https://www.newsbusters.org/ en https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/03/dont-say-gator-nets-refuse-address-alligator-alcatraz-name The legacy media have had a brutal past couple of weeks, and it shows. But with the newly-inaugurated Florida immigration detention center officially known as Alligator Alcatraz now fully operational, the legacies have resorted to pettiness, refusing to address the facility by name. Watch as ABC’s Whit Johnson does the old “officials are calling” disclaimer, as if the place were named something else: WHIT JOHNSON: Tonight, the Trump administration sending 200 Marines to Florida to help federal immigration enforcement officers there. The Pentagon says it ‘s part of the plan to deploy 700 troops to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. About 100 National Guard members have already been assigned to the newly opened detention center in Florida that officials are calling “Alligator Alcatraz”. I’m old enough to remember when Florida passed landmark legislation called the Parents’ Rights in Education Act, which protects children from being exposed to sexual content in school. LGBT activists got worked up and crafted a derisive nickname for the legislation, “Don’t Say Gay”, which the legacy media ran with. The media did their very best to avoid calling that legislation by its proper name. Here we are again, except activists have not coined a clever derisive name for Alligator Alcatraz which, by the way, is the facility’s official name. Hence ABC’s Whit Johnson saying “officials are calling” the Florida detention center Alligator Alcatraz. No, that’s the place’s OFFICIAL NAME, as confirmed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Hence, Alligator Alley getting the “Don’t Say Gay” treatment. Over at the CBS Evening News, anchor John Dickerson ran through his brief without ever mentioning the facility by name: JOHN DICKERSON: The Florida attorney general's office says the first group of migrant detainees has arrived at a new detention facility in the Everglades. And the Supreme Court has cleared the way for a group of migrants with criminal records to be deported to South Sudan. Sadly and in NBC didn't even a muster a report.We suspect the not-naming Alligator Alcatraz tantrum won’t hold, and that the facility will continue to trigger meltdowns of all sorts. In the meantime, it’s pretty self-evident that the media’s strategy is simply: Don’t Say Gator. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025: WHIT JOHNSON: Tonight, the Trump administration sending 200 Marines to Florida to help federal immigration enforcement officers there. The Pentagon says it ‘s part of the plan to deploy 700 troops to Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. About 100 National Guard members have already been assigned to the newly opened detention center in Florida that officials are calling “Alligator Alcatraz”. ICE agents also arresting a well-known Mexican boxer, Julio César Chávez, Jr., for allegedly being in the U.S. illegally. The Department of Homeland Security says he has ties to a Mexican drug cartel, and will be deported. It comes just days after his fight with Jake Paul.   July 3rd, 2025 11:52 PM Jorge Bonilla 289720 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/03/ap-lawyer-allegedly-defamatory-report-we-dont-know-who-did One of the things all news websites have in common is bylines, this NewsBusters piece even has one. It’s how news outlets let you know who wrote a particular article; it could have one or multiple authors and/or contributors. But during a defamation hearing against The Associated Press on Thursday, their lawyer argued that punitive damages couldn't be sought because there were no records of who authored or even edited the allegedly defamatory article about Navy veteran Zachary Young. As NewsBusters previously reported, Young accused the AP of defamation stemming from a report they did covering his victory over CNN in a defamation trial earlier this year. Young took issue with how the AP reported that he “helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan;” and later pointed to the AP Stylebook to argue that it accused him of the crime of human smuggling.     According to the argument put forward by the AP’s co-counsel Paul Safier to Judge William Henry of Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit, they don’t know how the word “smuggle” made it into their article: Actual malice, as your Honor’s aware, revolves around the state of mind of those responsible for the publication. The question is: what did they know and when did they know it? Here, we have no record of about who did what. The whole case is based on the use of the word ‘smuggle,’ or, you know, the one sentence that contained the word smuggle. We don’t know who wrote that sentence. We don’t know who approved that sentence. We don’t know what the people who wrote and approved  that sentence thought they were conveying about Mr. Young. And we don’t know what they knew about the evidence as it came out in the CNN case. In response to AP’s suggestion they didn’t know who was responsible for the content of the article, Judge Henry pressed Safier: HENRY: Well, I mean, it’s either it’s published knowing it was false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity. SAFIER: Correct. Yeah. HENRY: I mean, at least Mr. Bauder’s name is on the piece. So, we know who supposedly composed the piece. Right? SAFIER: Right. But we don’t know who composed the sentence at issue. We don’t know – even if we assume it was Mr. Bauder or that he was sufficiently, sort of, intertwined with it that he participated. We don’t know what he knew about the CNN trial. And then the more crucial point here is, we don’t know what he understood himself to be saying as he wrote that sentence. Right? And that’s the crucial point. For something to be an intentional falsehood, it has to be the case that you knew that the thing you intended to say was false. Judge Henry promptly pointed out that “the other person who potentially could be at least contributable fault of including that in there would be Curt Anderson, who – he’s a correspondent who contributed to this report.”     NewsBusters was in attendance at the hearing, which was conducted via a Zoom call, and we witnessed that David Bauder was actually sitting in on the call (pictured above). On Young’s motion to amend his complain to seek punitive damages, Safier argued: “So, the big picture issue is, there simply isn’t anything on this incredibly sparce record that could get Young to the many burdens he faces in order to be entitled to assert punitive damages claims.” “There is just no evidence bearing on the process of researching, drafting, approving for publication, publishing the article, which his claims are based,” proclaimed Safier. “There is not any record bearing on those facts other than the fact that the article identified David Bauder as the author. Beyond that, we don’t know who did what or why.” The hearing was also meant to hear arguments for and against the AP’s motion to dismiss the case before discovery could reveal anything. Despite the deeper facts not being uncovered yet, the AP argued that there’s no evidence that the “conduct at the corporate level that amounted to either participation in the alleged misconduct, approval or ratification of it, or gross negligence that contributed to it.” They pointed to how, so far, we didn’t know if the AP’s editors were involved in approving what got published (like with the CNN case and their editorial triad board). “Maybe, if there’s discovery, facts could emerge, but certainly on this record, there’s nothing about anyone who would qualify as a managing agent of the corporation doing any of the conduct giving rise to the underlining cause of action,” Safier said. July 3rd, 2025 9:48 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 289719 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/03/vittert-tells-nation-take-media-enormous-grain-salt The left-wing media specializes in fearmongering the public about President Trump’s policy decisions, but NewsNation’s On Balance with Leland Vittert displayed the opposite on Wednesday night. Vittert had powerful words to describe the reflection of the media over the last six months and stuck with a theme of the liberal media needing to be “taken with an enormous grain of salt.”  With no surprise, Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill has brought backlash from the left-wing media. Vittert highlighted that the media will talk about “doomsday scenarios” but pointed out the media’s tactic patterns of misleading the public in the last six months and summarized:   For example, think of all the things we've been told since President Trump's second term started. Most of the American media told you that Trump would govern like Nazi dictator. He hasn’t. We didn't tell you that. We told you what he was doing and why. You were told your 401k would go down the drain because of tariffs. We didn't tell you that. We told you to wait and see because Trump offense takes out maximalist positions and then retreats... Most of the media told you an attack on Iran would start World War 3. I didn't tell you that. I told you the opposite. We told you the world would be a safer place in the Ayatollah would sue for peace. We were told air travel is not safe. Planes were going to fall from the sky. You couldn't travel on planes this summer. And guess what? Everything's just fine. You're going to get to your July 4th barbecue without a problem.      The sequence of events that Vittert laid out proved that there are differences between the media stating the facts and the media jumping to false conclusions.  Vittert brought it home when he stated:  I could keep going, of course. And that is so important to think about right now as we watch the House vote on this, the things you are being told about the bill by both sides, but especially by alarmists in the media need to be taken with an enormous grain of salt. We don't engage in that here. That's why you watch us. So the lesson is clear. You join us every night to hear how the world is, not how you want the world to be. We don’t deal in the talking points of either side, both sides get challenged. We don't cheerlead. We do doomsday. We cover the news fairly as we're doing tonight about Trump's big, beautiful mega bill. And our track record, if you go back and watch is pretty good when we get it wrong, we tell you. But America doesn't think we're getting it wrong.  There is truth to be said about media channels that tell it how it is versus media platforms that choose what they want the public to think. This segment served a purpose for the American people to take a step back and look at channels stating the facts, not blowing up decisions out of proportion.  Click here for the transcripts. NewsNation’s On Balance with Leland Vittert 7/2/25 9:30 p.m. Eastern LELAND VITTERT: And this brings us perfectly to where we are at because we are halfway through the year. So let's look back at what's happened versus what we've been told what happened. And that is so important right now because you're hearing the bill is about to be passed. And you're hearing these doomsday scenarios from so many about people losing health care, hospitals closing, on and on. We're going to tell you something different as we have, which is wait and see. Because there's a lot of wiggle room here.  For example, think of all the things we've been told since President Trump's second term started. Most of the American media told you that Trump would govern like Nazi dictator. He hasn’t. We didn't tell you that. We told you what he was doing and why. You were told your 401k would go down the drain because of tariffs. We didn't tell you that. We told you to wait and see because Trump offense takes out maximalist positions and then retreats. Today, the stock market closed at record highs following President Trump's announcement of the trade deal with Vietnam. Most of the media told you an attack on Iran would start World War 3. I didn't tell you that. I told you the opposite. We told you the world would be a safer place in the Ayatollah would sue for peace. We were told air travel is not safe. Planes were going to fall from the sky. You couldn't travel on planes this summer. And guess what? Everything's just fine. You're going to get to your July 4th barbecue without a problem. I could keep going, of course. And that is so important to think about right now as we watch the House vote on this, the things you are being told about the bill by both sides, but especially by alarmists in the media need to be taken with an enormous grain of salt. We don't engage in that here. That's why you watch us. So the lesson is clear. You join us every night to hear how the world is, not how you want the world to be. We don’t deal in the talking points of either side, both sides get challenged. We don't cheerlead. We do doomsday. We cover the news fairly as we're doing tonight about Trump's big, beautiful mega bill. And our track record, if you go back and watch is pretty good when we get it wrong, we tell you. But America doesn't think we're getting it wrong. (…) July 3rd, 2025 8:01 PM Shannon Sauders 289713 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/03/abc-breaks-special-report-dump-big-beautiful-bill-passage ABC was surprisingly the only major broadcast network to break in Thursday afternoon for a special report on the House passage of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which he’s slated to sign into law Friday. What was unsurprising, however, was the ABC presented a wholly negative perspective declaring the bill was to “mostly” benefit “the wealthiest Americans” while stating as though it’s a done deal that “an estimated 11.8 million Americans” will “lose their health care.” Weekend Good Morning America co-host and Saturday World News Tonight anchor Whit Johnson helmed the ABC News Special Report, sharing the bill’s final pssage came after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) having “worked around the clock to cross this threshold here, many of his party’s holdouts flipping overnight, ultimately voting yes on the bill.” He then descended into all the standard liberal talking points, ignoring the tax cuts being extensions of ones that already exist, what “cuts to Medicaid” actually are (and instead calling it a fact millions would lose health care), and ignoring other provisions such as a child tax credit and billions to upgrade the country’s aviation systems. Notice too he trumpeted the showboating machinations of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce delivered more partisan hectoring as only she could, calling it “a massive victory, a huge win for President Trump,” but was otherwise a dud for the country. Bruce huffed that while President Trump “has sold Republicans on this, the President now has to go out and sell the American people” since the liberal media are deadset on seeing him fail: Johnson closed with congressional correspondent Jay O’Brien, but tried to a mountain of a molehill the shenanigans of a man many on the right have referred to as “Temu Obama”: I want to talk about the Democrats here because House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, we talked about that marathon, that record-breaking speech on the House floor. He warned all of us that he was going to take his sweet time. He said he felt obligated to do so. But Democrats were powerless. They just didn’t have the votes, so what message was he hoping to send here? O’Brien shared Jeffries broke the record for longest House floor speech at eight hours and 44 minutes, beating then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) speech denouncing what would eventually become the comically named Inflation Reduction Act (then known as the Build Back Better Act) and that Democrats were “elated by his speech.” Then came the reality check with O’Brien giving mention to the two Republicans who joined Jeffries in voting against the bill: But ultimately, as you said, they did not have the votes to block this bill. They are not in the majority. Speaker Johnson, though, he had his work cut out for him, he could only afford to lose three Republicans. As Mary said, he lost two on two different ideological sides of his party. One is Thomas Massie, who’s a fiscal hawk who did not like the price tag of this bill. The other is Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who represents a district in Pennsylvania that Kamala Harris won, who has long expressed concerns about cuts to Medicaid. Ultimately, though, those are the only two Republican no votes that Johnson loses. O’Brien pivoted with a few seconds remaining, saying the bill’s passage didn’t happen over the last few days and was really “the culmination of a months long process not just for Speaker Johnson, not just for President Trump, but congressional Republicans writ large, multiple, marathon, into-the-night votes in both the House and the Senate, backroom deal-making and, frankly, drama and dysfunction in their party on full display in both of these votes.” To see the relevant ABC transcript from July 3, click “expand.” ABC News Special July 3, 2025 2:34 p.m. Eastern WHIT JOHNSON: Good afternoon. I’m Whit Johnson in New York. We’re coming on the air because House Republicans have just delivered a major victory for President Trump passing his mega spending bill. Final passage coming after an intense pressure campaign from the President, at times even threatening to primary holdout Republicans in both the Senate and the House. There you see speaker Mike Johnson, gaveling that win. He worked around the clock to cross this threshold here, many of his party’s holdouts flipping overnight, ultimately voting yes on the bill.  Conservatives and moderates, though, raising some concerns ahead of this vote about cuts to Medicaid, which will cause an estimated 11.8 million Americans to lose their health care. Some also concerned about the price tag, expected to add $3.4 trillion to the debt. President Trump has disputed those estimates. The bill includes more spending for the President’s immigration policies and roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts. The bill passing without any Democratic support. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries taking to the floor for what’s known as the magic minute. He ended up speaking for more than 8.5 hours, breaking a modern-day record, railing against the bill, warning it will have a devastating impact on millions of Americans. President Trump calling this one of the most consequential bills ever. Let’s go to Mary Bruce, our chief White House correspondent, with more Mary, we know this July 4 deadline was self-imposed by the President. We noted that pressure campaign. Ultimately, only two Republicans voted against it. So, what did it take to get this over the finish line? And what does this mean for Trump’s agenda? MARY BRUCE: It will, Whit. There is no question this is a massive victory, a huge win for President Trump, by far his biggest legislative victory so far in his second term. But this did not come easy. The President and Speaker Johnson had to put down a Republican revolt. This took a lot of arm twisting, cajoling, and haggling. The President deeply involved himself. He’s been working the phones over the last 24 hours, even meeting here at the White House with the holdouts in person. Whit, at one point, he was even handing out Trump merchandise and swag. And of course, the President was willing to give them assurances, especially about how this bill will be implemented. But he also warned that there would be consequences for any Republicans who opposed this. We have heard him in recent days and weeks say that he would primary anyone who got in the way of his agenda. So, those Republicans who voiced concerns one by one, we saw them caving and falling in line over the last 24 hours, despite many of their objections and concerns over what this bill would do to the debt, the $3.4 trillion it’s projected to add to the debt over the next decade, their concerns about what this would mean for Medicaid recipients, the estimated 11.8 million Americans that could lose their health coverage because of this bill, all of them except for two Republicans falling in line. Now, this is the cornerstone of the President’s agenda. You can guarantee there’s a lot of celebrating here at the White House right now, in addition, of course, to what this does for taxes, cutting roughly $4 trillion in taxes, mostly for the wealthiest Americans. It also includes more funding, as you mentioned, for immigration enforcement and border security. It also fulfills some of his campaign promises to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime. But, Whit, now that he has sold Republicans on this, the President now has to go out and sell the American people on this bill. And it starts tonight with a big speech he’s giving in Iowa. JOHNSON: It sure does, Mary Bruce. And again, as you illustrated, also points out the amount of power that he holds over the Republican party. Mary. Thank you. Once again, let’s go to ABC’s congressional correspondent Jay O’Brien on the Hill. And Jay, I want to talk about the Democrats here because House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, we talked about that marathon, that record-breaking speech on the House floor. He warned all of us that he was going to take his sweet time. He said he felt obligated to do so. But Democrats were powerless. They just didn’t have the votes, so what message was he hoping to send here? JAY O’BRIEN: Exactly right. Whit. Jeffrey spoke for eight hours and 44 minutes, breaking a record for longest House floor speech that was previously set by Kevin McCarthy, who was speaking at the time in opposition in 2021 to a Biden-era piece of legislation. Jeffries elated — or Jeffries — Democrats elated by his speech. But ultimately, as you said, they did not have the votes to block this bill. They are not in the majority. Speaker Johnson, though, he had his work cut out for him, he could only afford to lose three Republicans. As Mary said, he lost two on two different ideological sides of his party. One is Thomas Massie, who’s a fiscal hawk who did not like the price tag of this bill. The other is Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican who represents a district in Pennsylvania that Kamala Harris won, who has long expressed concerns about cuts to Medicaid. Ultimately, though, those are the only two Republican no votes that Johnson loses. And this is the culmination of a months long process not just for Speaker Johnson, not just for President Trump, but congressional Republicans writ large, multiple, marathon, into-the-night votes in both the House and the Senate, backroom deal-making and, frankly, drama and dysfunction in their party on full display in both of these votes. But they pull it off, Whit, and they pull it off right before that self-imposed Friday, July 4 deadline from the President. JOHNSON: A long night on Capitol Hill. And, Jay, I know you’re awake through most of it. We appreciate you and the entire team. Thank you. Once again, our breaking news right now, the House passing President Trump’s sweeping spending bill — that big, beautiful bill. July 3rd, 2025 5:15 PM Curtis Houck 289716 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/03/abc-cbs-nbc-peddle-blatantly-biased-propaganda-against-big Ahead of its final passage in the House, the big three broadcast networks all gave blatantly biased reports Thursday on their flagship morning shows about President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC's Today all told the same story, one that devoted noticeably more attention to Democrats as they stalled on the House floor than to the Republicans fighting to pass the bill.     CBS Mornings was the most obvious when it came to expressing one-sided opinions. Featured co-ost Vladimir Duthiers came out swinging, opening with a clearly biased introduction to the Big Beautiful Bill: While we're waiting for the House to finally vote on President Trump's sweeping tax and spending cut package, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has been speaking for hours. This is live pictures coming in right now. He is attempting to hold up that bill that Republicans are trying to push through. It calls for permanent tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich and cuts Medicaid funding for millions of poor people.  Outlining the bill as a benefit to only the rich at the cost of the poor was a gross misrepresentation of the facts. Many of the tax breaks and credits would benefit groups like lower income seniors, families, and people who work on tip. There was almost nothing in the bill that would have directly benefited only the richest Americans. Duthiers, in clear criticism of Trump’s bill, referred to it as the “so-called Big Beautiful Bill,” a phrase heard in both CBS and NBC’s morning programming.  NBC’s Today would largely adhere to CBS’s narrative, but they added a new element, portraying Republicans not as fighting for legislation they believed in, but rather fighting to stay in Trump’s good graces. Correspondent Ryan Nobles reported: Trump winning over Republican hold-outs for his so-called "Big Beautiful Bill” in the House of Representatives, sparking a record-breaking debate in Congress, with some conservative Republicans unhappy with Senate changes to the bill. The president getting personally involved, summoning the hard right hold-outs to the White House.  (...) Now set to become law, Trump's bill will make widespread changes to programs affecting millions of Americans, including changes to medicaid and food assistance, along with extending the Trump tax cuts, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, and funding the administration's mass deportation plan. Democrats protesting, saying millions will lose health insurance while Republicans take a victory lap, with no questions about whether pressure from the top made a difference. Nobles cited Representative Lisa McCain (R-MI), who expressed in an interview with him that she would not want to say no to Trump’s entire campaign, as well as Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN), who joked about his invitation to the White House, as evidence that Republican House members were too afraid to disagree with Trump. Obviously, this was not the case, especially considering Burchett was himself opposed to the bill before receiving clarification from Trump, but both NBC and ABC would try to make this argument.  Good Morning America had correspondent Rachel Scott suggest Trump was trying to buy votes through autographs, pointing to the same video of Burchett he posted to his social media. On the other side of the spectrum were the hardworking Democrats they tried to highlight through favorable footage of arguments, Across all three shows, Republicans were only shown arguing for the bill on the House floor a total three times. Today did not even show one. None of these featured clips showcased Republicans advocating for policy contained in the bill. On the other hand, nine different clips of Democratic representatives were played across the three networks, many of which painted House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-NY) attempted filibuster in a positive light. Segments showed Democrats arguing clearly on high costs and Medicaid cuts, as well as attacking the Republican Party. Despite both the media and House Democrats causing a fuss to distort information and block the bill, the legislature passed just hours later. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. CBS Mornings July 3, 2025 7:02 a.m. EST VLADAMIR DUTHIERS: We've got breaking news from Capitol Hill. While we're waiting for the House to finally vote on President Trump's sweeping tax and spending cut package, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has been speaking for hours. This is live pictures coming into us right now. He is attempting to hold up that bill that Republicans are trying to push through. It calls for permanent tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich and then cuts Medicaid funding for millions of poor people. Nikole Killion is on Capitol Hill and she joins us now to talk about it. Nikole, good morning. NIKOLE KILLION: Hey, good morning to you, Vlad. President Trump pushed Congress to get this bill to his desk by Fourth of July, and it is coming down to the wire as the House cleared a major procedural hurdle overnight. (...) KILLION: After months of work in both chambers, President Trump's signature legislation is now poised to become law, with boosts to border security and ICE enforcement, increases in defense spending, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. That includes an increase in the child tax credit, a $1,000 savings account for newborns, plus no taxes on tips and overtime — REP. JASON SMITH (R-MO): The One Big Beautiful Bill is for the people who don't have lobbyists in this town. [SCREEN WIPE] The folks who work hard, play by the rules, and ask only for a fair shot. KILLION: — but it also implements new work requirements and other reforms for safety net programs like food stamps and Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Medicaid cuts alone could total roughly $930 billion with at least 11.8 million people at risk of losing their health coverage. REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): This bill is a middle finger to working people. KILLION: Now, if this bill passes, many of the tax cuts in this package would likely take effect as soon as this year, although some of the provisions, like no taxes on tips or overtime, are only temporary. Meantime, many of the changes to Medicaid and food assistance programs would likely be phased in in the coming years. Of course, the impact of this massive legislation will continue to be a key political talking point for both parties as we approach next year's midterms. (...) 8:01 a.m. EST DUTHIERS: Breaking news, the House votes on President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which cuts Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the rich. JEFFRIES: Every single Democrat stands in strong opposition to this bill because we're standing up for the American people. ------------------------------------------------------------------ NBC’s Today July 3, 2025 7:04 a.m. EST (...) RYAN NOBLES: Right now, the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, is on the house floor speaking in opposition to this bill. Now, he's been going for more than two hours, and he can go for as long as he wants, but ultimately, he will not be able to stop the progress of this bill, its progress that has been painstaking for Mike Johnson, but will ultimately lead to him delivering a victory for President Donald Trump. The fierce fight over President Trump's signature policy lasting another night and finally coming to an end this morning. Trump winning over Republican hold-outs for his so-called Big Beautiful Bill in the House of Representatives, sparking a record-breaking debate in Congress, with some conservative Republicans unhappy with Senate changes to the bill. The President getting personally involved — PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's a great bill. There is something for everyone. NOBLES: — summoning the hard right hold-outs to the White House. REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): I'm not sure if I'm going to the woodshed or not. I've been summoned by the president. NOBLES: While some continue to object to the changes, Speaker Johnson finally getting the votes. SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): It's been a good day in a good place. This is the legislative process. NOBLES: Now set to become law, Trump's bill will make widespread changes to programs affecting millions of Americans, including changes to Medicaid and food assistance, along with extending the Trump tax cuts, eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, and funding the administration's mass deportation plan. Democrats protesting — REP ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): My house Republican colleagues, have you no shame? This $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to billionaires in the biggest corporations. NOBLES: — saying millions will lose health insurance — REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Medicaid matters, and it must be preserved. NOBLES: — while Republicans take a victory lap, with no questions about whether pressure from the top made a difference. [TO MCCLAIN] Is a no vote a vote against President Trump? REP LISA MCCAIN (R-MI): I wouldn't want to do a no vote and vote against President Trump, that's for sure. Clearly, this is his agenda, his legacy, what he ran on and what 77 million American people voted him in office for. JARRETT: So, Ryan, this bill hasn't actually changed really since coming from the Senate, but the Republican hold-outs here have changed. So, what's behind the shift? NOBLES: Yeah, Laura, and that's really what made the process so difficult for Speaker Mike Johnson. He could not change the bill, so there wasn't much room to negotiate, so what conservative Republicans told me is that they wanted assurances from the White House over how the bill would be implemented and then promises as to how the administration will cut funding in the future.  At the end of the day, though, and I think this is important, it seemed pretty clear that these hardcore supporters of Donald Trump had no interest in denying him the bill that he desperately wanted and now it seems like it's on a path to be finally voted in. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ABC’s Good Morning America July 3, 2025 7:04 a.m. EST (...) RACHEL SCOTT: The bill clearing a key hurdle in the House, a handful of Republicans switching their votes. Around midnight, the President posting on social media: “What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove???” Hours earlier, he met with a slew of Republicans at the White House. REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Just leaving the White House. [SCREEN WIPE] President was wonderful, as always. Informative, funny. Told me he liked to see me on TV. SCOTT: The President clearly trying to close the deal, signing merchandise and photos. BURCHETT: Yeah, he signed a bunch of stuff. It's cool SCOTT: The bill is the cornerstone of the President’s domestic agenda and fulfills some campaign promises: no taxes on tips and overtime. It includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts — mostly for the wealthiest Americans — and new spending on immigration enforcement. Hardline conservatives initially balked on the price tag. By one estimate, the bill could add $3.4 trillion to the debt over the next decade. It also slashes Medicaid. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts some 11.8 million Americans could lose their health coverage over the next ten years. Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffreys taking to the floor — REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): I’m on this House floor after 6:00 a.m., and I'm planning to take my sweet time. SCOTT: — warning the changes to Medicaid will deeply impact Americans. JEFFRIES: Shame on the people who have decided to launch that kind of all out assault on the health and the well-being of everyday Americans. That's not what we should be doing here in the United States House of Representatives. July 3rd, 2025 4:17 PM Lucas Escala 289714 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/03/npr-promotes-socialist-mamdani-denounces-racist-anti-muslim-attacks One of the least surprising things ever was National “Public” Radio rushing in to promote radical leftist New York City mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani. Inside their leftist bubble, critiques of Mamdani are “unsubstantiated.” NPR co-host Leila Fadel (rhymes with coddle!) insisted “even though Mamdani tried hard to keep affordability at the center of his campaign, others tried to define his identity with unsubstantiated claims that he would promote Islamic law, that he supports terrorism and that he's an antisemite.” Online, the headline was about Mamdani "tackling hate head-on." NPR gave Mamdani nine minutes to promote himself on the July 1 Morning Edition. The larger interview (36 minutes) is on YouTube.  The "tough part" of the nine minutes was Fadel suggesting "it sounds great to have free child care and free buses and groceries that you can afford. But a lot of what you're promising is out of the mayor's hand." She asked several questions about how he could deliver, but not about whether it's actually "free" or whether it would cause problems. She also helped him to explain his views on whether billionaires should be allowed to exist.  But the real promotion came when Fadel -- "a proud Muslim and Arab American, who said her identity is a big part what she brings to her work" -- turned to "racist anti-Muslim attacks." FADEL: You know, the thing that was very clear in the weeks before, and the days after the primary, was this barrage of racist, anti-Muslim attacks on you, equating you to a terrorist, saying you're a danger to the safety of Americans, especially Jewish Americans. And I'm going to repeat some of the attacks, not because I think they're OK to say, but I want listeners to understand what's being said. And it's not just from the right wing and Republicans in office. It's also from other influential figures. Debra Messing of Will & Grace posted online that you sided with terrorists and you celebrated 9/11. You were nine when that happened. Republican Representative Nancy Mace posted a picture of you in your Eid outfit and wrote, after 9/11, we said, never forget. I think we sadly have forgotten. Republican Representative Andy Ogles called you Little Muhammad and said you need to be deported and is calling for your denaturalization. Were you prepared for this level of bigotry? MAMDANI: It's unsurprising, and yet it's still deeply saddening. As many Muslims in this country know, to exist in public life is to have to deal with this kind of slander at a different scale. And it's part of why so many have thought that the safest place to live is in the shadows. And so much of my hope for this campaign was to bring the margins of our city into the mainstream. It's been very difficult to see just how much of this hatred has been normalized. And as you've said, it's not just Republican congresspeople, it's an actress of a show that I used to watch as a kid. And I think that ultimately my responsibility is to show that our vision for this city, it's a vision that is universal. It's a vision that wants to recognize the belonging of each and every New Yorker. And it's in stark contrast to this exclusionary vision that we see from so many, one that seeks to distract people from an inability to take care of working people by designating the enemies as the other. One of the most difficult parts of this, however, have been that the threats that have been made on my life and on people that I love are ones that fundamentally transform how you can live. And... FADEL: So it's changed how you can live? MAMDANI: It has. It has. The fact that I now have to have security at all times. It's a different way of engaging with the world. But my responsibility is to showcase that this is but a drop in the bucket of how people actually feel in this city. You know, just a few days after I received a number of death threats and someone who said that he was going to blow up my car -- which was news to me because I don't own a car -- I walked the length of Manhattan to speak to New Yorkers, and I did it because I think that the way that we defeat this bigotry is by showcasing just how small of a minority it actually represents. NPR and Fadel cried "unsubstantiated" without engaging with any substance. Pro-Israel sites and Israeli newspapers have lined up evidence of Mamdani's controversial views. Let's start with Mamdani granting a three-HOUR interview to Muslim radical Hasan Piker, who said America is a "top dog" of terrorism that deserved 9/11.Guilt by association? Now consider that NPR's Tom Dreisbach recently posted a story titled "Multiple Trump White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists." Mamdani refused to condemn the term "globalize the Intifada," which is linked to violent attacks on Jews. Mamdani hates Israel and set up his campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine at Bowdoin College in the 2010s and, as a state assemblyman, introduced a controversial bill to strip the nonprofit status of organizations with any links to Israeli settlements. His opponents will make this an issue, even if NPR won't address it.  PS: Fadel looks pretty charmed by this "charming socialist."  Was going to pull a clip of Mamdani’s new interview with NPR, but I think these images tell the story just fine. pic.twitter.com/mlhQAOVP2F — Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 1, 2025 July 3rd, 2025 4:13 PM Tim Graham 289673 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/dan-schneider/2025/07/03/top-ten-myths-about-pbs-and-npr There is virtually nothing unique about public broadcasters anymore. The only thing that now differentiates NPR and PBS from their private sector competition is that they get about $1 billion in taxpayer subsidies annually (half via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and half from federal and state discretionary grants).  In a desperate race to save their Congressionally-appropriated earmark, NPR and PBS have scrambled to come up with reasons why they alone are entitled to this corporate welfare. Their evolving justifications are as false as their “news” propaganda.  False Premise #1: Farmers need NPR for weather reports Fact: This claim is so ridiculous it is actually offensive. Because NPR and PBS think so little of our nation’s growers and ranchers, they can’t imagine that farmers have cell phones, computers and weather apps. Farmers also listen to talk radio, not NPR!   False Premise #2: People will die if Congress defunds CPB since NPR/PBS operate the “Integrated Public Alert & Warning System (IPAWS)” Fact: HR 4 does NOT touch IPAWS. This warning system is funded by a discretionary grant from FEMA, not the CPB.   False Premise #3: NPR/PBS have an additional unique role in the emergency alert system Fact: Every broadcaster in America (radio and TV) is required by the Federal Communications Commission to provide the same emergency alert. Fact: In addition, every cell phone in America can receive this alert. And since more Americans own cellphones (98%) than can even receive the NPR signal, the public broadcasters have been rendered obsolete.    False Premise #4: Local NPR affiliates provide high quality local news coverage Fact: “Local news” is rare news on NPR. The Media Research Center estimates that the bulk of programming (ranging from 90-100%) aired by local affiliates across the country is supplied by the flagship stations in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Fact: In the top 20 rural states, only 5.7% of daily programming is locally produced news. Even still, these “local” programs, often primarily air national news.   False Premise #5: There are “local news” deserts that only NPR can fill Fact: 96% of Americans report using the internet regularly, providing far more access to news than ever before. In addition, Starlink can reach people in remote areas far more cheaply than broadcasters can.    False Premise #6: NPR/PBS provide unbiased, quality news coverage.   Fact: While the broadcasters are required to ensure “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature” (47 U.S.C. § 396(g)(1)(D)), they have never complied with the law. The Media Research Center has been documenting this bias for years. Recent examples include: PBS: 42 references to “far right” vs only 1 reference to “far left” 6 times as many liberal political guests as conservative guests  88% positive coverage of the DNC vs 72% negative coverage of the RNC NPR: Banned coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story, claiming it was a “mere diversion” Bans diversity of thought on climate-change issues Consistently sites Hamas propaganda and demonizes Israel    False Premise #7: Less than 1% of their operating funds come directly from taxpayers Fact: NPR/PBS refuse to provide data showing how much they collect in tax revenues (federal and state). However, they operate a legalized “kick-back” scheme, taking federal and state tax dollars from local affiliates for programming.    False Premise #8: NPR/PBS have annual audited financial statements Fact: While technically true, these statements have never revealed the proportion of funds that originate from US taxpayers.    False Premise #9: Republicans are about to kill Big Bird and Sesame Street Fact: HBO bought the rights to Sesame Street in 2019. HBO recently relinquished these rights, but Netflix acquired the exclusive rights to run original programming for the next three years   False Premise #10: Children's educational development is dependent upon PBS shows Fact: There is no definitive data studying an equal number of same-aged children who do and do not watch PBS, showing that those who do have more accelerated or above-average development in basic reading, writing, and comprehension skills. Furthermore, YouTube provides a library of hundreds of thousands of hours of content for kids of all ages, with new content added daily. It also empowers parents to avoid concerns about their kids encountering content such as Drag Queen Story Hour. To contact your Senator, you can turn to our site DefundPBSNPR.org for more.  July 3rd, 2025 3:00 PM Dan Schneider 289710 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/07/03/hating-america-hollywood-lefts-13-worst-anti-american This Independence Day weekend most Americans will be celebrating the freedoms and values that made this country so great. However, there are some in the Hollywood Left who would probably prefer to be partying, anywhere other than the USA.  For a class of people who owe their wealth and fame to the American way of life, it’s sad to see so many celebrities turning their back on their own country.  Over the years, the Media Research Center has caught celebrities attacking American symbols, traditions and blaming it for the world’s problems. The following is a countdown of the Hollywood Elite’s 13 Worst Anti-American Outbursts (as culled from the MRC’s archives):   13. Harvey Weinstein: America Is “Embarrassing”     “This is the only country in the world where we don’t have health care. Countries embarrass us around the world. And this is the only country in the world where we don’t have a gun law. I watched you, you know, talk about that. You know, quite frankly, it’s embarrassing. Obama is not embarrassing. The country is embarrassing.”— Movie producer Harvey Weinstein on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, November 15, 2013.   12. If Americans Were Actually “Good,” They’d Drive Smaller Cars and Not Kill Iraqis for Oil Larry King: “We [Americans] try to do good, don’t we? I mean, we’re basically good.”Bill Maher: “No. Not for the rest of the world....Iraqis, I think, feel that if we drove smaller cars, maybe we wouldn’t have to kill them for their oil.”— Exchange on CNN’s Larry King Live, November 1, 2002.   11. Madonna Ponders Blowing Up the White House     “Yes, I am angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know that this won’t change anything.”— Singer Madonna at the Women’s March as aired on C-SPAN, January 21, 2017.     10. America Already “Worst Abusers,” But “Twisted” Trump Has Made Us Worse  “We are already among the worst abusers of Human Rights on this earth. And we are inches away from being investigated by The Hague for our newly formed Fascist ways. All ths in the 510 days of his twisted regime.”— June 18, 2018 tweet by actor Ron Perlman.   9. American Flag Represents Racism and “Genocide” “It’s the same flag that flew over slavery and the genocide of the Native American population, the napalming of the Vietnamese children, the destruction of Afghanistan’s civilian hospitals and it’s on the uniform of every police officer who’s killed an innocent African-American person. It’s also a flag that’s in the courtroom of every judge who’s let those cops go free.”— Musician Tom Morello on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, September 29, 2017.   8. Time to Replace Old Glory  “The Confederate battle flag, which was crafted as a symbol of opposition to the abolishment of slavery, is just recently tired. We don’t see it much anymore. However, on [January] 6th, when the stormers rained on the nation’s most precious hut, waving Old Glory — the memo was received: the American flag is its replacement….Like the Confederate, it is tattered, dated, divisive, and incorrect. It no longer represents democracy and freedom. It no longer represents ALL of us. It’s not fair to be forced to honor it.”— Singer Macy Gray in a June 17, 2021 column for MarketWatch.   7. National Anthem Is “Tough to Take”       Co-host Sara Haines: “To Representative Crenshaw, who says, you know, this is the basic thing of an Olympian, to represent the country, Gwen Berry is representing the country. She’s questioning an American anthem that maybe doesn’t represent all people in the country.”Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “In the upcoming days, we’ll play you the American anthem and let you see what you think of it. Because there’s some stuff in there that makes it a little bit tough to take.”— Discussion about Olympian Gwen Barry protesting the National Anthem, ABC’s The View, June 29, 2021.   6. National Anthem is a Scam “To Get Boys and Girls to Go Kill People”     “We’re North Korea and we need to stand at a pledge of allegiance as war machines fly overhead for military recruiting videos….This anthem thing is a scam. This is not actually part of football. This was invented in 2009 from the government paying the NFL to market military recruitment, to get more people to go off and fight wars to die. This has nothing to do with NFL or the American pastime or tradition. This is to get boys and girls to go fly overseas and go kill people.”— Actor Jesse Williams on MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts, September 24, 2017.   5. The United States of AmeriKKKa  “The so-called American cradle of democracy, that’s bullshit. The United States of America was built on the genocide of native people and slavery. That is the fabric of the United States of America. As my Brooklyn brother Jay-Z would say, facts.”— Film director Spike Lee discussing his new film BlacKkKlansman at the Cannes Film Festival, May 14, 2018 as reported by Vulture.   4. Singer’s Anti-American Remix of the National Anthem “Oh say can you see by the blood in the streets / That this place doesn’t smile on you colored child / Whose blood built this land with sweat and their hands / But we’ll die in this place and your memory erased / Oh say, does this truth hold any weight / This is not the land of the free, but the home of the slaves!”— Singer Jill Scott re-writing the lyrics to the National Anthem when she performed it at the Essence Festival, June 30, 2023.   Everyone please rise for the only National Anthem we will be recognizing from this day forward. Jill Scott, we thank you! #ESSENCEFest pic.twitter.com/WrYrP1nhTc — ESSENCE (@Essence) July 5, 2023   3. No More Pretending to “Support the Troops” “Stop saying, ‘I support the troops.’ I don’t. I used to....But at some point all individuals must answer for their actions, and now that we know our military leaders do things that have nothing to do with defending our lives, why would anyone sign up for this rogue organization?”— Leftwing filmmaker Michael Moore announcing his New Year’s resolutions in a December 31, 2012 article published by the Huffington Post.   2. Americans Are the Real “Terrorists” “I just want to say something: 655,000 Iraqi civilians are dead. Who are the terrorists?...If you were in Iraq, and the other country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?”— Co-host Rosie O’Donnell on ABC’s The View, May 17, 2007.   1. “We Have Been the Cowards”  “We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away, that’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, not cowardly.”— Bill Maher on ABC’s Politically Incorrect, September 17, 2001. July 3rd, 2025 2:50 PM Geoffrey Dickens 284866 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/07/03/ashamed-usa-medias-21-worst-anti-american-outbursts The vast majority of Americans are spending this Independence Day weekend taking pride in their country as they celebrate the freedoms established by the Founding Fathers. However, there are some journalists who are embarrassed by the USA. Some of them even seem to take pride in actually shaming the country.     Over the years, the Media Research Center has caught journalists ridiculing and deriding America. The following is a countdown of the Media’s 20 Worst Anti-American Outbursts (as culled from the MRC’s archives):   21. Americans Who Live on “Stolen Land” Should Stop Griping About Crime Epidemic “America is a sticky-fingered nation built on stolen land, and its current moral panic is about shoplifting.”— Washington Post features reporter Maura Judkis in March 1, 2024 story.   20. Hope You Had A Happy Fourth of July, Too “Oh say, we’ve seen too much. The Star-Spangled Banner pushes like a cough through America’s mouth and the twilight’s last gleaming is just that, a sickly flash above our heads as we ride unsuspecting in the bellies of sleek trains, plop to our knees in churches, embracing truths that disgust us.”— Boston Globe arts critic and poet Patricia Smith in The Nation’s “Patriotism” issue, July 15/22, 1991.   19. Respecting Anthem = Racism     “Some of the words of the National Anthem are white supremacist....I think this is a country whose history is racist, whose history is steeped in white supremacy, and the anthem reflects that in its very words.” — Detroit Free Press writer Stephen Henderson on NBC’s Meet the Press, September 24, 2017.   18. Now Is the Part of the Debate Where You Should Dump on America  “Governor Romney, Daniel Duchovnik [ph] from Walnut Creek, California wants to know, ‘What do you dislike most about America?’”— Online question selected by The Politico’s Jim VandeHei to pose to the Republican presidential candidates at their May 3, 2007 MSNBC debate.   17. Liberal Radio Host: It Pains Me to Chant “U.S.A!”  “As I’ve grown older, I find my ‘U.S.A.!’-chanting reflex increasingly interrupted by pangs of discomfort, and not because I’m ashamed of our country or our Olympians....Missed in the ensuing red-white-and-blue hoopla, of course, is the fact that we are not so exceptional outside the Olympic village....We are not gold, silver or even bronze medalists when it comes to healthcare; sadly, we are 39th for infant mortality, 43rd for female mortality, 42nd for adult male mortal-ity....If we do stand atop a dais anywhere other than at a sporting event, it is for military spending, carbon emissions and incarceration rates.”— Colorado radio host David Sirota in an August 1, 2012 piece for Salon.com, “Don’t chant ‘U.S.A.!’ It’s liberal Americans’ Olympic dilemma: How do they root for their countrymen without being jingoistic?”   16. Ringing the Bells of Jingoism  “The pro-American approach is one NBC rarely detours from. It is in the DNA of Olympic broadcasting. Networks around the world with the rights to the Games can toll their jingo bells when they please. And it’s easier to interview your own nation’s athletes, especially if language barriers exist. Still, there should be a better way to present these stories without so much American navel-gazing.”— New York Times sports/TV columnist Richard Sandomir in an August 17, 2016 column.   15. Embarrassed by the Star Spangled Banner      “I mean, when you think about it, it’s ‘bombs bursting in air,’ ‘rocket’s red glare,’ it’s all kinds of — you know a lot of national anthems are that way, too — all kinds of military jargon, and the land — there’s only one phrase ‘the land of the free,’ which is kind of nice, and ‘the home of the brave?’ I don’t know....Are we [Americans] the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean, ‘all the brave people live here.’ I mean, it’s just stupid, I think. I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.”— Former CNN and MSNBC host Bill Press on his Full Court Press nationally-syndicated radio show, June 5, 2012.   14. Despising the Stars and Stripes  “My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I’m wrong — the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism. In a way we’re both right....[The flag] has to bear a wide range of meanings, from simple, dignified sorrow to the violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has already resulted in murder, vandalism and arson around the country and harassment on New York City streets and campuses.”— The Nation’s Katha Pollitt in an October 8, 2001 column.   13. Red, White, and Scary  “A friend of ours, a prominent member of the ‘liberal media,’ wrote to the head of our kids’ school last week suggesting that students spend more time with the Pledge of Allegiance and The Star-Spangled Banner. The principal agreed. Our 10-year-old daughter asked her mother if we could put a flag on our car. My wife reluctantly agreed, but hasn’t procured the flag yet....My wife essentially shares our daughter’s feelings. But for her, the symbol of the flag was appropriated in her youth by counter-protesters who used it to deny the patriotism of the war’s opponents. Flag-waving feels aggressive to her.”— Former CBS Evening News producer Dick Meyer in a commentary posted October 1, 2001 on CBSNews.com.   12. Taking Back the Flag       “I decided to put on my flag pin tonight — first time. Until now I haven’t thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see....I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo – the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism….When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread. But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American....I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us.”— Bill Moyers on PBS’s Now, February 28, 2003.   11. Happy Independence Day, America Sucks  “We know what July 4th is. What about July 5th? After the fireworks, the music, the rhetoric of freedom what then?...What kind of nation does our flag fly over now? Not a less innocent one, because American innocence was never the truth. Not one less reluctant to go to war without a good reason, because we have foolishly credited bad reasons in the past. But now the nation lacks even that. As our President demonstrated last week, we have become a people who wage unending war killing and maiming our young ones and theirs without being remotely able to say why.”— Columnist James Carroll in the July 5, 2005 Boston Globe.   10. Editor: I Want to Burn the Flag  “If the U.S. Senate follows its silly siblings in the House of Representatives and votes for a ban on burning the American flag, I’m going to burn one. It never occurred to me to burn a flag — except in some flag-retiring ceremony — but just the idea that Congress has nothing better to do than spend time on this nutty issue makes me want to burn one.”— Linda Grist Cunningham, Executive Editor of the Rockford Register Star in Illinois, in a June 26, 2005 column.   9. Let’s Shred the Constitution! “The framers were not gods and were not infallible. Yes, they gave us, and the world, a blueprint for the protection of democratic freedoms — freedom of speech, assembly, religion — but they also gave us the idea that a black person was three-fifths of a human being, that women were not allowed to vote and that South Dakota should have the same number of Senators as California, which is kind of crazy....If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn't say so.”— Time managing editor Richard Stengel in the magazine’s July 4, 2011 edition, which featured a picture of the U.S. Constitution going through a shredder with the headline, “Does It Still Matter?”   8. Post-9/11 Flag-Waving “Sometimes a Cousin to Intolerance”  “The CNN film [The Flag], based on a book by David Friend, focuses on the smudged American flag that three firefighters raised through the dust of the collapsed buildings at ground zero late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. A photograph of the flag raising taken by Thomas E. Franklin of the New Jersey newspaper The Record became a heartening, patriotic symbol for many on an otherwise awful day....[But] the photographer rebelled at efforts to make him a celebrity, and so did the three firefighters. A plan to turn the photograph into a sculpture became a source of controversy. Nationwide, flag-waving was sometimes a cousin to intolerance.”— From New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger’s September 4, 2013 review of CNN’s The Flag.   7. Forget About the “Terse and Old” Founding Documents  “The United States Constitution is terse and old, and it guarantees relatively few rights….The Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, at least in so many words, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence and entitlement to food, education and health care. It has its idiosyncrasies. Only two percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as the Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms. (Its brothers in arms are Guatemala and Mexico.)”— New York Times Supreme Court reporter Andrew Liptak in a front-page February 7, 2012  “Sidebar” news analysis, “We the People Loses Appeal with People Around the World.”   6. American Revolution = “Monumental Mistake”  “American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake....I’m reasonably confident a world in which the revolution never happened would be better than the one we live in now, for three main reasons: Slavery would’ve been abolished earlier, American Indians would’ve faced rampant persecution but not the outright ethnic cleansing Andrew Jackson and other American leaders perpetrated, and America would have a parliamentary system of government....Government spending in parliamentary countries is about 5 percent of GDP higher.”— Dylan Matthews in a July 2, 2015 post on Vox.com: “3 reasons the American Revolution was a mistake.”   5. Triggered By the American Flag      “We have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others. I think as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with whiteness, this is going to continue….I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a really dear friend. And I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with you know, expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which you know is also just disturbing, because essentially the message was clear: ‘This is my country. This is not your country. I own this.’”— New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 8, 2021.    