Karoline Leavitt Let Pro-Kremlin Conspiracist Into Press Briefing

The White House has officially opened its doors to a website accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt welcomed Zero Hedge’s Liam Cosgrove to the new media seat Monday—who predictably proceeded to relay conspiracy theories when given an opportunity to ask the first question at the morning press briefing.

Zero Hedge is a financial blog started under a pen name by Bulgarian-born former investment banker Daniel Ivandjiiski, and has been accused by U.S. intelligence officials of publishing articles crafted by Moscow-controlled media. The site has also spread conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, and circulated fake quotes from politicians. The site amassed a large alt-right (now mainstream) audience, including racists, antisemites, and conspiracy theorists. Now it’s being granted an even larger platform and preferential treatment from the White House.

Cosgrove asked two questions. The first was about whether Donald Trump planned to stop “financing foreign wars” in Ukraine and Gaza, during which Cosgrove managed to laud Trump and take a shot at Joe Biden. The second was about an old conspiracy theory resurfaced by the president himself.

“So, over the weekend, President Trump posted [on] Truth Social, a video highlighting what most people call the ‘Clinton body count,’” Cosgrove said. “Which is the strange number of suicides that seem to happen in Clinton circles—”

As Cosgrove spoke, Leavitt was visibly holding back a smile.

Cosgrove took issue with reporting from The Washington Post that Trump’s Truth Social post had amplified “false” conspiracy theories. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the video shared by the president, Cosgrove raised the apparent suicide of Mark Middleton, a former aide to President Bill Clinton who had been a point of contact between the White House and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as his own evidence of the “Clinton body count.”

“That’s just a lead-in to my question about the most famous Clinton-related suicide, which is that of Jeffrey Epstein. There’s still a lot of questions about the Epstein files—” Cosgrove continued, asking whether the White House planned to release information that would connect Epstein’s trafficking activities to intelligence agencies, “even potentially as part of a blackmail ring with potential ties to the Israeli government.”

In a classic Leavitt nonanswer, she said that more information about Epstein would be released soon because Attorney General Pam Bondi had said she would release more information soon.

The White House opened up its briefing room to “new media” in January and has made way for a revolving door of professional journalists, podcasters, and influencers. This crowd has inevitably included several MAGA talking heads, including content creators from Breitbart, the right-wing video platform Rumble, BreakingPoints, the Daily Wire, former Newsmax host Mark Halperin, and the right-wing substack Washington Reporter.

Republicans in the House Budget Committee passed Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on their second try late Sunday, advancing his 2017 tax cuts for multimillionaires and corporations closer to the House floor.

And by Monday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was plainly lying about the impact of the forthcoming legislation.

“Is the president OK with this bill adding to the deficit?” a reporter asked.

“This bill does not add to the deficit. In fact, according to the Council of Economic Advisers, this bill will save $1.6 trillion, and the president absolutely understands and hears the concerns of fiscal conservatives and of Americans who want to get our fiscal house in order,” Leavitt responded.

“That’s what the intention of this bill is. There’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill,” she continued. “That’s the largest savings for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history.”

Where Leavitt acquired that number is not clear, but other, non-administration-related estimates say otherwise.

Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and multimillionaires is estimated to add trillions to the national deficit. The reconciliation bill’s final deficit price tag has yet to be determined, but last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released a report indicating that the proposal was expected to add somewhere between $3.8 trillion and $5.3 trillion to the national deficit over the next 10 years. As of the time of publishing, the U.S. deficit is currently at $36.8 trillion.

To offset the hike, Republicans proposed cutting $880 billion from Medicaid by way of adding work requirements and booting undocumented immigrants off the public health coverage program (undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive Medicaid, though lifesaving care under EMTALA can be covered by emergency Medicaid).

To alleviate the whopping deficit growth, the bill also didn’t follow through on things that Trump had promised to his base, such as stripping taxes from tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits.

The bill initially stalled Friday due to a far-right flank in the committee that remained skeptical of adding such a significant sum to the national debt. In a statement prior to the vote, Representative Chip Roy—who voted “no” last week but flipped his vote to “present” on Sunday—said that the bill fell “profoundly short.”

Stephen Miran, the chair of the Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, is possibly best known for his plan to correct the U.S. deficit by weakening the dollar—something he’s dubbed the “Mar-a-Lago Accord.” Miran, a Harvard-trained economist, has other controversial theories that have made him an outlier among his peers.

In addition to his dollar-weakening stratagem, Miran has been a vocal proponent of Trump’s tariff plan, pitting him against dozens of Nobel Prize–winning economists who have warned since Election Day that the MAGA leader’s stiff tariff increases and tax cuts would spell disaster for the average American.

Columnists have labeled Trump’s bill the second coming of Reagonomics, promising to slash taxes for the wealthy while leaving the rest of the U.S. population to scramble for the trickle-down, a wealth distribution theory that economists, think tanks, and newspapers have concluded doesn’t “hold up.”

CBS News CEO Wendy McMahon announced Monday that she is resigning from her position.

