EXCLUSIVE: Eli Lilly to Invest BILLIONS in America, Omeed Malik on the MAGA/MAHA alliance, Rep. Beth Van Duyne on DOGE, and more!

In this edition, Eli Lilly invests billions in America, Omeed Malik dishes on the “secret” meeting that led to the MAGA/MAHA alliance, House Dem backs angry protesters against his colleague, and more!

February 25, 2025

Let’s dive in.

1. EXCLUSIVE: Eli Lilly to invest a total $50 billion in America

2. INTERVIEW: Omeed Malik Talks About the Successful MAGA/MAHA partnership changing America’s health

3. EDITORIAL: Donald Trump is right; the Associated Press has no First Amendment right to access the White House

4. Heard on the Hill

5. K-STREET, 10,000 FEET: The hospitality industry’s surcharge spree is going hog wild

6. SCOOPING: “Be loud”: House Democrat backs rowdy protests against his GOP colleague

7. SCOOPING: Rep. Andy Barr dishes on his possible Senate run, his support for Trump, and the threat from China

8. OPINIONATED: Rep. Beth Van Duyne on the Golden Age of DOGE, Garrett Exner on why the American military should cut fat and build muscle, and Jessica Anderson on how DOGE is delivering for the America First agenda

In this edition, Eli Lilly invests BILLIONS in America, HOTH, hidden fees in dining, and more.

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EXCLUSIVE: Eli Lilly to invest a total $50 billion in America

by Matthew Foldi

THE LOWDOWN:

• American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly announced a grand total $50 billion investment in the U.S., the Reporter has exclusively learned.

• The firm will make the announcement alongside top Republicans on Wednesday, per an invitation obtained by the Washington Reporter.

• The new spending includes a $27 billion investment on top of Eli Lilly’s $23 billion invested since the enactment of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

• Joining Eli Lilly at the announcement are Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.), Lilly CEO David Ricks, and others.

• One source familiar with the event told the Reporter that Eli Lilly will thank President Donald Trump and his economic policies, such as his signature tax cuts, for making the ground-breaking investment possible.

Eli Lilly and Company, the American pharmaceutical giant, is making a grand total $50 billion investment in the United States and hiring thousands of people with high paying jobs. The firm will make the announcement alongside top Republicans this morning, per an invitation obtained by the Washington Reporter.

This investment will include the establishment of four new manufacturing sites in the U.S., including in Indiana and North Carolina, allowing Eli Lilly to further protect America’s bio pharma supply chain.

Joining Eli Lilly at the announcement are Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.), and others. Eli Lilly’s CEO, David Ricks, will attend the event announcing the investment in America as well as the high-paying jobs that come with it. Ricks also met with President Trump at The White House last week.

“I couldn’t be prouder that Lilly is expanding facilities in the U.S.,” Sen. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) told the Reporter. “These new investments will create good jobs and make our supply chains more secure.”

Fellow Indiana GOP Senator Todd Young told the Reporter that “Lilly has long been a driver of economic growth and innovation in Indiana” and that “we are grateful for this further investment in America and our workers.”

“Lilly is continuously striving to improve the lives for people everywhere, and today we celebrate the transformative impact of this announcement,” Young said.

Eli Lilly is based in the senators’ home state of Indiana.

One source familiar with the event told the Reporter that Eli Lilly will thank President Donald Trump and his economic policies — such as his signature 2017 tax cuts — for making the ground-breaking investment possible.

In recent weeks, corporations like Apple have joined Eli Lilly in investing billions of dollars in America. These investments come amid the Trump administration’s push to increase economic opportunity in America, such as through expanding the successful Opportunity Zones program.

INTERVIEW: Omeed Malik on the MAGA/MAHA partnership that’s reshaping American politics, and the “secret meeting at Mar-a-Lago” that made it happen

by Matthew Foldi

THE LOWDOWN:

• Successful businessman and entrepreneur Omeed Malik told the Reporter the MAGA/MAHA merger culminated with RFK, Jr.’s nomination to lead HHS.

• Malik was a key figure in the MAGA and MAHA movements merging.

• Malik was a critical player in the GOP’s big tent expansion in 2024 — now he has his sights set on competing with the Olympics by investing in the Enhanced Games, a new sporting contest that wants to “build superhumanity” by allowing athletes to take performance enhancers that would disqualify them from the Olympics.

