January 29, 2025

Wednesday: Below the Fold

Karoline Leavitt makes press briefing debut, RFK faces a tough fight, good riddance to CNN’s resident narcissist, and more.

  • Introducing Karoline Leavitt: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made her briefing debut on Tuesday. She impressively demonstrated her knowledge of the facts and command of Trump administration policies, which showed a stark contrast to what the country had been subjected to over the past few years with Karine Jean-Pierre. Instead of a daily game of dodging the truth, which epitomized the Press Briefing Room under the Biden administration, Leavitt vowed “to provide the truth from this podium” while also calling on legacy media to do the same. Also significant was Leavitt’s announcement that press passes would be restored to more than 400 journalists after the Biden administration revoked them. On top of that, she invited new media to join the White House press corps.

  • Humor: White House reporters mystified by press secretary who answers questions (Babylon Bee)

  • RFK faces a really tough fight: Donald Trump’s nominee for HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is right now in the midst of his Senate confirmation hearing, and Republican Chairman Mike Crapo and ranking Democrat Ron Wyden are at each other’s throats. Like other Trump nominees, RFK is a disruptor — and perhaps THE disruptor. Something is definitely broken with our health and nutritional habits, as our epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes can attest. But RFK has serious baggage. At the 11th hour, he moderated his stance on vaccines, but his support of abortion and single-payer healthcare are likely dealbreakers for many conservatives. Said his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, “Bobby is addicted to attention and power.” She went on to lament “his constant denigration of our healthcare system,” but that’s precisely the point. It’s badly broken, and it desperately needs fixing.

  • Good riddance to CNN’s resident narcissist: Erstwhile CNN anchor Jim Acosta, who became famous for rudely and repeatedly engaging Donald Trump during his first administration, is leaving the network with a hissy fit. It seems poor Jim was upset at having been dispatched to a late-night slot instead of mornings. Acosta, a former White House correspondent — a role he tellingly relinquished as soon as the enfeebled Joe Biden took office — took one last swipe at the Trump administration by telling his dozens of viewers not to “give in to the lies,” adding, “As a song of a Cuban refugee, I took home this lesson. It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant.” Whatever, dude.

  • Senate Dems block GOP’s ICC sanctions bill: Senate Democrats blocked a Republican-led measure that would have placed sanctions on the illegitimate International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing an arrest warrant last fall for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the spurious charges of “crimes against humanity and war crimes” tied to Israel’s war against Hamas. The Democrats’ excuse, courtesy of Chuck Schumer, was that the bill was “poorly drafted and deeply problematic” because it could target “citizens of our allies.” However, Tom Cotton dismissed that claim, noting, “This bill does not … sanction foreign nations like the United Kingdom, but if British nationals at the court are targeting American citizens, you better believe they could face sanctions.”

  • Media crops out black Trump supporters, then shrieks, “No blacks!” The Tuttle Twins said it, but it bears repeating: You don’t hate the media enough. The latest example of why comes courtesy of New York magazine, which — we kid you not — strategically cropped all the black people out of its cover photo and then shrieked that “the entire room is white.” This wasn’t just any act of racial arson; it was the antithesis of what it purported to be. As CJ Pearson, a black Trump supporter, said in response, “I hosted this event and NYMag intentionally left me out of their story because it would have undermined their narrative that MAGA is some racist cult. They also didn’t include the fact that Waka Flocka and Gervonta [Davis] were also there.” Pearson then closed right where we opened: “You don’t hate the liberal media enough.”

  • The end of California’s political persecution of David Daleiden? Precious few Americans have demonstrated the courage of their convictions like David Daleiden. A citizen-journalist and president of the pro-life Center for Medical Progress, Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt were charged in 2017 in California with 15 felonies — one for each of the Planned Parenthood butchers whom they videoed without consent as they discussed the illegal and monstrously gruesome practice of selling aborted baby parts and organs. Their persecution took place at the hands of then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, whose wildly pro-abortion beliefs are a matter of record. Fortunately, on Monday, that persecution finally ended with a negotiated settlement. Asked by Michael Knowles if he thought Donald Trump’s return to the White House played into California’s dropping of the case, Daleiden said, “I think it probably changes everything.”

  • Biden admin spent millions on condoms for Gaza/Afghanistan: In an egregious example of wasteful government spending, DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget found that the Biden administration had earmarked $50 million for condoms as part of its funding package for Gaza. To make matters worse, Hamas has used these condoms to make balloon bombs to drop on Israel. Spending on condoms for terrorists wasn’t limited to Gaza, either, as the Biden administration also spent $15 million on distributing “oral contraceptives and condoms” as part of its package to Afghanistan. The agency responsible for this is the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which just had 56 of its senior officials put on leave pending an investigation into an alleged effort to thwart Donald Trump’s DEI elimination orders.

Update: For what it’s worth, The Washington Post’s “fact-checker” gives the $50 million for Gaza condoms claim a rating of Four Pinocchios, mainly because it just sounds ludicrous.

  • Joe Biden now a Freemason? Lost in the focus of Donald Trump taking office and his flurry of activity was a little-publicized event involving Joe Biden on his final full day in office. On January 19, the Conference of Grand Masters of Prince Hall Lodge Freemasonry in South Carolina issued a “Resolution of Membership” to Biden. Included in the announcement were three pictures of Biden with the Grand Master shaking his hand and embracing him. Does this mean Biden has joined the Freemasons in violation of his Catholic faith? It is not clear. If he did not actively accept membership, then he would not likely violate the tenets of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, the final authority on determining any violation lies with the pope, and it’s highly unlikely that Pope Francis would spend any time on it, especially given the fact that Biden is out of office.

Headlines

  • Trump signs executive order protecting kids from irreversible gender transition procedures (Daily Wire)

  • Sean Duffy confirmed as transportation secretary (NY Post)

  • Michigan Democrat Senator Gary Peters will not run for reelection (AP)

  • Pentagon to revoke Mark Milley’s security detail (NY Post)

  • Lunatic arrested outside Capitol with Molotov cocktails, knives (NY Post)

  • Minnesota Democrats win Senate majority (Washington Examiner)

  • Costco Teamster workers set to strike this week (Fox Business) | Republican AGs say Costco faces legal risks over DEI policies (Daily Wire)

For the Executive Summary archive, click here.

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