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  4.    <title>Newsbusters - Welcome to NewsBusters, a project of the Media Research Center (MRC), America’s leading media watchdog in documenting, exposing </title>
  5.    <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/</link>
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  9.    <item>
  10.  <title>Terry Gilliam: Trump Saved Us from Humorless Woke Scolds</title>
  11.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/christian-toto/2025/07/12/terry-gilliam-trump-saved-us-humorless-woke-scolds</link>
  12.  <description>Terry Gilliam had it all worked out.
  13.  
  14. The rebel filmmaker saw the woke revolution stifling comedy and culture during the Biden years and wanted to make a movie about it. After all, no one in the greater Hollywood community would even attempt such a satire.
  15.  
  16. He even had a title: “Carnival at the End of Days.”
  17.  
  18.  
  19.  
  20.  
  21. Terry Gilliam's "The Carnival at the End of Days" is set to star JOHNNY DEPP, ADAM DRIVER, JEFF BRIDGES and JASON MOMOAhttps://t.co/czJjmpfd2w pic.twitter.com/rUENHBWkUy
  22. — Reel Updates (@worldofreel) May 31, 2024
  23.  
  24.  
  25. Then, a certain real estate mogul defied an assassin’s plot and returned to the White House last fall. How could Gilliam mock the “woke mind virus” when President Donald Trump’s comeback snuffed its fading embers?
  26.  
  27. Gilliam may be mad about his project’s plight, but he seems happy that President Donald Trump made it safe to laugh again stateside. That revelation came through in a surreal Hollywood Reporter interview with the 84-year-old legend.
  28.  
  29. Gilliam, pressed on the current state of humor, took the conversation in an unlikely direction (at least for the far-Left THR).
  30.  
  31.  
  32. I think Trump has changed things considerably. He’s turned the world upside down. I don’t know if people are going to be laughing more, but they’re probably less frightened to laugh [emphasis added]. There have been woke activists with a very narrow, self-righteous point of view. That’s frightened so many people, and so many people have been very timid about telling jokes, making fun of things, because if you tell a joke, these people say you’re punching down at somebody. No, you’re finding humor in humanity!
  33.  
  34.  
  35. Gilliam has been on the receiving end of woke attacks for some time. The director, best known for his work with the British comedy troupe Monty Python, lost a plum gig at the Old Vic in London after co-workers complained about previous comments he had made.
  36.  
  37. He once said, for example, he was “tired of white men being blamed for everything wrong with the world.” He also dared to recommend Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special, “The Closer,” which featured jokes about the trans community.
  38.  
  39. The left-leaning Independent scolded the unorthodox Gilliam in 2020, telling the director he needs to “grow up.”
  40.  
  41.  
  42.  
  43.  
  44.  
  45.  
  46.  
  47.  
  48.  
  49. Gilliam shared more about the project with the far-Left Deadline, offering some juicy quotes along the way.
  50.  
  51.  
  52. I didn’t go through agents, because agents are very cautious, concerned people, and I had been warned anyway by a guy very much in Hollywood who did read the script and said: “Don’t let anybody else read this in Hollywood. You’ll never work again, mate.”
  53.  
  54.  
  55. He also explains why industry executives weren’t eager to make “Carnival” happen.
  56.  
  57.  
  58. Hollywood, you know, in the last couple years has been a very nervous world. You were not allowed to offend anyone, and all the executives were living in fear so I started looking elsewhere.
  59.  
  60.  
  61. Fellow Monty Python alum John Cleese has taken a similar anti-woke stance in recent years. Cleese routinely attacks woke overreach, defends comedians speaking their minds and refuses to bow to Cancel Culture scolds.
  62.  
  63. Gilliam is far from MAGA. He’s suspicious of the world leader, particularly on immigration. He prefers an open-border approach as in England, saying undocumented citizens provide a critical workforce.
  64.  
  65. The former U.S. resident hasn’t called America home for some time, and he has no plans to change that state of affairs. He still suggests Trump’s unorthodox style may yield results.
  66.  
  67.  
  68. I think America is in a very difficult position now because Trump and company are quite extraordinary. On the other hand, he may actually succeed where other people didn’t, in a strange way. It’s like Richard Nixon, you know, brought about the rapprochement with China.
  69. </description>
  70.  <pubDate>July 12th, 2025 1:00 PM</pubDate>
  71.    <dc:creator>Christian Toto</dc:creator>
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  75.  <title>NewsBusters Podcast: Democrats Want 'Blood,' ICE Agents Face Shooters</title>
  76.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/11/newsbusters-podcast-democrats-want-blood-ice-agents-face-shooters</link>
  77.  <description>If the Democrat Party base is so angry that it wants political violence, they are getting it around immigration facilities in Texas. On Monday, Axios.com reported House Democrats claimed their voters feel there “needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public.” The article headline was "Democrats told to "get shot" for the anti-Trump resistance".
  78.  
  79. One member of Congress said some are telling them "what we really need to do is be willing to get shot" when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies. "Our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough ... [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public."
  80.  
  81. But the press doesn't want to cover political violence from the Left, like active shooters at ICE facilities, even when a cop gets shot in the neck. All of that has a January 6 echo, an anti-ICE insurrection. 
  82.  
  83. While other Democratic lawmakers said their discussions haven't gone that far, "nearly every one who spoke to Axios cited examples of voters' panic and fury fueling demands to adopt brute force tactics."  
  84.  
  85. Many lawmakers said these voters tend to be white, well-educated and live in upscale suburban or urban neighborhoods. "What I have seen is a demand that we get ourselves arrested intentionally or allow ourselves to be victims of violence, and ... a lot of times that's coming from economically very secure white people," said a House Democrat.
  86.  
  87. They say "civility isn't working," as if the Democrats haven't been uncivil to Trump this time around. 
  88.  
  89. "I actually said in a meeting, 'When they light a fire, my thought is to grab an extinguisher,'" a House Democrat told Axios. "And someone at the table said, 'Have you tried gasoline?'"
  90.  
  91. The House members think these freaked-out Democrats have it all wrong about the violence. "Not only would that be a gift to Donald Trump, not only would it make the job of Republicans in Congress easier if we were all mired in legal troubles ... [we are] a group that is disproportionately people of color, women, LGBTQ people — people who do not fare very well in prison." 
  92.  
  93. On Monday morning, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin relayed an active shooter with a rifle &amp; tactical gear ambushed Border Patrol agents as they arrived at a Border Patrol annex facility in McAllen, Texas. Local police and federal agents returned fire, killing him. McAllen is on the southern tip of the state. It drew a few minutes here and a few seconds there. 
  94.  
  95. Around 10:30 on Friday night, -- the 4th of July! -- a Texas police officer was shot in the neck by armed anti-ICE wingnuts near an ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, about a half-south of Dallas. The cop is okay now.  
  96.  
  97. It was a "planned ambush" on the building, resulting in 11 people being charged, authorities said Monday.  Law enforcement officials said 10 to 12 people in black military-style clothing began shooting fireworks at the facility. One or two others broke off from the group and began to damage vehicles and spray graffiti. Officials say the graffiti said things like "ICE pig", "traitor" and profanity. Coverage? Jorge Bonilla found one brief on CBS that lasted about 25 seconds. PBS also had a few sentences.
  98.  
  99. On social media, some leftists were like "don’t lecture us, January 6 sympathizers." So we repeat: rioting is bad. Political violence is unacceptable. And the media should be able to uphold a nonpartisan standard of nonviolence. 
  100.  
  101. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 
  102.  
