Phil Mattingly

CNN This Morning presented viewers on Tuesday with the breaking news that Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was friends with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and that they first met three years ago at the 2020 Federalist Society Dinner. They also found it scandalous that DeSantis praised Thomas on stage, while introducing him.

On Thursday afternoon, President Biden took a might tumble when he fell nearly flat on his face at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Such a fall drew eyeballs and defenses from the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC with the conservative drinking game words of capitalizing, pouncing and seizing on it. Over on the liberal cable networks CNN and MSNBC, both (largely) saw no reason to be concerned and…

Friday’s White House press briefing saw more hardballs about President Biden’s documents scandal, but also plenty of eye-rolling questions lobbying for a female person of color to become White House chief of staff, how Biden processes racial tensions, whether “the culture of policing” has “a comfort with violence and” implants inside the minds of police officers “an entitlement to use violence…

Tuesday afternoon’s White House press briefing brought about plenty more hardballs on President Biden’s classified documents scandal that the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer, but along the way, Angolan reporter Hariana Veras temporarily brought the briefing to a halt with two long stemwinders of leftist commentary demanding gun control.

Tuesday’s White House press briefing marked another installment of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as, while she ignored journalists from the Daily Caller, Fox News, and Newsmax about President Biden’s classified documents scandal, she ran into a proverbial buzzsaw from outlets such as ABC, the AP, CBS, CBS News Radio, NBC, and NPR…

Thursday’s White House press conference was as contentious as you would’ve imagined after the announcement that President Joe Biden kept classified documents in the garage at his home in Delaware. The reckless disregard for America’s national security by carelessly leaving classified documents in three different places was such a big story that even the leftist media couldn’t hide it from…

On Thursday’s edition of The Lead, fill-in CNN host Phil Mattingly pointed out the incompetence of the former campaign team for Robert Zimmerman, the New York Democrat who was defeated in the 2022 midterm election by embattled Congressman-elect George Santos. It was recently revealed that an absurd number of autobiographical claims Santos made on the campaign trail were whole-cloth…

President Biden held a press conference  at the White House after the midterms, and some reporters unloaded diatribes about Biden's agenda being ruined and "affirmative action" taking a severe hit. CNN asked about the return of decency and civility, as if Biden or CNN was civil to Republicans on a daily basis.

President Biden insisted in a Wednesday press conference he would make zero changes after Tuesday’s midterm elections failed to produce a Republican red wave and, during said presser, nine White House reporters took their shot at Biden with some engaging in silly softballs on the fate of his legacy, Donald Trump, affirmative action, and ridding the country of partisanship.

In what might be her worst performance as White House press secretary (in what’s already been dominated by ineptitude), Karine Jean-Pierre faced searing heat Wednesday from across the ideological spectrum of the press corps after President Joe Biden called out to Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (R-IN) at a global hunger event despite the fact that Walorski died nearly two months ago.

Previewing President Biden’s State of the Union address, White House press secretary Jen Psaki joined FNC’s America’s Newsroom on Tuesday and squared off against co-hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino over President Biden’s response to Russia’s war with Ukraine and specifically the administration’s refusal to budge on domestic oil and gas production and the timing of the CDC dropping…

In his newsletter on Monday night, former CNN producer Steve Krakauer criticized the obvious tilt of fact-checkers. For example, "CNN's Daniel Dale, who made a career out of fact-checking President Trump, hasn't turned his sights onto President Biden in more than six weeks."

While guest hosting Inside Politics on CNN on Thursday, Phil Mattingly wondered how President Biden's approval rating could be so low, after all he has signed major pieces of legislation and the economy is "robust." To alleviate his confusion, Mattingly welcomed CNN historian Tim Naftali to explain that Biden's numbers will eventually go up because at the current moment he is being…

California Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to one up Texas by making an anti-gun law that is modeled after their SB8 law, which bans elective abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. He wants to allow private citizens in California to sue anyone selling or manufacturing "assault weapons."