Karoline Leavitt Let Pro-Kremlin Conspiracist Into Press Briefing

The White House has officially opened its doors to a website accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt welcomed Zero Hedge’s Liam Cosgrove to the new media seat Monday—who predictably proceeded to relay conspiracy theories when given an opportunity to ask the first question at the morning press briefing.

Zero Hedge is a financial blog started under a penname by Bulgarian-born former investment banker Daniel Ivandjiiski, and has been accused by U.S. intelligence officials of publishing articles crafted by Moscow-controlled media. The site has also spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, and circulated fake quotes from politicians. The site amassed a large alt-right (now mainstream) audience, including racists, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists. Now, it’s being granted an even larger platform and preferential treatment from the White House.

Cosgrove asked two questions. The first was about whether Donald Trump planned to stop “financing foreign wars” in Ukraine and Gaza, during which Cosgrove managed to laud Trump and take a shot at Joe Biden. The second was about an old conspiracy theory resurfaced by the president himself.

“So, over the weekend, President Trump posted Truth Social, a video highlighting what most people call the ‘Clinton body count,’” Cosgrove said. “Which is the strange number of suicides that seem to happen in Clinton circles—”

As Cosgrove spoke, Leavitt was visibly holding back a smile.

Cosgrove took issue with reporting from The Washington Post that Trump’s Truth Social post had amplified “false” conspiracy theories. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the video shared by the president, Cosgrove raised the apparent suicide of Mark Middleton, a former aide to President Bill Clinton who had been a point of contact between the White House and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as his own evidence of the “Clinton body count.”

“That’s just a lead-in to my question about the most famous Clinton-related suicide, which is that of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s still a lot of questions about the Epstein files—” Cosgrove continued, asking whether the White House planned to release information that would connect Epstein’s trafficking activities to intelligence agencies, “even potentially as part of a blackmail ring with potential ties to the Israeli government.”

In a classic Leavitt non-answer, she said that more information about Epstein would be released soon because Attorney General Pam Bondi had said she would release more information soon.

The White House opened up its briefing room to “new media” in January, and has made way for a revolving door of professional journalists, podcasters, and influencers. This crowd has inevitably included several MAGA talking heads, including content creators from Breitbart, the right-wing video platform Rumble, BreakingPoints, the Daily Wire, former Newsmax host Mark Halperin, and the right-wing substack Washington Reporter.

Republicans in the House Budget Committee passed Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on their second try late Sunday, advancing his 2017 tax cuts for multi-millionaires and corporations closer to the House floor.

And by Monday morning, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was plainly lying about the impact of the forthcoming legislation.

“Is the president okay with this bill adding to the deficit?” a reporter asked.

“This bill does not add to the deficit, in fact, according to the Council of Economic Advisers, this bill will save $1.6 trillion, and the president absolutely understands and hears the concerns of fiscal conservatives and of Americans who want to get our fiscal house in order,” Leavitt responded.

“That’s what the intention of this bill is. There’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill,” she continued. “That’s the largest savings for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history.”

Where Leavitt acquired that number is not clear, but other, non-administration related estimates say otherwise.

Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and multi-millionaires is estimated to add trillions to the national deficit. The reconciliation bill’s final deficit price tag has yet to be determined, but last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released a report indicating that the proposal was expected to add somewhere between $3.8 trillion and $5.3 trillion to the national deficit over the next 10 years. As of the time of publishing, the U.S. deficit is currently at $36.8 trillion.

To offset the hike, Republicans proposed cutting $880 billion from Medicaid by way of adding work requirements and booting undocumented immigrants off the public health coverage program (undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive Medicaid, though life-saving care under EMTALA can be covered by emergency Medicaid).

To alleviate the whopping deficit growth, the bill also didn’t follow through on things that Trump had promised to his base, such as stripping taxes from tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits.

The bill initially stalled Friday due to a far-right flank in the committee that remained skeptical of adding such a significant sum to the national debt. In a statement prior to the vote, Representative Chip Roy—who voted “no” last week but flipped his vote to “present” on Sunday—said that the bill fell “profoundly short.”

Stephen Miran, the chair of the Trump Administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, is possibly best known for his plan to correct the U.S. deficit by weakening the dollar—something he’s dubbed the “Mar-a-Lago Accord.” Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has other controversial theories that have made him an outlier among his peers.

