Seven days after the Benghazi attack, Barack Obama went on David Letterman’s “Late Show.”

The date was September 18, 2012. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were dead. The Obama administration was under mounting pressure to explain what had happened. The election was less than two months away, and the administration’s account — that the attack had grown out of a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Islam video — was already under scrutiny.

We live in an age when everything is supposedly recorded forever. Yet political memory remains remarkably fragile.

So Obama went on Letterman. Naturally.

That was one of the more striking moments in A.J. Rice’s recent “Dangerous Laughter” conversation with Drew Thomas Allen, author of “Clinton Hoax, Obama Coup: The Declassified Story of the Trump-Russia Delusion.”

Allen’s larger argument is that the political and intelligence controversies that exploded around Donald Trump in 2016 did not begin with Trump. To understand Russiagate, he says, you have to work backward through the Obama years, Benghazi, Hillary Clinton, and the intelligence community.

But the Letterman story is where the story gets genuinely strange.

Allen says that while researching his book, he found references to Obama’s Letterman appearance in material connected to the Benghazi investigation. Finding the actual interview proved harder. According to the discussion, only a small portion of the September 18 appearance remains readily available online, while the section dealing with Obama’s explanation of Benghazi is the part that is difficult to locate.

Rice notes that plenty of Letterman interviews from the same period remain online. That makes the absence conspicuous.

The missing footage does not tell us who removed it, why it vanished, or whether anyone deliberately removed it at all. Television archives are messy. Rights change hands. Old clips disappear for mundane reasons. Rice and Allen themselves discussed trying to obtain a complete copy or transcript rather than treating the missing footage as evidence of a conspiracy theory.

That is exactly the right standard. But it leaves a remarkable question: Why is a presidential interview, important enough to surface in the Benghazi record, so difficult to watch today?

Rice’s hypothesis is compelling: The interview has been “memory holed.”

RELATED: Task forces won’t cut it. Trump needs a truth commission.

EtiAmmos/Getty Images

The phrase comes from George Orwell’s “1984.” Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting old records until yesterday’s reality conforms to today’s political narrative. The original disappears down the memory hole.

The metaphor works because political narratives harden into history with astonishing speed. A politician says something. Television repeats it, newspapers amplify it, commentators argue about it. Eventually, millions of people remember the story without remembering where the story came from.

Years later, the interpretation survives while the primary source becomes harder to find.

That’s the key to Allen’s argument, which treats Benghazi as an earlier chapter in a much longer political story. Obama was running for re-election on a record that included the killing of Osama bin Laden and the broader claim that his administration had confronted the terrorist threat. Then an American ambassador was killed in a terrorist attack weeks before Election Day.

That was plainly a political problem for the White House. What followed — the administration’s public explanation, the congressional investigations, and years of argument over what officials knew and when they knew it — became part of the larger history Allen wants readers to reconstruct.

His book moves from Benghazi through Clinton, the FBI, CIA, the Steele dossier, and ultimately Russiagate. A reader need not accept every conclusion to accept his basic challenge: Go back to the documents. Examine the original evidence. Do not mistake the version that became conventional wisdom for the record itself.

And that is where Letterman becomes more than a footnote.

Rice makes a larger point about comedy. Historically, the comedian played court jester: the figure permitted to mock the king, puncture pretension, and say what ordinary people could not. Aristophanes mocked politicians. Molière mocked the establishment. Comedy was supposed to make powerful people sweat.

Rice contends that Letterman had moved away from that role. In his telling, Obama was not entering a hostile room where a comic might spring an uncomfortable question. He was entering a friendly television environment where he could address a political crisis on favorable terrain.

That criticism can be overstated. Political comedy has always had sympathies and enemies. But the underlying standard is sound: If the comedian’s social function is to challenge power, the test should not change with the party holding it.

RELATED: Obama calls Benghazi attack a ‘wild conspiracy theory.’ Benghazi hero decimates him.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

And the timing is important. This was not a president chatting about his golf game. Obama appeared on a comedy program one week after an American ambassador and three other Americans had been killed, while his administration was under pressure to explain the attack and he was campaigning for another term.

Now the most politically relevant portion of that appearance is apparently the hardest part to find.

