Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

How stupid are these people?

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Republicans do not trust women.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Tuesday Evening Open Thread: ‘The Bizarro White House Press Corpse’

Tuesday Evening Open Thread: ‘The Bizarro White House Press Corpse’

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A colt named Journalism is the betting favorite in this weekend's Kentucky Derby. If metaphor carries the day, that poor horse is gonna break down and get boltgunned right to hell in front of millions.

— Barry Petchesky (@barryp.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 5:11 PM

Per Will Sommer, at the Bulwark:

TWO DAYS AFTER A LISTLESS White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the Trump administration unveiled a sort of shadow White House press corps crafted in its own image.

Instead of reporters, this group was stocked with MAGA influencers. And, surprise!—they all had really friendly questions for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt…

Trump officials have been excessively cozy with social-media influencers, frequently inviting them to the White House to interview cabinet officials and creating a “new media seat” at the regular press briefing. But this latest “briefing” seemed like a test run for something bigger—perhaps a chance to ditch the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room entirely, or at least diminish it further…

Two of them were Texas conservative comedian Chad Prather and Rogan O’Handley, a sort of MAGA meme-guy who goes by the handle “DC Draino.” Both Prather and O’Handley participated in the “Epstein binders” debacle, when the Justice Department gave pro-Trump influencers a much-hyped set of Jeffrey Epstein documents that turned out mostly to contain information that was already public. So it’s no surprise that they landed on the invite list.

The list also included Emily Austin, an influencer and boxing reporter with more than 2 million Instagram followers, and Kambree Nelson, a right-wing Texas video personality. Incredibly, they were joined by Winston Marshall, a former banjoist for the band Mumford & Sons who now has a new career as a conservative podcaster.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was also there. The former Newsmax TV host (Spicer & Co. ended in 2023) even got to ask a question.

Perhaps the most interesting member of our new White House press corps is Arynne Wexler, a MAGA influencer with nearly 300,000 Instagram followers. Wexler is a chic urban Republican, and also very mean—or, as she put it in an appearance on Dave Rubin’s podcast, “if Joan Rivers and Ben Shapiro had a baby, then it would be me.”…

Leavitt appeared to love the influencer briefing.

“I could go around the room all day!” she said in closing the meeting after less than thirty minutes.

But not everyone was pleased. Once more Loomer found herself irritated. The right-wing activist wasn’t invited on Monday and still hasn’t managed to get into the “new media seat” at the regular White House briefing.

On social media, Loomer ripped into the event, complaining that it was “so unserious” and that White House press staffers have an “irrational, deep seated animosity” against true MAGA influencers.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    If Dems had done this with lefty alternative media, the regular media would obsess over the offense for weeks. And half of Dems would have agreed with them.

    I hope Dems do this next time.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    TWO DAYS AFTER A LISTLESS White House Correspondents’ Dinner,

    Killing or hobbling that horrible event, even just by accident, might well be the least-bad thing that this administration does.

  3. 3.

    matt

    checked out that Wexler broad. She’s like a less creative Ann Coulter. Same Adam’s apple.

  5. 5.

    Harrison Wesley

    I’ll take a pass on these creatures. Our Liberal Media is about all I can handle, and that in small doses.

  6. 6.

    Avalune

    Ugh.

    I received a fun letter today. I work with DHS via SAVE to verify citizenship for financial aid. Letter says Noem, USCIS, and DOGE are rolling out an all amazing new optimized database! To create a single awesomesauce reliable source for verifying citizenship!

    In return for no longer charging us fees, we get to be accomplices! “Illegal aliens have exploited outdated systems to defraud Americans and taint our elections!” This revamped system promises to swiftly verify legal status, halting entitlement and fraud! Oh lucky fucking me!

    😑

  7. 7.

    Raoul Paste

    it will be hard to spin things when the shelves are bare and prices go way up.   Lord knows they will try.
    It’s hard to be cheerful in the face of this corruption.

