A great deal of mirth and ribbing has been directed at CNN’s Jake Tapper in recent days over his co-authoring of a tell-all blockbuster book about how awful he and his colleagues are at their jobs.

But last week, during one of his approximately 27 million TV appearances to hawk, ‘Original Sin,’ the book on the Biden administration’s lies that he dashed off with Axios’ Alex Thompson as soon as the 2024 election was over, Tapper said something that was so close to really understanding his subject and his job that it almost hurt.

Appearing on CBS News, Tapper said, ‘So, there were people reporting on what they saw. The conservative media was, to their credit, all over this. Now, they didn’t have insider information, but they were just making sense of all the clips, and all of the weird moments, and off-putting moments.’

What Tapper misses here is that conservative media didn’t get it right in regard to Joe Biden’s obvious and abject unfitness for office in spite of not having insider information, they got it right because they were not relying on insider information.

In Tapper’s twisted view of journalism, and it is one widely shared, the evidence we see with our own eyes is not sufficient. Instead, it isn’t news until some whistleblower spills the beans, which puts all the power in the hands of sources.

Since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, everything has to be a Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein-style scoop. A story isn’t real without some turncoat in the administration, even though they, too, have agendas.

Obviously, the big problem here is that all of Tapper and Thompson’s sources spent years deceiving them and the American people, but now, suddenly, we are expected to believe everything these same serial liars say.

Sorry. Not happening. 

Let’s take the tempting tale being spun by Tapper and Thompson now that it was actually first son Hunter Biden who was running the show. It’s delicious, maybe the crack-addled Burisma executive really is the smartest man Joe ever met. The artist behind the curtain.

However, and call me a cynic if you will, this particular version of events just so happens to be the one that paints Tapper and Thompson’s insider sources in the best possible light.

Basically, what these insiders are saying is, ‘Man, we really tried to do the right thing, but that Hunter, he just blocked us at every chance, which is too bad because he has a pardon for anything he did with the autopen now, but what can you do?’

And once again, Tapper and Thompson just eagerly write it all down as if they were standing atop Mt. Sinai taking dictation of the Ten Commandments from God.

The bottom line is that even if you are a generous soul inclined to trust Tapper and Thompson, only a fool would trust their insider sources. So honestly, what is the point of even reading the book?

This speaks to a much deeper problem with journalism which tends to frame all political coverage as a government that is lying and intrepid reporters sussing out the actual truth when that is almost never what actually happens.

Instead, these journalists confuse sourcing with access, so all their ‘sources’ are people advancing their agenda. Now, suddenly, the agenda is to pile on Biden and salvage our reputations (for media AND insiders). 

George Orwell said, ‘Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.’

Tapper and Thompson have both been doing a lot of PR for Democrats for a very long time.

A source, especially an anonymous source, is almost by definition only telling a reporter something they want the reporter to print. It can sometimes be helpful, but it is never the whole story.

The hilarious final twist in all of this is that in Donald Trump, we have a president who takes more questions than the average corporate call center and owns everything the press accuses him of from sending migrants to El Salvadoran jails to holding Crypto Balls at his resort. It’s all just out in the open.

The age of post-Watergate ‘gotcha’ journalism has driven the industry off of a cliff. Nobody believes what journalists say because they are just mouthpieces for those in power.

The primary job of the journalist isn’t to pry out some hidden information being kept from people; They aren’t detectives. It is to accurately report on and analyze what we know is happening.

In that regard, the coverage of Joe Biden’s decline, his clear inability to serve, is arguably the worst journalism that ever been attempted. Tapper and Thompson couldn’t see what was right in front of their face because they were convinced there had to be something deeper, something hidden. 

It is time to turn the page and get back to a journalism that deals in reality, not speculation. Until that happens, Americans have no reason to believe anything the Jake Tappers and Alex Thompsons of the world tell them.

It was hard to concentrate in my congressional office because I could overhear a lively interview with conservative media host Glenn Beck through the thin wall. You might assume I work for a Republican, but I’m chief of staff to progressive California Congressman Ro Khanna.

What if I told you it was one of our best interviews in recent months? 

They disagreed on President Trump’s deportation efforts and USAID funding, but they agreed on revitalizing manufacturing and leading against China. The headline for the interview read, ‘Progressive Democrat sits down with Glenn Beck despite disagreements: ‘We’re all Team America.’’ We agreed he’d return soon.

