White House reporter's question, 'Is Trump eating less McDonald's?' irritates netizens
As the markets continue to react to US President Donald Trump's tariffs, which have now been paused for 90 days (with the exception of China, for whom Trump has hiked tariffs to 125 per cent), you might expect this and other foreign affairs to be top of the agenda when it came to the White House press briefing on Friday.
Yet one question from a conservative reporter has taken people by surprise on social media, as she asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt if she would consider 'releasing the president's fitness plan'.
Cara Castronuova, a former champion boxer and ex-trainer on The Biggest Loser who is now a reporter for LindellTV, founded by MyPillow owner and Trump supporter Mike Lindell, said: '[Trump] actually looks healthier than ever before – healthier than he did eight years ago, and I'm sure everybody in this room could agree.
'Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and eating less McDonald's?'
The question came as Leavitt confirmed the president was undergoing 'his routine and long scheduled physical' examination at Walter Reed Medical Center.
Smiling, Leavitt told Castronuova: 'I can confirm the president is in very good shape, as you see on a near daily basis here.'
The awkward question has sparked ridicule online, with one tweet comparing the exchange to a skit off Saturday Night Live.
Another likened it to something out of North Korea.
And a third claimed the question wasn't 'journalism', but rather 'devotion'.
Elsewhere, Trump told reporters travelling with him on Air Force One to Florida that he 'got every answer right' in the cognitive test part of his physical, adding that he thought he 'did well'.
He said: 'Overall I felt I was in very good shape. Good heart, a good soul, a very good soul.
'I took a cognitive test. I don't know what to tell you other than I got every answer right.'
Trump was even asked by one reporter if the cognitive test was 'Man, Woman, Person, Camera, TV', in reference to a Fox News interview about the test during his first term which went viral online.
The president didn't seem to pick up on this, though, and instead said: 'I think it's a pretty well-known test.
'I got every one right.'
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Middle East Eye
4 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
US sanctions four ICC judges over Israel and Afghanistan investigations
The administration of US President Donald Trump on Thursday issued sanctions on four judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) over investigations into the US and its ally Israel. The sanctions build on the designation of ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan in February, carried out under an executive order issued shortly after Trump assumed office. "This is an escalation in a series of attacks by the US government against this global judicial institution, which was created to end impunity for the worst crimes," said Meg Satterthwaite, the UN's special rapporteur on the independence of judges, speaking to Middle East Eye. "It is shocking to see a country that has for decades championed the rule of law using a tool usually reserved for corrupt or criminal actors against judges of this global judicial body." The sanctioned judges, all women, are: ICC Second Vice-President Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou (Benin), Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza (Peru) and Beti Hohler (Slovenia). New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Gansou and Hohler have been sanctioned in connection with their decision as pre-trial judges to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in November over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Gaza. The US and Israel are not state parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC in The Hague in 2002. Both states have opposed the court's investigation into the situation in Palestine, launched by the ICC's previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, in 2021. 'It is shocking to see a country that has for decades championed the rule of law using a tool usually reserved for corrupt or criminal actors against judges of this global judicial body' - Meg Satterthwaite, UN rapporteur The court's jurisdiction was based on the accession of the state of Palestine to the Rome Statute in 2015. Accordingly, the court can investigate Israeli individuals for crimes committed in occupied Palestine, which includes the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, Israel and the US have challenged the court's jurisdiction, saying they do not recognise Palestine as a state, and that Israel is best placed to investigate itself under the principle of complementarity as set out in Article 17 of the Rome Statute. Trump's order of 6 February reiterated this view and described the arrest warrants as an abuse of power, an allegation refuted by the ICC. The ICC is the only permanent international court tasked with the prosecution of individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. 'President Trump's sanctions on ICC judges aim to deter the ICC from seeking accountability amid grave crimes committed in Israel and Palestine and as Israeli atrocities mount in Gaza, including with US complicity,' Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, told MEE. Under Netanyahu's government, Israel has faced accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The US is the largest supplier of arms to Israel and has backed its offensive in Gaza since October 2023, triggering accusations of aiding and abetting alleged crimes. Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, forcibly displaced most of the 2.1 million population and made the enclave largely uninhabitable. Obstruction of justice Experts who spoke with MEE in the aftermath of Trump's order have suggested that the ICC should bring charges of obstruction of justice against the US president and any individuals behind the sanctions, based on Article 70 of the Rome Statute. The article prohibits offences against the administration of justice, including: "Impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing an official of the Court for the purpose of forcing or persuading the official not to perform, or to perform improperly, his or her duties; and retaliating against an official of the Court on account of duties performed by that or another official." UN rapporteur urges EU to use legal powers to protect ICC from Trump sanctions Read More » The ICC has jurisdiction over Article 70 offences, irrespective of the nationality or location of the accused individuals. The Slovenian foreign ministry reacted to the sanctioning of Hohler, saying it will support her in carrying out her mandate. It also said it would propose the activation of the EU Blocking Statute. The statute primarily focuses on shielding EU operators, such as the Netherlands-based ICC, from certain US sanctions considered to have extraterritorial reach, like those against Cuba and Iran. