Jill Biden rescued her stony-faced husband Joe Biden from having to answer questions about impeachment at his first public appearance since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the potentially devastating inquiry.

The first lady leaned over to whisper to the president and touched his arm when reporters started shouting questions about the probe during a Cabinet room meeting to discuss Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative.

Biden looked uncomfortable under the barrage of inquiries, stared at the ceiling, and made chewing motions with his mouth, but ultimately refused to talk as reporters were led out of the room.  

His wife stepped in as the White House ramped up their war with Republicans in the investigation into foreign business deals by Biden’s son Hunter.

The Cabinet meeting was on the Bidens’ initiative ‘to end cancer as we know it.’ 

Jill Biden praised her husband’s work on the issue, telling him on Wednesday that: ‘You did good things, Joe.’

The White House, meanwhile, has doubled down on its defense of the president, blasting the impeachment inquiry as ‘baseless,’ setting up a war room to combat the investigation, and sending a memo to news organizations to encourage greater scrutiny of Republican motives.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday called the Republicans’ impeachment probe a ‘baseless inquiry that the House Republicans can’t even really defend themselves.’

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden‘s foreign business dealings since they took control of the House in January. They are looking into whether Joe, who was vice president during the time period, personally benefited from his son’s work and if the family used Joe Biden’s official office for their personal gain.

President Biden has denied any involvement with his son’s business affairs. 

Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that he has done nothing wrong. 

‘Republicans in Congress, right they have spent all year investigating the president, that’s what they’ve spent, and have turned up with no evidence that he did anything. I mean, that is what we heard over and over again, from their almost clear year-long investigation, and that’s because the President didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said in her daily press briefing.

The administration is also going on the offensive to address specific charges against the president. 

Earlier Wednesday, the White House said Biden was just calling to check in on Hunter when he was on calls with his son’s business associates. 

‘This is part of the right-wing’s misinformation machine to try to confuse people about what the truth is,’ White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams told CNN on Wednesday morning.

‘The truth is that the president, as he said publicly for years, calls his family every day to check in. He calls his son every day to check in. He calls his other family members to check in to see how they are doing. He loves them. They are a tight-knit family.’ 

Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer told the House Oversight Committee in testimony this summer that Hunter had put his father on speakerphone during business meetings about 20 times.

At the time of Archer’s closed-door testimony, Democrats in the room said Archer described the calls as personal.

‘The witness indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day, and approximately 20 times over the course of 10-year relationship, Hunter may have put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they never once spoke about any business dealings,’ Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said at the time. 

‘As he described it, it was all casual conversation, niceties, the weather, what’s going on. There wasn’t a single conversation about any of the business dealings that Hunter had,’ Goldman noted.

But Republican Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said Archer testified that Joe Biden ‘joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign business associates in person or by speakerphone over 20 times’ and was put on the phone to sell ‘the brand.’ 

Comer said the testimony shows ‘Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved. Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family.’ 

The White House has accused Republicans of election-year politics with its impeachment inquiry.

‘The president has been in politics for a long time. I think as he would say, he has seen a lot of malarkey along the way, but this might take the cake,’ Sams told CNN. ‘He’s focused on issues that matter to the American people.’

Sams is White House point person on countering Republican accusations against the president and his family. He is part of a war room established in the White House counsel’s office specifically to deal with GOP investigations.

He noted Biden, who was vice president at the time, was calling Hunter to check in because the family was also dealing with the illness of Beau Biden, the late son of the president. Beau Biden died in 2015 of brain cancer.

‘He was checking in with Hunter during a particularly hard time, a time where the family was going through Hunter’s brother Beau’s illness. Of course the president checks in,’ Sams said.

Hunter Biden has spoken about how he relapsed into his drug and alcohol addiction after his brother died. The Biden family later held an intervention to get him to do another stint in rehab.

It was during that intervention that Joe Biden told his son: ‘I don’t know what else to do. I’m so scared. Tell me what to do.’ 

Hunter Biden did get sober but his business dealings are being investigated by House Republicans. And the impeachment inquiry – the first step in the impeachment process – will investigate whether President Biden personally benefited from his son’s work.

Biden has said he had nothing to do with Hunter’s business deals.

Speaker McCarthy, under heavy pressure from the conservative wing of his party and facing threats to his speakership, declared on Tuesday the inquiry would begin. 

‘House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct,’ McCarthy said. ‘Taken together these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.’

‘These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,’ he noted.

Republicans have charged Biden and his family made millions off shell companies Hunter Biden formed when his father was vice president. Hunter had business deals with an energy company in the Ukraine, received a discounted stake in a private-equity firm in China, and did consulting for a Romanian real-estate magnate.

The president has denied any involvement in his son’s business dealings. But Republicans claim at least a dozen Biden family members could be involved in a scheme to benefit financially from Biden’s public office. 

House investigators are expected to issue subpoenas for the bank records of the president and his family. The GOP also claim Biden sat in on at least 24 calls with Hunter’s business partners and was referred to as ‘the big guy’ by Hunter’s business associates. And they say Joe Biden used pseudonyms to discuss his activities related to Ukraine with his son Hunter during his time as vice president.

