It’s good to be back.
December, as I have been telling people, is a fake month in the land of politics. There are more Christmas parties than you know what to do with, and the president typically jets off somewhere warm for half of the month. Slowly, the thousands of staffers and officials who migrate here to Washington, D.C., head back home. The streets become empty. Restaurants are less packed. And the news, almost always, slows down.
This was the first real week back from that holiday slump. It’s like hitting the gym for a leg workout after taking a few months off.
From a White House press briefing to pissing off the wine moms in Arlington, Virginia, here’s a quick recap of my week.
On Saturday morning, I woke up to a million notifications on my phone. Trump had sent his men in to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The president took questions in Mar-a-Lago just hours after the operation, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took questions for the first time following the mission on Wednesday.
The small briefing room was packed for her first press briefing of 2026. One White House staffer texted me during the briefing and asked if I could see whether the outside doors were still open. They were, and they were left open to ensure that the room didn’t get too warm because of the amount of people crammed in the small space while bright TV lights illuminated and heated up the room.
The Daily Caller sits in the back corner of the press briefing room. It’s a seat I’ve sat in for two years. During Biden’s administration, I was called on three times during the briefings. Now, under the Trump administration, I’ve lost track of how many questions I’ve gotten. But I’ve also changed my tactics.
I sit on a child’s booster seat I bought off of Amazon that lifts me about a head or so above the other reporters to help me be seen. (Many reporters since have asked me for the Amazon link to the booster seat and now I am not the only one who walks in with one.)
I always wear bright colors to make it easier to be seen, and I hardly ever put my hand down. I’ll admit I get far more nervous for press briefings than any press conference with President Trump. They are more competitive, sometimes more combative, and there are a lot of cameras on you when you get called on. Being in the back of the room, everyone turns their head and looks at me when Karoline gives me the floor. Sometimes it causes my stomach to drop.
But the most important part is to report the news. Our readers have been hooked on two things in the last week — Venezuela and the Minnesota fraud scandal. So, that’s what I asked about.