July 24, 2025 • 16 mins
In this Briefing, Jon Decker discusses significant developments at the White House, including Tulsi Gabbard's allegations against former President Obama regarding intelligence manipulation, the ongoing scrutiny of Jeffrey Epstein, and President Trump's ultimatum to Russia regarding military actions. The White House Briefing Room with Jon Decker airs weekdays - subscribe now on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Thursday, July
the twenty fourth. I'm John Decker. It was an unusual
day at the White House on Wednesday. Unusual because the
Director of National Intelligence, Tulci Gabbert, actually came to the
White House Press Briefing Room and addressed reporters. She is
(00:28):
intensifying the administration's attack on former President Barack Obama. She
released new information on Wednesday that she says is evidence
of the most egregious weaponization of intelligence in American history.
She laid out her case, she took questions from reporters,
(00:52):
including myself, and she also explained why she has sent
a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. And as
we may recall from just the day before, I asked
President Trump in the Oval Office, who does he believe
(01:13):
should be targeted as a part of this investigation by
the Department of Justice. And the President did not hesitate
in answering my question. He said, right away, president Barack Obama,
or in his words, President Barack Hussein Obama. So this
intensification of the focus on an administration that hasn't been
(01:37):
in office for quite some time, I think struck some
people in the briefing room as a little odd. It
comes to it as an unusual time. And the reason
I say that is because Tulsi Gabbard is, of course
President Trump's Director of National Intelligence. But as I pointed
(01:59):
out to Tulsi Gabbert in the briefing room, she is
not the first person who served in that capacity for
President Trump. And this is the reason why I questioned
Tulsi Gabbert on the timing of her allegations regarding President
Obama as well as others who served in his administration.
(02:22):
Let's take a listen to two questions that I posed
to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulci Gabbert on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You declassified these documents, if I'm not mistaken, Friday of
last week.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Correct, We released them on Friday of last week. The
first Trump yes.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Isn't the first time that President Trump has been president
of the United States. He was president from twenty seventeen
to twenty twenty one. Couldn't the prior d and I
under President Trump have declassified these documents? And why didn't
that DNI do that at that time?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I can't speak to what happened there. There were several
dyes under the first Trump administration. President Trump faced many
challenges from those who were working in the government who
sought to undermine his presidency. That's been clearly detailed. What
I can speak to is the fact that this was
one of the first things that we started to investigate
(03:19):
here within this Trump administration and have released the results
upon the conclusion of our investigation.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Now, Gabert says she has new information indicating that then
President Obama was closely involved in interfering in an effort
to undermine Donald Trump, and she said that she's referred
Obama to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution. As
(03:46):
she put it, she says, there is irrefutable evidence that
details how President Barack Obama and his national security team
directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they
knew was false. And she called the idea that Russia
interfered with the twenty sixteen election a contrived narrative. Now
(04:11):
that narrative is actually a narrative put forward by a
bipartisan Senate Intelligence committee. They came to the conclusion that
Russia indeed tried to interfere in the twenty sixteen election,
and the Senate Intelligence Committee report which came out several
(04:32):
years ago. At the time was chaired by someone named
Mark Rubio. Mark Rubio, of course, the former senior Senator
from Florida, now President Trump's national security advisor and also,
of course his Secretary of State. We haven't heard or
seen a statement from Secretary of State Mark Rubio now
(04:56):
that his name is resurfaced as it relates to these
allegations that are being put forward by the Director of
National Intelligence Tulci Gabberb as well as President Trump. And
we also heard from Caroline Levitt, the White House Press
Secretary today as well, driving home these allegations. This was
(05:19):
a rare appearance from a Director of National Intelligence. I
can't think of many times when that has happened in
all the years that I've covered the White House. I
can't think of a time that James Clapper came to
the White House. It may have happened, but it was odd,
and it was odd in terms of the allegations that
(05:41):
were being made against a former president. This is something
that the Department of Justice now will focus on as
it relates to this criminal referral. In fact, the Justice
Department announced on Wednesday the formation of a task for
that's what they call it, to look into these unsubstantiated
(06:04):
allegations by President Trump that President Barack Obama and his
aides ordered an investigation into the twenty sixteen Trump campaign's
connections to Russia in order to destroy Trump and destroy
his ability to win successfully in the twenty sixteen presidential election.
