Antony Blinken Kicks Out Journalist for Asking Questions About Gaza

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held his final press conference on Thursday, during which he kicked out a journalist for asking questions about Gaza. 

Reporter Sam Husseini tried to ask questions about U.S. policy regarding Israel’s war in Gaza early during the press conference, only to be told to wait until the end. When he persisted, he was physically removed from the room by three security guards.

Husseini posted on X after the incident, saying he was fine but had planned to ask several different questions, including about the Geneva Convention’s application to Gaza and Israel’s Hannibal directive, among other topics. But he never got the opportunity, and the whole  incident unfortunately encapsulates the Biden administration’s approach towards Israel and Gaza, especially in responding to questions from the press. 

For more than a year, following the October 7, 2023, attacks, the White House and State Department repeatedly masked Israel’s brutal actions in Gaza, ignoring and covering up possible war crimes while even lying to Congress. Alternative courses of action were dismissed, and deadlines made to the public were ignored. Even given the opportunity, Vice President Kamala Harris refused to break with White House policy while running for president, which may have cost her the 2024 election. 

Ultimately, Israel’s war, fueled by American weapons and protected by American diplomacy, officially killed more than 46,000 Palestinian civilians, likely a massive undercount according to analysts and human rights groups. Thursday’s press conference was a reminder that under Joe Biden, the United States has refused to acknowledge its role in the conflict or stand up to any scrutiny. And when Donald Trump is sworn into the White House on Monday, that’s not likely to change. 

Google announced its intention Thursday to flout European Union standards for digital fact-checking, opting not to build an internal department to moderate and verify YouTube content despite requirements from a new law.

The European Commission’s Disinformation Code of Practice has remained a voluntary policy, leaving the ball in the tech industry’s court. Companies that opted in to the code—including Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and X—are supposed to self-regulate while submitting reports on their platform’s compliance with the code.

But a 2024 study published in the Internet Policy Review found that, by and large, companies were “only partly compliant” with the EU code, with reports data lacking detail and offering “missing, incomplete, or not robust” data. The EU has since urged companies to convert the voluntary guidelines into an official policy under the union’s newer content moderation law, the Digital Services Act of 2022.

Google has never had a fact-checking department to oversee content on YouTube, where users reportedly upload more than 500 hours of video content every minute, and on average consume a collective one billion hours of content per day, according to YouTube’s blog. The law would require Google to build fact-checking into its search function, its ranking systems, and its algorithm, as well as adding fact-checked results alongside YouTube videos.

The search engine behemoth’s global affairs president Kent Walker rejected the mandatory new standards in a letter to deputy director general Renate Nikolay, claiming that the code “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services,” according to Axios. Walker instead pointed to a new feature that was implemented on YouTube in 2024, allowing users to communally verify information themselves, akin to X’s “Community Notes.”

Google will “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code before it becomes a DSA Code of Conduct,” Walker wrote.

But Google isn’t the only company skirting its disinformation commitments. Meta and X have heavily reduced their content moderation policies, allowing disturbing language to circulate openly on their platforms.

Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media company would rid itself of its third-party fact-checkers, opting instead to replace them with user-generated corrections.

“Fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement posted to Facebook. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

In the background of their internal decisions, a cohort of Silicon Valley’s most successful figures have donated millions to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, seemingly caving to the incoming forty-seventh president in an apparent bid to make Trump’s second term as friendly to their massive tech and AI corporations as possible.

Rudy Giuliani might’ve finally caught a break.

After being sued for everything he had—his watches, his diamond ring, his Mercedes-Benz, his home, and $148 million—by defamed Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, the former mayor has apparently come to a settlement.

“I have reached a resolution of the litigation with the Plaintiffs that will result in a satisfaction of the Plaintiffs’ judgment. This resolution does not involve an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any of the Parties,” Giuliani announced on X on Thursday. “I am satisfied with and have no grievances relating to the result we have reached. I have been able to retain my New York coop and Florida Condominium and all of my personal belongings. No one deserves to be subjected to threats, harassment, or intimidation. This litigation has taken its toll on all parties. This whole episode was unfortunate. I and the Plaintiffs have agreed not to ever talk about each other in any defamatory manner, and I urge others to do the same.”