It’s estimated Hunter raked in $40 million through 20 shell companies and fake accounts created while Joe Biden was vice president.

Donald Trump has said that he would pay less attention to the media if he were re-elected to the presidency, as he blamed Joe Biden and Barack Obama for forging a dangerous alliance between Russia and China – and claimed he himself had been more persecuted than ‘Al Capone, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid put together.’

The former president spoke to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night during a 40-minute interview, ranging over Ukraine, energy policy and inflation.

He said Obama and Biden had made big mistakes with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, accusing them of having ‘drove those two big monsters together.’ 

Trump, who says he is still weighing whether to run in 2024, was asked by his friend Hannity what he would do differently if he wins a second term.

‘I think one of the things I would do differently is that I found the media is so corrupt, that I would really not focus on them almost at all – I just focus on getting the job done for the American people,’ he said.

‘You cater to the media, you deal with the media. They’re very dishonest, they write the opposite things, they have sources that aren’t sources. They’re an unbelievably dishonest – hence the name fake news.

‘I think really I would be focused on getting the job done, getting our country back – our country has never been in a position that it is right now, with disrespected all over the world.’

Bitter about the reporting on his presidency, Trump said he had been cheated by the media – accusing them of failing to report on Hunter Biden’s business dealings, and obsessing instead about the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia hoax’.

He was also angered by the law suits filed against him.

‘I’ve gone through, in five years, more investigations than Al Capone, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid put together,’ he told a laughing Hannity.

‘If I fly over a Democrat state in my airplane, I end up before a grand jury.

‘It’s a disgrace, and the people of this country aren’t going to take it.

‘They have weaponized law enforcement, essentially.’

He lashed out at his former attorney general, Bill Barr, for being afraid of impeachment, and said he told Barr not to worry because impeachment had helped his own ratings.

Turning to Ukraine, Trump stressed that he had strengthened NATO by making other members pay their fair share, and said he warned Angela Merkel, the German former chancellor, against relying too much on Russia for their oil.

‘Don’t forget, I rebuilt NATO,’ he said.

‘Because when I became president, the first thing I noticed when I went there to the first meeting was that most of the countries were not paying – they were paying far less than they were supposed to.’

He also emphasized his defense spending, and his policy of energy independence – mocking Joe Biden for his promotion of green energy, and insisting it was insufficient for America’s needs.

‘They don’t have the power to fuel our great factories and to build our great businesses,’ he said, before returning to his oft-repeated warning that wind turbines killed eagles.

‘Today I saw a big story that there are millions and millions of dollars that are being charged on windmills because they are killing eagles.

‘They are killing the bald eagle and other eagles and other birds and we have these windmills all over the place and the environmentalists pretend they love them, but they are really hurting our country.

‘Driving down values, absolutely killing us.

‘One of the most expensive forms of energy.

‘The turbines are all made in China or Germany, so they get the advantage of that.

‘It is ridiculous.

‘But the real problem is that if you go green, you don’t have the power to fuel our great factories, manufacturing plants, and all of the things that we do and that we are known for.’

The 75-year-old, who on February 22 described Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as ‘genius’ – remarks that drew condemnation from Republicans such as Lindsey Graham – told Hannity that he now thought the war was ‘horrible’.

Hannity did not ask him about his previous description of the conflict, but Trump told him it was ‘so sad when you see tens of thousands of people dying.’

He referred to it as a ‘genocide’ – echoing Biden’s declaration on Monday. 

Trump resumed his familiar refrain that it would never have happened were he still president.

‘I knew Putin very well,’ said Trump.

‘We talked about it. We talked about it a lot.

‘He did want to Ukraine, but I said, you are not going into Ukraine.

‘He would never ever have gone into Ukraine.’

He added that China’s president, Xi Jinping, would have equally been dissuaded from attempting a military takeover of Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.

‘President Xi of China would never have even thought about going into Taiwan,’ said Trump.

‘Not during the Trump administration.’

Asked which country – China or Russia – posed the biggest threat, Trump wavered, saying that both posed threats in different ways.

But he was unequivocal in blaming Barack Obama and Biden for driving Putin and Xi closer together.

‘What Obama and Biden did: they did the all-time worst thing that could happen,’ he said.

‘They drove, because of energy and other reasons, and stupidity, they drove Russia and China together.

‘That is something that never could have happened.

‘Because they did the all-time worst thing. They drove those two big monsters together.’

Kids are struggling to focus on activities for more than 10 minutes at a time in the wake of Covid, teachers have warned.

Attention spans have shrunk so much that fewer primary school children are now able to sit still during assemblies.

Eight in ten teachers say that ‘pupil inattention’ has worsened since the pandemic, complaining about the noticeable rise in ‘needless chatter, shouting and laughing inappropriately’.

Knock-on effects of the pandemic have been blamed, with teachers claiming kids are behind on social skills after spending months learning through screens.

Yet 85 per cent of teachers think the ‘ever-swiping nature’ of social media sites like TikTok have exacerbated the issue.

The findings come from a survey of more than 500 primary and early year teachers in England. 

