the remaining homes.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing their attacks with the cold peaks of winter as to maximise civilian suffering.
“They struck targets that have no military purpose whatsoever – energy infrastructure, residential buildings. They deliberately waited for freezing weather to make things worse for our people. This is deliberate, cynical Russian terror specifically against civilians,” wrote Zelenskyy in a post on X.
He also noted that this week had seen heightened Russian assault on Ukrainian cities, announcing that his country’s defence forces recorded thousands of attacks using a variety of different weapons.
“Over the course of this week, Russia launched almost 1,100 attack drones against Ukraine, more than 890 guided aerial bombs, and over 50 missiles of various types – ballistic, cruise, and even the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.”
The Ukrainian leader thanked all units responsible for protecting the country and responding to attacks, and praised their tireless efforts and resilience.
He also called on allies to ensure his embattled country maintains “stable support”, in defence and diplomatic fields as coordinated dialogue efforts continue in search of peace.
Meanwhile, Russia says that one person was killed in Ukrainian strikes on the western city of Voronezh. Officials say a young woman succumbed to her wounds at an intensive care unit of a local hospital after debris from a drone fell on her house during Saturday’s attacks.
They added that at least three others were injured in the attacks which targeted more than 10 residential apartment buildings, private homes and a high school.
The city of Voronezh lies just 250 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and is home to approximately one million people. The attacks, which Kyiv have yet to confirm, came after the Kremlin’s major offensive on Ukraine in the early hours of Saturday.
Additional sources • AP
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