Though the terms of the settlement are not yet public, a statement from the defamed mother-daughter duo confirmed the news.

“The past four years have been a living nightmare. We have fought to clear our names, restore our reputations, and prove that we did nothing wrong,” said Moss and Freeman in a joint statement. “We have agreed to allow Mr. Giuliani to retain his property in exchange for compensation and his promise not to ever defame us.”

The settlement comes after Giuliani failed to appear in court Thursday morning. Both parties are now asking the judge to adjourn the trial so that their settlement agreement can be executed.

Moss and Freeman testified that Guiliani’s claims that they’d engaged in election fraud in 2020 led to a wave of racist threats and hatred toward them.

Scott Bessent, Donald Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, made it clear during his confirmation hearing Thursday that he’s only interested in protecting the interests of the rich and powerful.

The hedge fund manager with a net worth of at least $500 million repeatedly spiked down questions about whether he would support working-class priorities. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders asked Bessent about his position on raising the minimum wage.

“Shamefully, the federal minimum wage, despite the efforts of myself and other people here, [has] not been raised since 2009, and remains an unbelievable $7.25 an hour,” said Sanders. “Will you work with those of us who want to raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage, to take millions of Americans out of poverty?”

“Senator, I believe that the minimum wage is more of a statewide and regional issue,” Bessent responded.

“So you don’t think we should change the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?” Sanders pressed.

“Uh, no sir,” Bessent replied. Four years ago, Trump said he would consider raising the minimum wage to $15, if it didn’t hurt small businesses. More recently, he’s dodged the question altogether.

Later, Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock asked whether Bessent would be interested in ending tax cuts for the rich to help reduce the national deficit—but the two didn’t quite see eye to eye on the policy.

“Do you agree that ending the tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 would help close the deficit and reduce our national debt?” Warnock asked.

“Senator Warnock, I do not,” Bessent said. “I believe that you would capture an inordinate amount of small-business people who largely are in that cohort of $400,000 to $1 million—”

“So you wouldn’t cut it off at $400,000,” Warnock replied. “What about $1 million?”

“Again, I believe these are small-business pass-through owners. And I believe that we, as I said before, Wall Street’s done great, it is time for Main Street to do well. And small businesses need to drive what I call the reprivatization here away from this government spending.”

Warnock kept pressing him, and Bessent quickly revealed that was hoping to keep tax rates the same as in Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Warnock asked about those making more than $10 million.

Bessent insisted that it was more important “that we put in incentives for them to invest.”

“What about $1 billion?” Warnock asked.

Bessent replied, “Again, I think that these are the job creators.”

“So there’s no income level for which you would support raising taxes?” Warnock said.

Bessent replied that there was “no income level” for which he would support raising taxes.

While Trump has not said that he would raise taxes, his plan to enact sweeping tariffs on imported goods from Mexico, Canada, and China will function as a sort of sales tax, driving up prices on consumer goods.

On Thursday, Bessent also refused to specify where exactly he stood on the future of Medicaid, and claimed that he would leverage negotiations to maintain the critical health care program to “empower” states.

Representative Rick Crawford will be the next House Intelligence Committee chair, following his colleague Mike Turner’s unceremonious removal by Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday.

Politico reported Thursday that Johnson will name Crawford to the position following Turner’s removal on Donald Trump’s orders. The move was a surprise even to the Republicans on the panel, and some in the GOP are angry at Johnson for how he handled the move.

“He dragged Mike along,” one senior House Republican said, speaking anonymously.

Another Republican warned that Johnson had just “cost himself political capital,” while a third warned that Turner was ready to go scorched earth.

“Mike’s never going to vote for another fucking thing around here again,” the third Republican said. “He’s mad.”