The 2024 election represented the culmination of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) and Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movements uniting; this merger culminated with President Donald Trump nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Through it all, Omeed Malik, a successful businessman and entrepreneur, had a front row seat. As Democrats pushed for policies that bolstered China’s middle class at the expense of America’s own, backed “useless wars” abroad, and advocated for “radical gender ideology” at home, Malik found himself breaking with his former party. His “authentic evolution” allowed him to both support Kennedy during the 2024 Democratic Party primaries, which Kennedy was blacklisted from, and to bring Kennedy on board with Trump after the former ended his independent campaign for the presidency.

“This is no longer about just partisanship,” he said of how the two movements complement each other. “It's about common sense and loving the country and believing that you should have a nation state with borders; really basic stuff is what this coalition represents. My attraction to Bobby goes back to what I felt was going on during COVID; I had to support him, because he was such a hero, speaking out against the tyranny during that period of time. His very courageous stance meant that I wanted to platform him, especially in the Democratic primary against Biden, but what I also saw was just the fact that the Democratic Party doesn't believe in democracy.”

The MAGA/MAHA merger played out extensively throughout the transition process, which Malik played a key role in.

“My input from the private sector was really simple,” Malik said. “I wanted to get the most qualified folks who actually believed in the mission…there need to be two qualifications to be great. One, is you have to believe in the vision. And two, you have to be really smart. Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, is a perfect embodiment of that combination.”

Malik, a close personal friend of both Kennedy and Trump’s newly-minted Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard. He played an “instrumental” role in getting the duo to a place where they felt comfortable endorsing Trump, a Trumpworld source told the Reporter.

“I did some shuttle diplomacy between both camps, and it culminated in a secret meeting at Mar-a-Lago in the middle of August with me, Bobby Kennedy, Donald Trump, Don Jr, who's my very close friend, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, and Susie Wiles,” he said. “And it was over a three hour meeting where we sketched out what this would look like. And just a week and a half after that meeting was that famous endorsement that took place in Arizona.”

Malik, who was Gabbard’s largest 2020 donor during her presidential campaign, had also spent years telling Trumpworld that she could be a valued asset on the campaign trail.

“I always was talking to Don Jr. about [Gabbard] all the way back to 2020,” he said. “I said ‘look man, as a former Democrat, I'm telling you these other guys, you want to bring them into the tent.’ And I was trying to explain that we basically agree on everything. We're against stupid foreign interventions that don't benefit us. We're against doing that while at the same time making China a superpower, literally creating a Frankenstein to the detriment of our own citizens. We're all against the open border, we're all against radical gender ideology. So every big ticket item that was going on the country, I know that these guys are on our side.”

EDITORIAL: Donald Trump is right; the Associated Press has no First Amendment right to access the White House

by the Washington Reporter

President Donald Trump is the most transparent president in history — and he is right to ensure the Associated Press isn’t pushing misinformation about the Gulf of America before granting the AP privileged access to White House events.

The outrage over Trump’s actions obscures a critical reality: the AP continues to have access to the complex and has its seat at press briefings; Trump’s moves simply restricts its access to privileged spaces like the press pool and the Oval Office. Countless outlets across America would love to have even a fraction of the AP’s access to President Trump; is he denying their First Amendment by not having them credentialed? Of course not.

On a daily basis, President Trump shows his commitment to the First Amendment following four years of President Joe Biden, who held almost no press conferences and gave virtually no interviews to the press. In fact, Biden did fewer press conferences than his previous six predecessors.

Trump recently made the decision to restrict some of the AP’s access to his events, due to the outlet’s refusal to call the newly-named Gulf of America by its new name, even as liberal companies like Google and Apple are complying with Trump’s executive order. In response, the AP argues that this violates the First Amendment.

However, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled against the AP this week, refusing to order that the White House restore the AP’s access; this is a welcome ruling.

As a media outlet, the First Amendment is sacred to us — which makes the groupthink from so many purported journalists that have backed the AP up all the more disturbing. The AP is using Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of America as a smokescreen; this outlet, and many others, have had no problems baselessly, and at times inaccurately, renaming terms to suit their ideological agendas.

The AP’s embrace of Orwellian doublespeak goes back well over a decade; in 2013, it decided to cease using the term “illegal immigrant”; during the height of the riots of 2020, it amended its style guide to encourage journalists to not describe violent riots as “riots,” and to instead label them as “protests.”

The same press corps that spent years telling its dwindling readership that Biden was the most articulate orator since Cicero is now defending the nonexistent right of their fellow propagandists to show up and heckle Trump.

HEARD ON THE HILL

• FTC SUCCESS: Thanks to Andrew Ferguson, the new chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, for joining us for his first interview in his new role earlier this week. We’ll have a writeup on our event in our next edition, but you can watch our full interview with him here and can read about his pledge “to keep aggressive merger enforcement” here. A special thanks to the Coalition for App Fairness for sponsoring the sold out event.