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot has also said his government would ask the EU to activate the statute. "While this would be the first time the blocking statute is applied in defense of the ICC, Belgium believes it is essential to protect the Court's independence and its crucial role in delivering justice for the gravest crimes," he said on Friday. The pre-trial chamber that issued the Netanyahu and Gallant decision included Gansou and Hohler, as well as French national Nicolas Guillou. It remains unclear why Guillou has been excluded from the sanctions. Legal scholar Kevin Jon Heller, who is Khan's war crimes advisor, argued that the US has sanctioned individuals who are perceived to be nationals of weaker states. 'The US seems to have sanctioned only the judges who come from smaller and less powerful states,' Heller said. The two other judges, Bossa and Ibanez Carranza, have been sanctioned for being part of the 2020 appeals chamber that authorised the ICC's investigation into crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003. This included actions by the Taliban, Afghan National Security Forces, and US military and CIA personnel. Heller pointed out that Canadian judge Kimberly Prost was part of the same panel as the Ugandan judge Bossa and the Peruvian judge Ibanez Carranza, but she has been excluded from sanctions. 'The US seems to have sanctioned only the judges who come from smaller and less powerful states' - Kevin Jon Heller, legal advisor to Karim Khan 'That supports the 'weak state' explanation, because Judge Prost (Canada) was part of the same AC and is still an ICC judge,' he wrote on X. In response to the ICC's decision to investigate crimes in Afghanistan, the previous Trump administration imposed sanctions on ICC officials, including then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and revoked her US visa. But since 2021, the ICC has shifted its strategy under current prosecutor Khan, deprioritising investigations into alleged crimes by US forces - a move widely denounced by human rights groups. Khan stated that the focus would instead be on crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State - Khorasan Province, citing resource constraints and the need to concentrate on those most responsible for the gravest crimes. In January 2025, Khan applied for arrest warrants for two Taliban leaders for the crime against humanity of persecution on the grounds of gender. No applications for arrest warrants for US nationals have been made by the prosecutor. What is the impact of sanctions? The sanctions will have a wide-ranging financial impact on the affected judges, particularly on any property in the US and any transactions involving US citizens. 'As a result of today's sanctions-related actions, all property and interests in property of the sanctioned persons described above that are in the United States or in possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC),' the State Department said. The three ICC judges who issued the historic Netanyahu arrest warrant Read More » 'Additionally, all individuals or entities that are owned, either directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.' The ICC denounced the sanctions, saying they aim at hindering its efforts to bring justice to victims of atrocities worldwide. 'These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe,' a statement by the ICC read, saying the sanctions will affect all situations being investigated by the court beyond Palestine. 'These sanctions are not only directed at designated individuals, they also target all those who support the Court, including nationals and corporate entities of States Parties.' Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said the Netherlands 'disapproves' of the sanctions and stands behind the court and its officials. However, he has yet to announce specific measures to protect the sanctioned officials. MEE has reached out to the Dutch and Slovenian foreign ministries for comment.
Middle East Eye
7 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
How big tech and populism are upending 'western values'
The highly tense and polarised situation within the US and EU raises unprecedented challenges, especially amid the ongoing shifting of the global order from a unipolar to a multipolar one. Since the beginning the of the 21st century, the world has been embroiled in a series of crises: the war on terror, the global financial crisis, intensifying climate change, a worldwide pandemic, and a renewed great-power competition. This uneasy landscape has been further complicated by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, of which artificial intelligence is the most compelling and pervasive example, alongside the crisis of globalisation, the rise of China and the start of the second Trump administration. On the latter point, US President Donald Trump is now contesting, if not repudiating, the same world order that Washington created, managed and enforced over the past eight decades. His administration is wielding its new army of big tech companies in an alleged pursuit of a political, economic, cultural and social metamorphosis of humankind. It is not yet clear whether these big tech players will be a tool in the hands of Trump's 'America First' vision, or vice versa. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters As the late former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, remarked seven years ago: 'Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn't necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.' New words have emerged in the current lexicon to explain this epochal change, such as techno-feudalism, techno-optimism and 'Dark Enlightenment'. A cast of characters from big tech - somewhere between CEOs and gurus - are now influencing politics, economics and the relationship between humans and technology to an unprecedented degree. 'Shadow empire' Some of these figures are in the spotlight daily, such as Tesla's Elon Musk, Open AI's Sam Altman and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, while others seem more comfortable leading from behind the scenes. Some are perceived as the vanguard of 'reactionary acceleration', while others, like Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, who mentored Vice President JD Vance, portrays this period as the 'dusky final weeks of our interregnum' - or, if you prefer, the last days of an ancien regime; a sort of twilight, or worse, an apocalypse. It may be that change of era of which the late Pope Francis warned five years ago in his astute encyclical 'Fratelli Tutti' (All Brothers). Both European and American liberal-democratic establishments believe this change brings a fundamental threat to democracy and western societies, along with the 'values' upon which they are built. Who ultimately has the right to decide who's in and who's out? In normal times, this power would be in the hands of the electors They seem terrified by the possible rise of what has been described brilliantly, but disturbingly, as a 'shadow empire' driven by big tech magnates. At the same time, the rise of far-right movements in the US and Europe is seen as a clear and present danger that requires a 'whatever it takes' approach to keep these parties out of power. These widespread fears could explain some unprecedented developments