Post

@newsbusters

@ScottJW

@kjdrennen

@TimJGraham

@ScottJW

More from @CurtisHouck

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

May 20

WATCH: @MegynKelly grills @JakeTapper over his coverage on CNN of the Biden presidency in light of his #OriginalSin book (1/)...

Kelly: “Jake, the criticism has been that you're complaining about a cover-up about Joe Biden's mental acuity that failed that right wing pundits saw, the right-wing in general saw, that independent media saw and reported on and that was no mystery even to left-wing and so-called mainstream reporters who were not fooled but chose willful blindness instead of honest reporting and that you were part of it. How do you respond?”

Tapper: “It — it's a — it's a tough and fair question. I would say that Alex and I, after Election Day, interviewed more than 200 people. 200 mostly Democratic insiders and all these interviews were — almost all of these interviews were after the election and they justified to themselves what they had done in terms of misrepresenting how the President was, not just, to me and Alex and other reporters, but also just to each other and to the world and to Democrats and to the cabinet, etc. by — by saying that there was this existential threat of Donald Trump and only Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump, and that justified everything in their minds. After that existential threat was over because the election was over and Donald Trump won, they were, we found Alex and myself, remarkably willing to talk to us either off the record or on background or in some cases on the record about what they saw. One of the things that emerged was that there were two Bidens. One was the fine Biden, serviceable, adequate, and the other one was a — is a non-functioning Biden, and that's the one we saw the night of the debate, and that's the one we saw some clips of here and there that you just showed. And that non-functioning Biden, the one that lost his train of thought in — in a significant way, not in the way just that every human loses their train of thought, but in a way that shows that he's having trouble articulating his very views and the one who forgot the name of close aides, who was not able to come up with George Clooney's name, didn't seem to recognize him, all that sort of thing. That non-functioning Biden was, according to our reporting, showed up as — as far back as 2015, after the death of Beau, where one top aide said it that — that tragedy, the loss of Beau, um, was like, uh, watching somebody pour water on sand. That was the effect on his psyche. And there were other moments in 2017, 2018, you hear some — the Hur report, one of the reasons he came to that conclusion was because of the recordings they heard of Joe Biden in 2017 talking to his ghostwriter in which he was similarly inclined. Obviously, in 2019, 2020, there were other moments like that. Most of his campaign staff and others would say like he's, you know, he's 78, he's 79, he has senior moments, but he's fine, he's fine, he's fine. Well, he wasn't fine and in — in — throughout his presidency, that non-functioning Biden would show up more and more and more, and he was worse and worse and worse, really, from deteriorating tremendously. The next time there was a really horrible family incident which was when Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart in the summer of 2023. And then obviously in June, he was convicted and the thought, the fear of losing his son, not to jail, but maybe to another, to a relapse, to an overdose, to a suicide, who knows, was a very real fear. And the — the — the threat of losing a third child — really just diminished him tremendously according to top aides. So, all of which is to say that this was a deterioration, this was a — this was a progression and look, knowing what I know now, obviously, I feel tremendous humility about my coverage. That Lara Trump interview, for example, etc.”

Kelly: “We’ll get to that.”

Tapper: “She saw some — she saw something that I did not see at the time. 100 percent. And I own that. I did ask Joe Biden to be transparent about his health records in an interview in 2020. I did ask him about the fact that voters thought that he —”

Kelly: “But then he wasn’t.”

Tapper: “— he was not transparent at all. No.”

Kelly: “He — he promised you that he would be transparent about his health records, and then he wasn't and when you sat with him again —

Tapper: “At all.”

Kelly: “— including one month — including one month after the Jackie Walorski thing, you didn't ask him about it. You didn't follow up on the fact that he was falling up the stairs, that he was losing his train of thought regularly, that he was slurring, that he was incomprehensible, that he was getting lost in the White House lawn. You sat right across from him and you asked none of that, notwithstanding the fact that he had promised you he would be fully transparent about his health issues.”

