• In a new interview, White House press secretary Katie Zacharia didn't deny failing the bar exam.
• She also defended calling herself a lawyer.
• "The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China," she said of the bar exam.

President Donald Trump's new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia is defending her self-description as a lawyer, while acknowledging that she took the bar exam and considered the results "inconsequential."

Zacharia's legal qualifications have faced growing scrutiny since her debut White House media briefing earlier this week, when shortly afterward she was asked which state she passed the bar exam in and replied: "When I moved to China."

In an interview Thursday with right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec on Real America's Voice, she did not deny reports that she'd failed to pass the bar.

Zacharia, who moved to China after earning her law degree in 2011, told Posobiec she had already preregistered for the bar exam before moving to Beijing, where her husband was working at an American private equity firm.

"I didn't want to withdraw from that," Zacharia said of the bar exam. "And we knew we would be moving out to China, and I was obviously incredibly distracted and overwhelmed and excited for finally being married to someone who I had been long-distance from for at least a year."

Zacharia said she thought she'd take the bar and "see what happens."

"The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China, and we left shortly thereafter," said Zacharia.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Zacharia failed California's bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University in 2011.

A Business Insider review of records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to practice law in the US.

In China, Zacharia said she took a job in the international practice division of the Zhong Lun law firm, where she said she worked on multimillion-dollar shareholder agreements and cross-border transactions. She said she was one of four associates under a senior partner.

"After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," Zacharia told Posobiec, adding, "There's no Chinese bar. I had enough credentials, which was my law degree, to be able to do this practice."

"I had all the necessary requirements to do that, and I was able to do it effectively and well," she said.

She also said that she never retook the bar exam after returning to the US and having the first of four children with her husband within six years.

Zacharia said she consulted with people within the legal field "for a very long time" and was told it would be acceptable to call herself a lawyer "and provide legal analysis, not legal advice."

"They said absolutely, absolutely across the board — you can call yourself a lawyer, you have a JD, and to buffer that, you have international legal experience in transactional law," Zacharia said.

"It's unfortunate that people dub this as some kind of conspiracy," she said. "The truth is, I was very careful how I executed this, and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law."

Zacharia's LinkedIn page says she served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025. In California, it is a misdemeanor to practice law or to advertise yourself as an attorney without a license.

At least two watchdog groups have filed a complaint about Zacharia with the State Bar of California this week.

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have desperately lobbed accusations of “socialism” and “communism” at liberals in their attempts to scare voters in this year’s midterm elections.

Conservative political leaders have instituted “anti-communist” propaganda to indoctrinate schoolchildren with anti-democratic talking points, and Trump’s regime has made a habit of railing against socialism in public — with some rather embarrassing results.

But fresh polling data suggests that a fairly large contingent of the Republican Party actually seems to like socialism. And it’s arguably all Trump’s fault.

The survey by the Economic Innovation Group and Echelon Insights shows that Republicans, at 29%, are more in favor of the government owning a stake in independent companies than independent voters and even Democrats.

The polling suggests majorities of each group oppose the idea. But the not-insignificant number of Republicans who are in favor suggests that Trump’s trend of having the government buy stakes in independent companies — communistic behavior that has led some critics to say he’s practicing “MAGA Maoism” — has led some conservatives to welcome the practice.

So much for all that past talk among Republicans about how the government shouldn’t be in the business of “picking winners and losers.” It has taken less than 10 years of Trump-style authoritarianism to get about a third of the GOP on the record endorsing an undeniably socialist policy, if not a communist one.

So as Republicans rattle on about the supposed scourge of socialism, it sure seems like a chunk of their own party isn’t on the same page.

Or, as Scott Lincicome, a vice president at the libertarian CATO Institute, put it: “The socialist threat is coming from inside the house.”

The post Trump’s desperate war on ‘socialism’ is failing within his own party appeared first on MS NOW.

• President Donald Trump has had six White House press secretaries across his two presidential terms.
• Sean Spicer, Stephanie Grisham, and Kayleigh McEnany held the role for less than a year.
• Katie Zacharia succeeded Karoline Leavitt, but is "transitioning out" after five days on the job.

The new face at the White House podium didn't last long.

Katie Zacharia held her first briefing as the new White House press secretary on Tuesday after President Donald Trump chose her to succeed Karoline Leavitt, who left the White House in August to spend more time with her young children.

By Friday, a White House official confirmed to Business Insider that she is "transitioning out" of the role.

Zacharia was the sixth White House press secretary Trump has hired across his two non-consecutive presidential terms, and the fourth to serve for less than a year.

It's not unusual for presidents to go through several press secretaries due to the demanding nature of the role. President Barack Obama had three press secretaries during his two terms in office. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had four.

Here's a look at all of the White House press secretaries who have represented the Trump administration.

Sean Spicer

Sean Spicer's time as White House press secretary spanned 182 days — the shortest tenure of all of Trump's press secretaries.

After leaving the White House, he appeared on season 28 of "Dancing with the Stars." He now serves as a political contributor at NewsNation and hosts several podcasts, including "Full Court Press with Sean Spicer" and "The Sean Spicer Show."

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

During Trump's first term, Sanders served as White House press secretary for just under two years, from July 2017 to July 2019. In the final months of her tenure, Sanders largely stopped holding formal White House press briefings.

Sanders is the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who now serves as the US ambassador to Israel in the second Trump administration. After her time as press secretary, Sanders was elected governor of Arkansas in 2022. She is running for reelection in the 2026 midterms.

Stephanie Grisham

Grisham served as White House press secretary for less than a year, from July 2019 to April 2020. Throughout her tenure, she did not hold a traditional press briefing.

Grisham went on to become Melania Trump's White House chief of staff, then resigned from the role following the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

She has since become a vocal critic of Trump and spoke about her time working in the Trump administration at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Kayleigh McEnany

McEnany served as Trump's 2020 campaign press secretary before Trump chose her to replace Grisham as White House press secretary. She held the role for less than a year, from April 2020 until Trump left office in January 2021.