in recent months in France, Germany and Romania. In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally made significant gains in last year's legislative elections, despite a massive mobilisation against the party - but now a criminal conviction could derail her future political prospects. In Germany, a similar mobilisation occurred against the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD), but the party still managed to double its vote share in February elections. Yet it now risks being banned after Germany's spy agency classified AfD as 'extremist', allowing for increased state monitoring. Populists on the rise The most stunning event, however, was in Romania, where presidential elections were cancelled by the country's constitutional court last December after the first round was won by far-right candidate Calin Georgescu, amid allegations of Russian interference. Among the evidence cited in the declassified Romanian intelligence documents used to justify this decision was a coordinated TikTok campaign - but an investigative report later revealed that the centre-right National Liberal Party had paid for the campaign, which was hijacked to benefit Georgescu, who was subsequently banned from standing in the new election. Paris, Berlin and Bucharest have thus provided compelling examples of what 'whatever it takes' might mean. Amusingly, such behaviour drew criticism from Vance - not exactly a champion in the observance of democratic values - during his recent speech at the Munich Security Conference. The new fascism: Israel is the template for Trump and Europe's war on freedom Read More » 'For years, we've been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy,' Vance said. 'But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we're holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard.' The bare facts, however, are that some of these populist forces are already in power, from Trump and his Maga supporters in the US; to Giorgia Meloni, now into her third year as Italy's prime minister; to the relaxed Viktor Orban who rules Hungary; to Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who has already survived an assassination attempt. Similar political forces appear to be on the rise in other countries. Some polls show a commanding lead for Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage. In Poland, an EU sceptic has just been elected president. Curiously, there is not much pushback over the questionable tactics and techniques being employed across Europe in efforts to keep far-right contenders out of power. Are such moves justifiable to bar from office allegedly undemocratic political figures and movements? Who ultimately has the right to decide who's in and who's out? In normal times, this power would be in the hands of the electors - but these do not seem to be normal times. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Al Etihad
8 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Trump and Musk to speak on Friday after alliance descends into public feud
6 June 2025 15:02 WASHINGTON (REUTERS)Donald Trump's aides scheduled a call between the US president and Elon Musk for Friday after a huge public spat.A White House official said the two men would speak on Friday. The official did not give a time for the call, which could ease the feuding after an extraordinary day of hostilities - largely conducted over social media - that marked a stark end to a close in Musk's Tesla closed down over 14% on Thursday, losing about $150 billion in market value in the largest single-day decline in value in its history. In pre-market European trading on Friday they pared some of those losses, rising 5% after the news that the two men were scheduled to speak. Politico first reported the planned had bankrolled a large part of Trump's presidential campaign and was then brought as one of the president's most visible advisers, heading up a sweeping and controversial effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash verbal punches erupted on Thursday after Trump criticised Musk in the Oval Office and the pair then traded barbs on their social media platforms: Trump's Truth Social and Musk's falling-out had begun brewing days ago when Musk, who left his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency a week ago, denounced Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending president initially stayed quiet while Musk campaigned to torpedo the bill, saying it would add too much to the nation's $36.2 trillion in broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters he was "very disappointed" in Musk."Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore," Trump said. As Trump spoke, Musk responded on X. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election," wrote Musk, who spent nearly $300 million backing Trump and other Republicans in last year's another post, Musk asserted that Trump's signature import tariffs would push the US into a recession later this year."The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Trump after the closing bell, Musk replied, "Yes," to a post on X saying Trump should be impeached, something that would be highly unlikely given Trump's Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of businesses also include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX and its satellite unit whose space business plays a critical role in the US government's space program, said that as a result of Trump's threats he would begin decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Dragon is the only US spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space on Thursday, Musk backed off the another sign of a possible detente to come, Musk subsequently wrote: "You're not wrong," in response to billionaire investor Bill Ackman saying Trump and Musk should make peace. Punching Back Trump and Musk are both political fighters with a penchant for using social media to attack their perceived enemies, and many observers had predicted a hit at the heart of Trump's agenda earlier this week when he targeted what Trump has named his "big, beautiful bill", calling it a "disgusting abomination" that would deepen the federal attacks amplified a rift within the Republican Party that could threaten the bill's prospects in the analysts say Trump's bill could add $2.4 trillion to $5 trillion to the nation's $36.2 trillion in debt. A prolonged feud between the pair could make it harder for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year's midterm elections if it leads to a loss of Musk's campaign spending or erodes support for Trump in Silicon Valley."Elon really was a significant portion of the ground game this last cycle," said a Republican strategist with ties to Musk and the Trump administration who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity."If he sits out the midterms, that worries me."On Tuesday, Musk posted that "in November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people." Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending in the future. Musk's increasing focus on politics provoked widespread protests at Tesla sites, driving down sales while investors fretted that Musk's attention was too divided.