(06:29):
But of course we all know that Trump won the
twenty sixteen election. He won handily. He won all seven
swing states over Hillary Clinton. And so if this was
a plot that was hatched by Barack Obama and his
CIA director and his Director of National Intelligence and as
(06:51):
vice president, it was an unsuccessful plot. It did not
work out. Donald Trump was elected in twenty sixteen. The
other big story that really focused a lot of the
attention of the reporters covering the White House on Wednesday
was a renewed focus on Jeffrey Epstein, and there were
(07:12):
a number of developments that happened on Wednesday regarding that.
One development happened in the courts. A federal judge in
Florida on Wednesday denied a request by the Department of
Justice to release grand jury transcripts from their criminal investigation
into Jeffrey Epstein. And this, of course has likely disappointed
(07:40):
the Trump White House and the Department of Justice that
we're both hoping to perhaps mollify those critics who want
to see the release of all of those files that
are now at the Department of Justice, files that Attorney
General Pam Bondi says she will not release. So that
(08:01):
was one development as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein that
we saw happening on Wednesday. Another development, a House committee
has voted to subpoena the Justice Department for those Epstein files.
This is a key subcommittee voting to subpoena the Justice
Department for all of its files regarding the investigation into
(08:24):
Jeffrey Epstein. And the interesting thing here is that a
few Republicans actually broke ranks. They joined with Democrats in
backing this move. The Republicans who voted for the subpoena
were Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Ran Jack of Georgia,
and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. And now, according to the
(08:47):
rules of this subcommittee, the chairman of the House Oversight
Committee is required to issue those subpoenas. So we'll see
what happens on that front. And the other big news
as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein, has to do with
the story that came out late in the afternoon concerning
Jeffrey Epstein. And this story came out in the Wall
(09:10):
Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal reporting that Donald Trump's
name popped up several times in those Jeffrey Epstein files,
and Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, recognized this in May.
According to this article, she went over to the White House.
She informed President Trump that his name has appeared several
(09:34):
times in these files. That's not an indication, by the way,
that he's done anything wrong, but his name does appear
in those files, according to the Wall Street Journal, and
that added a new development to this story, and it's
a development which keeps the story alive for yet another day.
The White House dismissed the story, as they called it
(09:58):
fake news. But they didn't do what occurred on Friday
of last week. They did not file a lawsuit. They
did not threaten a lawsuit in terms of defamation. That's
what was filed Friday of last week against the Wall
Street Journal, against Rupert Murdoch, the primary shareholder of News Corp,
(10:21):
which owns the Wall Street Journal. That's not what happened
when this story appeared in the journal today. So this
story regarding Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news. It is
a story that has been kept alive almost every day
for the past two and a half weeks. And although
the House Speaker Mike Johnson has sent the House home early,
(10:46):
he's adjourned the House for their August recess, the issue
clearly isn't going away. In fact, Steve Scalise, he's the
House Majority leader, he acknowledged the issue isn't going away
and has indicated that the House when they return in September,
will address all issues related to the Jeffrey Epstein files
(11:09):
and this particular issue. And it's also interesting that in
an interview the Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, essentially,
the House needs to get this straight. They need to
get this in order, because I think he acknowledges that
the issue, for whatever reason, isn't going away. The last
(11:29):
thing that I think is important to keep in mind
is something that the President announced last Monday when he
had in the Oval office a visit by NATO's Secretary
General Mark Ruda. Remember, he made two announcements. One announcement
was that he was going to permit NATO countries to
(11:50):
purchase American military equipment, and then those NATO countries could
in turn convey that military equipment to Ukraine against Russia.
The other announcement had to do with a fifty day
ultimatum that he's giving to Russia. Come to some sort
of peace deal within fifty days, that's September the second,
(12:13):
or the US will institute tough tariffs against Russia, including
secondary tariffs. Well. On Wednesday, the third round of direct
talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials took place in Istanbul.
No results. The two sides met for less than an hour,
(12:34):
and so despite that ultimatum from President Trump, there are
no signs that Russia and Ukraine are any closer to peace,
no closer to a thirty day ceasefire. That thirty day
ceasefire proposal was put on the table by President Trump
(12:55):
four months ago, and it was accepted immediately by Ukraine.
It has not been accepted by Russia. Now, Trump has
expressed frustration anger towards Putin because of these continued attacks
on Ukraine, particularly in civilian areas, but he hasn't yet
(13:16):
taken any concrete steps to bring the kind of pressure
on Moscow that would be necessary to end this war.