McEnany resumed formal White House press briefings after Grisham's tenure.

McEnany now hosts "Saturday in America with Kayleigh McEnany" on Fox News, and co-hosts another Fox News show, "Outnumbered."

Karoline Leavitt

Leavitt served as White House press secretary from January 2025 to August 2026. At 27 years old, when she started the role, she was the youngest person ever to hold the position.

Leavitt established a "new media seat" in the White House briefing room, highlighting podcasters, independent journalists, social media influencers, and other non-legacy media sources.

She was also the first-ever pregnant White House press secretary, and gave birth to her second child while in the role. Leavitt resigned shortly after returning from parental leave, citing her desire to spend more time with her family.

She will begin working as an on-air contributor for Fox News starting November 1.

Katie Zacharia

Trump named Zacharia as Leavitt's successor, writing in a Truth Social post on October 9 that Zacharia "has an unblemished record of support, and has been a loyal and brilliant supporter, right from the beginning," and calling her "a devoted fan and member of MAGA."

Zacharia previously worked as a senior communications advisor at Trump Media and Technology Group, which runs Truth Social.

She held her first briefing on Tuesday, but after a rocky five days as White House press secretary — during which Zacharia's briefing performance and legal qualifications were widely criticized — a White House official told Business Insider on Friday that she was leaving the role.

• Two watchdog groups asked the California state bar to investigate White House spox Katie Zacharia.
• She worked as a general counsel in California. The state bar has no record she was licensed there.
• Zacharia said she consulted with people in the field to see if she could label herself a lawyer.

A growing chorus is voicing concern about White House press secretary Katie Zacharia's self-described legal career.

Two watchdog groups Wednesday filed complaints with the State Bar of California, asking it to investigate whether she violated California law by calling herself a lawyer.

It is a misdemeanor in California to practice law or advertise yourself as an attorney if you don't have a license to do so.

Several law and legal-ethics professors told Business Insider that if Zacharia misrepresented herself as an attorney, or used a title like general counsel without having been admitted to the bar, that could land her in trouble with state bar officials should she try to join in the future.

Substack publication Popular Information this week reported that Zacharia hadn't been admitted to any state bar, and The Wall Street Journal reported that she failed California's bar exam after graduating from law school in 2011. After her graduation, she moved to China, where she worked for a law firm as an associate on an international practice team.

Zacharia Thursday defended calling herself a lawyer.

In an interview Thursday with right-wing activist Jack Posobiec, Zacharia said she considered her bar exam results "inconsequential" because of her impending move to China.

"After moving to China, I didn't really think much of the bar results or consider that something that I needed to focus on," she said.

She told Posobiec that she "consulted for a very long time with many people in the field" to see if she could label herself a lawyer and offer legal analysis, not "legal advice." She also said she wouldn't weigh in on legal matters as press secretary.

President Trump's new press secretary has repeatedly referred to herself as a lawyer. Her LinkedIn page says she worked as a general counsel in California, and on Tuesday, in a statement to Business Insider, she said she had "practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials."

Zacharia used her legal pedigree to give herself credibility in her White House role, the Campaign for Accountability said Wednesday in its complaint to the California bar.

"The public is entitled to rely on the representation that a person who calls herself a lawyer is in fact licensed to practice law," the group wrote.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said Thursday that Zacharia "is uniquely qualified and whip smart to help inform the American people about all the great things President Trump and his Administration have been doing, and she will do an incredible job as Press Secretary."

In an X post Wednesday, Cheung referred to the Campaign for Accountability as a "radical leftist-organization run by rabid numbskulls suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome."

"Nobody takes them seriously because they are deranged low lifes," his post said.

Watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund also filed a complaint with the bar.

'Character and fitness'

There is no record that Zacharia has ever been licensed to practice law in her home state of California, a spokesperson for the state bar told Business Insider.

Zacharia earned her law degree at California's Pepperdine University in 2011, then moved to China, according to her LinkedIn page.

She later served as general counsel for Fix California, a political advocacy group, between January 2024 and March 2025, her LinkedIn page says. Richard Grenell, the founder of Fix California and a state department official in the Trump administration, didn't respond to requests for comment about Zacharia's work for the organization.

That résume entry could hurt her chances of admission to the bar in future, legal-ethics professors told Business Insider.

The bar admissions process in most states includes a step in which the bar evaluates prospective members' "character and fitness," according to Richard Zitrin, a legal-ethics professor at the University of San Francisco's law school.

Claiming to be a general counsel in California would cut against her if she didn't have a license to practice law at the time, Zitrin said.

Business Insider reviewed records for all 50 states and the District of Columbia and found no evidence that Zacharia had been admitted to any state bar in the US.

A law firm in China

Zacharia moved to China with her husband because of his job at an American private equity firm, the White House said.

In China, only Chinese nationals can become a member of the country's bar and practice law, experts in the Chinese legal system told Business Insider.

According to her LinkedIn page, Zacharia worked for Zhong Lun, a large law firm in Beijing, between 2011 and 2013. Asked by a reporter on Tuesday which state she passed the bar exam in, Zacharia responded, "When I moved to China."

Unlike the United States, where the bar admission process varies by state, China has a single unified bar exam process. It is available only to Chinese nationals and generally requires a degree from a Chinese university, according to Jacques deLisle, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school who studies the Chinese legal system.

"The odds that she is a member of the Chinese bar are essentially zero," he said. "Both because of the citizenship requirement and the education requirement."

It's possible for employees of international law firms to do some work on transactions without passing a bar exam, but the scope of the work they're permitted to do is limited, according to Taisu Zhang, a professor of Chinese law at Yale Law School. Those firms generally require employees to pass a bar exam within a few years, he said.