• BUDGETING BIG WINS: Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) scored a huge win this week with the passage of the House GOP’s budget framework. Prior to the passage, everything looked up in the air for the oft-underestimated Speaker — and Reps. Kevin Hern (R., Okla.) and Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) took to our pages to make the case for the framework’s passage.

• MEDIA SAGE’S TAKE: Rep. Ashley Hinson (R., Iowa) spent years working as a local journalist before entering the political arena — and she told the Reporter that she is fully behind President Trump’s restriction of the Associated Press’s access. "As a former journalist, the AP's faux outrage is laughable,” Hinson said. “Where was the anger when Biden went months without press conferences? They were too busy covering it up to worry about journalistic integrity then. The Trump Administration is more accessible and more transparent than any other administration in history, and they are rightly bringing in new outlets and media that Americans now trust after years of bias from mainstream outlets.”

• FINS UP: On March 10, the Senate Armed Services Committee is having a hearing on the Pacific theater. Expect substantial questions on the adequacy of the U.S. Naval fleet, a topic Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth brought up this week.

• RED DRAGON’S BANE: Senate Republicans are looking at investigating Chinese influence in the telecom sector, including Huawei's spinoffs and TP-Link, a Chinese-based manufacturer.

• UNDISPUTED CHAMPION OF EDUCATION: Linda McMahon is expected to be confirmed on Thursday. Republicans are not expecting any Democratic votes but also are not expecting any Republican NO votes.

• TEARING DOWN ELECTRIC AVENUE: Rep. Tony Wied (R., Wis.) and Sen. Joni Ernst introduced a bill to rescind the funding for the Biden administration’s electric vehicle projects; the pair found that the previous administration allocated billions of dollars with almost no results. Wied told the Reporter that “the fact that the Biden administration was only able to produce 59 EV charging stations nationwide with a $7.5 billion budget is the exact reason why the American people overwhelmingly support President Trump in reducing waste and inefficiencies in our government. As a small business owner, I could have built 1,500 more gas stations with that kind of money. It is time to repeal this funding and put an end to President Biden's wasteful vanity project.”

• EU PUSHBACK: 26 financial officers wrote to President Donald Trump this week, praising his decision to withdraw from the controversial Paris climate accords. The financial officers want the U.S. Trade Representative to investigate the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Directive and similar programs, which continue to push ESG policies onto Americans. “Europe might be committed to destroying its own economy with “sustainability” directives, but it better keep its green-washed hands out of ours,” Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers Research, said of the efforts.

• THUNE’S WARNING: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) bashed the Senate Democrats’ plan to overturn President Donald Trump’s energy emergency in a floor speech on Monday. Thune warned if “we don’t take action, we are going to be facing some very serious problems in the very near future” and that he is “grateful to have a president who recognizes and acknowledges the energy emergency facing our nation.”

• D-E-BYE BYE: The CIA and DNI immediately responded to reports from journalist Chris Rufo that internal chat rooms were rife with sexually explicit content. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, said that “this behavior is unacceptable and those involved WILL be held accountable. These disgusting chat groups were immediately shut down when [Trump] issued his EO ending the DEI insanity the Biden Admin was obsessed with.” Liz Lyons, the CIA’s Director of Public Affairs, said the agency “will be taking immediate action on this matter.” The DNI’s Alexa Henning told the Reporter that Gabbard ordered agencies to fire the individuals responsible.

K-STREET, 10,000 FEET

The hospitality industry’s surcharge spree is going hog wild

by the Washington Reporter

THE LOWDOWN:

• The hospitality industry has taken to adding unwanted and unnecessary fees to patrons’ bills.

• The Washington Reporter reviewed several receipts that included wonky fees, including a “Covid 19 Surcharge” in Chicago and a 5 percent “Dine In” surcharge at a Spanish restaurant.

• Some groups are pushing for legislative reform at the national level.

Americans love food. From New York City pizza to Cajun cooking, food is an integral part of our national identity. America’s cuisine scene is a mishmash of cultures and flavors that create some of the most incredible culinary experiences the world has seen. Our nation is home to celebrity chefs and Michelin recommendations for immaculate dining experiences, from Bib Gourmand Ethiopian food in Georgetown, D.C., to Michelin-starred sushi in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Still, what many Americans experience when they go out to dine is not just good food and (presumably) good service, but is instead a trend of towel-wringing designed to get as many dollars as possible out of customers.

Since before the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants have tacked on these fees to customers’ tickets while simultaneously complaining about the high costs of doing business.

