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Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a briefing on the administration's coronavirus response in the press briefing room of the White House on March 3, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
'Absolutely Outrageous': Trump White House Bars Press From Filming or Recording Coronavirus Briefing
"We need transparency. Instead we are getting this."
Mar 03, 2020
The Trump administration on Tuesday barred the media from filming or recording audio of a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, sparking outrage from members of the press and progressive critics.
Journalists were only permitted to take still photos of the briefing, HuffPost reported Tuesday, leading some to characterize the press conference as a mere photo-op rather than an effort to convey critical information about the disease as it spreads across the United States.
The briefing was led by Vice President Mike Pence, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the White House's coronavirus response.
Al-Monitor reporter Laura Rozen called the decision to ban video and audio "absolutely outrageous" and said the move "will further signal [to] the public that the Trump administration doesn't have a handle on this."
Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, tweeted that "the closest thing to an explanation we got as to why the coronavirus briefing was off-camera with no audio was when Pence said Trump was on camera a bunch today."
\u201cWH is allowing only still photos of this Coronavirus briefing. No audio or video permitted. Here is a photo of the VP as the briefing began.\u201d— Jim Acosta (@Jim Acosta) 1583276391
"We need transparency. Instead we are getting this," Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, tweeted late Tuesday.
The photo-only press briefing came as the Trump administration is reportedly working to clamp down on White House coronavirus messaging. Federal scientists and health officials, according to the New York Times, are now required to coordinate with Pence on all public appearances and statements related to the outbreak.
Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post last week that Trump's effort to "muzzle" federal scientists "is a highly dangerous power grab that undermines both emergency response and public faith in the reliability of information coming out of the government."
"If this censorship and retaliation trend continues, we can expect more gross incompetence in handling the virus' spread," Halpern warned. "More people will get needlessly sick and more people will needlessly die."
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The Trump administration on Tuesday barred the media from filming or recording audio of a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, sparking outrage from members of the press and progressive critics.
Journalists were only permitted to take still photos of the briefing, HuffPost reported Tuesday, leading some to characterize the press conference as a mere photo-op rather than an effort to convey critical information about the disease as it spreads across the United States.
The briefing was led by Vice President Mike Pence, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the White House's coronavirus response.
Al-Monitor reporter Laura Rozen called the decision to ban video and audio "absolutely outrageous" and said the move "will further signal [to] the public that the Trump administration doesn't have a handle on this."
Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, tweeted that "the closest thing to an explanation we got as to why the coronavirus briefing was off-camera with no audio was when Pence said Trump was on camera a bunch today."
\u201cWH is allowing only still photos of this Coronavirus briefing. No audio or video permitted. Here is a photo of the VP as the briefing began.\u201d— Jim Acosta (@Jim Acosta) 1583276391
"We need transparency. Instead we are getting this," Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, tweeted late Tuesday.
The photo-only press briefing came as the Trump administration is reportedly working to clamp down on White House coronavirus messaging. Federal scientists and health officials, according to the New York Times, are now required to coordinate with Pence on all public appearances and statements related to the outbreak.
Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post last week that Trump's effort to "muzzle" federal scientists "is a highly dangerous power grab that undermines both emergency response and public faith in the reliability of information coming out of the government."
"If this censorship and retaliation trend continues, we can expect more gross incompetence in handling the virus' spread," Halpern warned. "More people will get needlessly sick and more people will needlessly die."
The Trump administration on Tuesday barred the media from filming or recording audio of a daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, sparking outrage from members of the press and progressive critics.
Journalists were only permitted to take still photos of the briefing, HuffPost reported Tuesday, leading some to characterize the press conference as a mere photo-op rather than an effort to convey critical information about the disease as it spreads across the United States.
The briefing was led by Vice President Mike Pence, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the White House's coronavirus response.
Al-Monitor reporter Laura Rozen called the decision to ban video and audio "absolutely outrageous" and said the move "will further signal [to] the public that the Trump administration doesn't have a handle on this."
Jim Acosta, CNN's chief White House correspondent, tweeted that "the closest thing to an explanation we got as to why the coronavirus briefing was off-camera with no audio was when Pence said Trump was on camera a bunch today."
\u201cWH is allowing only still photos of this Coronavirus briefing. No audio or video permitted. Here is a photo of the VP as the briefing began.\u201d— Jim Acosta (@Jim Acosta) 1583276391
"We need transparency. Instead we are getting this," Judd Legum, author of the Popular Information newsletter, tweeted late Tuesday.
The photo-only press briefing came as the Trump administration is reportedly working to clamp down on White House coronavirus messaging. Federal scientists and health officials, according to the New York Times, are now required to coordinate with Pence on all public appearances and statements related to the outbreak.
Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post last week that Trump's effort to "muzzle" federal scientists "is a highly dangerous power grab that undermines both emergency response and public faith in the reliability of information coming out of the government."