Law firms like Zhong Lun often hire recent foreign law school graduates to review contracts and advise on elements of US law for transactions, but they need to "stay within the edges" of their work so that they don't cross into practicing law, which is illegal in China, deLisle said.

"She was never a lawyer in China. It doesn't mean she didn't do law-related work, but she was never a lawyer in China," deLisle said.

Representatives for Zhong Lun didn't respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.

The simplest test for recognizing a collective pathology is to ask each of its members whether they would choose on their own to do what the group is doing.

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A pipe and an ocean

A gas pipeline is a pipe. It connects a gas field to a consumer, crosses a few borders, and, once built, transports energy at a very low cost per unit. A supply chain that starts at Russian gas fields, goes through an American contract, crosses the Atlantic on a LNG tanker, and arrives at a European regasification terminal does the same thing but with more steps, more markups, and more friction. No engineer, no accountant, no student of economic geography would choose the second option if they could choose the first. And yet that is where Europe seems headed: according to recent reports, Russian energy could return to European markets with an American stamp on it and a higher price tag attached.

I argue that this situation cannot be explained by Washington’s cunning—which certainly exists—nor by Brussels’ weakness—which certainly exists as well. It stems from a cognitive distortion shared by governments, institutions, and much of the public, which has rendered a geographical truism invisible. I call it the pathology of the absurd: the state in which a system continues to follow its own internal rules even as they produce an outcome that none of its individual components, taken on its own, would ever have wanted. The technical term for this mechanism is collective bias—that is, an error in judgment that does not stem from the stupidity of individuals but from the way a group convinces, rewards, and punishes itself.

How to lose a war without fighting it

A methodological clarification before proceeding. No official documents have been released yet (a treaty, an MoU, nothing public); what has been documented is scant and carries almost symbolic weight. Trump announced that Russia will supply the U.S. and global markets with over 300,000 metric tons of diesel immediately, another 500,000 in November, and one million shortly thereafter. Converted to barrels, that’s about 5.9 million in total—one-fifth of global consumption in a single day—and just over a week’s worth of Russian exports at last year’s rate. As a market transaction, it is insignificant, but as a political signal, it is quite the opposite.

Because politically speaking, the implications are much deeper. Moscow has lifted the ban on diesel exports that had been in place since July. Trump stated that the time has come for Ukraine to have a new president and proclaimed an “energy truce” effective immediately. According to an account by a U.S. official, the peace plan being developed by the White House and several European capitals would freeze the front along the current line of control and provide security guarantees comparable to NATO’s Article 5, a reconstruction mechanism entrusted to the World Bank and BlackRock, and a pipeline to bring Russian gas and oil back to Europe, with profits split between Moscow and Kyiv. Washington, meanwhile, is reported to have suggested suspending intelligence sharing and the PURL mechanism if Kyiv continues to strike Russian refineries.

Zelensky stated that the announcement of the truce was news to him and that Kyiv was awaiting details. Lavrov rejected the idea of a pause; Peskov spoke of ongoing contacts. If we leave it to the “theologians of journalism” to debate whether the chicken or the egg came first, we can focus on what lies behind the facts—namely, that Russian energy will return to Europe through a framework negotiated by Washington, which is a likely prospect in the medium term, with moderate confidence regarding the trajectory and low confidence regarding the details. And, it must be said, anyone reading these pages as the chronicle of a fait accompli is misreading them.

By “energy war,” we mean the contest over who sets the price, the route, and the rules governing a continent’s energy flows. In this contest, Europe set out in 2022 convinced it was fighting a moral battle; it cut off supplies from Russia, presenting the decision first as a necessary sacrifice, then as a strategic victory. The assessment after four years tells a different story: Europe has lost its cheapest and closest supply source, has rebuilt its dependence elsewhere, and the United States—which in the meantime had become the continent’s main supplier of liquefied natural gas—has gained both influence and profit margins as a result. When the European Parliament decides that, as of January 1, 2027, even the last remaining shares of Russian energy will be phased out of the Union’s energy mix, the circle will be complete, and the phase-out will be total—just as the other side of the Atlantic prepares to do business with Moscow.

In the tradition of classical geopolitics, this issue has an age-old name. Europe is the western peninsula of the vast Eurasian continent, and its natural logic of supply is continental: pipelines, long-term contracts, and interdependence with those to the east. The Atlantic logic is maritime, consisting of ships, terminals, and spot prices. Mackinder and Spykman, though by different paths, had understood that whoever separates the two systems profits from both sides of the divide. One need not adopt the entire theoretical framework of the Eurasianist school to recognize that geography does not negotiate here, and that for four years European institutions have acted as if it could.

The intermediary model

According to the model that has emerged so far, the United States would acquire Russian energy assets—starting with Lukoil’s foreign division—through an initial payment and a share of the profits, and could purchase, on competitive terms, the hydrocarbons that Europe no longer buys, in order to resell them to Europeans at full price. Washington’s interest is explicit and evident even in the most cautious sources. Trump faces midterm elections, an energy crisis triggered by the aggression against Iran, rising diesel prices, and low approval ratings. On the other hand, the American consumer has no reason to distinguish between Russian diesel and any other diesel.

What matters is the role assigned to Europe. Officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany were present at the talks in Florida. Their task is to ensure post-war security, finance reconstruction through instruments designed elsewhere, and, in the long term, open their own energy markets to a Russia that has, in the meantime, forged a direct relationship with Washington. They are the guarantors and the clients; they do not appear among the beneficiaries of the profits. When the diesel agreement was announced, the Europeans expressed irritation yet remained at the table—which is a good summary of where they stand.

And there is also a strange, biting irony in all of this: Nord Stream—which Washington did not want built and which was sabotaged—would be reactivated under a draft U.S. agreement, and the gas flows that Europe lost as a result of that sabotage would once again pass through U.S. intermediaries. If the pipeline were reactivated, Europe would pay to get back what it already had, at a price set by those who neither produce nor consume it. Pure madness.