  103.  
  104.  
  105.  </description>
  106.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 10:28 PM</pubDate>
  107.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
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  110. <item>
  111.  <title>CNN Suggests ICE Enforcement in L.A. Park Was Somehow Illegal</title>
  112.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/11/cnn-suggests-ice-enforcement-la-park-was-somehow-illegal</link>
  113.  <description>To the liberal media, the arrests and deportations of illegal immigrants nationwide by Immigration Customs and Enforcement was a planned stunt and somehow illegal. No seriously, Tuesday afternoon’s segment of CNN News Central invited Congressman Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) to discuss ICE and the National Guard troops present in MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. Amid their knocks against ICE host Jessica Dean suggested, without any citation, that the operation had broken the law. 
  114.  
  115. On Monday, law enforcement officials arrived at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles and were looking for MS-13 gang members. Gomez ridiculously claimed that the federal presence was just to intimidate and scare kids at a summer camp: 
  116.  
  117.  
  118. Yeah, I've heard that no one was actually detained, which makes us believe that this was more of a political and media stunt where they wanted to, I don't know, capture footage of show of force by having more than 100 federal agents in full gear. People can see it in military equipment, horseback, trucks, a show of force for what, 20-plus kids that were playing at a playground during summer camp. Some young as eight years old that – 
  119.  
  120.  
  121.  
  122.  
  123.  
  124.  
  125.  
  126.  
  127. So, it just shows that this wasn't about any group of individuals. They said it was about MS-13 gang members. I don't think MS-13 gang members hang out at a summer camp in downtown or near downtown L.A. So, I think it was just appalling and we need this kind of activity to stop. 
  128.  
  129. Dean asked Gomez if the federal agents' actions were “illegal or beyond what the law allows.” “Is this simply them taking the law all the way up to the line?” she added. 
  130.  
  131. Does Dean think it is illegal for law enforcement officials to go to the park to do their job? To CNN, people in uniform upholding the law seemed to be out of place at a public park. 
  132.  
  133. Mayor Karen Bass made a post on X claiming that “more than 20 kids were playing” before the federal agents arrived. The Blaze’s National Correspondent Julio Rosas challenged Bass’s post and said, “I would be shocked if there were kids playing in McArthur Park before. Whole area is covered in trash, human waste, and a bunch of drugged out people.”  
  134.  
  135. Gomez made a crazy victim mentality statement when Dean pressed into the narrative that people felt “intimidated”:  
  136.  
  137.  
  138. Because here's the thing. They are not going after criminals. They're going after anybody. That is brown, that looks like me, that can't pass as what they say. As a typical American. That's why you're getting people who are not undocumented actually arrested. That's the fear that exists, that anybody doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, could be arrested.   
  139.  
  140.  
  141. Gomez stated “they are not going after criminals” when two minutes before that, he claimed the federal agents were after MS-13 gang members. Sounds like the law enforcement officers are doing their job, but is the media doing theirs or pressing into their biased narrative to fearmonger the truth?   
  142.  
  143. Actually, Jimmy, there have been major MS-13 gang arrests. One arrest was on a high-ranking MS-13 leader who was wanted for multiple murders in Long Island, New York. Another high-ranking MS-13 leader who controlled gang activities in the U.S., Mexico and Europe was arrested in Hyattsville, Maryland. So yes, “this kind of activity” is necessary to protect American citizens.   
  144.  
  145. Dean did not correct not fact-check Gomez. 
  146.  
  147. Let this be another example of CNN pushing a false narrative when federal agents are upholding the law.   
  148.  
  149. Click here for the transcripts. 
  150.  
  151.  
  152. CNN News Central
  153. 7/8/25
  154. 3:40 pm. Eastern
  155.  
  156. JESSICA DEAN: Outrage in Los Angeles after dozens of federal immigration agents in tactical gear and accompanied by National Guard troops, swarmed a city park. They appeared to arrive in armored vehicles by horseback and also on foot, yesterday. MacA,,,,,rthur Park is in a largely immigrant neighborhood.
  157.  
  158. L.A.’s Mayor Karen Bass says she rushed to the area, demanding they leave. Congressman Jimmy Gomez of California is joining us now. Macarthur Park is in his district. Congressman, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
  159.  
  160. I first just want to get some information about what happened. Do you know if anyone was actually detained or how many people were arrested or detained in what happened yesterday?
  161.  
  162. JIMMY GOMEZ (D-CA): Yeah, I've heard that no one was actually detained, which makes us believe that this was more of a political and media stunt where they wanted to, I don't know, capture footage of show of force by having more than 100 federal agents in full gear. People can see it in military equipment, horseback, trucks, a show of force for what, 20-plus kids that were playing at a playground during summer camp. Some young as eight years old that –
  163.  
  164. So, it just shows that this wasn't about any group of individuals. They said it was about MS-13 gang members. I don't think MS-13 gang members hang out at a summer camp in downtown or near downtown L.A. So, I think it was just appalling and we need this kind of activity to stop.
  165.  
  166. DEAN: And I'm curious to just by your assessment, you clearly you see this as just a PR stunt. Were they doing anything illegal or beyond what the law allows? Is this simply them taking the law all the way up to the line? Do you think this is, I guess, legal and okay?
  167.  
  168. GOMEZ: Well, I want people to understand that this is not what immigration enforcement used to look like before Donald Trump, before this term, you never saw a full military gear. You didn't see people on horseback. You saw them dressed very differently. So, this is an intimidation. They're trying to scare people.
  169.  
  170. Is it within the bounds of the law? Well, I don't know what law that they actually broke, but they did scare people in the park. And they tried to intimidate folks. So that's what we're concerned about, that this is not serving any real purpose.
  171.  
  172. They haven't gone after MS-13 gang members like they said they were, or criminal cartels. They're actually taking people off of those cases and having them go after hard working immigrants, people that work at car washes, at restaurants at day laborer sites. Have you heard of any major MS-13 gang member takedowns? I haven't.
  173.  
  174. DEAN: And you mentioned how scared people were, how intimidated they felt. I think for a lot of the country. Help them understand what it feels like specifically in your district. But I know Mayor Karen Bass has spoken about this as well. The general feeling there in Los Angeles for a lot of people who are quite on edge right now.
  175.  
  176. GOMEZ: I think one, a lot of Americans have traveled abroad like I have. I've been to Mexico when I was a kid, a number of times, and we were – When I saw troops everywhere in foreign countries, I was intimidated. I was scared. People with big guns. I never thought that that would happen in the United States. Would you have an active military on our streets? And that's what you have is this deep fear that's building and building and building.
  177.  
  178. Because here's the thing. They are not going after criminals. They're going after anybody. That is brown, that looks like me, that can't pass as what they say. As a typical American. That's why you're getting people who are not undocumented actually arrested. That's the fear that exists, that anybody doesn't matter if you're a citizen or not, could be arrested. And held in detainment for a number of days. If not, it also makes people scared that they're going to, you know, get ripped away from their families or their friends and their businesses.
  179.  
  180. So this fear is real because it can happen anywhere, at any time. But it happens to mainly people here. We're guilty until proven innocent. And even then people question us if we don't have a right passport on our hands.
  181.  
  182. DEAN: Do you think California and Los Angeles are being targeted here?
  183.  
  184. GOMEZ: Of course. And that's because Donald Trump knows that he wants to try to set an example with California. The kind of place we are. Remember, we're the state who has embraced immigrants, that understands the power of being inclusive of the entrepreneurial aspect of immigrants. We're the state that beat back 187 and Pete Wilson that turned the state from red to blue. He doesn't want that to happen in other states. So he's trying to take it out on us.