One Democrat, Representative Jim Himes, said Turner’s ouster “sends a shiver down my spine,” adding that Turner wasn’t a Republican who was quick to “bend the knee” to Trump and kept his “eyes on the prize” of oversight.

Trump sought Turner’s removal because he “believes that Turner is basically an intel community sycophant,” one source told The Daily Beast Wednesday. Johnson has said Trump was not involved in the decision.

Turner has warned of Russian propaganda “being uttered” on the House floor, and voted to certify Joe Biden’s win in 2020, putting himself in Trump’s and many conservatives’ crosshairs. Turner’s decision last year to back the reauthorization of Section 702 also has drawn the ire of the right, as well as the ACLU, for its potential to spy on Americans without a warrant.

Meanwhile, Crawford voted against Ukraine aid last year, in contrast to Turner’s staunch support of the country following its invasion by Russia. Turner’s departure will be seen as good news to the MAGA right who oppose any further aid to Ukraine, and Crawford’s appointment gives Trump a firm loyalist at the top of a powerful House committee, getting rid of another possible critic of his national security decisions.

Treasury secretary nominee Scott Bessent won’t commit to not cutting Medicaid.

In a heated back and forth Thursday with New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Luján, the hedge fund manager refused to specify where exactly he stood on the future of the critical health care program, claiming instead that he would leverage future negotiations on Medicaid to “empower” states.

“Yes or no: Will you recommend cutting Medicaid?” pressed Luján.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear if you said Medicaid or Medicare,” stuttered Bessent.

“Will you recommend cutting Medicaid?” the senator reiterated.

“Medicaid? The, um—I will—it’s the business of Congress to do the budget,” Bessent responded. “And I am in favor of empowering states, and I believe that for some states that will be an increase and for some states that will be a decrease.”

“So, Mr. Bessent, will you recommend cutting Medicaid to President Trump? And I’ll remind you that you acknowledged that one of your responsibilities as secretary of the Treasury will be to be providing this advice,” Luján said.

“I will get back to you on this,” Bessent concluded.

More than 72 million Americans, or roughly one in five citizens, were enrolled in Medicaid as of October, according to a federal Medicaid factsheet. The joint federal and state health care program provides comprehensive health care insurance to low-income Americans.

The wildly popular program has come under increased scrutiny by Donald Trump and his allies since his November win. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in November, Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk (the potential co-chairs of the not-yet-real Department of Government Efficiency) said they intended to take a knife to “entitlement programs” such as Medicare and Medicaid, though they refused to specify how much they planned to burn from the health care programs.

That could help Trump extend his 2017 tax plan, which overwhelmingly benefits corporations and could add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit, and which Bessent repeatedly vouched for and framed on Thursday as a salvation for America’s working class.

A stunning 61 Democrats on Thursday voted in favor of MAGA Representative Nancy Mace’s useless and antagonistic immigration bill. 

On its face, Mace’s so-called “Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act” doesn’t seem like a problem. The bill  “ensures predators who pose a threat and have been previously convicted of sexual assault, domestic violence and other heinous crimes are turned away or immediately deported,” the South Carolina representative wrote in an op-ed last September. 

But in reality, the bill’s aim is redundant at best. Undocumented immigrants can already be deported on account of any crimes, and about 200,000 were deported in 2023. Documented immigrants can be deported for crimes as well, including the exact grounds Mace is referring to. 

At its worst, the bill’s vague text could hurt the very people it claims it’s trying to help. Multiple groups, including the National Task Force to end Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, have come out in opposition to Mace’s bill, stating that it increases the scope of what constitutes “grounds of inadmissibility.” In effect, it would “negatively impact immigrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and fail to alleviate the primary barriers to safety and stability experienced by survivors seeking relief under the Immigration and Nationality Act.” 

The group went on to argue that abusers could use this potential law to accuse their victims of abuse when they actually acted in self-defense. That’s not to mention things like language barriers, fear of retaliation or arrest, a lack of knowledge of rights, and many other obstacles that could result in immigrants being hurt by this bill. 