  8. 8.

    geg6

    Big storms came through my area just little while ago.  There was a tornado warning but thankfully no tornado, just 80 mph winds.  No electricity but it could be worse.  Seeing lots of downed trees that smashed into houses all over my FB feed, including one that missed my sister’s house by about 20 ft.

    And as far as the topic at hand, I cannot say how happy I am to see the briefing room divas being dissed, even if it’s the worst people in the world doing the dissing.

  13. 13.

    bbleh

    Gosh, you might think with all the overreaction and burning of bridges the last few days that the WH folks were starting to feel a little … edgy?

    “Two days after a dinner in an increasingly creaky aboveground venue, the Trump administration unveiled a sort of shadow press corps in the underground safety of the White House bunker…”

  15. 15.

    Steve LaBonne

    I’m not a politics knower, but this somehow doesn’t seem like the way you reach out to the general population when your approval is dropping like a rock.

  18. 18.

    Suzanne

    @geg6: Those storms were insane. A building on our block caught on fire. The scanner says that Duquesne Light is reporting 20% of the County without power.

  20. 20.

    cain

    I’ve been reading TPM’s BackChannel – and Josh has a great title to his latest screed “Trump has already lost”. I agree he has already lost.

    The last container ship from China is here and there will be no more. We are going to soon see a lot of pain. But by far, the majority of the population is against him and it’s getting worse. Hes’ still doubling down like crazy on his antics. His minions are doubling down as well. He’s losing support everywhere and it’s only been a 100 days. By summer, he’s going to tank even more.

  21. 21.

    sab

    @Avalune: Yikes! Go along to get along. That sounds vile and illegal. The fun thing about illegal enterprises is only the bottom couple of rungs get nailed.

  23. 23.

    MattF

    The concept of multiple multiversal Ann Coulters fighting each other is grimly amusing.

  25. 25.

    different-church-lady

    I’m so old I can remember when Biden couldn’t be president anymore because he was being shielded from tough press conferences.

  26. 26.

    sab

    @Baud: When I lived  in Florida in the 1960s they were so proud to finally have floride (and chlorine)  in the water. They were finally at the grownups table for state government.

  28. 28.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Baud: That’s no surprise . FL surgeon general is really squirrelly; I’m surprised RFK Jr didn’t find a spot for him at DHHS.

  38. 38.

    Citizen Dave

    But they don’t even need these media idiots. Happened to have my local nbc affiliate on tonight for weather, then Lester Dolt starts his broadcast (slightly enthusiastic voice): “100 days in and President Trump is just getting started”

    NOPE. Channel flipped.

  39. 39.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Suzanne: Turned out Medina city wasn’t actually in the warning area- everything passed south of us before the storm system broke up.

  41. 41.

    Gvg

    @Baud: I work in financial aid too. Past experience with new ways to verify applications information leads me to expect that they won’t find much if any fraud. The public has had too much faith in the competence and efficiency of our government. The dishonest mostly don’t try and the non citizens definitely don’t apply. What the government mostly finds is mistakes. Lots of silly mistakes. Lots of not following directions. We also have to investigate reports that someone else is committing fraud-whistleblowers reports, which also mostly amount to nothing. People assume things about other people without realizing it’s an assumption, or not thinking things through. Like not knowing the neighbor you are sure must have lied to get aid, has medical bills eating his income that he didn’t choose to tell you about. Or assuming they know peoples income, that was very common.
    There used to be no verification of citizenship. We could check if you were an eligible non citizen, but for a long time there was no citizenship verification. If you said you were, it was assumed to be the truth. Then we finally about 20 years ago got a link with the SS admin. I was expecting some unpleasant surprises. We are a huge university of over 50,000 student, most on aid. We caught one liar. One. Can’t imagine what implementing that system cost, but it must have been lots more than stopping one student from not very much aid. Most issues were the SS administration not having the correct data, but that’s a whole nother story. It’s also not the SSA fault. I would say Congress has not updated certain laws that it should have.