  185.  
  186. You know what? No matter what he does, we're not going away. We're not going to give up on our values. We're not going to bend the knee to him or to anybody else that wants to act like a wannabe dictator.
  187.  
  188. DEAN: What kind of power? I mean, obviously you're in Congress. There are other local California officials all the way from the governor to the mayor and others. What kind of power, though, do you all have to push back on this?
  189.  
  190. GOMEZ: Well, we know that one of the things that we want to do is make sure that people see and understand what's happening. The fact that he's going – who he's going after, that they're not criminals. These are people that oftentimes have no criminal record. He's going after children.
  191.  
  192. And we know that this is starting to eat away at his base. It's highly unpopular. Even Joe Rogan, somebody that's on the podcast side who has a lot of support regarding from the MAGA constituency. He even says that this is not what they signed up for. This is not what they wanted.
  193.  
  194. And one of the things the way we do it is we have to win public opinion more and more to our side. I'm not sure if he's going to stop, but we want to make sure that people understand the consequences when it comes to our economy. When it comes to who we are as a country and what it means in the long term.
  195.  
  196. I think that this is a dangerous path we're on because when people get comfortable seeing this kind of militarization of not only ICE, but the use of military on our public streets, it becomes easier and easier to do it not only in L.A., but across the country.
  197.  
  198. DEAN: Alright. Congressman Jimmy Gomez, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.
  199.  
  200. GOMEZ: Thank you.
  201. </description>
  202.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 9:34 PM</pubDate>
  203.    <dc:creator>Shannon Sauders</dc:creator>
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  206. <item>
  207.  <title>Don Lemon Goes On and On, Blames Trump For Poor Texas Floods Reporting</title>
  208.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/11/don-lemon-goes-and-blames-trump-poor-texas-floods-reporting</link>
  209.  <description>Disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon expressed on his Wednesday podcast that he has had enough of the way legacy media was covering the Texas floods. The problem wasn’t that the media was trying to politicize the event, unnecessarily and inaccurately placing blame on President Trump’s cuts to various government weather agencies. The problem was that the media wasn’t politicizing it enough.
  210.  
  211. Reading from a Substack article he published, Lemon was eager to express: “Texas is drowning, so is American journalism. Texans are dying. The government is lying. And the media? Too many are too afraid to say it out loud.” His accusation was not just that the Trump administration was responsible for the worsening of the floods, but also that they were threatening the media to say otherwise.
  212.  
  213.  
  214.  
  215.  
  216.  
  217.  
  218.  
  219.  
  220.  
  221. He continued pointing a finger, growing more direct with his claim as he ranted:
  222.  
  223.  
  224. This disaster in Texas didn't just happen. It wasn't just the weather. It wasn't just an act of God. This catastrophe, this deadly devastating tragedy that has left hundreds dead and missing, was made worse by choices. By deliberate, calculated actions from the Trump administration.
  225.  
  226.  
  227. Throughout his podcast, Lemon tried to juxtapose the suffering of the citizens with the supposed dishonesty of the government, both at the local and federal level. He complained about local government for taking the time to thank the heroes who saved lives instead of answering who was to blame. He put the blood on the White House’s hands for supposedly ignoring the warning signs of this incident.
  228.  
  229. All the while, he tried to buy sympathy by highlighting the difficult times the victims faced, even as he accused the media of showing too much sympathy in their reporting. He compared today’s reporting to that on Hurricane Katrina:
  230.  
  231.  
  232. The journalists who covered Katrina wouldn't survive in today's newsrooms. They'd be told that they were too emotional, they were too biased, that they were too bad for business. It's a business decision, it's business. That's the excuse. But you know what's really bad for business, and that's cowardice. It's bad for the media, it's bad for democracy, it's a – it's fatal for the people drowning, literally and figuratively, because of it. 
  233.  
  234.  
  235. In case you were wondering, reporting on Hurricane Katrina was certainly biased. Many in the media looked for any excuse to blame President George W. Bush, also a Republican, for a natural disaster he could have had no influence on. Ironically, the “too biased” reporting, which NewsBusters covered at the time, paled in comparison to the modern media’s treatment of the floods. 
  236.  
  237. Legacy media’s problem is not that they are stifled by the presidency. The problem is that their reporting is stifled by their obsessive hatred for the president. Good reporting is not glossing over suffering to push an agenda and get more information. It should strive for the truth while still prioritizing the known facts and reality of the situation, something Lemon and many others in the media seem to have long forgotten.
  238.  
  239. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
  240.  
  241.  
  242. The Don Lemon Show
  243.  
  244. July 9, 2025
  245.  
  246. DON LEMON: There's something that I have to say, and it has really been weighing on my mind, and I've been wondering if I should say it because the people of Texas are really going through it right now, and I didn't want to be a distraction to the folks of Texas. I waited a little bit, but (Pauses) I am outraged, number one, by the response that this administration has had and the lack of accountability, and number two, I've been outraged really by the media coverage. I know it's always really easy to blame the media, and I hated that, especially when I was in legacy media, traditional media. But this one is – I think that needs to be said, okay? 
  247.  
  248. And I just want to be clear about this, and this is, I wrote about this on Substack. I just wanna be clear from the very first sentence, it says “Texas is drowning, so is American journalism. Texans are dying. The government is lying. And the media? Too many are too afraid to say it out loud.” Okay? And I just had to do this because I believe this to be true. 
  249.  
  250. And I start by saying, let's just be clear from the very first sentence: “this disaster in Texas didn't just happen. It wasn't just the weather. It wasn't just an act of God. This catastrophe, this deadly devastating tragedy that has left hundreds dead and missing, was made worse by choices. By deliberate, calculated actions from the Trump administration.”
  251.  
  252. So I don't wanna say, you know, “Oh my God, this is the, you know, blame everything on the media.” I also wanna say I know that the Trump administration does not control the weather. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene may think that, you know, that the weather is controlled by, you know, the deep state, the Jewish space lasers and all of that. I'm not that dumb to think that. But this administration gutted FEMA. That's what I mean by accountability and what's happened here. They slashed funding for NOAA. 
  253.  
  254. They strip disaster preparedness programs to the bone while pumping billions into DOGE, is what they did it. Billions into DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has become little more than a slush fund for political revenge and favors. What did they find? DOGE did not find that – they didn't save anything. If you look at the reporting and the map, they didn't. Look at the devastation on your screen and what's happening in Texas. Look at that. Imagine what the people there are dealing with. 
  255.  
  256. This White House set the stage for this disaster. They ignored warnings about heat, about flooding, about the collapse of critical infrastructure, and now, guess what they're doing? Now they are hiding behind press conferences and photo ops while Texans mourn. And yet somehow, too many in the media, and I'm being honest here, they're afraid to say that out loud.
  257.  
  258. (...)
  259.  
  260. The Trump administration has created this climate of fear; they've done it deliberately. They're slashing agencies, they're weaponizing others, threatening media licenses, and pushing networks to fire or silence the journalists who dare to stand up. But you can't protect democracy if you're afraid of losing your job. You can't hold power accountable if you're too busy kissing the ring. You can't tell the truth if your bosses won't let you, and you won't walk away for telling the truth. 
  261.  
  262. The journalists who covered Katrina wouldn't survive in today's newsrooms. They'd be told that they were too emotional, they were too biased, that they were too bad for business. It's a business decision, it's business. That's the excuse. But you know what's really bad for business, and that's cowardice. It's bad for the media, it's bad for democracy, it's a – it's fatal for the people drowning, literally and figuratively because of it. 