Here are the 61 Democrats who voted for the bill regardless:

1. Boyle — Pennsylvania
2. Budzinski — Illinois
3. Bynum — Oregon
4. Clyburn —South Carolina
5. Conaway — New Jersey
6. Courtney — Connecticut
7. Craig — Minnesota
8. Cuellar — Texas
   
9. Davis — North Carolina
10. Figures — Alabama
11. Gillen — New York
12. Golden — Maine
13. Vicente Gonzalez — Texas
14. Goodlander — New Hampshire
15. Gottheimer — New Jersey
16. Gray — California
17. Harder — California
18. Hayes — Connecticut
19. Himes — Connecticut
20. Horsford — Nevada
21. Houlahan — Pennsylvania
22. Johnson — Texas
23. Kaptur — Ohio
24. Kennedy — New York
25. Khanna — California
26. Landsman — Ohio
27. Lee — Nevada
28. Levin — California
29. Lynch — Massachusetts
30. Magaziner — Rhode Island
31. Mannion — New York
32. McBride — Delaware
33. McClain Delaney — Maryland
34. McDonald Rivet — Michigan
35. Morrison — Minnesota
36. Moskowitz — Florida
37. Panetta — California
38. Pappas — New Hampshire
39. Perez — Washington
40. Riley — New York
41. Ryan — New York
42. Salinas — Oregon
43. Scholten — Michigan
44. Schrier — Washington
45. Sewell — Alabama
46. Sherrill — New Jersey
47. Sorensen — Illinois
48. Soto — Florida
49. Stanton — Arizona
50. Subramanyam — Virginia
51. Suozzi — New York
52. Swalwell — California
53. Sykes — Ohio
54. Titus — Nevada
55. Torres — New York
56. Trahan — Massachusetts
57. Tran — California
58. Vasquez — New Mexico
59. Vindman — Virginia
60. Whitesides — California

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to skip out on Donald Trump’s inauguration, Politico reported Thursday.

A spokesperson for Pelosi told Politico that she would be joining other Democrats who planned to miss Monday’s festivities.

The decision is hardly surprising, considering that Pelosi has been a staunch critic of Trump, and the president-elect has lobbed plenty of accusations at her in response. Just earlier this week, Trump called her “guilty” in a rant about Jack Smith, possibly referring to his old accusations that she could be tried for treason for her involvement in his impeachment inquiry.

Pelosi isn’t the only one who has no interest in setting aside her disdain for Trump: Michelle Obama will also play hooky on Monday.

Several Democratic lawmakers will be similarly absent, including Representatives Ilhan Omar, Jasmine Crockett, and Ayanna Pressley, who said she would be “with my constituents honoring Dr. King’s legacy.”

Pelosi has made plenty of enemies on both sides of the aisle as she’s affixed herself as the power player of the Democratic establishment. Earlier this week, first lady Jill Biden expressed her disappointment in Pelosi, who had refused to fight for Joe Biden to stay in the presidential race. After Trump won, Pelosi blamed Trump’s victory on Biden’s insistence on prolonging his campaign. Last month, she successfully killed a bid from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive, to join the House Oversight Committee as ranking member.

President Joe Biden is suddenly looking for ways to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. market, despite the fact that he was the one to sign a law banning it in the first place.

“Americans shouldn’t expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday,” a Biden official told NBC News, noting that the administration is “exploring options” to keep TikTok from going offline.

TikTok is reportedly prepared to shut down its app on Sunday, when the ban is scheduled to take effect, though the actual language of the law technically only mandates that the platform be taken off app stores to prevent new users from downloading it.

The forty-sixth president has just two days left in office before President-elect Donald Trump takes the White House. Reinterpreting the law could save Biden’s final days atop the executive branch from being marred by the massively unpopular ban and effectively defer the issue to the MAGA leader.

The Supreme Court is poised to weigh on whether the law banning TikTok is constitutional. Trump filed a brief with the court last month, urging the bench to pass on ruling on the ban until he takes office, when his lawyers argue he could “pursue a political resolution that could obviate the Court’s need to decide these constitutionally significant questions.”

