Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Washington Secrets, where we are embracing the asterisks. Not the footnote ones, the sweary ones. We also wonder whether we should just give up and get all our political news from TMZ, as everything is entertainment now…
If you are triggered by asterisks, please look away now, for Wednesday was a very sweary day in Washington.
It provided the most viral of moments during Dr. Anthony Fauci’s contentious appearance in front of senators, where he pled the Fifth Amendment 111 times and ducked questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Secrets suspects that Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) spoke for most of the Republicans present when he went blue with rage.
“It was about six years ago today that I decided I’m going to give up my businesses, sell them all, run for office, run through the United States Senate,” he told the retired scientist.
“Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the f*** do you think you were for doing that?”
Studies suggest the use of expletives in politics is becoming more common. Academics believe it represents an attempt to connect with voters with a display of authenticity.
But Moreno told Secrets that there was nothing calculated about his words.
“It was pent-up anger at a guy who did enormous harm to many Americans, especially children,” he said.
“Not planned as I work really hard not to swear out of respect for the office and the institution,” Moreno added. “But … he is a truly despicable human being, and that was the visceral reaction I had to his pleading the Fifth and not looking at those in the gallery he harmed… hiding behind a scumbag attorney.”
Moreno also asked Fauci to face people in the room who believed they had been harmed by mandates and closures during the pandemic response, but Fauci refused.
Yet the senator’s comments were not the only example on Wednesday.
Trey Yingst, a Fox News reporter, had to do some on-air censoring of a conversation that he had just had with President Donald Trump about Iran’s overnight strikes on U.S. facilities.
“We’re going to beat the effing s out of them,” is how the reporter rather carefully put it.
And Secrets apologizes to any readers who were offended by a quote in Wednesday’s newsletter, where we were asking sources whether Pete Hegseth was safe in his role at the Pentagon, amid growing criticism from Republican senators.
“If you think the president gives a f*** about what Thom Tillis or Joni Ernst think about Hegseth, it’s a major misread,” said one.
What does it all mean? Apart from that, we could be heading for a national asterisk shortage.
Dr. Joseph Phillips, a lecturer in Politics at Cardiff University, recently published data showing that the use of expletives was on the rise in presidential politics.
“It used to be rare for presidents, even as candidates, to swear in official remarks,” Phillips said. “Woodrow Wilson broke the profanity seal in 1919, recounting a time where he made a ‘conspicuous *ss of himself.’ Since then, presidents, their seconds-in-command, and presidential hopefuls have used profanity at least 692 times.”
And it is accelerating, with 87% of all profanity coming in the past 10 years. Some 78% of all uses have come from two politicians: Trump and Joe Biden.
“While Biden heavily relied on ‘damn,’ Trump’s usage of profanity has been more varied, introducing ‘b******,’ ‘b***’, ‘bulls***’, and ‘f***’ into the presidential vocabulary,” he said.
Connoisseurs of profanity will note that there is one rather Germanic boundary still to be crossed.
Secrets wonders what that will take. Maybe Kamala Harris declaring for 2028?
READ MORE: FAUCI’S FIFTH AMENDMENT ANSWERS MAY TEST BIDEN PARDON AS GOP EYES CONTEMPT
It’s all entertainment now
Should we be surprised that some of the most nuanced analysis of the Fauci hearing comes from TMZ?
Harvey Levin, founder of the channel, used his platform to offer his thoughts. And they are complicated. At one point, he explains that as a gay man, he knew many men who died horrible deaths of AIDS in the 1980s, and that Fauci was instrumental in accelerating treatments that saved lives.
Anyway, there are two parts to his commentary:
“I have problems with the way the CDC handled COVID. I think that they did damage to children, to adults, and I don’t think they did it maliciously. I think they did it because they were using their judgment and were overprotective, and I think at times overstated things … things they said they knew but really didn’t, and I have personal problems with the way that COVID was handled.”
But is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) the right person to be getting to the bottom of the questions?
“I mean, he has said now over a period of years he wants Anthony Fauci in a jail cell. He has said it out loud. He wants him in a jail cell. That’s the point of this hearing. That’s why they’re doing this. They want to take something that Anthony Fauci says and then claim it amounts to perjury, and they want to prosecute him, they want to convict him, and they want to throw him in prison. That’s the point of this hearing…”
“There are things they could certainly ask him, but he can’t answer because if he answers, it doesn’t matter what he says … You know, if you can prosecute somebody for fricking seashells on the beach shore, then you could certainly prosecute somebody for what they say in a congressional hearing, and that’s the climate we’re in.”
It is well worth watching the whole thing, then reflecting on where politics is today and the best ways to cover it. (As TMZ leans more into political coverage.) Plus, whether the public is being well served by its elected politicians.
Lunchtime reading
Trump’s MAGA voters would stick by a candidate through the most serious of scandals: Trump knew it 10 years ago when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.
We need data centers to substantially improve our living standards: This is a huge issue that is only getting huger as communities reckon with the water and energy impacts. James Erwin argues that the cons aren’t as big as you think.
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