4. Standing For National Anthem is “Affirmation of American Empire”  “It’s a political statement to pledge allegiance to the flag. It’s a political statement to stand for the singing of the National Anthem. The fact is, Colin Kaepernick and me and many other people simply have different politics. It’s not neutral to pledge allegiance or sing the National Anthem. It’s an affirmation of the American empire.”— Political analyst Marc Lamont Hill on CNN Newsroom, September 23, 2017.   3. Elie Mystal: U.S. Constitution Is a “Piece of Crap”   “When South Africa got over apartheid, did they just go back to their Afrikaner racist constitution…No! They threw the whole thing out and started again….and they came up with a new constitution. It’s one of the reasons why the South African constitution is generally thought of as one of the best constitutions in the world and ours continues to be a piece of crap.”— The Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal on the syndicated radio show The Breakfast Club, April 3, 2025.   2. “Uncomfortable” With Calling Veterans “Heroes”      “I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words ‘heroes.’... I feel comfortable — ah, uncomfortable, about the word ‘hero’ because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war, and I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine and tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.”— Host Chris Hayes talking about “The Meaning of Memorial Day” on MSNBC’s Up With Chris Hayes, May 27, 2012.   1. July 4th, MSNBC-Style: “Imperialism, Genocide, Slavery”      “The land on which they [the Founders] formed this Union was stolen. The hands with which they built this nation were enslaved. The women who birthed the citizens of the nation are second class….This is the imperfect fabric of our nation, at times we’ve torn and stained it, and at other moments, we mend and repair it. But it’s ours, all of it. The imperialism, the genocide, the slavery, also the liberation and the hope and the deeply American belief that our best days still lie ahead of us.”— MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry on her eponymous July 1, 2012 program, delivering what she called “my footnote for the Fourth of July.” July 3rd, 2025 2:50 PM Geoffrey Dickens 265824 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/03/cnn-suggests-gop-spending-bill-contrary-spirit-constitution Against a chyron that read “America 249 Years After the Declaration of Independence,” CNN’s Dana Bash welcomed historian Jon Meacham to Thursday’s edition of Inside Politics to promote his new book, which is just an overpriced foreword to the Declaration and the Constitution. Both Bash and Meacham would suggest that this 4th of July, GOP efforts to pass President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill run contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. Bash read Meacham a part of his introduction, “The making of the Constitution is an instance of a large truth: the end of politics in a democracy is to find a workable consensus while preserving a due measure of liberty. Little can be more complicated. Little can be more important.”     Continuing with her own commentary, Bash wondered, “And just today, Jon, we're seeing examples of lawmakers not working across the aisle to find consensus; president's agenda bill is front and center in the news. What should today's legislators, Democrats and Republicans, learn from that quote that I just read?” Bash may try to claim she was asking what both parties can learn, but considering the only way to get consensus on the OBBB would be for Republicans to do a 180 and decide to do nothing with their 2024 wins, that is hard to believe. Like Bash, Meacham pretended to be talking to both parties, but it was clear he was only addressing Republicans, “What do they want the future to think of them? And I think that that's, I call it sometimes the portrait test, which politicians actually kind of listen to because they can't imagine a world where we're not looking at their portrait at some point. What do you want to be judged on? Are you just in this to avoid a primary challenge?” Meacham further claimed, “We've stumbled toward greater liberty because people from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan have been president at hours where you had to make a decision, were we going to tend toward autocracy, toward the power of a single interest, a single man, a single party? Or were we going to acknowledge the complexity of the world, understand that the Constitution, however flawed it may be, has in fact, now for a quarter of a millennium, kept us going toward that more perfect union.” When Meacham talks about the threat of autocracy in 2025, he’s talking about Trump and again, Meacham would present the choice facing politicians as either supporting Trump or the Constitution, “Is that the—is that the story in which you want to be a character that the country endures? Or do you want to be a character in a story about the breaking of that compact? And so what I would say to the present is, ‘How do you want to be seen?’”  At no point did Bash or Meacham claim the OBBB was unconstitutional. Instead, they claimed that because it is a partisan piece of legislation, it violates the spirit of compromise that was needed to get the Constitution ratified. Yet, Meacham considered his former boss, President Joe Biden’s, partisan agenda so important that he labeled Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema “two of the most important people in the Western world, you know, since Hobbes and Locke” because “Western liberalism has not had so much riding on two people.” Here is a transcript for the July 3 show: CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash 7/3/2025 12:47 PM ET DANA BASH: Well, on that, you write in that new introduction to the Declaration of Independence and Constitution the following, quote, “the making of the Constitution is an instance of a large truth: the end of politics in a democracy is to find a workable consensus while preserving a due measure of liberty. Little can be more complicated. Little can be more important.” And just today, Jon, we're seeing examples of lawmakers not working across the aisle to find consensus; president's agenda bill is front and center in the news. What should today's legislators, Democrats and Republicans, learn from that quote that I just read? JON MEACHAM: What do they want the future to think of them? And I think that that's, I call it sometimes the portrait test, which politicians actually kind of listen to because they can't imagine a world where we're not looking at their portrait at some point. What do you want to be judged on? Are you just in this to avoid a primary challenge? And I'm not being dismissive of that. I've never been on a ballot. I understand, Lincoln said, “All men act on incentive.” We live in a fallen world, you know, there was no mythic moment, including Philadelphia in 1776 and in 1787. Those were ferocious political, economic, cultural, racial battles over how to organize power, who was going to have power. And we excluded a lot of people for a long time. So, the American experiment is not an uncomplicated story of this wonderful march of liberty, but we have stumbled toward greater liberty, and we've stumbled toward greater liberty because people from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan have been president at hours where you had to make a decision, were we going to tend toward autocracy, toward the power of a single interest, a single man, a single party? Or were we going to acknowledge the complexity of the world, understand that the Constitution, however flawed it may be, has in fact, now for a quarter of a millennium, kept us going toward that more perfect union. Is that the—is that the story in which you want to be a character that the country endures? Or do you want to be a character in a story about the breaking of that compact? And so what I would say to the present is “How do you want to be seen?” BASH: Yeah.  July 3rd, 2025 1:57 PM Alex Christy 289708 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2025/07/03/study-media-are-concealing-mamdanis-radicalism-voters On June 25, a 33-year-old Marxist Muslim named Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City. Over the following week, broadcast networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS ran nearly an hour of coverage about the self-described democratic socialist, but spent less than two minutes on his numerous radical positions and scandals. MRC analysts looked at all coverage of Zohran Mamdani on ABC, CBS, NBC’s flagship morning and evening news programs and Sunday morning political talk shows, as well as all of PBS’s regular news shows, from June 25 through July 2, 2025. During the seven-day period following Mamdani’s electoral victory, these networks spent a combined 56 minutes and 26 seconds discussing the young socialist candidate — but only 85 seconds on any of his wildest policy prescriptions. We identified five particularly damaging details about Mamdani’s candidacy to look for, including: Proposing a tax increase specifically for “whiter neighborhoods.” Pledging to offer illegal aliens taxpayer-funded health care. Vowing to turn Manhattan into an “LGBTQIA+ Sanctuary City,” including a $65 million “gender-affirming care” program. Repeatedly espousing overt communist views (including his stated desire to “seize the means of production”). Campaigning with a socialist influencer who once opined that “America deserved 9/11.” ABC, CBS, and PBS ignored all five of the above issues. NBC ignored four of the five, but spent 85 seconds on his proposal to raise taxes on “whiter neighborhoods.” That discussion occurred on the June 29 Meet the Press during a lengthy interview with Mamdani himself. Instead, these networks chose to paint Mamdani as a political upstart with fresh economic ideas. The morning after his upset victory over former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, NBC News correspondent Emilie Ikeda gushed on Today: “Mamdani ran to the left of Cuomo, focusing on affordability and pushing populist ideas, including free public buses, rent freezes, and city-owned grocery stores funded by higher taxes on the wealthy.”  That same day over on ABC’s Good Morning America, senior investigative reporter Aaron Katersky marveled that Mamdani’s victory signified a “seismic shift in New York City politics, and a possible harbinger for the Democratic Party.”  During Mamdani’s Meet The Press interview, moderator Kristen Welker noted that President Trump had slammed him as a “communist.” But rather than press him on his cozy relationship with avowed Marxists and his overt communist rhetoric, she instead treated the remark as a reckless smear and gave him free rein to deny the allegation without pushback. The media’s ongoing sanitization of Mamdani’s radicalism suggests not only that they support Mamdani, but also that they expect more prominent Demcorats to begin espousing similar views in the coming years. Should the Democratic Party lurch even further leftward to align with ideologues like Mamdani, expect plenty more media whitewashing to ensue. July 3rd, 2025 1:55 PM Bill D'Agostino 289709 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2025/07/03/watch-trump-ai-czar-david-sacks-staves-lefts-ai-copyright The legacy media is pushing artificial intelligence (AI) companies into so-called licensing agreements, allowing the left to control what Americans hear from chatbots. David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s AI czar, isn’t going to stand for it.   Sacks pushed back against lawsuits from authors targeting AI firms like Anthropic and Meta, noting how badly this will handicap American AI during the June 28 edition of the All-In podcast. Instead of embracing legacy media’s so-called licensing agreements with AI companies, Sacks made an excellent analogy that showed the importance of AI models being allowed to draw information from the widest variety of sources possible.  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America]  July 3rd, 2025 1:22 PM Tom Olohan 289706 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/03/psaki-calls-rep-frost-passionate-after-he-falsely-fearmongers On Tuesday night, MSNBC host Jen Psaki interviewed leftist Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) on The Briefing to denounce the Big Beautiful Bill. Psaki praised Frost as “passionate” and “important” for his ability to delay the bills passing immediately following his five-minute-long, fact oblivious, fearmongering segment. Psaki set Frost up to be the good guy by asking him about supposed Medicaid cuts within the BBB, prompting this socialist answer: He posted it, and it hasn’t been deleted. Like he believes that he’s talking about the minutiae of Medicaid, 17 million people losing their health insurance, rural hospitals closing down. That clip you posted earlier when he was asked about the health care system. Even the way he answered the question, what’s the first thing he said? He brought up the business of rural health care. He didn’t bring up making sure humans in rural America are healthy. The business.     It seemed the number on how many people would lose Medicaid due to the BBB changed by the day. Numbers from a CBO report initially stated 4.8 million people would become uninsured, then it moved to 16 million, and now, it’s somehow 17 million!  Nowhere in the bill's 1,000-plus pages did it back the claim that 17 million people who need it will be kicked off. In fact, the bill enacted work requirements for able-bodied people on Medicaid while creating exemptions for pregnant women, foster youth, caregivers, and the homeless. It also maintained all coverage for children, seniors, and disabled individuals.  Psaki refused to fact check Frost at all and let him continue: I mean there’s someone named JJ Holmes who’s a young guy with a disability in Orlando, Florida. He lives with his mom, he’s an advocate, he’s an organizer. Medicaid is the reason he’s able to stay home, and he wrote a really touching letter to members of Congress saying, if I lose my benefits, I will be institutionalized. I literally won’t be able to be with my mother, with my family, like I deserve to be.   Frost fearmongered, stated the bill would be “killing people” and kick off disabled people from Medicaid, all while Jen Psaki nodded along. Again, there was not a single mention of kicking disabled people off the bill. In fact, Section 44141 explicitly stated it created work requirement exemptions for them. Fantasizing a disabled person's suffering to push policy agendas is disgusting.  Psaki then lamented about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents receiving funding, giving Frost the opportunity to accuse ICE of international criminal activity like “kidnapping” and “trafficking.” He also accused them of allowing people to die in their custody, hinting that it was from a lack of medical treatment (Click “expand”): PSAKI: It includes $45 billion for building new detention centers. Nearly $30 billion goes to ICE. This is at a time where we are watching, some of the most horrible stories are in Florida, masked agents literally pull people off the streets, separate them from their families. I just want to put into perspective for people, because I know you’ve thought of this, how large that amount of money is, and what kind of damage that could do as well. (...) FROST: I don’t like to mince my words about it because it's not even mass deportation. Deportation, it’s a legal process could take a few months, it could take a year. This is kidnapping, and then they traffic people to other countries, countries they might not have even come from in the first place.  PSAKI: Yeah. FROST: The majority of folks who have been here over ten years, taxpayers, Americans, our neighbors, our friends, our family, and we see what’s going on. Even the state of Florida many people have died already in the custody of ICE, and so — and then we have this whole Alligator Alcatraz situation where they’re putting up what’s essentially an internment camp in the middle of the everglades in the hot Florida sun. ICE was required by law to release the findings of ALL deaths in ICE detention centers. All deaths he’s referring to (excluding the one still under investigation) seem to be from natural causes, not inhumane detainment as he alluded. He mourned for detainees being sent to Alligator Alcatraz in the “hot sun,” the center houses inmates inside. Of course, Frost had no problem with the Biden administration detaining illegal immigrants under the “hot sun” in Arizona, with no roof. Frost then made this ironic statement: Nobody wants this mass human trafficking, chaotic campaign in our communities where we literally have immigrants and people who have been here, again, over ten years of their life, our neighbors fearing for their lives, not even sending their kids to school. You know, I went to El Salvador for the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. The reason I went there is because I had people in my community coming up to me and saying, he represents me, he represents my family.  Frost claimed his constituents were the ones who wanted him to meet with alleged human trafficker Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. He said this directly after saying nobody wanted mass human trafficking in reference to deportations, and not the actual human trafficking from the southern border. Psaki ended the painful segment with this flattery: Congressman Maxwell Frost, you have so much passion, I’m so grateful you could be here, and also, it tells everybody something that you are going back to the hill now. That's what’s happening, people should know about, people like you are delaying the vote. And that is an important part of this process as well. Thank you. After blatantly lying on multiple occasions to Psaki’s viewers, she called him passionate and important because of his ability to delay the bill. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view: MSNBC’s The Briefing With Jen Psaki July, 1st, 2025 9:17:22 PM EST (…) JEN PSAKI: And part of what’s important, and you touched on this, is people understanding what’s in the bill and what the driving force is behind the bill. I just mentioned, and I just can't get over this, so I'm just going to read it again. Vice President Vance posted this today, “The minutiae of the Medicaid policy is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.” I have so many thoughts about this, but I’ve already shared them MAXWELL FROST: Yeah PSAKI: What are your thoughts about that? FROST: Yeah, this isn’t a slip of tongue, right? PSAKI: No, he posted it! FROST: He posted it, and it hasn’t been deleted. Like he believes that he’s talking about the minutiae of Medicaid, 17 million people losing their health insurance, rural hospitals closing down. That clip you posted earlier when he was asked about the health care system. Even the way he answered the question, what’s the first thing he said? He brought up the business of rural health care. He didn’t bring up making sure humans in rural America are healthy. The business. And that’s the thing is, it’s all a business. It’s all making money to these guys, and that’s not a new thing. The Republican Party has been about this for generations. They have someone in Donald Trump now who’s a billionaire himself, who wants to do it to such a degree that people will die.  Hakeem Jefferies just said this on a call I got off. He said, if this passes, the floor of the House will become a crime scene, and I fully agree with that characterization. It's murder, it’s killing people. We’re going to see people with disabilities – I mean there’s someone named JJ Holmes who’s a young guy with a disability in Orlando, Florida. He lives with his mom, he’s an advocate, he’s an organizer. Medicaid is the reason he’s able to stay home, and he wrote a really touching letter to members of Congress saying, if I lose my benefits, I will be institutionalized. I literally won’t be able to be with my mother, with my family, like I deserve to be.   (...) 9:19:23 PM PSAKI: I can hear and see and people can probably see it watching the emotion in your voice. And this is every person I've talked to who's opposed to this bill is projecting that same thing right now. And the horror of it. I wanted to talk about a piece of this that I – I don't – there's a lot that hasn't gotten enough attention. And part to me is this $170 billion in immigration enforcement. FROST: Yeah. PSAKI: It includes $45 billion for building new detention centers. Nearly $30 billion goes to ICE. This is at a time where we are watching, some of the most horrible stories are in Florida, masked agents literally pull people off the streets, separate them from their families. I just want to put into perspective for people, because I know you’ve thought of this, how large that amount of money is, and what kind of damage that could do as well. (...) 9:20:30 PM FROST: I don’t like to mince my words about it because it's not even mass deportation. Deportation, it’s a legal process could take a few months, it could take a year. This is kidnapping, and then they traffic people to other countries, countries they might not have even come from in the first place.  PSAKI: Yeah FROST: The majority of folks who have been here over ten years, taxpayers, Americans, our neighbors, our friends, our family, and we see what’s going on. Even the state of Florida many people have died already in the custody of ICE, and so — and then we have this whole Alligator Alcatraz situation where they’re putting up what’s essentially an internment camp in the middle of the everglades in the hot Florida sun. (...) 9:21:40 PM FROST: Nobody wants this mass human trafficking, chaotic campaign in our communities where we literally have immigrants and people who have been here, again, over ten years of their life, our neighbors fearing for their lives, not even sending their kids to school. You know, I went to El Salvador for the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, the reason I went there is because I had people in my community coming up to me and saying, he represents me, he represents my family.  (...) 9:22:41 PM PSAKI: Congressman Maxwell Frost, you have so much passion, I’m so grateful you could be here, and also, it tells everybody something that you are going back to the hill now. That's what’s happening, people should know about, people like you are delaying the vote. And that is an important part of this process as well. Thank you. July 3rd, 2025 1:15 PM Matthew Seck 289695 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/07/03/cnns-cornish-tees-takei-equate-trumps-deportations-fdrs On Thursday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish gave a platform to left-wing actor and gay rights activist George Takei to promote his new "graphic memoir" It Rhymes With Takei [spoiler alert: gay]. The publisher calls it a "jaw-dropping new testament." Cornish teed up Takei to equate Trump's deportation of illegal immigrants with FDR's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (he and his family were interned). Takei said both were based on "lies" and "hysteria" and are "completely anti-American." Of course, there is a vast difference that Cornish and Takei chose to ignore. FDR interned Japanese AMERICAN CITIZENS. People who were either born here or were properly naturalized. Trump is deporting people who are not only not citizens, but who violated American law by entering the country illegally. Many of the illegals being deported committed violent crimes. Does Takei want the rapists and murderers to stay? Cornish didn't ask. Like a good Democrat, Takei also tried to let FDR off the hook for his internment decision. "Even great presidents can get swept up in the hysteria of the times."     In addition to honoring Takei as a "LEGEND" on screen, substitute co-host Erica Hill glorified Takei in introducing him, saying that just as his Sulu character in Star Trek embodied courage, resilience, and loyalty, "offscreen, he's lived those same values, from fighting for civil rights in the 60s to becoming an LGBTQ activist." In his book, Hill announced, "he shares the experiences that made him, and what they reveal about democracy today." If Hill were introducing the parents who battled all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to opt their children out of classes promoting LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks in public schools, do you think she would have praised their "courage and resilience?" Would Hill imagine that leftist school officials refusing to let parents opt their grade-school children out of "lessons" from LGBTQ-pushing books "reveals" the state of democracy today? Come to think of it, one of the books that blue counties might want to subject their students to could well be . .  . It Rhymes With Takei! Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning  7/3/25 6:25 am EDT GEORGE TAKEI [in Star Trek clip] There's a sense of loyalty to the men and women you serve with. A sense of family.  ERICA HILL: Star Trek legend George Takei continuing to captivate audiences, of course, with his iconic role as Sulu, a character who embodies courage, resilience, and loyalty. Offscreen, he's lived those same values, from fighting for civil rights in the 60s to becoming an LGBTQ activist.  In his new book, "It Rhymes with Takei," he shares the experiences that made him, and what they reveal about democracy today. He is Audie's guest on The Assignment this week, reflecting on hope, the importance of taking a stand, and how his family's incarceration in a Japanese internment camp shaped his life.  TAKEI: We had very protective parents, and they were exemplars for me. And after the war, too, they, my father explained to me that the American Constitution is a great form of government. He used to quote to me Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: 'Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.' He said those are noble words. That's what makes American democracy great.  But the weakness of American democracy is also in those words, because people are fallible human beings and they make mistakes. Even great presidents can get swept up in the hysteria of the times, because to Roosevelt, the West Coast of the United States was just like Pearl Harbor. It was open, unprotected, and vulnerable.  And here were these people that look exactly like the people that bombed Pearl Harbor. And so he panicked out of ignorance. And this is where teachers and librarians are the pillars of democracy. They can teach them this truth: that people, even great presidents, can be stampeded by hysteria. And that's what we're going through right now. AUDIE CORNISH: You have a president who is now saying he's carrying out mass deportations because it's popular, or saying that he has popular support for going after undocumented migrants.  And it made me think, as I was reading your book, about the fact that a majority of Americans at the time, in the 40s, supported the removal of Japanese Americans. And so how does your experience of that inform your thinking of the way the president is saying now? That there's somehow, there are at there are at times popular support for these kinds of actions.  TAKEI: The important thing, and my father taught me this when I was a teenager. I had many, many after-dinner conversations. People, Americans need to speak out. We were a small minority and cowed really under the force, the huge tidal wave force against us. And the Japanese Americans, when you have rifles with bayonets pointed at you. And I, as a five-year-old, I saw a bayonet pointed at my father right at our front door. I was terrified. I'll never forget that.  But politicians lie, and people believe that lie because there's hysteria rampant at that time and in our time today, right now. And it's a situation that is completely anti-American. People must speak out.  July 3rd, 2025 12:50 PM Mark Finkelstein 289700 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/03/gop-congresswoman-calmly-shoots-down-cbs-fear-mongering-about Congresswoman Jen Kiggans (R-VA) — who represents a swing district encompassing Virginia’s Eastern Shore and much of the Hampton Roads region — took to Thursday’s CBS Mornings Plus and calmly explained the facts behind the Big, Beautiful Bill, specifically changes to Medicaid and its unsustainable path without reform. Fill-in co-host Vladimir Dutheirs gently went down this liberal media talking point, not going all the way with the standard liberal hysterics about millions of Americans crudely having Medicaid torn away, leaving them without help if they’re sick: “You’ve signed a letter citing the importance of protecting Medicaid. Does the current version of the bill do that? And have you decided how you’re going to vote?” Kiggans replied this “bill protects and strengthens Medicaid” and, as “nurse practitioner by trade” serving the elderly, she “understand[s] very much the implications of when we — when we change things in Medicaid,” but it’s expanded far beyond both its costs and intended purpose: Duthiers was more direct with the far-left messaging that we’ll hear daily heading into the 2026 midterms. Kiggans explained how a bill this massive was something she had to support, including more money for the military, which affects her district more than arguably any other in the country (click the X post to read the full exchange): The first half of the interview was more liberal media fear-mongering. Fill-in co-host Nancy Chen brought up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) vis-à-vis lifeguards on national seashores and staffing for National Parks (click “expand”): CHEN: By the way, if you are headed to the beach this Fourth of July, holiday, swimmers, beware. You could see fewer lifeguards on duty. Not only this weekend, but the entire summer. Fewer than half of the nearly 8,000 seasonal federal park positions, including lifeguards, have been filled, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, also known as the NPCA. And, at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia, which is managed by the National Park Service, there are no lifeguards at all. We went there to find out why. NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION’s ED STIERLI: The reason there are no lifeguards at Assateague is honestly a symptom of the chaos and dysfunction that has been impacting this agency since the beginning of this administration. (....) CHEN: Millions of people were out there on the shoreline and millions go out every single year. We were out there on a very busy day. What concerns you about not having any lifeguards out there? KIGGANS: Yeah, I have a district that lives on the beach and the bay, including the Eastern Shore and Assateague is one of those national parks that has been impacted. We, as the representative of that district, have pushed back to the Department of Interior. We’ve written a letter. I had Secretary Burgum in front of me at Natural Resources Committee a couple of weeks ago. We asked him directly, you know, about this — this — this federal worker freeze that they should not have been impacted. Those  — those workers are exempt. The lifeguards are exempt, so we are working very hard to make sure that they are hired. I know it’s it’s now July. Summer is in full throw. We have thousands of millions of visitors that — that visit our beaches in Virginia’s Second Congressional District, so we are pushing back, but we need to get those lifeguards hired. They should — they should never have been impacted by that hiring freeze. CHEN: And Congressman, I’m curious the NPCA blames these staffing issues on the ripple effects of what has happened under the Trump administration, including firing federal workers, offering buyouts, and implementing hiring freezes. You’ve been in support of many of these DOGE federal cuts. Are you still in support now, given what’s transpired? KIGGANS: Yeah, we’ve pushed back numerous times and a couple of different areas, not just this lifeguard issue, but also in our shipyards, our public shipyards. We know that — that they were impacted. I think it was a mistake and then also in the VA space, some — some of the providers — all the providers, the physicians and nurses should have been exempt. So we’ve picked up the phone and make sure we’ve advocated for — for those positions too, so it wasn’t a perfect rollout. But, you know, we’ve done our job as a representative, a district where people were impacted by some of those changes and push back. To see the relevant CBS transcript from July 3, click here. July 3rd, 2025 12:17 PM Curtis Houck 289705 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/03/crazy-elie-mystal-spews-our-country-needs-be-sanctioned The Nation justice correspondent and frequent MSNBC talking head Elie Mystal appears to be in a competition with himself to see just how outrageous he can be. On June 28, he joined The Joy Reid Show podcast to claim “our country needs to be sanctioned” because “we are the bad guys on the world stage” after President Trump ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Reid began by torching a straw man, “I was on with my friend Abby Phillip, and someone said that that Donald—that our bombing of Iran, one of the gentlemen that was on the set with me, said that this was about the Iran Hostage Crisis and the various acts of terror by Hezbollah, an Iran proxy in the, like, 80s, I've never heard of delayed action warfare. So, essentially, they take our hostages in the 70s, and we bomb them in 2025? Does that even make sense? Is there a War Powers Act for that? The delayed response retaliation?”     A keyword search of the transcript reveals only one use of the word “hostage” by someone other than Reid. It was spoken by Atlantic Council senior fellow, self-described liberal Democrat, and Clinton National Security Council official Jamie Metzl. Metzl claimed, “Americans recognize that for 46 years, Iran has been at war with us, starting with the hostage crisis. They've killed thousands of Americans. They supported the war against us in Afghanistan. They've built proxies and they've destroyed multiple countries. Iran has declared war on the United States. Death to America was their mantra… the American people understand that the United States plays an important role in the world. I am thrilled that the United States is trying to police the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Imagine what the world would look like if it was otherwise.” Metzl was talking about Tehran’s broader history of anti-Americanism and destabilizing the volatile Middle East going back decades to make a threat assessment for 2025. He wasn’t saying, “This is payback for 1979.” And again, Metzl is a liberal who has worked for Democratic presidents and who had to inform Reid that, contrary to her assumptions, he always opposed the Iraq War. Nevertheless, Mystal spewed, “No, they're making it up as they go along. They're making it up again because they understand Trump's poll numbers were tanking, he can't pass his bill, his actions are unpopular, he's deploying troops on the streets of Los Angeles, so let's have a war, let's have some bombing that always tends to get people to rally around the flag.”  Mystal was just getting started with his anti-American, anti-factual garbage, “Joy, I've argued, and I don't say this lightly, but our country needs to be sanctioned. We are the bad guys on the world stage. We are a menace to not only free people everywhere, but we are a menace to peaceful people everywhere at this point, and I'm not even going to say that we've only been a menace for the past three or four months, right? Like when does the international community decide that enough is enough.” While Mystal wants the countries that won’t even sanction Russia for its real crimes against peace to sanction the United States for bombing a Nazi-like regime’s nuclear program, he did acknowledge that this is unlikely, “I know we're rich, I know we've got a lot of money, I know that people want to buy things from our country because we're rich or want to sell things to our country because we're rich, but at some point the international community has to stand up to us because we are a bad guy on the world stage, right?” He concluded, “And so we should be sanctioned. We should be sanctioned and rebuked for these illegal, unnecessary bombings in Iran in a conflict that does not involve us, right? Like, we have to be stopped through the same kind of means that we have that our country and others have used to rebuke a North Korea or a China or name a rogue state. We are the rogue state, and other countries need to start treating us like that.” Foreign policy, especially foreign policy in the Middle East, can be messy and complicated, but some things are easy: the United States is the good guy, and Iran is the bad guy. Here is a transcript for the June 28 show: The Joy Reid Show 6/28/2025 51 Minutes, 6 Seconds JOY REID: I was on with my friend Abby Phillip, and someone said that that Donald—that our bombing of Iran, one of the gentlemen that was on the set with me, said that this was about the Iran Hostage Crisis and the various acts of terror by Hezbollah, an Iran proxy in the, like, 80s, I've never heard of delayed action warfare. So, essentially, they take our hostages in the 70s, and we bomb them in 2025? Does that even make sense? ELIE MYSTAL: No. REID: Is there a War Powers Act for that? The delayed response retaliation? MYSTAL: No, they're making it up as they go along. They're making it up again because they understand Trump's poll numbers were tanking, he can't pass his bill, his actions are unpopular, he's deploying troops on the streets of Los Angeles, so let's have a war, let's have some bombing that always tends to get people to rally around the flag. Joy, I've argued, and I don't say this lightly, but our country needs to be sanctioned. We are the bad guys on the world stage. We are a menace to not only free people everywhere, but we are a menace to peaceful people everywhere at this point, and I'm not even going to say that we've only been a menace for the past three or four months, right? Like when does the international community decide that enough is enough. I know we're rich, I know we've got a lot of money, I know that people want to buy things from our country because we're rich or want to sell things to our country because we're rich, but at some point the international community has to stand up to us because we are a bad guy on the world stage, right? And so we should be sanctioned. We should be sanctioned and rebuked for these illegal, unnecessary bombings in Iran in a conflict that does not involve us right? Like, we have to be stopped through the same kind of means that we have that our country and others have used to rebuke a North Korea or a China or name a rogue state. We are the rogue state, and other countries need to start treating us like that. July 3rd, 2025 10:32 AM Alex Christy 289702 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/03/using-language-bolsheviks-jennings-schools-cnn-panelists Huge controversies have surrounded the New York City mayoral election, specifically, the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani. On Tuesday, CNN NewsNight discussed the recent comment made by President Trump, who called Mamdani a “communist.” During the table discussion MRC Bulldog Award winner Scott Jennings was there to inform former South Carolina State Rep. Bakari Sellers that Mamdani has endorsed Soviet-style economic policies.  A resurfaced clip from the 2021 Young Democratic Socialists of America conference featured Mamdani stating, “The end goal of seizing the means of production” is an issue he “firmly” believes in. Former White House Spokesman for President George W. Bush, Pete Seat, had some words that combated the Democratic nominee’s agenda while he backed up Trump:  But calling him a communist is not far off base when he talks about seizing the means of production. That is a Communist Party plank. He is talking about doing that, so I don’t have any problem with calling him what he is.       Sellers tried to turn back to Trump, “And I don't have any problem calling Donald Trump a felon, or charged with rape, or fact that he doesn't pay his vendors, or the fact that he's racist because he got—”  Jennings came by Seat’s side to agree with the statement of Mamdani as a communist, “Now, you agree with Pete that he is a communist then?”  Sellers resisted the comparison, “He's a socialist. I'm not a socialist, but he calls himself—”  Jennings then pressed, “He’s using the language of Bolsheviks, is he not?”  Sellers still tried to avoid the obvious, “That's called socialism, not communism,” and Jennings reiterated, “USSR and stoned dorm debaters. That's where you hear that stuff.”  Communist refugees have stepped forward to express their outrage over the resurfaced clip. Former Brooklyn Councilman and communist refugee Ari Kagan came forward and wrote on X:  After Red October Socialist Revolution in 1917, Bolsheviks seized means of production, jailed or killed business owners, eliminated freedoms & took over private farms & food stores. I would never imagine NYC would consider this failed & dangerous government model. https://t.co/1qAyWvGrv3 — Ari Kagan (@AriKagan48) June 30, 2025 The country and New York City face a divide regarding what is best for America when it is time to choose leaders. New York City is one of the most well-known cities in the country and world, and people are watching to see what the outcome will be, as it could shape the future of the nation. Do the American people want great cities to turn in the communist direction? The transcripts is below. Click “expand” to read: CNN NewsNight 7/1/25 10:51 p.m. Eastern  BAKARI SELLERS: I would -- I'm going to the barbershop on Thursday, and my barber does not care. I need a tape up. I know. But my barber doesn't -- Tremaine does not care about who the mayor of New York City is. He simply does not.  SCOTT JENNINGS: Listen, comrade. It's an important city.  SELLERS: Can you not touch me? Can you not touch me? I was waiting on that. I was waiting on that.  ABBY PHILLIP: I mean, we glossed over the fact that Trump threatened to arrest him and called him illegal, but that's, you know, I guess, just another day.  PETE SEAT: Yeah. Well, and I should point out, this whole, he says that he's a democratic socialist. He's a socialist. I'll be kind. But calling him a communist is not far off base when he talks about seizing the means of production. That is a Communist Party plank. He is talking about doing that, so I don't have any problem with calling him what he is.   SELLERS: And I don't have any problem calling Donald Trump a felon, or charged with rape, or fact that he doesn't pay his vendors, or the fact that he's racist because he got --   [Crosstalk]  SELLERS: So, I don't have any problems. And you're right. CHRISTINE QUINN: As all of those-- SELLERS: And you know what. You may have a democratic socialist elected as mayor of New York City. JENNINGS: Now, you agree with Pete that he is a communist then QUINN: He's not a communist. SELLERS: He's a socialist. JENNINGS: He said seize the means of production SELLERS: He's a socialist. QUINN: He is not a communist. SELLERS: I'm not a socialist, but he calls himself— JENNINGS: He’s literally— He's using the language of the Bolsheviks, is he not? SELLERS: That's no. He's not. He's a socialist, not a communist. PHILLIP: All right JENNINGS: Seizing the means of production. SELLERS: That's called socialism, not communism. JENNINGS: USSR and stoned dorm debaters. SELLERS: Those are different. JENNINGS: That's where you that stuff. July 3rd, 2025 10:13 AM Shannon Sauders 289691 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/03/pierced-piety-john-dickerson-has-report-paramount-trump Tonight’s CBS Evening News offerings presented viewers with an amazing split screen as it fell upon John Dickerson to deliver the news that Paramount Global entered into a settlement agreement that would terminate the lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump. On the CBS Evening News, the actual report of the settlement to close out the newscast. Watch below in its entirety: CBS EVENING NEWS 7/2/25 6:56 PM JOHN DICKERSON: Finally, tonight: Paramount Global, owner of CBS News, has settled a lawsuit filed by President Trump. The case began when the president alleged that 60 Minutes deceptively edited an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris to aid her candidacy. Which Mr. Trump said amounted to election interference and caused him mental anguish. Under the terms of the settlement worked out with a mediator, Paramount will pay $16 million to cover Mr. Trump's legal costs. Whatever's left will go to his presidential library. No money will be paid directly to the president. The settlement does not require an apology or expression of regret for the editing of the interview, which was done in accordance with long-held CBS News standards and widely accepted journalistic practices. CBS News’ Face the Nation ran a promotional clip of the interview which included a portion of Harris' answer to a question. The 60 Minutes broadcast used a different portion of the answer to the very same question. The president alleges this was done to make Harris look better. CBS News has denied this. Mr. Trump has also claimed that after correspondent Bill Whitaker asked the question, 60 Minutes showed Harris' response to a different question. The full transcript released by 60 Minutes shows that this is not true. Today, a senior Paramount executive told stockholders the deal allows the corporation to avoid what he called the high and somewhat unpredictable costs of legal defense. Paramount is attempting to close an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. That deal needs Trump administration approval. The corporation said the settlement of the Trump lawsuit is completely separate from and unrelated to the merger. In the end, Paramount decided to settle a suit it said is without basis in law and fact, and an affront to the First Amendment. If you listen closely enough, you can hear the chagrin in Dickerson’s voice as he looks to the teleprompter and reads what up to this moment must have been inconceivable at the former Tiffany Network. Dickerson slogged through it without sounding pompous until the very end, with the little flourish on the First Amendment.  But as is always the case when reviewing ANY legacy media news product: the most important thing in any given report is often that which is left out. Pay close attention to Dickerson’s disclosure of the terms of the settlement: Under the terms of the settlement worked out with a mediator, Paramount will pay $16 million to cover Mr. Trump's legal costs. Whatever's left will go to his presidential library. No money will be paid directly to the president. The settlement does not require an apology or expression of regret for the editing of the interview, which was done in accordance with long-held CBS News standards and widely accepted journalistic practices. Everything about this disclosure was accurate, except the part about standards and practices. This is because CBS’s standards and practices are changing pursuant to the settlement. Per The Hollywood Reporter: Under the deal, announced Tuesday evening, the money will go to Trump’s presidential library. It involves an agreement from Paramount, which will not apologize as part of the settlement, to release 60 Minutes transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates after they’ve aired, according to a statement from the company. I helpfully bolded out the editorial change made by CBS pursuant to the settlement agreement, known henceforth as the Trump Rule, made necessary by those vaunted standards for which there can be no apology. It was those vaunted standards that led CBS News to cut videos with two different responses to the same question from Bill Whitaker. Over on Plus, the tone was far different, and dare I say it sounded almost apologetic: CBS EVENING NEWS PLUS 7/2/25 7:26 PM JOHN DICKERSON: Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS News, settled a suit with President Trump today. Journalists don't like to report on themselves. Sometimes that's false humility. Mostly, it's a practical limitation. Reporters try to find order in chaos. We prefer to explain the cause of a bombing. The intent of a bill, the marvel of a new discovery. Putting chaos in preliminary order helps viewers make sense of their world. They tell us this at airports, restaurants, at church. The audience brings us their fears, their questions, their good faith view of things. It reminds us that we are stewards of that concern. It's a grace to receive another's trust, but also to have a mission that shapes your work. “Mission”, that- that can sound grandiose. We are not all that. Public figures have taught us that misguided mission can do more harm than brute force. We pride ourselves on our BS detector, so it ought to work on ourselves too. When it doesn't, the stakes are real. A loss of public trust, the spread of misinformation. A visitor to our newsrooms might wonder why we debate a single word for so long, why it takes hours to answer the simple question: what is this story about? Why there's a cry of frustration when a detail is off by an inch. That is what it- work looks like when it is deeply felt, when the audience's concerns become ours, passed by bucket brigade from the subjects of our stories to correspondents to producers, to editors, fact checkers and writers. The obstacles to getting it right are many. The Paramount settlement poses a new obstacle. Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you've traded away that trust? The audience will decide that. Our job is to show up. To honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witnessed it for. The network's first heroes who ran to rooftops during the bombing of London. Its current ones carry that same instinct. But another story from CBS's early days also captures this spirit. A young correspondent was filing a story when it started to rain. The takes they'd already filmed were fine. Everybody could have just gone inside. But she persisted. The rain turning the notes in her hand to pulp, again and again. She worked to get it right. This wasn't London under the fire. It was just a regular story. That's the point. So the rain has picked up, but we'll stay at it. We hope you will, too. See you tomorrow. Viewers at Plus got the pomposity we are all used to. Here, there is no description of the settlement beyond its disclosure in the very first sentence. What follows next is a tour-de-delusion that gives us a glimpse at the sort of insular newsroom culture that allowed things to get out of control in the first place . Rather than giving viewers a full accounting of the terms of the agreement, Dickerson delved into lyrical soliloquy about the sacred role of journalism, the importance of getting it right, and on working to regain lost trust. Dickerson sounded legitimately apologetic over the settlement, notwithstanding CBS’s lack of an actual apology over its standards and practices. If we can learn anything from these twin segments, it is that there is still shock and denial over the settlement. One hopes that CBS News (and, by broader extension, the media) learned something from the 60 Minutes fiasco at the heart of the suit. Sadly, it appears that they haven't. July 3rd, 2025 12:17 AM Jorge Bonilla 289698 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/02/newsbusters-podcast-patriotism-pop-tarts-and-progressive-press Liberals really hate it when you say they hate America. Some of them prove it. Some of them make strange arguments about how they love Cherry Pop-Tarts and McDonald's, so of course they love America. Managing Editor Curtis Houck took exception to a Washington Post column about how liberals love America, too -- or things about America. That's missing the patriotic point. Monica Hesse has a new column headlined  Trump’s lazy insult for liberals is deeply confusing. “These people hate our country,” says Trump. But she loves Pop-Tarts.... I also love McDonald’s. I love Thanksgiving Day parades and Fourth of July pool parties. Mission: Impossible movies and John Grisham novels. Holiday Inn Expresses and my hometown’s annual Corn Festival…     But she said this: "This has become a central political division in our country. The right accuses the left of hating the United States; the left responds that protest is American." We know that journalists don’t like wearing flag pins or saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the white house. But they often have a problem with the concept of patriotism in general. They associated it with jingoism, the use of patriotism to push for endless wars. Hesse complained:  "There’s no point to a stupid argument about whether you or I love America more than Trump or a bunch of Fox hosts do."  But loving America is about loving the founding ideas of America, of democracy and liberty, even if these ideas weren't fully put into practice for many years. Pledging allegiance to the flag isn't suggesting the country has always been perfect. It's about allegiance to the country through thick and thin. Journalists have said some vicious things about displays of patriotism. In 2003, PBS host Bill Moyers uncorked one:  “I decided to put on my flag pin tonight…I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo – the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism….When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao’s Little Red Book on every official’s desk, omnipresent and unread.” That’s especially gross, comparing flag-pin wearers to Chinese commie mass murderers. In 2007, Bill Moyers was at it again on PBS, saying the Pledge of Allegiance is a LIE:  "The next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance….Remember, it's a lie, a whopper of a lie. We coax it from the mouths of babes for the same reason our politicians wear their flag pins on their lapels. It makes the hypocrisy go down easier." Moyers went on to talk about executions of murderers, Rickey Ray Rector in Bill Clinton's Arkansas and Karla Faye Tucker in George W. Bush's Texas. It's a little weird to think the Pledge is somehow about... the death penalty? In addition, we chat about Alex Christy's latest late-night study, which found the guests of these talk shows lean dramatically. There were 106 liberal guests to one conservative. Among partisan officials, it was 30 to zero. As our Rich Noyes tweeted, “Republicans control the White House, Senate and House, but Dems control late night TV by a 30-to-zero margin.” Stephen Colbert on CBS was the most aggressive, with 14 left-wing pols and 29 woke celebrities and journalists. People still watching that show know what to expect. It sounds more like a Democrat precinct meeting than a bubbly comedy hour. We also discuss the latest on defamation suits against the network, including Gavin Newsom's new suit against Fox News, and Paramount settling with President Trump over quote-mangling on 60 Minutes. CNN's Brian Stelter summarized: "CBS News did nothing wrong. But its parent company still paid the price." Nick Fondacaro has a new column up on the defamation-suit battles. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.  July 2nd, 2025 10:40 PM Tim Graham 289693 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/02/msnbc-media-democrats-should-laugh-republicans-support-socialism On Tuesday night, Stephanie Ruhle hosted Matthew Dowd on her show, The 11th Hour. Dowd, a political counselor and analyst known for his inability to stick to one party, joined with Ruhle to criticize Republicans while praising the socialist ideas of Democratic New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Discussing Republicans’ support of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, Dowd laid out what he saw as the economic future of the Democratic Party: I think what the Republicans have done is twofold and given the Democrats two very powerful messages. First is the Republican Party. It's laughable anymore if they stand up and claim they're the party of fiscal responsibility, it's just laughable. And if any Republican does that, we in the media and the people running against them should just laugh at them and just basically say, you've abdicated that completely.  (...) The other side is, and I hope the Democrats do this, they should run on economic populism. The Republicans and Donald Trump have captured cultural populism. They have not captured economic populism, which is much more powerful. Much more powerful, as we saw in the mayor's primary in New York.     Dowd claimed the Republican Party, by increasing government spending through Trump’s bill, was no longer as fiscally responsible as Democrats. Republicans who advocated for fiscal responsibility in the future should be openly mocked by the media, according to Dowd. If calling for the ridicule of a particular party by all media isn’t biased, then nothing is. Comically enough, Dowd and Ruhle both cited as a shining example of Democrats’ fiscal responsibility and strong economic policy, none other than Mamdani, the man who wanted to centralize ownership of grocery stores and freeze rent in New York.  Dowd encouraged the Democratic Party to take up economic populism, the idea of distributing wealth evenly among all citizens. If you’re wondering how that’s different from socialism, it really wasn’t. Still, Dowd tried to separate the two. When asked by Ruhle whether or not wealthy New Yorkers disliked Mamdani because of his opposition to capitalism, Dowd tried to deny the fact: I don't think you can say that Mr. Mamdani doesn't support capitalism. I think he's basically said it works, but it doesn't work when it's crony capitalism, as you say. And the thing that's offensive about Wall Street, and you've covered this, Stephanie, for years and years and years, they don't – they no longer believe in the common good. They believe in the idea that they should be able to own as many yachts as they can possibly own. One of the many people who could say Mamdani doesn’t support capitalism was Mamdani himself. But in order to try and make his stance seem more neutral, Dowd refused to acknowledge Mamdani’s distaste for our economic system, or his own: I, for one, am a capitalist. I'm a big capitalist. I'd like to try capitalism. We're right today in America, we don't have capitalism. We have a system in government that rewards a very few and hurts the many in our country in this. Capitalism is supposed to basically, the design, as you know, is to lift everybody up, create new industries, give incentives for people to get hired, give incentives for people to be paid more. Dowd’s nonsensical definition of capitalism showed that he, for one, was most definitely not a capitalist. Capitalism can do all those things, but his version more accurately describes a welfare state than a free market. Capitalism was supposed to encourage competition, giving anyone the opportunity to rise up, but it was not expected to give handouts the way Dowd described. So instead of laughing at Republicans for their economic policy, the liberal media should probably figure out exactly what they stand for first. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle July 1, 2025 11:39 p.m. EST STEPHANIE RUHLE: For weeks, Senate Republicans wondered whether they would be able to pass Trump's massive spending bill. Well, now that they have, some are asking a new question: will their voters forgive them for it? Polling shows that the bill Republicans work tirelessly to pass is deeply unpopular, even among Republicans. And the midterms are, of course, inching closer and closer by the day. MSNBC senior political analyst Matthew Dowd joins me now. He's also a former George W. Bush strategist and founder of Country Over Party. I'm so glad you're here tonight.  This bill punishes the poorest Americans, many of whom are Donald Trump's most loyal supporters. Is this going to haunt the president at all or will his fan base stay faithful, or do they exist in a news desert and they won't blame him for any hardships they face? MATTHEW DOWD: I mean, I think the reality is, and you showed the polling of this, this is definitely going to harm them. The question is: how much? And that to a degree depends on whether or not the Democrats can be efficient and effective in a messaging on this. I think it's a perfect opportunity for Democrats in this election.  And, you know, Donald Trump can't run again, no matter what he says, but the Democrats taking the House and possibly the Senate could make his life exceedingly miserable for the last four – the last two years of his presidency. I mean, I think what the Republicans have done is twofold and given the Democrats two very powerful messages. First is the Republican Party. It's laughable anymore if they stand up and claim they're the party of fiscal responsibility, it's just laughable. And if any Republican does that, we in the media and the people running against them should just laugh at them and just basically say, you've abdicated that completely.  So they've given the idea of fiscal responsibility to the Democrats, who've often been accused of being tax and spend. If I were the Democrats, I would basically say, “You might have called us tax and spend, but those guys, they're grift and spend. That's what they are. They're grift and spend. They reward people that are their friends. They give contracts to people. This is what they do, and we're now in a fiscal mess because of it.” That's one. The other side is, and I hope the Democrats do this, they should run on economic populism. The Republicans and Donald Trump have captured cultural populism. They have not captured economic populism, which is much more powerful. Much more powerful, as we saw in the mayor's primary in New York, how powerful an economic populist message is. If the Democrats do that, run on fiscal responsibility and economic populism, there's no way that the Republicans can withstand the wave that's going to occur in 2026. RUHLE: Well, let's actually talk about that mayoral race, because today, Zohran Mamdani has – we know, he has officially won the Democratic Primary for New York City Mayor. What does it tell you that Wall Street is absolutely freaking out? Like, I can tell you, every source that I speak to is ringing my phone off the hook, panicked about this guy, right? And he is a self-described democratic socialist. He has said aggressively negative things, you know, fair to say, you know, against the wealthy. But this is one single person who could become the mayor of a single city when the city council and the state governor will likely make it very difficult for him to get any of his most ambitious proposals through.  