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White House press secretary Josh Earnest falsely and repeatedly claimed at Thursday’s briefing that Barack Obama, not Ronald Reagan, was the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win consecutive majorities of the popular vote. Even when he was corrected by a reporter, Earnest insisted Reagan did not get at least 50 percent of the vote twice. "I don’t think it's a coincidence that President Obama is actually the first president since President Eisenhower to win two national elections back-to-back, earning a majority vote from the American people," Earnest said.

No one at the White House knew that FBI Director James Comey was going to speak on Tuesday, never mind what he’d say, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Tuesday. “With regard to a reaction from the White House, I don’t have an official reaction to share,” he said. “The reason for that is simply that, while the FBI is completing their investigation, the career prosecutors at the Department of Justice still have to make a final determination about how and whether to proceed. “And we have gone to great lengths to avoid the appearance of interfering with...

Imagine you’re a real reporter—not a thinly-disguised member of the Dem cheerleading squad—and you had the opportunity to question President Obama’s spokesman this morning. Wouldn’t you have wanted to know the degree to which President Obama and his minions were complicit in the fiasco of the redaction of the Omar Mateern tapes, removing most of his proclamations of allegiance to ISIS, Allah, etc? But when the Morning Joe crew interviewed Josh Earnest, not a word about the Mateen tapes, or anything else that might have jostled Josh’s feathers. To the contrary, the interview was one long set-up, giving Earnest the...

(CNSNews.com) - "The president does believe it is important that his successor is somebody who recognizes that our country is safer than it was eight years ago, that we enhanced our standing around the world, that we've strengthened our alliances -- that we have refined and improved and strengthened our homeland security," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Tuesday. "The American people do face a question about whether or not they want to build on that progress, because there surely is more that can be done to protect the American people," he added.

A day after President Obama went on a rant about why he doesn't use the phrase “radical Islam," CNN asked if the leaders, like Hillary Clinton who have used the phrase, have undermined U.S. strategy. What should’ve been a relatively straightforward briefing on the threats posed by ISIS turned into a tirade against Republicans and Donald Trump from the president. He also used it as a staging ground to lecture us about reinstating the so-called assault weapons ban and confirming a treasury nominee that’s been held up for over a year. Yesterday, CNN’s Michelle Kosinski pressed the White House on the...

Message indiscipline. This was a pretty rare, unguarded moment for Josh Earnest. All Democrats understand the absolute importance of message discipline, which always starts with the consistent use of words designed to support their narrative, no matter how absurd that narrative might be. That’s why abortion is “choice” and tax hikes are “fairness” and being a Republican is “racism.” You use the correct words, always, everywhere, and you don’t waver. Nowhere is this more true than with the Hillary e-mail investigation, which Hillary keeps trying to label a “security inquiry” - a thing that doesn’t even exist according to the...

Carney is totally unprofessional by turning an official Press Briefing into a campaign ad for Hillary, WITH HIMSELF PERSONALLY ENDORSING HER. Is this normal?

Disinterested in reality. You’ll probably recall that, back on May 9th, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest was asked a pointed question about the Iran deal. Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke wanted to know if Earnest could “state categorically that no senior official in this administration has ever lied publicly about any aspect of the Iran nuclear deal.” Earnest’s reply was an atypically blunt “No, Kevin.” Strangely, though, Earnest’s response is nowhere to be found in the official transcript of the exchange. As ABC News reported Friday, the line has simply vanished. The White House initially claimed the answer wasn’t...

After embracing the notion that gender is as much mental as it is physical, the Obama White House on Tuesday rejected the suggestion that it has been particularly aggressive on transgender issues. “This is a confrontation that Republicans have sought out rather cynically, because they are seeking a political advantage,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at Tuesday's briefing. Earnest said Republicans in North Carolina started the controversy by passing legislation (HB2), which negated a Charlotte city ordinance allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice. …

WASHINGTON -- The White House said Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes will not be testifying at a Tuesday House hearing because it's not "a fair deal for people who lied about the Iran deal to question the person that told the truth," in the words of press secretary Josh Earnest. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called the hearing on the White House's messaging surrounding the Iran nuclear deal after a New York Times article detailed how Rhodes helmed the effort to spin the deal to sell it to Congress and the American public. (snip) "The truth is,...