That should make historians, journalists, and ordinary citizens curious — not conspiratorial, curious.

We live in an age when everything is supposedly recorded forever. Yet political memory remains remarkably fragile. Archives move. Clips disappear. Context separates from quotation. Eventually, the easiest version of the story becomes the version everyone remembers.

That is the real reason the Letterman episode is worth pursuing. It does not prove Allen’s larger case. It does not prove deliberate suppression. It demonstrates why citizens should insist on access to the original evidence whenever possible.

If the full interview exists, produce it. If there is a transcript, publish it. If it truly has disappeared, somebody should find out why.

The memory hole is dangerous precisely because, once the source is gone, all that remains is somebody else’s version of what was on the other side.

​Barack obama, Benghazi, Christopher stevens, David letterman, Hillary clinton, Intelligence community, Osama bin laden, Russiagate, Steele dossier, White house, Opinion & analysis 

President Trump signed an executive order last week reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 18 to 11 and urging states with school-entry requirements to update their laws accordingly.

That should be a starting point, not an end point.

More coercion will deepen skepticism, not cure it.

Alabama is already closer to that model than most states. Its school-entry requirements rely on a narrower set of core vaccines and do not force hepatitis B vaccination for every student. Other states should treat the president’s order as the floor for vaccine freedom, not the ceiling.

The most immediate step is obvious: States can reduce school-entry requirements to match the new federal recommendations. Better still, they should eliminate those mandates altogether or, at minimum, make it much easier for families to opt out.

Coercion has no place in parental medical decisions. Public schools exist to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. They should not condition access to a publicly funded classroom on a government-approved medical regimen.

Aligning state rules with the new federal baseline would be progress. But true parental authority requires going farther.

Forty-six states already allow religious exemptions from school vaccine requirements. Their broad existence also shows that states can preserve opt-outs without schools simply ceasing to function.

Religious exemptions should remain. But the principle should not end there.

Parents can have sincere nonreligious reasons for declining particular vaccines, whether because of personal medical history, concerns about a specific product, or objections to the schedule itself. Treating religious objections as legitimate while dismissing every other conscientious objection draws an arbitrary line.

States should therefore expand personal and philosophical exemptions as well. Families should not have to choose between access to public education and surrendering authority over their children’s medical decisions.

Idaho has already gone farther. Its Medical Freedom Act prohibits schools from imposing medical intervention mandates, including vaccine requirements, as a condition of attendance. Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is pushing in the same direction, seeking to eliminate school vaccine mandates entirely in the Sunshine State.

Other lawmakers should study those models. The core principle is straightforward: Attending a government school should not require surrendering parental authority over a child’s body.

The burden of vaccine mandates also falls unevenly.

Affluent parents who object can more easily homeschool or move a child to a private school with different policies. Working families often have fewer options. They may be forced to comply, navigate exemption processes that demand time and paperwork they do not have, or keep a child out of the classroom.

RELATED: Fauci is yesterday’s fight. Medical freedom is today’s.

Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg/Getty Images

That creates a two-tier system in which families with the fewest resources have the least room to exercise meaningful choice.

Reducing mandates or broadening opt-outs would expand educational freedom precisely for the families who are most constrained by the current system.

None of this prevents families from vaccinating their children. Parents who want the full schedule remain free to choose it. The question is whether the state should force that choice on everyone else as the price of attending school.

Public trust in health institutions fell sharply after COVID. Rebuilding that trust will require transparent information, honest risk communication, and genuine freedom to say no. More coercion will deepen skepticism, not cure it.

President Trump’s executive order gives states a practical starting point.

Legislatures should use it: Reduce school-entry vaccine mandates to the new federal baseline, expand opt-outs beyond religious grounds, or eliminate the mandates entirely.

Parents, not bureaucrats, should decide what goes into their children’s bodies. States that move first can expand educational freedom while beginning the harder work of rebuilding public confidence through voluntary cooperation rather than compulsion.

​Childhood vaccines, Executive order, President trump, Public schools, Religious exemptions, Big pharma, Medical freedom act, Covid, Opinion & analysis 

When former Texas Children’s Hospital nurse Vanessa Sivadge witnessed her employer illegally use state funding to provide minors with transition procedures, she blew the whistle — and was fired for it.