In addition to his dollar-weakening stratagem, Miran has been a vocal proponent for Trump’s tariff plan, pitting him against dozens of Nobel Prize-winning economists who warned since Election Day that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.

Columnists have labelled Trump’s bill as the second coming of Reagonomics, promising to slash taxes for the wealthy while leaving the rest of the U.S. population to scramble for the trickle-down, a wealth distribution theory that economists, think tanks, and newspapers have concluded doesn’t “hold up.”

CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon announced Monday that she is resigning from her position.

She is the second executive to quit in opposition to the network considering settling a $20 billion defamation lawsuit from President Trump over bogus allegations over how an episode with Kamala Harris was edited before the 2024 election. Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, was the first. 

“Championing and supporting the journalism produced by the most amazing stations and bureaus in the world, celebrating the successes of our shows and our brands, elevating our stories and our people.... It has been a privilege and joy,” McMahon wrote in a statement to CBS employees. “At the same time, the past few months have been challenging. It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”

That “path forward” seems to involve capitulating to Trump.

Trump has been particularly aggressive towards the media in his second term, and one massive network has already fallen in line out of fear. In December, ABC News agreed to settle a $15 million Trump defamation lawsuit that legal experts think they could have won.  

Now, the Trump administration is set on making CBS heel. Last month, the president threatened to use the FCC against the network. 

“They should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior,” Trump posted. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

This story has been updated.

The MAGA fringes still very badly want “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself” to be a thing.

On Sunday, Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo grilled FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the far-right conspiracy that the wealthy sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein didn’t commit suicide but was killed in prison in 2019 to prevent him from incriminating the Clintons and other world leaders.

“You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don’t believe it,” Bartiromo said bluntly to Patel on the Sunday show.

“Well, listen, they have a right to their opinion. But as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in that metropolitcal detention center, who’s been in segregated housing—you know a suicide when you see one,” Patel replied. “And that’s what that was.”

“He killed himself,” Bongino chimed in. “I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

Those answers led to some grumblings on Truth Social.

“Ok ‘he committed suicide’ so can you explain why the cameras were shut off during that ‘suicide,’” one poster pondered. “He was on suicide watch, and the guards just left. How dumb do you take the American people to be? There are No coincidences.”

“Ok let’s recap, one [of] the most secure detention centers, guards fell asleep, cameras didn’t work, medical examiner stated that the neck injury wasn’t consistent with a suicide, but now you want us to believe that it was, what a crock!” wrote another disappointed MAGA acolyte. “I’m seriously disappointed in Bongino and Kash.”

On Monday, the Epstein question was brought up again at White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefing, this time by Liam Cosgrove, a “reporter” for the far-right conspiracy website ZeroHedge.

Cosgrove began his question by referring to a video Trump posted on Truth Social peddling a conspiracy theory accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of murdering their political rivals and covering them up as suicides.

“That’s just a lead-in to my question about the most famous Clinton-related suicide, which is that of Jeffrey Epstein,” Cosgrove said. “There’s still a lot of questions around that case. You’ve released phase one of the Epstein files; what was missing from that was any connection to his ties to intelligence agencies, and that’s really the whole story—not just trafficking young girls, doing it on behalf of intelligence agencies and even potentially as part of a blackmail ring with potential ties to the Israeli government. So for phase two, when can we expect it? Will it have information pertaining to those aspects of the Epstein case?”

Leavitt sidestepped the question completely. “I would [refer] you to the Department of Justice on [Attorney General Pam Bondi’s] timeline,” she replied.

While Epstein’s long history of sexual abuse and the powerful connections he maintained (like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump) are deeply disturbing, it’s clear that this prime MAGA theory is beyond logic. They couldn’t care less about the numerous victims. For them, it’s the Clintons who killed Epstein because they’re pedophiles, and Trump should investigate and expose the entire Democratic Party for being pedophiles too. That’s why they won’t take no for an answer.

Vice President JD Vance has reportedly decided to skip visiting Israel on Tuesday due to the country launching a massive operation to expand its massacre in Gaza.

Axios, citing a senior U.S. official, reported Monday that Vance didn’t want to visit Israel because he didn’t want his trip to indicate that the Trump administration was endorsing Israel’s expanded operation at the same time that the White House is trying to push for a ceasefire and hostage deal. Officially, Vance says that “logistical” issues prevent the trip from taking place.