White House spokesman Josh Earnest angrily reacted to the suggestion that embattled Obama aide Ben Rhodes testify in a hearing on the Iran nuclear deal on Thursday. “With all due respect to the chairman, if he has an interest in a hearing about false narratives as it relates to the Iran deal then I’ve got some suggestions for people they should swear in,” Earnest said. Earnest went on to name congressional members who either opposed the Iran deal or as the Earnest put it were “wrong or just lying.” Earnest admitted he did not know the procedure for swearing in...

A Senate bill that would allow families of those killed in the 9/11 attacks to sue the Saudi government has achieved a rare Washington distinction, by uniting the Obama administration and some of its fiercest GOP critics. President Barack Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are rallying to kill the bipartisan plan that would make it possible for American citizens to sue foreign governments believed to be linked to terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., said the plan should be reviewed through regular order before decisions are made about advancing the measure. White House Press...

President Barack Obama will not attend Nancy Reagan‘s funeral this Friday, keeping his originally scheduled appearance as a keynote speaker at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive festival. First Lady Michelle Obama, who is scheduled to speak at SXSW on Wednesday, will attend the funeral. “The president will not attend” Mrs. Reagan’s funeral, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday. “The president is actually traveling in Texas on Friday.” The SXSW Interactive Festival is an annual symposium for digital startups and emerging technologies that takes place each year in Austin, Texas, concurrently with a film and music festival....

Politico reports: The White House chided Israel on Tuesday for the way it canceled a meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it would have been “good manners” for Israeli officials to tell the White House directly.

Asked on Monday if Islamic State terrorists are carrying out a campaign of genocide against Syria's Christians, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said the word genocide "involves a very specific legal determination that has, at this point, not been reached." He condemned the terrorists' "willingness to target religious minorities, including Christians." Earnest noted that the Obama administration has long expressed its concerns over ISIS/ISIL's "slaughter" of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria. ...

President Barack Obama is heading to Florida to tout the benefits of the massive economic stimulus bill he signed shortly after taking office seven years ago. Obama pumped more than $760 billion into a then-slumping economy beginning in early 2009 in a frantic effort to halt the worst economic downturn in generations. It was an unsettling period for many Americans as hundreds of thousands of jobs disappeared, unemployment climbed into double digits and home values plummeted. Obama will argue during a stop in Jacksonville on Friday that the country is on a more solid footing because of this and other...

Brian Sandoval, the centrist Republican governor of Nevada, is being vetted by the White House for a possible nomination to the Supreme Court, according to two people familiar with the process. Sandoval is increasingly viewed by some key Democrats as perhaps the only nominee President Obama could select who would be able to break a Republican blockade in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday pledged "no action" on any Supreme Court nomination before November's election, saying the decision ought to be left to the next president. The White House declined to comment Wednesday for this story....

Bringing dangerous Guantanamo Bay inmates to U.S. prisons would undermine a terrorist recruiting tool, White House spokesman Josh Earnest argued on Tuesday: "Well, their argument would be a lot tougher, because the detention that we would have in place would be cleanly in line with American values, right? That we would ensure that this is consistent with the way that American citizens are treated. That certainly is more consideration than these terrorists give to their adversaries, to say the least." ...

New York City's former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran. "There's a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer," Ray Kelly, New York City's police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York. "Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal," Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut "was aimed at getting a reaction from...

The White House said Wednesday that President Obama "regrets" his filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito in 2006, but insisted the situation was different than Republicans' current vow to block any nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "These are two different things," said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. "The president's objections to then-President Bush's nominee were based in substance." In 2006, then-Sen. Obama and 23 other Democrats -- including Hillary Clinton -- tried to filibuster Justice Alito's nomination. He was confirmed for the high court anyway.