Post-pandemic, the problem has skyrocketed, with Americans facing even more hidden fees to just get a bite than ever before. Hidden fees are now pervasive in the hospitality industry, ranging from local ordinances requiring compliance to highway robbery for deigning to eat at your local burger joint during a pandemic.

In fact, even just using a credit card — now a commonplace and restaurant-advantageous replacement for cash, especially in crime-ridden cities like Washington, D.C. — can net you an unwanted fee, just for charging it instead of counting out your dollar bills. These practices are designed to shift the cost of the business directly onto the consumer, allowing restaurants to pay servers and other tipped staff less than the minimum wage. And, on top of these extra fees, patrons are expected to tip their servers the same 15 to 20 percent that is expected.

The Washington Reporter reviewed several receipts given by a source and notices from various restaurants containing these hidden fees — many of which may (or may not, if you’ve been on the receiving end) shock you.

One restaurant had a tame, but unnecessary, $0.99 “Takeout Fee.” Another restaurant, a Spanish place, more egregiously charged customers a 5 percent “Dine In” surcharge while a Chicago eatery charged both a 10.25 percent city tax on top of a 26 percent “Covid 19 Surcharge.” Another restaurant told eaters via a notice that “a 4% hospitality charge will be added to all guest checks.”

SCOOPING: “Be loud”: House Democrat backs rowdy protests against his GOP colleague

by Matthew Foldi

Rep. Eric Sorensen (D., Ill.) has a long reputation as a keyboard warrior — one he upheld this week when he encouraged Democrats outside his state to protest his Republican colleague, Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks (R., Iowa).

“Wish I could be there with you in the [Quad Cities], friends,” Sorenson wrote on a Facebook post by the Scott County Democrats that was obtained by the Washington Reporter. Sorensen, who has been criticized for how he “can't stop tweeting about how dumb his constituents are,” encouraged activists to protest Miller-Meeks. “GOP members like her need to hear loud voices and clear messages from the people they supposedly serve. Hope you have big numbers! Be loud, be diligent, and please stay safe.”

Across the country, Republican lawmakers have faced withering criticisms at their town halls. In most of these cases, the opposition isn’t as organic as it seems.

“The demonstrations drove mainstream media coverage of brewing backlash against the Trump administration as the lower chamber left Washington, D.C., for a week-long recess,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. “Well-funded liberal organizations organized many of them. The George Soros-funded groups Indivisible and MoveOn were at the center of the demonstrations.”

SCOOPING: Rep. Andy Barr dishes on his possible Senate run, his support for Trump, and the threat from China

by Matthew Foldi

THE LOWDOWN:

• Rep. Andy Barr joined the Republican Study Committee (RSC) on the newest episode of their podcast, Right to the Point.

• The Reporter got the exclusive preview of the latest episode, where Barr covers everything from China to his potential Senate run.

• Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.), a veteran newsman himself, gave the interview.

Rep. Andy Barr (R., Ky.) had his turn in the hot seat on the latest episode of the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) Right to the Point podcast — which the Washington Reporter got an exclusive preview of.

Barr covers everything from China — which he called “an enormous threat” to America — to his potential Senate run.

“We’re taking a look at it,” Barr said on the podcast.

Barr also talked about his support for President Donald Trump in the episode, giving the president credit over his foreign trade policy.

“Because of President Trump's leadership…President Modi of India announced a 50 percent reduction of tariffs,” he said.

Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.), a veteran newsman himself, took his turn as the interviewer. Under its new chairman, Rep. August Pfluger (R., Texas), the RSC launched the Right to the Point podcast in which its members take turns asking each other questions that the liberal reporters who dominate Capitol Hill refuse to do.

Click here to listen to the latest Right to the Point, featuring Rep. Andy Barr.

Here are our top takeaways from Barr’s interview with Alford, lightly edited for clarity:

Senate run?

• “Kentucky supports President Donald Trump. This is an America First party, and the people of Kentucky deserve a Senator who will support President Trump and support his agenda; I certainly do. And he deserves a cabinet that will that he of his choosing, that will support his policies and his agenda. And so we're looking forward to the future of the U.S. Senate supporting President Donald Trump.”

• “Those are disappointing votes [by Sen. Mitch McConnell against several of Trump’s cabinet picks], of course. The Supreme Court and the role that the Senate played in the last several years in confirming conservative originalist justices will be his legacy. That's a strong legacy. But we need a need a senator who's going to be with this president.”