And this war has gone on for three and a
half years now. Senator Lindsey Graham, he's proposed bipartisan legislation
that would impose five hundred percent tariffs on Russia and
(13:36):
its trading partners. Now Senate Republicans have backed off advancing
that proposal, and the reason is because of objections from
President Trump. He's issued his own assurances to lawmakers that
he's going to take his own actions to penalize Russia
and will count down the days until September the second.
(14:00):
I doubt very much you're going to see any movement
by Russia in terms of either coming to a thirty
day ceasefire or talking about the idea of ending the war.
A September the second is the date that should be
circled on your calendar to see what happens, to see
if Trump actually follows through and imposes those tougher tariffs
(14:24):
on Russia. Now, the secondary tariffs matter a lot, The
tariffs on Russia really matter very little. Only three billion
dollars in trade was conducted in twenty twenty four between
the US and Russia, and it's going to be even
less in twenty twenty five, So that threat is not
going to compel Russia in any particular way. In the meantime,
(14:49):
we see missile strikes, we see a record number of
drone strikes sometimes seven hundred overnight on civilian areas in Ukraine,
and that continues unabated. So the threats by President Trump
on President Putin are not having the kind of impact
(15:09):
that perhaps President Trump thought they were going to have.
So busy day at the White House on Wednesday, I
think that we're going to see likely some more news
coming out on Thursday in regards to some of these
very same issues. We'll see if there is anything new
coming out of what the DNI, the Director of National
(15:33):
Intelligence Tulci Gabbert, spoke about in the briefing room on Wednesday.
We'll see if any other shoe drops as it relates
to Jeffrey Epstein, because that story, it seems there's another
development that drops almost every day that continues to keep
that story at the front of the news and front
(15:56):
of the news cycle. And Russia obviously can and used
to be in the news every day as it relates
to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. I'll be
following all these stories. I'll be updating you, and you
can count on what I always deliver, an unbiased, unvarnished
view of what's happening at the White House. It's very
(16:19):
much unlike what you may see on cable television. It's
straight news. It's old school, and that's the way that
I've always covered the White House since I began covering
the White House back in Bill Clinton's first term in
nineteen ninety five. I'll continue to give you the straight
news every day. Thank you so much for listening, and
(16:42):
i'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a good one.
Welcome to the White House Briefing Room for Thursday, July
the twenty fourth. I'm John Decker. It was an unusual
day at the White House on Wednesday. Unusual because the
Director of National Intelligence, Tulci Gabbert, actually came to the
White House Press Briefing Room and addressed reporters. She is
(00:28):
intensifying the administration's attack on former President Barack Obama. She
released new information on Wednesday that she says is evidence
of the most egregious weaponization of intelligence in American history.
She laid out her case, she took questions from reporters,
(00:52):
including myself, and she also explained why she has sent
a criminal referral to the Department of Justice. And as
we may recall from just the day before, I asked
President Trump in the Oval Office, who does he believe
(01:13):
should be targeted as a part of this investigation by
the Department of Justice. And the President did not hesitate
in answering my question. He said, right away, president Barack Obama,
or in his words, President Barack Hussein Obama. So this
intensification of the focus on an administration that hasn't been
(01:37):
in office for quite some time, I think struck some
people in the briefing room as a little odd. It
comes to it as an unusual time. And the reason
I say that is because Tulsi Gabbard is, of course
President Trump's Director of National Intelligence. But as I pointed
(01:59):
out to Tulsi Gabbert in the briefing room, she is
not the first person who served in that capacity for
President Trump. And this is the reason why I questioned
Tulsi Gabbert on the timing of her allegations regarding President
Obama as well as others who served in his administration.