“I was a nurse working in that multi-speciality clinic where … gender patients were being seen on a weekly basis. So I had a firsthand view of what was going on, knew that the hospital was lying to the public,” Sivadge tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey.

Despite first coming forward anonymously, she explains that “it was not anonymous to the Biden DOJ” because they sent two FBI agents to her home in July 2023.

“That encounter radically altered the trajectory of my life. It was something I’ll never forget. Very intimidating. A lot of threats made against me because of my views on transgender medicine and how children were being harmed,” she explains, adding that “Texas taxpayers were being billed fraudulently for gender hormones.”

“And people might not remember that at this time it was also illegal, not just the Medicaid fraud, but it was illegal for hospitals to be operating in this way. Not actual operations as in surgery but giving these, as you said, sex-rejecting hormones to children,” Stuckey chimes in.

“Texas had prohibited that. So they were not only committing Medicaid fraud,” she adds.

“Yeah, so the pattern very briefly was the hospital used fake names on the medical record. They used the patient’s preferred name, not their actual given name at birth. The hospital falsified medical records. They put the patient’s preferred gender identity on the medical record instead of their biological sex,” Sivadge explains.

“Then, they misdiagnosed patients intentionally who were going through the gender clinic, misdiagnosed them for the purpose of obtaining reimbursement for the hormones they were prescribing,” she continues.

While Sivadge initially remained anonymous, she publicly came forward with her story in June 2024.

“You can imagine, my life changed overnight. I blew the whistle. One day I was a nurse, the next day the hospital had put me on leave. The story made national news when the video of the FBI was posted, and it was viewed millions of times in just a couple days,” she explains.

When firing her, the hospital claimed that she had “accessed records inappropriately.”

“Of course, the very same records that proved that they were committing fraud,” she adds.

Now, after two years of litigation that began over the fraud under the Biden DOJ, the hospital’s settlement with her and the Justice Department was finalized last week — and her name has been cleared.

“A couple of months ago, in May, it was initially announced that a $10 million settlement had been reached, including the establishment of America’s first detransition clinic, the firing of five physicians that had … been a party to these procedures,” Sivadge tells Stuckey.

“So for the first time I was able to reveal that I was … the whistleblower that forced Texas Children’s Hospital, that compelled them to pay $10 million back to the government because the government was defrauded,” she adds.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Biden doj, Medicaid fraud, Puberty blockers, Whistleblower, Texas childrens hospital, Vanessa sivadge, Allie beth stuckey, Blazetv show 

The president’s online rapid response team absolutely lambasted a CNN reporter who insinuated that President Donald Trump was having a romantic relationship with a younger staffer.

Senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes asked the president about the suggestion made by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on Monday.

‘These scumbags are the lowest of the low.’

“Jon Ossoff said you’d rather travel with your aide Natalie Harp than build the ballroom and do your job as president; what is your response?” Holmes asked.

“You mean Pee-wee Herman? Pee-wee Herman look-alike?” he responded about Ossoff.

“No, I would much rather do other things,” Trump added. “We’re building a great facility here. We’re fixing a White House that hasn’t been taken care of.”

The Trump team responded more fully on social media to Holmes.

“[Kristen Holmes] is a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession. @POTUS hosts a hero lifeguard in the Oval Office and she uses it as an opportunity to take a cheap shot about one of President Trump’s staffers. These scumbags are the lowest of the low,” read the message.”

40 minutes later, the team added a second insult.

“Someday, your children will come across your disgusting and inhumane question,” the statement read. “They will be sickened and embarrassed to have a parent be so callous and vindictive. It’s quite troubling.”

Alayna Treene, a fellow White House correspondent for CNN, defended her colleague.

“What a horrible to thing to say. Kristen is an incredible reporter, person and, above all, mother. I don’t understand such a reaction to a journalist asking the president for his response to something a Democratic senator has leveled against him,” she wrote.

Harp is the president’s personal assistant.

RELATED: VIDEO: Trump says he will declare new US territory ‘pretty soon’ in the Middle East

Steven Cheung, the White House director of communications, also jumped into the fray.