  42. 42.

    Jackie

    @Harrison Wesley:

    surgeon general is really squirrelly; I’m surprised RFK Jr didn’t find a spot for him at DHS.

    RFK Jr is waiting for DeSantis to find his equally deranged replacement…

  43. 43.

    Josie

    I sent an email to Alan Garber of Harvard University, thanking him for his courageous letter to the administration. Today, to my surprise, I received a thank you email from him. It was very gracious and totally unexpected.

  45. 45.

    Hungry Joe

    A fitting spot for a Mumford & Sons banjoist. I Iove the banjo, but (so?) I always found them deeply annoying.

  47. 47.

    gratuitous

    I see the felon closing the press room, but not notifying the legacy media. A bunch of reporters show up only to find the press room in transition to another make-up room for Pete Hegseth. One reporter turns to a buddy: “Where is the public to stand up for the free press?”

  50. 50.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    Even moreso than the White Stripes.

    Hey, Seven Nation Army slaps and is the anthem of a generation

    ETA: IMO, a few Mumford & Sons songs aren’t that bad. I remember that indie folk pop sound was really popular when I was in HS in the early 10s. A few other bands from that period I remember liking at the time were Imagine Dragons, Phoenix, and some of the shoegaze/chillwave bands like Neon Indian or M83

  53. 53.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne: ​
     

    Mumford and Sons is/are really, really irritating.

    Even moreso than the White Stripes.

    Concur on both.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “Seven Nation Army” is terrible. Shit, calling it terrible is an insult to terrible songs that I nevertheless enjoy, such as “My Humps”. Because I don’t enjoy it, even slightly. It makes me sad that I have ears.

  55. 55.

    TS

    @Avalune: I cannot stand the use of the terms “illegal aliens” Republicans appear to have started this deplorable way to describe people that they consider are less than human.

    Used to be illegal immigrants – but the GOP must have hate words to describe anyone that does not suit their description of a perfect human. Racist to the core.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    Leavitt appeared to love the influencer briefing.

    “I could go around the room all day!” she said in closing the meeting after less than thirty minutes.

     

    “This is so much better than…than…than taking questions from those mean people!” she said.

  59. 59.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TS: ​
     

    Used to be illegal immigrants

    And it used to be ‘illegal aliens’ too. Genesis (while we’re on the subject of mediocre rock/pop combos) did a song about that.

    Not saying the term isn’t deplorable, just saying that the Rethugs didn’t just now invent it out of thin air.

  60. 60.

    TS

    @Raoul Paste:

    Read the washington post today – they are spinning everything this admin does as standard, normal government. We even have all the reasons why Hegseth just had to use an insecure messaging system.  They ranted about  “but her emails” for 4 years – but with Hegseth is it understandable.

    Then we have the fabulous rally in Michigan – which should end the political life of Whitmer, the USPS helping find immigrants to be deported, trump praising Bezos etc etc etc

    When prices go up they will blame Canada, Mexico and Chinal – they won’t blame this administration.

  61. 61.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TS: “Illegal aliens” is old–it was the most common term for undocumented immigrants back in the 1970s and ’80s; a lot of news organizations stopped using it because it was dehumanizing. This is a lot like all the other “anti-woke” efforts to revitalize old creaky slurs.

  62. 62.

    TS

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I know it’s been around well before the current admin – I have no idea when it started, but as you say it is deplorable. It seems the GOP love to use it to dehumanise people so what they are doing is acceptable – getting rid of aliens, rather than disappearing people off the street.

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Mumford and Sons had one really cool song and recorded it several dozen times.

    (Yeah, they did that one album that sounded different, turns out they’re not that good without that sound.)

    The White Stripes, though, I unreasonably love even though Jack White seems to be a complete dope.

  64. 64.

    Librettist

    Teamsters are up next on the get screwed by Trump block.

