Kellyanne Conway Defends Trump’s Use of ‘Kung Flu’ by Attacking Asian-American Reporter

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway flip-flopped on her previous position that the use of the racist term “Kung Flu” is “highly offensive,” defending President Donald Trump’s use of it on Wednesday while bizarrely attacking an Asian-American reporter for not having the “courage” to out a White House official who said the phrase months ago.During a White House driveway gaggle with reporters on Wednesday morning, Conway was immediately confronted by NBC News reporter Monica Alba over the president’s recent habit of tossing out the phrase and Conway’s March denouncement of the term, which the Trump adviser called “wrong” while noting she is “married to an Asian.”Conway, meanwhile, turned the question back around on the press corps, seemingly placing the blame on CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang, who reported in March that a White House official referred to the novel coronavirus as the “Kung Flu” to her face.“I also asked Weijia to reveal to us who said it, I think that would have gone a long way,” Conway said to Alba before saying the reporter should confront Jiang.Alba, however, pressed forward and asked Conway if she would react to Trump’s repeated use of the loaded term, prompting the presidential aide to claim that Trump was merely making it “very clear” that the virus originated in China. Conway then pressed Jiang to reveal her source.“I still invite you up here to tell us who said that,” Conway taunted the reporter. “And I think that that would be a very important revelation for us. That’s not a source for you to protect. That’s somebody who shouldn’t have said that, and you’re claiming did say that, and we still don’t know who that was.”While Conway accused her of “changing the subject,” Jiang noted that at the time Conway said the phrase was “hurtful,” asking the Trump official if she was going to tell that to the president now.“I speak to the president daily on many different topics,” Conway replied, causing Jiang to ask again if she’d tell Trump his use of “Kung Flu” is offensive.“We don’t always agree on everything, and that’s why I work here,” the veteran pollster shot back before pivoting to another subject. Moments later, however, Conway circled back to the topic, defending the president by saying “it’s incredibly important” for Trump to “not let China escape responsibility here.” Jiang wondered aloud if Conway could explain the “logic” on how Kung Flu accomplishes that as it doesn’t refer to a particular place.“How do you know, excuse me, how do you know the way people, how do you know that people aren’t anticipating that or are not connecting that?” Conway exclaimed, her voice rising. “You don’t know that! Excuse me, while the president is saying it, he’s also saying this virus came from China. China is responsible!”Interestingly, Conway refused to actually use the phrase, instead saying that Trump has “said it’s called many different things,” such as “the Wuhan virus, the Chinese virus, and then he used another term.”As Jiang continued to press her on Trump’s embrace of the racist term, Conway eventually placed the blame squarely on the CBS reporter’s shoulders.“You should have come forward a hundred days ago when you had the chance. You lost your opportunity, you lacked the courage to tell everybody who said that to you,” Conway fumed. “You like to stoke this instead of solving it. I’m here to solve things not stoke them. You did the opposite on this issue.”Conway flailing on this issue comes on the heels of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany struggling to fend off questions about the president using the racist term. Earlier this week, McEnany insisted the president was just trying to point out where the virus came from while blaming the media for “trying to play games with the terminology.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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It's Official: The Army Is Getting Rid of Officer Promotion Photos to Help Eliminate Bias

Use of the photos will be suspended as of Aug. 1, according to an Army memo.

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Member of Mueller Team to Testify that DOJ Pressured Prosecutors to Treat Roger Stone ‘More Leniently’

A federal prosecutor will testify to Congress on Wednesday that the Justice Department exerted "heavy pressure" on prosecutors in Roger Stone's criminal trial to request a more lenient sentence for Stone.Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland who was formerly assigned to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, will testify to the House Judiciary Committee that prosecutors in Stone's criminal trial were under “heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break.”Stone's sentencing was handled in an "unusual and unprecedented way" that Zelinsky found "deeply unsettling," he will testify, according to his prepared remarks.Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.Trump complained in February that the prosecutors' seven-to-nine-year sentencing recommendation constituted a “horrible and very unfair situation.” Shortly afterwards, his Justice Department submitted a revised filing stating that the prosecutors’ recommended lengthy sentence “could be considered excessive and unwarranted.” Zelinsky was one of four prosecutors to recommend Stone’s seven-to-nine year sentence who either resigned or quit the case after the DOJ weighed in.The White House has denied Trump pressured the DOJ to show lenience to Stone.Zelinsky's supervisors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office informed him that Stone, a longtime associate of President Trump's, was being treated differently because of his relationship to the president. The federal prosecutor said he was told that the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea, was under "heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break, and that the U.S. Attorney’s sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations.""I was also told that the acting U.S. Attorney was giving Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was 'afraid of the President,'" Zelinsky will testify.Meanwhile, Zelinsky says he saw the DOJ  exerting "significant pressure" on prosecutors to obscure the correct Sentencing Guidelines calculation for Stone as well as "water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in his trial and the criminal conduct that gave rise to his conviction.""Such pressure resulted in the virtually unprecedented decision to override the original sentencing recommendation in his case and to file a new sentencing memorandum that included statements and assertions at odds with the record and contrary to Department of Justice policy," Zelinsky's remarks to Congress read.Zelinsky said he and other Assistant United States Attorneys "immediately and repeatedly raised concerns, in writing and orally" but their "objections were not heeded."Another Justice Department official, antitrust prosecutor John Elias, will also testify on Wednesday about a separate alleged instance of political bias within the DOJ. Elias will tell lawmakers that Attorney General William Barr ordered the department's Antitrust Division to probe ten marijuana company mergers because he “did not like the nature of their underlying business.”Both officials are testifying under subpoena.