Why it’s a pathology, not a mistake

We are facing a collective cognitive bias that has evolved to the point of becoming pathological. And it is not a simple “error in judgment,” since an error is corrected when it is discovered, whereas a pathology persists because it is sustained by the very structures that should be curing it. I identify four such structures, each of which is rational when viewed from within.

The first is moralization. Sanctions began as a tool and have become an identity. Anyone who today proposed reopening direct channels with Moscow would be seen as a traitor, not as an accountant. The accounting objection, however well-founded, has no place in the debate. The second is sunk costs: after years of sacrifices imposed on citizens and businesses, admitting that the plan was flawed costs more—in political terms—than continuing to pay the consequences. The third is the delegation of rationality. If Washington is the one to reopen the channel, no European government will have to admit it was wrong. The premium that Europe would pay to the intermediary is, in essence, the price of not having to admit the mistake. It is a bill that leaders present to their constituents under the heading of “security.”

The fourth is the institutional asymmetry between those who decide and those who pay. A parliamentary vote on sanctions generates immediate visibility for those who cast it, while the cost is spread across millions of utility bills and thousands of industrial plants, faceless and without a specific date. In such a system, the most convenient choice for any decision-maker is almost always the loudest one. There’s no need to hypothesize about a hidden agenda or secret plan to explain the outcome. Washington’s interest is stated openly and perfectly clear; Europe’s blindness is structural. These are two phenomena of different natures that have ended up interlocking.

The most serious criticism of this interpretation comes from countries bordering Russia. For Warsaw, Riga, or Vilnius, dependence on Moscow’s energy is not a matter of price but of exposure. The year 2022 demonstrated that an energy supply can be cut off, and the extra cost paid to diversify sources is an insurance premium like any other—or at least that is what the EU has tried to convince the countries of Northern Europe, spinning the fairy tale of a better world that would soon arrive, achieved through military victory alongside Kyiv. A fascinating fairy tale, to be sure, but one that holds up only to a certain extent. Insurance makes sense when the premium is limited and when the insurer does not profit from the occurrence of the loss. Here, the insurer is also the main beneficiary of the rift between Europe and Russia, as evidenced by the very fact that it is about to mend that rift when it suits its interests. Furthermore, dependence on the United States is a form of dependence like any other. The threats to suspend intelligence sharing and the PURL mechanism with Kyiv—if confirmed—show that Washington makes its available supplies contingent on its current political objectives.

Anyone who thinks that using energy as leverage applies only to Moscow has a selective memory. If Europe were to re-enter the Russian market through American intermediation, it would compound its vulnerabilities: it would be dependent on Russian energy and on the American infrastructure that delivers it. In other words, this objection justifies diversification, but it does not justify the decision to never negotiate on its own.

Scenarios and indicators

We can discern three plausible developments, with a 6- to 12-month timeframe—assuming we manage to get through this winter.

The first is the consolidation of U.S. mediation: sanctions eased in phases, Russian assets acquired by U.S. and Gulf operators, and energy flows returning to Europe under contracts that Europe did not draft. This is the most optimistic scenario, though with only moderate confidence. The second is the failure of the agreement, with Moscow refusing a ceasefire, Kyiv continuing to strike refineries, and Washington shifting its focus elsewhere; Europe would be left with high prices and no supply channels. This is a possible outcome, roughly equally likely. The third is a direct overture from Brussels or certain capitals toward Moscow—highly unlikely in the short term, for the political and psychological reasons already outlined.

Four indicators will help determine which of these scenarios unfolds: the text of any agreement setting the sanctions timeline; the name of the party holding the contracts for Lukoil’s international assets; the status of Nord Stream, if and when it is included in an official draft; The outcome of the U.S. midterm elections, which weigh on the entire situation more than Brussels cares to admit.

Added to these is a factor of uncertainty regarding the U.S. counterpart: the energy agreement does not resolve the structural weaknesses of the U.S. economy, ranging from public debt to rising interest rates to debt-financed artificial intelligence companies. A partner with such finances—and such a packed political calendar—is a mediator who offers little guarantee of longevity.

The simplest test for recognizing a collective pathology is to ask each of its members whether they would choose on their own to do what the group is doing. No European government official responsible for energy policy, if questioned in private, would say that buying Russian energy in Washington is the best solution. They would, it seems, provided that others are the ones making the decision.

The true price of a pipeline is the cost of the pipeline itself.

Everything else that is added—and that Europe would pay—reflects the cost of a choice that has never been made openly.

So far, no one has asked that question on the floor of the chamber.

Last month, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that required restoration of press passes for 78 journalists employed by three news outlets that President Donald Trump peremptorily banned from the White House on September 18. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, extended that order on Tuesday, granting a preliminary injunction to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.

While Kelly's TRO was based on CNN et al.'s claim that their sudden banishment violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process, his justification for the preliminary injunction also addresses their argument that revocation of their press passes violated the First Amendment by retaliating against them for constitutionally protected speech and discriminating against them based on viewpoint. Kelly concludes that the plaintiffs "are likely to succeed not only on their due process claim, but also on their two First Amendment claims."

A retaliation claim requires showing that the plaintiff engaged in conduct protected by the First Amendment, that the defendant's action was "sufficient to deter a person of ordinary firmness" from "speaking again," and that there was "a causal link between the exercise of a constitutional right and the adverse action." Although the government's lawyers did not dispute that the CNN et al.'s journalism is constitutionally protected, they argued that the plaintiffs had failed to satisfy the two other elements.

Kelly disagrees. The "hard passes" at issue in this case, he notes, give journalists unescorted access to the White House "press area," which includes "the briefing room, the press offices, and certain other locations in and around the White House that are open to correspondents." CNN et al. argued that "a hard pass is an important credential because it 'allows a reporter to react to fast-developing news' and gives them 'swift and easy access to key official sources.'" Since "the revocation of Plaintiffs' hard passes matters a lot as to how, whether, and to what extent they can do their jobs," Kelly says, "it is likely that the open-ended ban here would chill a reporter's work."