  263.  
  264. The journalists of Katrina weren't perfect, but they did what mattered most. They cared more about the truth than their careers, and that is what's missing today. Until that changes, until media owners stop groveling and journalists stop cowering, this country will keep sliding deeper into disaster. Because the floodwaters are rising again.
  265. </description>
  266.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 9:31 PM</pubDate>
  267.    <dc:creator>Lucas Escala</dc:creator>
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  270. <item>
  271.  <title>WashPost Admits ‘Trump Economy Remains Pretty Strong,’ Still Hawks ‘Warning’ Scareporn</title>
  272.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/11/washpost-admits-trump-economy-remains-pretty-strong-still</link>
  273.  <description>The Washington Post is finding it impossible to admit that all the media scareporn about the Trump economy turned out to be less realistic than B-movies without still making it seem like disaster is just around the corner.
  274.  
  275. Post reporter Rachel Lerman published a pretty shocking July 5 story conceding what anyone with sense could see. “Trump’s economy remains pretty strong,” read Lerman’s headline in part, before she inserted the typical spin into the rest of it, “but some warning signs are flashing.”
  276.  
  277. Her lede paragraph read like disappointment that Trump’s policies on trade and immigration haven’t yielded the economic catastrophe the anti-Trump media doom mongers have been bleating about. President Donald Trump “has imposed global tariffs, orchestrated a crackdown on immigration and pushed a sweeping tax-cut bill through Congress — moves that could significantly alter the U.S. economy, but haven’t yet.” Oh boo-hoo.
  278.  
  279. Lerman noted that “[t]he country’s economy has remained relatively stable and upbeat under Trump, according to many metrics,” but she couldn’t resist regurgitating doom-mongering that “economists caution that they see potential warning signs ahead.” It’s worth noting that this is the same outlet that tried blaming Trump for slow Q4 GDP growth — in 2024, before he was even president! So it’s not surprising that they can’t just take the “L” without still fighting to prove that they’re still somehow right.
  280.  
  281. Lerman then went on a tear against Trump’s policies — including his crackdown on illegal immigration — despite the fact that she admitted that inflation is slowing significantly, the stock market is reaching new highs, unemployment ticked down to 4.1 percent:
  282.  
  283.  
  284. Still, many analysts say that the future of the U.S. economy under Trump remains uncertain. Gross domestic product shrank in the first quarter of the year in part because of surging imports, and consumers are feeling hesitant and spending less. It’s also too soon to know the full effect of Trump’s widespread tariffs, especially with a deadline approaching to get deals completed with many countries before levies rise once more. And as immigrants leave the workforce, either voluntarily or by deportation, a lack of workers could create labor shortages in certain key areas and fuel wage inflation.
  285.  
  286.  
  287. Wait, what? “[M]any analysts say that the future of the U.S. economy under Trump remains uncertain?” In other words, so no one knows the future? Wow, there’s a shocker! This is about as useful as saying that whether “Person A” will sneeze in the next ten minutes is “uncertain.” 
  288.  
  289. Never mind the fact that the economy has repeatedly defied expectations that Trump’s tariffs would wreck the economy in a New York minute. It’s also cute for Lerman to paint the idea of immigrants leaving the workforce with a broad brush and not use the word “illegal” at all and only passively use the term “undocumented” once in her write-up, because doing so of course would change the context dramatically. 
  290.  
  291. Writing that it’s “too soon” to know the effect of Trump’s tariffs is subjective, because media pundits had already been predicting Armageddon would happen for months, such as CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Liesman, who was adamant April 4 that Trump’s trade agenda was the “equivalent of steering the Titanic towards the iceberg.” Liesman would later have to eat crow when the inflation numbers for May didn’t reflect his doomism, leading him to admit that he did “not see broader impacts on inflation from the tariffs” during the June 11 edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box. 
  292.  
  293. Flashback: CNBC’s Steve Liesman Wears the Clown Nose With Latest Good Inflation Report for Trump
  294.  
  295.  
  296.  
  297.  
  298.  
  299. Even Axios conceded as far back as May that “Tariff-Driven Inflation and Recession Fears May Be Overblown.” Lerman herself included anecdotes that rebut the notion that the U.S. is headed for an economic brick wall: “The U.S. labor market also continues to show signs of resilience, adding 147,000 jobs in June. Hourly wages outpaced inflation, and layoffs remain low.” Of course, she found a way to spin this as being bad news too: “But businesses have added jobs at a slower pace this year compared with last year, and hiring has fallen to a standstill in many industries.”
  300.  
  301. In other words, yeah the jobs market is resilient, but it still stinks, right Lerman? How in the world does that make any sense?</description>
  302.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 7:09 PM</pubDate>
  303.    <dc:creator>Joseph Vazquez</dc:creator>
  304.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289793</guid>
  305.    </item>
  306. <item>
  307.  <title>CNN Forced to Walk Back Original Claims of Trump at Fault for Floods</title>
  308.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/11/cnn-forced-walk-back-original-claims-trump-fault-floods</link>
  309.  <description>On Thursday morning, CNN’s The Situation Room walked back the network’s original narrative that the Trump administration was at fault in the preparation and response to the deadly Texas floods. CNN senior crime and justice correspondent Shimon Prokupecz pointed out that the burden fell on local government response and not on the federal government’s spending cuts as CNN originally reported.
  310.  
  311. CNN analysts and correspondents spread misinformation in the first hours and days following the flooding in Kerr County, TX. Original reports stated that the cutting of funding to FEMA and the National Weather Service were the reason for the loss of life. This spun a narrative of blame, pinning the Trump administration as responsible for innocent lives lost due to the tragedy.
  312.  
  313.  
  314.  
  315.  
  316.  
  317.  
  318.  
  319.  
  320.  
  321. Prokupecz led with this when asked about the federal government’s warnings prior to the flooding and the state government prepositioning resources:
  322.  
  323.  
  324. The alarm bells are starting on July 2nd, and the Texas Department of Emergency Management is moving in resources. They're moving the resources in, we're saying to the locals, we have things available for you, we have emergency response available for you, so get prepared.
  325.  
  326. And this was a warning on July 2nd to this community. Now, what happens after that? Where do those warnings go starting on July 2nd? How does those warnings, how do they, did they ever get to the locals? And I think that's the biggest question.
  327.  
  328.  
  329. This completely dismantled the narrative that DOGE cuts somehow played a role in these people not being warned on time. Prokupecz clearly stated that they knew of the danger on July 2nd, two days before the flooding, and it’s on the Texas Department of Emergency Management and local authorities to make sure warnings got to the locals quickly and effectively.
  330.  
  331. Prokupecz then went on to solidify what the Trump administration and Republicans had been saying from the start:
  332.  
  333.  
  334. First of all, it was in the middle of the night, so most were sleeping. It was a beautiful day before the rain started on July 3rd. And they were just looking forward to the fun that they were about to have on July 4th down at the river.
  335.  
  336. And keep in mind, so many people were in town for this. So many people came from outside this area in their R.V.s. How are they supposed to know that something could go wrong? And so that's the big question. What efforts did the locals make? At this point, it doesn't appear to be that they were making any efforts. And we'll see if they ever answer those questions. At this point, they said they're focusing on the recovery efforts and the families and trying to give them some closure.
  337.  
  338.  