There’s debate about whether Democrats need a stronger message or more robust left-wing media. But what Democrats really need is to relearn the art of persuasion—not just crafting a compelling message, but figuring out how to make it cut through today’s crowded media landscape.

Democrats don’t need a ‘left-wing Joe Rogan.’ We need to persuade the real one, along with Americans nationwide, that we share common ground and are worth supporting. 

I know it’s possible because I saw Ro begin that process with Glenn Beck. They didn’t agree on everything, but the conversation opened a door. That’s persuasion: not instant conversion, but showing up, listening, and finding places to start.

Our leaders are too often surrounded by chattering consultants obsessed with poll-tested messages and terrified of ruffling feathers. Every morning, I get dozens of emails urging me to tell Americans that MAGA Republicans are trying to take away their healthcare. I believe it! But it takes more than one line to convince people. We need specifics, facts, and a clear vision of what Democrats stand for.

Ro has been building this foundation for years. He’s traveled to dozens of states, partnering with Silicon Valley to expand tech opportunities, and since the election, held town halls in Republican districts—not to preach, but to listen. At a recent Allentown, Pennsylvania, event, Ro spoke with the Trump supporters protesting outside about his bipartisan bill to lower prescription drug costs. By the end, they came inside—and applauded. 

Having a message is just the first step. The next challenge is breaking through today’s media ecosystem—can it go viral on social media, get picked up by the press, or reach broader audiences, and still land? Amplification matters equally.

It’s undeniable that Republicans have invested significantly more time and resources into building a powerful online ecosystem to reach voters. To overcome that right now, Democrats need to be fearless. Flood the zone, reach people where they are, win them over. Download TikTok, hire a talented, chronically online 22-year-old to post on subreddits, and create a Substack. Talk to Mehdi Hasan in the morning and Laura Ingraham in the evening. Write an op-ed for Fox News Digital.

It’s not about giving anyone a platform or legitimacy—their platforms already exist, and their audiences view them as legitimate. It’s about using those platforms to share our message and tailoring how we communicate to different audiences without compromising our values.

We also need to balance between viral moments with nuanced messages about complicated issues. Ro’s prescription drug bill has gained traction on X and Reddit. But his core vision—a new economic patriotism focused on 21st century solutions for the economic success of every community including new factories and AI academies—hasn’t taken off online the same way. Yet, in longer-form interviews and podcasts, it’s met with enthusiasm. Both messages matter, and we need to find the right time and place for each.

After all, Joe Rogan supported Bernie Sanders in the 2020 presidential election. When he drifted toward Donald Trump, we shrugged and said he was gone for good. Why not try again with a tailored message and an eye toward persuasion? 

Joe, if you’re reading this, I have a pitch for you. 

President Donald Trump told journalists that he was ‘not happy’ with Russia’s recent large-scale strike against Ukraine while speaking to the press on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey, Trump accused Putin of ‘killing a lot of people’ in the attack, which was launched on Sunday afternoon.

‘I’m not happy with what Putin is doing,’ Trump explained. ‘He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin.’ 

‘I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,’ he added.

Trump said that Putin was ‘shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities’ in the middle of negotiations.

‘I don’t like what Putin is doing. Not even a little bit,’ the president emphasized. ‘He’s killing people. And something happened to this guy.’

Trump’s comments came after Russian forces launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities overnight. The attack, which has been called the largest aerial attack of the war so far, targeted the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Ukrainian officials said that at least 12 people were killed and dozens more were injured.

Though past strikes have proven more deadly, the attack is the largest-scale aerial assault of the war in terms of the number of weapons: 298 drones and 69 missiles were launched.

In a post on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for an international response to the attack.

‘The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,’ he wrote on Telegram. ‘Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.’

Reuters and Fox News Digital’s Brooke Curto and Kyle Schmidbauer contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump backed several House Republicans for reelection in Truth Social posts on Sunday, expressing support for Reps. Andrew Garbarino of New York, Troy Downing of Montana, Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania, and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin.

Each lawmaker received an individual post from Trump, and each post declared that the given lawmaker has Trump’s endorsement.

Republicans currently hold the majority in the House, but the 2026 midterms will determine whether the GOP maintains control of the chamber during the tail end of Trump’s second term in office.

Trump’s show of support for Garbarino comes after the congressman failed to cast a vote on the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ that passed the House last week. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said that ‘Garbarino did not make it in time,’ but had fallen asleep.

