Today in Politics, Bulletin 79. 2/25/25 Ron Filipkowski Feb 26 ∙ … WH Press Sec Karoline Leavitt notified reporters that she will decide who gets to attend briefings from now on: "For decades a group of DC based journalists, the White House Correspondents' Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore." … Jacqui Heinrich, Senior WH Correspondent for Fox: “This move does not give the power back to the people - it gives power to the White House. The WHCA is democratically elected by the full-time WH press corps. WHCA has determined pools for decades because only representatives FROM our outlets can determine resources all those outlets have - such as staffing - in order to get the President's message out to the largest possible audience, no matter the day or hour.” … At yesterday’s briefing, 10 of the 18 reporters Leavitt called on were from pro-Trump right-wing outlets: Marge Greene’s boyfriend Brian Glenn from Real America’s Voice, Daniel Baldwin from OAN, and Chris Pavlovski from Rumble among others. … NYT columnist Peter Baker: “Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin's reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access. The message is clear. Given that the WH has already kicked one news organization out of the pool because of coverage it does not like, it is making certain everyone else knows that the rest of us can be barred too if the president does not like our questions or stories.” … Leavitt was emboldened to make this move after a judge denied AP’s request for a temporary restraining order when they were banned for refusing to use Gulf of America. The standard for a TRO is that you must show “irreparable harm” if it isn’t granted immediately. It was denied on that basis, not the merits of the case. The case is still pending, and the Trump-appointed judge indicated that the WH targeting one news organization was “problematic,” and said that the case law “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.” … AP Spokesperson Lauren Easton: “We look forward to our next hearing on March 20, where we will continue to stand for the right of the press and the public to speak freely without government retaliation. This is a fundamental American freedom.” … Trump’s psycho DC US Attorney Ed Martin, who is currently investigating people for saying mean things about Elon and DOGE, issued this statement: “As President Trump’s lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president and we are vigilant in standing against entities like AP that refuse to put America first.” … The DC US Attorneys Office is not Trump’s personal law firm. No US Attorney in the history of this country has ever made a statement like that. … Steve Morris from The Recount weighed in on the criminal investigation of Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL): “A married Republican congressman has been having an affair for a year. That woman called police and told them he assaulted her and allowed them to listen as he ‘instructed her to lie’ about her injuries' origin. Upon police arrival, she showed them bruises that the officers called ‘fresh’. The woman recanted her story after being told he would be arrested. The DC police nonetheless sent a warrant for his arrest. The US Attorney's office that today proclaimed itself ‘President Trump's lawyers’ refused to sign it.” … Ranking Dem on House Oversight Rep. Gerry Connolly announced he is launching an investigation of Martin for "potential abuse of public office” by launching political investigations: "I am deeply concerned that your ‘Operation Whirlwind’ and associated activities that you are undertaking may violate the 1st Amendment and chill legitimate political expression. They also raise the concern that you are using your office to carry out Musk’s goal to silence media and other commentators who criticize him or DOGE." … Leavitt was asked about a report that migrants who were in Guantanamo Bay were shackled and placed in cages and said they were not treated as human beings. Leavitt: “It’s a promise the President campaigned on.” … Lawfare reported on the injunction hearing that was just held on DOGE’s access to sensitive Treasury data: Judge Kollar-Kotelly: “Is there an administrator of DOGE at the present time?” Trump Admin Lawyer Humphreys: “I don’t know the answer to that.” Judge: “You don’t know whether there is an administrator?” Humphreys: “I’m saying I don’t know. Judge to whole counsel table: “OK, everyone at the table over there speak up if you know anything? The Counsel Table: Silence. … Leavitt, who repeated today that this would be the “most transparent admin in history”, was asked who is the DOGE Administrator since they are denying in court that Musk is running it: “I'm not going to reveal the name of that individual from this podium.” … Shortly after the briefing was over, the WH told CBS news that Amy Gleason is now officially the DOGE Administrator. The first reaction of everyone was: Who? She appears to just be some random staffer whose name was pulled out of a hat. When CBS contacted her for comment, she was in Mexico and had apparently just learned about her big promotion. … After Musk was slapped down by Trump’s own Cabinet officials on his email ultimatum to federal employees demanding that they justify their worth to him, he was sulking and making one deranged post after another about it for hours: “They will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.” … NOTUS reported that Musk made 4,246 posts on X in the past 30 days. That is 141 posts per day. … AP reported that 21 civil servants who refused to help Musk “dismantle critical public services” announced they were