It follows a warning from MPs that the Covid generation have seen their prospects damaged by the pandemic and that it may take a decade for the performance gap between disadvantaged pupils and others to return to pre-virus levels.

They have today urged the Government to tackle the ‘slow-motion catastrophe’ by ensuring schools are tutoring pupils struggling to catch up and reducing absence rates.

Covid lockdowns saw schools across the UK shut their doors for months at a time, except to the children of key workers.

Schools instead offered online learning but some pupils were unable to access it as they did not have the technology at home. 

Swathes of studies have shown that students’ academic performance suffered as a result of the pandemic, that those in state schools are worst affected, that students are less motivated to study and many feel like they’ve not been able to catch up with lost learning. 

The survey, commissioned by online subject resource Kapow Primary and carried out between April and May, asked teachers about pupils’ behaviour now, compared to pre-Covid.

More than four in five (84 per cent) believe the attention span of children is ‘shorter than ever’.

And around two-thirds reported that children’s classroom behaviour has worsened and that there has been an increase in inattention and daydreaming.

One in five teachers confessed that they spend less than 10 minutes on average on any single activity to maintain their children’s attention.

And more than half said pupils are now more likely to move around the room, are quicker to complain about being bored and are more likely to annoy and provoke others in the classroom.

Some 85 per cent of teachers said that the ‘ever-swiping nature of social media’ has negatively affected pupils’ attention span.

While TikTok users are supposed to be aged over 13, many pre-teens still have the app. Users can flick through an endless stream of videos, which can be just seconds long.

One Year 5 and 6 teacher working at a Derbyshire primary school, who asked not to be named, said: ‘Behaviour in class is very different post-Covid. 

‘We had to teach the children through a screen during the pandemic, but taking the screen away now has had a massive impact.

‘Daydreaming is a big issue for us, as is helping children re-learn some of their social skills. Little things like turn-taking got lost during Covid. We also have to do a lot more movement breaks to avoid the children from tuning out.’

Another teacher, working at an east London primary school, said: ‘The conduct of many children in assemblies has been particularly symptomatic. 

‘Some have lost the ability to sit as part of a large audience and focus on a message being shared with the whole school.’

Vicky Cottrill-Gray, education content director at Kapow Primary, said: ‘Children lost so much in-school time during the pandemic. When they went back, they brought new behavioural challenges with them that teachers are still having to deal with.’

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said: ‘Our approach to tackling behaviour in schools has been to support schools to develop a behaviour culture that works for them, their pupils, and their communities.

‘We have updated our Behaviour in Schools guidance to provide clear advice on how to create and maintain high standards and our £10 million Behaviour Hubs programme is supporting up to 700 schools to improve behaviour.’

It comes as the Public Account’s Committee has warned that it could take a decade for the gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and others to return to pre-Covid levels.

A report published by the cross-party group of MPs states that 13 per cent of schools in England did not take up its flagship National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in 2021/22.

The NTP, launched in November 2020, offered funding to primary and secondary schools to provide one-to-one tutoring and group lessons to help youngsters catch-up after lockdowns saw them banished them from classrooms.

The DfE subsidised 75 per cent of the costs of the scheme for 2021/22 and 60 per cent in 2022/23.

The figure was set to plummet to just 25 per cent for 2023/24, but was upped to 50 per cent following concerns about budget pressures.

The committee said: ‘There is a risk that without this central subsidy, the National Tutoring Programme will wither on the vine.

‘We are not convinced that the department fully appreciates the pressures schools are under as they seek to help pupils catch up.’

The committee called on the DfE to take more effective action to increase participation in the NTP to ensure ‘all pupils get the support they need’.

It also called on the DfE to take targeted action to reduce absence rates among disadvantaged pupils and to publish a plan on how it will reduce the disadvantage gap.

The report said: ‘Without the Department for Education taking faster and more effective recovery action, the legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic will be with us for a long time, damaging the prospects of a generation of children and entrenching disadvantage.

‘The disruption to schooling was one of the most serious consequences of the pandemic, leading to lost learning for many pupils.

‘Disadvantaged pupils suffered most, wiping out a decade of progress in reducing the gap in attainment between them and their peers.

‘We are alarmed that the department believes it could take a decade more to return the disadvantage gap to pre-pandemic levels.’

Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, urged the Government to publish plans to reduce the disadvantage gap and absence rates.

She said: ‘The consequences of a lost decade in progress narrowing the gap in attainment for disadvantaged children are immeasurable.

‘Without swift action, the slow-motion catastrophe of the pandemic for children’s education, and in particular for disadvantaged children, will continue to have far-reaching consequences for an entire generation.’

A DfE spokesperson said: ‘We are conscious of the effect the pandemic has had on pupils’ education which is why we have made £5billion available for education recovery.

‘Despite the effect of the pandemic, England came fourth out of 43 countries that tested children of the same age in the PIRLS international survey of the reading ability of nine and 10-year-olds.

‘We remain committed to addressing the attainment gap which is why the National Tutoring Programme is targeted at the most disadvantaged students and has had over three million course starts to date, backed by more than £1billion investment.’