While many in the White House press corps used their time Thursday afternoon to show sudden concern about transparency in the Jeffrey Epstein case, there were a few others who asked real questions about socialist Zohran Mamdani, Christians abroad, hospitals ending transgender surgeries for minors, reopening Alcatraz and, most importantly for those of us at the Media Research Center, the rescissions package that would defund far-left PBS and National Public Radio (NPR) of $1 billion.
NPR and PBS first came up during Leavitt’s lengthy opening remarks:
Our friend Reagan Reese at the Daily Caller cued up Leavitt part way through the briefing to respond to two wildly false claims, one from Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and one from NPR CEO Katherine Maher:
For the record, we would add both claims by Maher and Murkowski are utterly false.
The emergency alerts they alluded to would not be affected as all emergency alerts are controlled by the Department of Homeland Security through the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS), which includes Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) and Emergency Alert System (EAS). Think everything from hurricane warnings to even, as Alaskans experienced Wednesday, tsunami warnings.
And don’t even get us started about rural Americans not having internet access.
Surprisingly, the other time PBS and NPR came up wasn’t courtesy of another conservative reporter, but NBC’s Garrett Haake
Moving to other topics, Reese pulled a newsy answer from Leavitt about a proposal from Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) to allow potentially millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S.
EWTN’s Owen Jensen stuck to his beat by asking about President Trump’s response to an Israeli strike on a Gaza Catholic church:
A few questioners later and immediately following one from the Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Mitchell about whether President Trump would get involved in the New York City mayoral race, 2023 MRC Bulldog Award winner Mary Margaret Olohan of the Daily Wire wondered what the White House made of more and more hospitals complying with Trump administration demands to end life-altering gender surgeries for minors:
NewsNation’s Libbey Dean was the second-to-last reporter to ask questions, starting with a huge revelation from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a day before at an event her network co-hosted with The Hill:
Her other query was about a trip by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to Alcatraz Island as part of President Trump’s hope to reopen the long-dormant prison (click “expand”):
DEAN: And the other question for you, it’s on Bondi and Burgum’s trip today to Alcatraz. I’m curious what the funding is going to look like for that, and who the President does want to see incarcerated there —
LEAVITT: Sure.
DEAN: — if it were to become [inaudible]
LEAVITT. Well, this was an idea of the President. He spoke about it in May, and he directed his administration to review a reopening plan for Alcatraz, if it is possible, which is why the Attorney General and the Secretary of Interior have traveled there today. They are touring the site and if the Alcatraz prison is reopened, it would be under the purview of the Bureau of Prisons and the Secretary of Interior also would play a big role in this as well. So, they’re there to review the site today, and I’m sure you’ll hear more from them on it later. And just to follow up, Libby, on who the President wants to see housed in Alcatraz, the worst of the worst criminals in this country, both American criminals who commit heinous — convict — heinous crimes, but also illegal alien criminals before deportation as well.
At the other end of the helpful spectrum, there was this partisan jab about Texas Republicans:
On a different note and going back to the beginning, Leavitt’s opening remarks wrapped with this welcome act of transparency on President Trump’s health, something we wouldn’t have been caught dead doing with the Joe Biden regime:
To see the relevant transcript from the July 17 briefing, click here.