(02:22):
Let's take a listen to two questions that I posed
to the Director of National Intelligence, Tulci Gabbert on Wednesday.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
You declassified these documents, if I'm not mistaken, Friday of
last week.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Correct, We released them on Friday of last week. The
first Trump yes.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Isn't the first time that President Trump has been president
of the United States. He was president from twenty seventeen
to twenty twenty one. Couldn't the prior d and I
under President Trump have declassified these documents? And why didn't
that DNI do that at that time?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I can't speak to what happened there. There were several
dyes under the first Trump administration. President Trump faced many
challenges from those who were working in the government who
sought to undermine his presidency. That's been clearly detailed. What
I can speak to is the fact that this was
one of the first things that we started to investigate
(03:19):
here within this Trump administration and have released the results
upon the conclusion of our investigation.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Now, Gabert says she has new information indicating that then
President Obama was closely involved in interfering in an effort
to undermine Donald Trump, and she said that she's referred
Obama to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution. As
(03:46):
she put it, she says, there is irrefutable evidence that
details how President Barack Obama and his national security team
directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they
knew was false. And she called the idea that Russia
interfered with the twenty sixteen election a contrived narrative. Now
(04:11):
that narrative is actually a narrative put forward by a
bipartisan Senate Intelligence committee. They came to the conclusion that
Russia indeed tried to interfere in the twenty sixteen election,
and the Senate Intelligence Committee report which came out several
(04:32):
years ago. At the time was chaired by someone named
Mark Rubio. Mark Rubio, of course, the former senior Senator
from Florida, now President Trump's national security advisor and also,
of course his Secretary of State. We haven't heard or
seen a statement from Secretary of State Mark Rubio now
(04:56):
that his name is resurfaced as it relates to these
allegations that are being put forward by the Director of
National Intelligence Tulci Gabberb as well as President Trump. And
we also heard from Caroline Levitt, the White House Press
Secretary today as well, driving home these allegations. This was
(05:19):
a rare appearance from a Director of National Intelligence. I
can't think of many times when that has happened in
all the years that I've covered the White House. I
can't think of a time that James Clapper came to
the White House. It may have happened, but it was odd,
and it was odd in terms of the allegations that
(05:41):
were being made against a former president. This is something
that the Department of Justice now will focus on as
it relates to this criminal referral. In fact, the Justice
Department announced on Wednesday the formation of a task for
that's what they call it, to look into these unsubstantiated
(06:04):
allegations by President Trump that President Barack Obama and his
aides ordered an investigation into the twenty sixteen Trump campaign's
connections to Russia in order to destroy Trump and destroy
his ability to win successfully in the twenty sixteen presidential election.
(06:29):
But of course we all know that Trump won the
twenty sixteen election. He won handily. He won all seven
swing states over Hillary Clinton. And so if this was
a plot that was hatched by Barack Obama and his
CIA director and his Director of National Intelligence and as
(06:51):
vice president, it was an unsuccessful plot. It did not
work out. Donald Trump was elected in twenty sixteen. The
other big story that really focused a lot of the
attention of the reporters covering the White House on Wednesday
was a renewed focus on Jeffrey Epstein, and there were
(07:12):
a number of developments that happened on Wednesday regarding that.
One development happened in the courts. A federal judge in
Florida on Wednesday denied a request by the Department of
Justice to release grand jury transcripts from their criminal investigation
into Jeffrey Epstein. And this, of course has likely disappointed
(07:40):
the Trump White House and the Department of Justice that
we're both hoping to perhaps mollify those critics who want
to see the release of all of those files that
are now at the Department of Justice, files that Attorney
General Pam Bondi says she will not release. So that
(08:01):
was one development as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein that
we saw happening on Wednesday. Another development, a House committee
has voted to subpoena the Justice Department for those Epstein files.
This is a key subcommittee voting to subpoena the Justice
Department for all of its files regarding the investigation into
(08:24):
Jeffrey Epstein. And the interesting thing here is that a
few Republicans actually broke ranks. They joined with Democrats in
backing this move. The Republicans who voted for the subpoena
were Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Ran Jack of Georgia,
and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. And now, according to the
(08:47):
rules of this subcommittee, the chairman of the House Oversight
Committee is required to issue those subpoenas. So we'll see
what happens on that front. And the other big news
as it relates to Jeffrey Epstein, has to do with
the story that came out late in the afternoon concerning
Jeffrey Epstein. And this story came out in the Wall
(09:10):
Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal reporting that Donald Trump's
name popped up several times in those Jeffrey Epstein files,
and Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, recognized this in May.
According to this article, she went over to the White House.
She informed President Trump that his name has appeared several
(09:34):
times in these files. That's not an indication, by the way,
that he's done anything wrong, but his name does appear
in those files, according to the Wall Street Journal, and
that added a new development to this story, and it's
a development which keeps the story alive for yet another day.