Trump's "own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs'
hard passes to alter their reporting on him, bolstering the case that his action here is sufficient to deter a reporter of ordinary firmness from reporting in the same way she had before," Kelly adds. The day he announced the ban, Trump complained that CNN et al. "purposely write negative news" to "try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration." Although "the ban would go as far as you can," he added, "I'd love it" if "they could straighten themselves out."

The plaintiffs also have shown "there is likely a causal link between the exercise of their First Amendment rights and the revocation of their hard passes and exclusion from the White House press area," Kelly writes. "President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him."

Again, Trump's public comments amply support that conclusion. He explicitly said he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "as a result of their constant 'reporting' [of] FAKE NEWS," adding that journalists "shouldn't be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they're covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America." When asked whether his decision was motivated by a "particular reason" or "particular story," Trump replied: "No, no. It's really just cumulative stories over the last two years." The problem, he said, was "purposely negative stories."

In a Truth Social post three days later, Trump likewise condemned "Fake News" that he said was "corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control." CNN et al.'s reporters are "Third Rate Clowns" who "purposefully distort, twist, and degrade with everything they write or publish," he added that evening. "Virtually every story about me, or anything having to do with me, is negative, wrong and, in many cases, DANGEROUS for our Country! No matter how GREAT my Achievements, they trivialize and demean."

Trump offered a similar defense of the ban in a September 28 interview with Time. "It's just bad story after bad story," and "most of them are fake," he complained. "I don't think anybody should be forced to bear fake news, constantly bad stories, because I've done great things." Although "I can name 100 great things I've done," he added, "I never get good press. I never get fair press."

The government's lawyers maintained that Trump or another official "would have reached the same decision" based on the "alternative ground" that CNN et al. had violated "minimum professional journalistic standards" by "publishing classified and national security information." Kelly was not impressed by that belated rationale, which no one mentioned until after the news outlets gave the government a copy of their lawsuit.

"There is no evidence in the record that President Trump made the decision to revoke
Plaintiffs' hard passes on national security grounds," Kelly writes. "Nor at any time has he directly stated that national security was the reason for his decision. When he announced the ban with his post on September 18, he did not mention national security. When he was asked later that day about the 'particular reason' for his action, he did not mention national security."

Trump did mention "national security" in Truth Social posts he wrote the day that CNN et al. filed their lawsuit. But "that expression appears to have been simply another way for him to describe Plaintiffs' alleged inaccuracies and unfairness in their reporting about topics like his achievements or electoral success," Kelly says. "All this suggests that 'national security' was merely a post-hoc justification for the decision, which greatly undermines" the claim that Trump would have "taken the same action in the absence of Plaintiffs' protected speech."

The government also cited letters to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House Press Office, which were sent four days after Trump banned them. Those letters averred that the three news outlets had violated "the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex" by "publishing sensitive or classified information" and "trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues."

The letters "hardly move the needle" on the question of why Trump banned CNN et al. from the White House, Kelly says. They "appear to conflate concerns about otherwise protected speech" with "national security concerns," he notes, and they do not even explicitly say that Trump "made the decision for national security reasons."

Each letter lists specific stories to which the White House objected. But Kelly notes that two reporters "had their hard passes renewed after publishing articles that Defendants cite in their September 22 letters as supporting the potential revocation of their hard passes."

The Trump administration tried to shore up its "national security" justification by submitting a declaration from Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson. While Wilson explains "how the publication of classified and sensitive information can undermine national security," Kelly notes, she "says little to nothing about President Trump's decision to revoke Plaintiffs' hard passes" and does not say "anything about White House press practices or operations."

The defendants "have not really tried to support" the claim that CNN et al.'s reporting "damaged national security," Kelly says, noting that news stories based on "sensitive or classified information" are "commonplace, for better or worse." If Trump "would have banned Plaintiffs from the White House even in the absence of their protected speech," he suggests, "Defendants would not have had to scramble to make their case with unsigned letters and a declarant who does not even work there."

The evidence of retaliation also supports the claim that Trump discriminated against CNN et al. based on viewpoint, which is presumptively unconstitutional. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Kelly notes, has held that "the White House Press Area" qualifies as a "nonpublic forum," meaning journalists cannot be excluded because of the views they have expressed.

"It is likely that Plaintiffs were selected by President Trump for revocation of their access to the White House press area because he believes their coverage of him and his administration is generally inaccurate and biased," Kelly writes. "In other words, it was 'an effort to suppress the speaker's activity due to disagreement with the speaker's view,' rather than to vindicate any other purportedly 'compelling governmental interest,' including maintaining professional standards for journalists or protecting national security. Simply put, that is unlawful viewpoint discrimination."

Kelly's decision "is a stinging defeat for Trump's assault on the free press and a powerful vindication of the First Amendment," Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser for advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in an emailed press release. "As Kelly rightly recognized, presidents don't get to use their power to purge journalists because they don't like what they report."

The post A Trump Appointee Says the President Likely Violated the First Amendment by Banishing Disfavored Journalists appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Stormy developments at the US Embassy in Athens: Ambassador, Kimberly Guilfoyle, resigned from her post as US Ambassador to Greece on Tuesday afternoon Prior to the resignation of the controversial ambassador, there was a public statement by the new White House Press Secretary, Katie Zakaria, who said on Tuesday morning (US time): “We have asked […]

The post Kimberly Guilfoyle forced to resign as US Ambassador to Greece appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | September 28, 2026

It’s rather forgotten today how Washington’s post-9/11 imperial adventurism was not restricted to military intervention. A core component of the Bush administration’s “Freedom Agenda” – under the auspices of which calamitous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere were waged – was overt sponsorship of civil society-led coups throughout the former Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact and Yugoslavia. Citizens of these regions, and the world, live with this meddling’s destructive consequences to this day. The seemingly never-ending – and ever-escalating – Ukraine proxy war is a particularly visceral legacy.

