Politics
A White House reporter’s reflections on Helen Thomas
Pioneering work helped open doors for many others in press corps
Helen Thomas as a member of the White House Press Corps — past and more recent. (Photo of Helen Thomas with President Gerald Ford by Marion S. Trikosk; Photo of Helen Thomas with President Barack Obama by Pete Souza).
The news of Helen Thomas’s death on Saturday morning jolted me. It wasn’t surprising in one sense, because she was 92 years old, but it made me pause to reflect on my own presence in the White House press corps and how she opened the door for so many reporters, including me.
I first saw Helen Thomas in the White House briefing room when I started attending daily briefings at the start of the Obama administration, working the beat for federal LGBT politics. Blade reporters had been kicked out of the briefing room during George W. Bush’s second term, so it was a new era and an exciting time.
I remember thinking Thomas could move around the press area deftly for a woman in her late 80s and could hold her own in conversations with other reporters. During a news conference with President Obama in the East Room, she had to have someone escort her by hand over the wires and between the chairs, but otherwise she seemed full of energy.
Bestowed with a front row seat in the briefing room by her colleagues, Thomas would pester then-White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs with questions that would probably veer a little too close toward editorializing than other reporters in the briefing room would be comfortable asking.
One such instance occurred in October 2009 when Thomas asked Gibbs if the administration had given up on including a government-run public option as part of health care reform. Gibbs replied, somewhat light-heartedly to the octogenarian reporter, that he had answered the question several times before.
“I apparently don’t answer it to your satisfaction,” Gibbs said. “I’ll give you the same answer that I gave you unsatisfactorily for many of those other days.”
When Gibbs said the administration would work to include choice and competition in health care reform, Thomas vocally surmised, “You’re not going to get it.” And when Gibbs responded with his own question about why Thomas kept asking, she responded, in an almost grandmotherly way, “Because I want your conscience to bother you.”
But Thomas was holding the White House accountable long before the Obama administration. Getting her start in the Kennedy administration, Thomas broke up the boys’ club that was the White House Press Corps and was the first female reporter to cover the president, rather than the first lady.
In 1962, she pressed Kennedy to skip the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association unless it were open to women. After he said he wouldn’t attend, the dinner for the first time admitted women.
One of my major regrets is that I never initiated a conversation with Thomas during the times I saw her in the White House briefing room or the press area. Our time that coincided covering the White House in 2009 was very short. Also, I was little intimidated as I was still getting my bearings. Lesson to all: If you see someone you admire, take the opportunity to speak to them before it’s too late.
It’s unfortunate that her White House career came to a somewhat ignominious end.
In 2010, when Thomas was questioned on Jewish Heritage Celebration Day by a reporter about her thoughts on Israel, she replied, “Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” Asked where Israeli Jews should go, Thomas offered that Poland, Germany or the United States would be good options instead of Israel, adding “Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?” As a controversy unfolded and supporters of Israel grew angry, Thomas submitted her resignation to Hearst Newspapers.
I remember Gibbs responded to the controversy in a much more grave tone than the manner in which he addressed her questions about the public option. He took the liberty of not just speaking for the White House, but for the press corps.
“Those remarks were offensive and reprehensible,” Gibbs said. “I think she should, and has, apologized because, obviously those remarks do not reflect certainly the opinion of, I assume, most of the people in here .. and certainly not the administration.”
Still, the way in which Thomas’s role as a White House reporter ended was a small part of her half-century career. As President Obama noted in his statement upon her death, Thomas was a “true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers” for women in journalism.
And her courage opened for the door for me as well. The way Thomas broke down barriers and made sure women had a place in the White House press corps — as well as the continued tenaciousness of her questioning over the decades — made it easier for me to work as an openly gay reporter in the White House briefing room representing an LGBT publication.
I would never compare my work to Thomas’s, but the way she shook things up started a process that allowed me decades later to come to the briefings and — regardless of the news of the day occupying mainstream reporters — ask questions about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, the president’s evolution on marriage equality, and why the administration continues to withhold an executive order protecting LGBT workers.
Thanks to Thomas, if White House officials aren’t doing enough to advance LGBT rights, we can make sure their consciences will bother them.
Congress
Top Congressional Democrats reintroduce Equality Act on Trump’s 100th day in office
Legislation would codify federal LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination protections
In a unified display of support for LGBTQ rights on President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, congressional Democrats, including leadership from the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, reintroduced the Equality Act on Tuesday.
The legislation, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, codifying these protections into federal law in areas from jury service to housing and employment, faces an unlikely path to passage amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress along with the White House.
Speaking at a press conference on the grass across the drive from the Senate steps were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.), U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (Wis.), who is the first out LGBTQ U.S. Senator, U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (Calif.), who is gay and chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (N.H.), who is gay and is running for the U.S. Senate, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.), and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.).
Also in attendance were U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (Del.), who is the first transgender member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (Nev.), U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (Ill.), and representatives from LGBTQ advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
Responding to a question from the Washington Blade on the decision to reintroduce the bill as Trump marks the hundredth day of his second term, Takano said, “I don’t know that there was a conscious decision,” but “it’s a beautiful day to stand up for equality. And, you know, I think the president is clearly hitting a wall that Americans are saying, many Americans are saying, ‘we didn’t vote for this.'”
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Sunday showed Trump’s approval rating in decline amid signs of major opposition to his agenda.