She is the second executive to quit in opposition to the network considering settling a $20 billion defamation lawsuit from President Trump over bogus allegations over how an episode with Kamala Harris was edited before the 2024 election. Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, was the first. 

“Championing and supporting the journalism produced by the most amazing stations and bureaus in the world, celebrating the successes of our shows and our brands, elevating our stories and our people.... It has been a privilege and joy,” McMahon wrote in a statement to CBS employees. “At the same time, the past few months have been challenging. It’s become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward. It’s time for me to move on and for this organization to move forward with new leadership.”

That “path forward” seems to involve capitulating to Trump.

Trump has been particularly aggressive towards the media in his second term, and one massive network has already fallen in line out of fear. In December, ABC News agreed to settle a $15 million Trump defamation lawsuit that legal experts think they could have won.  

Now, the Trump administration is set on making CBS heel. Last month, the president threatened to use the FCC against the network. 

“They should lose their license! Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as headed by its Highly Respected Chairman, Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior,” Trump posted. “CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

This story has been updated.

The MAGA fringes still very badly want “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself” to be a thing.

On Sunday, Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo grilled FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the far-right conspiracy that the wealthy sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein didn’t commit suicide but was killed in prison in 2019 to prevent him from incriminating the Clintons and other world leaders.

“You said Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. People don’t believe it,” Bartiromo said bluntly to Patel on the Sunday show.

“Well, listen, they have a right to their opinion. But as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who’s been in that prison system, who’s been in that metropolitcal detention center, who’s been in segregated housing—you know a suicide when you see one,” Patel replied. “And that’s what that was.”

“He killed himself,” Bongino chimed in. “I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

Those answers led to some grumblings on Truth Social.

“Ok ‘he committed suicide’ so can you explain why the cameras were shut off during that ‘suicide,’” one poster pondered. “He was on suicide watch, and the guards just left. How dumb do you take the American people to be? There are No coincidences.”

“Ok let’s recap, one [of] the most secure detention centers, guards fell asleep, cameras didn’t work, medical examiner stated that the neck injury wasn’t consistent with a suicide, but now you want us to believe that it was, what a crock!” wrote another disappointed MAGA acolyte. “I’m seriously disappointed in Bongino and Kash.”

On Monday, the Epstein question was brought up again at White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s briefing, this time by Liam Cosgrove, a “reporter” for the far-right conspiracy website ZeroHedge.

Cosgrove began his question by referring to a video Trump posted on Truth Social peddling a conspiracy theory accusing Bill and Hillary Clinton of murdering their political rivals and covering them up as suicides.

“That’s just a lead-in to my question about the most famous Clinton-related suicide, which is that of Jeffrey Epstein,” Cosgrove said. “There’s still a lot of questions around that case. You’ve released phase one of the Epstein files; what was missing from that was any connection to his ties to intelligence agencies, and that’s really the whole story—not just trafficking young girls, doing it on behalf of intelligence agencies and even potentially as part of a blackmail ring with potential ties to the Israeli government. So for phase two, when can we expect it? Will it have information pertaining to those aspects of the Epstein case?”

Leavitt sidestepped the question completely. “I would [refer] you to the Department of Justice on [Attorney General Pam Bondi’s] timeline,” she replied.

While Epstein’s long history of sexual abuse and the powerful connections he maintained (like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump) are deeply disturbing, it’s clear that this prime MAGA theory is beyond logic. They couldn’t care less about the numerous victims. For them, it’s the Clintons who killed Epstein because they’re pedophiles, and Trump should investigate and expose the entire Democratic Party for being pedophiles too. That’s why they won’t take no for an answer.

Vice President JD Vance has reportedly decided to skip visiting Israel on Tuesday due to the country launching a massive operation to expand its massacre in Gaza.

Axios, citing a senior U.S. official, reported Monday that Vance didn’t want to visit Israel because he didn’t want his trip to indicate that the Trump administration was endorsing Israel’s expanded operation at the same time that the White House is trying to push for a ceasefire and hostage deal. Officially, Vance says that “logistical” issues prevent the trip from taking place.

But Vance’s snub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coupled with President Donald Trump’s decision not to visit Israel during his Middle East trip last week, suggest that the White House isn’t happy with Netanyahu’s decisions regarding Gaza right now. Netanyahu is stubbornly refusing any agreements to end Israel’s 19-month war on the Palestinian territory, which has caused a human rights catastrophe.

White House envoy Steve Witkoff has been pressing Israel and Hamas to accept an updated proposal for a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza. But Israel has begun mobilizing troops for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which would forcibly displace two million Palestinians from the territory in a shocking display of ethnic cleansing.

For now, Israel has resumed allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza after two months, responding to pressure from the Trump administration and Europe. Trump even said last week that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza, a rare acknowledgment of the humanitarian crisis Israel has caused in the territory.

That crisis only continues to worsen as Israel now seeks to begin wider ground operations in Gaza. More than 53,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since October 2023, which is very likely an undercount, with nearly 3,200 killed since Israel resumed airstrikes in March, following a brief ceasefire. This doesn’t include people dying due to famine and starvation caused by Israel’s aid restrictions. It’s going to take a lot more than a missed visit to end the onslaught.