    So sorry boss O’Brien, you got outbid by Jeff Bezos. Enjoy your stay in club fed, ya jamoke.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @TS:

    That’s not supported by polling on myriad subjects re: Trump administration, unless by “they” you mean the core dead-end MAGAts then I agree with you. Many of them probably won’t ever blame the admin. But most people will. And they’re already mad that the admin hasn’t worked on bringing down the cost of living like Trump promised on the campaign trail.

    Trump is underwater on even immigration, which is supposed to be his “strength”. A lot of people aren’t responding well to ICE’s and Stephen Miller’s WH actions. They find it cruel and wrong, not to mention dangerous. Hell, Rogan a few weeks back was telling his audience that what happened to Abrego Garcia is dangerous and could lead to very bad consequences when due process is denied. If they can do it to him, they can do it to anyone

    ETA: Also, see cain’s comment at #20

  66. 66.

    Bill Arnold

    @RevRick:
    Wild!
    Poked briefly. I didn’t spot a full text of this (not even sci-hub), but here’s the abstract:
    Toothaches and death (J Hist Dent, 1999 Mar, J H Clarke)

    Abstract
    Deaths from dental abscesses today are so rare, that it is difficult to fathom that only 200 years ago, this was a leading cause of death. When the London (England) Bills of Mortality began listing the causes of death in the early 1600’s, “teeth” were continually listed as the fifth or sixth leading cause of death. (This does not include the category of “Teething” which was probably erroneously blamed for many children’s deaths. As we examine several historic factors of this period, it is apparent that the number of deaths attributed to “teeth” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was probably fairly accurate, and it was not antibiotics, nor the discovery of asepsis, that brought about the dramatic reduction in these dental mortalities, but two much earlier dental innovations.

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    @TS:When prices go up they will blame Canada, Mexico and Chinal – they won’t blame this administration.

    true

    I’m just wondering what they’ll do when their all-powerful Orangemandias can’t actually *do* anything to make prices come down, or have goods show up on store shelves?

  69. 69.

    azlib

    @cain:

    I agree that Trump has already lost.  Does not mean the pain will not get worse and there is a lot of damage already done. We also all need to keep up the presure.

  70. 70.

    geg6

    @Suzanne:

    Sorry, gotta go with Goku here.  And “My Humps”?!?!?!?!  Seriously?!?!?!?!  Jack and Meg are talented musicians, even if you don’t like their style.  Jack especially.  But Fergie?!?!?!  Cut me a break.  It’s an affront to any musician, songwriter and producer to prefer that song to anything.  It’s heinous.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    My god, people!  Mike Fucking Peters died today and you fuckers are talking about My Humps.  What is wrong with you?

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Chetan Murthy: No, I am sorry.  Somethings are objectively wrong.

    ETA:  God help me, but this would one of the few times Steve in the WTF would be useful.

  81. 81.

    Suzanne

    @geg6: Jack White is more annoying than Fergie, and Fergie is annoying!

    I don’t like the Eagles, either. For much the same reason.

  82. 82.

    Lyrebird

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Wow, RIP.

    And yes I have the vinyl of that somewhere…

    FWIW I always think of “My Humps” as Exhibit A of modern songs w/female vocalists who definitely did not write it.  Too much use of “lumps”.  I double-checked, Will.I.Am indeed wrote it, not Fergy.  I am sure Will does not get mammograms.

    Sorry not super coherent here.

    Thanks for The Alarm rememberances.

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I think I may have asked you this a few years back, but since you’re a Dead Kennedys fan, what’s your favorite album?