But Trump has not always been on TikTok’s side. Before he left office in 2020, Trump attempted to eradicate TikTok via an executive order. He claimed that the video-sharing platform threatened “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

Meanwhile, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will attend Trump’s inauguration, sitting on the dais alongside other Silicon Valley leaders, a Trump transition source told Axios. He will join X owner Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. All of these men have opportunistically caved to the incoming forty-seventh president’s politics since he won in November, in an apparent bid to curry the executive’s favor on the advent of a tech-centric, AI-fueled future.

Lee Zeldin, Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, struggled to answer simple questions about science during his confirmation hearing Thursday.

During his hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, ranking member Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said he intended to deliver on a promise to Zeldin to ask “really basic no-tricks questions about climate change,” and Zeldin could barely answer a single one.

“First, as a matter of law, is carbon dioxide a pollutant?” Whitehouse asked.

“As far as carbon dioxide ‘emitted’ from you during that question, I would say no,” Zeldin joked. “As far as carbon dioxide that is emitted in larger masses, that we hear concern about from scientists, as well as from Congress, that’s something that certainly needs to be focused on for the EPA.”

“And as a matter of law, it is a designated pollutant, correct?” Whitehouse pressed.

“Senator, while carbon dioxide is not named as one of the six in the Clean Air Act, the EPA has been treating it as such,” Zeldin replied. Whitehouse affirmed that the Supreme Court had determined that it is a pollutant and ought to be regulated by the EPA. Zeldin appeared to treat that standard, which has been in place since 2007, with the skepticism of a technicality.

But Whitehouse was far from done administering his pop quiz. “What effect—briefly and in layman terms, I know you’re not a scientific expert—what effect are carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion having in the atmosphere?” he asked.

“Senator, while I am someone who believes strongly that we should work with the scientists, leaving science to the scientist, the policy to the policymakers, and that we all work together,” Zeldin replied.

Moments earlier, however, Zeldin had promised to “honor” the Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision, which entails basically the exact opposite by upending a 40-year-old doctrine that required judges to defer to a federal agency (stocked with experts) when determining the meaning of any ambiguous laws that agency should try to enforce.

“I don’t sit before you as a scientist,” Zeldin continued. “Fortunately, at EPA we do have many talented scientists who provide that research. They have that talent to be able to tell us exactly what the metrics are of their research—”

“Just generally, and in layman’s terms, what effects do these carbon dioxide emissions have when they enter the atmosphere?” Whitehouse pressed, his head resting on his hand.

“Trapping—uh trapping heat, senator,” Zeldin said awkwardly.

The ranking member then asked the same question, this time about “methane leakage from fossil fuel production and transport,” to which Zeldin brilliantly replied, “Same.”

“What effect are carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion having in the oceans?”

“Well the emissions of greenhouse gases trap, trap heat, Senator,” Zeldin repeated, also offering that “rising sea levels are concerns where I’m from, as well.”

Whitehouse asked if it was correct that the trapped heat is “heating up the oceans.”

“That is what the scientists tell me, Senator,” Zeldin remarked. Always a good sign when someone is bothering to differentiate between what scientists tell you and what is “correct.”

“Have we hit the 1.5 degree risk threshold, and why is that important?” Whitehouse said.

Zeldin said that he would have to “defer to the talented scientists to be able to provide that advice on an ongoing basis.” (The Earth passed that threshold for the first time last year, a dangerous breach climate experts have been warning about for some time.)

Finally, Whitehouse asked Zeldin what he considered to be key climate or oceans “tipping points” that concerned him. Zeldin couldn’t name one, but said that there was concern about rising sea levels from both sides of the aisle, and its potential impact was evident on maps of places all across the country. How comforting.

In his opening statements, Whitehouse had flagged his concerns that Trump intends to pour millions into the pockets of billionaire fossil fuel barons, and that he hoped Zeldin would demonstrate an ability to “follow the science” and economics, as opposed to act as a “rubber stamp for looters and polluters.”