Tapper: “That's true, but I did ask him about his age and the fact that the American people had concluded that even though he said whenever anybody brought up the subject of his age, watch me, and I said —”

Kelly: “Yes.”

Tapper: “— they're watching you and they are concerned —”

Kelly: “You did.”

Tapper: “— that you are too old for this job.”

Kelly: “But you — you — you — you know as well as I do that there's a way of, you can say, hey, there's this poll on your age, or you could say, you just forgot that Jacki Walorski was dead. You — you asked where she was moments after watching a videotape tribute to her. You lowered the flags at the White House after she died. This happened 13 days before you sat with him. There is a way of pressing a man like that on the actual infirmities to bring it home to him and to the audience, and you didn't do it.”

FIREWORKS on @MegynKellyShow between Megyn Kelly and Jake Tapper....

Tapper: “That's correct. I didn't. And like I said, I feel humility about my coverage. I mean, it's not like I was asking him his favorite movie or his favorite color. We were talking about Putin. We were talking about other issues of national importance, but yeah, I mean, of course, I've said, I — I look back at my coverage with humility and — and I wish I did cover the issues of age and acuity, but I wish I had covered them much more, and I wish — I mean, of course, in — it's May 2025. Do I wish that in that 10, 15 minute interview I had with Biden in October 2022, that this had been the only subject because I had then what I know now —”

Kelly: “But it wasn't just that, though, Jake. It wasn’t just that. I mean you sat with him a couple of times in the course of his presidency —”

Tapper: “No, I didn’t.”

Kelly: “— and these issues were not pressed. Well, there was at least —”

Tapper: “No, I — I —”

Kelly: “— and then there was the time at the beginning and — but separate — apart from that —”

Tapper: “— No, I — but, Megyn —”

Kelly: “— you — you covered —”

Tapper: “— Megyn, hold on, hold on a minute.”

Kelly: “— the Biden's presidency.”

Tapper: “I sat with —”

Kelly: “No, no, no. Let me, let me just finish my point.”

Tapper: “I’m just saying I had one interview with him during his pres —”

Kelly: “You’ve covered the Biden presidency.”

Tapper: “— I had one interview with him during his presidency.”

Kelly: “Okay, right and it was 13 days after the Jackie Walorski thing. But you covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, and — and you didn't cover mental acuity, hardly at all. I mean, time and time again when issues came up, you seem to be running cover for the president.

Tapper: “No, I don’t think that’s true.”

Kelly: “You didn’t seem interested.”

.@MegynKelly battles @JakeTapper over his 2020 interview with Lara Trump dismissing her mentioning Joe Biden’s cognitive decline....

Kelly: “Do you want to apologize to Lara Trump now?”

Tapper: “I've already apologized to her. I called her months ago.”

Kelly: “And what did she say?”

Tapper: “I — I mean, I don't want to disclose the — the contents of a private conversation, but I thought the conversation went well, and she said she has said this publicly, so I'm — I feel fine sharing it. She said that she would never mock anybody's stutter, but I mean — I — you know, after we did the research for this book and I realized how bad his acuity issues were — I — like I — I — called Lara Trump and I — I said you were — you right.”

Kelly: “She was totally right. And that's the thing, because when I watched that clip and I'm — I'm giving voice to what a lot of people watching the show are feeling, Jake. I feel angry because she was right and not only did you not allow her to make her comments, but you — you seem to try to humiliate her. You — you had a hostility toward the position, but she was totally right and then —”

Tapper: “So —”

Kelly: “— you lectured her on how she was in no position to diagnose cognitive decline —”

Tapper: “— okay.”

Kelly: “— which you guys do at length, including on page four of your book.”

Tapper: “Well —”

Kelly: “You describe at length his cognitive decline, which is all she tried to do with you, but you had such a visceral reaction to her and my feeling is that's because you didn't want to hear it.”

