What caught my attention, as well as that of many others, was the president publicly complaining — in front of the Editors’ Union council, on camera, and in an angry, reproachful tone — about Lebanese individuals in the United States who, according to him, “spray poison” against one another and spread “fake” news.

It looks like the president has had enough, prompting him to voice his complaint publicly in a message directed at those concerned, who are expected to respond accordingly — whether they are in the opposition, aligned with him, or part of the ruling authority.

It is true that the president did not name anyone explicitly or implicitly, and it is equally true that accusing anyone without evidence is unacceptable and contradicts ethical norms; such accusations may provoke suspicion without proof, much like the reckless accusations that many have grown accustomed to launching “left and right,” unjustifiably and without accountability.

Yet, if the audience — viewer, listener, or reader applies logic to the president’s words, they can exclude two groups from the circle of suspects, groups the president knows well and whom American officials informed him about during his recent visit to New York.

The first excluded from gossip and “poison-spraying” is “Hezbollah,” currently the United States’ primary enemy and the main target of the ongoing confrontation affecting Lebanon for nearly two years, pursued at every breath, move, and word.

None of its ministers, MPs, or senior officials are physically present in the United States, nor have any visited or plan to visit; they have no ties to American officials, decision-making centers, embassies, consulates, or offices that would allow them to pass on information, secrets, or gossip, targeting rivals or allies. It is worth noting that the party is part of the government, represented by two ministers.

The second group excluded from gossip and “poison-spraying” is the Free Patriotic Movement. Although the movement is not hostile to the United States and maintains occasional contacts between some of its officials — MPs, former ministers, and cadres — and American figures, it is not on the schedule of U.S. officials’ meetings with Lebanese authorities, except for occasional visits to former president and FPM founder Michel Aoun. Meanwhile, the movement’s leader, MP Gebran Bassil, is politically sanctioned by the U.S. administration, meaning no American official meets or communicates with him.

The last FPM officials to visit the United States were MPs Georges Atallah and Nada Boustani, who attended the annual conference of the Lebanese-American Council for Democracy (LACD); they held no official meetings and limited their participation to conference activities and interactions with members of the Lebanese diaspora during the event or during visits to different states.

This means that the Free Patriotic Movement, now in opposition to the current government, falls outside the president’s accusations — especially since it previously suffered from the very “gossip and poison-spraying” the president condemned, and its officials have spoken about this repeatedly, particularly during the October 17, 2019 uprising and the political “assassination campaign” they say targeted them.

After these two exclusions, all others remain within the scope of the president’s accusation, and each is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, as legal logic dictates.

Among the accused are those who supported the new authority — its presidency, prime ministry, and cabinet — who championed it, organized rallies of support, raised banners and posters, issued statements, crafted speeches, and toured the country praising God for the “blessing” of the new era for Lebanon and for themselves.

Among them are partners in power who bear full responsibility, jointly and collectively, for everything that befalls the country or is achieved by it.

Some of these ruling partners also play the dual role of supporter and opponent, like a speculative partner who criticizes the president they elected and the government they belong to, all while believing that everything is perfectly fine.

And among them are those who, armed with a surplus of power they did nothing to earn, launch campaigns against their rivals, “disciplining” them with a stick, “dousing” their ears with milk, then throwing them into a rat room as punishment for never having supported their policies, ideas, behavior, or history. For these individuals, the time has come to teach opponents “their true worth” after securing a decisive victory over them.

Among the accused are also those who declared loyalty to the president from the moment of his election — a political group that once hoped its own leader would assume the presidency, in an incident whose details remain known only to those directly involved and a handful of informed witnesses.

The leader of that group sent an envoy to the head of a rival political faction, informing him of his intention to run for president in order to “block the way,” as the envoy put it on behalf of his leader, to General Joseph Aoun.

The rival faction leader replied to the envoy: Let your leader run, who is stopping him?

The envoy returned about two hours later with a proposal from his leader to the rival: my leader cannot run out of deference to a regional power supporting the army commander’s candidacy and does not want to be embarrassed; but if you nominate him along with your bloc, you would spare him this embarrassment, and only then could “the way be blocked” to Joseph Aoun’s election.

The envoy did not receive a positive response, so he went back to his leader, who instructed his parliamentary bloc to vote the next day for the very person he had sought to block just hours earlier.

A question and a lesson: has the honeymoon between the components of the new ruling authority ended after ten months of its formation?

It seems so, for statements, positions, and criticisms are spilling over with tension.

There are no notable government achievements, and this affects popularity on the eve of parliamentary elections, in which some may gain more by running from an opposition standpoint.

And the lesson: long live proverbs. This particular proverb has never been wrong, and never will be: he who cooks poison will be the one to eat it.