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Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Dec 6

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

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

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

🧵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

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Aug 27

.@ScottJenningsKY face-palms after @JamalSimmons says Trump “may think that he won that debate, but...he actually lost the war...because after that debate, Joe Biden left and..he ended up with Kamala Harris, so he should be careful.”

.@ScottJenningsKY was all of us.

.@ScottJenningsKY after @JamalSimmons suggests some sort of 4D chess in Trump beating Biden at the debate, but then losing the election to Kamala: “Zero for one? Jamal, Jamal, my brother and colleague, zero for — he literally ran a man who had been in politics for 52 years out of his chosen profession over a debate, I mean, look, I understand what you're arguing that you all traded in for a better candidate, but Trump won the debate. He is — he is not zero for one. Are you saying that he actually did so well that he did badly?”

Simmons: “But this is exactly the problem with campaigns — but this is exactly the problem we campaigns. Very often, people are focused on the minutiae of what it means in this tact or that tact, but the question is: Are you wearing the fundamental argument? And, for right now, Donald Trump may have tactically won the debate, but strategically, it may have cost him the entire election because he ended up with a much better candidate than the one he was gained aiming for and he's probably now a couple of points behind.”

Read 4 tweets

Curtis Houck

@CurtisHouck

Aug 5

Just a master class schooling by Justice Neil Gorsuch when whacked from the left by CBS's Major Garrett.

Gorusch: "I read the other day that...I agreed with Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson something like 45 percent of the time. That’s the court I know."

Garrett: "But there are people who watch this right now and say I thought I understood what Roe v. Wade meant in our country. I thought I understand what affirmative action in college admission meant, and this court told me I didn’t understand what that meant and I wrongly relied on things that I thought were settled. What would you say to those?"

Gorsuch: I would say those are deeply complex legal questions on which reasonable minds can, of course, and do disagree. And that when it comes to Roe v. Wade, for example, what did the court decide? Decided that we the people should answer that question, not nine people sitting in Washington, D.C."

CBS's Major Garrett: "How about affirmative action?"

Justice Neil Gorsuch: "Much the same thing. What did we decide? We decided that all people are created equal, that it’s not acceptable in this country to discriminate on the basis of race."

CBS's Major Garrett: "And, for those who would say but I feel something’s been ripped away from me, you would say?"

Justice Neil Gorsuch: "I would say that we’re taking it back to you. In a democracy, you’re in the driver’s seat. You’re the sovereign. Those famous three first words of the Constitution empower you. Do you really want me deciding everything for you?"

Garrett: "And for a woman in a state where she no longer has the rights she once relied on, is that cold comfort?"

Gorsuch: "Major, all I can say is I don’t know better than you do on these questions. And that most major western democracies have decided these questions through the ballot box."

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