On June 24, 2026, White House communications director Steven Cheung publicly attacked Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) in profane terms on X. Lieu had questioned why Trump canceled a planned signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill and asked whether the president had received an experimental Eli Lilly obesity drug, retatrutide, after STAT reported that a high-profile 79-year-old patient got it through the FDA's “compassionate use” pathway. “So we need to know, did Donald Trump get this special drug from Eli Lilly, and did he get it under that provision, and, if he did, why is that the case?” Lieu said.
Cheung responded, “Ted Lewd is a dumbass. He probably spent hours laughing to himself, thinking that peddling this lie would be funny. Sadly for Ted, there's no special new drug to cure being a b*tch.”
The White House has denied that the patient in the report was Trump, and Lieu's suggestion was unproven speculation. The notable conduct here is not the health claim but the response: a senior White House official, speaking in an official communications role, using crude personal insults against a sitting member of Congress.