Al’s Afternoon Tea: Why Was Biden So Chummy with Trump? Why Did the FBI Lie About J6 Pipe Bomber?
Welcome back in for Al’s Afternoon Tea, our chance to stop and sample some of the latest news.
Like Buddies, They Were
We’re still trying to get over just how chummily Joe Biden behaved toward Donald Trump yesterday. And make no mistake — this is precisely the message the Biden White House wanted to send. Don’t believe us? Check out the official White House Flickr page. As of 9:00 this morning, the White House had posted five pictures of Biden with Trump. Every one is a positive image, with Biden beaming the most.
This is what Team Biden chose to share.
President Joe Biden walks to the Oval Office with President-Elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, November 13, 2024. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden greet President-Elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, November 13, 2024, on the South Portico of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
That’s the look of a man who’s happy he pulled one over on the people who pushed him off the Democratic ticket. “Got you, Barack. Got you, Kamala.” The Big Guy famously said “Never f*** with a Biden.” Did they really think they could wipe away his nomination in humiliating fashion without any payback?
Of course, a more gentle interpretation is that Biden really wanted to send a message of unity and grace after so many years of bitter division. Or perhaps he was just promised a bucket of mint chocolate chip ice cream. But given how cheerful he was at his post-election address, I’m going with “payback.”
Don’t you love today’s feature image? Forget partisanship for a minute. Forget even the inevitable funny captions. We’ve got the two most recent presidents checking out the portraits of some of our greatest presidents — 250 years of the American Experiment. That’s a shot for the history books.
The meeting between Trump and Biden also inspired an AI-generated fantasy.
https://twitter.com/KarluskaP/status/1856787925859443045
While whimsical and fun, the video does also indicate how susceptible we are to deep fakes.
And while we’re on the subject of fake … let’s talk about January 6.
Why Pick Matt Gaetz? Phone Companies Can Tell You Why. FBI Lied About J6 Bomber Phone Data
Trump’s selection of Matt Gaetz to be the next U.S. Attorney General has left official Washington gobsmacked. Yet some breaking news demonstrates precisely why we need a Gaetz in the role — someone who will have no mercy in tearing the rot out of the FBI and DOJ and exposing their dark deeds.
Do you remember the January 6 pipe bombs? The FBI has extensive security camera footage of who planted the bombs at the Democratic and Republican party headquarters However, the FBI has testified it’s been unable to track the culprit because cell phone data from the time and vicinity was corrupted.
This is a lie, we now know. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, told Just the News that cellular carriers have informed House investigators they possess intact phone usage data from the vicinity of the party headquarters during the time period the pipe bombs were planted.
According to Loudermilk, “the former assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Steve D’Antuono, who oversaw the pipe bomb investigation, said the FBI received corrupted data from one of the cell carriers and that it most likely contained the identity of the pipe bomber.”
Loudermilk’s subcommittee contacted the three major cell carriers.
“Every major cell carrier responded and confirmed that they did not provide the FBI corrupted data,” Loudermilk said. “Additionally, every major cell carrier confirmed they were never notified that the FBI had any issues accessing the data.”
Why do you think the FBI would lie about being unable to track the J6 pipe bombing suspect? For the same reason FBI Director Christopher Wray won’t reveal how many FBI assets were involved inside and outside the Capitol that day, urging or even participating in the rioting.
This is just one reason we need a wrecking ball as attorney general, not a Washington player.
We Could Be in For a Fun Second Term
One thing we’ve noticed from Trump’s Cabinet picks this far, starting with J.D. Vance down through Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz: They tend to be very young by Washington standards, and relatively entertaining.
Take Trump lawyer Alina Habba, who appears to be dismissing reports that she’s the top contender for White House press secretary: “Although I love screaming from a podium, I will be better served in other capacities.”
Given the surprises Trump has offered thus far, let’s toss this one out there as a long shot possibility: Habba for FBI director.
BOO-HOO, Part One: Add Joy Reid to List of Those Abandoning X
MSNBC’s racist and unhinged host Joy Reid is the latest public figure to delete their profile from X in the wake of Trump’s victory. Former CNN host Don Lemon has also bailed. (Yeah, that’ll show ’em.)
Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis announced on Facebook that she’s deactivated her X account, too. It’s strange to think the woman who came to fame in the Halloween horror movies is scared of hearing differing opinions.
Just like when those aging rock stars abandoned Spotify in protest over Joe Rogan a couple years back, expect the self-banishments from X to be shortlived.
BOO-HOO, Part Two: Snow White Star Once Again Wrecks Film’s Prospects with Anti-Trump Tirade
It’s hard to imagine an actress doing more damage to her upcoming big-budget movie than Rachel Zegler has to the upcoming live-action Snow White — starting with her trashing the original classic Disney film and continuing by tossing “free Palestine” onto a post about the movie. Her latest? Going on a profanity-laced rant against Trump and his supporters. “May Trump supporters and Trump voters and Trump himself never know peace,” she said.
You know who supported Trump? People with families. You know who Disney counts on for business? People with families.
Zegler also grumbled that with Trump as president, her daughter may not be able to have an abortion. (She is 23 years old and has no children.)
BOO-HOO, Part Three: SNL Star Recalls That Musk Made Her Cry Because He Didn’t Like Sketch She Wrote
After the election, Saturday Night Live’s Chloe Fineman felt compelled to share — three years after the fact — that Elon Musk had made her “burst into tears” when he said a sketch she had written for him wasn’t funny.
Fineman has since deleted the post from TikTok, but the internet is forever.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1856385335741296721
Yeah, it wouldn’t be easy having the world’s richest man, a guest you are trying to impress, trash something you’ve written. And yeah, three years later, it should make for a funny anecdote. But does it sound like Fineman is seeing the humor in it? All she cops to is admitting that Musk ended up being funny.
Call it a point of personal privilege, but Fineman’s reaction is ridiculous, as anyone who has spent five minutes in a comedy writers’ room will tell you. It’s a savage place. Comedy writers judging the work of others make Tren de Aragua look like the Brady Bunch. It’s the same with producers and talent. You present a bit you think is funny, and there’s the late great comic actor and writer Gil Christner glaring back, flipping the script over his shoulder and saying, “Well … I like the font.”
You get into the studio and some fabulous talent is looking over the script like it’s a sweaty gym sock, unable to even express how unimpressed they are by it. A produced bit you wrote gets played and the boss man bellows, “Which one of you wrote this c***?!”
How Fineman could write for Saturday Night Live and be brought to tears by someone not liking a sketch is beyond me. Then again, perhaps it explains why SNL is rarely funny. There are no Gil Christners in the writers’ room.
How does this relate to everything else we talk about in the Tea? That same Elon Musk is now tasked with helping make the federal government efficient. He is going to point to federal programs and say, “This is not working.” And federal workers need to take it, not cry about it. As Fineman learned, in the end it works out fine.
On the Stream Menu
Angelos Kyriakides brings us some deep thoughts with “No Dr. Peterson, the Bible is Not a Metaphor. It’s History.”
And just when you think the fallout from scandals in the worldwide faith community can’t spread any further, they do. This time, Jules Gomes tells us about something that happened earlier this week: “Archbishop of Canterbury Forced to Resign Over Sadistic Abuse Scandal.”
Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.