“Jon Jackoff has to be the biggest cuck loser in politics,” he posted on social media. “Instead of denigrating hard working people serving their country, Jon should look deep into his soul and ask himself why he’s a miserable person who hates this country. It’s because he’s a radical, extremist Dumocrat.”

CNN released a statement defending Holmes.

“Kristen Holmes is one of the most respected and accomplished journalists covering the White House. This afternoon, she did her job and asked the president of the United States a tough, relevant, and newsworthy question on behalf of the American people,” read the CNN statement.

“Public officials are free to challenge reporting they disagree with, but personal attacks on journalists for asking questions are beneath the office and inconsistent with the principles of a free press,” the channel added. “We stand firmly behind Kristen and reject these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”

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​Mainstream media, Natalie harp, President donald trump, Rapid response team, Politics 

The coaches for the Los Angeles Chargers football team showed their support for women’s sports — at an event with a media company that promotes nonbinary athletes.

Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh joined in with offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel and their defensive coordinator to wear shirts reading, “EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN’S SPORTS,” photos posted to the team’s social media account showed.

‘Performative and absolutely irrelevant to Chargers football, isn’t it?’

The images came from the team’s Women in Sports Day event on Sunday at training camp. The shirts are a promotion for Nike and Togethxr, an organization founded by four female sports stars.

Togethxr chief content officer Jessica Robertson said in 2021 that the group promotes and supports nonbinary athletes.

“We … recognize that we are in a world without binary,” Robertson said. “We wanted to make sure that this felt inclusive, so X is a nod to being in a postbinary world and celebrating that.”

The group has a page at its website dedicated to LGBTQIA+ athletes.

Many sports fans mocked the team and called them out for the “performative” gesture.

“If it was true you wouldnt have to put it on a f**king T-shirt,” read one response.

“Performative and absolutely irrelevant to Chargers football, isn’t it?” said one detractor.

“Literally no one I know watches women’s sports. The numbers themselves objectively tell you that viewership is *incredibly* low compared to men’s sports. What motivated these otherwise intelligent guys to wake up in the morning and be like ‘I want my shirt to lie today’?” replied another.

“This is obnoxiously performative and unnecessary lol,” said another critic.

“Pandering. Let me know exactly what women’s sports you watched and when. We don’t need this. Just be normal,” read another response.

It was unclear whether the coaches knew they were promoting women’s sports through a company that supports a “post-binary” world, though the team held a similar event with Togethxr in 2025.

RELATED: LA Times is getting vicious online backlash for bizarre headline on trans-identifying athlete

The Los Angeles Chargers did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

The kickoff for the newest NFL season is just weeks away.

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​Womens sports, Nfl, Football, Politics, Transgender 

The House Ethics Committee announced an investigation into allegations that a congressman from California had “inappropriate sexual conduct” with a House staffer.

Democrat Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California had previously admitted that he had an extramarital affair but had also denied violating the rules of the U.S. House.

‘I take full responsibility and have committed myself to working through the pain privately with my wife and family.’

Gomez made the admission after a CNN report unearthed the investigation into allegations that he had an inappropriate relationship.

“Years ago, I made personal mistakes outside my marriage that have caused real pain to my wife and family. Although my actions were consensual in nature and haven’t violated the law or House ethics rules, that doesn’t diminish the impact that these mistakes have made on those I care about the most,” Gomez said at the time.

“I take full responsibility and have committed myself to working through the pain privately with my wife and family,” he added. “I sought professional assistance to help re-center and heal the relationships that mean everything to me and move forward with the honesty, transparency, and respect that everyone deserves from the people they love. I continue to do this work.”

The ethics panel said Monday that members of Congress are restricted from having sexual relations with House staffers.

Ironically, Gomez was one of the Democrats who called for the resignation of Eric Swalwell after he was also accused of inappropriate sexual behavior.

“My involvement in any campaign begins and ends with trust,” he said at the time. “I cannot in good conscience remain in any role with this campaign, and I am stepping down from it effective immediately.”

RELATED: Democratic lesbian Latina running for Congress accused by 4 women of unwanted sexual advances

Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The Democrat has represented California’s 34th Congressional District since 2017.

Gomez is still accepting applications for internships at the website for his office.

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​Extramarital affair, Democrats, Jimmy gomez, Ethics investigation, Politics