As regular readers will know, a recurring theme in our reporting over the past few years has been the propaganda, theater, and subterfuge emanating from the U.S. State Department’s press briefing room, with a particular focus on the work of Sam Husseini — one of the toughest and most adversarial journalists in the room.
Some rather illuminating moments took place at a briefing several months ago that we didn’t have a chance to report on at the time, but wanted to document for you now and contextualize:
On April 24, 2025, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce opened up the day’s press briefing with some comments on the death of Pope Francis — one of the biggest stories in the world at the time.
She then refused to take a question from Sam about it throughout the entire presser.
Bruce also stated at the outset that she was going to try to exhaust the questions on a given topic before moving on to a new one. She repeatedly enforced this throughout the presser, but then broke her own rule in order to avoid calling on Sam about Gaza.
When Sam attempted to point out the double standard, she motioned for security (4:48-5:44 in the video below) — effectively a threat of physical harm, considering that State Department security inflicted a concussion on Sam earlier this year after infamously dragging him out of the room during Antony Blinken's final press conference.
Watch:
This is a bit longer than some of our previous edits, but it gives a more detailed look at what most days in the briefing room are like for Sam, and how the State Department purposely puts real journalists into the no-win position of having to either speak up and be treated as "disruptors," threatened, and/or physically accosted, or else sit there day after day politely asking for a question, only to be ignored as administrations from both wings of the uniparty participate in a modern holocaust, among other crimes.
“I am not a stenographer,” Sam wrote in Jan 2025. “I am not a potted plant. I am not going to be complicit in my own silencing and the silencing of so many who depend on people like me.”
Here’s Sam’s exchange with Blinken, wherein Tammy Bruce's predecessor Matthew Miller is seen siccing armed “security” on Sam (see 0:38-1:06) for attempting to ask Blinken a few of the questions that he and his spokesmen had been systematically avoiding all year:
As mentioned above, Sam was subsequently diagnosed with a concussion after visiting the George Washington University Hospital’s ER at the urging of his doctor.
He has experienced symptoms such as “headaches and nausea” (exacerbated by screens), “extreme fatigue, cognitive issues, rashes and more.”
“Most of the physical damage done to me... was done after I was carried out of the briefing room and was not videoed so far as I know,” Sam wrote in March 2025, adding:
I was roughly handcuffed and searched, their hands grabbing everything from my pockets… Then I was taken the long way out of the building. This afforded the ‘security’ people an opportunity to repeatedly shove my shoulders, forcing my head to bob back and forth… I did not attempt to resist. As we were approaching the exit of the building, I looked at the name tag of the Secret Service agent who was in charge. He hid his name tag. When we finally got outside and they handed me my belongings, I asked him for his name and he refused to give it.
As we documented in a video montage earlier this year, Tammy Bruce was a Fox News talking head and one of the most fanatical Israel supporters in media for years prior to being tapped by Trump for the role of State Department spokesperson:
That's in addition to her notoriously calling America the “greatest country on Earth, next to Israel” earlier this summer:
Bruce, who has now been given a new position at the State Department (more on than momentarily), only called on Sam once during her entire tenure. Sam asked a question about the JFK assassination and Israeli nukes — specifically if she'd acknowledge the latter's existence:
She dodged the question, looked ridiculous, and never called on Sam again.
On June 24, amid mounting calls for impeachment over his unconstitutional bombing of Iran, Trump had taken to Truth Social to rant about the subject.
Later that day, Sam attempted to ask Bruce a question about it, but as usual, she wouldn't let him:
Going back to the first video in this article: note how — when called out on her inconsistency and favoritism — Bruce “scolds” Sam:
“Sir, I will direct this. You will not.”
A similar moment took place on October 10, 2023 with Matthew Miller:
Miller: The way we do it in this briefing room...
Husseini: Is that you pick whoever you wanna pick whenever you wanna pick 'em.
Miller: ...is I call on people and they ask questions...
Husseini: And I'm a potted plant.
As we've long pointed out, this dynamic — where the State Department spokesperson gets to call on the same set of journalists over and over while largely excluding most others — exists with the complicity of those “approved” journalists:
Sometimes they will actively help the spokesperson box Sam (and other "non-approved" journalists) out, as Nadia-Bilbassy Charters did here:
Another example — Ahmed Alhazeem helps Miller evade Sam yet again (see the last minute of this video in particular):
Sam was blackballed by Miller for months toward the end of Biden's term. Before that, he was rarely called on. When he did occasionally get a question in, he pressed them on topics like Israel's genocide and the Hannibal Directive.
Tammy Bruce, meanwhile, has done such a “fantastic job” as State Department spokesperson that Trump has now tapped her to represent the U.S. at the United Nations, meaning she might be the one vetoing Gaza resolutions in the future — presumably while reciting trite hasbara like Dorothy Shea, to whom she will serve as deputy.
WAIT! Very quickly before you go: Decensored News is an independent, reader-supported publication. If you value our work, please help us grow and produce more of it with a monthly or one-time contribution. We can’t do this work without you. This article was originally published at decensored.news. A version was also published as a thread on X. You can follow Sam Husseini’s work at husseini.org. For more reporting like this, please follow Decensored News on multiple platforms, bookmark the website, and subscribe here on Substack:
Thank you for doing this work, Sam Husseini deserves many more fans than he has, an honorable person.
Sam gets it right, and that frightens ‘em.