• “We're taking a look at it. And we're getting a lot of encouragement, from a lot of my constituents and other Kentuckians around the state to take a look at it, because these are MAGA Kentucky voters and MAGA supporters, and they know that I have been with the president as Chairman of his presidential campaign, that I was the first in the federal delegation to endorse President Trump before the primary in 2024. President Trump came to my district in 2018 and campaigned with me at my invitation. So we go way back, and he knows that I've been a strong, loyal supporter of his agenda.”

Trade:

• “Democrats try and say that Trump’s trade policies are bad for Kentucky because of bourbon exports. Nonsense. It's actually the opposite. It's that we're actually fighting for market access, and we recently celebrated the announcement, because of President Trump's leadership, that President Modi of India announced a 50 percent reduction of tariffs. That's going to dramatically increase access into the world's largest market, 1.4 billion consumers in India. And when you put Kentucky bourbon on a level playing field with that legacy imperial scotch, we will clean their clocks, because that sweet corn based bourbon matches perfectly with the spicy Indian palette. I love it, and we are going to produce so much bourbon for our friends in India that you won't even know what to do with all those bourbon barrels in Kentucky.”

OPINIONATED

Op-Ed: Rep. Beth Van Duyne: Embracing the Golden Age of DOGE

by Rep. Beth Van Duyne

$36 trillion of national debt doesn’t just happen by accident.

It happens because of poor decision making, catastrophes, lack of courage, laziness of bureaucrats, vast amounts of institutional grift and corruption, and weak-willed politicians too enamored with “the system” to take the kind of action necessary to prevent us from the crushing burden of the largest national debt in the world.

When I served as Mayor of a top 100 city in America, we crafted a balanced budget every year, not only because it was the right thing to do, but also because it was mandated by our city charter. Each year, the budget discussions were tense, every city department always “needed more money,” but our dollars were finite, and tough decisions had to be made. If only Congress was constrained in just the same way.

Since President Donald Trump has retaken office, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has exposed monumentally corrupt spending. And DOGE has not even begun to focus on the largest federal programs and agencies, where they will soon reveal the kind of waste, fraud, and abuse that everyone in America knows exists. Many of us are grateful for this effort enabled by President Trump and yet, many others are now fighting tooth and nail to prevent more of this egregious spending from being exposed — likely because there are politicians and bureaucrats who are complicit in working against the direct interests of our nation.

Op-Ed: Garrett Exner: The American military should cut fat and build muscle

by Garrett Exner

The Department of Defense (DOD) announced that is looking to cut roughly 8 percent of the defense budget each year over the next five years. Much of this is simply repurposing legacy programs, climate focused initiatives, and diversity, equity, and inclusion waste into new priorities like border security, missile defense, and submarines.

The so-called, “cuts,” coincide with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) beginning an internal audit of the Department of Defense. Make no mistake, DoD has waste — tons of it. Yet, our military needs to do more than simply cut the fat if it seeks to win America’s wars. A doctrine of peace through strength requires a robust and lethal military, and a leaner bureaucracy is simply not enough.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) has laid out a road map for improving the force. His plan, a $200 billion investment over two years, would provide real reform to a broken procurement system and ensure the American military remains ahead of our adversaries. Getting this done after budget reconciliation and within this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would provide substantive improvements to procurement within one fiscal year. Timing this with the proposed repurposing is the type of institutional rebuilding that American voters were asking for in last year’s election: ruthless efficiency, combined with the renewal of American strength, to ensure American dominance.

The investment into rebuilding the military must come now, while DOGE wages war on the bloated bureaucracy of the Pentagon. Any further delay in replacing the aging fleet of ships, upgrading aircraft, and replenishing depleted stockpiles of ammunition will only strengthen the hand of America’s adversaries.

The Department finally has a leader willing to listen to the needs of the force — a force that has been suffering under the weight of a broken procurement system for over thirty years while raising the alarm about a looming conflict with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Op-Ed: Jessica Anderson: Donald Trump’s DOGE reforms deliver for the America First agenda

by Jessica Anderson

Imagine if the country’s largest and most successful companies stopped performing audits and ignored their shareholders. Eventually, these companies would see their performance and profits decline, and they would ultimately fail.

In corporate America, waste, fraud, and abuse are crimes — but in government, they’re just what the American people are expected to tolerate. Bloated bureaucracy, wasteful spending, and misaligned priorities have become the norm for a government that should exist to serve the people.

President Donald Trump recognized the gross misalignment between what the government actually does and what it should be doing, and pledged during his campaign to bring accountability back to the federal government and end waste, fraud, and abuse in our system.

President Trump has wasted no time in following through on this promise with a two-pronged approach.