December 16, 2025

No, the President Can’t ‘Be Presidential’

December 16, 2025 Buck Banks

“I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the President of the United States. Can the president be presidential?”

— Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), on CNN, talking about President Trump’s reaction to the murder of filmmaker Rob Reiner.

Massie Calls Out GOP Over Trump’s Comments About Reiner Murder

December 16, 2025 Buck Banks

“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”

— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), on X.

Oh Vanity, Thy Name Is Susie!

December 16, 2025 Buck Banks

Vanity Fair is a magazine that concerns itself mainly with styles,
Its pages abound with celebs sporting collagen lips and botox smiles.
But once in a while a Vanity Fair interviewer
Gets candid quotes from one who should know better,
And this time the bean-spiller was Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.

Day: December 16, 2025

No, the President Can’t ‘Be Presidential’

“I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the President of the United States. Can the president be presidential?”

— Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), on CNN, talking about President Trump’s reaction to the murder of filmmaker Rob Reiner.

Massie Calls Out GOP Over Trump’s Comments About Reiner Murder

“Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid? I challenge anyone to defend it.”

— Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), on X.

Oh Vanity, Thy Name Is Susie!

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

44%

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.

“I think it’s embarrassing, still, even more so. I mean, sure, like, take care of yourself, get healthy, but who gets to take four months off of work because they’re sad?”

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called Rep. Tom Kean Jr’s (R-NJ) explanation on Tuesday for his prolonged absence from Congress “embarrassing” in an interview with TMZ, Mediaite reports.

Numerati

61% to 35%

81

A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.

$3.81 billion

53%

A new Cato Institute poll found that only 53% of Americans could correctly identify the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as the historical event marked by July 4. And 46% said they did not know what the day commemorated, including 61% of Gen Z respondents.

$26 million

“President Donald Trump said he had earned at least $26 million in income from an array of new real estate ventures abroad, illustrating how his fortune has grown as his family embraces foreign deal-making in his second term,” Bloomberg reports.