White House

The evening had started pleasantly enough. The most alarming thing about the party I was attending in the Hilton Hotel where the Washington Correspondents’ Dinner was being held were the $18 martinis. Those, and the woman in the nice black dress screaming “criminals” at the police as they dragged her out the door as I arrived. Protesters had gathered outside. They chanted indiscriminately at guests filing through the entrance, calling for an end to the war in Iran and to free Palestine. I was one floor above the main dinner at a party hosted by ABC, engaged in the kind of self-congratulatory socializing this weekend was designed for, when heavily armed police officers started moving through the room. First one, then several – and they wouldn't explain why.

Mark Twain famously wrote that “rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, and similar rumors have proliferated about King Charles’s state visit to the United States not taking place as a direct result of the ongoing conflict in Iran. Dubiously-informed sources have suggested either that Charles himself is so personally offended by the outbreak of war that he has refused to head to America in a month’s time, or alternatively that the British government, smarting from the tongue-lashings that President Trump has handed out to the hapless Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, have suggested that it would be a bad idea for the trip to go ahead at this time, and that the King should postpone the visit to the fall.

On December 15, the White House was the setting for its own romantic holiday movie, though it didn’t involve amnesia or a big-city career gal moving to a small town to reconnect with her high-school boyfriend who’s now a lumberjack and handyman. Instead, President Trump “let the cat out of the bag” by announcing that his son, Donald Trump Jr., was engaged to a woman named Bettina Anderson. "I'm not usually at a loss for words, because I'm usually doing the ranting and raving really well," said the 47-year-old Don Jr. "I want to thank Bettina for that one word: 'Yes.'" It was, he said, a "big win for the end of the year". Bigly. Who is this new branch on the Trump family tree? Articles widely describe Anderson as a “Florida socialite.

“We are so excited to be joined by Kash and his beautiful girlfriend Alexis,” said Katie Miller, wife of Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, on this week’s podcast. And there, on the couch next to her, sits FBI Director Kash Patel and Alexis Wilkins, his significant other, a country-music singer and conservative political commentator, a female twenty-something Bob Roberts for our modern age. “So I just want to clarify,” Miller says. “You’re not Jewish.” “I’m not,” Wilkins says, while Patel laughs beside her. “You are not from Israel.” “No.” “So how did we get to are you a Mossad agent?

Donald Trump is famous for being willing to meet anyone – Russia’s Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Syria’s al-Jolani – and even New York’s Zohran Mamdani.  The mayor-elect of the city of Trump’s birth will travel to Washington today for an audience with the Commander in Chief, and America’s journalists are furiously tapping away in anticipation of a big “showdown.” The two men have spent months insulting each other. Trump calls Mamdani a “communist” (which the New York Times factchecks as false, naturally, because Zohran identifies as a “democratic socialist”) and has suggested, to much liberal apoplexy, that he “may not be here legally.

Though reporters covering the Trump administration are very familiar with Steven Cheung, the Donald’s combative White House communications director, he’s not a recognizable face to the general public. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt plays good cop, deflecting questions; Cheung is bad cop, trolling the media on X. But Cheung had a moment in the spotlight early this month during a press conference in which Trump announced reduced prices for GLP-1 “fat drugs.” “Where’s Steve?” Trump said. “He’s taking it.” The press is very familiar with Cheung’s weight issues. When one media outlet compared him to the rather overweight Bond villain Oddjob, Cheung leaned into the racially tinged stereotype and posed for a photo while wearing a bowler hat.

There is nothing like the thrill of getting a White House invitation. Even though I worked there at the time, I vividly recall the sparkly feeling when I read that "The President and First Lady" requested the pleasure of my company at a reception for the US Embassy hostages who had just come home from captivity in Iran. It was a great stroke for my ego, simultaneously a sensation of importance and reward for work well done. My origins are plebeian and it ranked among the most exciting things that happened to me since being unexpectedly invited to tea with Princess Margaret at Oxford. A White House social invitation is an informal tool of presidential power. From George and Martha Washington onward White House invitations have been used to achieve policy aims.

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA?” President Trump posted over breakfast. “Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!” Trump wasn’t talking about the global box-office success of K-Pop Demon Hunters, and wasn’t warning about the proliferation of zombies on the Train to Busan. Instead, word had reached Trump of recent raids by the government of newly-elected liberal South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on some conservative churches, including the Unification Church. These were related to documents about the coup that embroiled the country last December and nearly toppled Lee’s newly-elected government.

The excited word went out late Thursday afternoon that President Trump was going to do an evening ridealong with the National Guard. According to Twitter, he was now officially the roughest dude to occupy the White House since Teddy Roosevelt. Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when the Trump gets you? Fight fight fight! At the height of rush hour, POTUS climbed into “The Beast,” the Presidential limo, in a motorcade that included chief of staff Susie Wiles, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, most-hated-man-in-America Steven Miller, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, among others. This was going to be one hell of a ridealong. At 5:32 pm, Trump arrived at U.S.

When President Trump said in July that he planned to host a Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the White House lawn next year as part of the U.S.A.’s 250th birthday celebrations, people dismissed it as a typical piece of hyperbole and bluster. “We have a lot of land there,” Trump said, which is somewhat true, but that doesn’t mean that you can plop down an Octagon, right? Well, as it turns out, that’s exactly what it means. Trump is like that boy in the old Twilight Zone episode. Whatever he wishes, comes true. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, UFC boss Dana White, one of Trump’s biggest supporters, said that the UFC 250th anniversary (of the U.S.) is definitely going to happen. “Fighters will be warming up in the White House,” White said.

Donald Trump's press conference announcing a federal takeover of Washington, DC's police force was packed to the gills with White House reporters – many of whom live in DC and the surrounding area, and are more than familiar with the degradation of law and order in the region. But just because they know it's bad doesn't mean they want to give Trump any credit for trying to clean up the city – in fact, they're likely to attack the move from both sides. The ramifications of Trump's takeover, under Section 740's emergency rule, will have undetermined ripple effects in the capital city, but the initial reaction to it illustrates the difficult position in which it puts the president's critics.

The President needed One Big, Beautiful Vote in the Senate to move forward with his One Big, Beautiful Bill. It was a close call. This afternoon senators voted 50-50 to pass the act which will solidify Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, increase child tax credits, reduce Medicaid spending – to name a few of policies in the 940-page proposal. Vice President J.D. Vance acted as the tie-breaker, passing the bill and sending it back to the House of Representatives, where it also passed by just one vote back in May. Trump, unsurprisingly, is delighted. “MAGA VICTORY,” tweeted the White House just minutes after the bill had been passed. In many ways, the knife-edge victories have boosted the President’s agenda.