Tapper: “No, that — I mean if we can, I'm happy to talk about this. I — I didn't come here thinking that you weren't going to ask me about this, so I'm happy to talk to you about it.”

Kelly: “Oh, I know.”

Tapper: “The first time I saw the coverage of Laura Trump's comments, which were interpreted as her mocking Joe Biden's stutter was in January 2020. I read it in conservative media. I read it in the Daily Mail, and that's where I saw that her comments were being interpreted that way. After those comments were publicized, it got a lot of coverage and Sully Sullenberger wrote an op ed in The New York Times criticizing her about this, so that's the context for that — that I was following up on a story that had been out there months before. This is also in the context of October 2020, a very intense time. People on the Biden side are saying crazy things about Trump. People on the Trump side are saying crazy things about Biden, including Don Jr. suggesting that Joe Biden is a pedophile, so that is the larger context. But as I said, her comments have aged well. My comments have aged poorly. I own that.”

Read 9 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Mar 10

🧵[Thread] Mondays’ CBS Mornings had a syrupy puff piece on trans “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney, lamenting all the “painful” “trans hate” Mulvaney faced due to the Bud Light debacle and claiming Mulvaney thought of dying by suicide because people opposed it.

Let’s break the piece down, starting with the first of two teases by co-host Vlad Duthiers cheering “transgender trailblazer Dylan Mulvaney, who’s out with a new book about..facing down hate by finding joy”

The second tease from Duthiers on Mulvaney was even dumber: “Alright, ahead, trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney opens up about her journey and navigating the painful fallout from the controversy over an ad campaign for Bud Light.”

Co-host and Democrat donor Gayle King had the lead-in, gushing “Dylan Mulvaney burst onto the scene as a TikTok star” before fretting “ perhaps what made her most famous was controversy” as Mulvaney “was targeted after appearing in...a one-off campaign” for Bud Light.

Contributor and former NBC’s Today newsreader Natalie Morales fawned over Mulvaney as “a viral sensation as she shared her journey”....from being a man to pretending to be a woman.

Mulvaney hawked the memoir as containing “a lot more heart than social media ever can have.”

Read 11 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Dec 6, 2024

CBS’s @EdOKeefe: “When you’re standing there at the White House lectern, you are White House press secretary speaking on behalf of the President conveying his thoughts and views of the administration. And it's for that reason that you said on his behalf all those times that he had no plans to do what he did on Sunday. Has he expressed any regret to you directly personally for having put you in this position —”

KJP: “You know —”

O’Keefe: “— and now having to go back?”

KJP: “— uh — look, I understand this question, and you started off, I think the way you started off, the question is basically how I feel, right? And I think all of us who work in this administration. I worked for the President. I speak for the president. I — uh — I comment on behalf of what he feels and thinks, and that's my job. That's my job as the press secretary, the White House press secretary, the person who speaks on behalf of the President of the United States and that's how I feel. I feel like it's my —”

CBS’s @EdOKeefe: “But did he apologize to you?”

KJP: “Look, there's no apol — apology needed — maybe to answer that question. No apology needed. What I will say is — um — this is a President — you've heard me talk about the legal experts, what they have say — said, how they agreed with the president — um — in taking this action — uh — you've heard me say that over and over again. I've laid out quotes from different U.S. attorneys, prosecutors who really laid out how the underlying factors of Hunter’s — Hunter's case would not lead to what had occurred in the past several months, and I will also say this, and you heard this President say this many times before — um — he believes — um — when it comes to his family, when it comes to — um — how he moves forward about thinking about his family, they're the beginning, the middle — uh — and the end, and — um — he wrestled with this. It was not an easy thing for him to decide. Uh — there's a reason why I keep bringing up Congressman Jim Clyburn is because this is someone who spoke to the President just two weeks ago and encouraged him to do so to pardon his son, and at the time — um — the congressman said, two weeks ago that this president was reticent. So, obviously, obviously he wrestled with this, so no apology needed from him to me.”

