Free Republic

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde rejected claims in an exclusive interview with Euronews that the digital euro is designed to replace cash or allow the central bank to monitor payments, as the legislation entered a new phase following months of talks in the European Parliament. The digital euro will complement, not replace, cash, and the goal is not to trace payments, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told Euronews in an exclusive interview, rejecting claims that the project is designed to monitor citizens. The European Parliament approved its negotiating mandate on Thursday, bringing the legislation a step closer to...

The Kremlin on Tuesday denied a report that President Vladimir Putin was ill, and laughed off persistent rumours that he used body doubles to cover for him in public appearances. "Everything is fine with him, this is absolutely another fake," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about an unsourced report by a Russian Telegram channel, picked up by some Western media, that the president had suffered a serious health episode on Sunday evening. The spokesman laughed in response to a further question about body doubles, and denied that Putin had any.

President Biden and his team on Friday marked two years since he was sworn into office, highlighting economic gains and bipartisan achievements that will likely form the backbone of a potential re-election bid. “When I came into office, we had a lot of problems,” Biden told a gathering of bipartisan mayors at the White House. “The pandemic was raging. Our economy was reeling, but we acted together. Now, two years in, it’s clearer than ever our plan is working.” The president gave a wide-ranging speech in which he pointed to infrastructure investments, the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act last...

President Donald Trump's former White House lawyer Ty Cobb called the ex-president "a deeply wounded narcissist" who is "incapable" of acting out of anything other than self-interest in an interview with CBS News' Major Garrett. Garrett pressed Cobb, who worked in the White House as a special counsel to Trump in 2017 and 2018 and represented the former president during his first impeachment, about Trump's refusal to admit he lost the 2020 election. "Do you regard that as a defect in his character?" Garrett asked. "My personal view is that it's less a character issue than a personality defect," Cobb...