Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard coming to the White House podium and directly briefing the media on details of the declassification of materials related to the Russia Hoax and laying out a conspiracy to undermine the incoming administration. The legacy newscasts chose, yet again, to mostly run away from the story.
Our own Curtis Houck ran an extensive blow-by-blow of the press briefing, with details of the Q&A, and specifics of what Gabbard laid out. The final line of his analysis proved prescient:
With all of this hubbub, the flagship network morning and evening newscasts can no longer truly ignore this.
And you'll never guess what happened next. This, despite the legacies’ White House correspondents being on hand for the briefing. ABC and NBC totally omitted any mention of the Russia Hoax revelations from their nightly newscasts. The CBS Evening News was the only legacy outlet to run a Russia Hoax item. As was the case last night, it was a brief addendum at the end of the requisite Epstein report:
JOHN DICKERSON: And the president said anytime a Republican is asked about Epstein, they should talk about Barack Obama. That basically was happening in the briefing room today.
ED O'KEEFE: That's right. The White House tried again to redirect focus on to a different subject, in this case how the Obama administration investigated potential Russian interference in the 2016 elections. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard walked reporters through her review of the matter, and accused the former president of leading a coup against Trump. The past bipartisan congressional investigations and a special prosecutor found no such wrongdoing. President Obama's office calls the accusations “ridiculous”, and a “weak attempt at distraction.”
DICKERSON: Ed O’Keefe at The White House for us. Thank you, Ed.
What is particularly galling is that O’Keefe sat there and listened to Gabbard lay the entire conspiracy out, timeline and all, only to still fart out what is essentially a rehash from the night before. He even asked a question at the briefing with regard to the findings of the intelligence reports.
CBS’s @EdOKeefe: “The Senate Intelligence Committee spent several years looking into this and unanimously agreed in a bipartisan fashion — Secretary of State Rubio was a member of that committee — that there was no political interference. There was a years-long Justice Department… pic.twitter.com/BuWarKWdGo
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 23, 2025
Most interesting from that exchange is Gabbard’s response to O’Keefe with a plea for the media to do actual journalism:
I'm asking you and the media to conduct honest journalism, and the American people to see for yourself in the documents we have released now, close to 200 pages, that point in multiple references, multiple examples, to include comments that have been made by senior intelligence professionals, who are some still working within these agencies today, that confirm the conclusions we have drawn that President Obama directed an intelligence community assessment to be created to further this contrived, false narrative that ultimately led to a year's long coup to try to undermine President Trump's presidency.
Alas, this appears to have been too much of an ask, with “honest journalism” being too heavy a lift.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2024:
JOHN DICKERSON: There are new developments concerning the so-called Epstein files.
MAURICE DuBOIS: Those are Justice Department documents pertaining to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
DICKERSON: The Wall Street Journal first reported that the Justice Department in May informed President Trump that his name appears in those files. Ed O'Keefe is at The White House, and he has the details. Ed, put this new reporting and context for us, will you?
ED O'KEEFE: Well, John, this revelation isn't a surprise. We know that the president and Epstein were friends at one time, and just because the president is mentioned in the documents does not mean he did anything wrong. The White House calls this fake news, but these new revelations come at a politically inconvenient time, given the bipartisan push in Congress to release all the information regarding the Epstein cases. The House Oversight Committee, for example, today voted unanimously to subpoena Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to testify from prison. She’s serving a 20 year term.
DuBOIS: Ed, the attorney general Pam Bondi asked for grand jury testimony. What happened there?
O'KEEFE: Well, a federal judge in South Florida rejected a Justice Department request to unseal grand jury testimony from the original federal case that made Epstein a registered sex offender. The judge said prosecutors would need to launch a new case if they want that information. But there is an ongoing attempt to unseal grand jury testimony evidence from the second federal Epstein case in New York.
DICKERSON: And the president said anytime a Republican is asked about Epstein, they should talk about Barack Obama. That basically was happening in the briefing room today.
O'KEEFE: That's right. The White House tried again to redirect focus on to a different subject, in this case how the Obama administration investigated potential Russian interference in the 2016 elections. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard walked reporters through her review of the matter, and accused the former president of leading a coup against Trump. The past bipartisan congressional investigations and a special prosecutor found no such wrongdoing. President Obama's office calls the accusations “ridiculous”, and a “weak attempt at distraction.”
DICKERSON: Ed O’Keefe at The White House for us. Thank you, Ed.