  339. The people of the Texas Hill Country get flood warnings all the time, mostly without much trouble, this was a reason why many people sadly ignored the warnings all together. It wasn't a lack of warnings due to cutting of weather services, it was about how the local government and individuals handled the warnings.
  340.  
  341. This ongoing, terrible tragedy was made more disgusting by media bias trying to pin the blame in order to make political gains. 
  342.  
  343. The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
  344.  
  345.  
  346. CNN’s The Situation Room
  347. 10:08:30 AM Eastern
  348. July, 10th, 2025
  349.  
  350. PAMELA BROWN: Let me bring in CNN's Shimon Prokupecz. Key questions remain, Shimon, about who did what during those critical early hours of the flooding. What are you learning? 
  351.  
  352. SHIMON PROKUPECZ: You know, I think it's really interesting there, Pam, what Kristi Noem said, it's really up to the local officials, right? And that's what this is about at this point. It's about the local officials. What did they do? Not the state, not the federal government. Because on July 2nd, two days before this, the state is already sending out press releases, saying, be careful. You've got this weather storm. You've got this storm coming through, raising the alarm bells.
  353.  
  354. The alarm bells are starting on July 2nd, and the Texas Department of Emergency Management is moving in resources. They're moving the resources in, we're saying to the locals, we have things available for you, we have emergency response available for you, so get prepared.
  355.  
  356. And this was a warning on July 2nd to this community. Now, what happens after that? Where do those warnings go starting on July 2nd? How does those warnings, how do they, did they ever get to the locals? And I think that's the biggest question.
  357.  
  358. And much like you yesterday, I had the opportunity to head down towards the river and talk to people, and most of them, most of the people I talked to said they did get the alerts, but they didn't take them seriously.
  359.  
  360. First of all, it was in the middle of the night, so most were sleeping. It was a beautiful day before the rain started on July 3rd. And they were just looking forward to the fun that they were about to have on July 4th down at the river.
  361.  
  362. And keep in mind, so many people were in town for this. So many people came from outside this area in their R.V.s. How are they supposed to know that something could go wrong? And so that's the big question. What efforts did the locals make? At this point, it doesn't appear to be that they were making any efforts. And we'll see if they ever answer those questions. At this point, they said they're focusing on the recovery efforts and the families and trying to give them some closure.
  363.  
  364. (…)
  365.  
  366.  
  367.  </description>
  368.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 5:44 PM</pubDate>
  369.    <dc:creator>Matthew Seck</dc:creator>
  370.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289795</guid>
  371.    </item>
  372. <item>
  373.  <title>Morning Joe Flip Out: ICE Arrests Are ‘Racial Profiling,’ ‘Kidnapping’ </title>
  374.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/11/morning-joe-flip-out-ice-arrests-are-racial-profiling</link>
  375.  <description>The left-wing media’s hysteria revolving around the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrests and deportations nationwide had cranked up to the next level. On Thursday's edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host of MSNBC’s The Weeknight Symone Sanders-Townsend claimed people will see “racial profiling” as ICE continued to uphold the law. Meanwhile, another claimed ICE was “kidnapping” people. 
  376.  
  377. Co-anchor Jonathan Lemire framed the segment around fear of “high profile clashes” in “Democratic controlled cities” in the country, where ICE was focusing their efforts. 
  378.  
  379. It’s worth noting that cities like Los Angeles, with Democrat leadership, were places that supported illegal immigration via their so-called sanctuary city polices. It’s no wonder why ICE was in those places.   
  380.  
  381.  
  382.  
  383.  
  384.  
  385.  
  386.  
  387. As the former Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris, Sanders-Townsend made statements regarding ICE’s motivation for the arrests that boiled down them just being racist:  
  388.  
  389.  
  390. Yeah, this is about to be very clear. It's about race. It's not necessarily about risk because we have seen ICE go into disproportionately communities of color, disproportionately Latino and Hispanic. And I would also argue I would also note black and brown, black communities and go to courthouses... This is about, at this point, meeting a particular arbitrary quota, frankly, that the White House care of Stephen Miller has set forward. And we are going to continue as we get closer and deeper and deeper into the summer, as we go into the fall to see racial profiling.  
  391.  
  392.  
  393. The facts were that it’s easier for people who lived in Latin America and South America to travel north, which was why Latinos and Hispanics contribute to a major population of illegal immigrants. That fact was completely taken out of context for the purpose of what ICE was for. ICE was not arresting people based on their race, but rather if they were in the country illegally.   
  394.  
  395. The liberal media have shown support and sympathy towards illegal immigrants receiving the same privileges as American citizens, and they have forgotten that ICE was established to uphold the law and protect the country. 
  396.  
  397. Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki added to the conversation by suggesting that ICE was “kidnapping” people. She also whined about them arresting people who lost the cases in immigration court: 
  398.  
  399.  
  400. They are going into communities where people don't have criminal records or people are law-abiding, even people who are going to their court hearings and they're targeting people...So when they say they're going after the worst of the worst and the hardest of the hardest, what they're actually doing to meet that, try to meet that 3000 number that Stephen Miller and others have set is they're going after what they consider low hanging fruit. People who are law-abiding, some who pay taxes, who are going to courtrooms to meet that number, and they're going into cities like L.A. to create a vision of chaos as if they are there to calm things, when really they are the ones who are creating the chaos. So this is quite performative.  
  401.  
  402.  
  403. Jen, they broke the law if they were here illegally. Defending illegal immigrants as “law-abiding” is hypocritical.   
  404.  
  405. Between “racial profiling,” “kidnapping,” and not getting the concept of the word illegal, the liberal media pushed the agenda that ICE was the villain for keeping America safe and upholding the law. Meanwhile, they promoted those who were here illegally.  
  406.  
  407. Click here for the transcript.
  408.  
  409.  
  410. MSNBC’s Morning Joe
  411. 7/10/25
  412. 9:24 a.m. Eastern
  413.  
  414. JONATHAN LEMIRE: And Jen Psaki, a Trump official yesterday telling me that because the border is basically been closed, you know, that the heat, this this official suggests they're victim of their own success. Therefore it's not easy to find these deportations. You know, that's because they have to therefore go into the cities to make their numbers. And that's what I think is being telegraphed here is those, as Julia mentioned, those high profile clashes in Los Angeles, those ICE agents there leading to protests. President Trump has all but telegraphed that this summer we should expect a lot more of that in cities, particularly Democratic controlled cities across the country.
  415.  
  416. JEN PSAKI: Well, I also think it's quite performative, Jonathan. I mean, they are – they have National Guard troops they shouldn't be using in this way. They are going into communities where people don't have criminal records or people are law abiding, even people who are going to their court hearings and they're targeting people.
  417.  
  418. A lot of the reporting I've seen lately has been about 50 percent. I don't know what the exact latest numbers, but about 50 percent of the people who they are arresting, some of them kidnaping, some of them deporting are not, don't have any record at all.
  419.  
  420. So when they say they're going after the worst of the worst and the hardest of the hardest, what they're actually doing to meet that – try to meet that 3,000 number that Stephen Miller and others have set, is they're going after what they consider low hanging fruit. People who are law abiding, some who pay taxes, who are going to courtrooms to meet that number. And they're going into cities like L.A. to create a vision of chaos as if they are there to calm things, when really they are the ones who are creating the chaos.
  421.  
  422. So this is quite performative. It's also about trying to hit these numbers and not going after people who are doing anything in society aside from being law abiding.
  423.  
  424. SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND: Yeah, this is about – to be very clear. It's about race. It's not necessarily about risk because we have seen ICE go into disproportionately communities of color, disproportionately Latino and Hispanic. And I would also argue – I would also note black and brown –black communities and go to courthouses. We've seen them target traffic stops. We have seen viral videos of ICE approaching people in their yards.
