Consideration to serve as White House Press Secretary On December 13, 2016, Martosko attended meetings at
Trump Tower in New York City, leading to speculation that he might become then-President-Elect
Donald Trump's
White House Press Secretary. Martosko later confirmed that he had been under consideration, saying he was "honored to be asked for a meeting." that Trump had offered him the Press Secretary job.
CNN reported that the topic arose during a meeting in the
Oval Office where Martosko asked the president to participate in a book project. He withdrew days later, saying in a public statement that "I have chosen not to take the discussions further".
Trump impeachment question Martosko asked Donald Trump a question on the South Lawn of the White House on Oct. 3, 2019 about his July 25, 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelinskyy. Video and audio of the question and answer were featured in multiple hearings during
Trump's first impeachment in 2020. "Mr. President, what exactly did you hope Zelensky would do about the Bidens after your phone call? Exactly," Martosko asked. "If they were honest about it, they’d start a major investigation into the Bidens. It’s a very simple answer," Trump replied, adding that "likewise, China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine. So I would say that President Zelensky, if it were me, I would recommend that they start an investigation into the Bidens." Trump's acknowledgment confirmed that he tried to use his presidential power to influence a foreign government to investigate
Joe Biden, who was then Trump's chief Democratic rival for the presidency.
Daily Mail Martosko joined DailyMail.com in 2013. Campaign press secretary Nick Merrill denied that the campaign had excluded Martosko in reaction to his critical reporting, and said Clinton's team would "do our best to find equilibrium and best accommodate interest from as many news outlets as possible, given the space limitations of our events." All 14 news organizations participating in the pool signed a statement defending Martosko by saying "any attempt by the campaign to dictate who is in the pool is unacceptable." According to
Politico, "During the 2016 campaign, [Martosko] was perhaps the most prolific reporter" who covered Trump. for a Society of Professional Journalists award in 2020 for his Daily Mail series "Land of a Million Orphans."
Daily Caller Martosko was hired as executive editor at
The Daily Caller in 2011. He shared an Edward R. Murrow Award for writing in 2012 with war reporter Alex Quade for a video feature about U.S. soldiers who entered Afghanistan on horseback following the 9/11 terror attacks.
Disputed EPA story Shortly after his arrival in 2011, the
Caller published a story claiming that the EPA was going to spend $21 billion per year to hire 230,000 staff to regulate greenhouse gas emissions; at the time, the EPA had 17,000 staff and a total budget of $8.7 billion. The EPA had written in a court filing that it was crafting rules to help it avoid a scenario where unprecedented staffing expenses would be necessary: "Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in the Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the agency told a federal court. The story, with its mistaken interpretation of the court filing, went viral in right-wing media, about two women claiming that New Jersey
Democratic Senator
Bob Menendez had paid them for sex in the Dominican Republic while he was a guest of a major campaign donor, a Florida ophthalmologist named Salomon Melgen.
ABC News, which had also interviewed women making similar claims,
The New York Times, and the
New York Post declined to publish the allegations, viewing them as unsubstantiated and lacking credibility. Menendez's office described the allegations as "manufactured" by a right-wing blog as a politically motivated smear. According to Dominican law enforcement, a lawyer alleged that two women had been paid to lie about Menendez by an individual claiming to work for
The Daily Caller.
The Daily Caller denied this allegation, stating: "At no point did any money change hands between
The Daily Caller and any sources or individuals connected with this investigation". Vinicio Castillo Semán, the attorney, brought an
affidavit to a press conference, denying the story. In it, a woman named Nexis de los Santos Santana claimed she had been paid to falsely implicate Menendez and had never met him. The woman did not attend the press conference, and the government ID number on the affidavit is 10 digits long, one short of the 11 that appear on Dominican national identity cards. The Miami Herald reported that Castillo is Salomon Melgen's cousin. Melgen was later convicted of stealing $73 million from Medicare, and received a 17-year prison sentence. President Donald Trump commuted his sentence on his last day in office. Martosko declined to explain how
The Daily Caller got its story in the first place. Describing what it saw as
The Daily Callers "scoop" unraveling, the
Poynter Institute wrote: "
The Daily Caller stands by its reports, though apparently doesn't feel the need to
prove its allegations right." == Personal life ==