Yet these exact same Wall Street voters say almost nothing when Donald Trump, the President of the United States, launches global trade wars, defies the rule of law, and threatens to block mergers of companies that he doesn't like. Why is it that this group of people, these influential Americans, these big donors, why do they shrug off what the President of the United States that's blowing through the rule of law, why do they shrug off what he does day in and day out? And they're panicked over a possible mayor of New York. Is it because this new mayor doesn't support capitalism, and this current president supports crony capitalism? DOWD: Well, I think that's the point, and I don't think you can say that Mr. Mamdani doesn't support capitalism. I think he's basically said it works, but it doesn't work when it's crony capitalism, as you say. And the thing that's offensive about Wall Street, and you've covered this, Stephanie, for years and years and years, they don't – they no longer believe in the common good. They believe in the idea that they should be able to own as many yachts as they can possibly own. They should be able to own as many vacation homes as they possibly can own, no matter what happens to the working class in our country. And we're sitting on here, in one of the lowest tax rates and some of the least services of any of the modern countries in the world, the lowest tax rates and the least services in it. And while the rich get richer and richer and richer, the working class get – have it harder and harder and harder to meet. And I think what Mr. Mamdani has demonstrated is that you can have a message, and you can effectively deliver it in very unique, interesting ways and actually have huge accomplishments. They should be afraid. They should. Wall Street should be afraid. They've ridden this train for decades. They've ridden this idea that nobody's taking away their capital gains stuff. Nobody's taking away all of these things that they've been given in our country, in this sort of corrupt form of capitalism that exists.  I, for one, am a capitalist. I'm a big capitalist. I'd like to try capitalism. We're right today in America, we don't have capitalism. We have a system in government that rewards a very few and hurts the many in our country in this. Capitalism is supposed to basically, the design, as you know, is to lift everybody up, create new industries, give incentives for people to get hired, give incentives for people to be paid more in the course of this, as a country grows. That's not what exists in America today. RUHLE: Every time you come, as soon as we go into the commercial, I say. “God, I love Matthew Dowd,” so why don't I just say it when we're on live TV? Thank you for joining me, my friend. Great to see you.  DOWD: Thanks, Steph, you too. July 2nd, 2025 8:30 PM Lucas Escala 289692 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/02/econo-morons-washpost-squawks-trump-illegal-immigration The Washington Post once again proved why its journalists know as much about good economics as they do about “austere religious scholar(s)” by arguing President Donald Trump’s illegal immigration crackdown would somehow cause inflation to skyrocket. Just try unraveling that oxymoron. Post writers Andrew Ackerman and Lauren Kaori Gurley bemoaned in a June 15, 2025, pro-illegal immigrant advocacy screed that “U.S. could lose more immigrants than it gains for [the] first time in 50 years.” The propagandists railed against Trump for daring to finally do something about America’s illegal immigration crisis, stoking fear among readers that “[n]et migration could turn negative, some economists warn, weighing on economic growth and fueling inflation.” This is coming from the same rag that treated the Bidenomics disaster that instigated the 40-year high inflation crisis in the first place as some kind of stroke of genius. Somebody make it make sense, please. Ackerman and Gurley warned that border control would hurt the economy:  A net outflow of migrants could stoke inflation, a risk economists already expect from Trump’s tariff policies. It also could renew the type of labor shortages the country experienced during the pandemic. Longer term, it could even have implications for fiscal policy, with fewer immigrants paying taxes and supporting entitlement programs such as Social Security, said one of the economists, Wendy Edelberg. Of course, Ackerman and Gurley didn’t bother mentioning the word “illegal,” and only used the term “undocumented” once. Telling, isn’t it?  Of course, nowhere did the writers even mention the already extraordinary economic cost that the approximately 13.7 million unauthorized people in the U.S. as of February 2025 already posed to America’s economic health. As Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Director of Research Steven Camarota stated during a House Budget Committee hearing in January 2024, “While illegal immigrants often receive other services for their U.S.-born children, even when we estimate the net fiscal impact of just the illegal immigrants themselves, excluding their U.S.-born children, we still find they create a lifetime net fiscal drain of $68,000 on average (taxes paid minus benefits received).”  In fact, Camarota further estimated that the taxes that undocumented immigrants do pay the federal government get canceled out by their consumption of public services. Another analysis by the Manhattan Institute found that the “the border crisis is expected to cost $1.15 trillion over the lifetime of the new immigrants who entered the country unlawfully, overstayed a visa, or were paroled.” But did any of that matter to Ackerman and Gurley? Nope. Instead, the writers were adamant about pushing their out-of-context agitprop that “[a]ny lasting immigration slowdown could limit economic growth, because fewer workers leads to a weaker economic output.” In other words, don’t do anything about illegal immigration because the economy needs it!  It's the same kind of common sense butchering that occurred when Post columnist Catherine Rampell put out a nutty piece in 2022 declaring that then-President Joe Biden should let more illegal immigrants come over the border to — *checks notes*— solve the inflation crisis. No, you didn't misread that.  But like Rampell, Ackerman and Gurley behaved like they were completely oblivious to the catastrophic economic consequences of unchecked illegal immigration. Even the graphic they used as the featured photo for their propaganda was just peak cringe.   (Illustration by José L. Soto/The Washington Post; iStock) The Federation for American Immigration Reform pointed out in a study that “[a]t the start of 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration for the United States – at the federal, state, and local levels – was at least $150.7 billion.” This dwarfs the nearly $90 billion that illegal immigrants reportedly paid in taxes that year. Here’s our professional advice to The Post: deport Ackerman and Gurley’s pathetic excuse of a spin job straight into the paper shredder.  July 2nd, 2025 7:40 PM Joseph Vazquez 289689 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ashley-taylor/2025/07/02/cnn-still-saying-people-will-die-because-bbb If you watched CNN This Morning on July 2nd, you might think President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill was about to strip millions of struggling Americans of life-saving healthcare, dooming millions of our elderly, disabled individuals, and single pregnant mothers to certain demise. But what you actually witnessed was yet another shameless disinformation campaign, a desperate attempt to frame a targeted and fiscally responsible reform as just another instance of President Trump’s alleged bent to authoritarianism. Among the drama of the segment– which was literally opened by a Tiktok video of a doctor lecturing Republican Senators with sad music in the background– CNN failed to mention that this bill did not cut healthcare, it actually saves money for healthcare by denying it to people who are abusing the system and taking from those who need it.      Host Audie Cornish and Kaiser Family Foundation’s Julie Rovner tried to paint a picture of dying patients and collapsing hospitals that will certainly ensue because of the “paperwork” involved with the modest work requirement for able-bodied, childless adults on Medicaid which most states already require (click "expand"): CORNISH: So I want to talk about this work requirement. The idea of work requirements is not new. States have done it for a while. Can you talk about what's distinct about how it's done in this bill? ROVNER: Yeah, most people on Medicaid already meet these requirements. They either work or they go school or they care for someone at home. The problem isn't the work requirement itself. The problem is the paperwork that's involved with the work requirement. What we found in states that have tried to do this is that people have difficulty reporting these activities or proving that they've done these things. They have trouble uploading documents. Someone described it as like having to file your income taxes every month. That's how eligible people end up losing coverage. This bill didn’t affect children, seniors, the disabled, or single mothers. It simply asked that those who can work, do work, or volunteer, or attend school for just 80 hours a month to receive taxpayer-funded Medicaid. That’s around 20 hours a week. Less than part-time. This was very similar to what Democratic President Bill Clinton signed into law in the 90s. Yet CNN chose to amplify a TikTok doctor’s emotional plea about chemotherapy and insulin rationing as if the GOP were yanking IVs out of the arms of cancer patients. The One Big Beautiful Bill aimed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse from being siphoned out of the Medicaid system over the next decade. It doesn’t slash a dime from anyone who actually qualifies and complies with the rules. In fact, the fake news being spread about the legislation is so prominent that The White House website has an entire page dedicated to providing facts to combat the most common left talking points.  But CNN opted for Rovner’s bureaucratic lament that people might struggle with “paperwork” as if filing a basic form monthly was too cruel a burden for someone receiving free healthcare funded by working Americans. It’s worth noting that most people on Medicaid already meet these requirements, by Rovner’s own admission. The issue wasn’t the policy, it was the political theater. Another talking point from the segment was that hospitals will go under if patients are removed from Medicaid. This assumes those removed were rightfully on Medicaid in the first place. What the bill prevents was taxpayers subsidizing hospitals to treat people who weren’t eligible either due to misreporting, failure to meet work rules, or outright fraud. CNN’s logic was backwards: it assumed more government dependency equals better care. But in reality, sustainable healthcare means targeting resources where they’re most needed, not creating an endless entitlement with no accountability. Much like the increases in education spending was yielding better results. Cornish and Rovner tried to play semantic gymnastics over whether this reform is a “cut.” Rovner admits Medicaid spending will actually increase under the bill, but because it won’t grow at the same breakneck pace Democrats want, they label it a “cut” (click "expand"): CORNISH: And finally, the math– I don't know if it's semantics about whether these are cuts or changes or increases. Help me understand the talking points. ROVNER: Yeah, this goes back years and years and years to when Congress used to try to cut Medicare, and there were arguments that we’re not really cutting it. It's true that Medicaid spending will continue to grow, but if it doesn't keep up with the cost of healthcare or the number– the numbers who are eligible, then there will be less money. There will– for these hospitals, for these people. So yes, in the aggregate, Medicaid spending will go up. But that doesn't mean that people won't lose their coverage and hospitals won't be hurt by the fact that they're going to have to treat patients who don't have any insurance. If your salary goes up two percent instead of 10 percent, it’s not a pay cut, it’s just not a fantasy raise. CNN’s July 2nd segment was leftist activism framed as news, wrapped in emotion and scare tactics, divorced from the facts of the bill itself. The One Big Beautiful Bill doesn’t take away healthcare, it protects the healthcare safety net from being drained by people who were ripping off the system, making it more sustainable for those who truly need it. The complete transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.  CNN This Morning July 2nd, 2025 6:47:20 AM EST [TEASER VIA TIKTOK VIDEO]: I wish every Senator who voted for this had to shadow a doctor like me for just one day. They'd see the patients that they had to talk to about affording their chemotherapy, mothers rationing their kid’s insulin because they can't afford it, and people dying too young. Not because medicine failed them, but because finances did. [CUTS TO LIVE] AUDIE CORNISH: Okay, so Medicaid may in fact end up looking very different if the President's spending bill passes, and now Republicans seek to add a new work requirement that could impact millions. It's part of an effort to rein in the nation's safety net program with up to $1 trillion in cuts. While the bill would cap and reduce taxes states impose on hospitals, it would also require most adults to work, volunteer or study 80 hours a month to qualify for enrollment. So what does that mean for the millions of people who rely on the program? Well, we're joined now by Julie Rovner, Chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Family Foundation Health News. Julie, good morning. JULIE ROVNER: Good morning. CORNISH: So I want to talk about this work requirement. The idea of work requirements is not new. States have done it for a while. Can you talk about what's distinct about how it's done in this bill? ROVNER: Yeah, most people on Medicaid already meet these requirements. They either work or they go school or they care for someone at home. The problem isn't the work requirement itself. The problem is the paperwork that's involved with the work requirement. What we found in states that have tried to do this is that people have difficulty reporting these activities or proving that they've done these things. They have trouble uploading documents. Someone described it as like having to file your income taxes every month. That's how eligible people end up losing coverage. And indeed, the Congressional Budget Office says that perhaps as many as 12 million people could lose coverage if this bill becomes law. CORNISH: I also want to talk about the effect on hospitals, because I don't always understand hospital math, right?. How do changes to Medicaid affect everybody else? What does it mean for that industry? ROVNER: Well, people get sick regardless of whether they have insurance. So, if they have Medicaid and they get sick and they come to the hospital, the hospitals get paid, they don't necessarily get paid as much as they would if the people had private insurance or Medicare, but they do get paid something. If these people lose their insurance, they're still going to come to the hospital, the hospital is still going to treat them, but now they won't get paid. This is a huge problem for hospitals that have large populations of Medicaid patients. That includes inner city urban hospitals, but also rural hospitals where a lot of people are on Medicaid. So if these people become uninsured, the hospitals could well go under. CORNISH: And finally, the math– I don't know if it's semantics about whether these are cuts or changes or increases. Help me understand the talking points. ROVNER: Yeah, this goes back years and years and years to when Congress used to try to cut Medicare, and there were arguments that we’re not really cutting it. It's true that Medicaid spending will continue to grow, but if it doesn't keep up with the cost of healthcare or the number– the numbers who are eligible, then there will be less money. There will– for these hospitals, for these people. So yes, in the aggregate, Medicaid spending will go up. But that doesn't mean that people won't lose their coverage and hospitals won't be hurt by the fact that they're going to have to treat patients who don't have any insurance. CORNISH: Julie Rovner is Chief Washington Correspondent for Kaiser Family Foundation Health News. Thank you, Julie. ROVNER: Thank you. July 2nd, 2025 7:07 PM Ashley Taylor 289686 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/02/editors-pick-just-news-publishes-one-stop-shop-commie-mamdani Our friend Jerry Dunleavy published an outstanding piece Monday night for Just the News that NewsBusters readers will want to bookmark and save in perpetuity for its exhaustive compilation of links showcasing the seemingly endless list of disturbing views by communist and New York City Democrat mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani. At the onset, Dunleavy noted Mamdani has referred to himself as a “democratic socialist” and received backing from “so-called ‘fact-checkers’ and legacy media in denying that he is a Communist — but his oft-repeated past comments strongly contradict his denials.” Dunleavy came out of the gate strong with these examples: An investigation by Just the News shows that in tweets, speeches, and affiliations, Mamdani, at his core, holds a strong affinity for straight-up Communism: praising and campaigning with a Marxist state senator in New York; declaring that NYC needed a mayor just like a famously young Indian mayor who was a member of an explicitly Marxist and Communist Party; praising the 1917 Russian Revolution which led to the overthrow of the Czar and, soon, the establishment of the Soviet Union at the cost of millions of lives; arguing about the need to “seize the means of production” in a reference to a core Marxist principle; praising famous radical Communist figures; and much more. After quoting Mamdani’s denials he’s a communist, Dunleavy dug in, including his ties to “comrade” New York State Senator Julia Salazar, who has repeatedly called herself “a Marxist.” Mamdani has praised other avowed communists, according to Dunleavy (click “expand”): Mamdani has also repeatedly praised famous Communist figures and leaders. A tweet by him from December 2020 was especially striking, as it suggested that he believed NYC needed a Communist mayor — a job he would pursue himself just a few years later while denying that he is a Marxist. “them: so what kind of mayor does nyc need right now? me:” Mamdani tweeted as he shared a Twitter thread from the Indian Puducherry State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — or the CPI(M). “Comrade Arya Rajendran, age 21, new Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She will be the youngest mayor of a major city in the world. Here she leads a detachment of Red Volunteers in @CPIMKerala. #CPIM  #LeftAlternative #Communist,” the Indian Communist Party tweeted. The profile for that branch of the Communist Party included a hammer and sickle emoji in its Twitter description. Tagged in the tweet threat was the “Official Twitter Handle of CPI(M) Kerala State Committee.” The thread Mamdani was re-tweeting contained two other tweets. “21-year-old comrade Arya Rajendran elected as the Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation today. Congratulations comrade. #CPIM #Communist #LeftAlternative #Women #womeninleadership,” the Twitter thread also said. Dunleavy left no stone unturned, reporting out Mamdani’s views on everything from statues to supporting the sezisure of “the means of production” to praise for the Russian Revolution, “which soon ushered in Communist rule in Russia and the establishment of the brutal Communist-led Soviet Union.” To read Dunleavy’s full piece, click here. July 2nd, 2025 6:26 PM Curtis Houck 289697 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2025/07/02/day-diddy-decision-ai-answers-it-morally-wrong-pay-sex Following the Sean “Diddy” Combs sex trafficking trial verdict, prominent AI chatbots answered whether it is morally wrong to pay for sex. Their answers were disappointing. Although OpenAI’s ChatGPT did agree that almost all prostitution was morally wrong, xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini and Meta AI hedged on whether it is wrong to pay for sex when asked Wednesday. Google’s Gemini gave the worst answer among ChatGPT’s, Grok’s and Meta AI’s responses. The search giant’s AI chatbot outrageously concluded that when it comes to whether paying for sex is morally wrong there are “strong arguments on both sides.”  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America]  July 2nd, 2025 4:30 PM Tom Olohan 289694 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/02/im-rubber-youre-glue-guthrie-claims-critics-are-biased-not During a Tuesday appearance on Monica Lewinsky’s (yes, the one you’re thinking of) podcast “Reclaiming,” NBC Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie pushed back on her critics with essentially the schoolyard ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue” defense. According to her, if someone thought that she had a political bias in her reporting, it was they who needed to check their bias at the door. Of course, she said this after claiming one side’s arguments amount to claiming the sun didn’t rise that day. “I do think you have so much integrity in your work too. And I imagine, you know, sort of, unless you're a Fox News reporter, you have to keep your political views to yourself,” Lewinsky said as they neared the end of the podcast. Ironically, Lewinsky was one the receiving end of the liberal media’s smears in the late 90s as they desperately tried to defend President Bill Clinton (D). Guthrie responded by saying she’s fine with outlets that let reporters be biased because it’s like the editorial pages of a newspaper: And then certainly as journalists, that's the job, you know, unless you work for an outlet where you're supposed to express your opinion and then fine and everybody knows what that is and that's okay, you know, that– it's like the editorial page of a newspaper. It's existed for a long time. I don't have a problem with that as long as it's transparent. NBC’s sister network MSNBC was likely on her mind with that defense.     Attempting to be self-reflective, Guthrie noted that there were “probably people listening right now, who might say, oh well, she isn't dispassionate at all.” She then argued that “bias is really in the eye of the beholder.” She claimed reporters could no longer be “down the middle” because the “situation that have” in American politics was one where one side is claiming the sun didn’t rise: GUTHRIE: You know, we used to say like it's down the middle, but it's not really, it's more nuanced than that. It's not like you, you know, you don't– LEWINSKY: There is no down the middle. GUTHRIE: It's not down the middle. It’s not like you do a story and you say, “Some say the sun came up this morning. Others say it didn't.” That would be wrong. That would be factually incorrect. And so that is, you know, more and more a situation that we have. The NBC anchor followed up by suggesting she had never tried to “hit you over the head” with her opinions and that if you had picked up on a bias coming from her it was because you were the problem: And we want that credibility that you're– we're not coming here to hit you over the head with one thing or another. You know, again, it's in the eye of the beholder, and I recognize that. What I would just challenge people to think about when they are analyzing whether you're, again, consider yourself of the left or the right or whatever you are, is when you're identifying bias and the people that you are receiving your news from, just to ponder and ask yourself whether it is your bias that is determining that the person you're receiving the news from is biased. But just days before the 2020 election, Guthrie was hosting a Trump town hall for NBC in which she got into the shouting match with President Trump. She was hitting Trump over the head for not requiring masks at his rallies. “No one that says you can't be out there, but it's just about wearing masks and having -- For example, your rallies! Your rallies don't require masks,” she shouted. “But as President, you're right, you want to be a leader, but you also are a leader and a setter of an example.” She also tried to link him to white supremacy despite him actively denouncing it in front of her (Click “expand”): TRUMP: I denounced white supremacy for years. But you always do it. You always start off with the question. You didn't ask Joe Biden whether or not he denounces Antifa. I washed him on the same basic show with Lester Holt and he was asking questions like Biden was a child. GUTHRIE: Well, this is a little bit of a dodge. TRUMP: Are you listening? I denounce white supremacy. What's your next question? GUTHRIE: Do you feel-- It feels sometimes you're hesitant to do so. Like you wait a beat. TRUMP: Here we go again. Every time. In fact, my people came, I'm sure they'll ask you the white supremacy question. I denounce white supremacy. Back with Lewinsky, Guthrie admitted that it’s hard to keep her opinions to herself when reporting, lamenting: “You know, so people sometimes say like, ‘Oh, is it hard for you to keep your personal opinions to yourself?’ I mean, maybe, sometimes, depending on what the subject is…” You don’t say, Savannah. You don’t say. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: Reclaiming With Monica Lewinsky July 1, 2025 00:39:41 – 00:45:52 (…) MONICA LEWINSKY: But talking about integrity and– and I do think you have so much integrity in your work too. And I imagine, you know, sort of, unless you're a Fox News reporter, you have to keep your political views to yourself. How have you sort of straddled– or do you feel you've had to do that? I think you've had to do that. In– in your work with your faith and religion because I feel like I don't see you talking about that a lot. But I also don’t watch it– SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Well I’m not out there to proselytize– LEWINSKY: Right. GUTHRIE: And I’ve certainly talked a lot about it in the book and– LEWINSKY: Right! Right! GUTHRIE: –we launched it on the show and so–  the show has been wonderful and supportive about that. But yes, I mean, this book is not to proselytize other than I hope it's– I hope– I hope it's appealing– LEWINKY: Right, right. GUTHRIE: You know, but that's– LEWINSKY: Yeah. GUTHRIE: –for it's– again gently appealing. And then certainly as journalists, that's the job, you know, unless you work for an outlet where you're supposed to express your opinion and then fine and everybody knows what that is and that's okay, you know, that– it's like the editorial page of a newspaper. It's existed for a long time. I don't have a problem with that as long as it's transparent. You know, it– it's– it's interesting in our world now that there will be people, probably people listening right now, who might say, oh well, she isn't dispassionate at all. She isn't, you know. So that's the interesting thing, you know, bias is really in the eye of the beholder. All I can tell you is what I try to do. Which is to be straightforward, to be accurate, to be fair, to be precise. You know, we used to say like it's down the middle, but it's not really, it's more nuanced than that. It's not like you, you know, you don't– LEWINSKY: There is no down the middle. GUTHRIE: It's not down the middle. It’s not like you do a story and you say, “Some say the sun came up this morning. Others say it didn't.” That would be wrong. That would be factually incorrect. And so that is, you know, more and more a situation that we have. Whereas in the old days when I was starting out, it might be like tax policy, and then you could, you know– everybody wants to see the tax system be more fair. Some say it should be a more progressive tax system that does X,Y,Z. Others say if you loosen regulations and you unburden business, then bubble– and you could have like a– weren't those– wasn't it adorable when we could have those sweet policy disagreements, and now it's so personal, you know, and now it's and that's really unfortunate. It makes the whole thing certainly less enjoyable to cover, but that's not the point, you know, it's not supposed to be enjoyable. But I– I try really hard. I really do, and I know our show does, and I think that Today show is a vestige of a place where we are having a pretty highly curated, certainly the first half hour, first 40, 50 minutes where, you know, it's almost like a nightly newscast, where we're selecting these few stories. And we want that credibility that you're– we're not coming here to hit you over the head with one thing or another. You know, again, it's in the eye of the beholder, and I recognize that. LEWINSKY: Yeah. GUTHRIE: What I would just challenge people to think about when they are analyzing whether you're, again, consider yourself of the left or the right or whatever you are, is when you're identifying bias and the people that you are receiving your news from, just to ponder and ask yourself whether it is your bias– LEWINSKI: Yeah. GUTHRIE: –that is determining that the person you're receiving the news from is biased. So for example, tariffs, you know, we're reporting that, you know, most economists say and most businesses and they're saying they're going to have to right– raise prices. Me reporting that does not make me biased. I'm not rooting for any particular outcome, and to the extent that there are those who have a contrary view, we include that too. But when people say, “Oh, you're so biased, you just keep hitting on this, that or the other,” maybe the bias that you're feeling is that you wish that you were watching someone who agreed with your view of the world– LEWINSKY: Right. GUTHRIE: –and that is okay. But you're hearing something different. And, you know, everybody's– LEWINSKY: I think– GUTHRIE: –we live in a time where everyone's kind of a couch media critic. LEWINSKY: Yeah. GUTHRIE: I think there's good things about that because it challenges everyone to be better, and then there's some parts about it that just really aren't on the level. And it's not an honest– honest critique. I'm here for honest critique, and we all need it and certainly journalism needs it. But you have to be honest with yourself as well about where you’re coming from. LEWINSKY: Yeah, and I– I think the sort of silos that we've created and the echo chambers make it so much harder to hold differing beliefs and to examine our own beliefs or our own bias. And- GUTHRIE: But I find that to be so interesting, you know, I actually– and maybe this is the lawyer in me– LEWINSKY: Yeah. GUTHRIE: You know, I find it very interesting to look at and array all of the different arguments that could be marshaled for or against something. I always want to know. I love having that intellectual discussion without making value judgments, that's not my job. You know, so people sometimes say like, “Oh, is it hard for you to keep your personal opinions to yourself?” I mean, maybe, sometimes, depending on what the subject is, but I also– I always say this a lot to the younger folks coming up– it's like, you know, our opinions really are not relevant whatsoever, and the job is to be able to report an issue, learn about an issue, and your opinion really should be the last consideration that you have. You should be able to– LEWINSKY: Interesting. GUTHRIE: –find out what the facts are, again, what are the arguments for and against. You may come to recognize that one argument seems to have greater strength in one way or the other, and that's fine. You're using your brain and you should, and that should be reflected in your coverage. But, who cares what our opinions are? For example, like, this is probably oversimplified, but like, if you need a heart surgery today, Monica, you wouldn't– if you're the doctor– if I'm your doctor– I don't say like, “I need to do heart surgery on Monica. I don't really like her.” LEWINSKI: Yeah. GUTHRIE: It's a professional job. LEWINSKI: Yeah. GUTHRIE: Your job is to do the job. Which is to report, investigate, deliver the facts. (...) July 2nd, 2025 3:22 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 289690 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/02/epic-times-ahead-scott-jennings-joins-salem-weekday-radio-show On Wednesday morning, our friends at Salem Media announced that CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings — a 2025 MRC Bulldog Award winner, daily viral sensation, and conservative star — will be joining their radio side starting on July 14 for a weekday talk show at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Jennings has plenty of experience in the radio and podcasting sphere, most recently hosting the podcast Flyover Country and served last year as a fill-in host on the Salem Radio Network for the great Mike Gallagher. He reposted on X the announcement and dished on the format: Jennings joined the aforementioned Gallagher to react on-camera: “It’s an honor to be with Salem....and this company has legends...You guys are the gold standard of, I think, conservative talk radio and, to be part of it, is an honor to be asked. I’m happy to do it and we’re going to bring some common sense. Like, what you see on CNN — I’m having to talk over five people. At least for an hour, I’ll just get to talk for myself and we’ll have a lot of fun doing it...It’s hard to do. You gotta keep you with the news,” he said in part. In a press release, Jennings added: “We’re going on offense. Every day, I’ll take calls, interview big names, and take the fight directly to the liberal machine. It’s time to bust the narratives and bring back some plain old common sense.” Jennings will be in prime real estate on Salem’s schedule, airing between The Charlie Kirk Show and The Hugh Hewitt Show. The spot is currently held by Human Events’s Jack Posobiec, but he will remain with Salem on their podcast network. Since he first started his regular appearances on CNN in 2017, Jennings has become one of the most recognizable conservatives, obliterating liberal narratives through unflinching yet civil debate and simultaneously winning friends and plaudits from across the aisle. Based on how you, dear readers, react to Jennings content and our videos on X of Jennings, this is sure to be a hit. July 2nd, 2025 2:18 PM Curtis Houck 289688 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/02/scary-s-acosta-muses-trump-may-tamper-2026-vote-totals Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta’s Substack podcast motto is “Don't give into the lies. Don't give into fear. Hold on to the truth. And hope.” During a Tuesday interview with former Clinton strategist James Carville, Acosta was neither truthful nor hopeful, but he was very much afraid as he declared, “This is scary shit,” as he suggested President Trump may tamper with the 2026 midterm results, and Carville suggested he might cancel the midterms altogether. Acosta began his conspiracy theorizing by declaring: One other thing, there was a question we just popped up from one of our viewers, and they want to know: do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms? Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country? I mean, with what they're trying to pull these days, they don't want accountability. They don't want Democrats getting the gavels in the House and the Senate, be able to hold hearings, and start impeachment proceedings, and so on. I mean, you worry about that, James? We never had to worry about that?     Carville one-upped Acosta by suggesting there might not even be midterms next year, “In a short word: yes. In the longer words, very. Okay. And I think what may happen, he's going to see the writing on the wall in Virginia. This is what I think is going to happen, and New Jersey also. And he's going to see retirements, and people are going to start coming in and saying, ‘Since, you know, we're getting ready to lose, I got to change and I got to get some distance,’ and he's going to see all that coming, and I don't put anything past him. Nothing. To try to call the election off. To do anything you can—I—and he can think of things like that that, you know, we can't because we're not accustomed to thinking like that.”  He added, “We always assume there's going to be an election… This is a whole new thing, but the person that wrote in on this is—you know people come to me all the time and say, ‘James, I'm really scared.’ I say, ‘You should. You have every reason to be scared.’ Don't kid yourself.” Acosta agreed, “This is scary shit,” to which Carville reiterated, “Yeah, right, it’s scary. Yeah, really scary.” If there is one thing Jim Acosta’s podcast has proved, it is that his disgust at election-related conspiracy theories only goes one way. Here is a transcript for the July 1 show: The Jim Acosta Show 7/1/2025 23 Minutes, 19 Seconds JIM ACOSTA: One other thing, there was a question we just popped up from one of our viewers, and they want to know: do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms? Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country? I mean, with what they're trying to pull these days, they don't want accountability. They don't want Democrats getting the gavels in the House and the Senate, be able to hold hearings, and start impeachment proceedings, and so on. I mean, you worry about that, James? We never had to worry about that? JAMES CARVILLE: In a short word: yes. In the longer words, very. Okay. And I think what may happen, he's going to see the writing on the wall in Virginia. This is what I think is going to happen, and New Jersey also. And he's going to see retirements, and people are going to start coming in and saying, “Since, you know, we're getting ready to lose, I got to change and I got to get some distance,” and he's going to see all that coming, and I don't put anything past him. Nothing. To try to call the election off. To do anything you can— I—and he can think of things like that that, you know, we can't because we're not accustomed to thinking like that. We always assume there's going to be an election. In your case “How do I cover the election.” My case “How do I affect the election” and we don't think about it. This is a whole new thing, but the person that wrote in on this is—you know people come to me all the time and say, “James, I'm really scared.” I say, “You should. You have every reason to be scared.” Don't kid yourself. ACOSTA: This is scary shit. CARVILLE: Yeah, right, it’s scary. Yeah, really scary. July 2nd, 2025 1:43 PM Alex Christy 289687 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/07/02/nbc-reporter-frets-about-injuries-alligator-alcatraz-detainees On Wednesday's Morning Joe, they fretted over President Trump's stop in Florida to see the new "Alligator Alcatraz" detention center for illegal aliens. NBC homeland security correspondent Julia Ainsley said this "was a joke" in Trump's first term, but now it could cause "injuries" to escapees. "It's clearly intentionally being put there really as a symbolic form of deterrence," she said, "but possibly a real one too, if there were really injuries to people." Pro Tip for detainees not wanting to become lunch for a hungry alligator or python: don't add to your crimes by attempting to escape. Ainsley began by citing as her source for the "joke" comment a 2019 book by two New York Times reporters titled Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration. The publisher describes it this way [emphasis added]: "This administration’s more brazen assaults on immigration. Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear have covered the Trump administration from its earliest days. In Border Wars, they take us inside the White House to document how Stephen Miller and other anti-immigration officials blocked asylum-seekers and refugees, separated families, threatened deportation, and sought to erode the longstanding bipartisan consensus that immigration and immigrants make positive contributions to America." Guess who isn't part of that "bipartisan consensus?" The tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump in large part because of his pledge to curtail illegal immigration.     Ainsley also claimed that with Alligator Alcatraz, the Trump administration is "deviating" from the notion that ICE detention is not meant to be punitive.  Katty Kay lamented: "We're in a world where what's supposed to be was kind of jettisoned." Katty, take solace in Kamala's deep thought: "What Can Be, Unburdened By What Has Been."   Ainsley didn't indicate just how she would like illegal immigrants to be housed. Judging by her surroundings during her appearance, Julia has a lovely home. Perhaps she and other concerned citizens would accept a stipend to house and feed detainees. Ainsley also dismissed Trump's visit to Alligator Alcatraz as "just a publicity moment." To his credit, Willie Geist corrected her, saying: "Right now there are 500 beds at so-called Alligator Alcatraz. They plan to expand it to 3,000. So this wasn't just a photo op."  NBC News Senior White House Correspondent Gabe Gutierrez kicked off the coverage with reporting that considerably more balanced than Ainsley's. Notably, he said: "President Trump was elected pledging to deport the record number of migrants who crossed into the U.S. under President Biden." Gutierrez also reported that the facility was built in an [astounding] eight days. It's fair to assume that had she been elected, Kamala Harris wouldn't have attempted anything similar, but if she had, it would have been bogged down for years in environmental reviews and other delaying tactics. On the other hand, Gutierrez claimed that "almost half of those currently in ICE custody have neither been convicted of nor charged with a crime." Note that he might have framed it: "More than half" have been convicted or charged with a crime. And in any case, back in March, our Brad Wilmouth caught Ainsley admitting: "The overwhelming majority of immigrants arrested by ICE since Trump took office have either been convicted of a crime or have pending charges, which contrasts with the liberal media narrative that half are not criminals." Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 7/2/25 6:35 am EDT WILLIE GEIST: President Trump toured Florida's new migrant detention center yesterday, calling it part of a blueprint to speed up the mass deportation efforts of his administration. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez has more.  GABE GUTIERREZ: Deep in the Florida Everglades, President Trump says this massive migrant detention camp, built in just eight days, has an unusual deterrent to prevent any escapes.  PRESIDENT TRUMP: Don't run in a straight line. Run like this [waves hand back and forth.]  GUTIERREZ: He calls it Alligator Alcatraz.  TRUMP: It's meant more is a joke, but the more I thought of it, the more I liked it.  GUTIERREZ: With gators clearly visible outside, NBC News getting a first look inside.  TODD LYONS: The partnership with the state has been great.  GUTIERREZ: Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, telling us the goal is to keep detainees here no longer than two weeks, where they can appear before a judge and be deported from the camp's existing runway.  How would you respond to critics who think that this is not where immigrants should be housed?  LYONS: Well, what I would say is that, obviously, individuals that want to come here to enjoy the American dream should think about returning on their own so they're not in a detained setting, right?  GUTIERREZ: President Trump was elected pledging to deport the record number of migrants who crossed into the U.S. under President Biden.  TRUMP: I ran on the issue of illegals, and we have to get them out.  GUTIERREZ: According to data reviewed by NBC News, almost half of those currently in ICE custody have neither been convicted of nor charged with a crime.  [To Lyons] Is the administration still going after the worst of the worst?  LYONS: We are.  GUTIERREZ: The administration stresses the priority is violent criminals, but anyone who is here illegally is breaking the law.  . . .  JULIA AINSLEY: Well, in the first Trump administration, Willie, this was a joke. In fact, in the book Border Wars by Michael Shear, they write about how Trump wanted a moat around a detention center and he wanted to use the Rio Grande and he wanted alligators to be able to keep people from crossing into Texas.  In this case it's actually a reality. And so it's right, it almost started as a joke, but now it's this deterrent, and it's really a place where these people could be.  And when Gabe walked through there, that was soft-sided facilities. So not brick and mortar buildings. It's clearly intentionally being put there really as a symbolic form of deterrence, but possibly a real one too, if there were really injuries to people.  The other thing I would say about this, Willie, is that ICE is not supposed to be punitive. Immigration detention, is not supposed to be punitive. That is still on their website. That is mandated through court orders. ICE detention is for the purpose of detaining immigrants before they are deported or while their immigration proceedings are still going on. And that is up to the discretion of ICE whether they should detain everyone during that process.  But it is not supposed to be like you were sentenced to time in jail, like what you would have done if you had committed a crime and been sent to a Bureau of Prisons facility. And so they're now deviating from that.  KATTY KAY: Julia, I think we're in a world where what's supposed to be was kind of jettisoned, you know, quite a long time ago on various fronts.  We've seen Kristi Noem in situations like this before, of course, when she went down to El Salvador and had that photo opportunity and that video was made of her down there. What do you make of President Trump touring this facility? What's the message he's trying to get out by being there with her? It seems almost like, you know, she'd had that opportunity. Now he wanted to get in on that opportunity as well.  AINSLEY: That's true. I mean, when Kristi Noem went to El Salvador, it was seen as a way of her trying to show to Trump how tough she was on immigration. That would have been an opportunity that Tom Homan or many others would have liked to have in El Salvador.  And now not only does Kristi Noem not get the spotlight to herself at Alligator Alcatraz, she's sharing it with the president. This is something that I think it was just a publicity moment that would have been hard for the president to pass up. And he wants to go down there and show his willingness to go this far when it comes to this key platform issue for him.  GEIST: And the acting director of ICE, who we saw in Gabe's piece there, has said right now there are 500 beds at so-called Alligator Alcatraz. They plan to expand it to 3,000. So this wasn't just a photo op. This is going to become a place where they rely on to bring people who have come to the country illegally.   July 2nd, 2025 1:16 PM Mark Finkelstein 289679 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/star-parker/2025/07/02/why-arent-democrats-proud-be-american As we prepare to note the 249th anniversary of our country, getting ready for the great celebration next year of America’s 250th, Gallup serves up sobering data. Per polling just released by Gallup, only 58% of Americans now say they are “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be an American. When Gallup first asked this question in 2001, 87% said they were “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be American. Digging deeper, we see that most of this precipitous drop in pride in our country is attributable to those identifying as Democrats. In 2001, 90% of Republicans said they were “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be an American. In 2025, 92% of Republicans say they are “extremely proud” or very “proud.” In 2001, 87% of Democrats said they were either “extremely” or “very” proud. But in 2025, only 36% of Democrats say they are “extremely” or “very” proud of their country. Worth noting is that over the last 25 years, the Republican percentage saying they are “extremely” or “very” proud barely moved. Republican pride in the country stayed strong regardless of the party in power, never ever dropping below 84%. However, Democrat pride moved with the party in power. During Democrat administrations, Democrat pride in the country increased. During Republican administrations, it dropped. What this tells me is that Republicans see the country in terms of its principles. Democrats see everything through the lens of politics. Let’s look at one issue that is about principles -- abortion. Abortion is an issue that touches our core values. It’s like the issue of slavery that once so deeply divided the country. How abortion is viewed, like how slavery was viewed, speaks to how we see and value human life. Abortion is also an issue in which the country is deeply divided along partisan lines. Among Republicans, 77% identify as pro-life and 16% as pro-choice. Among Democrats, 83% identify as pro-choice and 12% pro-life. Regarding the question of the morality of abortion, 23% of Republicans/lean-Republicans view abortion as “morally acceptable,” and 64% view it as “morally wrong.” Among Democrats/lean-Democrats, 78% view abortion as “morally acceptable” and 15% view it as “morally wrong.” Among those attending church weekly, 18% see abortion as “morally acceptable” and 71% as “morally wrong.” Of those whose church attendance is seldom/never, 65% see abortion as “morally acceptable” and 25% as “morally wrong.” Per a Gallup survey from 2021 to 2023, among Americans who say they have no religion, 63% are Democrats and 26% are Republicans. So, again, Republicans are about principles, and Democrats are about politics. Whether we’re talking about pride in our country, appreciating the sanctity of life, or adherence to the eternal principles of faith, Republicans and Democrats are opposites. As Democrats lick their wounds and soul-search about their defeat in 2024, we see aggressive young Democrats wanting to push their party even further left. Listen to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the young socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is now the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City. There is a reason why the ultrasound became such an effective tool in dissuading women from thinking about abortion. When the mother sees the mystery and miracle of life inside of her, she is struck by awe and humility and takes responsibility for the gift of life given to her. Socialism is the opposite. It is what the great Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek called the Fatal Conceit. Man stepping up to play God. In 1965, 70% of the country said “religion is very important” in their life. By 2023, this was down to 45%. In 1965, federal spending consumed 16% of our GDP. By 2023, it was up to 22%. Less God, more government. As we move to America’s 250th anniversary, let’s pray for a great national awakening, restoring the awe of life and personal responsibility that are the hallmarks of a free nation under God. Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Her recent book, “What Is the CURE for America?” is available now.  July 2nd, 2025 12:19 PM Star Parker 289685 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/07/02/o-say-can-you-sneer-gemini-lights-july-4-anti-american Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot Gemini has, for the second consecutive year, displayed anti-American sentiments. Once again, the Google AI chatbot sparked controversy surrounding America’s Independence Day by providing disturbing answers to questions about the nation's history. Gemini’s answers stemmed from MRC Free Speech America’s prompts about the nation’s founding, demonstrating leftist bias within the AI’s systems just weeks before the United States’ 249th anniversary and days before President Donald Trump officially launches his “Task Force 250.” This year-long initiative aims to celebrate the historic 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.  Recent polling has revealed that the highest number of voters in years take pride in being American. However, it seems Google did not get the memo. “Somebody should inform Google: being American is cool again,” said MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider in response to this study’s findings. This comment references a 2025 national survey conducted by Fox News, which found that 58 percent of Americans are proud of their country—an increase of 13 percentage points from 2024. This is also the highest level of pride recorded since 2011, when a record 69 percent expressed pride in being American. Gemini was indifferent to historic festivities and the new polling. Instead, it spread the following claims about America’s founding. [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] July 2nd, 2025 10:22 AM Luis Cornelio 289682 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/02/not-untouchable-holding-liberal-media-accountable-through Since 2016, the ends had justified the means in the liberal media’s total war against President Trump as they flaunted their false moral superiority as the sole defenders of democracy and the world. Drunk on their delusions of grandeur and thinking they were protected from defamation claims by New York Times v Sullivan, the liberal media would viciously lash out against anyone they wished with lies and falsehoods, quickly including private citizens. But by 2025, it was clear they had gone too far as they were repeatedly being held accountable by the legal system they thought they were safe from. For decades, the conventional wisdom was that the bar to prove defamation or even to get the ball rolling on a case against the media was just too much to surmount. But now there have been numerous cases of private citizens like student Nicholas Sandmann, Navy veteran Zachary Young, the family of 9-year-old child Holden Armenta (trial pending), and Dr. Mahendra Amin (who settled with MSNBC) taking bite after bite out of the liberal media. Then there was the settlement between ABC News and Trump. CBS's parent company Paramount settled their own non-defamation-related case to the tune of $16 million upfront with it possibly reaching upwards of $30 million. The CBS settlement also reportedly resulted in an editorial change at the network in which they will promptly release full and unedited transcripts of future interviews with presidential candidates. Sandmann seemed to be the beginning of the dam breaking apart. After far-left radical protestors assailed Sandmann and his Covington classmates in front of the Lincoln Memorial after the annual March for Life rally in Washington D.C. in 2019, multiple news outlets targeted the child and smeared him as a racist and lied about him not allowing those assailing him to retreat. In a flurry of defamation suits, Sandmann sought damages from The Washington Post, CNN, and NBCUniversal to the combined tune of $800 million dollars. Each one of those purported news outlets settled out of court for a confidential amount of money. Arguably the most substantial result in these efforts to hold the liberal media to account came from Young. After rejecting a settlement offer in September 2024 that would keep the case from going to trial, Young rode the case out through the trial proceeding and came out victorious and vindicated on the other side. CNN was order to pay a combined $5 million in compensatory damages with an undisclosed amount for punitive damages. Importantly, a jury of CNN’s peers had not only found that CNN had lied about Young but that they also did so with “actual” and “expressed” malice, as evident in their internal messages. Young’s lead counsel Vel Freedman told NewsBusters of the historic nature of the case: In part of my closing argument, I said that this is a historic case, this is an opportunity to send a message. And I think - I hope that is the message taken. That, you know, just step back from sensationalized media, report the truth. We want to hear the truth, we want to hear the facts from our media. If you do that, the First Amendment protects you from these sort of results. Young has since launched defamation suits against Puck News, The Associated Press, and U.S. News and World Report. Like the Eye of Sauron, even young children weren’t safe from the liberal media’s baleful gaze. In a now-deleted 2023 article on Deadspin, senior writer Carron J. Phillips targeted a little boy at a Kansas City Chiefs game to falsely claim he was racist for wearing black and red face paint (after first falsely claiming he was only wearing blackface). Later that year, the family retained counsel and threatened to sue; and in October of 2024, a judge refused Deadspin’s request to dismiss the case. Dr. Amin’s case was set to go to trial in April before the parties settled for an undisclosed amount of money. He sued MSNBC for $30 million for defamatory accusation that he was doing medically unnecessary hysterectomies to sterilize illegal immigrant women on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and dubbing him “the uterus collector.” Meanwhile, internal communications inside the network showed skepticism of the claims from the hosts who eventually ran with the story anyway. Getting by far the most media attention was the $16 million settlement between ABC and Trump, with $15 million of that going towards a future presidential library and $1 million for Trump’s legal fees. Anchor George Stephanopoulos had lied about Trump being found liable for “rape.” ABC refused to report on their settlement, and so did CBS News which settled their own $16 million suit filed by Trump, who was alleging “deceptive conduct” regarding their election-time 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. CBS did report on their settlement. Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sent a letter to CBS demanding the transcript of the interview, which CBS was reportedly complying with. The New York Times also reported that, “Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, strongly supports the company’s effort to settle the lawsuit, the people said.” MSNBC, then embroiled in their own defamation suit, had the nerve to whine about the “chilling effect” the ABC settlement would have on the media. What about the chilling effect from the liberal media’s defamatory statements against average American citizen who might find themselves in their crosshairs? ‘Don’t support Trump or do anything we think is against our morals, otherwise we’ll ruin you!’ Trump was also in the middle of a defamation suit against the Pulitzer Prize Board for their praise of the Washington Post and New York Times coverage of the Russia Collusion Hoax. Jury trials might be the best places to hold liberal media accountable for that kind of attitude with reporting. Judging by the brutal jury questions posed to CNN journalists and editors during the Young trial, the American people were tired of how the liberal media conducts themselves: “‘A chance to make your case to keep your name out of it’ sounds akin to ‘guilty until proven innocent,’ can you clarify how your approach is really the opposite, ‘innocent until proven guilty?’” and “Why, after several examples of Mr. Young cut off communication with people without [corporate] funds, did you still feel as if he was still exploiting Afghans?” The future seems bright for media accountability. July 2nd, 2025 10:19 AM Nicholas Fondacaro 287791 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/02/reid-loses-it-claims-desantis-building-concentration-camp-brown Former MSNBC host and inflammatory hot take peddler Joy Reid wasn’t very joyful on her Saturday podcast. As Reid tells it, the new ICE detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” will be a “concentration camp” for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to put unwanted “brown people” in because “This is like being in Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.” Reid huffed that, “We tried to forget about him, but Ron DeSantis is still governor of Florida. He took the Comfy Couch hosts on a tour of the concentration camp that he's building in Florida in order to round up people, brown people, and throw them in a camp because he doesn't want them in Florida. Surprise, surprise, the economy of Florida is gonna be severely harmed by rounding up brown people who, by the way, all over this country, Latinos are afraid to go to work.”     Claiming to know what goes on in the mind of every Latino, Reid continued, “Anybody who is perceived or looks Latino is afraid to go to work. I know people who are not Latino, but they're brown, and so they look Latino to the naked eye if you don't know any better, who are walking around with their passports. Who never leave home without a passport because this is a question I want to ask the audience. How would you prove you're a citizen?” She then claimed, “Even if you're not actually taken into custody, imagine being a brown person in this country right now where you can't even walk the streets without fear of being tackled by random people with masks on. That's who we are now. This is like being in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.” Reid then listed several Republican politicians and suggested that they have benefited from the understanding of birthright citizenship that President Trump now seeks to change, “I want to note for you guys just for a moment, Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz, that's real name: Rafael, he goes by Ted. Rafael Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His father, Rafael Senior, is from Cuba. He was born in Cuba. He's a naturalized citizen. His mother is from Delaware. She's a white American woman. When Ted Cruz was running for president, far-right people said maybe he can't be president because they don't, they're not sure how much of an American he is.” She also cited, “Marco Rubio's parents were both born in Cuba. They came to this country. He used to try to claim that they came to escape Fidel Castro. That's not actually true. They came during the Batista era, and they came to this country, and he was born here, so he is an American citizen by birthright citizenship. That's literally why he's a birthright citizen.” Also on her list was, “John McCain was born to American parents on a US military base abroad. He's a citizen by virtue of the same system of birthright citizenship. He's an American because he's an American.” Finally, Reid wondered “Are Elon Musk's kids’ citizens? Is X a citizen? Because his mother, whose name—goes by Grimes, the singer, she's Canadian. And Elon's a naturalized citizen. If Trump gets mad at him again, what he wants for himself is the ability to just say, 'You're not a citizen anymore,' and delist him as a citizen and send him back to South Africa.” Cruz, McCain, and Musk’s kids having an American parent would mean they would be unaffected by any changes in the interpretation of the 14th Amendment. As for Rubio, even others who have accused him of embellishing his family story have conceded his parents were lawful permanent residents. Trump’s executive order explicitly says that children of lawful permanent residents are still entitled to citizenship. Here is a transcript for the June 28 show: The Joy Reid Show 6/28/2025 30 Minutes, 40 Seconds JOY REID: And I will note that, you know, we tried to forget about him, but Ron DeSantis is still governor of Florida. He took the Comfy Couch hosts on a tour of the concentration camp that he's building in Florida in order to round up people, brown people, and throw them in a camp because he doesn't want them in Florida. Surprise, surprise, the economy of Florida is gonna be severely harmed by rounding up brown people who, by the way, all over this country, Latinos are afraid to go to work. Anybody who is perceived or looks Latino is afraid to go to work. I know people who are not Latino, but they're brown, and so they look Latino to the naked eye if you don't know any better, who are walking around with their passports. Who never leave home without a passport because this is a question I want to ask the audience. How would you prove you're a citizen? If ICE came up to you and dragged you off, how would you prove it? I mean, do you have any proof that you're a citizen? There have been even cases where people show their REAL ID, their REAL ID with a little star on it, and that still wasn't believed. They've still been rousted, they've still been harassed. And even if you're not actually taken into custody, imagine being a brown person in this country right now where you can't even walk the streets without fear of being tackled by random people with masks on. That's who we are now. This is like being in apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. I want to note for you guys just for a moment, Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz, that's real name: Rafael, he goes by Ted. Rafael Cruz was born in 1970 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His father, Rafael Senior, is from Cuba. He was born in Cuba. He's a naturalized citizen. His mother is from Delaware. She's a white American woman. When Ted Cruz was running for president, far-right people said maybe he can't be president because they don't, they're not sure how much of an American he is. Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio's parents were both born in Cuba. They came to this country. He used to try to claim that they came to escape Fidel Castro. That's not actually true. They came during the Batista era, and they came to this country, and he was born here, so he is an American citizen by birthright citizenship. That's literally why he's a birthright citizen.  I mentioned John McCain. John McCain was born to American parents on a US military base abroad. He's a citizen by virtue of the same system of birthright citizenship. He's an American because he's an American. I wonder if, I don't know, the next time Donald Trump has a beef with Elon Musk, are Elon Musk's kids’ citizens? Is X a citizen? Because his mother, whose name—goes by Grimes, the singer, she's Canadian. And Elon's a naturalized citizen. If Trump gets mad at him again, what he wants for himself is the ability to just say, “You're not a citizen anymore,” and delist him as a citizen and send him back to South Africa. By the way, they don’t want him. July 2nd, 2025 9:40 AM Alex Christy 289680 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/02/column-bill-moyers-face-taxpayer-funded-propaganda Liberal journalists dumped a barrel of glorifying adjectives upon the news Bill Moyers died at age 91. The Washington Post headline was “Bill Moyers, eminence of public affairs broadcasting, dies at 91.” AP’s Frazier Moore gushed “the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas.” Some also used “legendary.” CNN’s Brian Stelter oozed: “His career can and should serve as a model for younger generations.” Ugh. NPR anchor Scott Simon hailed Moyers as “one of the signature figures, along with Big Bird and Susan Stamberg, who helped build public broadcasting in the United States.” Simon added: “He won the most prestigious awards of our profession, some in bunches -- more than 30 Emmys, 11 Peabodys, two Columbia-duPonts, plus many other honors for his PBS documentaries and interviews.” Bill Moyers was acclaimed by other leftists because he was a die-hard leftist. Objectivity was never observed. He crusaded on the public dime against those villainous conservatives. He won Emmy awards just like the latest prizes to 60 Minutes – for hating Trump and laboring to elect Kamala Harris. They award having your “heart in the right place.” Moyers was the “signature figure” of everything wrong with “public” broadcasting. He savaged conservatives and also lined his own pockets with revenues of his programs being sold on PBS Home Video. He used his PBS fame to sell expensive coffee-table books, just as Ken Burns does today. But the notable quotes were outrageous. In 1987, Moyers oozed over paintings glorifying the Marxist revolutionaries dominating Nicaragua: "The white dove of freedom soars with the Sandinista revolution, whose heroes included Jesus Christ, George Washington and the nationalist hero Augusto Sandino." After the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, Moyers blamed conservative talk radio on NBC: “Talk radio in that part of the world is more anti-government today than ever. The airwaves are saturated with hostility. It’s just an unremitting vilification of government.” On his PBS show Now in 2003, Bill Moyers ripped Republicans who wore flag pins, which was somehow reminiscent of communism: "When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's Little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread." Later that year, Moyers came unglued over a press conference with President Bush before the invasion of Iraq that was insufficiently vicious: “Matt Taibbi wrote in The New York Press at the time that it was like a mini-Alamo for American journalism. I’d say it was more a collective Jonestown-like suicide. At least the defenders of the Alamo put up a fight.” In 2007, Moyers compared Bush-Cheney to an “arsonist” and a “burglar in the basement.” He suggested the press was in cahoots with the “arsonist.”   In 2011, Moyers ranted that Republicans want "to feed red meat to Fox News and the partisan talk radio hosts who have turned the public airwaves…into a right-wing romper room." He quoted from yellow-dog Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, that "My constituents turn to [NPR] because they want fact-based, not Fox-based coverage." The attacks, he continued, are "an ideological crusade against balanced news and educational programs."  NPR is balanced and non-ideological? How delusional can you be? But to Moyers, a crusading leftist press was the model, and a mildly liberal media were basically in cahoots with evil Republicans. This is why he’s “acclaimed” by people who still pretend their ideological screeds are “fact-based.” Their opinions aren’t opinions, they’re “truth,” and that “truth” should be eternally supported by all taxpayers. July 2nd, 2025 6:00 AM Tim Graham 289678 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/02/lazy-legacy-newscasts-mostly-rehash-big-beautiful-bill-bashing With the tax and spending bill known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” passing the Senate, it appears that the legacy media’s evening newscasts mostly chose to offer up a rehash of their coverage ahead of the Senate vote. Critical in spots and argumentative in others, and in stark contrast with coverage garnered by big legislation secured for the Biden administration. The stark departure from this norm was on NBC Nightly News, which actually labeled the vote outcome as both “a big victory” and “major triumph” for President Donald Trump. WATCH: TOM LLAMAS: Now to Washington, and that big victory for President Trump. His massive budget bill narrowly passing the Senate, but tonight, there's still a divide among Republicans. Ryan Nobles is tracking it all for us. NOBLES: Tonight, the dramatic moment: Vice President Vance breaking a tie vote. JD VANCE: The vice president votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. NOBLES: In a major win for President Trump, the Senate narrowly passing what he calls his big beautiful bill. Which extends the Trump tax cuts, increases border security, and eliminates taxes on tips and overtime. Effusive language post-legislative wins seems to be the norm during Democratic administrations, which makes NBC’s framing all the more jarring. The rest of the item followed the previous day’s coverage, focusing on Republican opposition to the bill. CBS also followed the previous day’s coverage, spotlighting a potential victim of the so-called Medicaid cuts (which are actually illegal aliens and able-bodied individuals who can work but won’t). In an interesting twist, the showcase is the grandmother of a West Virginia GOP state senator. That’s pretty granular and not something produced spontaneously. Over at ABC the rage is the same, the saltiness is the same, and the set piece used in framing OBBB as something from the Apocalypse is the same. “Tax cuts for the wealthy”, and “Medicaid Cuts”. DAVID MUIR: We turn now to the breaking news from Washington tonight. President Trump's spending and tax cut bill passing in the Senate. It was very close. Vice president JD Vance with the tie breaking vote. The bill includes major cuts to Medicaid. It includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, and estimated to add $3.3 trillion to the debt over ten years. So, what does it now face in the House? Here's Mary Bruce. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, President Trump's sweeping bill slashing taxes for the wealthy and boosting spending for immigration enforcement squeaking through the Senate with a tie from breaking vote from the vice president. JD VANCE: On this vote, the yays are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being evenly divided, the Vice President votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. BRUCE: The bill features roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest Americans. JOHN THUNE: That will spur economic growth and more jobs and opportunities for American workers. BRUCE: It also fulfills the president's campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime. And it includes deep cuts to Medicaid, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says will cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade. David Muir and Mary Bruce, no surprise, ran the most adversarial item on passage of the OBBB. One can only imagine what that outrage will look like upon final passage. Click “expand” to view full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective network evening newscasts.  ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT 7/1/25 6:38 PM DAVID MUIR: We turn now to the breaking news from Washington tonight. President Trump's spending and tax cut bill passing in the Senate. It was very close. Vice president JD Vance with the tie breaking vote. The bill includes major cuts to Medicaid. It includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, and estimated to add $3.3 trillion to the debt over ten years. So, what does it now face in the House? Here's Mary Bruce. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, President Trump's sweeping bill slashing taxes for the wealthy and boosting spending for immigration enforcement squeaking through the Senate with a tie from breaking vote from the vice president. JD VANCE: On this vote, the yays are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being evenly divided, the Vice President votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. BRUCE: The bill features roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts, mostly for the wealthiest Americans. JOHN THUNE: That will spur economic growth and more jobs and opportunities for American workers. BRUCE: It also fulfills the president's campaign promise to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime. And it includes deep cuts to Medicaid, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says will cause 11.8 million Americans to lose their health insurance over the next decade. CHUCK SCHUMER: The American people will not forget the betrayal -- the betrayal that took place today. BRUCE: Three Republican senators voting no, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska delivering the deciding yes vote, after negotiating an Alaska exception for some cuts to food stamps. She called her decision “agonizing”. RYAN NOBLES: Senator Paul said your vote was a bailout for Alaska, at the expense of the rest of the country. That's what Senator Paul said. I didn't say it, ma'am. BRUCE: After a long pause -- LISA MURKOWSKI: Do I like this bill? No. I try to take care of Alaska's interests, but I know -- I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that. BRUCE: But in Florida, where he was touring a new detention facility for undocumented immigrants, President Trump thrilled. BENNY JOHNSON: The big, beautiful bill just passed -- DONALD TRUMP: Oh, thank you. Wow. Thank you. BRUCE: Trump has repeatedly pledged he would not cut Medicaid. He now insists the cuts in the bill only target waste, fraud, and abuse. Are you saying that the estimated 11.8 million people who could lose their health coverage, that is all waste, fraud, and abuse? TRUMP: I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's going to be a very much smaller number than that, and that number will be waste, fraud, and abuse. BRUCE: What analysis are you seeing? TRUMP: I'm not seeing a number, but I know it's much less than the number you gave. BRUCE: And David, the president is also lashing out at Elon Musk, who criticized the bill, which would eliminate the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. The today, the president threatening to go after musk using the very agency musk himself created, saying perhaps it's time for doge to take a hard look at his government contracts. As for the future of the bill, tonight, it is now in the hands of the House, where it is already facing resistance from some Republicans. David. MUIR: All right. Mary Bruce, I know you’ll be watching it for us. Thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS 7/1/25 6:34:00 JOHN DICKERSON:. The Republican-controlled Senate today passed the president's massive tax cut and spending bill. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the plan would add $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit over the next ten years. Because spending outpaces tax revenue, the government will have to borrow, and future generations will have to repay with interest. $3 trillion is a big number, so here is one way to think about it. There are about 97 million cars in America. If you wanted to buy every single one of those cars, you could do it with $3.3 trillion, and you would have a $400 billion left over for maintenance. In more practical terms, $3.3 trillion divided equally amounts to $25,000 for every Household in America. Some of the biggest cuts and the president's bill will affect Medicaid. The joint federal state program covers care for about six in ten nursing home residents. Reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns has that story. CAITLIN HUEY-BURNS: Jason Barrett visits his 94-year-old grandmother, Ruth Raney, at the Martinsburg HealthCare center in West Virginia as often as he can. What does she mean to you? JASON BARRETT: She means everything. HUEY-BURNS: Medicaid will soon be covering the cost of Raney’s care, putting her among the 77% of West Virginia nursing home residents who rely on it. Nationwide, that number is 63%. But that funding could be cut by roughly $1 trillion by the massive spending bill now in Congress. The concern is, those cuts could lead to reduced staffing and tightened eligibility requirements and long-term care facilities nationwide. The House version of the bill would require states to fill the funding gaps and some may come up short. HUEY-BURNS: If there are changes or cuts to Medicaid, are you concerned about your ability to operate? NANCY MASON: I would be. HUEY-BURNS: Nancy Mason runs the nursing home where Ruth Raney lives. MASON: It helps to meet our operational expenses: everything from pharmaceuticals to food to utilities, to recruitment of staff, you know, all of our wages. HUEY-BURNS: Essentially everything that helps keep this place running and serving the residents here relies on that funding. MASON: A large portion of it, yes. BARRETT: We have to get to a place where we are balancing our budget again. I don't think we do that on the backs of our nursing home residents. HUEY-BURNS: Barrett isn't just a concerned grandson. He is also a Republican West Virginia state senator. If the federal government changes the way that they contribute to the Medicaid program essentially, do you think West Virginia can pick up the gaps? BARRETT: Pick up those gaps entirely? No, I don't believe so. A complete backfill of cuts to Medicaid would be very crippling to our state budget. HUEY-BURNS: Now, the bill's passage in the Senate today is really just one hurdle. Now the hard work begins. Before it can even get to the president's desk, at first has to go through the House, and some key Republicans over there say that they are opposed to it at this point, with a vote expected tomorrow. John. DICKERSON: Caitlin Huey-Burns on Capitol Hill, Thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 7/1/25 6:38 PM TOM LLAMAS: Now to Washington, and that big victory for President Trump. His massive budget bill narrowly passing the Senate, but tonight, there's still a divide among Republicans. Ryan Nobles is tracking it all for us. NOBLES: Tonight, the dramatic moment: Vice President Vance breaking a tie vote. JD VANCE: The vice president votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. NOBLES: In a major win for President Trump, the Senate narrowly passing what he calls his big beautiful bill. Which extends the Trump tax cuts, increases border security, and eliminates taxes on tips and overtime. MARKWAYNE MULLIN: As President Trump would say: promises made, promises kept. NOBLES: But three Republicans and every Democrat voting no. CHUCK SCHUMER: Republicans passed the biggest tax breaks for billionaires ever seen. NOBLES: Ultimately, it came down to Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who negotiated a special carve-out for Alaska to soften the blow of the changes to Medicaid, drawing the ire of Kentucky's Rand Paul who voted no. RAND PAUL: They chose to add more pork and subsidies for Alaska to secure that. NOBLES: We pressed Murkowski.  Senator Paul said this was, that your vote was a bail-out for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country. LISA MURKOWSKI: Oh, my… NOBLES: That's what Senator Paul said. Just asking for your response. MURKOWSKI: My response is I have an obligation to the people of the state of Alaska. And I live up to that every single day. NOBLES: Now, the bill goes back to the House. President Trump optimistic. TRUMP: Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate. NOBLES: And responding to new criticism of the bill from Elon Musk, who says it's full of, quote, “insane spending”. The president posting, “without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa.” TRUMP: DOGE is going to look at Musk, and if DOGE looks at Musk, we're going to save a fortune. NOBLES: While Speaker Johnson insisting he can get the bill through the House again, despite a razor thin Republican majority. JOHNSON: A lot of work ahead, but that's the job. So we'll get it done. LLAMAS: Ryan joins us now live from Capitol Hill. And Ryan, we saw that moment in your piece with Senator Murkowski. And now you have new reporting about a Republican divide in the House? NOBLES: Yeah, that's right, Tom. House conservatives have said they are unhappy with the changes that the Senate made to this bill. But GOP leaders are confident that with President Trump's help, they will get the votes they need to get this bill passed by Friday. Tom. LLAMAS: Ryan Nobles for us.   July 2nd, 2025 1:53 AM Jorge Bonilla 289677 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/02/breaking-paramount-settles-trump-resolves-60-minutes-lawsuit In a late-breaking development, Paramount Global and CBS entered into an agreement with President Donald Trump to resolve his ongoing lawsuit against the former Tiffany Network. Trump has originally sought $20 billion, but the agreed-upon terms fall in line with the earlier resolution of his lawsuit against ABC. Per Fox News: Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network.  Trump will receive $16 million upfront. This will cover legal fees, costs of the case, and contributions to his library or charitable causes, to be determined at Trump’s discretion. There is an expectation that there will be another allocation in the mid-eight figures set aside for advertisements, public service announcements, or other similar transmissions, in support of conservative causes by the network, Fox News Digital has learned. Sources close to the situation told Fox News Digital that CBS has agreed to update its editorial standards to install a mandatory new rule. Going forward, the network will promptly release full, unedited transcripts of future presidential candidates’ interviews. People involved in the settlement talks have referred to this as the "Trump Rule."  The settlement of the lawsuit clears the way for the sale of Paramount Global to Skydance Media, who will then have to decide what to do with the beleaguered CBS News. The most interesting development here will be CBS’s adoption of the Trump Rule, wherein full, unedited interview transcripts will be immediately released upon conclusion of an interview with a presidential candidate. The Acela Media will surely whine about the settlement and Trump Rule, and call it some form or other of a capitulation before authoritarianism, or preventive obedience or whatever else they might want to make up. But it is important to remember what led to the suit being filed in the first place. CBS's new ownership has an opportunity to assess a number of things related to how they cover presidental candidates going forward. This is a developing story. We will provide more updates as they become available.     July 2nd, 2025 12:55 AM Jorge Bonilla 289676 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/01/cbs-evening-news-warns-if-you-look-immigrant-youre-suspect On Monday, CBS Evening News highlighted a report on immigration in California that’s sole purpose was to generate fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement not just in illegal immigrants, but in all Hispanic-Americans. Correspondent Adam Yamaguchi, highlighting the unwarranted fear that some citizens were feeling that they could be deported, tried his best to reaffirm those fears by pointing to a California mayor who carries his passport with him. He spoke with Pasadena, California Mayor Victor Gordo, who expressed his concerns that he, a legal U.S. citizen, might be deported: There’s a very real, palpable sense of fear. If they look like an immigrant, then they`re suspect. What was the probable cause there, other than they had brown skin? It`s racial profiling. It's borderline stalking and hunting. Yamaguchi also emphasized that Gordo did not go anywhere without his passport in case he was racially profiled. Conspicuously absent from the focus on Gordo was his party affiliation, which was Democratic, a key fact for the audience to realize his passport shtick was all performative. Of course, there were extremely few cases in which a U.S. citizen had been mistakenly detained or deported. Of those arrests of U.S. citizens, the majority were for impeding or assaulting officers as they were making other arrests. Their concern was not on the appearance of the people who obstructed justice, but rather on the crime they were committing. This idea of ICE agents arresting based solely on race was not founded. But both Gordo and Martin Chairez, a Santa Ana minister interviewed by Yamaguchi, hammered home on it. When asked by Yamaguchi if he was afraid, Chairez responded, “Yes. I mean, I`m going to be racially profiled. It's going to happen.” As Chairez and Gordo expressed their concerns, Yamaguchi himself gave a one-sided recounting of the story. CBS’s segment never once used the phrase “illegal immigrant,” making the point to instead refer to such people as “undocumented.” Now couple that with Gordo’s passport theatrics and it becomes more apparent how they were stoking fear.     His colorful language always placed ICE in a negative light and elevated the illegal immigrants who had been detained. Yamaguchi reported: This is a site where six undocumented day laborers were helping with wildfire recovery efforts, waiting for the bus to take them to work, when they were snatched up by armed, masked agents and essentially disappeared. Disappeared, their families say, because they often don't know where they're being detained. As important as wildfire recovery work was, that did not just excuse the fact that they were in the country illegally. ICE agents, on the other hand, were seemingly made out to be the villains for wearing masks and carrying weapons, something the agency had expressly stated as being necessary for agents’ safety considering frequent attempts to dox them. Even the idea of immigrants “disappearing” was inaccurate considering ICE agents had no obligation to give that information unless properly requested. As much as CBS and other news sources would like to make ICE’s operations seem racially motivated, there was evidence to support that idea. In reality, it’s very clear that isn’t the case since, on the rare event of ICE agents arresting someone mistakenly, the person was allowed to leave without any incident. For law-abiding citizens, there was nothing to fear from ICE. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. CBS Evening News June 30, 2025 6:45:31 p.m. Eastern JOHN DICKERSON: President Trump is heading to Florida tomorrow for the opening of a detention center for undocumented immigrants. It’s  the Everglades, and state officials are calling it Alligator Alcatraz. This is part of the president`s immigration crackdown, and Adam Yamaguchi reports the threat of arrest is creating fear in immigrant communities in Southern California. (Cuts to video) MAN #1: Hey, leave him alone, bro. ADAM YAMAGUCHI (voiceover): Each new arrest brings the plea of a son. MAN #2: That wasn't correct and that was not just. YAMAGUCHI: A daughter. WOMAN #1: I just want my dad to come home safe. YAMAGUCHI: Or neighbor. WOMAN #2: What you’re doing is kidnapping. WOMAN #3: People are being ripped away from their law-abiding lives. YAMAGUCHI: Social media has documented ICE agents as they haul people away. Some of the raids across Southern California have targeted car washes, shopping centers and parks, including here in Pasadena, where Victor Gordo is mayor. VICTOR GORDO (Mayor of Pasadena, CA): There’s a very real, palpable sense of fear. If they look like an immigrant, then they`re suspect. YAMAGUCHI: There’s this heaviness and emptiness in the streets here, and once in a while you can see some signs of what’s been going on. Somebody left candles here.  This is a site where six undocumented day laborers were helping with wildfire recovery efforts, waiting for the bus to take them to work, when they were snatched up by armed, masked agents and essentially disappeared. Disappeared, their families say, because they often don't know where they're being detained. GORDO: What was the probable cause there, other than they had brown skin? It`s racial profiling. It's borderline stalking and hunting. ADAM YAMAGUCHI: An hour's drive south of Pasadena, in the heavily Latino community of Santa Ana... MARTIN CHAIREZ (Minister): It's no longer a safe place to be for a lot of people. YAMAGUCHI: ... Martin Chairez is a minister who arrived from Mexico at age nine. He`s among those known as Dreamers, people brought into the U.S. as children who hope to get its citizenship. Are you afraid? CHAIREZ: Yes. I mean, I`m going to be racially profiled. It's going to happen. YAMAGUCHI: He tells us, much of his ministry has moved online because people are too scared to go out. CHAIREZ: In our last gathering on Zoom, one of the moms in tears, her main prayer is to be invisible. I mean, that's her prayer every day: "God, make me invisible." GORDO: We have to ask ourselves as a society, is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? YAMAGUCHI: Now Pasadena`s mayor says he won't go anywhere without his U.S. passport. (Cuts to live) DICKERSON: Adam Yamaguchi reporting from Southern California. July 1st, 2025 10:19 PM Lucas Escala 289671 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/01/demonizing-immigrants-latino-producer-digs-trump-morning-joe On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe highlighted season two of John Leguizamo’s MSNBC show Leguizamo Does America, which featured the host exploring Latino culture across major cities in America. It would not be the liberal media if a jab was not made towards President Trump, to which Leguizamo made a comment claiming the Trump administration was “demonizing immigrants,” regarding the arrests and deportations of illegals by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The original show was a six-part series that toured a different city and focuses on Latinos’ way of life, which adds to the melting pot of America’s diversity. Latinos brought a special lifestyle to the country, but the left-wing media used their culture as an outlet to promote the victimhood mentality that Latinos should feel about the arrests and deportations by ICE.    Leguizamo descried how Trump was supposedly singling out Latinos:  And I find a plethora across America and celebrate it because you know, I think part of the problem and the damage that’s been done to our community with this Trump administration of demonizing immigrants. And we see the visuals, all these young moms and children and being harassed by ICE, and I think it's because our history isn't being told. We're the largest ethnic group in America, and we're totally erased.  The liberal media wants to focus on the empathy part of illegal immigration, but denied the truth: illegal immigrants broke the law by entering or staying in the country. By Leguizamo giving a false statement that Latinos are “totally erased” and yet was a producer for a show that celebrates Latino culture in America, was hypocritical.   Leguizamo continued to speak about being “targeted” and voiced:  It can’t help graze Latin culture because the majority of the people that we’re seeing being targeted are Latino people, and they are Latino moms, fathers, and dads. And it’s a disrespect to Latin life. I mean, I’ve talked to a huge swath of Latino organizers, activists, politicians, artists, and corporate leaders and we’re all aghast. We’re all heartbroken by these images and what’s going on-Demonizing people who are innocent, hardworking, the essential workers of America.  It’s not a “disrespect” to Latin life or a singling out of Latinos. It is the law and order of the land that if you’re here illegally, you should be removed. Additionally, it’s factual to note that it’s easier for those living in Latin and South America to travel north and cross into the country illegally. So, it’s reasonable to deduce that Latinos made up the largest democratic of illegal immigrants, thus that’s why they would make up the majority of arrests and deportations.  He also made the ridiculous claim that “The first language spoken in the America was Spanish, not English.” In reality, it was neither. Native Americans were using spoken languages for thousands of years before any Europeans came over.  Leguizamo described the arrests and deportation were “heartbreaking,” but was that the right word choice to describe law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day to protect American communities?  Latinos should be celebrated, but what was frustrating was the left-wing media taking Latinos' ethnicity and twisting it to fit their agenda for disparagement towards the Trump administration for restoring proper security and a strong border to protect the American people.  Click here for the transcripts:  MSNBC’s Morning Joe 7/1/25 7:49 a.m. Eastern (…) WILLIE GEIST: That is award winning actor producer John Leguizamo, back with a new season of his six part MSNBC series Leguizamo Does America. That was a sneak peek. The series highlights Latino culture across the United States. In the second season now, John, takes us on a tour of six new cities celebrating the history, culture, food, and contributions of Latin people shaping America. He calls it a travelog with a sprinkling of politics and joins us now.  John, it's great to see you representing the Mets this morning. Also, of course, an executive producer on the project. Congratulations on season two. Season one was a hit for us here at MSNBC and on Peacock. So it makes sense that you'd come back for more. What are you exploring now in season two to kind of continue what you did in the first one? JOHN LEGUIZAMO: Yeah. Well, you know, MSNBC is the home of my favorite news show, Morning Joe. So- GEIST: You're contractually obligated to say that, John. That's good. LEGUIZAMO: Yeah, just type it. And you know, the first season was such a huge hit, the number one original show on MSNBC. And with this show, I'm going to six more cities and looking for Latin exceptionalism, Latin brilliance, Latin ingenuity. And I find a plethora across America and celebrate it because you know, I think part of the problem and the damage that’s been done to our community with this Trump administration of demonizing immigrants. And we see the visuals, all these young moms and children and being harassed by ICE and I think it's because our history isn't being told.  We're the largest ethnic group in America, and we're totally erased. Johns Hopkins University did a study and found out that 87 percent of Latino contributions into the making of the US are not in history textbooks, and that's criminal. Because then you don't understand that we built the infrastructure of the southwest and the west. The first language spoken in the America was Spanish, not English. And you know, we’ve been coming here, being brought here by the Bracero Program and then in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and we service all the southwest and west, and then we were demonized in the 1930s by the Repatriation Act and the deported 2 million American Latino citizens. And then again with the Wetback Act in the 1950s, they deported a million and a half Latinos. Half of them were American citizens. So we need to celebrate these teachers, activists, politicians, chefs – did I say musicians? And celebrate them in all the cities because we're everywhere. ALY VITALI: John, it's Ali Vitali here in Washington, DC. I know this is a show that you say has a sprinkling of politics in it, but can you talk about the ways against this current backdrop that you just mentioned, that the conversations around politics are coming up in all of these different cities? LEGUIZAMO: Well, absolutely. I mean, it can’t help touch politics. It can’t help graze Latin culture because the majority of the people that we’re seeing being targeted are Latino people, and they are Latino moms, fathers, and dads. And it’s a disrespect to Latin life. I mean, I’ve talked to a huge swath of Latino organizers, activists, politicians, artists, and corporate leaders and we’re all aghast. We’re all heartbroken by these images and what’s going on - demonizing people who are innocent, hardworking, the essential workers of America. So with this show, we go in there and we celebrate because we’ve contributed great things. We contributed $3.8 trillion to the U.S. GDP yearly. If we were our own country, we’d be the fifth largest economy, maybe the fourth in the whole world. Bigger than Brazil, bigger than India, bigger than France, bigger than England, and we feed this country. We serve this country, we build this country, and then we get treated this way?  It’s heartbreaking. So we need to find Latin joy and Latin celebration to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep organizing and fighting back, resisting.  (…) 7:54 a.m. Eastern MIKE BARNICLE: John, the city of brotherly love. It seems to be, we live in a nation now where the idea of brotherly love is sort of missing in action. But I'm wondering from your point of view, you were born in Colombia. What happened when you got to America? Who helped you? What was the help like, and how did you get to where you are today? LEGUIZAMO:  Well, yeah. You know, I came here as an immigrant child. I was three years old to Queens where there was a huge Latin population. And, you know, there was a lot of government programs that helped me get where I am today. Affirmative action was a big help because, you know, geography is the new use – the new the way that racism is applied because you're segregated, you know, put in these certain areas where your educations the worst and your opportunities are nil. And, you know, I worked my culato off. And, you know, I got to NYU, I was at the top of my class. I was always at the top of my class, and here I am, you know, against a Hollywood that's not very welcoming to Latinos. GEIST: Well, we cannot wait to see season two. It kicks off this weekend. Leguizamo Does America premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern Time right here on MSNBC. A follow up to the hit first season host, executive producer and proud Mets fan John Leguizamo. John, congrats on the new season and thanks, as always for joining us.  July 1st, 2025 7:43 PM Shannon Sauders 289667 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/jonah-messinger/2025/07/01/meta-ai-sides-planned-parenthood-following-scotus Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI took the side of Planned Parenthood, ridiculing Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Medicaid benefits. The biased chatbot parroted leftist talking points in stating that the ruling was a “net negative” and claimed that it would be a “setback for reproductive rights,” a euphemism for abortion. MRC researchers asked the recently released stand-alone version of Meta AI, and five additional artificial intelligence chatbots, to explain the impacts of the Court’s ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. The justices ruled 6-3 that Medicaid beneficiaries cannot sue to enforce the “any‑qualified‑provider” provision of the Medicaid Act.  Rather than maintain any semblance of objectivity, Meta AI was the only chatbot to take a strong stance on the negative aspect of the ruling, claiming that “the ruling disproportionately affects vulnerable communities” and creates negative “consequences for reproductive rights.” Meta AI made no effort to produce an answer explaining both the positive and negative aspects of the ruling. Instead, the AI chatbot focused solely on the perceived negative implications of the decision. The AI chatbot blanketly stated that “The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is a net negative.”  Meta AI ignored various positive aspects including fiscal responsibility, decentralization of authority and pro-life protections. The other AI chatbots identified positive aspects of the ruling, including “taxpayer concerns,” “fiscal responsibility” and “legal clarity.” Sharing his thoughts on the decision, MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider noted, “Abortion is always a contentious issue. That’s why pro-life people cannot understand why they are forced to pay for a procedure that they find morally repugnant. The Court ruling supports the idea that taxpayers should not have to pay for someone else’s decision to end the life of an unborn child.” Meta AI’s response to the MRC query reveals even more leftist bias when drilling down further. The chatbot even attempted to argue racial and sex discrimination, claiming that the Court’s decision would “disproportionately affect[] vulnerable communities, including women, Black and Brown people [and] indigenous people … who rely heavily on Medicaid for healthcare access.” It went on to suggest that the ruling would limit access to certain healthcare services such as “reproductive care, cancer screenings, and STI testing.”  What Meta AI calls  “reproductive care,” an obvious euphemism for abortion, accounted for more of Planned Parenthood's services than any other service not labeled a “test,” “kit” or “Reversible Contraception Clients” (STI tests, pregnancy tests, emergency contraception kits, etc.) in the abortion giant’s 2022-2023 Annual Report. Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, while affirmatively stating that the ruling was a net negative, did at least provide both positive and negative aspects of the ruling when asked. Grok claimed the ruling created “tangible harm to low-income patients’ access to care” and “enabl[ed] ideologically driven policies” in its conclusion, but it also provided a positive viewpoint centered around “state autonomy,” “legal clarity” and “anti-abortion policy goals.” Much like Grok, DeepSeek did use leftist spin in providing its positive argumentation. Grok and Deepseek both used the term “anti-abortion” advocacy instead of “pro-life,” the conservative term, which Copilot did utilize in its response. The DeepSeek, Gemini, Copilot and ChatGPT AI chatbots provided responses as to both the positive and negative aspects of the ruling, generally producing fleshed out arguments for each viewpoint. These four AI chatbots did not take a stance on the ruling, instead each deferring to state “autonomy,” “sovereignty” or “authority.”  For context, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood and Medicaid beneficiary Julie Edwards, challenging the executive order signed by governor Henry McMaster that barred Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. Edwards claimed that South Carolina unlawfully barred her from choosing “any [provider] qualified to perform the service” for her medical care, as specified in 42 U.S.C  § 1396a(a)(23)(A). She filed the lawsuit alongside Planned Parenthood South Atlantic under § 1983, a statute permitting citizens to sue when deprived of certain rights. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, clarified that § 1983 fails to clearly establish the provision to attend “any-qualified-provider” as an enforceable individual right. Justice Gorsuch emphasized that § 1396a(a)(23)(A) lacks the “clear and unambiguous rights-creating language,” needed to support “a private suit under §1983.” This decision is consistent with precedent established in Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe (2002) and Talevski (2023), which ruled enforceable rights and the high bar that must be reached to create them. Meta declined to respond to MRC’s request for comment.  Methodology: On the afternoon of Thursday, June 26, 2025, following the announcement of the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which indirectly emboldened pro-life sentiments, MRC researchers prompted six separate artificial intelligence chatbots, including communist Chinese government-tied DeepSeek, Google Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot, Meta AI, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and xAI Grok with the following question: “Do you see the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic as a net positive or a net negative?” MRC researchers then reviewed and analyzed the responses given by the AI chatbots, noting Meta AI’s singular stance of the ruling as a “net negative.” Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable. July 1st, 2025 5:26 PM Jonah Messinger 289674 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/01/whos-missing-cbs-documentary-decrying-oligarchs-omits A CBS News documentary blasted America’s supposed transition to a so-called “Gilded Age” of oligarchs to attack President Trump and the tech leaders who stood with him at his inauguration. As if CBS stood for Channeling Bernie Sanders. The problem: The documentary conveniently excluded any mention about the most notorious left-wing billionaires in U.S. politics that have used their cash to either try to buy elections or drastically overhaul U.S. policy over the years. Coincidence? We think not. The CBS documentary released June 28, “Is America in a New Gilded Age? Wealth, Power and Democracy,” relied mostly on whiny anti-capitalist commentary from radical talking heads like millionaires Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former Clinton stooge Robert Reich to slam American capitalism as the culprit for Trump’s return to the White House, and by extension X owner Elon Musk’s tenure as the overseer of DOGE. “[A]fter the last presidential election, tensions over wealth, power and democracy have only heightened,” sensationalized CBS senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent. She admitted during a CBS Mornings appearance the day prior to her documentary’s release that her work was inspired by millionaire President Joe Biden’s farewell address warning about a rising “oligarchy.” See where this is going?  Kent propped up Sanders and like-minded leftist legislators like fellow socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who “began the Fighting Oligarchy tour, holding rallies around the country to push back against what he argues is a corrupting influence of billionaires on U.S. politics.” But for all Kent and others’ grumbling over figures like Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Kent completely bypassed the ungodly political influence of other lefty billionaire titans who have built empires on the amount of political power they’ve gained during their lengthy careers.  WATCH: CBS News Reporter Jo Ling Kent Hawks Her Anti-Billionaire Documentary on CBS Mornings (June 27, 2025).  These include George Soros (and now his son Alex by extension) who has spewed $32 billion into his Open Society Foundations to foment racial strife, buoy climate change fanaticism, stoke LGBTQ political furor, push for open borders and undercut American sovereignty on the world stage. In addition, Soros spent hundreds of millions collectively on electing extremist political candidates and soft-on-crime prosecutors in order to shape politics to be the mirror reflection of his unhinged, anti-American worldview. His son Alex, who now controls his father's empire, openly promotes his enormous political pull with America's and the world's most powerful leaders on social media, including Biden. (Left to right: Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Reid Hoffman) Other high-profile billionaires missing from the documentary included Michael Bloomberg, who spent over $1 billion trying to buy the 2020 election, pledged another $1 billion at least to wipe out the U.S. coal industry, and spent $47 million during the 2024 election alone to elect Vice President Kamala Harris and help Democrats maintain control over the House; and deranged LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman who spent millions to elect Harris in 2024 and who personally bankrolled the highly politicized sexual abuse lawsuit against Trump brought by leftist E. Jean Carroll.  Reid Hoffman was specifically part of a cohort of left-wing billionaires like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, philanthropist Laurene Powell-Jobs and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz who spent fortunes on secretive political machines to help Biden get elected in 2020. These weren’t mentioned by Kent either, which is even more telling given she also cited leftist anti-Trump author Andrea Bernstein who chirped, “What are you going to do if you’re wealthy and you have a lot of money? You’re going to put some of that into the political system to try to influence outcomes so that you can hang on to even more money. That’s the way the system works.” Ironic.  To Kent’s credit, she did interview four guests who rebuffed the idea that America was reentering a Gilded Age (including Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley and Competitive Enterprise Institute President Kent Lassman), but these were largely dwarfed by another eight commentators who were just attacking and smearing the billionaires who have coalesced around Trump. For example, Kent tee’d up Dartmouth Sociology Professor Brooke Harrington, whose antagonistic term “broligarchs” she defined as rich people who “decide that they get to keep all the money and that they’re not going to pay any of their fair share of the costs of the society that made them prosperous.” Harrington then used this term to go after Musk and his businesses, but not other powerful billionaires who share her anti-capitalist views, such as Soros.   Hypocritically, Kent didn’t bother to mention the enormous ESG asset manager giants that represent three of the top four institutional shareholders of her parent company Paramount Global and her liberal competitor networks at NBC, ABC, and CNN: BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, which manage over $26 trillion in assets. Sounds pretty oligarchy-adjacent, but apparently not for Kent. She had the audacity to cherry-pick Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post and Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of social media giant Twitter as examples of the inherent problems in business tycoons owning media. “One of the real dangers of great concentrated wealth is that not only does it exert influence politically, but it also exerts influence through its ownership of the media,” Reich complained to Kent. The CBS journalist followed up by referring back to how “in the Gilded Age, the ultra-wealthy could buy almost anything. And one prize for many was the means to influence public opinion.” Pretty sure the C-suites at BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street were just tickled pink over that, eh Jo? “Owning a media company has always been viewed as an accessory for the very powerful,” pontificated Bloomberg Businessweek editor Brad Stone, who along with Kent apparently forgot that eco-activist Michael Bloomberg, worth $104 billion, owns his magazine. But Kent sure let him get in some digs at Bezos for daring to exercise his authority as The Post owner to shift the Opinion Page to a more free market position and ban the editorial board’s objectivity-wrecking tradition of endorsing political candidates.  Riley, in one of his brief appearances in the documentary, slammed the hypocrisy of the left in fixating on billionaires when they seem to be oblivious to the special interests financing their own side. “Are people on the left complaining that other wealthy individuals decide to spend their money on electing people who want to go soft on criminals that are raising hell in low income communities?” He continued: “If you’re spending your money a certain way, you’re okay. If you’re spending it on free market ideas and principles — if you want lower taxes, if you want smaller government and so forth — somehow you are villainous.”  Kent conceded that 80 billionaires donated to Harris’s campaign in 2024, while just over 50 billionaires did the same for Trump. But her documentary was clear in its implication that the only titans that matter to her and the CBS media giant are the ones that curry favor with Trump, while ignoring other, more dangerous political players on the left, including her own shareholder bosses.  Watch the entire CBS documentary slamming billionaires by clicking on this link. July 1st, 2025 5:21 PM Joseph Vazquez 289670 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2025/07/01/house-judiciary-exposes-corporate-collusion-against-trump The House Judiciary Committee published a report exposing how a now-shuttered advertising giant with 90 percent control of ad dollars colluded with foreign governments to censor free speech in America.  In a June 27 report, the House Judiciary Committee exposed the Global Alliance of Responsible Media (GARM), releasing emails that show evidence of collusion and reveal the anti-Trump and anti-free speech animus of the project's leader, GARM co-founder and initiative lead Rob Rakowitz. [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America]  July 1st, 2025 5:02 PM Tom Olohan 289672 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/01/backtrack-cnn-returns-hate-america-admits-motives-are-often-murky O, Donie, where art thou?! That was the question worth asking Monday night when CNN’s The Lead had a new report about “Hate in America” in light of the deadly anti-Semitic attack in Colorado and deadly shootings of Minnesota state Democrats and host Jake Tapper brought out correspondent Tom Foreman instead of CNN’s supposed extremism expert Donie O’Sullivan. Back in April, O’Sullivan infamously flirted with Taylor Lorenz on a park bench as part of an insane special with its thesis claiming there’s no real “extremism” on the left. Foreman said the motivations of those who commit political violence are often “murky,” but at least he didn’t make a fool of himself.     “A frightening trend, violence has become more and more common as a tool for extremists in the United States, seemingly trying to make some sort of political point, however sick, twisted or misguided. Just last month, as you’ll recall, two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed here in the nation’s capital outside the Jewish Museum by a man yelling, free Palestine,” Tapper began, adding Foreman took “a look...at the disturbing rise of political violence or terrorism in America.” Foreman led off with recent anti-Semitic attacks in Colorado and Washington D.C. and the nut who killed a Minnesota state representative, her husband, and dog (and left another and their spouse hurt) (click “expand”): FOREMAN: Authorities say an 82-year-old woman has died after that attack on pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado by a man reportedly yelling, free Palestine, raising the grim toll of political violence. In recent weeks, two lawmakers and their spouses were shot in Minnesota, one couple killed.  FBI MINNEAPOLIS FIELD OFFICE’s ALVIN WINSTON: This was a targeted attack against individuals who answered the call to public service. FOREMAN: A man in Memphis was charged after allegedly trying to kidnap that city’s mayor. And in Washington, D.C. — ELIAS RODRIGUEZ: Free, free Palestine. FOREMAN: — police say, this man gunned down this young couple outside a Jewish museum. Sarah Milgrim said she saw Nazi graffiti on her Kansas high school years back, sparking early fears. SARAH MILGRIM [on 02/24/17]: You know, I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at school and that shouldn’t be a thing. Foreman made one major change from O’Sullivan’s tomfoolery with this admission: “Analysts note opposition anger flared sharply in 2017 ahead of the first inauguration of Donald Trump.” Sure, he then brought up January 6, 2021, but it was bookended by mentions of the 2024 assassination attempts against Trump. Still, no mentions of the Alexandria ballfield shooting in 2017 by a Rachel Maddow and Bernie Sanders fan or the 2012 attack on the Family Research Council. University of Chicago professor Robert Pape then weighed in: “You have to go back 50 years to the 1960s to find anything like these violent protests and political assassinations. This is really quite disturbing.” Foreman built on Pape’s soundbite with threats filed by the U.S. Capitol Police having skyrocketed from nearly 4,000 in 2017 to nearly 9,500 last year. Foreman then went off the reservation with the claim that “[t]he reasons for such violence are often murky” and lamented that, “[w]hen trouble broke out around protest in Los Angeles, some on the left blamed it on Trump’s harsh anti-immigrant tactics while some on the right insisted” Antifa and other leftists were behind it. “[S]till others, including the governor of Pennsylvania whose home was firebombed, are taking a broader view,” he continued. Back live with Tapper, Foreman tried to blame Donald Trump’s “language” while at the same time claiming there’s no firm reason for what’s been happening: Of course, plenty of critics are looking at the language of Donald Trump from his first term, his second term, and his campaign, that his language alone speaks an awful lot of enemies and people who have to be fought and people who are traitorous, in his mind, they wonder if that’s a catalyst for all of this happening. Whatever the cause, Jake, when you try to look back at the number of political violent incidents we have had in the past eight or ten years, it really is unlike anything that I have seen in my career, and I’ve been doing this for a lot of decades right now. And the question is, how do we get to an end of it when a lot of people say this is about a culture clash where people are giving up on talking to each other and saying, I will prove it with violence. To see the relevant CNN transcript from June 30, click here. July 1st, 2025 4:05 PM Curtis Houck 289669 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brent-baker/2025/07/01/washington-examiners-liberal-media-scream-mrcs-assessment Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five). This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2025. > For 2023 and 2024, for 2021 and 2022, for 2020. For 2019. For 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for: > July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.) Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week. (For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.) ■ New on June 30, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS embraces socialist Mamdani, calls GOP criticism ‘hateful’ See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.   ■ June 23, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Feckless Margaret Brennan thinks she’s secretary of state (Washington Examiner post) If the Sunday performance of CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan were in a Looney Tunes cartoon, Bugs Bunny would have mocked, “da nerve!” Instead, and much better, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brushed aside her grade school “yes it is, no it’s not” debate over military intelligence and belief that she knows more about it than President Donald Trump’s top national security adviser. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rubio said in an appearance to discuss Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities over the weekend. After Brennan continued to say she knows more about whether Iran planned to make nuclear weapons or not, Rubio gave his best “da nerve” look and told her, “That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program.” From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me follow up on a phrase you just used — weaponization ambitions. Are you saying that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization? SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: That’s irrelevant. I see that question being asked in the media all the time. That’s an irrelevant question. They have everything they need to build a weapon. BRENNAN: No, but that is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that. RUBIO: No, it’s not. BRENNAN: Yes, it was. RUBIO: No, it’s not. BRENNAN: That the political decision had not been made. RUBIO: No, I know — well, I know that better than you know that. And I know that that’s not the case. BRENNAN: But I’m asking you whether the order was given. RUBIO: You don’t know what you’re talking about. And the people who say that — it doesn’t matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury — why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground? BRENNAN: Right. RUBIO: Why would you bury six … why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don’t need 60% enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons, because they can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. They have … why are they … why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No. They’re trying to build an ICBM, so they can one day put a warhead on it. BRENNAN: No, but that’s a question … that’s a question … that’s a question of intent. And you know, in the intelligence assessment, that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold state and use this leverage. RUBIO: How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? BRENNAN: I’m talking about the public March assessment. And that’s why I was asking you if you know something more from March, if an order was given. RUBIO: Well, that — but that’s also an inaccurate representation of it. That’s an inaccurate representation of it. That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Refreshing to see a guest take on the liberal premises forwarded as facts by legacy media hosts. This wasn’t the first time this year that Brennan has been schooled by a Trump administration official. Maybe she should consider being more of a dispassionate interviewer and less of an advocate for the left-wing spin of the day.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 16, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS sees Trump ‘suspending elections’ (Washington Examiner post) It’s hard to imagine that PBS could get any more anti-Trump, but after House Republicans voted to endorse President Donald Trump’s bid to defund public broadcasting, all of its “Trump derangement syndrome” sirens have gone off. For our weekly Liberal Media Scream, we feature its most extreme claim from lefty News Hour commentator Jonathan Capehart that the president is on a power grab that will have him “suspending elections.” On Friday’s PBS News Hour, Capehart suggested that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to California to protect federal buildings against anti-ICE demonstrators, as well as “rumors” of a pardon for the police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, is part of a plan to “create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.” Tying the Army birthday parade Saturday with the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, Capehart said, “We are at a turning point, I think, this weekend with what we have seen in the run-up to tomorrow’s parade, with what’s happening in Los Angeles. More people’s hair should be on fire, not just because of the National Guard troops in Los Angeles without the — working with or permission from the governor, which is by law what should have been done, but the calling up of Marines, U.S. military, on American streets.” “That is a line that, to me, anyway, is one that should never have been crossed. And the president putting out this order and putting out this order that isn’t specific to Los Angeles, isn’t specific to any city. It’s so broad. The language is so broad that it’s sort of like you could just tuck it into like a giant L.L. Bean tote bag, and you just pull out: Where do I need to send troops?” Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour: I think they’re creating the political conflict because, you know, I interviewed Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison in the run-up to the anniversary, the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. And he brought up on his own the rumor that the president was going to pardon Derek Chauvin. And the attorney general said that the president might do that as a distraction to larger goals. And one of the larger goals that the attorney general mentioned that has always been in the back of my mind is to create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. And once the president invokes the Insurrection Act, all sorts of powers are handed to the president, you know, suspending elections, and other things once you open that box, and particularly you open that box with this president and the administration and the yes-people he has around him, there’s no going back. That is among the reasons why I am so concerned about what we’re about to see tomorrow. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Tinfoil hat time. And PBS supporters act befuddled as to why conservatives see PBS as the home of left-wing crazy talk, leading the House last week to approve President Trump’s rescission package to end taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR. Capehart’s wild speculation passes for informed analysis on PBS’s top ‘news’ program.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 9, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Pompous Pelley warns America ‘is doomed’ (Washington Examiner post) Just when we thought CBS’s Scott Pelley couldn’t get any more pompous, he proved us wrong — again. This time it was in decrying America under President Donald Trump, declaring that only journalism can save the nation, and warning that “If you fall silent, the country is doomed.” Seeing parallels between Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the 1950s and Trump today, while speaking after CNN showed George Clooney’s play about legendary newsman Edward R. Morrow, Pelley said, “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done.” Pelley has used his 60 Minutes perch to air his liberal bias and editorialize against Trump. Murrow played an outsize role in ending McCarthy’s career. From CNN’s special coverage Saturday night, Good Night, and Good Luck Live: Truth and Power, after the live airing from Broadway of the stage play, Good Night, and Good Luck: ANDERSON COOPER: Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists? SCOTT PELLEY: It is the only thing that’s going to save the country. You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. The people at home need reliable, consistent information in order to make decisions about their lives and their futures, and the country’s future. So, there is no system of democracy without journalism. We have to figure out how to keep journalism free, independent, accurate, and responsible for what it’s doing. But journalism is the only profession that is protected by the Constitution of the United States. And there’s a reason for that. James Madison believed that freedom of speech was the right that guaranteed all the other rights in the Bill of Rights. And so it is today. COOPER: What is your message to people about, who have just watched this, and are worried? PELLEY: It’s going to take courage, as it often has, to get through this period of American history. Our forebears were called by their times to have courage to move the country forward. And so it is with us today. The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent. If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Could Pelley be any more pompous? If he, CBS News, and the rest of the legacy media had ever lived up to his promise of providing ‘independent, accurate and responsible’ news, they wouldn’t be held in such disdain by so much of the public who see them as left-wing political players. And that’s a reality he confirmed by advocating everyone get in line and join him in having the ‘courage’ to oppose the policies of the man who earned the most votes in the last election.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ June 2, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos tries to top Pelley with his Trump hate (Washington Examiner post) Have you noticed how the liberal Sunday news show hosts have been tripping over themselves to find some, any angle to attack President Donald Trump and his team? The latest to join the parade is George Stephanopoulos, the ABC big shot and former Bill Clinton spinner-in-chief, who on Sunday tried to one-up the recent string of anti-Trump editorials from Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes. On ABC’s This Week, Stephanopoulos opened with this: “Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors.” The attack was par for the course for the Clinton family defender, who was unfazed that the Clinton Foundation profited from foreign governments when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state or that the Biden family enterprise cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency and presidency. And it followed a pattern of attacking Trump at any cost, a dangerous practice that recently prompted ABC and Stephanopoulos to issue an apology and pay a Trump-related foundation $15 million to scuttle a defamation lawsuit. For his hypocrisy, Stephanopoulos’s rant is our Liberal Media Scream of the week. Stephanopoulos on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, with the quoted text displayed on screen: “Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors. Just this week, we learned of pardons to tax cheats, including a man whose pardon was granted weeks after his mother attended a million-dollar-a-head fundraiser with the president. The Trump Media and Technology Group raised nearly $2.5 billion from 50 institutional investors whose identities have not been disclosed. The SEC dropped its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency firm Binance days after Binance began listing the cryptocurrency launched by World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm started by Trump’s family. “This unprecedented money-making by a sitting president and his family summarized by critics like the Atlantic’s David Frum. ‘Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency,’ he writes. ‘Throw away the history books, discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a post-colonial African dictatorship.’” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: You’d think someone like Stephanopoulos, who forced Disney/ABC to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential museum for a false statement impugning President Trump, would be more reluctant to display such rank hypocrisy in becoming so overwrought about charges of corruption against Trump. Especially when he showed no similar concern over how the Biden family profited off of lucrative secretive deals fueled by President Biden’s high offices.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ May 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Trump ‘dictator’ to bow before (Washington Examiner post) As if MSNBC can’t get any more ridiculous, a regular guest proved it could when previewing President Donald Trump‘s solemn Memorial Day events by calling him a dictator whom all must bow before. In comments condemning more than half of the voters who support Trump, Dean Obeidallah, host of The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM, told the MSNBC audience, “This really is a push and pull between two competing visions of America. One that we believe in is freedom, the United States of America with due process, and their vision, which is an autocracy, and that really — what we’re dealing with, or easier than that, a dictatorship. They want Trump as the dictator of the United States, and we all have to bow down to him.” Obeidallah’s rant won this week’s Mainstream Media Scream, but it was a close call, with hard-left CBS 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley and his liberal colleague, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, in full Trump derangement syndrome. Pelley made headlines for his over-the-top Trump hate commencement at Wake Forest, and Brennan for her uneducated attack on the House Republican “big, beautiful bill.” Dean Obeidallah, during the noon hour on Saturday of Velshi on MSNBC: I think the fact that it’s Memorial Day weekend gives us a moment to pause. People made the ultimate sacrifice. They did it for something that you mentioned in your — in your monologue there. And that word is “freedom.” And I’m writing an article right now. I was looking back at the very first speech in the modern day Memorial Day, which was Rep. James Garfield before he was president, 1868 Arlington, to Joe Biden’s. I looked at all different presidential speeches and the one word that came up in all those speeches: “freedom.” And that’s what people — that’s what makes us Americans. And Donald Trump is going after everything, freedom of speech, in ways we’ve never seen. I mean, a judge just ruled on Friday protecting the law firms, saying you’re going after dissent, going after universities. I had professor Steven Levitsky on my show, co-author of How Democracies Die, saying every autocrat goes after universities because they are independent centers of dissent. People think he’s going after media outlets. He’s going after Democrats. They’re arresting judges. The mayor of Newark, they dropped the charges. They had no case. Then a Democratic member of Congress, they opened up investigations into ActBlue because it’s a platform to help Democrats raise money. Now, an investigation into Media Matters, Angelo Carusone’s, the FTC is beginning an investigation. This is a reenvisioning of what America is about. And I think you summed it up so well. This really is a push and pull between two competing visions of America. One that we believe in is freedom. The United States of America with due process, and their vision, which is an autocracy, and that really — what we’re dealing with, or easier than that, a dictatorship. They want Trump as the dictator of the United States, and we all have to bow down to him. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “There’s no holiday weekend break on MSNBC from the anti-Trump hostility, not even for a solemn occasion which Obeidallah used as a hook to launch his rant against Trump as anti-freedom of speech. Quite ironic given the support by so many on MSNBC for canceling and silencing conservative voices who dared question woke edicts.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ May 19, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric calls news objectivity ‘old fashioned’ (Washington Examiner post) She was once the queen of TV news, and as the co-host of NBC’s Today show and anchor of CBS Evening News, Katie Couric struggled with basic news objectivity. And now we know why: She doesn’t believe there is such a thing. “I think there’s no such thing as true objectivity,” she said on her “Next Question” podcast last week. What’s more, the 68-year-old newswoman apparently thinks it’s just something old people “75 and up” mutter about while watching evening news. That, and her slam on conservatives for calling out bias in liberal media “fact-checking,” make Couric our Liberal Media Scream of the Week. Couric, to her guests, the three brothers who created the liberal MeidasTouch podcast, on Thursday’s edition of her “Next Question with Katie Couric” podcast posted to YouTube: “I’m curious, because I’ve struggled with this as someone who you grew up watching, I’m sure, and started in very traditional mainstream media. Now, pointing out the facts and what is really happening is automatically interpreted as being biased, right?“ “And, and of course, I think there’s no such thing as true objectivity, but having said that, you know, I really struggle with that. And many people say, ‘Listen, the rules have changed.’ It’s OK to say you support trans people. It’s OK that you say I am 100% for reproductive rights, you know, all these things that honestly, personally, I hold dear, but professionally, I’ve never really, I’ve been trained to not share that.“ “So I’m curious if you think sort of old-fashioned, semi-objective — knowing that pure objectivity is impossible — that kind of journalism still has a place in the culture, or is it simply, you know, the 75 and up people who are watching the network evening newscasts?” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Couric demonstrated why legacy media figures have refused to address their obvious and overwhelming hostility to conservatives for decades and President Trump in recent years: They are condescending elitists who presume their liberal view of the world reflect ‘the facts’ and so, anyone who questions that presentation of ‘the facts,’ are knowingly making a baseless charge of bias and thus can be dismissed as ignorant cranks.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ May 12, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC prays Pope Leo XIV will ‘counter’ Trump (Washington Examiner post) Reporters have rarely been fans of faith in politics, and often decry the Republican Party’s cozy relationship with religious Americans, such as evangelical Christians. But give them a pope willing to criticize President Donald Trump, well, that’s a different story. Now that Pope Leo XIV has replaced Trump critic Pope Francis, there is an eagerness to find out if the Chicago native will also challenge Trump on key matters, including immigration. ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz, our pick for the Liberal Media Scream of the week, led that prayer group last week. Raddatz used her hosting duties in Rome for This Week as a platform to ask her guests how Leo will challenge the president. “Will he be a counterbalance for what’s happening in American politics right now in President Trump?” she asked the archbishop of Chicago. Later, she told Father James Martin, an ABC News papal contributor, that “Pope Francis indirectly rebuked President Trump’s policies, especially on immigration” and Leo, “before he was pope, he retweeted some things about immigration and saying, you know, retweeting that he supported the Dreamers, things like that. Do you think that will be an incredibly strong message for him?” Raddatz also asked ABC News reporter Terry Moran, “Do you think he will serve, in some ways, as a counter to President Trump [on immigration policies]?” Moran took the bait, saying Leo “will be a voice for the teachings of Jesus, which in many ways, many Catholics believe are not consistent with some of the president’s policies.” From ABC’s This Week on Sunday: MARTHA RADDATZ, TO CARDINAL BLASE CUPICH, ARCHBISHOP OF CHICAGO: Pope Francis cared so much about the poor and migrants. Pope Leo does as well. In some ways, will he be a counterbalance for what’s happening in American politics right now in President Trump? ….. RADDATZ, TO FATHER JAMES MARTIN: Pope Francis indirectly rebuked President Trump’s policies, especially on immigration. And Pope Leo, before he was pope, he retweeted some things about immigration and saying, you know, retweeting that he supported the Dreamers, things like that. Do you think that will be an incredibly strong message for him? I mean, he has been, he does have the “odor of sheep,” as you say? …..RADDATZ: And Terry [Moran] and Liz [Nagy], do you think he will serve, in some ways, as a counter to President Trump on those policies? TERRY MORAN: Reluctantly, right? They are the two most famous Americans in the world right now. And arguably, Pope Leo might be even more famous than President Trump, and whether the pope wants it or not, because I think he wants to preach the Gospel and do the good work of the church. They have different approaches naturally in some ways, and I think that is going to come out. He will be a voice for the teachings of Jesus, which, in many ways, many Catholics believe are not consistent with some of the president’s policies. That will happen. I don’t think he’s going to go look for a fight, but it will happen. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Raddatz couldn’t resist injecting her American politics into papal coverage, trying to transform the new pope into a force for resistance to President Trump. She was so obsessed with her agenda that she prodded three guests, at different points in the show, to endorse her premise, finally getting some guarded agreement from the third, a fellow ABC News journalist.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ May 5, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Pompous’ media on public TV’s dole rip Trump cuts (Washington Examiner post) There is nothing more self-serving than media figures on public TV’s payroll ripping President Donald Trump’s call to end taxpayer funding of National Public Radio and television’s Public Broadcasting System. But that is exactly what happened over the weekend, making it our Liberal Media Scream of the week. First there was NPR President Katherine Maher telling Face the Nation that it’s Trump’s fault if coverage comes off too liberal. “NPR people report straight down the line,” she said. “We’ve been making requests of the Trump administration to have their officials on air. We would like to see more people accept those invitations. It’s hard for us to be able to say we can speak for everyone when folks won’t join us.” Documentary filmmaker and PBS producer Ken Burns got his punches in while appearing Friday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. “I think PBS is part of the pursuit of happiness machine,” he said, adding, “This is who we are. It puts the ‘us’ in the U.S.” And leave it to PBS News Hour regular Jonathan Capehart to prove true Trump’s complaints about bias on the network when he said, “There is only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and it is the free press. It is the press.” Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour: I think what the president is doing, it is a fundamental attack on our Constitution, on the foundation of this country. People need to understand and remember, there is only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and it is the free press. It is the press. And why? Because the founders understood that the survival of a democracy depends on an informed citizenry. And the citizenry can only be informed by a press that can report and do — report on affairs of the republic free and unfettered. And whether they are, come from the left or from the right, the government should not interfere with that reporting. And so, when you have a president of the United States who is making it his mission to attack the free press, we should all be concerned, whether we are at PBS or whether we are at MSNBC, because he’s focused on us too. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Could Capehart be any more pompous? He and others, who claim PBS and NPR are neutral news providers serving a grandiose noble purpose the nation cannot survive without, are dissembling. Anyone who watches or listens to PBS and/or NPR knows their far-left skew and that Capehart etc. are just upset Trump has dared to try to take away their taxpayer subsidies.” Rating: FIVE out of five screams.   ■ April 28: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ April 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Chris Matthews returns more unhinged than ever (Washington Examiner post) As if we need more Trump-hating media, an old favorite of the Liberal Media Scream team has returned to the Trump derangement syndrome stage to add his voice to those challenging President Donald Trump. After about five years on the sidelines, former Hardball host Chris Matthews is reviving his show on Substack. He proved that he’s lost a step or two in his debut Monday and during a promotion on Jim Acosta’s Substack last Friday. Weeks after others tried to portray Trump as America’s homegrown Adolf Hitler, Matthews rolled out the tired analogy again, this time suggesting that the president will round up his critics and ship them to death camps. “I got a nasty one for you,” he told Acosta. “What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed them.” Then, on his channel on Monday, Matthews opened with another Hitler reference. He said, “I want to ask you about something I said last week: that the fact that Trump is willing to say American citizens should be allowed to be sent overseas for punishment does something that rhymes very much with what happened in the Holocaust. That Germany was able to take people in France, Jewish people, and deport them to the east, and even the word deport was similar. So why would Trump personally say I’m going to take regular American citizens and deport them? It sounds like he wants to be seen as an autocrat.” From Jim Acosta’s video show Friday for Substack: JIM ACOSTA: One thing that every taxi driver will talk about these days is Donald Trump. And I have to ask you some newsy questions before we spend the entire time together reminiscing. CHRIS MATTHEWS: I got a nasty one for you. ACOSTA: Okay, well, good, I’m just wondering, I mean—” MATTHEWS: What did Hitler do? What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries. ACOSTA: Yeah. MATTHEWS: Where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed them. ACOSTA: And so when you see what’s happening right now with this Salvadoran gulag, I mean, this CECOT gulag, he’s basically taking a page out of that playbook, you think? MATTHEWS: Well, it gets them out of the country. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Just when you thought it was safe to go to Substack, they give shows to Jim Acosta and Chris Matthews. As if there weren’t enough Trump-hating journalists with a platform. In this case, Matthews has taken TDS to a whole new level. There are rational arguments one could cite for disagreeing with sending illegal alien criminals to a foreign prison, but to equate that policy with a mass-murdering dictator who implemented genocide against a whole religion is inane.” Rating: FIVE out of five screams.   ■ April 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Media eat their own and rip Bill Maher for dining with Trump (Washington Examiner post) It’s hard to believe that our weekly Liberal Media Scream has been documenting the Washington press corps’ Trump Derangement Syndrome for about nine years and that we can find some new hypocrisy every single Monday to highlight. But thanks to the eagle eye of our partner Brent Baker, the vice president of the Media Research Center, we have one of the first examples of the liberal media trying to keep wandering members of the tribe in line. It happened Friday night after HBO talk show host and political comic Bill Maher described his recent dinner in the White House with President Donald Trump. Maher said it was a successful effort to break bread instead of just hurling insults at each other. But some in the media weren’t happy that the two met. Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, on Maher’s show, accused his host of falling into Trump’s “trap.” He scolded, “For him, this was a PR stunt, and in his view, you were a prop in that PR stunt.” From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: JOSH ROGIN, WASHINGTON POST: Counterpoint? You know, Bill, I think you’re right in saying that people make too much of this. OK, it’s not the Yalta Summit, you’re not Churchill, Kid Rock is not Stalin, Trump, sure as s***, isn’t FDR, OK? So yes, I believe too much has been made about this, but I think you’ve fallen into the trap. I think I represent 99% of the internet when I say this, is that you have played the game of proximity is principle, and what people are worried about — it’s not your motivation, we believe you, we love you, everybody loves Bill, right? So, I’m not questioning your motivation, I’m questioning Trump’s, OK? And if we can say that you went there in good faith, but maybe, just maybe he wasn’t there in good faith. I mean, you sold him on the Iran deal, and he took it in — I mean, give me a break, OK? So, the idea here is that your motivation is sound, but what’s the impact? And I think a lot of people out there, fans of yours, people who love you, people who are fans of you, like me, been fans of yours my whole life. BILL MAHER: You don’t have to patronize me, dude — ROGIN: OK. Fair enough. MAHER: I don’t know you, I never met you, not everybody has to like it. ROGIN: I’m just saying that this comes from a place of love. All I’m saying — MAHER: That’s what we said, there are people who didn’t want it to happen at all, you sound like one of them. It’s OK. ROGIN: No, no. MAHER: Did you hear what I said? ROGIN: Yeah. MAHER: What is the alternative to not talking? Just sitting at your lunch table and don’t talk to anybody? ROGIN: I’ve talked to him, I’ve interviewed Trump. Piers has interviewed Trump. MAHER: This was not an interview. This was not an interview. ROGIN: I agree with the principle of engagement. I’m just saying from his perspective, you have to understand, that people who out there know, all Americans know, that for him, this was a PR stunt, and in his view, you were a prop in that PR stunt. MAHER: The fact that you began your little rant with the internet — that tells me everything. You take your cues from the internet. Good luck! The internet is a cesspool that just wants to fight. ROGIN: I support what you’re trying to do. I’m just saying the expectation that Donald Trump is going to be changed by something — MAHER: I said in the piece I did not think that was going to happen. I love the people on either side who ignore the parts they don’t like. I just did it. It wasn’t like it was three weeks ago. Watch it again, maybe you’ll find something new in it. ROGIN: It’s not a judgment, but it’s a little bit of a judgment. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Josh Rogin displayed the reflexive attitude common in the Washington press corps that anyone who does anything which might ‘normalize’ President Donald Trump must be discredited. Bill Maher did a great job, however, of discrediting Rogin’s weak arguments.” Rating: FOUR out of five screams.   ■ April 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN cheers X-rated comic dumped by press corps (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream puts the spotlight on CNN and its hosting of a left-wing comic so biased and X-rated that she was dumped from performing at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. CNN’s new show, Have I Got News For You, put the spotlight on one of its “captains,” Amber Ruffin, who reiterated the hatred of President Donald Trump that got her kicked out of the dinner. After her firing came up on the show, Ruffin added to her reasons why she hates the president and his team, claiming that they are “disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador.” She said, “I lost the gig because I was out here talking s***.” From Saturday’s airing of Have I Got News For You on CNN: HOST ROY WOOD JR: Amber offended the White House, as well as members of the White House Correspondents Association. Amber, following the tradition of Craig from Friday, was fired on her day off as she was uninvited from the White House Correspondents dinner when she said that she intended to make fun of the current administration. Amber, do you think you lost the gig because you said too early what you were going to do about going in on Republicans? AMBER RUFFIN: I mean, oh, my god, I could f***ing talk for the next three hours. But what I choose to say is it’s like I lost the gig because I was out here talking s***, and I think it’s a good thing that I lost the gig because I was going to show up there and act all the way out. Also, like, also, it’s not anyone’s fault because when I was hired, we were like, oh yeah, and we’ll give it to everybody. And I was like, beh. Then they started f***ing disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador. They rolled back f***ing civil rights. So I was like, if I make this equal, then I’m also a piece of s***. I can’t f***ing do that. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Ruffin demonstrated why she is totally inappropriate to provide comedic commentary about the political scene. She’s filled with vitriol and hate toward the man who the nation chose as its president. But she found her audience on CNN where she was cheered and applauded for her crude invective. A sad commentary on the state of CNN.” Rating: FIVE out of five screams   ■ March 31, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Trump has made Bob Woodward deranged (Washington Examiner post) President Donald Trump has done it. In just two short months, he has not only turned the liberal Washington Post into a TDS cesspool but made its most celebrated reporter nearly certifiable. How else can we explain Bob Woodward’s latest unhinged rant against Trump in which he claims that the billionaire businessman has a goal of ruining the economy? “Well, his end goal is it looks like he wants to destroy the economy,” said the 82-year-old reporter and author on a Washington Post podcast. For that, he wins this week’s Liberal Media Scream with five out of five screams. From the Post Reports podcast interview, recorded at Woodward’s home by Washington Post “national politics/democracy reporter” Colby Itkowitz, which was posted Friday night on YouTube: BOB WOODWARD: All these executive orders. I mean, he is, stood his ground and said this is what I’m going to do. I am shrinking. He and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, his sidekick, are cutting the government, and look at what we are seeing. I mean, in some cases it’s done, as people have said with the chain saw, and we know from our personal lives or businesses that when you have to cut, that’s a really tricky undertaking, and you need to very carefully spell out what you’re gonna do and do it very slowly and be very certain that the impact is that they’re not secondary events that you trigger with — and look at what’s going on now. I think it’s one of the most dangerous times this country has ever faced. COLBY ITKOWITZ: What do you think Trump’s end goal is in all of this in the sledge-hammering the government tariff, putting tariffs on our allies like Canada, like what is the, what is his big end goal as president? WOODWARD: Well, his end goal is it looks like he wants to destroy the economy and that is a very dangerous undertaking. I mean, he states the motive is very positive, but look at what people are going through — having very negative impact. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “It’s one thing to contend that President Trump’s tariff policies are misguided and will harm the economy, but to charge that ‘he wants to destroy the economy’ is an attitude which reflects a particularly nefarious view of Trump. Does Woodward really think Trump is so awful that he has set out to intentionally ‘destroy’ the economy? That’s what he said and it fits with his very far-left perspective that reducing the size of government makes this ‘one of the most dangerous times this country has ever faced.’” Rating: FIVE out of five screams.   ■ March 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: All TDS on PBS as centrist calls Trump an ‘extortionist’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream provides the latest fodder for conservatives calling for an end to taxpayer support of public TV because of its anti-Right bias and disdain for President Donald Trump. In focus is the nightly PBS News Hour program that regularly features guests critical of Trump. For our example, it wasn’t the liberal on the show rapping Trump but the resident centrist, New York Times columnist David Brooks, who called the president an “extortionist” and “bully” for using his powers to get countries, companies, and people to do what he wants. “People call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. There’s — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want,” said Brooks. At issue was an earlier move by the White House to withdraw the security clearance of the Paul Weiss legal firm, which is close to Democrats. The firm agreed to do $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes favored by the White House to win back the clearance. From Friday’s PBS News Hour: HOST AMNA NAWAZ: We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school. And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they’re going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don’t lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you? JONATHAN CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I’ll focus on Perkins — I’m sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary. And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard. When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary’s ability to stop a president like Trump? And that’s what’s so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation. NAWAZ: David? DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. A transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want. And so that’s what we’re seeing here. Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss. And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I’m hurting my institution. But if I lose $400 million, I’m also hurting my institution. These are real choices that people have to make. And I understand that. In the case of Columbia [University], I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control. And if they’re publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you’ve got a problem. And they created this problem. So I understand why. I got to save my university. I got to save $400 million. On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off because he will say, ‘Oh, I take that. Here’s my next demand, here’s my next demand.’ And if you look at the history of Zelensky, Macron, people — all the people who’ve tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they all end up losing in the end. And so I think it’s time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say no more deals. We are standing up because there will be a time — and, again, I don’t think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “A perfect reflection of how ‘diversity’ on PBS is all about gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and race, not political ideology. PBS’s panel of Capehart and Brooks, touted as offering perspective from the left and right, does not (Brooks agrees with the liberal Capehart 61% of the time per a Media Research Center analysis). Indeed, they regularly find commonality to denouncing President Trump. So much for PBS viewers hearing much of anything that challenges their liberal world view and disgust for all things Trump.” Rating: FOUR out of five screams   ■ March 17, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: NBC urges harsher Trump hate by Democrats (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a Sunday NBC panel mocking Democrats for failing to be harsher and faster in blasting President Donald Trump and his relationship with Tesla founder Elon Musk. On Meet the Press, there was a collective scream at the liberal party for dropping the ball in attacking Trump, which the panel clearly felt was in order when the president displayed Teslas at the White House. “Shocking,” they agreed, that Democrats didn’t work up a quick ad blasting Team Trump for essentially doing what former President Joe Biden did when he featured American-made vehicles on the South Lawn during a White House event. “Another missed opportunity,” said MSNBC senior Washington correspondent Eugene Daniels, who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC: HOST KRISTEN WELKER: One of the striking moments of this week was the moment where President Trump basically had a car show at the White House. Teslas on display with Elon Musk. It comes as, of course, Tesla’s sales have been dropping. Elon Musk’s approval ratings, much lower than President Trump’s, by the way. The optics of this, Anna, is it complicated for the White House? ANNA PALMER, Punchbowl News: Well, it’s amazing that they’re doubling down on Elon Musk, because, to Cornell’s point, this is the opening for Democrats. They’re already starting to run ads featuring Elon Musk as the boogeyman. This gives them the B-roll and the visuals that you need to say that the White House is, you know, kind of mixing business with the work of the government. ….. POLLSTER CORNELL BELCHER: And the idea that what Biden did at the White House is similar to Trump basically being a salesman and hawking the Teslas on the front lawn of the White House is completely different. The ad writes itself. MSNBC’s EUGENE DANIELS: But Democrats aren’t doing it. Immediately, the next day, there should’ve been just, that ad, just showing it over and over again. WELKER: You’re saying another missed opportunity for Democrats. Shocking! DANIELS: Another missed opportunity to get on the same — BELCHER, DANIELS: Shocking that the Democrats are bad on messaging! DANIELS: But I mean, you know, like, when you talk to them behind the scenes, they explain the Elon of it all in a much better way than they do when they go on television. They don’t talk about him as an oligarch behind the scenes, right? They talk about him as someone who is, in their eyes, doing this, doing DOGE because he wants to help his businesses at the end of the day, right? They talk about that conflict of interest. That’s something that the American people actually understand, but they, again, continue to miss an opportunity to actually do that. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “So much for pretending there’s any separation between the Washington press corps and Democratic Party interests. Can you imagine journalists ever advising Republicans or Trump supporters on how to more effectively undermine a Democrat? Of course not.” Rating: Four out of five screams.   ■ March 10, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Sunny Hostin tells Democrats fight or ‘people will die’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the return of one of America’s lefty pundits suffering most from Trump Derangement Syndrome, The View’s Sunny Hostin. Reacting to Rep. Al Green’s (D-TX) censure by Congress for his outbursts during President Donald Trump’s joint session address Tuesday, the hostile Hostin said the Democrats in the chamber should have joined him in rudely protesting Trump and stormed out in support. While virtually every other Democrat in the media is calling for a more level-headed approach to Trump, she went in the other direction, claiming without a shred of evidence that Trump’s policies will kill people. As a result, we give her outburst a rare five-scream trophy. The View on Friday: JOY BEHAR: Ten Democrats voted to censure Green. SUNNY HOSTIN: Do you want a list of the 10? BEHAR: Do you want to hear their names? HOSTIN: Yes, I do. BEHAR: Why go after them too? Go after the Republicans. HOSTIN: Because they don’t know how to fight and be part of an opposition party. Representative Green gave them the example. The Democrats are not meeting the moment. It is very clear that Medicaid is on the table. It is very clear that Social Security is on the table. It is very clear that people will die. The baby boomers, the civil rights generation, they knew what they had to do! They were willing to fight and die for their rights. This generation of Congress, they are not meeting the moment. This is an existential crisis! BEHAR: And also, I might point out some of them are from the most liberal states like New York, Hawaii, California. HOSTIN: They should be ashamed of themselves! They should have all walked out with him! Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “ABC News should be embarrassed by the daily left-wing drivel on The View. Even many Democrats were ashamed by Green’s antics, which went far beyond what any Republican has ever done during a presidential speech to Congress. So much for contending it’s Trump who has lessened decorum. Hostin is advocating more coarseness in politics. And ABC News is sanctioning it.” Rating: FIVE out of five screams.   ■ March 3, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS twists Trump press pool diversity as ‘sinister’ (Washington Examiner post) Here’s another reason for all the PBS and NPR critics to call for federal tax dollar defunding. Instead of cheering the expansion of media allowed into the White House press pool, PBS declared it a “sinister” move to censor the press. This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the outlet’s twisted view of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s decision to take charge of choosing who is in the daily pool that covers White House events for the rest of the press when there isn’t enough room for all, such as the near-daily back-and-forths President Donald Trump hosts in the Oval Office. She made the decision because she believed that the White House Correspondents’ Association was being too selective by favoring legacy media and barring new-age social media and conservative outlets. The old guard protested, though, in its first week of operation, the new pool remained heavy with legacy media. One exception was the Associated Press, which Trump’s team omitted because the news service won’t recognize the president’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, as the government has. In our example, PBS NewsHour co-anchor Amna Nawaz called the White House move an attack on the press, prompting contributor and Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart to chirp that “we are in more sinister territory” with Trump and the media. Of course neither talked up former President Joe Biden’s move to take away the press passes of over 400 mainly conservative outlets or former President Barack Obama’s seizing of phone records from AP or others in his dragnet for leakers. From Friday’s PBS News Hour: AMNA NAWAZ: His continued attacks on the press, blocking the AP’s access from some White House coverage as well. You saw him take control of the White House, take control of the press pool that covers the president full time, makes sure everyone else knows what’s happening with the president. Peter Baker, of course, longtime Russia correspondent, said it reminded him of the Kremlin press pool takeover. And I just want to get your takes on where that sort of attack on the press stands and whether we’re in much more sinister territory now. JONATHAN CAPEHART: I do think we are in more sinister territory because you’ve got to look at what’s happening with AP, in light of his lawsuits against CBS, against ABC, threats, threatening the licenses of other broadcast entities. This is all part of a pattern of roughing up anyone he views as not either insufficiently loyal or people who have wronged him. And he looks at the press as an entity that has wronged him. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Imagine that. President Trump sees ‘the press as an entity that has wronged him.’ And he’s fighting back, which really upsets the legacy media despite the fact that nothing he has done has blocked the public from full access. It’s hardly ‘sinister’ just because the White House is allowing a more ideological diverse group of outlets to get access instead of just a few privileged and entitled journalists.” Rating: Three out of five screams.   ■ February 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Mike Johnson cuts off CBS bedwetting (Washington Examiner post) It took over two years for the Nixon-era Watergate scandal to bring on the constitutional crisis that led a president to resign. But hearing CBS describe President Donald Trump’s first month of moves the network doesn’t like shows this generation’s Watergate has already arrived. Even more than the Hollywood whining of Jane Fonda and others at Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild Awards, Jane Pauley’s CBS News Sunday Morning jumped head first into decrying Trump’s moves promised during a year on the campaign trail to drain the swamp as a constitutional crisis. “More than a half-century ago,” said CBS’s Robert Costa, “as the Watergate saga unfolded, President Richard Nixon had a standoff with the Justice Department and the courts” that the media declared a “constitutional crisis.” Now, he added, “that term, constitutional crisis, is back.” But amid the name-calling and historical hyperventilating in the show’s main story, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) offered a sense of calm and perspective. “I have been asked so many times, aren’t you uncomfortable with this? No. I’m not,” he said, making the CBS report our Liberal Media Scream of the week. From CBS News Sunday Morning: JANE PAULEY: With judges across the country pushing back against some of the Trump administration’s flurry of executive orders, there are those who ask: What would happen if the White House defies the courts and simply moves ahead with its plans? We’ve asked our Robert Costa to make some inquiries. ROGER MUDD, CBS ANCHOR, NOV. 4, 1973: Despite his powers as chief executive, his future is really in the hands of the other two branches of government: the courts and the Congress. ROBERT COSTA: More than a half-century ago, as the Watergate saga unfolded, President Richard Nixon had a standoff with the Justice Department and the courts. DAN RATHER, CBS ANCHOR, OCT. 20, 1973: In breathtaking succession tonight, the following historic events occurred. The president of the United States demanded that the attorney general fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The attorney general refused and resigned. COSTA: The tensions brought a certain phrase to the fore of the American conversation. JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC ANCHOR, OCT. 20, 1973: The country in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. COSTA: Now that term, ‘constitutional crisis,’ is back. JULIAN CASTRO, former House Democrat from Texas: We’re headed toward a constitutional crisis. U.S. SENATOR ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): We’re fast barreling toward a constitutional crisis. COSTA: Many Democrats are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump’s use of executive power. U.S. REP. SEAN CASTEN (D-ILL): The actions that Musk and his IT goons have taken, they’re illegal. COSTA: And some fear that Trump, who has shattered norms and who worked relentlessly to try to overturn the 2020 election, cannot be counted on to follow the courts. SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I have been asked so many times, aren’t you uncomfortable with this? No. I’m not. COSTA: Most Republicans are shrugging off talk of a crisis. In fact, many are cheering as Trump overhauls the Justice Department and FBI, works with Elon Musk to fire thousands of federal employees and signs piles of executive orders. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “You know it’s a media-fueled effort to create a scandal when the journalist in question regurgitates Watergate. It’s what Costa and the Washington press corps see as their halcyon days of glory. And if the supposed scandal matches a current liberal Democratic talking point, so much the better, despite the lack of any real substance to the fearmongering.” Rating: Four out of five screams.   ■ February 17, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Scott Pelley, now TV’s top Trump hater (Washington Examiner post) He has a lot of competition in the media, but few have as big a stage as 60 Minutes elder Scott Pelley. As he continues to step up his attacks on President Donald Trump and the new administration, Pelley is elbowing aside all others to emerge as Trump’s loudest TV critic. Never a fan of Trump, Pelley has taken his 60 Minutes perch at CBS to offer critical monologues of the president. People took notice even before Trump returned to the White House when Pelley ripped Trump’s Cabinet picks, saying, “Some nominees appear to have no compelling qualifications other than loyalty to Trump.” However, other than gnawing down his reading glasses, Pelley had no impact. All of Trump’s picks to get a Senate floor vote won. Then, on Sunday’s show, he opened with another hit on Trump, saying the president was in “defiance of the Constitution” with his agenda. Again, there was no impact since a day later, a federal judge expressed skepticism about any harm the president’s Department of Government Efficiency threatened. Each week, Secrets teams with the Media Research Center to choose the loudest liberal media scream, and Pelley won again this week. What’s more, Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker gave Pelley’s rant a score of five out of five screams. That is a rare top score, but one we expect to see more of as the liberal media turns up the heat on Trump as it loses its influence on him and his White House. From the lead story on Sunday’s 60 Minutes: SCOTT PELLEY: It’s too soon to tell how serious President Trump is in defiance of the Constitution. In his first 28 days, he signed an order to nullify birthright citizenship for some — a right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. And he has closed agencies and frozen spending that Congress mandated by law. Lower courts are holding up many of the president’s priorities, but nothing has risen to the Supreme Court, where these battles over presidential power could rewrite history. Presidents often push limits — FDR’s New Deal, for example — and voters in this last election wanted change. But the scope and speed of Trump’s reach for power may be unprecedented. One example is a 63-year-old agency created by Congress, codified in law and eviscerated by Trump in a matter of days. KRISTINA DRYE: People are really scared. I think that you know, 12 days ago, people knew where their next paycheck was coming from. They knew how they were going to pay for their kids’ daycare, their medical bills. And then, all gone overnight. PELLEY: “All gone, overnight,” for Kristina Drye and Adam Dubard — fired this month in the chaotic shutdown of foreign aid distributed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. More than 8,000 USAID employees were sent home by the administration. ADAM DUBARD: They’re not looking for competency. They’re not looking for — if you’re good at your job. They’re looking for pure loyalty tests, and if you don’t give it, you will be punished… … PELLEY: The world’s richest man had cut off assistance to the world’s poorest families. Musk spent nearly $250 million to get Trump and other Republicans elected. He collects billions in taxpayer dollars for his SpaceX rockets. ANDREW NATSIOS, FORMER USAID ADMINISTRATOR: I think we’re creating a system that violates the separation of powers and the checks and balances that are intended in the Constitution. PELLEY: Republican Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID, spoke to us in Washington, in part because he is not hearing public appeals to reason from fellow Republicans. PELLEY TO NATSIOS: How do you view this moment in history? NATSIOS: I don’t want to be too pessimistic. But it does appear we may be headed towards some sort of a constitutional crisis. I don’t, I hope that doesn’t happen. I pray it doesn’t happen. But it’s certainly concerning to me what’s going on in this city right now. PELLEY: Is the constitutional order breaking down? NATSIOS: We’ll see if they refuse to enforce a court order by the Supreme Court. If it gets to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court rules against the administration on something and they refuse to enforce it, then we will have a constitutional crisis. PELLEY: What happens then? NATSIOS: Well, I don’t know. PELLEY: No one knows. NATSIOS: No one knows. Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow, explained our pick: “Another hit to whatever remnants are left of 60 Minutes as some sort of dispassionate news magazine which offers a fair and balanced look at complicated issues. Pelley not only matched the Trump Derangement Syndrome of the left, he doubled down on it, presuming the absolute worst motives behind President Trump while taking cheap ideological shots at Elon Musk. This is Exhibit A in why federal spending has never been cut since the end of World War II: The media go to war to discredit anyone who takes on the spending behemoth.” Rating: Five out of five screams.   ■ February 10, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS airs extreme TDS, ‘starvation,’ ‘death’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a PBS freak panel of left-wing journalists spewing the most extreme anti-Trump analysis of the cost-cutting by the White House and efficiency agency headed by Elon Musk. While discussing the fate of USAID, which President Donald Trump’s team closed and shifted spending authority to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a reporter for National Public Radio warned to others nodding yes that the impact will be “poverty and increased starvation.” Then an Atlantic reporter, formerly with the Washington Post, said on the tax-subsidized PBS show Washington Week with The Atlantic that cutting by Trump and Musk of the federal world aid slush fund would lead to “cruelty and death.” The language used by the reporters are just two examples of the type of Trump Derangement Syndrome attacks on Musk and the president’s efforts to root out waste and fraud in government programs. From the February 7 edition of Washington Week with The Atlantic on PBS: ASTHMA KHALID, NPR: There’s something I think very strange at this moment of seeing the world’s richest man really sort of take a hatchet that will essentially take people who are already in the depths of poverty and, you know, increase starvation rates, or increase hunger rates, which is likely what will happen if USAID is entirely cut off.”… ANNE APPLEBAUM, THE ATLANTIC: It’s a test case for can agencies just be abolished without Congress having any say, but it’s also a test case of cruelty. You know, are Americans willing to accept a high level of cruelty and death just, you know, on the president’s whim, on Elon Musk’s whim. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Your taxpayer dollars at work: A journalist for taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and another journalist – both on taxpayer-funded PBS – relay the talking points, in their most extreme form, of the government employee union trying to discredit any reduction in federal spending. Instead of a rational assessment of efforts to trim spending, the two prove they are in the tank for the deep state, presuming starvation and death will result. And they wonder why so many don’t see them as serious sources of facts.” Rating: Five out of five screams.   ■ February 3, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Call on MSNBC for weekly Trump impeachment votes (Washington Examiner post) Have you heard this one? Democrats want to impeach President Donald Trump. This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a SiriusXM host demanding on left-leaning MSNBC that Democrats vote to impeach Trump weekly. “I hope some of them will start introducing impeachment articles every week,” said Tell Me Everything host John Fugelsang on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour last Friday. “Donald Trump was eligible for impeachment one minute into his inaugural address,” he said. “I think Democrats should start having a different guy come out every week and introduce new articles of impeachment, just to inspire people and show them that we’re doing something and let the record show for history we are fighting against this,” he added. In his first term, Trump was impeached twice, and Democrats thought that would end his political career. Of course, it only strengthened Trump, who won office again against somebody who voted for impeachment twice, former Vice President Kamala Harris. From Friday’s The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC, picking up as Fugelsang reacted to news CBS may make a financial settlement with Trump to end his lawsuit over misleading editing of its 60 Minutes interview with Harris, which followed an earlier financial settlement from Facebook over that platform removing him in 2021: John Fugelsang: They’re bribes. I mean, these are bribes. You know, Donald Trump was eligible for impeachment one minute into his inaugural address for violating the emoluments clause. CBS has got a big merger coming up. This is a bribe. … The Democrats are going to do what they did last time. They’re going to lick their wounds, slowly assemble, let Trump do some work for them, and they’re going to be talking a lot about education and healthcare. I hope some of them will start introducing impeachment articles every week. When the GOP was trying to repeal Obamacare 70 times, we laughed at them. But what they were doing in their impoverished state was consolidating the base, fundraising, and getting their messaging across. It worked for them. I think Democrats should start having a different guy come out every week and introduce new articles of impeachment, just to inspire people and show them that we’re doing something and let the record show for history we are fighting against this.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “So much for even pretending to allow President Trump to have a chance to give voters what they voted for in electing him. MSNBC thinks it’s a legitimate and credible position to contend Trump had earned impeachment less than an hour past noon on Inauguration Day — well before he had signed a single executive order. So much for reflection and serious analysis from the press corps. But it is what Democrats and so many journalists like to do given this would be the third attempt to impeach him. Will they go zero-for-three?” Rating: Five out of five screams.   ■ January 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Vance schools CBS and bishops on illegal immigration (Washington Examiner post) America is learning pretty quickly that Vice President JD Vance is no pushover easily cornered on tough issues. In our latest Liberal Media Scream, we feature Vance’s retort to Catholic bishops and CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan over complaints that the Trump administration is being mean in its effort to deport criminal illegal migrants. Appearing on Face the Nation, Brennan sounded hurt that the administration would enter schools to find their targets. She cited complaints from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which funds efforts to settle illegal immigrants in America, as do other religious groups. Vance had clearly heard it all before and was quick to point out that protecting America and Americans, including migrants here legally, is President Donald Trump’s No. 1 job. Brennan worried that the administration’s policy has “a chilling effect, arguably, to people to not send their kids to school.” Vance reversed her spin to make his point: “I desperately hope it has a chilling effect on illegal immigrants coming into our country.” And when she cited concerns from the bishops, Vance said, “As a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns, or are they actually worried about their bottom line?” Clearly, it is going to be a tough four years for liberals in the media, such as Brennan, since Team Trump is ready and willing to parry the left media’s slant on major issues. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you about another area that you campaigned on quite a lot, and there was a flurry of activity on. And that has to do with immigration. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week condemned some of the executive orders signed by President Trump, specifically those allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter churches and to enter schools. Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school? VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE: Well, let me address this. Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration. But let me just address this particular issue, Margaret, because, as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns, or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people. Donald Trump promised to do that. And I believe the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, if they’re worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex-trafficked because of the wide-open border of Joe Biden. BRENNAN: So, you personally support them going into schools and churches? VANCE: Let them talk about people like Laken Riley, who were brutally murdered. I support us doing law enforcement against violent criminals, whether they’re illegal immigrants or anybody else, in a way that keeps us safe. Let me ask this question, Margaret. Separate the immigration issue. If you had a violent murderer in a school, of course, I want law enforcement — BRENNAN: Of course. VANCE: — to go and get that person out. BRENNAN: Of course. VANCE: So, then what’s the point of the question? BRENNAN: You changed the regulation this week. That’s the point of the question: giving the authority to go into churches and go into schools. VANCE: Exactly. We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere to protect Americans. BRENNAN: But that also has a knock-on effect, a chilling effect, arguably, to people to not send their kids to school. VANCE: I desperately hope it has a chilling effect — BRENNAN: In the churches … VANCE: — on illegal immigrants coming into our country. BRENNAN: You think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are actively hiding criminals from law enforcement? VANCE: I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for. And I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Brennan went into the interview thinking she had the moral high ground and facts on her side, presuming it would be easy to show how badly misguided are so many Trump policies. But she ran into JD Vance, who delivered a master class in how to take on and undermine the premises of the Washington press corps.” Rating: Four out of five screams.   ■ January 19, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CBS sucks up to Biden to the end: ‘Did deliver’ (Washington Examiner post) Our final Biden-era Liberal Media Scream finds CBS News kissing up to President Joe Biden to the end, brushing aside all the polls and its own reporting to declare he was effective. “In many ways,” CBS chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes said, “he did deliver.” The media have resisted reporting on Biden’s mental and physical failings over his four unpopular years in office. And even on his last weekend in office, outlets such as CBS went out of their way to prop up a president who polls as one of America’s worst. From CBS News Sunday Morning: NANCY CORDES: In many ways, he did deliver. His administration oversaw the successful rollout of the COVID vaccines. The stock market steadily rose to record highs, while unemployment fell to a near-record low. Overseas, he expanded NATO, strengthened alliances in Asia with the goal of containing China, and cobbled together lasting support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The duty of a president is to defend what is best about America. CORDES: He did so while racking up major legislative victories, including massive new investments in clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing. BIDEN: I believe, to my core, there isn’t a single thing this country cannot do when we put our mind to it. CORDES: And he scored a win that eluded his predecessors: signing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Going down with the ship, CBS and Cordes are still trying to convince people that despite the rejection of his presidency and his policies by the voters, Joe Biden really was a great president who delivered laudable accomplishments. The media and Biden do share at least one thing in common: In the eyes of much of the public, they are both losers.” Rating: Four out of five screams.   ■ January 13, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS delights that Trump will forever be a ‘convicted felon’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream is already anticipating the coming media hate that will greet President-elect Donald Trump when he enters office for a second time a week from today. No surprise, but biased liberal PBS “analyst” Jonathan Capehart isn’t just readying his anti-Trump talk for Inauguration Day. He is already looking to pour on the hate in every Trump story. On Friday’s PBS NewsHour, Capehart, who also hosts a poorly-rated MSNBC show, took delight in predicting that after being sentenced last week in a much-mocked legal case, Trump will forever be known as a “convicted felon,” and he wants every reporter to mention that in their stories about Trump. Cheered the talker, “What’s also great punishment is the sentencing today, where the judge said, you’re going to be president, you’re not going to go to jail, but you’re a convicted felon. And so for the rest of his life, any story written about him will have to mention the fact that he’s a convicted felon — if not on the first reference, definitely by the second reference.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour: GEOFF BENNETT: But after, you know, being convicted of 34 felonies, there are people who look at this case, and they say that Donald Trump walks away with a punishment that is less than what one would receive for a speeding ticket. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Look, this case, this hush money case, was the case that everybody said was the crappy case of the four. Remember, Donald Trump was indicted four times, and this one was the least important, the shakiest. And yet it’s the one case where Donald Trump was held accountable, the one case where he was brought to trial before a jury of his peers in his hometown of New York City and was found guilty 34 times. I think that is great punishment. What’s also great punishment is the sentencing today, where the judge said, you’re going to be president, you’re not going to go to jail, but you’re a convicted felon. And so, for the rest of his life, any story written about him will have to mention the fact that he’s a convicted felon — if not on the first reference, definitely by the second reference. And that is fitting, that is right, that is just. Do I wish the other three cases had gone to trial and that he had faced accountability on those? Yes, but this will do. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Talk about petty immaturity. Capehart’s reaction to the judge’s sentence on Trump bared how much of the press corps’ hostility to Trump was always fueled by personal animosity as much as by disgust with conservative policies. So a smug Capehart gets joy from a court giving him the okay to apply a derogatory label to the incoming president.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ January 6, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC the sole #Joementia denier (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend as the media’s last denier that President Joe Biden has lost it. What’s crazier than the obvious is that she claims that it is incoming President-elect Donald Trump who suffers brain fog. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sanders-Townsend’s defense of the president who dropped out of his reelection campaign after his brain locked during a debate with Trump came just hours before his bizarre cursing rant about immigrants following a White House ceremony. “The question on the table is, ‘Is the president all they way there?’ And the answer is unequivocally yes,” Sanders-Townsend said on the show. The MSNBC host, in fact, charged it is Trump whose mental capacities should be questioned. Biden “can at least put a sentence together,” but “the president-elect is the one I am concerned about.” From Sunday’s Meet the Press: SYMONE SANDERS TOWNSEND: Well, I was very surprised that when you asked the question about mental acuity he didn’t more forcefully push back. The question on the table is, “Is the president all the way there?” And the answer is unequivocally yes. Now, people can say that you feel as though President Biden might be a little too old to do the job, but he is doing the job. And his mental acuity is there. So, I think that there’s a conflation of two things here: his mental capacity and serving another four years as old as he is. But those are two separate things in my opinion. And, look, these people that have known Joe Biden their entire political lives, I know Joe Biden is like, “Can you all just please defend me a little more?” MARC SHORT: I think it hurt Democrats. It hurt Democrats in November to try to tell the American people something they could see with their own eyes wasn’t true. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: But it’s not true that the president doesn’t have the mental acuity. SHORT: Of course it is, Symone. The American people saw that for themselves in the debate— SANDERS-TOWNSEND: What are you saying? He can at least put a sentence together. The president-elect is the one I am concerned about because I recently talked to the president. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Sanders is a last holdout, a true foolish believer. Virtually all of her colleagues, even those who pretended for years that Biden was fine, started to acknowledge, as soon as Biden was no longer the Democratic candidate for reelection, that he’s not all there. But not Sanders. She’s still in the tank and embarrassing herself, especially when suggesting it’s Trump who has the mental shortcomings.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   > Liberal Media Screams for 2023 and 2024 > Liberal Media Screams for 2021 and 2022 > For all of 2020. > For all of 2019. > For all of 2018. > For July through December 2017. > For January through June 2017. > For July through December 2016. > For January through June 2016. > For July to December 2015.   July 1st, 2025 3:51 PM Brent Baker 288260 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/01/nbc-claims-trump-administration-leads-88-deaths-hour-usaid-cuts On Monday, NBC News released a story which claimed that more than 14 million people will die in five years as a result of USAID cuts by the Trump administration. Suggesting Trump’s policies would lead to “88 deaths per hour,” NBC used poorly concluded research in order to fund their narrative of hate while explicitly omitting key facts of waste and abuse within USAID. NBC stopped at nothing to make the claim of “14 million deaths” fall solely on the Trump administration, even though a majority of cuts were deemed as waste, fraud, and abuse, with key lifesaving treatments being untouched or cut marginally. Not to mention, many other countries also offered aid to foreign countries.  The left leaning outlet, decided to throw out an eye gouging statistic that the cuts were “leading to 88 deaths per hour.” The website in which NBC pulled this statistic from reached many of their conclusions through this methodology: “Based on the budget for the 2024 financial year, USAID's nutrition program was allocated $168 million dollars [3]. It is estimated that the cost of treating a child for severe malnutrition, while varied by context, is between $100-$200 [4]. Assuming: a similar budget of $160 million dollars in 2025, that this budget is utilized for treatment of severe acute malnutrition in children and that on average treatment per child costs $150 (midpoint of range), approximately 1.12 million children with severe malnutrition would remain untreated as a result of USAID funding freeze and discontinuation in 2025. This would result in approximately 168,000 (112,000 – 224,000) annual deaths in children under 5.” This “research” took the average cost of feeding a malnutritioned child and incorporated it directly into the eight million dollar budget cut in order to reach the number of children with severe malnutrition who would remain untreated. This conclusion failed simple scientific research methods for several reasons. For one, it concluded that USAID, under 2024 funding, would stop every single one of these deaths without considering the influence of outside factors like treatment that still ended in death. Next, it assumed that USAID’s nutrition program was strictly allocated for significant malnutrition and neglected the fact that cuts could be towards waste within the appropriation of funds and not specifically for severe malnutrition. Lastly, it implied a static cost of $150 to feed a hungry child and neglected the ability of outside nations to meet their standards of treating severe malnutrition in areas where USAID was also present.  This “research” used the above methods to arrive at many conclusions in their work, NBC obviously did little to no digging, and instead just threw out the number because it made the Trump administration look bad.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio had made it clear that USAID viewed itself as serving the international humanitarian community and not the American people or taxpayers. As of July 1st, The Department of State has declared the disbanding of USAID and in turn, replaced it with a foreign funding mission that prioritizes national interests. Opting to sub out a “charity-based” model in favor of investment to actually allow these countries to sustainably grow.  Official statement from the Department of State on the issue: “We will do so by prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance. For Americans and many around the world, July 1st will mark the beginning of a new era of global partnership, peace, investment, and prosperity.” The House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) exposed to the public just some of the waste by USAID that NBC neglected to include after mentioning the 83 percent of cuts to USAID. The USAID had been sending “$3,315,446 for LGBTQ in the Caribbean,” “$1.5 million to promote job opportunities for LGBTQ in Serbia,” and “$425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly,” just to name a few.  The USAID had burned through $715 billion in inflation-adjusted spending using American tax dollars over the decades. Significant evidence of NGOs pocketing money meant for the people in these foreign countries was found. One USAID official and three corporate executives pleaded guilty earlier in June for a decade-long bribery scheme that involved over $550 million in U.S. taxpayer contracts.  July 1st, 2025 3:50 PM Matthew Seck 289668 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/01/cbs-decries-doge-cuts-covid-era-food-programs-omits CBS Evening News closed out June, on Monday, by decrying federal budget cuts eliminating two Department of Agriculture food programs totally $1 billion. The report, delivered by correspondent Meg Oliver, dismissed the fact that they were both temporary COVID-era programs. Yet, she had the audacity to lament that “farmers and frontline workers [were left] to pick up the pieces while people go hungry.” But the report curiously failed to mention how many people the programs actually helped to feed. “It`s been a month since Elon Musk left Washington, but the impact of his DOGE budget cutting is just beginning to be felt,” anchor John Dickerson glibly announced. “In tonight`s ‘Eye on America’ Meg Oliver looks at the real-life impact of eliminating two programs that helped feed the hungry.” Oliver tagged along with Maile Auterson and “an employee” as they drove “hundreds of miles across Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas delivering fresh produce to food deserts” a few times a week. “Her nonprofit helps underserved schools, food pantries and senior centers such as this one in Ava, Missouri, where, for many, it`s the only place to get a hot meal,” she tugged on the heartstrings, omitting how many were actually helped. Partway through the report, Oliver admitted that the programs were “implemented by the Biden administration in response to the pandemic” and carried a hefty price tag of $1 billion. In an interview with CBS, Auterson, who made money from the programs, insisted that the programs were still needed years after the pandemic was over: OLIVER: Who are you leaving out there without food? AUTERSON: Some of the most food-insecure people, some of the most vulnerable people, children, the elderly. OLIVER: The USDA has said these were pandemic relief programs, and that`s over, so it`s time to move on. AUTERSON: Yeah, we are not past the effects of the pandemic.     Noting that 8,000 farmers received money from the programs, Oliver spoke with one farmer who rented out more land thinking that the money would continue to flow: OLIVER: When they introduced these programs, how did it impact your farm? GRAZNAK: It was huge. I knew I could produce this and that they would be able and interested in buying it. OLIVER: She rented an extra 16 acres to harvest more onions, garlic, and peppers to keep up with demand. GRAZNAK: A quarter of my annual sales were going to those programs. And when they said that money is gone, I thought, ‘oh, my God.’ Well, now what do I do? Of course, the tragedy here was the unchecked federal spending giving the farmers the false impression that the funds would be limitless (and go on indefinitely) and they could expand to extract more of the funds. “Will you be able to still feed people this year?” Oliver teed up Auterson. “We are going to, but not nearly as many,” Auterson responded. That exchange left Oliver close out the report by lamenting: “Leaving farmers and frontline workers to pick up the pieces while people go hungry.” It’s worth pointing out that while Auterson said they’re not going to be able to feed “nearly as many people” and Oliver proclaimed people will “go hungry,” they never actually gave a number (or even an approximation) for how many have been fed over the years nor how many would be forced to go without in the future. Both were very important bits of information to give the public the full picture. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Evening News June 30, 2025 6:51:22 p.m. Eastern JOHN DICKERSON: It`s been a month since Elon Musk left Washington, but the impact of his DOGE budget cutting is just beginning to be felt. In tonight`s “Eye on America,” Meg Oliver looks at the real-life impact of eliminating two programs that helped feed the hungry. [Cuts to video] MEG OLIVER: Four days a week, Maile Auterson and an employee drive hundreds of miles across Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas delivering fresh produce to food deserts. WOMAN: Those are gorgeous. OLIVER: Her nonprofit helps underserved schools, food pantries and senior centers such as this one in Ava, Missouri, where, for many, it`s the only place to get a hot meal. MAILE AUTERSON (Springfield Community Gardens): We are trying the best we can without the funding. OLIVER: Auterson`s nonprofit relies on USDA grants to distribute produce to schools in low-income communities. But in March, the USDA abruptly canceled those two national food programs implemented by the Biden administration in response to the pandemic and totaling $1 billion. The agency says it`s a decision to “return to long-term, fiscally responsible initiatives.” Who are you leaving out there without food? AUTERSON: Some of the most food-insecure people, some of the most vulnerable people, children, the elderly. OLIVER: The USDA has said these were pandemic relief programs, and that`s over, so it`s time to move on. AUTERSON: Yeah, we are not past the effects of the pandemic. OLIVER: The USDA grants helped Auterson buy food from small farms such as Liz Graznak`s. LIZ GRAZNAK (Farmer): It was devastating. I don`t know those families, but I know those families are desperate for the food that they were getting. OLIVER: The subsidies implemented in 2022 were set to be extended for another three years. When they introduced these programs, how did it impact your farm? GRAZNAK: It was huge. I knew I could produce this and that they would be able and interested in buying it. OLIVER: She rented an extra 16 acres to harvest more onions, garlic, and peppers to keep up with demand. GRAZNAK: A quarter of my annual sales were going to those programs. And when they said that money is gone, I thought, ‘oh, my God.’ Well, now what do I do? OLIVER: Nationwide, more than 8,000 small farmers were supported by the programs. Advocates warn, the cuts could ripple through food deserts, rural communities, and urban areas, where access to healthy food is miles away. With food insecurity in Missouri above the national average at 15 percent, local farmers here help bridge the gap. Will you be able to still feed people this year? AUTERSON: We are going to, but not nearly as many. OLIVER: Leaving farmers and frontline workers to pick up the pieces while people go hungry. For “Eye on America,” I`m Meg Oliver in Jamestown, Missouri. July 1st, 2025 1:44 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 289666 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/01/nprs-inskeep-finds-it-interesting-gop-doesnt-complain-about-foxs NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep joined Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast hosts Max Tani and Ben Smith last Friday to discuss the current battle over NPR’s public funding. There were several puzzling claims made throughout, including claims that Fox’s personnel decisions and Hunter Biden laptop coverage are analogous to NPR’s. Tani tried to goad Inskeep into labeling Republicans hypocrites on the matter of defunding, “You interview a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, on your show, you mentioned that you interviewed Steve Bannon, recently. I'm really curious if any of the folks that you have interviewed, particularly on the right, you know, and who have been maybe satisfied and thought that your coverage has been fair, if any of those people are the people who are out there today, you know, calling for the defunding of NPR.” Steve Bannon appeared on NPR? So what? If a Democrat appeared on Fox, would a liberal say that makes Fox neutral?     As it was, Inskeep danced around the subject, claiming, “I don't know that I want to accuse anyone specifically of hypocrisy on this issue,” before recalling NPR’s 2010 firing of Juan Williams: I do recall, this was years ago now, there was an earlier controversy involving NPR and its dismissal of Juan Williams, who was also a Fox News contributor. We could do an entire other podcast episode about that, but we'd have to burn it afterwards. But in any case, it was a big controversy, and I went in to see a member of Congress for a face-to-face interview, and we sat down, and the first thing he wanted to tell me is, he says, ‘Juan Williams is a personal friend of mine and I'm outraged. It is just awful what you've done.’ And then we began the conversation, and we're doing the interview, and in the middle of the interview, he digressed from the actual topic of the interview because he was reminded of a story he'd heard on Morning Edition that morning and wanted to talk all about it, and this is not entirely uncommon. Inskeep then continued, “There are people in the House of Representatives who voted against federal funding for their local public radio stations. Remember, this is local funding, who were on NPR last week, and that's fine, by the way. I don't, you're not required to vote some way to be on NPR. We want to hear from everybody. We want to hear from you even if you hate public broadcasting, and I would encourage everybody to engage in that way.” Local NPR stations pay fees to the national organization in order to air its programming, so that’s not completely true. However, Smith and Tani then tried to compare the private Fox with the public NPR, with Smith beginning, “Yeah, that was another era. You know, now, Juan Williams is, you know, attacked on Fox for being too left-wing, so—” and Tani adding, “Well, he's gone from Fox for that reason.” Juan Williams was on Fox News last week, so not only did Smith and Tani confuse private and public, they didn’t even have their facts right. Neverthless, Smith wondered, “I wonder if your Republican friends also protested to Fox over that?” Inskeep mused, “Well, that's an interesting point,” before trying to compare NPR to Fox in another way, “One of the popular criticisms of NPR in recent years is ‘you didn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.’ My understanding is that Fox didn't initially cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. I think a lot of media didn't because it didn't know. You could criticize whether NPR should have covered it more later. We can have a whole discussion about individual stories, but I don't know, just, we can focus on the coverage or a particular story rather than the label you want to put on somebody.” It was on October 22, 2020, that Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel claimed they didn’t want to waste people’s time by covering the laptop story. On October 23, the New York Times ran a headline lamenting, “Fox News is covering Hunter Biden Claims More Than 2016 WikiLeaks Emails.” Even if Inskeep was right, however, that would not matter. NPR has a pattern of behavior that goes beyond just one story. NPR has run stories in defense of eco-terrorism and looting and aired audio of abortions. It is a left-wing outlet, and an occasional Republican guest trying to break the bubble doesn’t change that. Here is a transcript for the June 27 show: Semafor Mixed Signals 6/27/2025 31 Minutes, 43 Seconds MAX TANI: You interview a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, on your show, you mentioned that you interviewed Steve Bannon, recently. I'm really curious if any of the folks that you have interviewed, particularly on the right, you know, and who have been maybe satisfied and thought that your coverage has been fair, if any of those people are the people who are out there today, you know, calling for the defunding of NPR. STEVE INSKEEP: Oh, I don't know that I want to accuse anyone specifically of hypocrisy on this issue. I have always been aware that there are Republicans who listen as well as Democrats. In recent years, I think the Democrats have been more numerous. There's a lot of reasons for that we could get into, but there are Republicans who listen, including Republican lawmakers, influential people, and I appreciate that. I do recall, this was years ago now, there was an earlier controversy involving NPR and its dismissal of Juan Williams, who was also a Fox News contributor. We could do an entire other podcast episode about that, but we'd have to burn it afterwards. But in any case, it was a big controversy, and I went in to see a member of Congress for a face-to-face interview, and we sat down, and the first thing he wanted to tell me is, he says, “Juan Williams is a personal friend of mine and I'm outraged. It is just awful what you've done.” And then we began the conversation, and we're doing the interview, and in the middle of the interview, he digressed from the actual topic of the interview because he was reminded of a story he'd heard on Morning Edition that morning and wanted to talk all about it, and this is not entirely uncommon. There are people in the House of Representatives who voted against federal funding for their local public radio stations. Remember, this is local funding, who were on NPR last week, and that's fine, by the way. I don't, you're not required to vote some way to be on NPR. We want to hear from everybody. We want to hear from you even if you hate public broadcasting, and I would encourage everybody to engage in that way.  SMITH: Yeah. INSKEEP: You know, I don't want to accuse anybody now of particular hypocrisy, but just be aware that lots of different kinds of people pay attention to NPR. BEN SMITH: Yeah, that was another era. You know, now, Juan Williams is, you know, attacked on Fox for being too left-wing, so— MAX TANI: Well, he's gone from Fox for that reason. SMITH: Right, driven out of Fox for being left-wing. INSKEEP: Oh, he’s driven out of Fox. Okay. Okay, TANI: Yeah. SMITH: Yes. INSKEEP: Well for a while, he was, kind of, the house liberal. He was open about that, but I guess too liberal. SMITH: I wonder if your Republican friends also protested to Fox over that? TANI: Stood up for him. Yeah, exactly. INSKEEP: Well, that's an interesting point, and I’ll just mention another thing. One of the popular criticisms of NPR in recent years is “you didn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.” My understanding is that Fox didn't initially cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. I think a lot of media didn't because it didn't know. You could criticize whether NPR should have covered it more later. We can have a whole discussion about individual stories, but I don't know, just, we can focus on the coverage or a particular story rather than the label you want to put on somebody. July 1st, 2025 1:14 PM Alex Christy 289665 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/01/al-jazeera-applauded-anti-israel-speech-after-receiving-news-emmy During last week’s 46th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards, Qatari-backed news network Al Jazeera was given a platform to further their typical propaganda against Israel. At an award show supposedly meant to highlight journalistic integrity and quality, honoring a network known to report heavily in favor of terrorists and Islamists would seem contrary to the purpose of the event. Instead, Al Jazeera’s blatant bias was unsurprisingly applauded by the liberal media representatives in attendance. Al Jazeera’s flagship show, Fault Lines, was nominated for five news awards across four categories, making it the most nominated non-American network of the night. Fault Lines won two of those awards, and one of the award show’s presenters also worked for Al Jazeera. These moments on stage provided Al Jazeera’s staff multiple opportunities to push their messaging.     Al Jazeera’s Rhana Natour gave a speech before presenting awards that was anything but subtle. Natour, the director and producer of “All That Remains,” an episode of Fault Lines that very clearly criticized Israel for their operations in Gaza, urged journalists to “question powerful institutions and powerful people who think they answer to no one.”  “All That Remains” was one of many examples of anti-Israeli bias from Fault Lines. Al Jazeera had aired seven episodes since December of 2022 against Israel in some way. One episode highlighted the “suppression of Palestine advocacy on college campuses” while ignoring the significant problem of anti-Semitism on campuses. Another references “Israel’s US-backed illegal siege on Gaza” in its subtitle. Ultimately, it was not any of Al Jazeera’s anti-Israeli episodes that won an award. Instead, “Children of the Darien Gap,” a report recounting the dangers of the migration route from Ecuador to Panama, received recognition.  That did not stop Al Jazeera from making their award speech against Israel. The episode’s editor, Adrienne Haspel, came up to receive the award. “This is very unexpected,” she started as her team behind her passed out pre-made posters to hold up as she spoke. Rather than speak on the story she edited, the one which actually was awarded, Haspel began to speak on an unrelated episode, one about Gaza: I’d like to switch the subject here. I work at Al Jazeera, and we at Fault Lines have made five films about Gaza so far. And the footage that I got from there, from Gaza, I worked with, and the context to what it means to us people will haunt me for the rest of my life. And I’d like to read a quote from a doctor who volunteered in Gaza with many others ... She, with many others, realized the pattern that Israeli soldiers deliberately shoot children. Of course, that claim had no basis aside from Al Jazeera's own biased reporting.  Haspel cited the example of the death of Salma Hussein Jaber, the daughter of a photographer who was caught in the crossfire in Gaza. The facts she provided were outright wrong, however. Haspel, despite coming prepared with an image of the little girl, gave the incorrect date for the event, placing it in March of 2024 rather than December of 2023. She also claimed the father was an Al Jazeera cameraman. He was not.  He was actually a member of UNRWA, a United Nations aid organization under investigation for backing Hamas and other terrorist organizations at the time of writing. All the while, her colleagues held signs behind her, which read “Targeting Journalists Is a Crime.” These signs were a response to the recent seizure of an Al Jazeera office in Palestine. Israel shut down the station because of Al Jazeera's “incitement to and support of terrorism” in the region. Despite being a mouthpiece for Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Middle East, Al Jazeera was given equal platform with American news networks to spread its anti-Israel propaganda. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. CBS The 46th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards June 25, 2025 8:47 p.m. EST ANNOUNCER: Our next presenter is an award-winning reporter for Al Jazeera International USA. Please welcome Rhana Natour. RHANA NATOUR: To be a journalist is to grapple with forces that make your job difficult every single day. It’s to seek clarity even in that thick fog of war. It’s to be thrown into a web of lies and to still emerge with the truth. It’s to question powerful institutions and powerful people who think they answer to no one.  Report, verify, corroborate; this is the job. A journalist must seek and report the truth to their audience no matter the challenges, no matter the issue, no matter the parties involved. Tonight we celebrate the excellence of this difficult, important work, whether it is abroad, in the Spanish language, or in our own hometowns. Here is our next batch of Emmy nominees, who did their jobs and more: (...) 9:05 p.m. EST MORGAN CHESKY: And the Emmy goes to (pauses) “Children of the Darien Gap,” Fault Lines, Al Jazeera International USA. ANNOUNCER: Accepting the Emmy, Adrienne Haspel, editor. (...) ADRIENNE HASPEL: Thank you. This is very unexpected. So, first of all, thank you to the Flores family, whose journey we followed through the Darien Gap. They’re fine. We asked them and they’re fine, even under the circumstances that’s – what’s going on in this country, and I’m very nervous.  I’d like to switch the subject here. I work at Al Jazeera, and we at Fault Lines have made five films about Gaza so far. And the footage that I got from there, from Gaza, I worked with, and the context to what it means to us people will haunt me for the rest of my life. And I’d like to read a quote from a doctor who volunteered in Gaza with many others, Tammy – sorry I can’t pronounce your name. She, with many others, realized the pattern that Israeli soldiers deliberately shoot children, and this is what she said: “They say that Gaza is the graveyard of human rights. For me, it was really the graveyard of my belief in the human race being able to challenge the worst impulses. I don’t know that I can ever get that back.” This is Salma Hussein Jaber, the four-year-old daughter of one of our cameramen. She was shot in the neck March, 2024, and she died in her father’s arms as they were trying to flee to a safezone. As we are gathering here, the Gaza genocide is raging on. A new term was coined: aid massacre. Israeli soldiers kill people lining up for food daily. Please don’t look away. Thank you. July 1st, 2025 12:30 PM Lucas Escala 289656 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/craig-bannister/2025/07/01/kathy-griffins-new-shock-shtick-just-tired-old-bit-even-4 In politics, as in comedy, relying on shock value to command an audience requires employing an ever-increasing dose of shock to have the same effect – until the audience becomes so desensitized that the tactic becomes impotent – take, for example, “comedian” Kathy Griffin’s latest attempt to recapture her “inglorious days.” In a sad, desperate attempt to use shock value to gain attention over the weekend, Griffin resurrected a bit that worked for her eight years ago, when she posted an image of herself holding the severed “head” of President Trump during his first term. In 2017, Griffin’s severed-head bit killed, drawing the attention of national media, conservatives, liberals – and even the Secret Service. Like a bad child acting out to get attention, she got it. But, she also paid a price, losing fans, gigs and a job as a paid spokesperson (albeit, for a toilet stool company). This time, in a self-plagiarizing effort to one-up herself, she’s quadrupled the number of severed heads in her not-so-subtle call for violence. In a video she posted on TikTok, Griffin is shown with sketches of the bloodied, severed heads of not one, but four, victims: Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, SpaceX Founder Elon Musk and, of course, Pres. Trump. The audience response this time around appears to be: “Sorry, but I’ve already heard that one.” Turning up the voltage in either politics or comedy (and this stunt tries to be both) eventually hits a point where it loses all its impact. Case-in-point: the attempt to use name-calling to prevent Donald Trump from winning the 2024 presidential election. When calling your opponent Hitler doesn’t work, where can you go from there? So, too, with Griffin’s severed-head routine. Maybe, she’ll be contacted by the Secret Service again, giving her another opportunity to pretend to cry and claim to be a “victim.” But, that bit’s already been played out, too. Then, again, maybe her video wasn’t meant to be political, but just a call for “Death to all billionaires.” She’s certainly got good reason to be jealous. After all, she’s worth only $50 million. Kathy Griffin apparently posted this video which appears to be decapitated heads including Trump This should be investigated @FBI pic.twitter.com/IwLL5l9ta1 — Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 29, 2025 July 1st, 2025 11:59 AM Craig Bannister 289664 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/01/study-late-night-comedy-shows-begin-2025-99-percent-guests-being For the men of the late night comedy talk shows, the first half of 2025 was an instance of history repeating itself. According to a NewsBusters study, 99 percent of their political guests were on the left, matching the result for the last six months of 2024. The grand totals were 106 liberals and Democrats compared to one conservative.  The study looked at the five daily late night comedy shows: ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show from January 6 through June 30. MRC analysts also divided the guests into two categories: partisan officials and then journalists and celebrities. When it came to partisan officials, the count was 30 Democrats to 0 Republicans. Colbert led the way with 14, The Daily Show came in second with 10, Kimmel came in third with four, and Meyers placed fourth with two. Fallon interviewed zero politicians during the study’s run. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, and Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett each appeared twice. When it came to journalists and celebrities, the count was 76 liberals to one conservative. Colbert again led all hosts with 29, The Daily Show again placed second with 22, Meyers came in third with 14, Kimmel followed up with six (one occurred during actor Diego Luna’s week of guest hosting), and Fallon had five. American Compass’s Oren Cass’s March 31 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to discuss President Trump's tariffs was the lone conservative appearance. MSNBC led all media outlets with nine appearances, parent company NBC was second with eight, and CNN placed third with six. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes was the most frequent guest with three appearances. HBO’s John Oliver, actor George Clooney, The New York Times’s Ezra Klein, comedian Bill Burr, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, and NBC's Jacob Soboroff all had two appearances each. (A complete breakdown can be found here.) *** NewsBusters has been tracking late night comedy guest counts since September 2022, and the cumulative total now stands at 511 liberals and Democrats versus 14 conservatives and Republicans, or 97 percent.     Methodology: Journalists were defined as either liberal or conservative, regardless of the segment’s subject matter. A celebrity was defined as either a current late night host if that host was on to be interviewed, political activist, or anyone famous who discussed politics or a religious project. If a celebrity is known to have strong political beliefs, but did not discuss them, they were not included. A politician was defined as any currently or previously elected American office holder, White House staffer, cabinet secretary, their spouse, or any of their children who were on to discuss political matters. A politician who has since entered the media is considered to be a journalist. Notes: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is placed in the journalist/celebrity category because his Daily Show appearance predated his premiership. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is also counted as a celebrity because her Late Show appearance was about promoting her book which detailed her time in politics as a left-wing icon. July 1st, 2025 10:10 AM Alex Christy 289618 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/john-stossel/2025/07/01/fight-against-dei-woke-corporate-america-hrc-and-trans-ideology Before Robby Starbuck became a problem for leftist companies, alerting consumers to stupid woke indoctrination policies, he directed music videos. He worked with some big names, like Snoop Dogg and Natalie Portman. In my new video, I remind him that his Snoop Dogg video includes the lyrics: “Set the mood, spoon and groom. ... I can get you high.” He replies, “Realizing that this stuff has a negative effect on culture ... is something that became present to me when I became a dad.” One day, his daughter came home and told him she had to sit through a “weird white privilege” lecture at school. He investigated, and what he found set him on a new path. Now he’s won a big following on Twitter by pointing out companies that force employees to obey “woke” rules. Walmart, Toyota, Pepsi, John Deere, Harley Davidson and others scaled back DEI mandates after Starbuck’s posts. It’s great that he’s made real change, simply by publicizing what companies do. But I’m skeptical about his new movie, “The War on Children.” Starbuck says it “covers everything kids have faced today in the West, from gender ideology to the sort of communist mentality that’s entered our schools, to the depression crisis and the mental health crisis.” His movie was banned on Amazon Prime. He was banned by TikTok. “One reason they might have banned you,” I suggest, “is you say, ‘TikTok intentionally confuses kids about their gender.’” “TikTok’s algorithm has fed young children in this country gender transition content that confuses them about who they are,” he replies. “This is a social contagion.” But when I signed up for TikTok, the algorithm just gave me short videos I find fun to watch -- beach volleyball, emotional family reunion, kittens playing ... Starbuck says young people get different feeds. “If the sole information they have about you is you’re a teenager and interested in pop culture, that’s where they orient you.” But does TikTok intentionally confuse kids about their gender? “Transitions rarely happen,” I point out. “0.08% of kids get diagnosed with gender dysphoria. If TikTok is converting them, they’re not doing a very good job.” “You’re talking about thousands and thousands of kids who get the medical procedures,” he replies. “It’s certainly, in many areas, way beyond the number that you stated. This is a social contagion. Look at the whole area surrounding UC Davis in California in the public schools; the number of kids who believe they’re some form of LGBTQ+ is well over 20%.” I ask him, “Aren’t there some people who genuinely feel like they’re born in the wrong body?” “They can believe it all day long. That’s fine. It doesn’t make it the truth. I’m not going to pretend to affirm something that’s not true ... I would be doing a disservice by pretending that every delusion is actually real, just because it might make somebody happy.” “But it does make some people happy,” I say. “Sure, and if you’re an adult and you make a set of decisions I disagree with, that’s your prerogative. Knock yourself out. But once you cross a line and you start doing this to children who don’t have informed consent, don’t understand what they’re actually doing and what they’re signing up for, I think there’s no forgiveness.” While Starbuck and I don’t entirely agree on this issue, I’m glad we can talk about it. Now, you can look for yourself -- “The War on Children” is officially unbanned. What changed Amazon’s mind? “The politics have changed,” says Starbuck. “It’s back on Amazon Prime now and I’m unbanned at TikTok ... I was right when I warned about the idea of modern communism, where companies act as a proxy for the government, because these things all occurred when the Democrats were in power. Now we’re in a new time period where the people on my side are in power. Now these companies are tripping over themselves to go and say, ‘We’re not banning you. We didn’t mean it ... ‘ We need companies to not be prisoners to political ideologies and instead just behave like they’re actual companies.” He’s right about that. July 1st, 2025 10:07 AM John Stossel 289653 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/01/oliver-attacks-gop-wanting-medicaid-work-requirements HBO’s John Oliver was in a bit of a difficult position for Sunday’s edition of Last Week Tonight. The previous week he suggested that President Trump was on the verge of putting the country into the middle of another Middle East disaster, but that prediction didn’t come true, so he did the best thing he could: hope everyone forgot that he said he would have more to say about that and instead attack the GOP for putting Medicaid work requirements in their Big Beautiful Bill. After playing a clip of Trump saying the reconciliation bill wouldn’t affect Medicaid, Oliver claimed, “The math just doesn't support those claims. As one analysis puts it: ‘Major Medicaid cuts are the only way to meet House budget resolution requirements.’ And the big way this bill tries to do that is by adding ‘work requirements’ for many low-income recipients who got coverage under Medicaid expansion—effectively removing a lot of them from the rolls.     At least Oliver mentioned the work requirements because that’s more than his late night contemporaries have managed to do. Oliver then teed up another video, this one of Speaker Mike Johnson, by lamenting, “Basically, under the bill, to get Medicaid, they’d have to prove they've worked, volunteered, or went to school for 80 hours a month. That alone is projected to cause over five million Americans to lose coverage by the end of the decade. Though, to hear Mike Johnson tell it, that's not a problem, because they're just targeting one specific group.” In the clip, Johnson told CNN, “You don't want able-bodied workers on a program that is intended, for example, for single mothers with two small children who’s just trying to make it, that's what Medicaid is for, not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. We’re going to find those guys and we’re going to send them back to work.” Oliver reacted by quipping, “Okay, ‘29-year-old males sitting on the couch playing video games’? How is it possible that Mike Johnson always sounds so old and out of touch, while also managing to look like a 12-year-old who dressed up as Stephen Colbert for Halloween?” It is fair to ask if Oliver even read the bill, because he then claimed, “The problem with that argument is that most Medicaid enrollees are working. The most recent data shows that nearly two in three work. And most of the rest have a disability, are caring for family members, or are attending school, and yet Republicans won’t stop painting lurid scenarios of Medicaid freeloaders.” Both the House and Senate texts have exemptions for all three of those, so what exactly is Oliver freaking out over? Maybe Johnson’s idea of a couch-riding video gamer isn’t that far off after all. Here is a transcript for the June 29 show: HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 6/29/2025 11:08 PM ET JOHN OLIVER: Also, the math just doesn't support those claims. As one analysis puts it: "Major Medicaid cuts are the only way to meet House budget resolution requirements." And the big way this bill tries to do that is by adding “work requirements" for many low-income recipients who got coverage under Medicaid expansion — effectively removing a lot of them from the rolls. Basically, under the bill, to get Medicaid, they’d have to prove they've worked, volunteered, or went to school for 80 hours a month. That alone is projected to cause over five million Americans to lose coverage by the end of the decade. Though, to hear Mike Johnson tell it, that's not a problem, because they're just targeting one specific group. MIKE JOHNSON: You don't want able-bodied workers on a program that is intended, for example, for single mothers with two small children who’s just trying to make it, that's what Medicaid is for, not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. We’re going to find those guys and we’re going to send them back to work. OLIVER: Okay, "29-year-old males sitting on the couch playing video games"? How is it possible that Mike Johnson always sounds so old and out of touch, while also managing to look like a 12-year-old who dressed up as Stephen Colbert for Halloween? The problem with that argument is that most Medicaid enrollees are working. The most recent data shows that nearly two in three work. And most of the rest have a disability, are caring for family members, or are attending school, and yet Republicans won’t stop painting lurid scenarios of Medicaid freeloaders. July 1st, 2025 9:32 AM Alex Christy 289663 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/01/its-different-legacy-newscasts-dump-all-over-big-beautiful-bill The Legacy Media took turns taking potshots at the One Big, Beautiful Bill in their network evening newscasts. This is in stark contrast to how large Biden-era legislation was covered and serves to remind us that if it weren’t for double standards, there’d be none at all. The most egregious of these is the most Biden-sycophantic network of all, ABC, with framing that might as well have come out of a Democrat comms shop: DAVID MUIR: Now, to Capitol Hill tonight. Senate Republicans trying to push through President Trump's massive tax cut benefiting wealthy Americans, and the president's cuts affecting health coverage for more than 11 million Americans. Food stamps and college aid affected, as well. Tonight, some critics in his own party defying the president, refusing to support it. One senator saying he won't run again. And Elon Musk again warning against this bill now, now threatening Republicans who vote for it. Mary Bruce at The White House tonight. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, Senate Republicans scrambling to push through the massive tax cuts and spending bill at the heart of President Trump's agenda. JOHN THUNE: Let's vote. This is good for America. This is good for the American people. It's good for working families. BRUCE: The bill includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, along with new funding for immigration enforcement. And fulfills some campaign pledges, like no taxes on tips and overtime. It also guts Biden-era clean energy initiatives and slashes Medicaid- something Trump promised he would not do. That is some hellacious framing. Twice within 42 seconds you hear anchor David Muir and Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce say, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, “tax cuts for the wealthy.” Never mind that the bill actually extends the Trump tax cuts of 2017. The report focused on taxes, Medicaid, and Sen. Thom Tillis’ 2026 retirement announcement. Over at CBS, the focus was instead on a single family who may or may not suffer as a result of potential budget cuts to Medicaid. And look, it turns out that the family is from North Carolina, just like the departing Thom Tillis. What are the odds? Of the three, NBC provided the cleanest report: the focus instead was on Elon Musk and the opposition he is bringing to bear, with interviews of GOP senators. To NBC’s credit, there were little to no hysterics regarding the effects of a budget notification that hasn’t happened yet. Contrast this with how the legacies covered passage of Joe Biden’s massive “American Rescue Act.” Each of the big three broadcast networks kicked off their Wednesday evening newscasts by trumpeting the Democratic-controlled House for passing the COVID relief bill, in spite of Republican opposition to the wasteful pork spending. But instead of admitting to viewers the fact that the bill contained billions for non-relief and non-recovery efforts, ABC’s World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News chose to lash out at congressional Republicans by suggesting relief provisions were “infuriating” them. You hear no such a mention of Democrats “infuriated” over the extension of the 2017 tax cuts, which greatly benefitted the middle class. Instead, David Muir and Mary Bruce co-opted their talking points and huffed about tax cuts for the wealthy. Contrast today’s faux concern over the budget with the gleeful abandon of such pieties in service of the Biden Regime. Speaking of debt and deficits, coverage of the deceptively-named “Inflation Reduction Act” was no better. As was noted at the time: …the three evening broadcast network news shows on Monday gushed over the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” which they labeled as “blockbuster” and “historic.”  There was lots of gushing and swooning, with ABC cheering passage of the IRA as the win the Democrats needed ahead of the midterm. Contrast all of that with the seething you see today, and you quickly come to realize there is no real reason for such wildly divergent coverage except that it’s (D)ifferent. Click “expand” to view transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective networks on Monday, June 30th, 2025: ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT 6/30/25 6:37 PM DAVID MUIR: Now, to Capitol Hill tonight. Senate Republicans trying to push through President Trump's massive tax cut benefiting wealthy Americans, and the president's cuts affecting health coverage for more than 11 million Americans. Food stamps and college aid affected, as well. Tonight, some critics in his own party defying the president, refusing to support it. One senator saying he won't run again. And Elon Musk again warning against this bill now, now threatening Republicans who vote for it. Mary Bruce at The White House tonight. MARY BRUCE: Tonight, Senate Republicans scrambling to push through the massive tax cuts and spending bill at the heart of President Trump's agenda. JOHN THUNE: Let's vote. This is good for America. This is good for the American people. It's good for working families. BRUCE: The bill includes roughly $4 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy, along with new funding for immigration enforcement. And fulfills some campaign pledges, like no taxes on tips and overtime. It also guts Biden-era clean energy initiatives and slashes Medicaid- something Trump promised he would not do. A new estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts some 11.8 million Americans would lose their health coverage over the next decade. RON WYDEN: It's the biggest Medicaid cut in history, and represents the largest transfer of wealth in history. It is caviar over kids, hedge funds over health care. BRUCE: Trump insists the Medicaid cuts only target waste, fraud, and abuse, but a member of his own party, Republican senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, says the president doesn't understand his own bill. THOM TILLIS: So, what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid because the funding's not there anymore, guys? (UNINT) ...advising the president are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise. BRUCE: Trump furious with Tillis, threatening to primary him. But Tillis refusing to cave. Instead, announcing he won't run for re-election. Saying “leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.” Other Republicans alarmed by the bill's price tag, which by one estimate would add at least $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next ten years. Tonight, at the 11th hour, Elon Musk swooping in again. Declaring every congressmember who votes yes should “hang their head in shame”, threatening “they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” And Republicans in the Senate want to vote on this bill tonight. Reminder, they can only afford to lose three Republicans and still pass this and right now, more than that remain undecided. And even if this bill ultimately passes the Senate, it then goes back to the House, where Speaker Johnson has that razor thin majority, and already some Republicans are opposing the changes made in the Senate, David. MUIR: Mary Bruce, tracking this into the night at The White House there. Mary, thank you. CBS EVENING NEWS 6/30/25 6:38 PM JOHN DICKERSON: The U.S. Senate spent the day negotiating the Republican Party's domestic policy bill, which will affect nearly every part of American life. The centerpiece would extend the tax cuts passed in 2017 and as you see here, those tax cuts represent most of the price tag. To help pay for those cuts and spending on immigration and defense, the bill would make deep reductions in federal programs. The largest one? Medicaid- the joint federal-state program that provides health insurance for 70 million low-income Americans. The proposed Medicaid cuts fall into two main categories. Eligible recipients who have no children or children over 14 would be required to either work, volunteer, or study 80 hours a month to get benefits. And the second part, the biggest savings, would come from cutting a portion of federal money the states get to pay for Medicaid. Republicans claim states have been getting more money than they need to cover patients but, as Skyler Henry reports, as cuts go through, states will have to do more with less, trimming or limited in programs they rely on. SKYLER HENRY: Each hop is no small feat for a 6-year-old Kennedy Beaver. Her mom Marilyn says she has been in therapy sessions like this at least two times a week. Kennedy was diagnosed with Noonan Syndrome, it’s a genetic condition that stunts development. MARILYN BEAVER: For her- short stature, poor growth, low muscle tone. With that, we became eligible for something called the Cap/C waiver through Medicaid. HENRY: North Carolina's Cap/C program pays for most of the treatments and medications for children through age 20 who have significant medical needs. If they didn't have Cap/C, the Beavers say they would be paying more than $4,000 a month even with help from their private insurance. BEAVER: This is our medication that without the  Medicaid coverage it would be $3200 a month because our primary insurance has denied us. HENRY: With Republicans in Congress proposing major cuts to Medicaid funding in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, states like North Carolina could see more than 600,000 people lose their coverage. JAY LUDLUM: The cuts being proposed at the federal level at some point affect the entire program. HENRY: Jay Ludlum is with North Carolina's Medicaid, overseeing more than 3 million people that receive benefits. State officials told us if federal funding falls short, the Cap/C program could be on the chopping block. LUDLUM: When you take $700 billion out of Medicaid nationally, there's no way to really do that without people losing coverage. HENRY: If you had an opportunity to speak with the lawmakers, what would you tell them? BEAVER: So if you want to fix it let's fix it, but it's not in cutting services- it's in fixing a health care system so that everybody in the country can get a level of care that meets their needs. HENRY: The Beavers fear that if the proposals on Capitol Hill were to become law, then they may have to go back to rationing Kennedy’s treatments altogether. DICKERSON: Skyler Henry. Thank you. NBC NIGHTLY NEWS 6/30/25 6:40 PM TOM LLAMAS: Now to the battle over President Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill. Elon Musk once again slamming it. Ryan Nobles is tracking all the developments for us from The Hill and Ryan, Democrats are also pulling out all the stops tonight to try and delay it. RYAN NOBLES: That’s right, Tom. Democrats are offering up a series of amendments to try to slow this process down. But ultimately, it will be up to Republicans to try to come up with the votes to move this bill closer to President Trump’s desk.  Tonight, Senate Republicans dashing to deliver President Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill to his desk by July 4th. JOHN HUSTED: This is the most momentous legislation of my lifetime. This is going to be the largest tax cut for Americans in our history.  NOBLES: But Democrats looking to delay it with a so-called vote-a-rama on amendments likely to be voted down. NOBLES: How do you feel about the process so far? JOHN FETTERMAN: Well, there's going to be a lot of amendments and ultimately I'm going to vote no. NOBLES: And now, new criticism from a familiar foe. Elon Musk, who previously apologized for unleashing personal insults against President Trump, tonight slamming the “Porky Pig” party for insane spending. And threatening anyone will lose their primary next year if they support it. The White House says Musk is opposing the bill because it takes away electric vehicle tax credits that help his company Tesla. DONALD TRUMP: I haven’t spoken to him much but I think Elon is a wonderful guy and (VIDEO SWIPE) the electric vehicle mandate- EV mandate is a tough thing for him. NOBLES: The bill delivers on many of President Trump's campaign promises, including extending the Trump tax cuts and giving billions of dollars for border security, as well as eliminating the tax on tips and overtime. But it also makes changes to Medicaid, including imposing work requirements to get benefits. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis opposing it. THOM THILLIS: So, what do I tell 663,000 people in two years or three years, when President Trump breaks his promise by pushing them off of Medicaid… NOBLES: President Trump said he would support a primary challenge for Tillis, who  then abruptly announced he would not run for re-election. The president called that great news. Do you think there's going to be a lot of changes to the bill over the course of this vote-a-rama? HUSTED: I don't. I think that there are some improvements and some clarifications that will need to be made. (VIDEO SWIPE) It's the best product that you can produce with the votes you can get. NOBLES: Most Republicans believe that once Trump makes it clear he wants it done, the votes will come fast.  Is President Trump able to close the deal? JOHN HOEVEN: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, he’s the closer. LLAMAS: OK, let's pick up right there, Ryan. Could this last-minute criticism from Elon Musk you mentioned there in the report derail this bill? NOBLES: Tom, it's unlikely that it will sway any votes in the Senate. But this identical bill needs to pass the House, and there are a number of skeptical Republicans where Elon Musk could have an impact. Ultimately, though, GOP leaders believe that this bill will ultimately pass. Tom. LLAMAS: Ryan Nobles with that relentless back and forth. Ryan, we thank you.   July 1st, 2025 2:14 AM Jorge Bonilla 289662 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/06/30/newsbusters-podcast-mediaite-editor-puzzled-mamdanis-white-house White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt ripped into socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Monday, and Mediaite editor Colby Hall just couldn't figure out why she would attack this new radical face of the Democratic Party. He even failed to identify him as a mayoral candidate, saying he "isn't even in Congress yet." This was the headline:  Karoline Levitt Accuses Zohran Mamdani of ‘Peddling Anti-Semitism’ While Pitching Trump Spending Bill Hall sounded very defensive of that "charming socialist" in New York:  Leavitt, eyes locked on the prompter and smile tight as a drum, veered from policy bullet points into a screed aimed squarely at New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, calling him “a Democrat Socialist—really a communist—who proudly calls to defund the police … peddles anti-semitism, praises pro-Hamas groups, wants Israel abolished, [and] believes white Americans should not exist.” If that sounds like a Fox News chyron cooked up by AI with a grudge, that’s because it practically is. It's amazing that Hall cannot see the opportunity here for the Trump White House to pin Mamdani's radicalism on the Democratic Party in general, or even specifically on the New York Democrats, which include Senate Minority Leader Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries.  Hall wants to pretend you can't pin anti-semitism on Mamdani, and then he underlines why that makes sense:  Mamdani has been a vocal critic of Israeli policy in Gaza and an advocate for defunding the NYPD. But Leavitt’s comment is more political spin than accepted factual narrative. Critics take issue with Mamdani ostensibly minimizing the attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7th, and his liberal use of the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” to describe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s treatment of Palestinians. Then it's laughable when he claims the Republicans are bumbling here on the PR front: "In weaponizing Mamdani’s name, Leavitt is arguably handing him a bigger national platform than he’s ever had." What? He did Meet the Press on Sunday, and was interviewed by MSNBC's Jen Psaki and CNN's Erin Burnett before that.   This is the same man who tried to tell us a few weeks ago that Trump-hating reporter Terry Moran is "not a liberal in the slightest." We also address Mamdani spin through the Sunday shows, and how one CNN anchor tried to claim Mamdani may have said he wanted to tax "richer, whiter neighborhoods," but he didn't mean to sound racial. He could have just left the word "whiter" out of it, but he included it for a reason. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts:  June 30th, 2025 10:52 PM Tim Graham 289661 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/06/30/abc-pushes-narrative-pride-movement-entitled-corporations-money On Friday, ABC’s Good Morning America ran a segment decrying the decrease in funding and support for Pride Month by corporations that once used to offer suffering levels of support. GMA used a series of syrupy clips which created a narrative of pressure by the LGBTQ community on corporations to back them financially and publicly or else they hate the gay and transgender community.  ABC’s senior national correspondent Steve Osunsami came out of the gate with some statistics: Good morning to you Lara, from the famous rainbow crosswalks here in Atlanta. A number of pride organizations across the country are having to make big adjustments with fewer headliners and fewer events. Parades, the floats, and the party in the streets don’t look so different this year, but a few big things are missing at this year's pride events. In San Francisco, in Houston, in cities big and small, many of the corporate sponsors who just years ago were standing tall with rainbow flags, have left the celebrations. In Columbus, Ohio, they’re down $100,000 in corporate donations, 150,000 in St. Louis, down 200,000 in Kansas City. In the home of the nation's first gay pride march ever, the riots at the Stonewall Bar began a movement; nearly a quarter of corporate sponsors in New York City have pulled back or cancelled support this year, meaning a $750,000 difference.     Osunsami claimed that, as a result of pulled funding by corporations, pride organizations across the country can’t afford headliners and certain events. He said things don’t look so different this year, but then gave the amounts listed above in an attempt to make corporations look bad because they aren’t fully embracing Pride Month with floats and parties.   As much as ABC may have made them seem responsible, corporations have every right to decide whether to provide donations and aren’t mandated by any means to provide funding. The reason for pulled funding was that these corporations don’t feel like they have to pump money into pride month parades anymore in fear of cancel culture.  In clips from the President of Human Rights Campaign Kelley Robinson, she guilt tripped corporations for pulled funding: I think the interesting thing that you’re seeing is companies are trying to walk this fine line, where they want to both support our community because they know we have trillions of dollars of buying power, and they’re also trying to cower to this intensified political environment that we’re in that wants them to silence our community, so what we’re saying is, you can’t just show up for the LGBT community when it’s easy, you’ve got to show up for us when it’s hard. So we’re making sure that we’re highlighting companies who are doing the good work, and also holding companies accountable that haven’t been showing up for our community. Because this is a time where we need them more than ever to affirm our rights and our presence. Robinson said they were holding the corporations accountable for not showing up for the community (i.e. for not giving away thousands of dollars for parades). She then stated she and others will “remember their true friends,” in an attempt to make these corporations good or evil, you either donate and support, or you’re bad.  To Robinson, there is no option for your company to stay out of it entirely.  Robinson, as the president of the Human Rights Campaign, made over $700,000 in FY2023. Her company has a sub organization called Welcoming Schools, which promoted teaching children grades first through third, “What is Pride?”  The “exercise” called for six-year-olds to learn the meaning of gay and trans people and what they love, again, they are six. It then called for them to affirm that they support the LGBTQ+ community.  Osunsami ended the feel bad for us campaign here: OSUNSAMI: The party really isn’t going to stop. Some of the same forces that are driving businesses away are pushing people towards these events. Some are seeing record turnout this year. Sort of a backlash to the backlash. SPENCER: Yeah, that’s good to hear. It’s not like the “backlash” was companies coming out to openly oppose LGBTQ people, they’ve simply stopped funding their parties. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view: ABC’s Good Morning America 8:43:10 AM June, 27th, 2025 LARA SPENCER: Now to GMA Out Loud as we celebrate pride month. This morning, how many in the LBGTQ community are protecting pride as many corporate sponsors pull back funding on events. Senior National Correspondent Steve Osunsami has more on the people stepping up to keep the spirit alive. Good morning, Steve.  STEVE OSUNSAMI: Good morning to you Lara, from the famous rainbow crosswalks here in Atlanta. A number of pride organizations across the country are having to make big adjustments with fewer headliners and fewer events. Parades, the floats, and the party in the streets don’t look so different this year, but a few big things are missing at this year's pride events. WATN ANCHOR YVONNE COOPER: Lots of changes this year and cities nationwide, including Memphis, have seen major corporations stop backing pride celebrations.  OSUNSAMI: In San Francisco, in Houston, in cities big and small, many of the corporate sponsors who just years ago were standing tall with rainbow flags, have left the celebrations. In Columbus, Ohio, they’re down $100,000 in corporate donations, 150,000 in St. Louis, down 200,000 in Kansas City. In the home of the nation's first gay pride march ever, the riots at the Stonewall Bar began a movement; nearly a quarter of corporate sponsors in New York City have pulled back or cancelled support this year, meaning a $750,000 difference. PRESIDENT HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN KELLEY ROBINSON: We see this corporate backslide, we’ve had almost a 40 percent decline in companies that are externally supporting pride. What we still see is people showing up in big cities and small towns to declare that ultimate truth; that no matter who you are, you deserve to be seen.  (...) 8:45:29 AM OSUNSAMI: Businesses are saying that they’re afraid of the economic uncertainty, or the reality that they could be punished for supporting gay and transgender rights. One survey of dozens of corporate executives found that two out of five said that they were dialing back sponsorship or even appearances at Pride Month activities. Kelley Robinson, the head of the largest gay political group in America, says that she and others will remember their true friends. ROBINSON: I think the interesting thing that you’re seeing is companies are trying to walk this fine line, where they want to both support our community because they know we have trillions of dollars of buying power, and they’re also trying to cower to this intensified political environment that we’re in that wants them to silence our community, so what we’re saying is, you can’t just show up for the LGBT community when it’s easy, you’ve got to show up for us when it’s hard. So we’re making sure that we’re highlighting companies who are doing the good work, and also holding companies accountable that haven’t been showing up for our community. Because this is a time where we need them more than ever to affirm our rights and our presence. OSUNSAMI: It was President Clinton who first federally recognized pride month in June of 1999. This June, the current administration said there was no need. KAROLINE LEAVITT: There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June. I can tell you the President is very proud to be a President for all Americans. (....) 8:47:03 a.m. "MORGXN": We're now at a time all across this country where you have to look at what's happening and you as a queer person, gay person,ever you want to identify, you have to look at it and say, how am I going to meet this moment and what am I going to do about it? Corporations need to step up and mean it. I am gay 365 days a year. You can support me and talk to me all year long. And if they're gonna back out, then stay out, because other people are going to meet the moment and that feels also something that I think is happening. (....) 8:48:14 a.m. OSUNSAMI: The party really isn’t going to stop. Some of the same forces that are driving businesses away are pushing people towards these events. Some are seeing record turnout this year. Sort of a backlash to the backlash. SPENCER: Yeah, that’s good to hear. June 30th, 2025 9:26 PM Matthew Seck 289657 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/jorge-bonilla/2025/06/30/univision-falsely-fearmongers-about-civil-crimes-deportations Univision continues to push deportation fear doom to their audience. The network’s latest outburst, on a Department of Justice memo issuing expanded denaturalization guidelines, plays loose with the use of the term “civil crimes.” Watch as anchor Ilia Calderón and correspondent Reyna Rodríguez use the term twice within 19 seconds in order to create a false narrative:  NOTICIERO UNIVISION 6/30/25 6:31 PM ILIA CALDERÓN: A Department of Justice memo issues instructions for the revocation of citizenship for immigrants who commit certain civil crimes. Reyna Rodríguez tells us about the implications. REYNA RODRIGUEZ: The Trump administration is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of naturalized immigrants who have committed civil offenses. In a memo, the Department of Justice requests that the federal agency's lawyers initiate civil proceedings to remove citizenship. HAIM VASQUEZ: The denaturalization process is not a new one. What's causing some concern here is the emphasis the government is placing on it. RODRGUEZ: According to the statement, the measure targets those who obtained their status in an unlawful manner, lied on immigration forms, who pose a potential threat to national security, and who engaged in financial or medical fraud. The idea here is to make viewers especially fearful, and to lead naturalized citizens to believe that they could be deported for any reason. “Civil crimes” is key to this framing and is both confusing highly deceptive. The term “civil crimes" suggests that people could be denaturalized and deported for mere procedural minutiae. But in reality, “civil” refers to the administrative process itself. The crimes that could lead to deportation are in fact crimes, as opposed to civil offenses like a speeding ticket, having your dog without a leash on city streets, or violating your local noise ordinance by playing loud music. In fact, NPR’s item decrying the new guidelines lament the deportation of a man found guilty of possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material- not a civil offense!  Shame on Univision for obscuring what is a pretty cut-and-dried issue: you get caught lying on your immigration forms, committing fraud or other crimes, and you lose naturalization. As this report unfortunately proves, nowhere is the audience of Spanish-language news media more vulnerable to disinformation fearmongering than on the issue of immigration- vital to these networks’ business interests.  Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on Noticiero Univision on Monday, June 30th, 2025: ILIA CALDERÓN: About 25 million naturalized Americans could be in the Trump administration's sights. A Department of Justice memo issues instructions for the revocation of citizenship for immigrants who commit certain civil crimes. Reyna Rodríguez tells us about the implications. REYNA RODRIGUEZ: The Trump administration is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of naturalized immigrants who have committed civil offenses. In a memo, the Department of Justice requests that the federal agency's lawyers initiate civil proceedings to remove citizenship. HAIM VASQUEZ:The denaturalization process is not a new one. What's causing some concern here is the emphasis the government is placing on it. RODRGUEZ: According to the statement, the measure targets those who obtained their status in an unlawful manner, lied on immigration forms, who pose a potential threat to national security, and who engaged in financial or medical fraud. VASQUEZ: The government must begin a civil denaturalization process and present clear and convincing evidence. It's not simple or easy. RODRGUEZ: Some lawyers point out that a civil trial can deprive an affected person of rights, including the right to legal representation. According to the Migration Policy Institute, some 25 million immigrants were naturalized US citizens by 2023. Mauricio, who asked us not to show his face, said that becoming a citizen of this country was not easy. MAURICIO: A fear returns that any mistake, any misinterpretation, uh, could put me at risk of returning to that life of- of what if they- what if they kick me out of here? RODRGUEZ: The directive for denaturalization is one of the administration's latest efforts to restructure the immigration system. President Trump has sought to eliminate birthright citizenship and reduce refugee programs. ALAN CISNEROS: They are citizens, and they are not second-class citizens.And they must be respected, and due process must be followed. RODRIGUEZ: In McAllen, Texas: Reyna Rodriguez, Univision.   June 30th, 2025 8:22 PM Jorge Bonilla 289660 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ashley-taylor/2025/06/30/msnbc-claims-mamdani-critics-are-just-islamophobic-right-wingers On Sunday’s The Weekend: Primetime, MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin suggested that Mamdani was being unfairly targeted by critics on the right because of his Muslim faith and his cultural identity. “There is a double standard,” he said, nodding to Mamdani’s supposed persecution and labeling criticism of the assemblyman as “vulgar” and “ugly.” Leave it up to an MSNBCer to make an accusation and hide behind not backing it up. Mohyeldin hinted at that Islamophobia was what drove the criticism of Mamdani, he even suggested he a had a bunch of evidence but didn’t want to go into it: I do think, and I'm speaking here for myself, as somebody who has observed him over the course of the last several months, there is a double standard that is being applied to him that is not being applied to other politicians. And it's for obvious reasons, not just because of his politics on what has happened overseas in Gaza, but the way he has stood up and defended certain principles around free speech in this city, but also because of what his faith is, what his identity is. And those are central to him. And I think that's new to many people in this country. And we're seeing that being weaponized in a very ugly and vulgar way. I think that double standard needs to be questioned. We don't ask other politicians the same questions that we're asking him. I can give you a lot of examples, but I won't go on– into that.     Mamdani’s “standing up” for free speech is not the political gold-star MSNBC wants you to believe it was. The comment refers to Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the anti-Semitic phrase “globalize the intifada”, which has been used to encourage terrorist attacks and violence against Jewish people across the world all under the guise of “protecting free speech”. In an interview on MSNBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, he claimed he does not want to infringe on free speech, in an attempt to separate himself from President Trump, who he called authoritarian and claimed was jailing journalists.  This criticism was by no means based on the Mamdani’s Muslim faith, but rather his refusal to separate himself from extremist rhetoric and groups. Republicans weren’t the only ones critiquing him.  In an article published by left-leaning The Atlantic, Mamdani was also criticized for his refusal to condemn the phrase and its meaning.  He was also called out by the United States Holocaust Museum on X for tip-toeing around the meaning of the phrase. The museum asserted that the term “intifada” was sanitized after Mamdani claimed that it simply means resistance in Arabic. Mamdani insisted he did not personally use the phrase, but did not want to "police" those who did.  Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase had raised concern across the board, garnering criticism from both Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike.  His refusal to clearly distance himself from actors known to have supported violent extremism in the Middle East was not a theological issue, it was one of national security– especially in New York City, the place with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. Mohyeldin then claimed that other politicians do not receive the same questions that Mamdani has been asked, but refused to elaborate – again, saying he had examples but wouldn’t go into them.  The left’s attempt to shield Mamdani from criticism by invoking Islamophobia was part of a broader pattern in progressive politics: use identity as armor, and label dissent as bigotry. The double standard here wasn’t being applied to Mamdani, it’s being created by his defenders. No other elected official could maintain visible ties to groups associated with any form of terrorism, left or right, without serious media scrutiny. But when Mamdani did it, outlets like MSNBC fall over themselves to suggest the backlash is due to his religion. The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime June 29, 2025 7:43:14 PM EST ANTONIA HYLTON: Welcome back to The Weekend Primetime. So much to digest from our interview with Zohran Mamdani, guys. Ayman, I want to start with you. Since you're the first to get him on national TV. CATHERINE RAMPELL: You are responsible! AYMAN MOHYELDIN: No, not at all. Not at all.  HYLTON: No- no. I’m not– That was a joke. But– but seriously, to see the sort of, like, transformation, the growth in this campaign, were you surprised by what's transpired the last week?  MOHYELDIN: I was very– HYLTON: What's your reflection on our interview? MOHYELDIN: I was very surprised, and I was surprised because one of the things that he has been very consistent about is his messaging. When you go back and watch some of the– the first interviews that he was doing about what he wanted to focus on: affordability, having a really kind of like progressive economic agenda, a wider social net. Those were things that he talked about in those first days, and many people thought it was a pipe dream. But I think he stayed consistent, messaged very– in a very disciplined way, and it obviously has paid off. I think what's interesting now is to see the conversation around him and how that has changed, and how politics may change that going forward. And that's why I was asking about will he change his approach? Will things be different? He's committed to not being different. So it'll be interesting to see that.  I do think, and I'm speaking here for myself, as somebody who has observed him over the course of the last several months, there is a double standard that is being applied to him that is not being applied to other politicians. And it's for obvious reasons, not just because of his politics on what has happened overseas in Gaza, but the way he has stood up and defended certain principles around free speech in this city, but also because of what his faith is, what his identity is. And those are central to him. And I think that's new to many people in this country. And we're seeing that being weaponized in a very ugly and vulgar way. I think that double standard needs to be questioned. We don't ask other politicians the same questions that we're asking him. I can give you a lot of examples, but I won't go on– into that.  So, I think it has exposed, but at the same time, it has challenged us in a, in a new and interesting and I would argue, an important, exciting way for our city. But I thought your questions were very fascinating, and I was actually proud of the fact that we were able to get into this in ways that other shows have not been able to. They've been taking the low hanging fruit, talking about these kind of New York Post sensationalist headlines. But I thought we were we were able to get– and I don't know how you thought from an economics point of view– RAMPELL: I mean, I have so many more questions I could have asked him about his economic policies again, many of which I think sound great, but I'm skeptical that they can be manifested into reality, either because there isn't money for it, or because I think they haven't been totally thought through. And I'm really glad that we were able to have a conversation, at least in part on– on those things and less about some of the identity politics, and I mean, the stuff that– MOHYELDIN: The right-wing is using to attack him for, and labels and– RAMPELL: Right. I mean, I think there are plenty of reasons you could quibble with his campaign that are completely unrelated to his faith– MOHYELDIN: Yes. RAMPELL: –to, you know, to his race and, and everything else. I'd rather keep it on the substance. (...) June 30th, 2025 8:11 PM Ashley Taylor 289654 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/06/30/unacceptable-leavitt-blasts-cnn-hailing-app-encouraging-violence During Monday afternoon’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ripped CNN for what had seemed to her like “unacceptable” behavior by “a major network” in “promot[ing]” an app that reveals the location of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officers, saying it’s “an incitement of further violence against our ICE officers” amid a historic spike in attacks against the brave men and women removing illegal immigrants. Our friend and 2023 Media Research Center Bulldog Award winner Mary Margaret Olohan brought up, standing from her perch on one of the aisles representing the Daily Wire (click the tweet to read the full back-and-forth): Elsewhere, Fox’s Peter Doocy was back in the Briefing Room and he had this hardball for Leavitt: Doocy twice followed up, including on a proposal by Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) to explore stripping Mamdani of U.S. citizenship that the far-left radical obtained in 2018: DOOCY: There’s this congressman, Andy Ogles, he wants the Attorney General Pam Bondi to explore denaturalization proceedings because he thinks Mamdani could have misrepresented or concealed material support for terrorism based on the rap lyrics that he wrote in 2017. Does President Trump think this is a worthwhile use of the attorney general’s time? LEAVITT: Well, I’ll let the President speak to that. I have not seen those claims, but surely, if they are true, it’s something that should be investigated. DOOCY: And could President Trump see himself — you said you just talked to him about this. LEAVITT: Mmhmm DOOCY: Could he see himself working with a Mayor Mamdani, somebody who — on Meet the Press this weekend — was given three chances to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’ but he couldn’t? LEAVITT: Yeah, look, the President is willing to work with anyone. He’s working with Democrats across the country — Democrat governors — and he said that he ‘ll work with people on the far left. He works with Republicans. He works people in the middle. He wants to do what’s right for America, but surely someone who holds these values and is quite literally a communist and condemns every value that makes this country great, common sense, law and order, low taxes, working hard, and earning your keep in this country, he’s against all of that, and I think the president would find it difficult to work with someone like that. If he is elected, I am sure you will hear more from the President on that. But we’ll have to see. Hopefully the voters of New York City choose wisely. In yet a third example Monday of how at least some in conservative media come with real, probing questions for the Trump administration, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann challenged Leavitt on the rumored temporary halt on ICE operations for farm workers: Wegmann also brought up legislation by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) to further slash the size of the already slimmed down Office of the Director of National Intelligence, but Leavitt said she was unsure if President Trump “is even aware of that legislation, but I will get you a response if he is aware and if he wants to respond to it.” At the start of the briefing, radio talk show host John Fredericks moved from his usual perch in the aisles to the “new media seat, ” asking about the Big, Beautiful Bill and the President’s disgust with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: To see the relevant transcript from the June 30 briefing, click here. June 30th, 2025 6:32 PM Curtis Houck 289659 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/06/30/national-security-experts-bunker-bust-cnns-false-iran-strike CNN has dug in deep under the mountain of lies they’ve made in order to prop up the false narrative of serial misinformer Natasha Bertrand’s stenography for the anti-Trump deep state. During Monday afternoon’s CNN News Central, Bertrand was back at it, claiming that the Fordow site was only "severely damaged" on a "surface level" and mocked that the U.S. didn't even try to hit a different bunker site. But earlier in the day, a couple of experts more in the know dropped their own bunker busters on CNN and blew up their narrative. Teed up by co-host Boris Sanchez to suggest that the images of excavation equipment at Fordow were more than just to access the bunker to begin with, Bertrand insisted the site was “severely damaged, at least on a surface level, by these massive penetrating bombs.” Ignoring how Iran’s government and military had been thoroughly infiltrated by Israel’s Mossad intelligence, Bertrand mocked the U.S. for not even trying to strike the deep bunkers at the Isfahan facility: “…they didn't use those massive ordnance penetrator bombs because they were deemed to be potentially not effective against the underground structures at Isfahan, just given how deep those tunnels actually are.”   CNN serial disinformer Natasha Bertrand is still standing by her false narrative about the success of the U.S.'s strikes on Iran. She claims Fordow was only "severely damaged" on a "surface level" and suggests that the U.S. didn't even try to hit a different bunker. She omits… pic.twitter.com/0kcgKm8LzE — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 30, 2025   In reality, if there was a chance, the U.S. would have used them. Like at Fardow, they would have dropped multiple bunker busters in the same location to dig down to it. There’s a good chance that the U.S. didn’t strike Isfahan because they had intelligence that it wasn’t a worthwhile target. But don’t take our word for it. Earlier in the day CNN global affairs analyst and former National Security Council member Brett McGurk told The Situation Room co-host Wolf Blitzer that the Israelis “have complete intel dominance over Iran. They know where stuff is.” Adding: “About 20,000 centrifuges have been destroyed at Natanz and Fordow. All the centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, as Kirsten just said, are no longer operable.”     McGurk also called out those who had predicted World War III if the U.S. were to strike Iran and how, likewise, people were predicting the strike’s failure way too prematurely given what we know (Click “expand”): There were predictions before this happened – when I was on the set about two weeks ago –uncontrollable war in the Middle East, hundreds of American casualties, if we entered. None of that happened. I think all of the assumptions that are going on now for what might happen to the program, we just have to take the time, let the Intel professionals do their work. They'll come up with a comprehensive assessment. But even then, that will be based on a number of assumptions. What's Iran prepared to do after this setback? Would we see it? Would we be able to stop it? What will how will the diplomacy go? So, I think we all have to approach this little humility. This was a successful operation overall. I think Iran is in deep trouble and I think the idea they're going to now lurch towards moving ahead with their nuclear program, I really think that is implausible. And if they do, we'll see it. And I think we'll have measures to stop it. On the panel with McGurk was The Atlantic Council’s Kirsten Fontenrose (a former senior director of the National Security Council), who also suggested the Fordow strike was successful in taking out the sensitive centrifuges: Remember, we are also hearing from places like scientific seismologists who are saying that the shock waves from the strikes would have taken out much more than even the bombs would have. So, when we think about dropping a bunker buster, we think about its impact. But it's more than that. It's also what happens once that bomb hits underground and reacts with the earth around it. So, we expect that most of the centrifuges are eliminated. “And if you restarted the program, what does that mean? Is that enrichment? Is that a production facility for rotors? Is that fuel? What are you talking about?” she scoffed. Yeah, what are you talking about Natasha? The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Situation Room June 30, 2025 10:32:52 a.m. Eastern (…) WOLF BLITZER: Kirsten, let me start with you. What's your assessment of how quickly Iran potentially could be back in enrichment, enriching uranium? KIRSTEN FONTENROSE (The Atlantic Council, former Sen. Dir. National Security Council): The IAEA executive director is saying it's within months, but that is debated by the U.S. intelligence community. The CIA director told Congress last Friday he thinks that many of the facilities have been completely dismantled. Remember, we are also hearing from places like scientific seismologists who are saying that the shock waves from the strikes would have taken out much more than even the bombs would have. So, when we think about dropping a bunker buster, we think about its impact. But it's more than that. It's also what happens once that bomb hits underground and reacts with the earth around it. So, we expect that most of the centrifuges are eliminated. And if you restarted the program, what does that mean? Is that enrichment? Is that a production facility for rotors? Is that fuel? What are you talking about? So yes, they could potentially start something if they were trying to send a signal. But how long would it be before they could make a bomb. Much, much longer. Dirty bomb, shorter timeline. Warhead, much longer timeline; it takes multiple facilities and many pieces of the process. But we're assessing right now that the discussion is about whether or not you can talk them out of the intent to restart anyway. Can you give them a civilian program at that same site and then they don't need to enrich for a bomb at all? Can they even afford to enrich even if they had remnants of the material to start with? There are so many questions when, instead of just looking at whether or not they have some seed material, look at, do they have the scientists? Do they have the funding? Do they have the intent? BLITZER: And do they have the guts to do it because they know if the Israelis or the U.S. found out about it, they would immediately launch retaliatory strikes. FONTENROSE: Immediately. BLITZER: Yeah. So, they have to have the guts to do that as well. Brett, let me get your reaction to what the head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency said about Iran's ability to enrich uranium after those U.S. and Israeli attacks. Watch this and listen. (…) BLITZER: Can the world get that clarification, Brett, unless inspectors are left back into Iran? BRETT MCGurk (former National Security Council): I think Wolf, let’s step back. First of all, what I think the Israelis demonstrated in this operation, they have complete Intel dominance over Iran. They know where stuff is. About 20,000 centrifuges have been destroyed at Natanz and Fordow. All the centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, as Kirsten just said, are no longer operable. Does Iran have a stash of centrifuges somewhere else? Maybe. Probably not. Centrifuge production facilities are destroyed. So, there's a lot of goods in Raphael's assessment. I know him pretty well. A lot of could, a lot of assumptions. Look, Iran has been set back significantly. Ambassador Iravani, what you just showed. He's acting as if the world has not changed with what's just happened. Their nuclear program is set back. Some might say months. That's based on a number of assumptions that Iran cobbles together the pieces and parts that's left of the program and decides to now move with speed and dispatch. I think we would see that we'd be able to stop it. So, let's just kind of wait and see. There were predictions before this happened – when I was on the set about two weeks ago –uncontrollable war in the Middle East, hundreds of American casualties, if we entered. None of that happened. I think all of the assumptions that are going on now for what might happen to the program, we just have to take the time, let the Intel professionals do their work. They'll come up with a comprehensive assessment. But even then, that will be based on a number of assumptions. What's Iran prepared to do after this setback? Would we see it? Would we be able to stop it? What will how will the diplomacy go? So, I think we all have to approach this little humility. This was a successful operation overall. I think Iran is in deep trouble and I think the idea they're going to now lurch towards moving ahead with their nuclear program, I really think that is implausible. And if they do, we'll see it. And I think we'll have measures to stop it. And, you know, the Europeans here, interestingly, the Brits and the French are saying they are prepared to snap back all international sanctions by the end of this summer. If Iran does what Ambassador Iravani just said. So, there's a lot of tools here in the diplomatic playbook. There's a lot of intelligence going on. And right now, I think this is going fairly well, and we have to see. (…) 11:47:27 a.m. Eastern BLITZER: Based on everything we've seen, based on everything you're hearing, and what you know, how long do you think it potentially could be before Iran begins enriching uranium again? JAMIE RUBIN: Well, first of all, it's not knowable. That's the problem. It's only really with inspectors on the ground with diplomatic regime that employs inspectors that we can actually answer that question. But I think we're talking about months, not years for the potential for enrichment of uranium. Wolf, we've been talking about the Iranian nuclear program for more than 25 years, as you know, back when you were covering the Pentagon and the State Department and the White House and the Clinton administration. What we've learned over these 25-plus years is the most confidence we have that Iran will not go to a nuclear weapon comes when we have a diplomatic solution with inspectors on the ground. Military success is simply necessary maybe in certain cases, but it's not sufficient. We have to combine force with diplomacy, and unfortunately, the Israeli government and our government right now has not shown great skill in the diplomatic success department. Although, they have shown enormous skill, particularly the Israelis and the United States in this most recent raid in the military sphere. It's just not good enough if we want to be confident that Iran is not going to move to a nuclear weapon. (…) June 30th, 2025 5:51 PM Nicholas Fondacaro 289658 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/06/30/new-york-times-touts-defiance-and-joy-gay-pride-parade-vs-trump-anti Liam Stack of The New York Times proclaims on his article page at NYTimes.com that he follows his paper’s “Ethical Journalism Handbook” and so “I make every effort to understand issues from multiple angles.” There are no multiple angles when it’s time to celebrate a Gay Pride march. On the front page was a color photo with the headline “Pride, and Resistance,” noting “Millions packed the streets of Manhattan to celebrate amid the most hostile political climate for LGBTQ Americans in decades.” Inside the paper, Stack’s article was headlined “With Defiance and Joy, Marching to Celebrate LGBTQ Pride.” No opponent of the LGBTQ lobby was quoted, because who needs “multiple angles”? Stack’s lede matched the caption about the “most hostile political climate.” Stack quoted a pack of extremely panicked activists implying the conservatives are going to kill or injure them somehow.  “I’ve seen the progression over the years, and I have marched many, many, many times,” said Pam Ballo, 57, who had traveled from Portland, Ore., to attend the New York march with her mother and child. “And now we’ve circled so far back and there’s such a giant shadow because there’s so much darkness. It’s one of the scariest times, for sure, I think, next to the AIDS crisis.” … “There’s more fear than there was, and it feels like as a country we’re regressing,” said Jeannette Burgos, 70, who attended a youth Pride event in Manhattan on Saturday with her godchild, Quincy Robinson, 18, who is nonbinary. “I’m personally scared for my own family members.” ... On Sunday, Jack Strauch, 34, a transgender man from New Jersey, wore pink and blue shoes to the New York City march, to match the transgender Pride flag. He said he thought it was important to attend Pride to feel “validated” in a political climate that often feels “kind of dangerous for a lot of us.” The Times wants to argue liberal bias is winning: "The New York march is the largest of its kind in the United States, with 75,000 participants and roughly two million spectators, according to organizers. It is also broadcast on network television, a testament to how much public support for L.G.B.T.Q. people has grown over a generation." The parade is apparently broadcast live on ABC's New York City station. But now there's a "backlash." Leftists can't seem to grasp the obvious that they have kept pushing the boundaries of their gender-bending revolution until people objected to "gender-affirming" mutilations and boys in girls' sports. It's not a "backlash" as much as a reaction to new extremes.  Stack wrote: "Transgender individuals and their allies have been hit hard by the anti-diversity fervor of the Trump administration, which spent heavily on campaign ads attacking trans people in the months leading up to last year’s presidential election." Stack sounded more like he had "anti-diversity fervor," since he didn't have a diversity of opinions in his Pride Parade story. Not all protests are equally celebrated, of course. In January, the headline on the paper's "March for Life" protest story by Elisabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer was headlined "Opponents of Abortion Raise Their Ambitions." In that case, the Times found an opposing view to quote. Elisabeth Smith, the state policy director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, warned against any more protections of unborn babies: “We’re in that same place where people understandably cannot accept what is coming because it is too awful to accept, and it is against the will of the people.” Photo captured from New York Post video.  June 30th, 2025 5:21 PM Tim Graham 289655 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/erick-erickson/2025/06/30/assessments-and-credibility-cnn On Tuesday, in what it labeled an “exclusive,” CNN reported that initial intelligence assessments of the Iran bombing suggested Iran had been set back a couple of months in its quest for a nuclear weapon. The report’s lead reporter was Natasha Bertrand. In 2020, Bertrand played a lead role in attempting to discredit reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop. One cannot understand the new report without understanding that. At Politico in 2020, Bertrand broke the news that “(m)ore than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on the provenance of a New York Post story on the former vice president’s son.” It turned out, of course, that Hunter Biden’s laptop actually belonged to him, and there was no Russian disinformation, as Democrats claimed, which was helpfully amplified by Bertrand. Now, in 2025, Bertrand rushed out this salacious report. Notably, the leak came after congressional committees on intelligence were briefed. Bertrand and then the New York Times, which subsequently reported the same news, failed to note that the American intelligence was considered low confidence. After all, Americans had not been on site at the bombing locations. Meanwhile, in Israel, intelligence officials built their own review of the bombings. Israel has much better intelligence inside Iran. At one point, the head of the Iranian secret police division in charge of rooting out Israeli spies was actually an Israeli spy. Israeli intelligence has concluded that Iran’s military leadership is telling Iran’s political leadership the bombings only set them back a few months. But Iran’s military actually believes they have been set back years. Reconciling the two reports, it seems likely the American intelligence community intercepted what Iran’s military told Iran’s politicians, but Israel knows what Iran’s military leadership really thinks and probably has spies on the ground too. Israel believes Iran’s uranium is buried beyond reach. Israel does not know that Fordow has completely collapsed underground, but does believe it is inaccessible. Israel also believes key parts of Iran’s equipment to process uranium have been destroyed. Israel has also eliminated the top scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program. We have entered a bizarro realm where those who did not want to bomb Iran insisted that intelligence reports that stated Iran was close to a weapon could not be believed, and they now insist the after-action initial intelligence reports show the bombing was unsuccessful. But they also do not want to bomb more. Unfortunately, the American press corps has totally discredited itself. It is not just that President Donald Trump pushed back against the initial intelligence assessment. The Israelis and much of the American intelligence community did too, so much so that within twenty-four hours of CNN breaking the story, the American press corps was treating it far more skeptically. Putting the Hunter Biden laptop reporter in charge of this story only further casts doubt on the story. Adding in the assessment of the Israelis, who actually have an existential reason to get their intelligence right, further casts doubt on the veracity and accuracy of the American press. When former President Joe Biden was in office, American reporters often treated reports about him skeptically. When someone from Congress or the intelligence community, which itself has a history of trying to undermine Donald Trump, leaks something negative about Donald Trump, the media pounces, seizes it, and does all the other adverbs and adjectives usually used in headlines to attack Republicans. This was a brilliantly staged and executed operation by the Pentagon that the press attempted to discredit to attack Trump. We have been starved of competence for some time in government. But the Pentagon successfully got B2 bombers in the air while distracting everyone with additional B2 bombers, then dropped fourteen bunker buster bombs — the first time they have ever been used — just two days after the president threw everyone off with his two-week timeline to assess the situation. Democrats, bureaucrats in the intelligence community and the press corps seemingly could not tolerate Donald Trump getting any political benefit from a successful bombing run. In the end, the press further hurt its credibility by trying to undermine President Trump. Even Wile E. Coyote would be impressed by the own goal. June 30th, 2025 4:45 PM Erick Erickson 289652 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/06/30/poll-results-worst-media-take-week-winner We’ve got a new, fun interactive series called Worst Media Take of the Week, where you — our loyal NewsBusters visitors and MRC supporters — get to vote on which leftist journalist or celebrity had the worst media take of the week.   Much appreciation to all who voted last week via NewsBusters and the MRC’s various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and X.com).   The results of the Worst Media Take of the Week are in and the winner is… Erin Burnett! Burnett won in a landslide with 79 percent of the vote! The CNN anchor took first place for absurdly claiming there was a “friendliness” to Iranians who chanted “Death to America!” Actor Diego Luna finished in second place with 11 percent of the vote. PBS’s Jonathan Capehart finished in third place with 10 percent.  The following is a montage of all the nominees:      WINNER (79 percent of the vote)   Erin Burnett: There Was a “Friendliness” To Iranians Who Chanted “Death to America” “I remember, Dana, at one point being in Tehran years ago and they’re chanting ‘death to America’ all around me, even as I say, ‘Oh, I’m an American, reporting for CNN.’ And they were happy to speak to me. So those two sort of jarring realities of the chant and yet, the friendliness have existed together.”— Anchor Erin Burnett on CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash, June 24.   SECOND PLACE (11 percent of the vote)   Diego Luna: I Don’t Understand How Trump’s “Hate Speech” Took Root In This Country “I have never been able to fully understand how it is that someone like Donald Trump is able to acquire this level of power. I always struggle to understand how his hate speech can take root in a country whose nature has always been a welcoming one.”— Actor Diego Luna substitute hosting on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, June 23.   THIRD PLACE (10 percent of the vote)   Jonathan Capehart: Republicans Are Afraid That “Being Human” Will Get Them on Wrong Side of Trump “There’s been silence, crickets, because they’re [Republicans] afraid of doing the right thing, of being human, will get them on the wrong side of the President of the United States. Folks should be very concerned about that.”— Washington Post associate editor/PBS contributor Jonathan Capehart on PBS’s News Hour, June 20.   Thanks again to all who participated!    Funded by James P. Jimirro June 30th, 2025 3:00 PM Geoffrey Dickens 289651 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/06/30/dangerous-cnn-pushes-app-tracks-ice-activity As Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to uphold immigration laws by arresting and deporting illegal immigrants nationwide, Monday Morning’s CNN News Central fouled a bizarre and dangerous app that is “designed to track ICE activity in real time,” thus putting lives in danger.  ICE officers already have difficult jobs and deserve the highest respect, but liberal tech bros seek to not only oppose protection policies but interfere with ICE’s operations. Joshua Aaron, who is the tech designer for the app, “ICEBlock” spoke to CNN’s business writer Clare Duffy, who described the app:   So, you open the app-it looks like a map-and users can tap the map to report an ICE sighting in their area. And then everybody who uses the platform within five miles of that sighting will get a push alert. This is a free iPhone app. It is anonymous. Aaron says he doesn’t collect any user data. And what I think is really interesting about this in this moment is we’ve seen so many of the biggest leaders in tech supporting President Trump. But Aaron is sort of an example of the fact that there are people within the tech industry who are really resistant to Trump’s policies.     Aaron also shared with Duffy what he would say to tech leaders who were present at Trump’s inauguration: “I understand that you have shareholders to report to. I understand that you have employees that need their paychecks. But at what point do you say enough is enough?”  “Enough is enough” is not censoring law enforcement who are doing their jobs. Let this serve as an example of how misleading the liberal media has brainwashed the public to oppose law and order under the Trump administration, to the point where an app has the purpose of being an “early warning system for people” for the specific locations of ICE officers.   Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons clapped back at CNN for the news coverage on the app and voiced:  CNN’s promotion of an ‘ICE spotting’ app is reckless and irresponsible. Advertising an app that basically paints a target on federal law enforcement officers’ backs is sickening. My officers and agents are already facing a 500% increase in assaults, and going on live television to announce an app that lets anyone zero in on their locations is like inviting violence against them with a national megaphone. CNN is willfully endangering the lives of officers who put their lives on the line every day and enabling dangerous criminal aliens to evade U.S. law. Is this simply reckless ‘journalism’ or over activism?   So much for chivalry and protecting the public. CNN seems to instead have gone down the road of indictment, hardening back to the firey but mostly peaceful days.  Lyons is right that ICE officers engage with “dangerous criminal aliens’ every day, but would CNN push the idea of having Americans suffer because their assilant evaded deportation because of the app? There is a clear divide between those who want to protect the American people and those who want to protect people who came in here illegally. CNN just showed where they stand. Click here for the transcripts. CNN News Central 06/30/25 7:59 a.m. JOHN BERMAN: All right. New this morning as the Trump administration steps up ICE raids and mass deportations, one tech developer is pushing back with an app designed to track ICE activity in real time. It’s called ICEBlock and it’s controversial to say the least. CNN’s Clare Duffy is with us now. How does this work, Clare, and what are the legal implications? CLARE DUFFY: Yeah, John. I talked with Joshua Aaron, who is the longtime tech worker who developed this platform, and he said he really wants it to be an early warning system for people about the location of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers. So he says he does not want people interfering with those officers’ activity, but he does want people to be able to avoid them altogether if they want. So, you open the app — it looks like a map — and users can tap the map to report an ICE sighting in their area. And then everybody who uses the platform within five miles of that sighting will get a push alert. This is a free iPhone app. It is anonymous. Aaron says he doesn’t collect any user data. And what I think is really interesting about this in this moment is we’ve seen so many of the biggest leaders in tech supporting President Trump. But Aaron is sort of an example of the fact that there are people within the tech industry who are really resistant to Trump’s policies. I asked him what he would say to those tech leaders who, for example, were at the inauguration. Here’s what he told me. Take a listen. JOSHUA AARON: I understand that you have shareholders to report to. I understand that you have employees that need their paychecks. But at what point do you say enough is enough? DUFFY: And John, I should say that ICE did not respond when I asked them about this platform and about Aaron’s opposition to their activity. BERMAN: All right. It’d be interesting to see where that goes next. Clare Duffy, thank you so much for your reporting. June 30th, 2025 2:51 PM Shannon Sauders 289650 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/06/30/brain-rot-cnn-defends-socialist-mamdanis-insane-proposal CNN always wants to say left-wing radicals are less radical than you think, according to "some experts." They're never going to perform that trick for conservatives. CNN reporter Nathaniel Meyersohn attempted to mainstream socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s demented push for government-owned grocery stores. As if anyone needed another reason to make like a banana and split from the decrepit Big Apple. Meyersohn celebrated Mamdani’s lunatic “plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores” in a June 30 so-called news item. Meyersohn gaslighted readers by claiming Mamdani’s state-run supermarket was “less radical than critics portray,” according to “experts” he found to make his point. The CNN reporter acknowledged that the proposal was being “blasted as a ‘Soviet’ style disaster-in-waiting,’ ‘farcical’ and ‘economically delusional,’” but he then took a detour straight into the logical toilet. “But Mamdani is drawing on government-owned and subsidized models that already exist in the United States,” Meyersohn chirped.  Same energy: Government rationing is just the spider’s ankles! Just ask Venezuela or Cuba! CNN’s post of Meyersohn’s story on X is in the middle of getting ratioed straight to hell.  Zohran Mamdani, the favorite to become New York City's next mayor after winning the Democratic primary, has a contentious plan to create a network of city-owned grocery stores. But it's less radical than critics portray, some food policy and grocery industry experts say.… — CNN (@CNN) June 30, 2025 Meyersohn’s logic reads even dumber when one digs into the details. Meyersohn cited “the Defense Department’s commissaries for military personnel, public retail markets that lease space to farmers and chefs,” and other city-owned stores as examples to downplay Mamdani’s off-the-rails-extremism. But as Real Clear Investigations Senior Writer Mark Hemingway summarized in an X post ripping Meyersohn, “The argument here is that because the military has commissaries on foreign bases and other left-wing local governments are planning to open their own grocery stores, it's not a ‘radical’ idea. This is ridiculous.” No kidding. This is literally the definition of a bandwagon fallacy.  Meyersohn trotted out the argument that “[i]n some New York City neighborhoods, more than 30% of people are food insecure” to justify Mamdani’s pseudo-altruistic plan to “offer groceries at lower prices to customers with limited access to supermarkets.”  What Meyersohn glossed over was that Mamdani’s proposals will undoubtedly involve spiking taxes on the already high-tax burdened locality under the exhausted, communist-style aura of redistributing wealth from the rich to help the poor. As The New York Times conceded when laying out Mamdani’s crackpot economic agenda, “Budget analysts have said that increasing taxes could burden the New York economy by making the city less attractive to employers.”  In fact, New York as a state ranks dead last (No. 50) on the Tax Foundation’s index for state tax competitiveness. In addition, the Foundation found in 2022 that New York ranked  #1 for having the highest state-local tax burden out of any other state in the nation, “with 15.9 percent of net product in the state going to state and local taxes.” On another note, wouldn’t a government-owned grocery store also hurt competition? Well yes, Meyerson conceded, but readers wouldn’t know it until the 10th paragraph: Industry representatives say government-owned stores will compete with private businesses and unfairly disadvantage grocers, local bodegas and other stores in New York. If government stores drive out other food retailers, it would also hurt the problem it’s trying to solve.  That’s not all. In the 11th paragraph, Meyerson buried a quote from Food Industry Alliance CEO Michael Durant, who rebuked Mamdani’s proposal: “‘This proposal seemingly could use taxes paid by business, and use that money to compete against said business, which is an alarming precedent to set.’” Or we already have that precedent: private media companies paying for "public" TV and radio stations that compete against them for audience. But sure, let’s just tacitly endorse another freebies-and-handouts idea from an admitted socialist that will involve making NYC’s tax burden even worse, right Meyersohn? This is the equivalent of putting a loaf of bread in someone’s hand, telling them it’s free, while having someone else steal their wallet from their back pocket.  Meyersohn even undercut his own attempt to make Mamdani’s proposal seem mainstream by admitting that the mayoral candidate hasn’t exactly laid out all the details of his plan: Mamdani has not released all the details of his plan yet, and it’s not clear what role New York City would play in the opening or operation of grocery stores. Would it build stores? Lease them out to a private company or a non-profit? Would the employees be on the city’s payroll? This begs the question: How would Meyerson know if Mamdani is simply co-opting other lefty models of municipal-run grocery stores already existing in the U.S. if he doesn’t even know the specifics of his agenda? That seems contradictory, but whatever, It’s CNN we’re talking about, anyway. June 30th, 2025 2:10 PM Joseph Vazquez 289649 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/06/30/pbs-republican-asks-liberal-gop-senator-hope-those-who-support As a vote on rescissions (clawing back already approved funding) in the Senate looms that may decide the fate of federal funding for PBS and NPR, the public-media lobby has depended heavily on pushing Alaska as their first talking point. So of course, PBS's Firing Line invited a timely guest onto Friday’s show: liberal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a self-described “unabashed supporter of public broadcasting in my state” and author of a new autobiography Far From Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.  PBS host Margaret Hoover commiserated with Murkowski about the need for continued funding of PBS (on PBS!) especially for Alaska, which has received more than its share of attention in the media debate over PBS as a vast, rural, rugged state in particular need of emergency warnings that apparently only public broadcasting can provide. Hoover: As a Republican on PBS to a Republican senator who supports PBS, I want to ask you about this rescission package that has been sent up to the Hill. This, of course, is a bill that would, if passed, take back over $9 billion, about one billion approximately, which has been allocated, already allocated to public broadcasting. I find that when I talk to people about PBS, many don't realize that of those federal dollars, about 70% go to local stations, including rural stations like in your state, to pay for emergency broadcasting and childhood education. Especially important in a state like Alaska where 60% of three- and four-year-olds don't go to preschool, and that early childhood education comes from public broadcasting. Do you find that other Republicans are sympathetic to this message or even understand it? How insulting. The first thing Republicans understand is that Hoover's husband John Avlon just ran (and lost) as a Democrat candidate for Congress in New York. Hoover is pretending that PBS isn't funding vicious anti-Republican news and documentaries. No, it's all Sesame Street and emergency alerts -- that's the propaganda push.  Murkowski broke out their local needs: "Down in Bethel that broadcast out to 50 some odd, little river villages every morning at 8:40 during the spring, they give the ice breakup forecast so that people know where the ice may be breaking up and how it's going to push down the river and whether or not it's going to flood my community. These are things that, for Alaskans, are not nice-to-haves, but really vital to have." So nobody said the state of Alaska can't fund it. Why does the whole country need to fund it? Hoover held out hope that the 45-day deadline for President Trump's rescission request would elapse:  Hoover: The rescission package has a deadline in terms of when it has to be voted on. Murkowski: Right, right. Hoover: But there's a lot of other business before the Senate by then. Is it possible that the Senate will run out of time before it can consider it? Murkowski: Yes. Hoover: Is it likely? Murkowski: It is possible that we could run out of time. Hoover: Does that create some hope or some- - Murkowski: I think it- - Hoover: --some hope for those who support public media? Murkowski: I think it does, I think it does. And I am encouraging people to, again, weigh in, let us know. I'm coming at it from not only a supporter of public broadcasting, but from the more institutional perspective…. Hoover: Is this a place where Congress could really assert their authority, their constitutional authority against an encroaching power executive branch?  Murkowski: I think they should. And I think we have in the past.  Hoover of course has a clear personal interest when it comes to taxpayer support for funding PBS. Is this PBS’s idea of fair and balanced? When do the conservatives advocating for defunding get equal time? Let's guess never. They tout Hoover as hosting "a smart, civil, and engaging contest of ideas," but there can't be a contest when PBS has money on the line.  June 30th, 2025 12:02 PM Clay Waters 289645 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/06/30/msnbc-latina-contributor-trump-threat-undocumented-community Who knew? Illegal aliens aren't lawbreakers: they're a "community!" Just ask Maria Teresa Kumar, the MSNBC contributor and head of Voto Latino. On Monday's Morning Joe, discussing the impact of the Supreme Court ruling limiting the right of federal district court judges to issue rulings purporting to apply to the entire country, Kumar said: "What Trump does is that he uses the undocumented community as a canary in the coal mine to test our institutions and to see how far we're willing to go to start eroding their rights." What other "communities" might Trump threaten? The tax-evader community? The burglar community? Frightening! Plus, miners took canaries with them to signal if a mine had carbon monoxide in the air. If the canaries died, they knew it was perilous.  Kumar also dropped a statistic unintentionally revealing just what a problem birthright citizenship for children born to illegals represents: "We're talking about almost a quarter million U.S.-born children every single year to undocumented folks." 250,000 a year! Over two decades, that's five million -- enough to noticeably alter our demographics — and elections. Miss "Voto Latino" is all about that mobilization. Also note another Kumar euphemism. They're not illegal aliens, they're undocumented "folks." Interestingly, substitute host Katty Kay and New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak agreed that it is problematic for federal judges purporting to make their decisions apply nationally. Kay pointed out: "When Barack Obama tried to give citizenship to the parents of children who were born in the United States, and a judge in Texas blocked it, and Democrats were very unhappy about that." Liptak concurred: "Quite right. Lots of people from both parties have hesitations about the idea that an individual judge can do more than decide the dispute before him or her." However, Liptak suggested that there could be an exception for birthright citizenship cases, permitting the ruling of a single federal district court judge to apply nationally. Isn't that convenient! Kay ended the segment with an interesting observation, suggesting that the Supreme Court ruling could create:  "A situation where you have a lot of undocumented workers for various reasons, not just birthright citizenship, moving to blue states or to states with sanctuary cities. Those states then getting their services overwhelmed or getting targeted by the president. I mean, you can see where this unravels politically very quickly and potentially provides a problem for Democrats." Ain't that a pity! Message to blue state politicians: if you make your states or cities havens for illegal aliens, it can't just be for virtue-signaling or electoral purposes--it comes with consequences. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 6/30/25 6:28 am EDT KATTY KAY: Adam, this is something that, the injunctions is something that Democratic presidents have disliked in the past as much as Republicans have done.  I remember when Barack Obama tried to give citizenship to the parents of children who were born in the United States, and a judge in Texas blocked it, and Democrats were very unhappy about that.  So actually, is this something that in kind of less ferociously partisan times might meet with approval as a way of blocking the power of individual judges around the country? ADAM LIPTAK: Quite right. Lots of people from both parties have hesitations about the idea that an individual judge can do more than decide the dispute before him or her, and bind the parties before him or her, and also say this applies to everybody. That's a problematic notion in general terms.  It might well, though, be appropriate in the birthright citizenship case and in some other cases, because it's just hard to imagine, as, as Lisa was saying, a patchwork of laws around the country where if you're born on one side of a state line, you're a citizen, and on the other, not. . . .  MARIA TERESA KUMAR: And so when we're talking about almost a quarter-million U.S.-born children every single year of undocumented folks, you're talking not about a small population that all of a sudden can become stateless. So I do think that one of the things that we need to be looking at very precisely is, that what happens next?  Because what we have seen is that often what Trump does is that he uses the undocumented community as a canary in the coal mine to test our institutions, and to see how far we're willing to go to start eroding their rights. But their rights are only the beginning.  I think that in Sotomayor's dissent, she was very clear. God forbid you end, and I'm paraphrasing, but basically, God forbid you end up in the wrong state where your basic rights as a U.S. citizen could be abdicated because all of a sudden the laws in that state are quite different from the rest of the country.  KAY: Yeah, I mean, you can see a situation where you have a lot of undocumented workers for various reasons, not just birthright citizenship, moving to blue states or to states with sanctuary cities. Those states then getting their services overwhelmed or getting targeted by the president.  I mean, you can see where this unravels politically very quickly and potentially provides a problem for Democrats.  June 30th, 2025 11:29 AM Mark Finkelstein 289644 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/star-parker/2025/06/30/eisenhower-reagan-republican-beacons-principles-trump-carries On Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim fanatics flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing upward of 3,000 innocent American civilians. Americans asked why? We ask again today. We hear from the Iranian regime, “Death to America,” “Death to Israel.” Why? The unfortunate answer is, for the fanatics in Iran, our very existence is sufficient reason for them to serve up a death sentence. Israel was born in the ashes of the Holocaust, in which almost 40% of the entire world’s Jewish population was murdered. But the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denies it happened. Per Khamenei, “In European countries that claim to be civilized, when a person expresses his objection to the myth of the Holocaust, they throw him into prison. They sentence him to jail for denying a fictitious event.” President Donald Trump has acted boldly, in the best of the tradition of our country, to take military action to prevent maniacs who think they are God’s messenger from possessing nuclear weapons. We might recall two Republican presidents who helped set the great American tradition that Trump now carries forward. Recently, Trump presided over a military parade in Washington noting the 250th anniversary of the United States Army. Let’s recall a great general of our Army who became a Republican president -- Dwight D. Eisenhower. We are just a few weeks past the anniversary of D-Day, in which Eisenhower oversaw the invasion of Europe, in World War II, by tens of thousands of American soldiers who, within a year, brought an end to the satanic German Nazi regime. At the war’s conclusion, Eisenhower personally visited the Nazi death camps, to be a personal witness of what happened so those who wish to carry on the satanic work of the Nazis, like the Iranian ayatollah, could not deny it happened. Eisenhower wrote: “The things I saw beggar description ... I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” Nine years later, June 14, 1954, Eisenhower signed the bill to add the words “Under God” to our Pledge of Allegiance. In Eisenhower’s words: “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim ... the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty ... Especially is this meaningful as we regard today’s world. Over the globe, mankind has been cruelly torn by violence and brutality and, by the millions, deadened in mind and soul by a materialistic philosophy of life. Man everywhere is appalled by the prospect of atomic war ... We are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.” Almost 30 years later, another Republican president, Ronald Reagan, delivered his bold speech, warning about arms negotiations with the Soviet Union, which he called an “evil empire.” Reagan’s unwavering conviction about truth and falsehood, about good and evil, helped lead to its collapse. Reagan cautioned, “We must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man ... There is sin and evil in the world, and we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might ... The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens ... We must never go back. There is no room for racism, antisemitism or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.” Bravo, Trump, for bravely doing what needed to be done in Iran. Your principles and courage carry our nation to a great new chapter, for us and the world, as America shines the light of a free nation under God. June 30th, 2025 10:48 AM Star Parker 289646 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/06/30/jennings-presses-cnn-host-claiming-mamdani-isnt-hateful-and-race On the right, CNN reporter Omar Jimenez is remembered first as the man who stood in front of riotous flames in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020 as the CNN chyron claimed there were “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS." Jimenez told viewers protests were “largely peaceful” during the day. “It wasn't until nightfall that things begun to get a little bit more contentious. Things were thrown back and forth.” On Sunday night, Jimenez was guest-hosting on CNN and the topic was socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and he tried to pull that euphemistic routine on Mamdani outlining his proposal to "shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods." He had to ahem, rephrase Scott Jennings, and Jennings told him he needed to read it again. Jennings talked about the "whiter" thing, saying "he wants to tax people based on their race, which is one of the most radical things I've ever heard" and denounced Mamdani's "hateful radical socialism." As the segment wrapped up, Jimenez felt he had to "jump in" for what sounded like a "fact check," although he admitted Jennings wasn't misquoting Mamdani. "Point of order," he claimed. MARIA CARDONA: If they walk their districts the way Mamdani walked Manhattan and they focus on that message, they are going to win. And Republicans should be nervous. JIMENEZ: I got to leave it there. JENNINGS: Nobody is going to be able to walk Manhattan after he defunds the New York City Police Department, Maria. I wouldn't advise walking Manhattan after he gets rid of the police force. JIMENEZ: Just to, just to jump in. CARDONA: No. You know, he's not going to do that. JIMENEZ: Just to jump in, hold on. Hold on. Mamdani advocated for defunding NYPD in 2020. He has since said his goal is reform, not defunding. CARDONA: Exactly. JIMENEZ: And then also, just -- JENNINGS: Oh, you guys are doing that again. JIMENEZ: One more. No, it's just -- JENNINGS: It's the old Harris playbook. Got it. JIMENEZ: Just one more thing, point of order. He just said he didn't want to tax white people specifically, just higher income neighborhoods that do happen to be majority white. Scott -- JENNINGS: He literally wrote it in a statement, Omar! He literally wrote it down! Are you letting him get off the hook? JIMENEZ: It is why -- no, I'm saying, I am saying that he said that, but not on the basis of race specifically. I'm not saying he didn't say that. CARDONA: That's right. JIMENEZ: He did say that. JENNINGS: OK. I think you need to re-read it. JIMENEZ: But not on the basis of race specifically. Scott, Maria, always a pleasure. Thanks for being here. PS: Here's how Jennings took Mamdani apart before Jimenez tried to claim he wasn't race-obsessed:  JENNINGS: Yes. If I were Maria, I'd want to talk about tactics, too, because to talk about this guy's record and his ideas would absolutely sink the Democratic Party. I mean, in one, on the one hand, he says, I don't think there should be billionaires. And then 10 seconds later he says, but I want to work with them to make sure there's, you know, equality across the city. Working with them is a euphemism for taxing them into oblivion. That's number one.Number two, he's also said he wants to tax people based on their race, which is one of the most radical things I've ever heard. Number three says he wants to defund the New York Police Department. Number four, I think he wants to empty the jails of violent criminals. If you want to destroy New York City, this is the person you would elect. Interestingly, in the post-election primary voting analysis, it was these rich white liberals that supported Mamdani. The working class supported other people, but it was these, you know, rich white liberals in New York City that supported this guy. Of course, they're the only ones that can afford to leave when he destroys the city. So I think as long as the Democrats are committed to this sort of radical socialism --  hateful, radical socialism that's designed to divide people and destroy families and destroy communities and destroy New York City, you know, I don't live in New York, I live in Kentucky. If they want to destroy their city, that's fine with me. Nationally for the Democrats, it's a huge disaster. June 30th, 2025 6:14 AM Tim Graham 289642 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dawn-slusher/2025/06/30/just-thathbos-sex-and-city-reboot-turns-teen-drama In yet another desperate attempt to stay relevant in Hollywood’s “woke” propaganda wars, HBO’s Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That has been giving pedo-friendly vibes (again) in its latest episodes by sexualizing a minor child character in a storyline that caters to the LGBTQ+ cause de jour - polyamory. In episode 4, “Apples to Apples,” we are treated to an interesting family dinner with the Goldenblatt family- Mom Charlotte (Kristin Davis), dad Harry (Evan Handler) and their two teenage daughters, one of whom is non-binary and changed her name from Rose to Rock (Alexa Swinton) and the other, Lily (Cathy Ang) who is adopted and whose ballet dancing boyfriend Diego (Eliazar Jimenez) has a boyfriend himself. Harry’s dad is visiting and thus joins the family and their friends at the dinner, where Diego’s polyamorous relationship is announced for the first time: Charlotte: What did I miss? Lily: I was just telling Pop-Pop that Diego's a ballet dancer. Morris: So, you have a ballet dancer boyfriend? Lily: I do. I do, right? Diego: Mm hmm. Morris: Good for you, Lily. You know, back in my day, boy ballet dancers didn't have girlfriends. They had boyfriends. Anthony: Back in my day, they did too. Diego: Oh, I have a boyfriend too. Charlotte: Oh! You... you do? Diego: Mm hmm. Lily: Diego's poly. Morris: Rock, you know all the new things. What's your sister talking about? Rock: Oh, polysexual. Diego's attracted to multiple partners simultaneously. I hope it's okay I spoke for you. Diego: Yeah, that's cool. Thank you. Morris: Well. Does Polly want more brisket? Alrighty then. This particular scene is a prime example of how Hollywood inserts complex adult issues into narratives involving children who have no business engaging with such topics. It’s not just cringe-inducing, it’s downright irresponsible. The dinner table reaction to the announcement is basically a collective shrug, with Charlotte’s weak “Oh, you do?” as the only hint of parental shock. This isn’t progressive; it’s a parenting failure wrapped in a rainbow flag. Then we have Rock playing woke Wikipedia by defining “polysexual” like they’re earning a merit badge in social justice when both minor girls should be navigating algebra, not open relationships. Children aren’t emotionally or cognitively developed enough to handle the nuances of polyamory, yet the show seems perfectly comfortable portraying it as the new normal for high schoolers. What’s next? A storyline about polygamy and sister friends before prom? In episode 5, “Under the Table,” we have the age-old lament of teenagers not wanting to go away with their parents for the weekend because they’d rather be with their friends. Only, in woke Hollywoodland, Lily is worried because she doesn’t want Diego’s boyfriend Eric to get an extra night with him if she’s not there: Lily: Mom? So, we've been thinking... Rock, do you wanna take the lead? Rock: Yes. We are a unified front. We don't want to go glamping. Charlotte: You're going glamping. Rock: Okay, I'm out. Anthony: I thought you were vegan now. Rock: Ah, sh*t. I keep on forgetting. Lily: Well, I can't go. I have plans with Diego. Charlotte: You have plans with your father this weekend, and he is really looking forward to it. Lily: Daddy will be fine. Charlotte: You don't know that Daddy will be fine. Lily: It's just stupid glamping. I'll ask him. Charlotte: You will not ask him! You will not put anything negative on this fun, fun thing that he wants to do. This is a positive, positive event. Lily: You don't understand. Rock: She's still going for it. Lily: I split Diego's weekends with his boyfriend. And if I'm not there, Eric gets both nights. Eric. And that puts me at a disadvantage. Charlotte: Lily, you are spending the weekend with your family. End of story. I am sure that you can make up this time with your polyamorous, polysexual boyfriend some other weekend. Can you believe this is parenting now? Anthony: No, Char, I cannot. Rock: I miss cheese. So much. Anthony: Then, eat some! No, Charlotte, we don’t believe this is parenting now. We believe this is how Hollywood wants parenting to be now, but thankfully, we don’t believe this is how it is. Yet. But the show is trying to normalize polyamory for a character who is still a child. Thus, they completely sidestep the critical issue of consent. A teenager like Lily isn’t able to fully understand the emotional weight of such relationships, yet And Just Like That treats it as just another quirky subplot. Instead of focusing on age-appropriate challenges teenagers face, the narrative veers into adult sexual politics. In its attempt to stay relevant and appeal to a hyper-progressive audience, the show sacrifices authenticity and relatability. It would have been nice to see them address real parental concerns, like ensuring Lily develops healthy, age-appropriate boundaries rather than portraying polyamory as just another lifestyle choice for teens. This isn’t storytelling; it’s propaganda, and it’s particularly gross when it involves a kid who should be protected, not paraded as a poster child for the latest social fad. Parents, be on guard. They’re still coming for your children. June 30th, 2025 5:55 AM Dawn Slusher 289641 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/jorge-bonilla/2025/06/29/pride-propaganda-telemundo-showcases-mexico-city-transgender As we’ve often indicated, Spanish-language news media exists primarily as a vehicle for immigration advocacy. However, they are very much invested in shoving the rest of the left-wing policy pupu platter down the community’s throat. In this case, by showcasing Mexico City’s first trans police officer. Watch as Telemundo does its part to push trans propaganda to the community: NOTICIAS TELEMUNDO 6/25/35 6:57 PM JOHANNA SUAREZ: Mexico City has its first transgender police officer: Orel Morales. He’s been part of that government agency for seven years. And since he began his gender affirmation process in 2023, he says that he has received a lot of support. Issa Osorio spoke with him. OREL MORALES: My (pronouns are he/him). My name is Orel. ISSA OSORIO: But it wasn't always like this. Thirty-eight years ago, (he) was born a woman. MORALES: We have role models… OSORIO: However, 30 months ago he made the decision to physically become a man and today he is the first transgender police officer in Mexico City. MORALES: As soon as I explained the situation, they told me, "You know what? There's no problem, you can continue working here." That was my fear, right? That they'd say, "You know what? That's not allowed here." No, my duties haven't changed. They've remained the same. The first thing you notice is that they spotlight an officer from Mexico City as opposed to one in the States. The reason this is done is because Latino political identity, as manufactured by American leftists, is fundamentally backward-looking. Showcasing a transgender cop in Mexico City is a way of normalizing gender transition for Telemundo’s Spanish-dominant audience.  The report states that this officer underwent the process to “physically become a man.” What does that mean? How far along is she? Has she undergone any surgical interventions or is it just hormone therapy? What assessed impact may including trans officers have on Mexico City's police force? We just don’t know because the report didn’t seek to delve into those real, serious questions. Unfortunately, Telemundo wasn’t interested in delving too far into this subject matter beyond basic Pride propaganda.  Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on Noticias Telemundo on Sunday, June 29th, 2025: JOHANNA SUAREZ: Mexico City has its first transgender police officer: Orel Morales. He’s been part of that government agency for seven years. And since he began his gender affirmation process in 2023, he says that he has received a lot of support. Issa Osorio spoke with him. OREL MORALES: My (pronouns are he/him). My name is Orel. ISSA OSORIO: But it wasn't always like this. Thirty-eight years ago, (he) was born a woman. MORALES:We have role models… OSORIO: However, 30 months ago he made the decision to physically become a man and today he is the first transgender police officer in Mexico City. MORALES: As soon as I explained the situation, they told me, "You know what? There's no problem, you can—er—continue working here." That was my fear, wasn't it? They'd tell me, "You know what? It's not allowed here." No, my duties haven't changed. They've remained the same. OSORIO: According to the National Public Security Census, there are 90,044 police officers in Mexico City. More than half are men. MORALES: I always had a very androgynous image. OSORIO: And the Ministry of Security officially recognizes Orel as the corporation's first transgender member. MORALES: Well yes, living with someone, no. OSORIO: Orel says he chose that name because it means “Light of God” in Hebrew. MORALES: Hormone replacement therapy is completely free every so often. For example, I have injections every 14 weeks, and well, that's like, for life. OSORIO: For Officer Orel Morales, one of his greatest sources of pride is belonging to the police force and from there safeguarding the security of this great city. Orel Morales aspires to become a high-ranking officer within the police force, but also to be a role model and pave the way for more people from the trans community. In Mexico, Issa Osorio, Noticias Telemundo.   June 29th, 2025 9:26 PM Jorge Bonilla 289640 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/06/29/george-conway-we-should-condemn-political-violence-even-if "Even if?" Gee, thanks. Tough call, George, but you made it.  On Sunday's edition of  MSNBC's The Weekend, co-founder of the disgraced Lincoln Project co-founder (still wrongly labeled a "Conservative Attorney") George Conway said that we should condemn political violence "even if" Donald Trump is the target.  Imagine a MAGA personality—let alone President Trump himself—saying: "We need to condemn political violence even if the target is [fill in the blank with the name of a prominent Democrat.]" The howls of outrage would echo through liberal-media/Dem land. "Why would anyone imagine such a statement is necessary? It's virtually an incitement to violence in itself!" etc. After emitting his bare-minimum statement, Conway wasted no time in condemning Trump for failing to attend yesterday's funeral of Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman.  Speaking of Minnesota and the promotion of political violence, shouldn't Conway condemn Gopher State Gov. Tim Walz? As we've noted, Walz recently boasted, speaking of Trump supporters, that he can "kick most of their ass." And just last month, here was Walz's proposal to fight back against Trump:  "Be a little meaner, maybe it’s time for us to be a little more fierce. We have to ferociously push back on this. When the bully is an adult like Donald Trump, you bully him back.”  MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance—a former US attorney appointed by Obama—admitted that Trump "might not have been welcome" at the Hortman funeral. But she blamed Trump for that: "That speaks to a deeper dysfunction between this administration and the need for the president to be the one who stands up and demands that we walk away [from] the political violence."  Sounds like Vance was justifying Trump-hatred!  Here's the transcript. MSNBC The Weekend 6/29/25 8:02 am EDT EUGENE DANIELS: Joining us now, Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and an MSNBC legal analyst, and George Conway, conservative lawyer and president of the Society for the Rule of Law.  To start our conversation, I want to take a look at two things. One is New York Times reporting on violent acts against politicians in the U.S. They say, quote, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a nonprofit that tracks conflicts around the globe, has recorded 21 acts of violence against politicians, their families, or their staffs in the United States since it began counting them in 2020. A vast majority have occurred since 2022.  And then a look at some of those political violence incident: Representative Steve Scalise in 2017, Republican. Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan in 2020. Paul Pelosi, the husband of then, of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2022. Assassination attempts—two—on Donald Trump in 2024. And then the arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor in 2025, Josh Shapiro.  George, I guess I will start with you. One of the things I constantly hear from politicians in these moments is like, this is not America. And it seems to honestly take some of the responsibility that all of us have to figure this out so it doesn't get normalized. How do we get past this as a country?  GEORGE CONWAY: Well, I think we all need to take a stand against political violence, no matter who it comes from and no matter who the target is. Even if the target is President Trump, we all condemned it.  And we all, we need, for example, the President of the United States to show more that he cared about what happened in Minnesota. And the only Ppresident of the United States that showed up in Minnesota yesterday was the former President of the United States.  . . .  JOYCE VANCE: We are becoming a country where political violence is the new normal. And in that moment, the President of the United States is almost completely absent from the dialogue. That's very much what's missing here.  I mean, the reality is Donald Trump might not have been welcome in that church in Minnesota this weekend, but that speaks to a deeper dysfunction between this administration and the need for the president to be the one who stands up and demands that we walk away [from] the political violence.  June 29th, 2025 6:40 PM Mark Finkelstein 289637 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/06/29/mamdanimania-abcs-jon-karl-makes-rep-jeffries-squirm House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries came on ABC’s This Week hoping to talk about the Big, Beautiful Bill and the current events of the day. Instead, he was made to squirm over not yet bending the knee to socialist Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani. Karl immediately greets Jeffries with the Mandani question, to which Jeffries offers a tepid “We don’t really know each other.” (Click “expand” to view transcript) Hakeem Jeffries is made to squirm uncomfortably for not immediately endorsing Zohran Mamdani as the Dem NYC mayoral nominee, offers the "I don't know him" excuse: JON KARL: So what's holding you back from endorsing (Mamdani) right now? HAKEEM JEFFRIES: We don't really know each… pic.twitter.com/udW1Q4AucK — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 JON KARL: I'm joined now by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Let -- let’s start with the big news, Leader Jeffries, out of your home town. Mamdani won a big victory. Have you endorsed him yet? HAKEEM JEFFRIES: I have not. We had a conversation on Wednesday morning where I congratulated him on the campaign that he ran, a campaign that clearly was relentlessly focused on the high cost of living in New York City and the economy. He out worked, he out communicated and he out organized the opposition. And that’s clearly why he was successful. KARL: So, what’s holding you back from endorsing him right now? JEFFRIES: Well, we don’t really know each other well. Our districts don’t overlap. I have never had a substantive conversation with him. And so, that’s the next step in terms of this process, to be able to sit down, which we agreed to do, in central Brooklyn, discuss his vision for moving the city forward and addressing the issues that are important to the communities that I represent. A very diverse district that I represent in Brooklyn, including many African Americans, many Jewish Americans, many Caribbean Americans who are dealing with a lot of challenges in the city and want to make sure that the next mayor of the city of New York, whoever that may be, is prepared to tackle them. Karl offered no follow-up question to that, instead pivoting to whether Mamdani’s “Democratic Socialism” is the future. Jeffries didn’t even acknowledge the premise of the question: Karl asks Jeffries whether Mamdani is The Future nationwide, or just a NYC anomaly. Jeffries responds with an economic set piece that neither addresses Dem Socialism generally nor Mamdani specifically. JON KARL: Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist. He proposed,… pic.twitter.com/HWQsePxARz — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Jeffries is not amused with having to answer these questions, and it shows. But Karl dutifully moves on rather than pressing Jeffries as he would a Republican under similar circumstances. JON KARL: Mamdani calls himself a democratic socialist. He proposed, obviously, big tax increases, free mass transit, free bus fares, government-run grocery stores. Is this the progressive socialism that is -- we're going to see as the future of the Democratic Party, or is this unique to New York City? HAKEEM JEFFRIES: I think that one of the things we've been clear about from the very beginning, as House Democrats, is that we need to relentlessly focus on addressing the high cost of living in the United States of America. This country is far too expensive for working class Americans, for middle class Americans, for all those who aspire to be part of the middle class. Imagine a country where every single hard-working American taxpayer can afford to live the good life, work hard, play by the rules, have a good paying job, good health care, be able to afford a home, educate your children, go on vacation every now and then, and one day retire with grace and dignity. The good life. The American dream. That is not accessible to everyone. And so I think it will continue to be important for all of us on the Democratic side to address relentlessly the issue of the lack of affordability in this country. Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs haven't gone down. They're going up. In fact, the guy is crashing the economy in real time, imposing these reckless Trump tariffs that are going to increase costs by thousands of dollars a year, and he may even drive us toward a recession. Jeffries is then asked the “Globalize the Intifada” question:  JON KARL: You mentioned the diversity of your district, including a lot of Jewish constituents. Mamdani has made comments that some have said veer towards antisemitism. His initial statement after October 7th, he criticized the Israeli government but didn't criticize Hamas. He… pic.twitter.com/GwpHNi4gCW — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 JON KARL: You mentioned the diversity of your district, including a lot of Jewish constituents. Mamdani has made comments that some have said veer towards antisemitism. His initial statement after October 7th, he criticized the Israeli government but didn't criticize Hamas. He defended the use of the word globalize -- of the phrase :globalize intifada" and Prime Minister Netanyahu should be arrested, or he would if he were mayor, he would arrest Netanyahu if he visited New York City. Do these things concern you? HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Globalizing the intifada, by way of example, is not an acceptable phrasing. He's going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward. With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in antisemitism in the city of New York which has been an unacceptable development. And any mayor, whether you're a Democratic mayor, Republican mayor, an independent mayor, has got to commit to the safety and well-being of all of the people of the City of New York. And when there are moments of crisis and a rise in anti-Jewish hate, that's a threshold, of course, that needs to be crossed. With respect to the African American and Caribbean American communities that I represent, it's going to be important for our nominee to articulate the case for dramatically and decisively addressing the rise in gentrification and the housing displacement that threatens to continue to wipe out low and moderate income black and Latino communities in New York City. It's an unacceptable phenomenon and the next mayor of the City of New York has to be able to articulate a clear plan and commitment to address these concerns for the people I represent and folks all across the great City of New York. Karl then pivots, with no followup, to questions on the politics of the day. What the interview made very clear is that the left is in disarray as a result of the NYC mayoral primary, and the media has no clue how to address it. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, June 29th, 2025: ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Together, New York, we have renewed our democracy. We have given our cities permission to believe again. In our New York, the power belongs to the people. (END VIDEO CLIP) JON KARL That was 33-year-old Democratic socialist Zohan Mamdani, who shocked the political world with his victory in the New York Democratic primary for mayor. I'm joined now by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Let -- let’s start with the big news, Leader Jeffries, out of your home town. Mamdani won a big victory. Have you endorsed him yet? JEFFRIES: I have not. We had a conversation on Wednesday morning where I congratulated him on the campaign that he ran, a campaign that clearly was relentlessly focused on the high cost of living in New York City and the economy. He out worked, he out communicated and he out organized the opposition. And that’s clearly why he was successful. KARL: So, what’s holding you back from endorsing him right now? JEFFRIES: Well, we don’t really know each other well. Our districts don’t overlap. I have never had a substantive conversation with him. And so, that’s the next step in terms of this process, to be able to sit down, which we agreed to do, in central Brooklyn, discuss his vision for moving the city forward and addressing the issues that are important to the communities that I represent. A very diverse district that I represent in Brooklyn, including many African Americans, many Jewish Americans, many Caribbean Americans who are dealing with a lot of challenges in the city and want to make sure that the next mayor of the city of New York, whoever that may be, is prepared to tackle them. KARL: Mamdani calls himself a Democratic socialist. He proposed, obviously, big tax increases, free mass transit, free bus fares, government run grocery stores. Is this the kind of progressive socialism it is -- we’re going to see as the future of the Democratic Party or is this unique to New York City? JEFFRIES: I think that one of the things we've been clear about from the very beginning as House Democrats is that we need to relentlessly focus on addressing the high cost of living in the United States of America. This country is far to expensive for working class Americans, for middle class Americans, for all those who aspire to be part of the middle class. Imagine a country where every single, hard-working American taxpayer can afford to live the good life, work hard, play by the rules, have a good paying job, good health care, be able to afford a home, educate your children, go on vacation every now and then, and one day retire with grace and dignity. The good life. The American dream. That is not accessible to everyone. And so I think it will continue to be important for all of us on the Democratic side to address relentlessly the issue of the lack of affordability in this country. Donald Trump promised to lower costs on day one. Costs haven’t gone down. They’re going up. In fact, the guy is crashing the economy in real time and posing these reckless Trump tariffs that are going to increase costs by thousands of dollars a year. And he may even drive us toward a recession. KARL: You mentioned the diversity of your district, including a lot of Jewish constituents. Mamdani has made comments that some have said veer towards anti-Semitism. His initial statement after October 7th, he criticized the Israeli government but didn’t criticize Hamas. He defended the use of the word globalize -- or the phrase “globalize intifada.” And he even said that the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu, should be arrested -- or he would if he were mayor, he would arrest Netanyahu if he visited New York City. Do these things concern you? JEFFRIES: Globalizing the intifada by way of example is not an acceptable phrasing. He’s going to have to clarify his position on that as he moves forward. With respect to the Jewish communities that I represent, I think our nominee is going to have to convince folks that he is prepared to aggressively address the rise in anti-Semitism in the city of New York, which has been an unacceptable development. And any mayor, whether you’re a Democratic mayor, a Republican mayor, an independent mayor, has got to commit to the safety and well-being of all of the people of the city of New York. And when there are moments of crisis and a rise in anti-Jewish hate, that’s a threshold, of course, that needs to be crossed. With respect to the African American and Caribbean American communities that I represent, it’s going to be important for our nominee to articulate the case for dramatically and decisively addressing the rise in gentrification and the housing displacement that threatens to continue to wipe out low and moderate income, black and Latino communities in New York City. It’s an unacceptable phenomenon. And the next mayor of the city of New York has to be able to articulate a clear plan and commitment to address these concerns for the people that I represent and folks all across the great city of New York. KARL: All right, let’s turn to developments here in Washington. The Supreme Court (INAUDIBLE) decision empowering Donald Trump by limiting the power of judges to stop his executive orders or to freeze his executive orders. How big a deal is this? This was really the one way -- the one restraint on his actions that’s been effective so far. JEFFRIES: Well, it was an unfortunate decision from a procedural standpoint as it relates to what should have been a very clear case. If there is any instance where nationwide injunctions are appropriate, it would be in a -- in a manner like what we’ve just experienced in terms of birthright citizenship, which is clearly a part of the Constitution. If you are born as a child in the United States of American, you are a citizen. So, it was a procedural setback that was quite unfortunate, and it was a reckless decision, in my view. However, in terms of the fight judicially to protect birthright citizenship, that remains alive and well. And we’re just going to have to intensify our efforts now in district court after district court or to get a class action certified on behalf of people who may be adversely impacted by this reckless Trump executive order. KARL: And -- and you were at the briefing, the classified briefing, Friday on Iran and on the U.S. air strikes. Did you get satisfactory answers and do you have a sense now, was the program really -- I mean the president says obliterated, but -- but what did you learn? JEFFRIES: Well, let’s be clear, Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States of America, as well as our allies in the Middle East, like Israel and Jordan. And we can never allow Iran to be a nuclear capable power. That said, there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered, in my view, as it relates to the actions that the Trump administration took relative to Iran. Why did they not seek the congressional authorization required by the Constitution for this type of preemptive strike? I still haven’t seen facts presented to us as a Congress to justify that step, and I certainly haven’t seen facts to justify the statement that Donald Trump made that Iran’s nuclear program has been completely and totally obliterated. We also need the case to be made by the administration to the American people as to how to best accomplish the objective of preventing Iran from becoming nuclear capable. Why did they abandon the aggressive diplomacy that was successful under the Obama administration, and what is their plan to stop us from getting into another failed Middle Eastern war. A lot of questions that need to be answered. And those answers haven’t been compelling to date. KARL: All right, a lot of questions for sure. Leader Jeffries, thank you for joining us. JEFFRIES: Thank you.   June 29th, 2025 5:51 PM Jorge Bonilla 289639 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/06/29/zohran-mamdani-reports-meet-press-ritual-tongue-bath Democratic Socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani took a national media victory lap of sorts by appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press. The interview amounted to little more than the gentlest of tongue baths for Mamdani, in stark contrast for the hectoring treatment afforded to conservatives by host Kristen Welker. After initial gushing and pleasantries, Welker asks Mamdani about his tax increase proposal. Here you will find an early trend. Zero interruptions on the tax question, Mamdani gets to make his points unabated. Zohran Mamdani, in tax increases: "What we have shown is the ability to take a nonstarter and do the inevitable." How many taxpayers did that just snap to Florida, Tennessee, the Carolinas, et al? pic.twitter.com/fAm5eTyWR6 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 There is no pointing at Mamdani with her ubiquitous pen, no “but what do you say to New Yorkers who are concerned about tax increases”, no “let me put a fine point on that.” The socialist gets calm dialogue, as opposed to constant hectoring and interruption.  Moving on to the city-run stores question: Mamdani doubles and triples down on his proposal to set up government-run stores within the city, again with minimal follow-up: Mamdani doubles down on his wild city supermarkets proposal: pic.twitter.com/x9MmjiwP1P — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Setting up John Catsimatidis as the foil to the city grocery stores idea is deliberate, inasmuch as it allows the issue to be falsely framed as one of opposition to billionaires. This avoids asking the question of the impact this idea may have on the city’s bodegas, which serve a decidedly more blue-collar clientele. Here is where Welker’s friendliness really pays off for Mamdani: he is allowed to dance his way out of his campaign proposal to raise property taxes on “whiter” neighborhoods with doublespeak about inequities in the property tax system. Note how Welker helpfully frames the proposal before asking her proforma followup: Mamdani, on his campaign proposal to raise property taxes on "whiter" neighborhoods: "It's not driven by race." pic.twitter.com/RfywiAK9yu — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Let’s see how Welker reacts the next time a Republican says “I think I’m just naming things as they are” on any of the issues of the day, and let’s see what that followup looks like. Moving right along, Mamdani is allowed to assert with no followup that billionaires should not exist. No followup or “fine point” in the face of class violence such as the shooting of United Healthcare’s CEO on a New York City street. WELKER: You are self-described Democratic Socialist. Do you think that billionaires have a right to exist? MAMDANI: (LOL) I don't think that we should have billionaires because frankly it is so much money in a moment of such inequality and ultimately what we need more of is… pic.twitter.com/1aPAK3sPKm — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Next, Welker asks Mamdani to weigh in on President Donald Trump’s reaction to his primary win. WELKER: Well, let me ask you about what Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has had to say. He has had a lot to say about your campaign, he called you a "communist". Because he is the president, I want to give you a chance to respond directly to him. How do you… pic.twitter.com/yp2M7JkcA5 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Mamdani pivots away from Trump’s real calling Mamdani a “communist” to imagined remarks with racial undertones. Again, Welker offers no resistance or so much as an elementary fact check. Welker asks the obligatory sanctuary question, to which Mamdani responds in the affirmative, and threatens to resist ICE. WELKER: Are you committed to keeping New York as a sanctuary city? MAMDANI: Absolutely. Because, ultimately, we've seen that this is a policy that has kept New Yorkers safe for decades. *The woman burned alive on the F train was unavailable for comment. pic.twitter.com/Diwcl7OPOV — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Mamdani triples down on keeping NYC a sanctuary city, and indicates he would end cooperation with ICE. pic.twitter.com/ZJW08Zl7uh — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 The record reflects that the seedy, violent and gang-infested “Market of Sweethearts” exploiting illegal aliens recently intervened by the feds is uncomfortably close to the State Assembly district Mamdani represents. Again, no “what do you say” here. The socialist gets no imagined empathy questions. Welker softened the obligatory “globalize the intifada” question by first asking Mamdani about the “historic nature” of his campaign. Welker missed no opportunities to gush at Mamdani. Welker softens the "globalize the intifada" question by first asking Mamdani about the "historic nature" of his campaign and possible election as mayor. Mamdani reiterates deceptive definition of "intifada" as "human rights", deflects to Mahmoud Khalil and refuses to condemn such… pic.twitter.com/USQLIDIkhk — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Welker offered no pushback to Mamdani’s deflections from his antisemitic remarks, both in calling to “globalize the intifada” or on his October 8th social media post blaming Israel for the horrific attacks the day prior. After asking Mamdani whether his campaign represents a national playbook for Democrats, Welker wonders aloud whether his win was a sign that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should make a White House run in 2028. Mamdani was asked point blank whether his primary win was a sign AOC should run in '28. There was a lot of word salad, but not a "yes". WELKER: Do you think that your apparent victory is a sign that there is an appetite for young Progressives like a Congresswoman Alexandria… pic.twitter.com/dbfdSXuMJ1 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 29, 2025 Contrast Welker’s gentle handling of Mamdani here with the infinity times she’s pressed Republicans for a firm “yes or no”. The interview ends with a question on the mayoral race and a weird “stay safe” on the campaign trail. Whatever you want to call this, and especially given Welker’s comportment with Republican guest, don’t call it an interview. This exercise in campaign propaganda was designed to introduce Zohran Mamdani to the nation under soft lights, and allow him to make his proposals palatable to a skeptical general public. Journalism, this is not.   June 29th, 2025 3:26 PM Jorge Bonilla 289638 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/06/29/cnns-stelter-argues-cnn-questioning-trumps-success-iran-bombing-uber CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter caused unintentional laughter in his "Reliable Sources" newsletter Thursday. In his typical role as defender of CNN's viciously anti-Trump bias, he complained that anyone criticizing Natasha Bertrand's anonymously-sourced claims that Operation Midnight Hammer only set the Iran nuclear program back a few months is unpatriotic. The media, they're the patriotic ones! This was how Brian began:  Questioning power is our duty Journalists ask questions, vet the answers and report the results to the public. That’s pretty much the job description. But the Trump administration is claiming that it’s unpatriotic to do so. Today President Trump is pushing for firings and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is insulting journalists to their faces.... Fox's Joe Concha offered the easy rebuttal, since Stelter didn't take this approach to President Biden in decline. CNN's Abby Phillip also took what was clearly the CNN party line. If you question our Trump-loathing, you're the autocrat.  Way too easy… https://t.co/CsX5KAmWo9 pic.twitter.com/9WZfIAreDw — Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) June 27, 2025 Stelter continued that they simply must question the White House (well, some White Houses) on their official accounts: Tapper cited past examples of government deception to say "history has taught us that the most pro-servicemember action we can take is to ask questions of our leaders, especially in times of war. That, for journalists, is the height of patriotism." Indeed, history is replete with proof that it is imperative to question official accounts. It's patriotic. "What's unpatriotic is trying to scare the press into silence," media historian Brian Rosenwald says. Trump wants cheerleaders, but... Both CNN and The New York Times have issued statements defending their accurate reporting about the early US intel assessment that undercut Trump's "obliterated" claims. The reporting has been credibly sourced and cautious. In response, Trump has charged the press with trying to "demean" the military action, and has claimed that the B-2 pilots were "devastated" by the news coverage. He is far from the first politician to use the military as a shield against fair-minded scrutiny. "Fair-minded scrutiny" is CNN? Three years of Russiagate and hundreds of interviews with Stormy Daniels & Michael Avenatti, et cetera -- that was "fair"?  As Twitchy noted, Stelter can't seem to tell the difference between journalism and partisan activism -- or he thinks activism is the very best journalism. We've pointed out before that journalism awards aren't so much about "excellence" as they are about picking the right targets. Nobody has to hand back their Pulitzer Prize for being wrong about Russiagate -- because the cause was just.  Now Stelter noted the Emmy Awards were "sending a message" by giving awards to 60 Minutes while they've been sued by Trump for their slicing-and-dicing bias toward Kamala Harris:  Last night at the News Emmys, the judges wanted to send a message of support to CBS News and "60 Minutes" amid Trump's ongoing legal battle with the news division. CBS took home five Emmys total, the most of any network, including three for "60 Minutes" reports. — Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 26, 2025 Being criticized and sued by Trump automatically makes you a patriot and a hero. No one should evaluate whether or not the reporting is true or "fair-minded scrutiny."  June 29th, 2025 6:51 AM Tim Graham 289636 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/06/28/npr-champions-joyful-blowout-drag-queens-climate-activism As Congress debates defunding PBS and NPR in part because they are relentless liberal propaganda, Friday night's All Things Considered newscast on NPR championed...drag queens for climate activism. It's like Mad Libs for mad leftists.  The online headline was "These drag artists know how to turn climate activism into a joyful blowout." As usual, conservative criticism of drag culture or climate panic was nonexistent. This was just a Pride Month pom-pom segment, as anchor Ailsa Chang announced:  AILSA CHANG: Talking about climate change can really kill the mood at a party. That is, unless you're a drag artist who knows how to turn a dance number about divesting from big oil or plastic pollution into a joyful blowout. This Pride Month, Ezra David Romero from KQED in San Francisco spent some time with drag performers who are using their routines as a form of climate activism. To oppose the Trump administration's approval of offshore drilling, Romero explained, "San Francisco drag queen Eve Swallows is kicking off the show here at Pacifica State Beach before a crowd of around 200 queer and trans surfers. Her outfit's a nod to an oil spill. She's wearing a black latex gown, and her headpiece looks like an oil pump." The theme song was "Gasoline" by Britney Spears. ROMERO: If you've ever watched RuPaul's Drag Race or been to a drag show, you know the art form can be ultra campy and full of flips and humorous - like some of the performances of Nymphia Wind, a winner of the show who is famous for her rhinestone-studded banana gown. But while drag isn't always serious, its roots are based in queer activism. For Eve Swallows, incorporating climate activism into drag was second nature. SWALLOWS: Drag kind of, like, accomplishes a paradox of embracing joy and fun and also really serious issues of liberation and social justice and climate justice. ROMERO: She's part of a growing family of artists who are dragifying (ph) climate activism. For several years now, an environmental activist drag queen from Oregon called Pattie Gonia has been performing in person and attracting fans online. For the past few months, she's been on a national tour called "Save Her! An Environmental Drag Show." NPR also profiled drag king Vera, who recently "performed another climate act at San Francisco's Baker Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them." ROMERO: The Oakland-based artist says they perform climate drag to encourage more queer and trans people to mobilize on behalf of the climate. VERA: Of course, you do it because we can't be out here just fighting for queer and trans lives if we don't have a planet to stand on.(CHEERING) ROMERO: Vera says the number of climate-minded drag artists is growing, thanks in part to the national show they co-lead with Pattie Gonia. VERA: It really also creates in that way, like, a big environmental loving family that we have now across the nation. ROMERO: That family is reflected all around Vera at this show -- their queer community cheering them on with the beautiful Pacific Ocean in view. k June 28th, 2025 9:00 PM Tim Graham 289635 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nb-staff/2025/06/28/mrc-vp-dan-schneider-expresses-optimism-senate-defunding-pbs-npr MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider appeared Thursday on the hot morning D.C. talk show O’Connor & Co. on WMAL-FM to discuss the potential clawback of $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds the PBS and NPR networks. It passed the House, and needs to pass the Senate soon. Schneider reported that no Democrat would vote against PBS and NPR money, and several centrist Republicans – Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski – have already declared they won’t vote for a cut. So it’s about getting to 50 Republicans, which would allow Vice President Vance to break the tie. "I think it passes," Schneider said after witnessing the Senate hearing on Wednesday. Talk show host Larry O’Connor kindly noted how we've been working on this issue since the MRC started in 1987: O'CONNOR: And I just want to pause again: we cannot overstate the job that the Media Research Center has been doing—not just in the last month or so to finally bring home the defunding process for National Public Radio. This has literally been a decades-long mission for Media Research Center. In the mid-1990s, when Newt Gingrich led the House in their first effort to defund NPR, Media Research Center was already 10 years old, my friends, and they were already doing all of the legwork to give them the reasons, the details, the data, and the reports to show them why NPR and PBS are absolute disasters and do not deserve tax dollars. So first, Dan—and your team at MRC—I want to congratulate you on even getting us this far. Schneider said these Senate appropriators sounded distraught that Trump's budget director Russ Vought proclaimed that it was time to rescind this funding for CPB and for foreign aid.  SCHNEIDER: I’ll just tell you—all the Democrats, and some of the Republicans—what they were really crying about, and truly—Kirsten Gillibrand of New York literally was about to cry when she said, “You are killing the bipartisanship of this committee. We carefully crafted these approps bills in a bipartisan way. We made a deal. And you're killing all of that.” And Russ Vought simply said, “This is the law. The Impoundment Control Act. We are complying with the law. You now get to vote on this.” And there was complete silence in the room for about three or four seconds. Then Kirsten Gillibrand suddenly shrieked out, “That's an absurdity! They hate democracy so much!” You know, the Democrats have gamed the whole appropriations process for so many years. It hasn’t been since—what, I think 2007?—since an actual stand-alone appropriations bill was signed by a president. Our national media -- which could pressure Congress to return to its old form of passing 12 or 13 appropriations bills instead of monstrous "continuing resolutions" that nobody reads. They're not doing that. June 28th, 2025 7:36 PM NB Staff 289634 https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ashley-taylor/2025/06/28/ghouls-abcs-view-literally-applauds-rising-abortion-rates On the June 27 broadcast of ABC’s The View, viewers were once again subjected to a plethora of leftist ideology– this time on abortion. Under the guise of “concern” and “compassion,” the panel pushed a narrative that not only distorted facts, but weaponized tragedy to dehumanize unborn children and justify killing them. The cast and the far-left audience literally applauded rising abortion rates. The women of The View were no strangers to using extreme, if not violent, rhetoric around abortion. In 2023, the show discussed the topic with celebrity Jane Fonda, who disgustingly suggested murdering pro-lifers. Co-host Sara Haines has even dismissed IVF pregnancies as not a part of the “miracle of life” and outside of God’s plan, to mock Catholic co-host Sunny Hostin’s defense of the medical procedure.     Interestingly, Alyssa Farah Griffin making a case for the ethical and medical complexities of abortion, even carefully toying with some pro-life talking points. I think it is a medical and ethical decision, that because of the ethics of it, the law does have to come in, and I’ll explain why here. Recently a 20-week year-old baby survived outside of the womb because of medical intervention. That's a miracle. That's science, that's technology making something that seemed impossible possible. So science is moving quicker than the public policy debate around it and at some point we'll have to ask ourselves if a baby can live outside the womb at a certain point should there be a restriction on the ability to terminate a pregnancy at that point? The discussion quickly veered into emotional manipulation, as co-host Sara Haines used the recent news story of Adriana Smith, a brain-dead pregnant woman “unfairly” kept on life support against her family’s wishes, despite Smith being pregnant at the time. Using air quotes around the word “life,” Haines huffed, “…this is an awful story, where the government was allowed to keep someone alive for ‘the life’ in her stomach…” She, of course, dismissed the part where Smith’s baby was delivered alive and well, arguing that “the baby was born at like one pound.” The show portrayed Smith’s story primarily through the lens of race, lamenting “maternal mortality rates for black women” while ignoring the true cause of this scenario: lack of medical clarity from doctors.  Adriana Smith had blood clots that went undiagnosed during routine check-ups, which led to her eventually passing. However, in order to save her child, doctors kept her on life-support until the baby could be delivered healthy, which it was. This was the major point of contention in the discussion. As Griffin pointed out, if she herself were pregnant and ended up in a similar situation, she would also want the baby to live.  Griffin’s response was immediately undercut by Haines and Ana Navarro, who instead pushed the agenda that overturning Roe v. Wade has somehow led to an increase in abortions and maternal deaths. This claim was not just misleading; it was categorically false when analyzed with credible data. The reason abortions were “rising” had less to do with the Dobbs decision and everything to do with the shifted definition of “abortion,” which has expanded to include Plan B type pills in the data spoken of on the show.  The panel’s selective use of statistics exemplifies the liberal media’s favorite tactic: cherry-picking data to push a narrative of crisis and injustice. The applause that followed Haines’s statement about rising abortions seemed like praise. The persistent murder of babies actually made the audience applaud.  Nothing less could be expected from The View. The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read. ABCs The View June 27 2025 11:07:00 AM EST (...) SUNNY HOSTIN:  Do you think the government should be involved in this at all? ALYSSA FARRAH GRIFFIN: I think it is a medical and ethical decision, that because of the ethics of it, the law does have to come in, and I’ll explain why here. Recently a 20-week year-old baby survived outside of the womb because of medical intervention. That's a miracle. That's science, that's technology making something that seemed impossible possible. So science is moving quicker than the public policy debate around it and at some point we'll have to ask ourselves if a baby can live outside the womb at a certain point should there be a restriction on the ability to terminate a pregnancy at that point? SARA HAINES: Yeah, but there’s a really disturbing case, kind of touching on what you said. There’s a woman named Adriana Smith, a woman who was brain dead because she went in having concerns about her pregnancy, they sent her home. She went back and it ended up she’d had blood clots. They kept her alive by ventilators although her family wanted to let her go because she was completely brain dead, but they did it to keep the baby against her family's wishes and the baby was born at like one pound, but like to me that is such an overstep. If you go into the hospital and you've lost your loved one because, arguably, they missed it the first time with blood clot, she was a black woman which is important because the maternal mortality– maternal mortality rate is awful for black women and people of color but this is– this is an awful story, where the government was allowed to keep someone alive for “the life” in her stomach when her family was saying, “she's dead, she is dead.” GRIFFIN: But, respectfully, I see it differently. I'm trying to get pregnant right now. If, God forbid, something happened to me and I were carrying a child, I would want every medical intervention possible to keep me alive to have that baby survive, and that baby is alive today. HOSTIN: Yeah. JOY BEHAR: Well that’s– GRIFFIN: And, by the way– HAINES: But what about medical proxy? Because like, people are given the power to let their loved ones– GRIFFIN: They did– they have it for the woman, but that's where it gets complicated, is you don’t– we don't have a legal standard when it comes to the unborn baby. HAINES: The big problem here is that– I said this three years ago, this overturning of Roe v. Wade will not reduce abortions, it will reduce safe abortions, and what we're seeing right now is that– SUNNY HOSTIN: There’s a rise. HAINES: There's a massive rise in the number of abortions, but mothers in states that banned abortion are twice as likely to die and if you’re a black mother, you’re three times as likely to die–  ANA NAVARRO: Yeah, which is what Joy and Whoopi kept saying. HAINES: Maternal mortality rate rose 56 percent in Texas. Texas was 155 percent and maternal mortality fell in 20 percent in supportive states. The message here is if you are arguing for life, look at those stats and then tell me what you think. BEHAR: So abortions rose ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned. HAINES: Absolutely. [APPLAUSE] HAINES: They’ve risen every year. HOSITN: Yeah. BEHAR: Okay. We’ll be right back. June 28th, 2025 7:14 PM Ashley Taylor 289627