  425.  
  426. This is about, at this point, meeting a particular arbitrary quota, frankly, that the White House care of Stephen Miller has set forward. And we are going to continue as we get closer and deeper and deeper into the summer, as we go into the fall to see racial profiling. And we're going to see these stories come out more and more. And I have to wonder what local municipalities, but also Congress and just law abiding citizens think about this?
  427.  
  428. Are we a country where we are comfortable, where we are going to racially profile people who are here based on the color of their skin, because Stephen Miller and the President wanted me to quota? That's the question we have to ask ourselves.
  429.  
  430. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Symone Sanders-Townsend, thank you. We'll be watching The Weeknight at 7 P.M. Eastern right here on MSNBC. And Jen Psaki, thank you as well. We’ll, of course, be watching The Briefing Tuesdays through Fridays at 9 P.M. Eastern. 
  431. </description>
  432.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 4:20 PM</pubDate>
  433.    <dc:creator>Shannon Sauders</dc:creator>
  434.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289794</guid>
  435.    </item>
  436. <item>
  437.  <title>Networks Whine ICE Carried Out ‘Alarming,’ ‘Disturbing’ Raids on Marijuana Farms</title>
  438.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/11/networks-whine-ice-carried-out-alarming-disturbing-raids-marijuana</link>
  439.  <description> Between Thursday night on ABC and Friday morning on CBS and NBC, the major broadcast networks used their flagship newscasts to side with the illegal immigrants — some of them underage — being rounded up Thursday afternoon by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) officials outside Los Angeles, decrying the “alarming” and “disturbing” scenes. But what kind of farms, you ask? Well, marijuana farms, so not exactly farms helping to feed America.
  440.  
  441. Friday’s CBS Mornings was crestfallen. Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers led the show with it and teased it twice in the opening, vaguely referring to “new immigration raids on American farms” that caused “tensions” to “boil over.”
  442.  
  443. “Let’s begin with the chaotic scenes in California and a new showdown over the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration. ICE agents raided two farms yesterday near Los Angeles and at one workers were lined up against a wall. Neighbors and others came out to protest. ICE agents used smoke canisters and what appeared to be teargas on the crowd,” he later explained in tossing to LA-based correspondent Carter Evans.
  444.  
  445.  
  446.  
  447.  
  448.  
  449.  
  450.  
  451.  
  452.  
  453. Evans went right to the emotions of viewers, saying “relatives have been out here all night” in their cars “hoping their loved ones may still be hiding inside and we’ve actually heard that a couple came out overnight.”
  454.  
  455. He continued building up the peril and plenty of sympathetic soundbites (click “expand”):
  456.  
  457.  
  458. EVANS: Angry protesters clashed with mass federal agents during an immigration raid at a cannabis farm north of Los Angeles in Ventura County. Witnesses say agents tossed smoke bombs at protesters.
  459.  
  460. MELISSA TAPIA: They threw it under the car, and then all the car inside, it’s got full of smoke.
  461.  
  462. EVANS: As the situation escalated, agents deployed what appeared to be teargas, sending much of the crowd running.
  463.  
  464. UNIDENTIFIED MALE PROTESTER #2: There’s got to be a better way than the way that they’re acting right now.
  465.  
  466. EVANS: Some appeared to throw rocks at government vehicles. At one point, a man appeared to be firing a gun, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Melissa Tapia was waiting to hear from her family who worked at the farm.
  467.  
  468. TAPIA: They took my brother, took his phone away. They’re banging on there, not letting people out.
  469.  
  470. EVANS: In neighboring Santa Barbara County, another raid targeted a second cannabis farm owned by the same company.
  471.  
  472. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE PROTESTER: What about the children that are going to be taken from their families?
  473.  
  474.  
  475. After playing soundbites of President Trump insisting there’d be a carveout for farm works vs. strong support for deportations from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, they tried — as ABC and NBC would also do (using Rollins and border czar Tom Homan) — drive a wedge between administration officials.
  476.  
  477. But it’s hard to suggest a divide when the raids netted not only illegal immigrants growing drugs, but said illegals being underage.
  478.  
  479. Evans wrapped with the only mention among the networks of said underage workers:
  480.  
  481.  
  482. [I]t’s unclear how many were arrested, but it looked like agents were leading away dozens of people. They had a couple of buses here. Now on social media, Customs and Border Patrol said that ten juveniles were found in the facility. All of them were undocumented. And, as for the man seen with the gun, well, the FBI is now offering a $50,000 reward for help finding him. 
  483.  
  484.  
  485. Saturday co-host Dana Jacobson wasn’t thrilled with ICE’s operation: “Really disturbing images there.”
  486.  
  487. In the second hour’s “Eye Opener,” Duthiers declared: “Chaotic scenes as protesters faced down ICE agents north of Los Angeles after immigration raids on two local farms.”
  488.  
  489. Over on NBC’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie teased a segment about “the alarming scene” in California with “a violent clash erupting between protesters and federal agents during an immigration raid in California, and the FBI now searching for a man seen in this video appearing to open fire on officers.”
  490.  
  491. Co-host Craig Melvin had the wherewithal to frame the story as in part an attack on law enforcement: “Meanwhile, to that developing story tied to the crackdown on immigration this morning. The FBI now offering a reward in the search for someone who appeared to fire a pistol at federal agents during a raid on a farm in southern California.”
  492.  
  493.  
  494.  
  495.  
  496.  
  497.  
  498.  
  499.  
  500.  
  501. Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles deemed the raids “a dramatic standoff” and fretted “[r]aids...have become a flash point in the debate over President Trump’s larger immigration policy with some opponents pushing back.”
  502.  
  503. Only then did the word “cannabis” come up (click “expand”):
  504.  
  505.  
  506. This morning, the fallout after dramatic clashes between federal agents and protesters. Agents from ICE and Border Patrol raiding two locations of a cannabis farm in California yesterday and Ventura County the scene growing tense. NBC Los Angeles reporting that officials were seen using flashbangs, smoke, and chemical irritants to keep the crowd back as the confrontation unfolded. Video showing an unidentified man appearing to fire a weapon. The FBI now offering a reward for information about him. Protesters also facing off against federal agents raiding another location of the company Glass House Farm. One Democratic congressman said he was denied entry to the site. The Department of Homeland Security saying the agents were executing criminal search warrants. Glass House Farm saying it “fully complied with agent search warrants.” It’s part of the larger immigration crackdown that President Trump promised through the campaign. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, saying the White House’s tactics, “evoke chaos, fear and terror with our communities.” 
  507.  
  508.  
  509. Nobles provided his wedge-driving attempt before concluding with new comments from Homan “responding to the protest and shooting in California by warning protesters that when those protests turn violent, that becomes a felony” and “blamed members of Congress for their criticism of ICE agents claiming that that’s contributing to the heated rhetoric around the issue” that “could eventually lead to someone getting killed.”
  510.  
  511. The idiocy began Thursday on ABC’s World News Tonight. Anchor David Muir led off the show with it, teasing “federal agents in masks raiding farms” with “smoke canisters used against the protesters.”
  512.  
  513. Muir’s lead-in to chief investigative correspondent Aaron Katersky’s report was meaningless, making it seem like an innocuous place instead of a drug site:
  514.  
  515.  
