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Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” when asked why the administration is refusing to use the term “radical Islam,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said, “Lets be clear nobody denies these are Muslims.

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough accidentally revealed the first name of a previously unidentified hostage being held by ISIS. Watch

The Talk Shows January 25th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill, Adam Schiff, D-Calif, and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.; former Gov. Jon Huntsman, R-Utah.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan consulted the White House before directing agency personnel to sift through a walled-off computer drive being used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to construct its investigation of the agency’s torture program, according to a recently released report by the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General. The Inspector General’s report, which was completed in July but only released by the agency on Wednesday, reveals that Brennan spoke with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough before ordering CIA employees to “use whatever means necessary” to determine how certain sensitive internal documents had wound up in...

When asked by “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd if any nation has committed to putting boots on the ground in Syria to combat ISIS, White House Chief Of Staff Denis McDonough said “we’re not looking at that now.” Todd shot back, “Wait a minute, why not?” “We’re trying to put together the specifics of what we expect from each of the members” said the White House flack, referring to the “broad coalition” President Obama referenced in his speech Wednesday night. McDonough tried to walk back his initial quote though. ‘”If you know you need combat troops on the ground,...

p>The Talk Shows September 14th, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C; Michael Hayden, a former CIA and National Security Agency director.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; former Secretary of State James Baker; Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Secretary of State John Kerry; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Education Secretary Arne Duncan.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; Harkin; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Rep. John...

White House officials have been holding private meetings this week aimed at soothing lawmakers’ concerns over the U.S. posture in Syria, the future of the American military presence in Afghanistan and defense spending. The meetings come as a frustrated White House seeks to push back at criticism of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy. But the White House outreach appeared to be having little effect on some lawmakers’ concerns. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described Tuesday night’s White House meeting with chief of staff Denis McDonough and national security adviser Susan Rice as...

President Obama’s chief of staff reassured frustrated House Democrats on Tuesday that the White House will respond aggressively to the controversy at the Veterans Affairs Department. The VA has been under fire this month following reports that its healthcare facilities used secret waiting lists to disguise the number of veterans not treated within the agency's stated goal of 14 days. Dozens of veterans have reportedly died awaiting care. “I think you're going to find very aggressive action within the administration,” Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), head of the House Democratic Caucus, said after House Democrats met with White House chief of...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough defended the White House reaction to the scandals emerging from Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals around the country, saying on CBS' "Face the Nation" that President Obama "is madder than hell - I've got the scars to prove it." In an interview with CBS News Chief White House Correspondent, McDonough said that VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is the right person to lead the investigation into reports that veterans have been put on secret waiting lists to hide the number of people who were not being treated within the VA's goal of 14 days. Several...

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said that Friday's resignation of Robert Petzel, a top Veterans Affairs official, was not a voluntary exit. "There is no question that this is a termination of his job there before he was planning to go," McDonough told CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett for an interview to air on "Face the Nation" this Sunday. Petzel, the undersecretary for health care at the VA, handed in his resignation to Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki Friday. He had already announced his intention to retire this year and President Obama earlier this month...

For the Obama White House, tweets from reporters are a kind of early warning system. It’s up to Jessica Allen, 24, to sound the alarm. Allen, whose official title is “media monitor,” tracks journalists’ tweets and flags them in mass emails that land in the in-boxes of more than 80 Obama aides, including chief of staff Denis McDonough, White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, press secretary Jay Carney and senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer. The result? Reporters who regularly cover Obama have become familiar with seemingly out-of-the-blue emails or telephone calls from officials taking issue with their tweets — often thoughtfully and...

As the result of a Freedom of Information Act battle, new documents have emerged tying the messaging of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, to the White House. ... Among the top administration PR personnel who received the memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe. In addition a document showed Susan Rice was...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.” Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” a possible kidnap attempt. The documents were released Friday as result of a June...

Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video. More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with...

One day before the guffaw-inducing October 1 launch of the Obamacare program's healthcare.gov website, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was telling friends that 'when we turn it on tomorrow morning, we're gonna knock your socks off.' Less than three weeks later, President Barack Obama asked McDonough whether it would ever be possible to make the website function reliably. 'Can it be patched and improved to work, or does it need to be scrapped to start over?' the top White House aide recalled the president asking him on October 17. Obama 'wanted to know if this thing is salvageable,'...

Hey, gals, want to avoid being raped? Put away that Lady Smith 38. No need for pepper spray. Self-defense classes? Not necessary. The solution is simple. The best defense against rape is to just cast away your "deeply troubling" Christianity and become a secularist slut. So goes the advice of one Katie McDonough, Salon.com assistant editor, fertile fount of millennial wisdom and – well – and whatever else. In an article published at Salon Feb. 20 titled, "The right's warped 'purity' culture: 4 ways evangelical views of sex took over America," Ms. McDonough provides an unvarnished glimpse into the profligate...

The White House and congressional leadership are urging Democratic lawmakers to highlight ObamaCare success stories in an effort to take the offensive on the healthcare rollout after two months of backpedaling, according to two memos obtained by The Hill.The memos, one from the Democrats’ messaging arm and one from the White House, advise members on how to establish the narrative that the Affordable Care Act is already working..“There are actions Democrats can take to address the Republican attacks and go on offense,” reads the memo from the Democratic Policy and Communications Center (DPCC).The memo outlines a compilation of “messaging ideas...

The White House is meeting with CEOs of health plans on Wednesday, according to two insurance industry sources. The insurance executives are meeting with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett and chief of staff Denis McDonough, the sources told POLITICO on Tuesday evening. The White House didn’t immediately confirm the meeting. Insurers have a lot riding on the success of Obamacare enrollment — which is being stymied by pervasive technical problems with the federal website, HealthCare.gov. HHS has announced stepped-up efforts to resolve the signup problems. The White House hasn’t announced how many people have successfully enrolled, although insurers have described it...

Obama wants you to know that he didn’t build that “red line” in Syria. You built it. The roads and bridges and firefighters and the soldiers, sailors and airmen that you pay with your taxes, they built that red line. The seas that have risen unabated thanks to global warming, the despair caused by the War on Women in the Arab world- you know the one where the Catholic Church in the United States objects to paying for abortions and birth control?- these are things the world community contributed to building that red line in Syria. Thus, the world, helped...

... President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders against opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported, citing unidentified, high-level national security sources. ...