The 1983 creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, a US state entity avowedly concerned with executing overtly what the CIA once did covertly, ushered in a new era of “spyless coups”. Working in close conjunction with USAID and George Soros’ Open Society Institute, NED ever after provided funding, training and material assistance to NGOs, ‘independent’ media outlets, opposition groups, and other initiatives in service of regime change, across every corner of the world.

Come 9/11, NED and its confederates had devised a supremely cunning, cost-effective template for toppling troublesome governments – be they left-wing, nationalist, or even former US puppets who’d stepped out of line. The previous October, longtime Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was brought down in what the Washington Post bombastically dubbed “an extraordinary US effort to unseat a foreign head of state, not through covert action of the kind the CIA once employed in such places as Iran and Guatemala, but by modern election campaign techniques.”

At the anti-Milosevic effort’s forefront was Otpor! (Serbian: Resistance!), a rebellious NED-funded youth activist group. Through a mix of civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, rock concerts, street theatre, and graffiti, they fomented mass public opposition to the Yugoslav President. When election day came and official results pointed to Milosevic’s victory, an NED-funded “parallel vote tabulation” purported to expose major fraud, sending millions to the streets of Belgrade to peacefully demand the President’s resignation. Milosevic duly capitulated, in the face of seemingly overwhelming people power.

The supposedly heroic struggle of Otpor! and other US-supported anti-Milosevic groups was immortalised in a slick ‘documentary’, Bringing Down A Dictator. Milosevic’s fall provided a precise blueprint for future ‘color revolutions’ – so-called because frequently, the Empire-supported activists who led these mob putsches prominently adopted specific colours for their banners, branding and logos. Initially, US officials eagerly associated themselves publicly with this upheaval. Meanwhile, the mainstream media routinely published remarkably illuminating post-mortems of the revolts, extensively exposing Washington’s guiding hand and oft-enormous financial outlay.

Nonetheless, politicians, pundits and journalists alike universally framed colour revolutions as ultimately spontaneous uprisings by liberal, progressive elements with legitimate grievances, who yearned for democracy and freedom. In reality, they almost invariably produced corrupt, repressive governments that ruled via intimidation and brutality, including political assassinations. Post-colour revolution regimes also typically conducted sweeping privatisation and other ravaging ‘reforms’, destroying living standards for average citizens by prostrating their countries to the EU, IMF, NATO, World Trade Organization, and other mechanisms of Western economic, military, and political subjugation.

Slobodan Milosevic’s NED-orchestrated ouster is nicknamed the ‘Bulldozer Revolution’, due to iconic scenes during the upheaval of a wheel loader helping anti-government agitators occupy state buildings. However, its driver quickly turned against the “Revolution”. Subsequent “shock therapy” decimated Yugoslavia’s mixed market economy, causing his successful independent business to fail, and him to go bankrupt. He subsisted until his dying day on meagre state welfare payments. For most participants, subsequent colour revolutions were similarly an object lesson in being careful about what one wishes for.

‘External Shove’

In February 2005, President George W. Bush gave a swaggering address in Bratislava, Slovakia. He hailed how “in recent times, we have witnessed landmark events in the history of liberty.” This included Georgia’s November 2003 Rose Revolution, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution the next year, and Iraq’s Purple Revolution a month prior. “The advance of freedom is the concentrated work of generations,” Bush declared. He looked ahead to Moldova, and “inevitably” Belarus, “someday proudly [belonging] to the country of democracies [sic]”:

Moldova’s forced transformation into a staggeringly corrupt effective EU-US colony took many years. Belarus conversely remains stubbornly resistant to “freedom’s promise”, as defined by Brussels, London, Washington, and other centres of imperial power. Still, President Bush’s confidence was well-founded. Waves of insurrectionary unrest unleashed by his government’s “Freedom Agenda” had systematically swept away designated enemy governments one by one annually since he took office. Indeed, within weeks of Bush’s speech, Kyrgyzstan’s insufficiently pro-Western leader fell victim to yet another colour revolution.

He would not be the last. Prior colour revolutions had enthusiastically emphasised the importance of techniques of nonviolent resistance – many of which were crafted by Gene Sharp, who was intimately enmeshed within the US military and intelligence establishment for much of his life. However, Kyrgyzstan’s NED-created regime change army, KelKel – directly modelled on Otpor! – attacked police, torched government buildings and even carried out bombings. Their ferocity was actively encouraged and promoted by US-funded TV stations locally. Such belligerence subsequently became a colour revolution calling card.

That colour revolutions represented a formal weapon of war in the Empire’s post-9/11 arsenal was enthusiastically spelled out by arch-neoconservative Max Boot in late December 2004. He gushed how Ukraine’s Orange Revolution days earlier, which brought a pro-Western government to power, was “one of the most inspiring events” of that year. Boot declared the “triumph” and “miracle” of the revolution “should dispel the quaint notion still prevalent in many Western universities and foreign ministries that democracy is a luxury good suitable for rich countries”:

Boot boasted how Washington had “spent $58 million on democracy promotion in the last two years” in Ukraine. He proposed Kiev receive “expedited NATO and European Union membership,” to finish off the Orange Revolution. “In the meantime, we need to apply elsewhere the lessons of Ukraine” Boot demanded, suggesting “an obvious candidate for a similar transformation is Iran.” He explained, “it’s hard to think of a higher priority than the overthrow of the mullahs,” encouraging the Bush administration to prioritise “liberating Iran.”

‘USAID Help’

Such was the insurrectionary fervour of the time, in January 2006 USAID went to the extent of publishing a glossy magazine, Democracy Rising, revealing in detail Washington’s central role in fomenting “grassroots” rebellions as far afield as Afghanistan, Gaza and Lebanon. Dedicated sections on colour revolutions to date were replete with stunningly forthright passages. A section on Georgia’s November 2003 Rose Revolution described how NED had financed regime change training for local “lawyers, judges, journalists, members of parliament, NGOs, political party leaders, and others.”