  516. We do begin tonight with breaking news, a major immigration raid unfolding, masked federal agents raiding two California farms north of Los Angeles at this hour. Clashing with protesters who quickly gathered. Men lined up against a wall under heavy guard. The dramatic images coming in at this hour. Scores of agents on the road between two fields tossing smoke canisters toward the crowd. The chaotic scene on the ground. Flash bangs heard from our reporter right there on the scene. 
  517.  
  518.  
  519. Katersky called the raids “a dramatic scene” with “[p]rotesters clashing with masked federal agents conducting immigration raids at a cannabis farm in Ventura County” as well as Santa Barbara County.
  520.  
  521.  
  522.  
  523.  
  524.  
  525.  
  526.  
  527.  
  528.  
  529. “Dozens of men lined against the wall. Heavily armed agents standing guard. At least one person is seen kneeling on the ground seemingly under arrest,” he added.
  530.  
  531. After playing the soundbite games, Katersky concluded by at least admitting the anti-ICE sentiment is violent (albeit without a far-left label): “This kind of immigration enforcement is not only drawing crowds like we’re seeing tonight, David. Online there are calls for violence with the goal of trying to stop these raids.”
  532.  
  533. To see the relevant transcripts from July 10 and 11, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).</description>
  534.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 12:11 PM</pubDate>
  535.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  536.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289808</guid>
  537.    </item>
  538. <item>
  539.  <title>DEFUND NPR &amp; PBS: Schneider Calls Out Publicly-Funded Misinfo Outlets</title>
  540.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/gabriela-pariseau/2025/07/11/defund-npr-pbs-schneider-calls-out-publicly-funded</link>
  541.  <description>NPR and PBS are scrambling to keep their funding, and MRC’s VP for External Affairs Dan Schneider has been myth-busting through their best arguments.
  542.  
  543. Scheider told WMAL host Larry O’Connor on his show Friday that NPR and PBS have hired lawyers and lobbyists who are “going around saying if Republicans cut this funding, that there’s going to be blood on their hands.” 
  544.  
  545. He explained that the leftist outlets are working to sway senators who will soon vote on the funding. Their argument: if the taxpayer funding is cut, “Americans all over the country are going to lose emergency alerts and access to local news. None of this is true. These are all lies,” said Schneider.
  546.  
  547.  
  548.  
  549.  
  550.  
  551. Schneider went on to debunk claims that funding for local NPR stations stays in their local communities. 
  552.  
  553. “[The Corporation for Public Broadcasting] is a congressionally chartered organization that just receives appropriations from Congress to give out to NPR and PBS,” he said. “If this were in the private sector, people would go to prison. It's a kickback scheme. …They're supposed to be news outlets, but instead they're just misinformation outlets.”
  554.  
  555. Schneider explained that NPR claims it receives less than one percent of its funding from the federal government. “But what happens is that these local stations do get tons of money, but then immediately kick back that money to the home offices here in Washington, D.C., of NPR and PBS … to pay for programming that comes out of Boston and LA and and New York City, all of these other places,” he said. 
  556.  
  557. The MRC External Affairs VP went on to note, “There is hardly any local news on NPR. It's all this national and international propaganda,” pointing specifically to the BBC, headquartered in London, England.
  558.  
  559. Schneider continued by calling out Republican Sens. Mike Rounds (SD), Dan Sullivan (AK) and Jerry Moran (KS) for their hesitancy to defund America’s two publicly-funded leftist broadcasters.
  560.  
  561. “They are throwing up these strawman arguments about tribes and local communities. We can get Starlink off of Walmart for $350, and that gives not just NPR and PBS but tens of thousands of options,” said Schneider.
  562.  
  563. O’Connor chimed in in agreement. “They make it sound like people who live in these rural areas in their own state are bumpkins who don't have cell phones and can't figure out how to find their local AM station,” he said, later adding: “It's insulting, frankly, to hold them up as these straw men and prop them up as their rationale for just toeing the line so that they can be in the good graces of the elites in Manhattan and Washington, D.C.”
  564.  
  565. Sign the petition to help us defund another PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.</description>
  566.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 12:02 PM</pubDate>
  567.    <dc:creator>Gabriela Pariseau</dc:creator>
  568.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289807</guid>
  569.    </item>
  570. <item>
  571.  <title>Sunny Hostin Says CBP, ICE Deserve Violent 'Reckoning' Coming for Them</title>
  572.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/11/sunny-hostin-says-cbp-ice-deserve-violent-reckoning-coming</link>
  573.  <description> Disney and ABC News seem to be fine with their hosts promoting violence and attempts to kill federal law enforcement officers. During Friday’s episode of The View, staunchly racist Sunny Hostin responded to the recent attempt to kill Customs and Border Protection agents in McAllen, Texas by suggesting they had it coming because they wear masks. She also proclaimed that a “reckoning” was coming for them.
  574.  
  575. In a segment about Alligator Alcatraz, faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin blamed President Trump for the death threats immigration enforcement officials were facing. “What I am seeing is an uptick in rhetoric against CBP and ICE enforcers who are dealing with this problem because they're being told by the President of the United States that they have to,” she lamented.
  576.  
  577. She also recalled the recent attempt to kill several Customs and Border Protection agents in McAllen:
  578.  
  579.  
  580. And then this past week, there was a very dangerous attack on CBP officials in McAllen Texas. Several were injured. The perpetrator was neutralized, but this -- that's also secret we don't want to see is an uptick in violence against law enforcement doing their jobs. So, if you have a problem with this, talk to your lawmaker. That’s the place to do it.
  581.  
  582.  
  583.  
  584.  
  585.  
  586.  
  587.  
  588.  
  589.  
  590.  
  591. Upon hearing the story, Hostin immediately launched into seemingly suggesting that the agents deserved it because they wear masks:
  592.  
  593.  
  594. If they would do their jobs the way that I think they should be doing their jobs, which is unmasked without disappearing people from the streets, I don't think that the public would feel as endangered. Because if someone approaches my loved one who is undocumented with a mask, how do I know that they're actual law enforcement and how do I know they work for ICE? So, that’s one thing I’ll say.
  595.  
  596.  
  597. The threat seemed to solidify further when she declared that “in my world, if you mask yourself because you don't want to be seen…there will be a reckoning for some of the actions that law enforcement, actual law enforcement have done!”
  598.  
  599. Hostin followed up by going on a bizarre tirade about how she didn’t want to hear about affordable housing wasn’t something America could pull off, because Alligator Alcatraz was organized relatively quickly:
  600.  
  601.  
  602. But I'll also say this, I don't want to hear anything ever in this country again about not being able to house people, not being able to – no affordable housing, because they put this thing up in eight days! Eight days! So, where there is a will there is a way!
  603.  
  604.  
  605. “Also not really house people in America. We should want better conditions for undocumented migrants and Americans,” Farah Griffin noted.
  606.  
  607. The raging ABC News host conveniently omitted the fact that the Florida facility popped up at a location that was already developed and the holding areas were essentially extremely large tents.
  608.  
  609. Hostin’s warning to immigration officials was yet another instance of The View being a home for dangerous rhetoric. Rhetoric that could cause some serious problems for Disney and ABC News if it continued unchecked.
  610.  
  611. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  612.  
  613.  
  614. ABC’s The View
  615. July 11, 2025
  616. 11:04:13 a.m. Eastern
  617.  
  618. (…)
  619.  
  620. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: What I am seeing is an uptick in rhetoric against CBP and ICE enforcers who are dealing with this problem because they're being told by the President of the United States that they have to.
  621.  