CBS’s @EdOKeefe: “One of the other things he often says is that voters should trust his, ‘word as a Biden.’ Should they still?”

KJP: “Yes, the President’s — the President’s —”

O’Keefe: “This was a pretty big, defiant public pronouncement by him that he wasn't going to do this.”

KJP: “I hear you and I understand — um — but the President wrestled with this. He truly did, and, you know, I — I called out the USGov [sic] poll, where 64 percent of Americans, that's not a small number, agree with the President's decision to pardon his son, and I think that gives you a little bit of a tiny window of where the American people are on this.”

Read 4 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Dec 6, 2024

CNN’s @MJ_Lee: “Zeke asked this question. I just didn’t hear an answer. The next time that the President says he will or won’t do something, why should the American people believe him?”

KJP: “I answered that question. I don’t have anything else to add.”

Lee: “Well, what’s your answer?”

KJP: “I — I answered the question. I answered the question.”

Lee: “Can — can you explain it in a way that’s understandable?”

KJP: “I — well, I — I — can’t speak to you understanding the question or not or my answer or not on this. I — I don’t have anything else to say. I’m not gonna re-litigate this. I — I did this on Monday for 30 minutes. I went back and forth. I laid out — I said, please read the President’s — uh — really comprehensive — uh — statement on this, and I even said the last paragraph of that statement, he talks directly — directly to the American people, and that’s how I answered that question.”

CNN’s @MJ_Lee: “Can you acknowledge that it may have been a mistake by the President, you to say multiple times unequivocally that he would not pardon his son?”

KJP: “The President laid out in that statement, what changed — why his mind — mind changed, how he wrestled with this decision. The President laid that out. I don’t have anything else yet to add.”

CNN’s @MJ_Lee: “So that statement, he said in part, ‘I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’ Just to understand that sentence, I think it’s important —”

KJP: “Yeah, for sure.”

Lee: “— is that the President believes in the justice system except in some cases?”

KJP: “He believes in the justice system. He believes the facts are — the facts are — obviously, I talked about the gun charges, what legal experts have said, former prosecutors have all agreed virtually no one would be criminally prosecuted — uh — for underlying factors of Hunter’s case. I talked about the gun charges. I talked about the taxes — um — the — the tax cases and there are other factors here — what Republicans have said as they weren’t going to let up. I talked about the upcoming — uh — sentencing and what Hunter and his family have been through. I talked about the appoint by the incoming President on law enforcement positions, and he wrestled with it. He did and I also talked about what Jim Clyburn said. So you’re asking me — uh — about an apology, but Jim Clyburn said himself in a conversation that he had with the President just two weeks ago, the President said — he said the President was reticent when he encouraged the President when he, himself, Jim Clyburn, encouraged the President to move forward with it, Congressman Clyburn — the President responded to him by saying he was — he was reticent — uh — and so, this was not an easy decision. It wasn’t. It wasn’t an easy decision — uh — and — um — you know, it was a lot of circumstances here — uh — and — um — and we can’t — we can’t pass over what legal experts and former U.S. attorneys have said on this — uh — you know — and across the country they’ve all basically agreed virtually — virtually no one would be criminally prosecuted — prosecuted with family offenses with these facts, and I have gone through the under two — two important underlying facts of the cases and, you know, I just don’t have anything beyond that to add or to say — uh — you know, I’ve laid out our thought process. The President has laid out his thought process, and we’ve talked about the case, we’ve talked about his thinking — um — and I just don’t have anything beyond that.”