resigning to protest his actions: “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” … WaPo reports that over 230,000 Canadians have signed a parliamentary petition to revoke Elon Musk's citizenship and passport. The petition says that Musk has "engaged in activities that go against the national interest of Canada” and has “become a member of a foreign government that is attempting to erase Canadian sovereignty.” Musk has dual citizenship. … Lots of controversy about Rep. Dan Crenshaw exploding over the last 24 hours after he was asked at the end of an interview with British GBN if he has ever met Tucker Calson. He responded: “We’ve talked a lot on Twitter. If I ever meet him, I’ll fucking kiII him. I’m not joking. He’s the worst person.” … Marge Greene was not happy: “Dan Crenshaw, did you threaten to kill my friend Tucker Carlson? Crenshaw denied it to Marge, then they produced the video showing he did. … Tucker on Crenshaw: “He’s out of control. And I think that he’s a really volatile person. I hope he gets help. I mean that.” … Rep. Mark Alford went on CNN to discuss being booed and heckled by constituents at his town hall: “This is serious business and that’s why I went and faced the people who don’t want me in office, and some I think who wanted to do me harm. That’s why we had a SWAT team and many police there.” … What a baby. Had to bring a SWAT team to talk to his constituents. … Alford then claimed that it was some kind of Antifa ambush: “This was brought about by outside agitators and some people from outside of our district, not our constituents. OK, some were constituents, let me make that very clear. Some were our constituents.” … After he also dealt with angry constituents at a town hall, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) told CNN the he is going to talk to Musk to urge him to show more compassion on DOGE cuts and mass firings. McCormick said he also intends to talk to Trump about it. … Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), who also dealt with irate constituents, told CNN that the main problem is people just hate Musk: “I’ve not heard anyone say they don’t want to cut anything. It’s just that they don’t like Elon. That it.” … Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) to CNN: “I’ve seen some rash decisions come out of DOGE. I understand the need to find inefficiencies, but we need to do it in a responsible way so we don’t have unintended consequences. What we saw last week when we saw the rash decision to fire people, and take away grants from the CDC, the 9/11 health care program, we had to go to the WH and get that reversed.” … Some House Republicans continue to claim that the protests and complaints from people at their town halls are being organized and instigated by Democrats. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) to CNN: “Democrats are soliciting sob stories from bloated bureaucrats with 6 figure salaries. Give me a break.” … Sen. Tammy Duckworth: “Trump's VA fired an additional 1,400 workers—on top of the over 1,000 fired earlier this month. There are no ‘non-critical’ VA positions when it comes to ensuring Veterans receive the care they've earned. Another betrayal. Another middle-finger. Another promise broken.” … Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: “Musk and Trump are flooding the zone to create a sense of invincibility and inevitably. But the reality is, we're winning in court. They're losing over and over and over again. There’s been a forceful pushback. And that, of course, will continue. The congressional battles will continue. And the mobilization in the communities will continue.” … While discussing Musk’s email demand for federal employees to provide 5 bullet points of what they accomplished this week, Fox host Jesse Watters asked Alina Habba what her biggest accomplishment was this week were: “I think my biggest one is top secret, so I can’t say it.” … Fox host Laura Ingraham: “How are Democrats going to win elections? By trying to gin up sympathy for federal workers who need to get real jobs in the real world?” … AOC: “Tom Homan has been trying to threaten me with DOJ investigations. My response to that is, bring it on. The constitution is clear. The law is clear. The reason why they are doing this is to get us to censor ourselves.” … Rep. Jasmine Crockett was asked on the steps of the Capitol today if she could say one thing to Musk’s face, what would it be? Crockett: “Fuck off.” … Mike Johnson is having a difficult time getting his people on board for his budget resolution. Multiple media outlets have reported at various times that Republicans Spartz, Davidson, Massie, Burchett, Crane, Van Drew, and Ogles are either definite ‘no’ votes or leaning no, and Johnson can only lose one vote if all Dems show up on the floor. … Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: "Let me be clear, House Democrats will not provide a single vote to this reckless Republican budget. Not one. They will not get a single Democratic vote. Why? Because we are voting with the American people." … CNN’s Manu Raju spoke to several Republican Reps today. Tim Burchett: “If we just turn right around and give more money to the war pimps at the Pentagon, I don't see that as any savings whatsoever.” … Andy Ogles: “I don't think the votes are there. I’m currently a lean no.” … Eli Crane: “It doesn’t have enough cuts.” … Rep. Tim Burchett to OAN: “This bunch up here is fairly gutless. We got about 150 days before they start stabbing the president in the back. They’ll find a way to sabotage him.” … Raju: “And this is supposed to be the easy part — passing the budget resolution. They still have