"If this censorship and retaliation trend continues, we can expect more gross incompetence in handling the virus' spread," Halpern warned. "More people will get needlessly sick and more people will needlessly die."
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LATEST NEWS
Omar, Ramirez Among First in Congress to Decry 'Unconstitutional' Trump Strike on Boat
"They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law," the Minnesota progressive said of the Trump administration.
Sep 04, 2025
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Delia Ramirez on Thursday strongly condemned the Trump administration's deadly attack on a boat allegedly trafficking cocaine off the coast of Venezuela as "lawless and reckless," while urging the White House to respect lawmakers' "clear constitutional authority on matters of war and peace."
"Congress has not declared war on Venezuela, or Tren de Aragua, and the mere designation of a group as a terrorist organization does not give any president carte blanche," said Omar (D-Minn.), referring to President Donald Trump's day one executive order designating drug cartels including the Venezuela-based group as foreign terrorist organizations.
Trump—who reportedly signed a secret order directing the Pentagon to use military force to combat cartels abroad—said that Tuesday's US strike in international waters killed 11 people. The attack sparked fears of renewed US aggression in a region that has endured well over 100 US interventions over the past 200 years, and against a country that has suffered US meddling since the late 19th century.
"It appears that US forces that were recently sent to the region in an escalatory and provocative manner were under no threat from the boat they attacked," Omar cotended. "There is no conceivable legal justification for this use of force. Unless compelling evidence emerges that they were acting in self-defense, that makes the strike a clear violation of international law."
Omar continued:
They're now using the failed War on Drugs to justify their egregious violation of international law. The US posture towards the eradication of drugs has caused immeasurable damage across our hemisphere. It has led to massive forced displacement, environmental devastation, violence, and human rights violations. What it has not done is any damage whatsoever to narcotrafficking or to the cartels. It has been a dramatic, profound failure at every level. In Latin America, even right-wing presidents acknowledge this is true.
The congresswoman's remarks came on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated a pair of Ecuadorean drug gangs as terrorist organizations while visiting the South American nation. This, after Rubio said that US attacks on suspected drug traffickers "will happen again."
"Trump and Rubio's apparent solution" to the failed drug war, said Omar, is "to make it even more militarized," an effort that "is doomed to fail."
"Worse, it risks spiraling into the exact type of endless, pointless conflict that Trump supposedly opposes," she added.
Echoing critics including former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, who called Tuesday's strike a "summary execution," Ramirez (D-Ill.) said Thursday on social media that "Trump and the Pentagon executed 11 people in the Caribbean, 1,500 miles away from the United States, without a legal rationale."
"From Iran to Venezuela, to DC, LA, and Chicago, Trump continues to abuse our military power, undermine the rule of law, and erode our constitutional boundaries in political spectacles," Ramirez added, referring to the president's ordering of strikes on Iran and National Guard deployments to Los Angeles, the nation's capital, and likely beyond.
"Presidents don't bomb first and ask questions later," Ramirez added. "Wannabe dictators do that."
'Cruelty': US Appeals Court Blocks Order to Shut Down Alligator Alcatraz
"The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening!" said Florida Immigrant Coalition's deputy director.
Sep 04, 2025
Two judges appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit by President Donald Trump issued a Thursday decision that allows a newly established but already notorious immigrant detention center in Florida, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, to stay open.
Friends of the Everglades, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida sought "to halt the unlawful construction" of the site. Last month, Judge Kathleen Williams—appointed by former President Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida—ordered the closure of the facility within 60 days.
However, on Thursday, Circuit Judges Elizabeth Branch and Barbara Lagoa blocked Williams' decision, concluding that "the balance of the harms and our consideration of the public interest favor a stay of the preliminary injunction."
Judge Adalberto Jordan, an Obama appointee, issued a brief but scathing dissent. He wrote that the majority "essentially ignores the burden borne by the defendants, pays only lip service to the abuse of discretion standard, engages in its own factfinding, declines to consider the district court's determination on irreparable harm, and performs its own balancing of the equities."
The 11th Circuit's ruling was cheered by the US Department of Homeland Security, Republican Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, and Gov. Ron DeSantis, who declared in a video that "Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we've always said, open for business."
Uthmeier's communications director, Jeremy Redfern, collected responses to the initial ruling by state and federal Democrats, and urged them to weigh in on social media. Florida state Sen. Shevrin "Shev" Jones (D-34) did, stressing that "cruelty is still cruelty."
In a Thursday statement, Florida Immigrant Coalition deputy director Renata Bozzetto said that "the 11th Circuit is allowing atrocities to happen by reversing the injunction that helped to paralyze something that has been functioning as an extrajudicial site in our own state! The Everglades Detention Camp isn't just an environmental threat; it is also a huge human rights crisis."