The White House dismissed the story, as they called it
(09:58):
fake news. But they didn't do what occurred on Friday
of last week. They did not file a lawsuit. They
did not threaten a lawsuit in terms of defamation. That's
what was filed Friday of last week against the Wall
Street Journal, against Rupert Murdoch, the primary shareholder of News Corp,
(10:21):
which owns the Wall Street Journal. That's not what happened
when this story appeared in the journal today. So this
story regarding Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news. It is
a story that has been kept alive almost every day
for the past two and a half weeks. And although
the House Speaker Mike Johnson has sent the House home early,
(10:46):
he's adjourned the House for their August recess, the issue
clearly isn't going away. In fact, Steve Scalise, he's the
House Majority leader, he acknowledged the issue isn't going away
and has indicated that the House when they return in September,
will address all issues related to the Jeffrey Epstein files
(11:09):
and this particular issue. And it's also interesting that in
an interview the Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, essentially,
the House needs to get this straight. They need to
get this in order, because I think he acknowledges that
the issue, for whatever reason, isn't going away. The last
(11:29):
thing that I think is important to keep in mind
is something that the President announced last Monday when he
had in the Oval office a visit by NATO's Secretary
General Mark Ruda. Remember, he made two announcements. One announcement
was that he was going to permit NATO countries to
(11:50):
purchase American military equipment, and then those NATO countries could
in turn convey that military equipment to Ukraine against Russia.
The other announcement had to do with a fifty day
ultimatum that he's giving to Russia. Come to some sort
of peace deal within fifty days, that's September the second,
(12:13):
or the US will institute tough tariffs against Russia, including
secondary tariffs. Well. On Wednesday, the third round of direct
talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials took place in Istanbul.
No results. The two sides met for less than an hour,
(12:34):
and so despite that ultimatum from President Trump, there are
no signs that Russia and Ukraine are any closer to peace,
no closer to a thirty day ceasefire. That thirty day
ceasefire proposal was put on the table by President Trump
(12:55):
four months ago, and it was accepted immediately by Ukraine.
It has not been accepted by Russia. Now, Trump has
expressed frustration anger towards Putin because of these continued attacks
on Ukraine, particularly in civilian areas, but he hasn't yet
(13:16):
taken any concrete steps to bring the kind of pressure
on Moscow that would be necessary to end this war.
And this war has gone on for three and a
half years now. Senator Lindsey Graham, he's proposed bipartisan legislation
that would impose five hundred percent tariffs on Russia and
(13:36):
its trading partners. Now Senate Republicans have backed off advancing
that proposal, and the reason is because of objections from
President Trump. He's issued his own assurances to lawmakers that
he's going to take his own actions to penalize Russia
and will count down the days until September the second.
(14:00):
I doubt very much you're going to see any movement
by Russia in terms of either coming to a thirty
day ceasefire or talking about the idea of ending the war.
A September the second is the date that should be
circled on your calendar to see what happens, to see
if Trump actually follows through and imposes those tougher tariffs
(14:24):
on Russia. Now, the secondary tariffs matter a lot, The
tariffs on Russia really matter very little. Only three billion
dollars in trade was conducted in twenty twenty four between
the US and Russia, and it's going to be even
less in twenty twenty five, So that threat is not
going to compel Russia in any particular way. In the meantime,
(14:49):
we see missile strikes, we see a record number of
drone strikes sometimes seven hundred overnight on civilian areas in Ukraine,
and that continues unabated. So the threats by President Trump
on President Putin are not having the kind of impact
(15:09):
that perhaps President Trump thought they were going to have.
So busy day at the White House on Wednesday, I
think that we're going to see likely some more news
coming out on Thursday in regards to some of these
very same issues. We'll see if there is anything new
coming out of what the DNI, the Director of National
(15:33):
Intelligence Tulci Gabbert, spoke about in the briefing room on Wednesday.
We'll see if any other shoe drops as it relates
to Jeffrey Epstein, because that story, it seems there's another
development that drops almost every day that continues to keep
that story at the front of the news and front
(15:56):
of the news cycle. And Russia obviously can and used
to be in the news every day as it relates
to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. I'll be
following all these stories. I'll be updating you, and you
can count on what I always deliver, an unbiased, unvarnished
view of what's happening at the White House. It's very
(16:19):
much unlike what you may see on cable television. It's
straight news. It's old school, and that's the way that
I've always covered the White House since I began covering
the White House back in Bill Clinton's first term in
nineteen ninety five. I'll continue to give you the straight
news every day. Thank you so much for listening, and
(16:42):
i'll talk to you tomorrow. Have a good one.
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