“Many Americans never voted for this, but many Americans, I mean, it’s a great day to remind them what is in the core of what is the right side of history, a more perfect union. This is the march for a more perfect union. That’s what most Americans believe in. And it’s a great day on this 100th day to remind our administration what the right side of history is.”
Merkley, when asked about the prospect of getting enough Republicans on board with the Equality Act to pass the measure, noted that, “If you can be against discrimination in employment, you can be against discrimination in financial contracts, you can be against discrimination in mortgages, in jury duty, you can be against discrimination in public accommodations and housing, and so we’re going to continue to remind our colleagues that discrimination is wrong.”
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which was sponsored by Merkley, was passed by the Senate in 2013 but languished in the House. The bill was ultimately broadened to become the Equality Act.
“As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has always taught me,” Takano added, “public sentiment is everything. Now is the moment to bring greater understanding and greater momentum, because, really, the Congress is a reflection of the people.”
“While we’re in a different place right this minute” compared to 2019 and 2021 when the Equality Act was passed by the House, Pelosi said she believes “there is an opportunity for corporate America to weigh in” and lobby the Senate to convince members of the need to enshrine federal anti-discrimination protections into law “so that people can fully participate.”
Politics
George Santos sentenced to 87 months in prison for fraud case
Judge: ‘You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.’
Disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos was sentenced to 87 months in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty last year to federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” said Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. “You got elected with your words, most of which were lies.”
The first openly gay GOP member of Congress, Santos became a laughing stock after revelations came to light about his extensive history of fabricating and exaggerating details about his life and career.
His colleagues voted in December 2023 to expel him from Congress. An investigation by the U.S. House Ethics Committee found that Santos had used pilfered campaign funds for cosmetic procedures, designer fashion, and OnlyFans.
Federal prosecutors, however, found evidence that “Mr. Santos stole from donors, used his campaign account for personal purchases, inflated his fund-raising numbers, lied about his wealth on congressional documents and committed unemployment fraud,” per the New York Times.
The former congressman told the paper this week that he would not ask for a pardon. Despite Santos’s loyalty to President Donald Trump, the president has made no indication that he would intervene in his legal troubles.
Congress
Democratic lawmakers travel to El Salvador, demand information about gay Venezuelan asylum seeker
Congressman Robert Garcia led delegation
California Congressman Robert Garcia on Tuesday said the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador has agreed to ask the Salvadoran government about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who remains incarcerated in the Central American country.
The Trump-Vance administration last month “forcibly removed” Andry Hernández Romero, a stylist who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered because of his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.
The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”
Garcia told the Washington Blade that he and three other lawmakers — U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) — met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital.
“His lawyers haven’t heard from him since he was abducted during his asylum process,” said Garcia.
The gay California Democrat noted the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how he (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”
“That’s important,” said Garcia. “They’ve agreed to that … we’re hopeful that we get some word, and that will be very comforting to his family and of course to his legal team.”
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari traveled to El Salvador days after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) denied their request to use committee funds for their trip.
“We went anyways,” said Garcia. “We’re not going to be intimidated by that.”
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 met with Trump at the White House. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) three days later sat down with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who the Trump-Vance administration wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15.
Abrego was sent to the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT. The Trump-Vance administration continues to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered it to “facilitate” Abrego’s return to the U.S.
Garcia, Frost, Dexter, and Ansari in a letter they sent a letter to Duncan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday demanded “access to” Hernández, who they note “may be imprisoned at” CECOT. A State Department spokesperson referred the Blade to the Salvadoran government in response to questions about “detainees” in the country.
Garcia said the majority of those in CECOT who the White House deported to El Salvador do not have criminal records.
“They can say what they want, but if they’re not presenting evidence, if a judge isn’t sending people, and these people have their due process, I just don’t understand how we have a country without due process,” he told the Blade. “It’s just the bedrock of our democracy.”
Garcia said he and Frost, Dexter, and Ansari spoke with embassy staff, Salvadoran journalists and human rights activists and “anyone else who would listen” about Hernández. The California Democrat noted he and his colleagues also highlighted Abrego’s case.
“He (Hernández) was accepted for his asylum claim,” said Garcia. “He (Hernández) signed up for the asylum process on an app that we created for this very purpose, and then you get snatched up and taken to a foreign prison. It is unacceptable and inhumane and cruel and so it’s important that we elevate his story and his case.”
The Blade asked Garcia why the Trump-Vance administration is deporting people to El Salvador without due process.
“I honestly believe that he (Trump) is a master of dehumanizing people, and he wants to continue his horrendous campaign to dehumanize migrants and scare the American public and lie to the American public,” said Garcia.
The State Department spokesperson in response to the Blade’s request for comment referenced spokesperson Tammy Bruce’s comments about Van Hollen’s trip to El Salvador.
“These Congressional representatives would be better off focused on their own districts,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, they are concerned about non-U.S. citizens.”
Calendar: May 2-8
Cozy Night In Ideas And Inspiration
Episcopal bishop to speak at WorldPride human rights conference
Pabllo Vittar to perform at WorldPride
RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth
Chronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
Second federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
We must show up to WorldPride 2025 in D.C.
Ruby Corado sentencing postponed for third time
A room with Pride: D.C.’s LGBTQ history finds a new home at the Eaton
-
Books5 days agoChronicling disastrous effects of ‘conversion therapy’
-
U.S. Federal Courts4 days agoSecond federal lawsuit filed against White House passport policy
-
Opinions4 days agoWe must show up to WorldPride 2025 in D.C.
-
District of Columbia4 days agoRuby Corado sentencing postponed for third time