    As much as I like quite a few songs on Plastic Surgery Disasters, I thought their peak was Frankenchrist, with Bedtime for Democracy a close second

    So many bangers with hilarious lyrics on those two

    I can’t say I have an absolute favorite song from Frankenchrist. It’s a tie between Stars and Stripes of Corruption, Goons of Hazzard, Jock-O-Rama, and This Could Be Anywhere

    From Bedtime, Rambozo the Clown. They skewer 80s pop culture of time, but it’s interesting how much they seemed to hate and distrust video games, especially compared to how they’re viewed these days (and really the last 20-30 years)

    Back in the late 00s and early 10s, conservative doofuses like Jack Thompson were the face of the “anti-video game” movement, for lack of a better term, so it’s interesting to see a leftist critique of them

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s a good album too. Moon Over Marin is particularly good. It’s too bad that the only songs most people seem to know, not just from that album but DK in general, is California Uber Alles and Holiday in Cambodia, the ones where they shit on liberals

  88. 88.

    Queen of Lurkers

    @TS: The word “alien” is part of immigration legalese. A so-called green card holder is a “resident alien.” International students are in the “non-resident alien” category.

  89. 89.

    RaflW

    The more the Trump court becomes a circle of jerks, freaks and (ugh) influencers all playing jester to Trump’s total lack of humor, much less ability or even his past cunning, the more surprised they’ll all be when it collapses around them. And I now think it will.

    The damage between now and then will be real, and lasting, and for some it will be ultimate. I won’t pretend things will not get much worse. But the need to build this now, 100 days in when the Trump WH could have ridden the Biden economy as if it were their own horse, suggests they know they’re failing, and failing badly.

    Lindsey Graham’s insanely embarrassing “Trump can be Pope!” tweet was the fetid frosting on this shitcake of a day.

  92. 92.

    cmorenc

    @Steve LaBonne: Trump, his Heritage Foundation minions and Musk assumed they could blitzkreig-seize and impregnably cement their power and agenda notwithstanding public approval over the next two years and midterm elections in 2026.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @cmorenc: It remains to be seen whether they were wrong or right. They’re losing popular support, but suppose elections are so fucked up that we actually have to mount a revolution to get rid of them? Suppose it’s no longer a question of a political campaign but a question of dealing with the actual Army rolling on us with tanks and machine guns. Do we have it in us?

  94. 94.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @cain:

    I am not disagreeing with that argument, but I would suggest we wait & see. The American public has reacted to things the way we reasonably expected them to react. The asshole who fucked up the COVID response is preferred over the guy who handled it competently. That same asshole incited a violent attack on the congress and he was rewarded for it by being put back in power.

    If & when things get difficult due to that assholes tariffs, they are just as likely to back him as abandon him. He channels the anger of really stupid people & I’m afraid those people outnumber the rest of us.

  95. 95.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    That’s not what the polling indicates from what I understand. He’s lost the support of a majority on his handling of the economy already and that’s before the worst has happened. During his first term, until COVID, he had always enjoyed majority support for the economy under him.

  96. 96.

    sab

    1 am and my neighbor’s car has started quietly honking outside our bedroom window. I don’t think she is even home. It seems to be a malfunction of some sort. She doesn’t get home until the bar closes at 2:30.

    Gonna be a long night. Trying to stop spouse from attacking it with a baseball bat. That won’t help at all. He is sick and needs his sleep.

    Ten minutes so far. Honk honk honk. Like the quiet beeps when it is started remotely. At some point the battery has to die.

  98. 98.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    : @Josie: that is uplifting news to me for what exact reason I cannot identify yet.  Thank you for writing and thank you to Harvard’s Alan Garber for replying.  That news made my evening better.

     

    @Josie:

  101. 101.

    sab

    @eclare: It stopped at 1:30. I think her brother drives her, and then drops her off at home after the bar closes

    ETA Well we are wide awake now.

  103. 103.

    NobodySpecial

    Villago was right. The press can go hang from McCain’s tire swing for all I care.

  105. 105.

    TS

    @Jeffro:

    We’ve already seen what they do when prices don’t come down – the media stops talking about it. Seen anything recently about the price of eggs? I have no idea why they are falling down in front of trum, but other than a couple of opinion programs I have seen few news items calling him for what he is. Fortunately the PM of Canada and much of the rest of the world sees the reality or trump.

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