to draft the legislative text once the budget resolution passes and is adopted by both chambers.” … WaPo reported that Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) called Trump to express his concerns that the budget plan would require huge Medicaid cuts. He reminded Trump that he promised during the campaign that Medicaid would not be touched: “Don't touch seniors’ Medicare, and don't cut Medicaid, because it isn't just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people. That's the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue collar people.” … Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH): The focus of their spending bill is on the uber-wealthy. They plan to waste trillions on tax giveaways to Musk and other billionaire donors. To pay for it, they’re going to add trillions to the deficit and debt AND cut nearly $1T in healthcare for children and seniors. Absolutely nuts. Reminder that there is no Bulletin tomorrow since that is when I do my live podcast Uncovered at 4:00 PM where we do a deeper dive into the Top 10 stories of the week. You can find it on YouTube or a link will be posted on Substack tomorrow. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can read it here. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. … Landsman: “Republicans want to pass a $4.5 TRILLION dumpster fire of a bill. To pay for it, they are willing to purge millions from their healthcare by making huge cuts to Medicaid. And adding trillions in deficit spending. Healthcare, nutrition, education, energy, environment, public safety, and more would also be cut. Instead, spending goes to people like Elon Musk - the richest man on Earth. … “People want to know what they can do right now. Those in power, this Republican- controlled Congress, need to hear how MASSIVELY unpopular their spending plan is. They need to hear from you.” … Sen. Chris Murphy on Johnson: “Maybe he's having trouble finding the votes because the bill kicks millions off their health care, strips insurance from sick kids, and closes hospitals - just to fund a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations, and that's the most asinine unpopular idea like ever.” … One issue for Dems if the vote is held tonight or tomorrow is that several people are absent right now from DC. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) gave birth a month ago, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has been missing votes as he undergoes cancer treatments, and Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-CA) is dealing with complications from knee surgery. … Rep. Tom Malinowski responded to Kevin O’Leary’s claim that what Musk is doing is necessary since the govt hasn’t been audited for 100 years: “It helps to know some things if we’re going to have this debate. Every agency of the federal government is audited by independent Inspectors General every year. But one of the first things that Trump and Musk did was fire the Inspectors General. … Right-wing author Hans Mahncke is not happy that Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is turning their big JFK assassination investigation into an Instagram reality show: “Ms. Luna is burning through a lot of goodwill with this endless ‘tick tock’ routine. Whoever told her this was great for brand building and engagement was dead wrong—it’s a massive net negative. She’d earn far more respect by just releasing everything at once.” … Fellow conspiracy theoriest Michael Flynn agreed with Mahncke: “RELEASE EVERYTHING AT ONCE. WE DON’T NEED A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE, WE NEED FULL TRANSPARENCY FROM THE GOVT!” … Luna responded: “Hey, General Flynn. You of all people would know that I nor the committee have any declassification authority. The declassification approval is done by WALTZ, TULSI, BONDI, and WH Counsel. You know this. WE do need transparency but we ALSO NEED PEOPLE LIKE YOU PUTTING OUT CORRECT INFO.” … Putting out correct info isn’t exactly Flynn’s strong suit. Luna’s either. So it’s the blind leading the blind. … U.S. consumer confidence index dropped 7 points in today’s report, the biggest monthly decline since August 2021. Average 12-month inflation expectations jumped to 6% from 5.2% in February. … Senior economist Stephanie Guichard with The Conference Board: "References to inflation and prices in general continue to rank high in write-in responses, but the focus shifted towards other topics. There was a sharp increase in the mentions of trade and tariffs, back to a level unseen since 2019. Most notably, comments on the current Administration and its policies dominated the responses." … Former senior FBI official Christopher O’Leary told NBC that podcast host Dan Bongino’s appointment could be even worse than Kash Patel’s since the Dep. Director oversees day to day operations and handles the most sensitive intelligence in the govt: “This is beyond problematic. Any hope that Kash could be steered by having experienced leaders around him is out the window. We now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.” … Politico reports that a group of military contractors, including former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, has pitched the Trump WH on a $25 billion proposal to privatize deportations using their companies. The plan would use “processing camps” on military bases, 100 private planes, and a “small army” of private citizens who would be given the power to arrests and detain suspected migrants. … Their 26-page proposal, which was obtained by Politico, argued that it is impossible for ICE to find, apprehend, and deport 12 million people in two years like