"Housing thousands of men in tents in the middle of a fragile ecosystem puts immense strain on Florida's source environment, but even more troublesome, it disregards human rights and our constitutional commitments," Bozzetto continued. "This is a place where hundreds of our neighbors were illegally held, were made invisible within government systems, and were subjected to inhumane heat and unbearable treatment. The fact that a facility embedded in so much pain is allowed to reopen is absolutely disheartening! The only just solution is to shut this facility down and ensure that no facility like this opens in our state!"
"Lastly, it is imperative that we as a nation uphold the balance of powers that this country was founded on," she added. "That is what makes this country special! Calling judges who rule against you 'activists' flies in the face of our democracy. It is a huge tell that AG Uthmeier expressed this as a 'win for President Trump's agenda,' as if the courts were to serve as political weapons. This demonstrates the clear partisan games they are playing with people's lives and with our democracy."
While Alligator Alcatraz has drawn widespread criticism for the conditions in which detainees are held, the suit is based on the government's failure to follow a law that requires an environmental review, given the facility's proximity to surrounding wetlands.
In response to the ruling, Elise Bennett, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press that "this is a heartbreaking blow to America's Everglades and every living creature there, but the case isn't even close to over."
Healthcare Giants Have Raked in 'Sick Profits' From Trump Tax Cuts While Stiffing Patients: Report
The report found that seven of America's biggest healthcare companies have collectively dodged $34 billion in taxes as a result of Trump's 2017 tax law while making patient care worse.
Sep 04, 2025
President Donald Trump's tax policies have allowed the healthcare industry to rake in "sick profits" by avoiding tens of billions of dollars in taxes and lowering the quality of care for patients, according to a report out Wednesday.
The report, by the advocacy groups Americans for Tax Fairness and Community Catalyst, found that "seven of America's biggest healthcare corporations have dodged over $34 billion in collective taxes since the enactment of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that Republicans recently succeeded in extending."
The study examined four health insurance companies—Centene, Cigna, Elevance (formerly Anthem), and Humana; two for-profit hospital chains—HCA Holdings and Universal Health Services; and the CVS Healthcare pharmacy conglomerate.
It found that these companies' average profits increased by 75%, from around $21 billion before the tax bill to about $35 billion afterward, and yet their federal tax rate was about the same.
This was primarily due to the 2017 law's slashing of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, a change that was cheered on by the healthcare industry and continued with this year's GOP tax legislation. The legislation also loosened many tax loopholes and made it easier to move profits to offshore tax shelters.
The report found that Cigna, for instance, saved an estimated $181 million in taxes on the $2.5 billion it held in offshore accounts before the law took effect.
The law's supporters, including those in the healthcare industry, argued that lowering corporate taxes would allow companies to increase wages and provide better services to patients. But the report found that "healthcare corporations failed to use their tax savings to lower costs for customers or meaningfully boost worker pay."
Instead, they used those windfalls primarily to increase shareholder payouts through stock buybacks and dividends and to give fat bonuses to their top executives.
Stock buybacks increased by 42% after the law passed, with Centene purchasing an astonishing average of 20 times more of its own shares in the years following its enactment than in the years before. During the first seven years of the law, dividends for shareholders increased by 133% to an average of $5.6 billion.
Pay for the seven companies' half-dozen top executives increased by a combined $100 million, 42%, on average. This is compared to the $14,000 pay increase that the average employee at these companies received over the same period, which is a much more modest increase of 24%.
And contrary to claims that lower taxes would allow companies to improve coverage or patient care, the opposite has occurred.
While data is scarce, the rate of denied insurance claims is believed to have risen since the law went into effect.
The four major insurers' Medicare Advantage plans were found to frequently deny claims improperly. In the case of Centene, 93% of its denials for prior authorizations were overturned once patients appealed them, which indicates that they may have been improper. The others were not much better: 86% of Cigna's denials were overturned, along with 71% for Elevance/Anthem, and 65% for Humana.
The report said that such high rates of denials being overturned raise "questions about whether Medicare Advantage plans are complying with their coverage obligations or just reflexively saying 'no' in the hopes there will be no appeal."
Salespeople for the Cigna-owned company EviCore, which insurers hire to review claims, have even boasted that they help companies reduce their costs by increasing denials by 15%, part of a model that ProPublica has called the "denials for dollars business." Their investigation in 2024 found that insurers have used EviCore to evaluate whether to pay for coverage for over 100 million people.
And while paying tens of millions to their executives, both HCA and Universal Health Services—which each saved around $5.5 billion from Trump's tax law—have been repeatedly accused of overbilling patients while treating them in horrendous conditions.
"Congress should demand both more in tax revenue and better patient care from these highly profitable corporations," Americans for Tax Fairness said in a statement. "Healthcare corporation profitability should not come before quality of patient care. In healthcare, more than almost any other industry, the search for ever higher earnings threatens the wellbeing and lives of the American people."
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