Brian James Karem (born March 10, 1961) is White House correspondent for Playboy[1] and political analyst for CNN.
[11] After leaving the Courier in 1984, Karem switched to television joining WKYT-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, as a political reporter.
In 1990, Karem was jailed in contempt of court for refusing to reveal the name of a source who arranged an interview with a suspect involved in killing a police officer.
[20] During the National Drug Summit in San Antonio, Texas in 1992, Karem asked then President George H. W. Bush to comment on claims referring to the event as a "joke".
[21] Karem lost his job after the incident but later gained an interview with Sam Donaldson on ABC and a mention from The Tonight Show host Jay Leno.
[25][26] While at WDAF-TV, Karem alleges that his superiors suppressed a story on the pesticide chemical, Dursban, prompting him to leave the station.
"[30] On July 11, 2019, following an event at the White House Rose Garden, Karem called conservative social media representatives in attendance "a group of people eager for demonic possession."
The remark prompted Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant to President Trump and now a radio talk-show host, to confront Karem, yelling across the lawn: "And you're a journalist, right?"
[36][37] In 2023, Karem wrote an article for Salon alleging that "MAGA and Christian nationalism" were bigger threats to the United States than Hamas.