But Vance’s snub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coupled with President Donald Trump’s decision not to visit Israel during his Middle East trip last week, suggest that the White House isn’t happy with Netanyahu’s decisions regarding Gaza right now. Netanyahu is stubbornly refusing any agreements to end Israel’s 19-month war on the Palestinian territory, which has caused a human rights catastrophe.

White House envoy Steve Witkoff has been pressing Israel and Hamas to accept an updated proposal for a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza. But Israel has begun mobilizing troops for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which would forcibly displace two million Palestinians from the territory in a shocking display of ethnic cleansing.

For now, Israel has resumed allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza after two months, responding to pressure from the Trump administration and Europe. Trump even said last week that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza, a rare acknowledgment of the humanitarian crisis Israel has caused in the territory.

That crisis only continues to worsen as Israel now seeks to begin wider ground operations in Gaza. More than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since October 2023, which is very likely an undercount, with nearly 3,200 killed since Israel resumed airstrikes in March, following a brief ceasefire. This doesn’t include people dying due to famine and starvation caused by Israel’s aid restrictions. It’s going to take a lot more than a missed visit to end the onslaught.

Donald Trump is threatening to sue American businesses for discussing the apparently cozy relationship he has with Qatari leadership.

In a post on Truth Social Sunday, the president publicly threatened to sue ABC News for reporting on the super luxury jumbo jet he received as a gift from Qatar.

“Why doesn’t Chairman Bob Iger do something about ABC Fake News, especially since I just won $16,000,000 based on the Fake and Defamatory reporting of Liddle George Slopadopolus,” Trump wrote, referring to a December arrangement in which ABC agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle his defamation lawsuit against the anchor.

“He was given warnings, but just couldn’t be restrained by ‘management.’ Now I see they are at it again, and I again give these SleazeBags fair warning!” he said.

The jet was widely interpreted as a foreign bribe, including by longtime supporters of the president’s agenda, such as far-right influencers Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer. It was one of the most lavish gifts ever bestowed on a U.S. president.

“The wonderful country of Qatar, after agreeing to invest more than 1.4 Trillion Dollars in the United States of America, deserves much better than Misleading (Fake!) News. Everyone, including their lawyers, has been told that ABC must not say that Qatar is giving ME a FREE Boeing 747 Airplane, because they are not,” the president continued online, apparently incensed that a news organization was doing its job.

“Instead, and as Fake News ABC fully knows and understands, this highly respected country is donating the plane to the United States Air Force/Defense Department, AND NOT TO ME,” he posted. “By so doing, they are saving our country, and the American Taxpayer, hundreds of millions of dollars. ABC Fake News is one of the WORST.”

Claiming that the plane is going toward the Defense Department is a convenient workaround that would allow Trump to ethically accept the pricy present, since it is obviously illegal for a president (or any U.S. public officeholder) to accept gifts “of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State,” per the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause.

Except that the plane is not actually being donated to the American people. Instead, Trump is opting to use the luxurious aircraft as his new Air Force One until “shortly before he leaves office,” at which point he will transfer ownership of the plane to his presidential library foundation, sources with knowledge of the arrangement told ABC News.

Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor, told NPR News Trump’s decision to accept the jumbo jet is a “pretty textbook case” of violating the emoluments clause, clarifying that if Trump hands the jet over to his library after leaving office, then it’s “not really a gift to the United States at all.”

“[Gifts are] designed to create good feelings for the recipient and to get some kind of reciprocity,” Briffault told NPR. “But the thing that [Trump] can give, of course, is public policy—weapons deals or whatever. And then, of course, it’s an incentive to other countries to give similar gifts as another way of influencing presidential decision-making.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s new strategy for defusing Donald Trump’s Qatari jet controversy is an oldie but a classic: Blame Joe Biden.

During an appearance on NBC News’s Meet the Press Sunday, Bessent tried to explain why it would be appropriate for Trump to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family to replace Air Force One—a move that has raised deep concerns about foreign corruption from across the political spectrum.

“Well, it’s not the president accepting it, it’d be the United States government,” Bessent said. “And Senator [Markwayne] Mullin said this weekend that talks had actually begun under the Biden administration.”

“I think this is an off-ramp for many in the media not to acknowledge what an incredible trip this was,” Bessent added, touting the trillions in foreign investments the president had secured during his multiday tour of the Middle East last week.

Last week, Mullin claimed that the “conversation” about accepting a luxury plane “started with Qatar with Biden a year ago.”