‘I am proud to have been the leading voice on Long Island during negotiations on this key reconciliation bill. I fought to lift the cap on SALT and ensure hardworking Long Island families see the benefits of this important legislation. I was moments away from the House floor, to vote ‘yes,’ when the vote was closed,’ Garbarino said in a statement, according to reports. 

‘While I am frustrated that the vote was closed before I was able to cast my vote, I am proud of the work we accomplished to deliver huge results for Long Island. I congratulate President Trump on getting this bill passed and look forward to voting ‘yes’ when it comes back to the House floor from the Senate,’ Garbarino noted.

Fox News Digital reached out to Garbarino’s office on Monday morning but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

‘Thank you, Mr. President, it’s an honor to serve NY-02,’ Garbarino said in a Sunday night post on X in response to the president’s endorsment.

As the GOP’s ‘big beautiful bill’ heads to the Senate next month, one provision legislators from both parties should keep their sights squarely set on is no tax on overtime, because in my travels talking to working Americans, no policy comes up more often.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that, if successfully implemented, vastly reducing overtime tax on America’s workers would be the most politically significant measure in the bill, and could easily help Republicans sweep the midterms.

It is very rare, when I’m out talking to people on the road, for person after person to keep mentioning something I never even brought up. A clear example in the last election was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services, who I couldn’t get people to shut up about, even when the media wasn’t focused on him.

In the end, RFK Jr. played a vital role in putting President Donald Trump over the top.

For the past couple of months, the thing I have heard over and over again from workers and employers is how much they desperately want no tax on overtime.

Regular readers of this column will recall the coal miner in Columbiana, Ohio who told me, ‘taxes are killing the working man,’ or Doug and Danny in Jeffersonville, Indiana, a steel cleaning plant owner and his foreman who also weighed in.

Doug told me it will ‘encourage [younger workers] to give up their time, away from loved ones and produce for customers that we have, that need steel, that they want that we did not produce Monday through Friday and get it done.’

From Ohio, to Texas, to West Virginia, no tax on overtime has created excitement for the people the news media never seem to get around to talking to.

A major reason that no tax on overtime has been largely ignored compared to its more popular cousin, no tax on tips, is that almost nobody who produces news has ever held a job that includes traditional overtime, while many likely had tipping jobs in college.

This also explains exactly why the overtime provision is a much bigger deal. There are a handful of tipped jobs that one can raise a family on, but most are stepping stones. There are millions of jobs you can raise a family on that involve overtime.

For the men and women who work these jobs in plants, mines and forges, a reduction in overtime tax is far more meaningful than any stimulus check could be. A stimulus check is like a winning scratch-off lottery ticket. No tax on tips is a raise. You can plan on it, build around it.

This brings us around to the midterms. If by the fall of 2026, American workers have been keeping more of their money, not receiving largesse from the state, but keeping more money they worked for, then every GOP candidate will point at every Democrat incumbent in Congress and say, ‘they voted against it.’

One of Donald Trump’s political superpowers is to find the issues American voters deeply care about that the media largely ignores. He did it by fighting wokeness, he did it opposing foreign interventionism, he did it by focusing on our kids’ health.

I don’t know how he does it. I know how I do it. I spend hours and hours traveling and talking to people. Maybe Trump talks to the working-class people he employs, maybe he just judges based on crowd reactions at rallies, but however he does it, finger meets pulse.

With no tax on overtime, Trump has done it again. Every Republican who is running for Congress outside of Silicon Valley and the Upper East Side would be wise to lead their campaign with, ‘President Trump and I promised no tax on overtime and we delivered.’

There seems to be some surprise that Trump’s poll numbers are recovering after a brief dip occasioned by universal freakouts over his tariff policy. But there is a very good reason for it: On almost every policy the president is doing exactly what he told voters he would do.

Once workers start seeing that bump in their weekly check they can start saving for a better vacation, put more money away for their kids, or even buy their girl an engagement ring. These are the riches of the working class.

Senate Democrats should tread cautiously as the big beautiful bill lands in the upper chamber. They should decide if they really want to look their constituents in the eye and say, ‘You know that raise my opponent’s party and President Trump gave you? I want to take it away.’

No tax on overtime may be Donald Trump’s baby, but come the midterms, it could be a big bundle of joy for the Republican Party.

A group of House Republicans are requesting Fiscal Year 2026 spending bills to include language prohibiting federal funding for transgender experiments on animals. 

