From: White House Chief of Staff . Subject: Talking points for Monday

From: Office of the Chief of Staff for the President
To: Our Media Friends
Subject: Talking Points for Monday, September 26th, 2022

1. Ukraine war: Your stories should emphasize that because of the president's strong leadership, Ukraine is winning.  We will be less than pleased with any stories claiming that any of the money the U.S. has sent is being wasted, or that not all the weapons we've sent have reached Ukrainian forces.  It's war, and these things happen, eh?

2. Climate change: If you're looking for great stories, this is it.  It remains the biggest threat to the world.  Your stories should emphasize the importance of ending all use of dirty, polluting, planet-killing, child-killing "fossil fuels" and replacing them with clean, non-polluting electricity.  A great lede is something along the lines of "You don't want to sentence your precious children to death by asphyxiation, do you?"  Stories like that are a sure Pulitzer.

3. Supply chain crisis is solved.  Forward-thinking mothers are already planning for the Winter Soltice holidays, so they'll be relieved to learn that toys will be in ample supply this year thanks to the heroic efforts of the president's strong, muscular choice for Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigeig.  And if you'd like to give your stories that extra Pulitzer aura by showing adorable pics of the twin girls he and his husband adopted, just ask my staff.

4. Covid19:  Thanks to the hard work by the president's hand-picked head of the CDC and Dr. Fauci, Covid has been virtually eradicated in the U.S.  But we also know the virus mutates, so to keep your precious children totally safe against the new BA.5 variant, you and your kids should get the latest booster shot.  Which is *totally* safe and effective, just like they've always been after the president's hand-picked head of the health division of HHS, Admiral Rachel Levine, ordered the flawed vaccine produced by Trump to be reworked to make it safe.  All your stories should be sure to mention that.

5. The southern border:  As Secretary Mayorkas and your presidnt's hand-picked vice-president have said, it's totally under control.  The president's hand-picked team is totally complying with all U.S. laws, and we will not be amused if any of your stories question this.  You should emphasize that everyone who enters the U.S. is a "refugee," miserably hungry, wearing patched clothes and so poor that their cell phones only have 16 GB of memory.  So naturally we're doing everything we can to welcome those poor "refugees."
     Also, if your news organization wants to run photos of the refugees, don't take your own, but contact us for photos.  Far too many media organizations use their own photographers, so they wind up with photos that show almost all men between the ages of 18 and 35 in the frame.  You need to avoid that, because that makes voters wonder why so many refugees are men of military age.
    A great storyline is to emphasize the plight of poor transgender refugee children who couldn't get "gender-affirming care" in their home countries due to oppressive right-wing policies.  It's a sure Pulitzer.

6.  Energy: Thanks to the strong leadership of your president and very capable VP and his amazing, hand-picked Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, energy prices are falling.  This is great news for all Americans, as it totally offsets inflationary trends in things most Americans don't use, like lumber and Kobe beef.  Also, some of you from the west coast may have heard rumors that gas prices jumped by a dollar a gallon in two days, or something equally absurd.  These are simply right-wing scare stories, and if you print them, be sure to mention that:  That these are just rumors pushed by Trump insurrectionists.

7. Voting:  It's important that your readers and viewers know  that everyone needs to vote in November.  Normally in midterm elections barely 50% of eligible voters vote, but this year we expect to see almost 98% of eligible Democrat voters will vote.  Some may think that's not possible, but it's because Democrat voters are smart, and realize what a threat our political enemies pose to our precious democracy.  They know right-wing extremists managed to get Trump's Supreme Court to eliminate a Constitutional right to abortion, so that means it's only a matter of time before the same court outlaws birth control, interracial dating, rap music and recreational marijuana.

8. Student loan forgiveness: This is one of the president's proudest achievements, forgiving $10,000 of student-loan debt for each college student who had a loan, and $20,000 for victims of systemic racism.  My staff has a list of students in each state who have agreed to be interviewed for your hometown stories, and they're all absolutely thrilled with this program.
   When covering this wonderful executive order you should avoid interviewing students who re-paid their loans, and parents who put their kids through college without taking out a loan, because that will just stir up resentment and give our political enemies something to complain about.  And as you know, people don't like to read bad news, right?

9. The stock market: Your stories should focus on the fact that "the market ended last week on a strong up-note."  That's right.  While the market may have lost ground for most of last week, in the final hour of trading Friday afternoon it gained a fabulous 325 points.  Make sure you include that.  This is really, really good, and if the Dow keeps soaring at that rate it will recover the drop of last week in a mere four hours on Monday.

10.  The election: Your stories should focus on the fact that despite the worst efforts of our political enemies to tear down all the fabulous achievements of our party and your beloved president, Americans know we're on the right path.  As a result, the "generic ballot question" shows the battle for control of congress at a tie.  Be sure to get that into your stories.  
   We're starting to see more schools teaching students about the systemic racism of this nation, and the fact that children need to be taught about gender before they're 8 years old so they can receive "gender-affirming care" before it's too late.  Your stories should avoid using the term "sex-change operations," and instead should always use the term "gender-affirming care."
   We're also making progress in Minnesota, Washington state and Oregon in teaching that the U.S. is built on stolen land.  This is all part of our plan to "unify America," since the president campaigned on being a uniter instead of a divider like his predecessor.

11. "Bail reform laws:"  You've all done a great job on this topic, as our internal polling shows most Americans believe "bail reform" means NOT letting people charged with serious crimes walk out of jail without posting meaningful bail, instead of what it actually is.  Keep pushing this, because it's a winning issue for us.  I probably don't need to tell you NOT to print stories about people charged with serious crimes who are released without posting bail and immediately kill someone else, like those poor, poor mentally ill people in Memphis and Baltimore and Philly and Chicago who killed those careless women who were out after 9pm without a male family member, since that just gives our political enemies things to complain about.  We call that "misinformation," and we're working to make it illegal.

12. Crime:  Despite the stories from Fox News, crime is actually down.  At least that's what the official statistics show.  We've instructed the FBI to invent new category names for crimes so that crimes that were formerly under a single category are now split between two or three headings, making it almost impossible to compare the current year with prior years.  So you can cite just one of these categories to support a story saying crime is down.  Not one reader out of ten thousand will discover the truth. And we'll be very happy with stories saying crime is down.

13. The Inflation Reduction Act:  As most of you already know, not one American in ten thousand knows a single word of what's in this fabulous new law, so you can say anything about it and they won't have any idea if it's true.  So you need to say "It's working just as planned."  Your readers and viewers won't know what was planned but they'll guess "inflation reduction," and they'll be immensely reassured to know that whatever was planned is working beautifully.
  In normal times we might be concerned that the Republicans would hammer the fact that not a single provision of this new law reduces inflation by even a dime, but today we've distracted the Republicans with so many other issues that not one of 'em will pick up on this.  So you can say "It's working" with the total assurance that no one will argue the point.
 
Thanks for your continued support, and we'll see you here to celebrate after we pull off the amazing feat of maintaining control of both chambers in the midterms.