“What no one is talking about is [that] this same 747 has been in negotiations for a year,” Mullin said on CNN Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Oklahoma Republican told Fox News that Mullin had been privy to a recent conversation with the Qataris and had gleaned information about the Biden administration’s reported involvement in plane talks. The Trump administration hasn’t confirmed this surprising claim, and neither has Biden’s team.

Meanwhile, Trump has been quick to try to defend himself, but not so quick to play offense.

Bessent’s assertion that the luxury plane would be a gift to the U.S. government and not Trump himself doesn’t hold much water either, considering that Trump will be the only president who uses the new Air Force One before it will be moved to his presidential library foundation in 2029, where it may be available for him to use as a private citizen.

Joe Biden’s announcement Sunday that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer surprised many, but a doctor told MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday that Biden has probably had cancer for many years.

“Oh, he’s had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and bioethicist who is the brother of politician Rahm Emanuel and talent agent Ari Emanuel. “It’s a little surprising I look back at the records, and there’s no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate-specific antigen.”

The fact that the cancer had spread to the bone, Emanuel told hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, indicated that it has been in Biden for “for a very long time.”

“We don’t know [how many years], obviously, and it is a little surprising to many of us oncologists that he wasn’t diagnosed earlier,” Emanuel said, noting that a regular prostate exam would have very likely caught the cancer.

“I would say it is surprising that he did not get this test given the fact that the proclivity of presidential physicians is test more rather than less, and I think it is a little, it’s a little strange,” Emanuel added. “We do know from the population, like I said, 7 percent of people diagnosed with prostate cancer get it diagnosed at the metastatic moment, when it’s already metastatic. So it’s not unusual that people can say, ‘No, I don’t want the test,’ or their doctor doesn’t recommend it or they don’t get the tests for one reason or another.”

The expert opinion of Emanuel, who also served as an adviser in the Obama administration and was on Biden’s Covid-19 advisory board when he was president, indicates that either Biden’s medical evaluations weren’t as thorough as they could have been or that the former president kept this information hidden from the public.

Whatever the case may be, these new cancer revelations do not reflect well on the Biden administration, which has already been facing criticism in recent weeks for how the final months of Biden’s presidency were handled and how details of his mental decline were kept from the public and his own staff. It seems that may have also extended to the president’s physical health.

President Trump wants to investigate Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, and Oprah Winfrey.

“HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? … AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO??? I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter,” he wrote on Truth Social at 1:34 a.m. on Monday.

“Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic ‘entertainers,’ this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”

This is an incredibly useless thing to post so late at night. Trump is irked at Bruce Springsteen for talking about how much he dislikes him on tour, so he goes on an unhinged rant calling for a Justice Department investigation that would do nothing for anyone, especially not anyone who actually needs help. It’s rich to read a man who is making shady billion-dollar crypto deals and who just accepted a luxury jumbo jet from the Qatari government speak about what is “CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL.”

For what it’s worth, the Harris campaign did come under scrutiny for making some large checks to the production companies of Oprah Winfrey and Beyoncé, especially after she was defeated so resoundingly. The Harris campaign paid $165,000 to Beyoncé’s Parkwood Production Media LLC on November 19, and $1 million to Oprah’s Harpo Productions.

The Supreme Court has once again ordered President Donald Trump to cool his jets on using the Alien Enemies Act to conduct deportations.

The high court ruled 7-2 Friday to temporarily block the Trump administration from deporting another set of detainees in northern Texas, Venezuelan immigrants accused of being gang members who feared they would be the next to be removed from the country under the wartime powers law.

The court sided with the detainees, ruling they should have been given more notice to contest their removal, and sent the case to a lower appeals court to decide whether Trump can legally deport the immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act and how much notice detained immigrants should receive before being deported.

“We decide today only that the detainees are entitled to more notice than was given on April 18, and we grant temporary injunctive relief to preserve our jurisdiction while the question of what notice is due is adjudicated,” the seven justices wrote in the majority opinion.

“Under these circumstances, notice roughly 24 hours before removal, devoid of information about how to exercise due process rights to contest that removal, surely does not pass muster.”

Naturally, conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas couldn’t even agree on this meager ruling. Justice Kavanaugh concurred.

The court even went so far as to quote itself on the Fifth Amendment, a worthwhile action given Trump and Stephen Miller’s constant redefinition of the very straightforward policy.

“[T]he Fifth Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings.”

This story has been updated.