The stated purpose of this investment was to give Georgians “a sense that they should regulate the government.” The Rose Revolution “was the climax of these efforts.” One recipient of US financial support remarked, “without foreign assistance, I’m not sure we would have been able to achieve what we did without bloodshed.” Meanwhile, several pages were dedicated to the Orange Revolution. It noted how thousands of Ukrainian journalists were given training in “investigative reporting”, bankrolled by NED and USAID.

An alumni told Democracy Rising this sponsorship “created a feeling that others stood with them ‘in the trenches’.” Concurrently, NED-affiliated Freedom House flooded the coffers of NGOs “that sponsored voter education, mobilized voters to get to the polls and observed elections.” These organisations “also held meetings, youth dances, rock concerts and karaoke to attract young voters,” and “ran public service ads on TV stations, informing people about their right to vote.” Meanwhile, “democracy trainers from Serbia, Slovakia, Russia and Croatia” were flown into the country.

In the second round of Ukraine’s presidential election, NED-financed NGOs claimed to have been inundated with tens of thousands of reports of fraud from voting stations all over the country, while exit polls they produced pointed to widespread rigging having denied pro-Western candidate Viktor Yushchenko a landslide victory. Vast protests, combined with opposition-organised general strikes, widespread civil disobedience and occupations of government buildings forced a rerun. A US-funded think tank apparatchik asserted:

For all the hype and self-assurance of Democracy Rising, its publication came at a time when colour revolutions were increasingly being viewed with hostility and suspicion at a state and public level throughout the Global South. In every case, the radical outcomes promised by colour revolution leaders and advocates failed to materialise, while US rhetoric about the commitment of resultant pro-Western regimes to democracy and freedom was a perverse fraud.

In Ukraine, US-installed Yushchenko implemented economic austerity, slashed regulations and social spending, bailed out criminal banks, broke open state industry and natural resources for foreign plunder, attacked the rights of Russian speakers, and began preparing the country for locally-feared NATO membership. Within just nine months of entering office, his coalition government – comprised of Orange Revolution activists – collapsed due to deeply corrupt battles with feuding Ukrainian oligarchs over control of key media and industrial assets.

Yushchenko was voted out in the January 2010 presidential election, finishing fifth in the first round with just 5.5% of the vote. As Empire house journal Foreign Policy lamented years later, the Bush administration’s much-vaunted colour revolutions all turned out to be “terribly disappointing.” Each and every time, “elite corruption still continued apace” and “promises of far-reaching change never really materialized.” Damningly, “maladies that typified the preceding regimes quickly came to describe” the governments created by colour revolutions themselves.

‘Revolution Business’

That’s quite some euphemism. In Georgia, longtime Soros acolyte Mikheil Saakashvili granted himself unilateral power in key policy areas, before brazenly exploiting his position to harass and jail business and political rivals. Saakashvili’s targets would be raped and/or tortured in prison, their ordeals filmed for primetime broadcast on local TV networks. Grave questions abound over his personal involvement in several suspicious deaths, including government ministers’. He was voted out in October 2012, despite NED’s best efforts.

Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 Tulip Revolution installed Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who proceeded to run the country as his personal fiefdom for five years. Bakiyev’s relatives profited exorbitantly from legally questionable privatisation of state industries. For example, his family signed a highly controversial $1.8 billion deal to supply fuel to a local US military base, close to Kyrgyzstan’s total GDP in 2003. Elsewhere, Bakiyev’s brother oversaw Bishkek’s security apparatus – arbitrary detentions, bogus convictions, torture, and murders of opposition activists, journalists, and politicians became commonplace.

Bakiyev was himself chased out of not only the presidential palace but Bishkek itself in April 2010, following a massacre of anti-corruption protesters in which up to 100 were killed and at least 450 wounded. Thereafter, Kyrgyzstan was plunged into economic and political chaos for a decade, with numerous governments collapsing along the way. The freest and most stable Central Asian state prior to the Tulip Revolution, it is only since 2020 – following another Anglo-American coup – the country has regained some semblance of stability.

A key player in that upheaval was British ambassador Charles Garrett. He arrived in Bishkek from Macedonia, where as this journalist has revealed from April 2016 he steered what was known as the “colorful revolution”. Illegally obtained, deceptively edited wiretaps seemingly implicating government officials in shocking crimes produced huge protests, featuring widespread arson attacks and brutal clashes between demonstrators and police. Garrett distributed cash to NGOs and activists involved in the unrest from his diplomatic pouch, encouraging them to cause mass havoc.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, NED, and USAID were also colorful revolution participants. Some protesters even proudly wore “Soros Army” shirts. Despite a huge public counter-revolutionary fightback, the tumult paralysed the Macedonian economy and state, leading to the installation of a doggedly pro-Western, dangerously dysfunctional administration that engaged in industrial scale graft, jailed political opponents on bogus charges, and changed the country’s name despite widespread opposition. Meanwhile, existing economic problems, including crippling brain drain, were gravely exacerbated.

The unfailingly disastrous results of colour revolutions surely contributed to White House officials abruptly and firmly distancing themselves from the entire enterprise, before the Bush administration’s second term was even over. The “Freedom Agenda” was quietly forgotten. The President – who in October 2004 openly mandated financial assistance to Belarusian opposition activists, and once publicly praised the Rose Revolution as an example to be followed throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia – went so far as to deny the US was in the “revolution business” at all.

‘Alternate Reality’

Colour revolutions have continued apace ever since, with the same strategies being recurrently applied the world over, to varying degrees of success. All along, non-Western governments – in particular China, Iran and Russia – have become increasingly vocal in their condemnation of and opposition to colour revolutions, in some cases passing legislation seeking to curtail the operations of foreign funded NGOs on their soil. Yet, the mainstream media long ago adopted a rigid Omertà on Washington’s culpability for civil society-driven destabilisation overseas.