Republican Reps. Paul Gosar, Elijah Crane, Abraham J. Hamadeh of Arizona, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Brandon Gill of Texas, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Pete Stauber of Minnesota and Troy E. Nehls of Texas are urging the chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies to prohibit transgender experiments on animals in its FY2026 appropriations bill. 

House Republicans have requested the committee include the following language: ‘None of the funds made available by this or any other Act thereafter may be used for research on vertebrate animals for the purpose of studying the effects of drugs, surgery, or other interventions to alter the human body (including by disrupting the body’s development, inhibiting its natural functions, or modifying its appearance) to no longer correspond to its biological sex.’

The letter, addressed to Chairman Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., points to the dozens of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants issued during former President Joe Biden’s administration that are funding ‘wasteful and disturbing experiments to create ‘transfeminine’ and ‘transmasculine’ lab animals using invasive surgeries and hormone therapies.’

‘The transgender animals are then wounded, shocked, injected with street drugs and vaccines, and subjected to other disturbing procedures,’ the House Republicans said in the letter, as Fox News Digital reported earlier this year. 

‘President Trump has personally criticized these experiments on several occasions, and the Department of Government Efficiency has canceled millions in NIH grants funding transgender animal testing. However, many of these NIH grants funding gender transitions for lab animals are still active,’ House GOP members said. 

President Donald Trump condemned transgender animal experiments during his joint address to Congress in March. The White Coat Waste Project, a government watchdog group that testified about transgender animal experiments on Capitol Hill earlier this year, told Fox News Digital there are still ’29 active taxpayer-funded grants that have been used to fund transgender animal tests.’

‘We urge you to include the language above in the FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill to ensure no more taxpayer dollars are wasted to fund transgender animal tests,’ the Republicans said in the letter. 

The White Coat Waste Project, in a statement to Fox News Digital, touted their role in halting taxpayer-funded ‘transgender animal tests,’ and celebrated the House Republicans’ bill, led by Gosar, to stop more federally funded experiments. 

‘Thanks to White Coat Waste’s viral investigations and collaboration with Rep. Paul Gosar and others in Congress, the Trump Administration has slashed spending on wasteful experiments that subject lab animals to invasive surgeries and hormone therapies to crudely mimic gender transitions in kids and adults and then wound, shock and inject the animals with vaccines and overdoses of sex party drugs,’ Justin Goodman, Senior Vice President of White Coat Waste Project, said. 

‘These Trump cuts have already saved thousands of lab animals and millions of tax dollars, but dozens more NIH grants that funnel tax dollars to disturbing transgender animal tests are still active. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for wasteful and cruel transgender animal tests, and Rep. Gosar’s commonsense effort to permanently defund them will ensure they won’t have to.’

Earlier this year, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable Treasury Department payments. 

Prior to the discovery, Treasury Account Symbol (TAS) identification codes were optional for $4.7 trillion in Treasury Department payments, so they were often left blank and were untraceable. The field is now required to increase ‘insight into where the money is actually going,’ the Treasury Department and DOGE announced in February. 

‘Of the 1.5 billion payments that we send out every year, they are required to have a TAS, a Treasury Account Symbol. We discovered that more than one third of those payments did not have a TAS number,’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government earlier this month. 

Fox News Digital asked Republican senators on Capitol Hill to respond to the approximately 500,000 in untraceable payments made by the Treasury Department each year. 

‘I’m not surprised at all, unfortunately,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, said before adding, ‘They were leaving complete fields undone when they were filling out their financials, so this is a common theme. I’m not surprised.’

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, called for an investigation into where those payments actually went. 

‘There’s so much waste. There’s so much fraud, There’s so much abuse in our government,’ Schmitt told Fox News Digital. ‘I’m glad there was a laser-like focus on it. We ought to make many of those reforms permanent, but there probably ought to be some investigations here about where this money actually went. I mean this is taxpayer money. People work hard.’

After DOGE and the Treasury Department uncovered $4.7 trillion in untraceable funds, Marshall and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida introduced a bill in March requiring the Treasury Department to track all payments. 

The Locating Every Disbursement in Government Expenditure Records (LEDGER) Act seeks to increase transparency in how the Treasury Department spends taxpayer money. 

‘When you hear about this story that they didn’t know where the money was going, it makes you mad because this is somebody’s money, this is taxpayers’ money when we have almost $37 trillion in debt, so this makes no sense at all,’ Scott said. 