Trump promised during his campaign, but their mercenary agents would be able to get it done for the bargain price of $25 billion. … Sen. Bill Cassidy, who cast a pivotal vote to confirm RFK Jr to HHS, was asked by CNN if he is alarmed that Kennedy postponed a meeting of the CDC's advisory panel on vaccine policy. "So far it's only been one meeting and I'd rather wait to see his rationale for it. It's only one meeting that's been postponed and I don't think we should draw too much from that." … Well, RFK Jr. certainly hasn’t given us any reason to doubt him about this. I’m sure it will all be fine. If not, Cassidy is on it. … RFK Jr’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan went on Russell Brand’s podcast and said she is considering a run for Governor of CA. … During his meeting with French President Macron yesterday, Trump had something unusual going on with his hand, which we have seen before on a few occasions during his campaign. … Rachel Maddow choked up last night talking about her friend Joy Reid being fired by MSNBC: “That is very, very, very hard to take. I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12 and I have had so many different kinds of jobs, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But in all of the jobs I have had in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid.” … “I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC, and I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door. It is not my call and I understand that. It is also unnerving to see that on a network where we’ve got 2 - count them - 2 nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible. And I do not defend it.” … Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann: “Now 5 different anchors of color dismissed/canceled. An MSNBC purge so brutally racist it makes you think it was done by Musk. Joy Reid, Wagner; now Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Mohyeldin.” … Jen Psaki will now host the 9 PM hour, and Ali Velshi’s weekend show will be expanded to 3 hours. … CNN’s Kaitlyn Collins asked Trump’s former NSA John Bolton if Trump’s refusal to call out Putin is just part of his negotiating strategy: “I think it's an indication that his mind is full of mush. He believes Vladimir Putin is his friend. You don't call your friends dictators. This is somebody who is not fit to be president. He can’t tell America’s friends from its enemies.” … Bolton on the US voting with in the UN yesterday: “That vote in the UN was a clear marker. We are on the path out of NATO. Trump has already done enormous damage to the NATO alliance. Almost every time he talks about Ukraine, he does more. But that vote with all of our allies on one side supporting Ukraine and condemning Russia's unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, with us on the side of Russia and N. Korea and and countries like that, that shows the NATO alliance is badly split already. At this point you take too many more steps like that, the actual withdrawal is just a formality.” … Nikki Haley: “America has always been a pillar of freedom and democracy. We have to have the moral clarity to know the difference between good and evil and right and wrong. We can’t blur those lines. We must choose a side, and it should never be the side of dictators.” … Nikki Haley has had less moral clarity since 2016 of any political figure in American history. … JD Vance, jealous that his boss Trump loves Musk more, posted another ridiculous statement on X to get noticed by the Cult Leader: “So much of American diplomacy has become pure performance - an obsession with saying this or that. The reason the failed establishment hates President Trump is because he chooses his words carefully and, more importantly, is much more focused on doing.” … SecDef Pete Hegseth announced that he has hired two right-wing social media influencers/podcast, who will apparently run a “Rapid Reaction” social media page on X to troll the libs, among other things. Defense One reports that podcaster Graham Allen will serve as DOD’s ‘Digital Media Director’: “I have been asked by the president and by Sec Hegseth to serve my country again, and come to DC specifically to help with the Pentagon side of things. And that’s all I’m going to get into there.” … Social media influencer Sean Parnell, who ran for congress in PA and lost, was announced as Hegseth’s Assistant for Public Affairs. Hegseth said these newly created positions are necessary to help him “communicate directly, rather than through the filter of media outlets.” … Vivek Ramaswamy made his announcement for Governor of Ohio, and Trump endorsed him immediately: “I know him well, competed against him, and he is something SPECIAL. He’s Young, Strong, and Smart! Vivek is also a very good person, who truly loves our Country. He has my COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT!” … Vivek said as Governor he will bring back 1970s-style insane asylums: "We are going to bring back the psychiatric institutions that were wrongfully shuttered. This is a touchy subject, but I'm going to go there. I'm going to go there because it's the right place to go." … GA Republican party district official Kandiss Taylor, who ran for Governor of Georgia against Brian Kemp on a campaign platform of ‘Jesus, Guns and Babies’, announced that she is running for Congress for the seat that may soon be vacated Buddy Carter. I spoke with Kandiss today who told me that she believes Buddy is about to announce that he is running for the Senate against Jon Ossoff. … I also asked Kandiss if she is going to revive the ‘Jesus, Guns and Babies’ campaign slogan: “We will see what God says.”