In a striking example of this paradigm shift, in November 2004, before the Orange Revolution was over, The Guardian published a revealing report exposing the “US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev.” The outlet stated unambiguously the revolt was “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.” NED, the State Department and USAID were all fingered as culprits.

Fast forward to July 2015 however, and a Guardian article on Russia’s banning of NED under foreign agent laws quite amazingly relied on a brief quote pulled from the Endowment’s official website to describe its operations. In the intervening time, the Maidan Revolution overthrew Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, setting Kiev on the warpath with Moscow. Washington’s irrefutable involvement was strenuously denied at the time by the mainstream media, and has been ever since.

Following the Ukraine proxy war’s February 2022 eruption, The New York Times took vigorous aim at independent journalists for spreading the “conspiracy theory” Maidan was US-orchestrated, dubbing the proposition an “alternative reality” and “Russian disinformation”. This is despite every prominent Maidan actor – including the individuals who started the demonstrations – receiving NED or USAID funding, leaders of US-bankrolled organisations in the country advertising their intention to overthrow Yanukovych years prior, and the Endowment spending $20 million in the country in 2013 alone.

After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, NED removed its grant records on Ukraine, listing its investment in a panoply of initiatives in the country over many years – many of which ultimately targeted Russia, one way or another. In mid-2024, the Endowment undertook the unprecedented step of removing grant records for the entire world. Today, brief entries on different geographical regions describe in vague terms the Endowment’s specific aims locally, and overall sums being spent. The crucial questions of where, and on what, aren’t clarified.

NED going underground makes the task of tracking and exposing contemporary colour revolutions difficult, but not impossible. In September 2025, mass rioting ignited in Nepal. Major news outlets without exception reported the fiery agitation as an organic burst of dissent by the country’s disaffected “Gen Z”, motivated by corruption, unemployment, and state censorship of social media. Publications barely acknowledged demonstrators committed serious crimes, including torching Nepal’s parliament and the Prime Minister’s official residence, which sent occupants fleeing in helicopters.

Based on publicly available information, the clear insinuations of a colour revolution could be discerned. An NGO that organised the protests, Hami Nepal, had clear links to organisations known to be in receipt of NED funding. Subsequent leaks amply demonstrated the Endowment and USAID expended substantial sums over the years preceding the coup training young Nepalese citizens how to protest, founding NGOs and political parties, and “advocate concerns” on issues such as corruption. Evidently, the post-9/11 “Freedom Agenda” never actually ended.

The warning arrives in the form of an email, just a couple of days before the interview. Helen DeWitt, author of The Last Samurai, one of the most acclaimed novels of the century, has requested, as a prelude to the conversation with EL PAÍS, that her latest blog post be read. According to the mediator from Random House (her Spanish-language publisher) in the post, she “talks a bit about how, sometimes, the promotion imposed on her by publishers or awards prevents her from doing what she’s dedicated to: writing books.”

Seguir leyendo

The White House ballroom project is wildly unpopular. Donald Trump doesn’t care. Ben Terris reports on Trump’s obsessive bid for architectural immortality, which is now barreling toward completion, and captures the breathtaking sycophancy required to work for this president:

“We had asphalt going into here,” Trump says, standing on the pathway leading to the residence of the White House. “Now you have the best stone.” He points at a pile of square-cut granite—the type being used to replace the asphalt walkway—and looks to his communications director, Steven Cheung, who is accompanying us on this impromptu tour of the White House grounds en route to the construction site.

“That’s some stone, huh, Steven?” he says.

“It’s incredible,” Cheung concurs.

“Look at the thickness of it,” Trump says. “Normally, you use one inch, as thin as you can. It’s the White House—I said, ‘Fuck it, what’s the best you have?’ They said, ‘We have one that’s four inches.’”

“You’re restoring glory to the White House,” Cheung says, shaking his head in apparent awe.

In a beautiful and vivid essay on home, time, and family, Diane Roberts reflects on the house that her parents built, and their family’s land in Leon County, Florida, to which she feels deeply connected. I especially love Roberts’s thoughts on a home versus a house—the latter is composed of construction materials, but “home implies a complex neural network of family association and feeling, layers of experience, a shared past.” Despite the tragedies the home holds, it is ultimately a place of memory and meaning.

Home and time are as tangled as the skunk vine and Confederate jasmine choking my backyard fence. I suppose that’s to be expected. My house holds our history and the indispensable relics of former houses, objects cherished by the now-dead: the tiny rocking chair my grandfather made for my mother when she was three; the 1960 TR3 in the barn my brother never quite got around to fixing; the two old rosebushes dug up from the Washington County farm, replanted at Great-Aunt Rilla’s house in Chipley, then dug up again and transported to our front yard. The house didn’t simply belong to us, it was us—our mother, our father, Brad, and me.

I found it easy to resist the early dispatches from “UFC Freedom 250,” the Ultimate Fighting Championship event held in June on the White House South Lawn. But Jon Ronson is the sort of writer I can’t help following into battle. Fresh off a new book about masculinity, Ronson brings a delightfully skewed perspective to the fights and the days that surrounded them. The result is a portrait of a planned media spectacle that can’t quite make sense of itself. The best battle here may be Ronson’s tussle with his own photographer, 79-year-old Bruce Gilden, who is a bit of a hugger.

“I’m pretty certain you hugged Stephen Miller first,” I say. “I don’t see Stephen Miller as initiating a hug.”

“You may be right,” he says. “I don’t remember. Look, I do things maybe other people aren’t comfortable doing, but I felt comfortable and I trust my instincts.”

He acknowledges that “nobody is immune to misreading a situation” and that because of him we were all forced back indoors, but he blames Miller’s entourage for not checking with their boss on whether he minded being hugged.