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Scottsdale councilman apologizes for saying 'I can't breathe' at anti-mask rally

"It was a stupid and insensitive comment that I shouldn’t have made, and I had no intention of disrespecting anybody," Guy Phillips said.

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An AOC-backed New York candidate just pulled off a stunning upset over a powerful House Democrat in New York

Jamaal Bowman is a former Bronx middle-school principal who ran to Engel's left on a platform of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal.

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Fox News Breaking News Alert

Fox News Breaking News Alert

PROGRAMMING ALERT: Sean Hannity's town hall with President Trump, 9 pm ET on Fox News

06/25/20 5:51 PM

The Coronavirus Crisis Inside Prisons Won’t Stay Behind Bars

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America Is Facing 5 Epic Crises All at Once

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Another Nightmare Video and the Police on the Defensive in Tucson

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Iran Investigates Explosion at Military Base

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Five Months After Celebrating the Economy in Wisconsin, Trump Returns to a Different Place

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Cómo fue que los humanos desatamos un torrente de nuevas enfermedades

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Coronavirus Briefing: What Happened Today

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'Winning a Conviction Will Be Hard': Why It's So Difficult to Prosecute a Bad Cop

When prosecutors filed charges in the death of George Floyd, it was a step toward justice for his family and supporters. But if the past is any indication of how this case may go, experts warn the path to justice is fraught with myriad factors that make it difficult to criminally prosecute the police.

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US says if no arms embargo on Iran it will seek UN sanctions

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to seek to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran if the U.N. Security Council does not approve a resolution that would indefinitely extend the arms embargo on Tehran, which is set to expire in October. Tensions between Iran and the U.S. have escalated since the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six major powers in 2018 and reimposed crippling U.S. sanctions.

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Prosecutor decides not to charge officer who shot Black teen

A South Carolina prosecutor said Wednesday that he will not file charges against the white police officer who fatally shot a Black teenager who pointed a gun at the officer as he ran away. Josh Ruffin, 17, was an immediate threat to the safety of the officers and others when he stopped during the chase and pointed a gun at Columbia police Officer Kevin Davis, Fifth Circuit Solicitor Byron Gipson said at a news conference. Davis had reason to chase the teen because he was outside during the COVID-19 shutdown order during and a neighborhood leader had just reported suspicious activity in an area with a higher than average crime rate, Gipson said.

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Pelosi says the House won't impeach AG Barr: 'Let's solve our problems by going to the polls and voting on Election Day'

"One hundred and thirty one days from now, we will have the solution to many problems, one of them being Barr," Speaker Pelosi said.

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Congresswoman Karen Bass being vetted to be Biden running mate

The Congressional Black Caucus chair has been one of the leading House lawmakers in crafting policing reform legislation in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

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What is Kim Jong-un Planning?

Just when you think an off-ramp between the two Koreas is increasingly difficult to spot, North Korea's Central Military Commission unexpectedly provides one.

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Madison Cawthorn: Newcomer beats Trump nominee in NC congressional primary

The motivational speaker and businessman turns 25, the minimum age to serve in Congress, in August.

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Pro-Biden super PAC launches positive ads amid fundraising dip

Unite the Country, which backed Biden during the Democratic primary, has been overshadowed by other groups since Bernie Sanders withdrew.

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U.S. and EU must face down China together, Pompeo says

The United States and European Union need a shared understanding of China to resist it, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday, calling Beijing a threat and accusing it of stealing European know-how to develop its economy. Pompeo said he had accepted a proposal by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to create a formal U.S.-EU dialogue on China and would travel to Europe soon to host the first session. "There is a transatlantic awakening to the truth of what's happening," Pompeo told a think-tank event via video link.

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Federal judge pans Trump order used to expel migrants at border

Citing a CDC order, border officials have expelled tens of thousands of migrants, including children and many seeking asylum.

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