Read 4 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Dec 4, 2024

CBS's Norah O'Donnell with an INSANE open to the 'CBS Evening News' smearing @PeteHegseth like it's the campaign all over again: "We begin with new reporting by CBS News. The highest priority of the president of the United States is the safety and security of the American people. As the commander-in-chief, presidents rely on their defense secretaries to help carry out that solemn task. President-Elect Donald Trump wanted a Fox News weekend host to hold that post. The 44-year-old combat veteran, Pete Hegseth. Tonight, that nomination appears to be on the rocks. Hegseth is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct and excessive drinking. Tonight, CBS News has learned Hegseth may not have the support of enough Republican senators to be confirmed for the job, meaning his nomination is in serious jeopardy."

CBS's Nikole Killion also contributed to the network being out on the warpath vs. @PeteHegseth. Here's just a snippet: "Sources tell CBS News at least four Republican senators would likely withhold their support for Pete Hegseth if a confirmation vote were held today...op Republicans are voicing concerns about the 44-year-old former Fox News host was forced to step down as head of that nonprofit Concerned Veterans for America in 2016 after staffers accused him of financial mismanagement, sexual misconduct, and repeated intoxication."

@PeteHegseth CBS's Nikole Killion chased @PeteHegseth down a Senate hallway today, asking him if he could "describe the relationship with your mother?"

These people are sick.

Read 5 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Dec 2, 2024

🧵WATCH: CNN's @ScottJenningsKY absolutely NUKES President Biden from orbit for pardoning son Hunter:

"Joe Biden is leaving office making the strongest possible case for Donald Trump that anybody could possibly make it and that's that our government and our justice system is of, by and for the elites and nobody else. He ran to banish Trumpism from our political system in this country, and he has left it politically and now institutionally, the strongest possible political force in this country. It is a complete and utter failure by the head of the Democratic Party and the President of the United States. Never again do I want to hear, 'oh, Donald Trump's a liar. You can't believe anything he says. Donald Trump will abuse his power Donald Trump will only use the system to benefit himself and his family, and so on and so forth.' Never again. I have one question for Karen [Finney] and that is why did he need an 11-year blanket pardon going back to 2014, when Joe Biden was the Vice President? We are sitting on the biggest cover-up of who knows what crimes and Joe Biden amazingly knows exactly, roughly when it started. He knows just about when it all started. He's leaving office in complete and total disgrace. He is a liar and there is no other way to spin this today. This has nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with the character of Joe Biden."

CNN's @ScottJenningsKY on those claiming President Biden pardoning Hunter is just like when Trump pardoned key allies on his way out of office in 2021:

"Listen, you guys can spend all day long trying to spin this, that this is Donald Trump's fault that this is somehow caused by Donald Trump. 'Oh, he's appointing the wrong people.' 'Oh, he did it. Oh --" This is the worst possible thing a President could possibly do to his party and to the country to sit for a year and say, 'I will not do this. I will not do this. The rule of law is sacred. We have to respect the justice system, juries. We have to respect juries. We have to respect the guardrails and the norms of our democracy.' These people are liars. 'Inflation is transitory.' 'Afghanistan is a success.' 'The border is secure.' 'Robert Hur is a liar.' 'The videos are cheap fakes.' 'Biden has a cold.' 'He'll never drop out.' 'Oh, I'll never pardon Hunter.' It's all a lie. It is all a grift. Every American except the most partisan, brain rotted people are going to be outraged by this today. He is going to leave off -- you think 38, 39% job approval is bad? Just you wait. Just you wait. He's disgraced -- disgraced today. Outrageous."

CNN's @ScottJenningsKy with the mic drop to Karen Finney: "Stand up for yourself. You have to defend this. He's leaving office. You don't have to defend it. You don't have to die on this hill. You can say this is wrong because everybody knows that it is. It's wrong. Are you fine with the lying? Are you fine with him sitting before the election all year and lying to the American people Are you fine with the lying about it?"

Read 5 tweets

Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

Curtis Houck

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @CurtisHouck

Curtis Houck

Curtis Houck

Curtis Houck

Curtis Houck

Curtis Houck

Curtis Houck

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Send Email!