The Congressional Budget projects that interest payments on America’s national debt will total $952 billion in fiscal year 2025. That’s $102 billion more than the United States’ defense budget at $850 billion. 

‘We paid out more last year on our debt, $36 trillion in debt, with $950 billion in interest going to bondholders all over the world, including in China. That $950 billion didn’t go to build a bridge or an F-35. We paid more on the interest on debt than we did to fund our military,’ said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. 

‘That is an inflection point that when most countries hit, you look at history, that’s when great powers start to decline. So we have to get those savings.’

President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war in Ukraine, hosted the president of South Africa at the White House and threatened more stringent tariffs against the European Union this week. 

During South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Oval Office visit on Wednesday, Trump got into a testy exchange with the South African leader about the treatment of White farmers there. Specifically, Trump aired a video that showed white crosses that Trump said were approximately 1,000 burial sites of White Afrikaner South African farmers. 

Trump has repeatedly asserted these farmers are being killed and pushed off of their land.

Trump told Ramaphosa at the White House that the burial sites by the side of the road are visited by those who want to ‘pay respects to their family member who was killed.’ 

‘Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers. And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them,’ Trump said. ‘They’re all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren’t driving, they are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed.’

‘Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?’ Ramaphosa said. ‘I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen.’ 

‘I mean, it’s in South Africa, that’s where,’ Trump said. 

‘We need to find out,’ Ramaphosa said.

The White House defended showing the clip and said that the video was ‘substantiated,’ following reports that emerged after the encounter that said the crosses were from a memorial demonstration following the murder of a White farming couple, not actual burial sites.

Here’s what also happened this week:

Call with Putin 

Trump and Putin spoke over the phone on Monday to advance peace negotiations ending the war between Moscow and Kyiv. The call occurred just days after Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey to conduct their first peace talks since 2022. 

After the call, Trump said both countries would move toward a ceasefire and push discussions to end the war. But, Trump indicated that the U.S. would let Moscow and Kyiv take the lead on negotiations after his call with Putin. 

‘The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know the details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of,’ Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social. 

Additionally, Trump has continued to distance the U.S. from the conflict this week, describing the conflict as a ‘European situation.’ 

‘Big egos involved, but I think something’s going to happen,’ Trump told reporters on Monday. ‘And if it doesn’t, I’ll just back away and they’ll have to keep going. This was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation.’

Trump expressed similar sentiments on Wednesday when Ramaphosa visited and stated: ‘It’s not our people, it’s not our soldiers… it’s Ukraine and it’s Russia.’ 

‘Evils of antisemitism’

The White House condemned the fatal attack against two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, labeling that incident an act of antisemitism. 

A gunman opened fire and killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. The two were planning to get engaged next week in Jerusalem, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing.

Authorities arrested a pro-Palestinian man identified as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago in connection with the attack, according to officials.

In response, Trump and other leaders of his administration said attacks like these must stop and said that those responsible will face justice. 

‘These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. ‘Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless You ALL!’

Leavitt later told reporters she’d spoken with Attorney General Pam Bondi and that those who conducted the attack would face prosecution. 

‘The evil of antisemitism must be eradicated from our society,’ Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. ‘I spoke to the attorney general this morning. The Department of Justice will be prosecuting the perpetrator responsible for this to the fullest extent of the law. Hatred has no place in the United States of America under President Donald Trump.’

EU tariff threats

Trump threatened to slap a 50% tariff on imports from the European Union on Friday amid ongoing trade negotiations and after locking down a trade deal with the U.K. 

The deal with the U.K. is the first historic trade negotiation signed following Liberation Day, when Trump announced widespread tariffs for multiple countries on April 2 at a range of rates. 

The administration later adjusted its initial proposal and announced on April 9 it would immediately impose a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, while reducing reciprocal tariffs on other countries and the EU to a baseline of 10% for 90 days. 

‘Their powerful Trade Barriers, Vat Taxes, ridiculous Corporate Penalties, Non-Monetary Trade Barriers, Monetary Manipulations, unfair and unjustified lawsuits against Americans Companies, and more, have led to a Trade Deficit with the U.S. of more than $250,000,000 a year, a number which is totally unacceptable,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday about the EU. 

‘Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025,’ he said. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent later said in an interview with Fox News he hoped the warning would ‘light a fire under the EU’ and signaled Trump’s threats stemmed from frustration negotiating with European countries on trade deals. 

‘EU proposals have not been of the same quality that we’ve seen from our other important trading partners,’ Bessent said. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this report.