  622. And then this past week, there was a very dangerous attack on CBP officials in McAllen Texas. Several were injured. The perpetrator was neutralized, but this -- that's also secret we don't want to see is an uptick in violence against law enforcement doing their jobs. So, if you have a problem with this, talk to your lawmaker. That’s the place to do it.
  623.  
  624. SUNNY HOSTIN: If they would do their jobs the way that I think they should be doing their jobs, which is unmasked without disappearing people from the streets, I don't think that the public would feel as endangered.
  625.  
  626. Because if someone approaches my loved one who is undocumented with a mask, how do I know that they're actual law enforcement and how do I know they work for ICE? So, that’s one thing I’ll say.
  627.  
  628. JOY BEHAR: They don't even show any I.D.
  629.  
  630. ANA NAVARRO: There’s actually people who have impersonated ICE police officers and raped women.
  631.  
  632. BEHAR: But do they show an I.D.?
  633.  
  634. HOSTIN: They don’t show I.D.s. They're not dressed appropriately, they’re not flagged, and they're masked.
  635.  
  636. So, in my world, if you mask yourself because you don't want to be seen, because you don't want to be seen – because there will be a reckoning for some of the actions that law enforcement, actual law enforcement have done!
  637.  
  638. But I'll also say this, I don't want to hear anything ever in this country again about not being able to house people, not being able to – no affordable housing, because they put this thing up in eight days! Eight days! So, where there is a will -
  639.  
  640. BEHAR: There’s a way
  641.  
  642. HOSTIN: There is a way!
  643.  
  644. FARAH GRIFFIN: Also not really house people in America. We should want better conditions for undocumented migrants and Americans.
  645.  
  646. (…)
  647. </description>
  648.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 12:02 PM</pubDate>
  649.    <dc:creator>Nicholas Fondacaro</dc:creator>
  650.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289806</guid>
  651.    </item>
  652. <item>
  653.  <title>Censors Losing the Battle: NewsGuard Ditches Misinfo, Disinfo Labels</title>
  654.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/luis-cornelio/2025/07/11/censors-losing-battle-newsguard-ditches-misinfo-disinfo</link>
  655.  <description> NewsGuard has waved its white flag in its censorship fight against “misinformation” and “disinformation,” claiming it is eliminating these terms in favor of alternative language. The move marks the left’s latest rebranding effort following the failure of previous campaigns.
  656.  
  657. Leftist media ratings firm Editor McKenzie Sadeghi wrote in a commentary on Wednesday that the terms have become politicized and no longer serve their original purpose. Why? Sadeghi, on behalf of NewsGuard, claimed both right and left-wing actors have politicized the terms “beyond recognition.” Instead, NewsGuard will now use terms such as “provably false” to target speech it disagrees with.
  658.  
  659. MRC Free Speech America VP Dan Schneider mocked NewsGuard for attempting to rebrand its language:
  660.  
  661.  
  662. This is the same crowd that rebranded global warming as “climate change,” sex change operations as “gender-affirming care,” and abortion as a “reproductive right.” Now they’re rebranding censorship terms “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Please.
  663. — Dan Schneider (@Schneider_DC) July 11, 2025
  664. [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America]</description>
  665.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 11:35 AM</pubDate>
  666.    <dc:creator>Luis Cornelio</dc:creator>
  667.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289805</guid>
  668.    </item>
  669. <item>
  670.  <title>POLL: What Was the Worst Media Take of the Week? </title>
  671.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/07/11/poll-what-was-worst-media-take-week</link>
  672.  <description>POLL: What was the worst media take of the week? (Vote below)
  673.  
  674.  
  675.  
  676.  
  677.  
  678.  
  679.  
  680.  
  681.  
  682. NOMINEES: 
  683.  
  684.  
  685.  
  686. 1. Joy Reid: MAGA Wouldn’t Even Consider It an “Insult” to Be Called “Fascists”
  687.  
  688. “I think about the fact that JD Vance once said that Donald Trump could be America’s Hitler. Who knew that he meant that as a compliment, right?...The second half of that sentence might have been, and ‘I will be his [Hermann] Goering.’...I actually don’t think at this point that, that the people in the MAGA movement would even consider it an insult to call them fascists.”— Former MSNBC host Joy Reid on The Joy Reid Show podcast, July 9. 
  689.  
  690.  
  691.  
  692. 2. Tiffany Cross: “We are Normalizing” the “Disappearing of People” and Sending Them to “Concentration Camps”
  693.  
  694. “We are normalizing a government agency disappearing people. We are normalizing, we’re talking about it like it’s no big deal that they are kidnapping people and transporting them to concentration camps, both domestic and foreign….Everybody who says, ‘Oh this is not the America I know,’ I can guarantee you it is the America I know.”— Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross on CNN’s Newsnight, July 8. 
  695.  
  696.  
  697.  
  698. Ken Burns: PBS Like the “Declaration of Independence” for “Communications World”
  699.  
  700. CBS Evening News anchor John Dickerson: “Make the case for PBS.”Documentarian Ken Burns: “It is the Declaration of Independence applied to the communications world.”— CBS’s Face the Nation, July 6. 
  701.  
  702.  
  703.  
  704. Loading…
  705.  
  706. Funded by James P. Jimirro</description>
  707.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 9:55 AM</pubDate>
  708.    <dc:creator>Geoffrey Dickens</dc:creator>
  709.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289797</guid>
  710.    </item>
  711. <item>
  712.  <title>Chieng Uses Iran's Threat To Assassinate Trump To Make Fat Jokes</title>
  713.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/11/chieng-uses-irans-threat-assassinate-trump-make-fat-jokes</link>
  714.  <description>On Thursday, just a few days before the one year anniversary of President Trump almost being killed, Comedy Central’s Ronny Chieng and The Daily Show’s audience found great amusement in Iran’s recent threats to assassinate Trump, not so much because Chieng actually wants him dead, but because it gave them an opportunity to mock Trump’s physical appearance.
  715.  
  716. After discussing the latest news with Trump and Ukraine, Chieng declared, “Let’s move on from the war Trump is trying to stop to the one he's trying to start. The one with Iran.”
  717.  
  718.  
  719.  
  720.  
  721.  
  722.  
  723.  
  724.  
  725.  
  726. If Trump was really looking to start a war with Iran, he would have kept bombing them after the initial strikes, but Chieng continued by teeing up a clip of Fox News anchor Carley Shimkus, “They've been real pissy at Trump just because he dropped the world's biggest bomb on them. Okay, get over it. That was two weeks ago. And now some Iranians are suggesting that they could strike back in a very specific way.”
  727.  
  728. In the clip, Shimkus reported that, “A senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader now issuing assassination threats against President Trump, reportedly telling local media, quote, ‘Trump has done something he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago, as he lies there with his stomach to the sun, a small drone might hit him in the navel. It's very simple.”
  729.  
  730. As the audience guffawed, Chieng responded, “Let me be clear. This isn't just an attack on Trump. It's an attack on all of America. Because now we all have to picture him with his bare belly glistening in the sun.”
  731.  
  732. Breaking out the Photoshop, Chieng added, “I'm just kidding, you don't have to picture it. I'll show you. It’s beautiful. I think I prefer this.”
  733.  
  734. Chieng also wondered, “Is this really a threat, though? What? You're going to hit his navel with a small drone? Like, Iran went from building a nuclear bomb to ‘We're going to turn his outie to an innie.’ Are they threatening to assassinate him or poke him like he's the Pillsbury Doughboy?”
  735.  
  736. Of all the people in the world to choose from, Paramount chose Chieng to go to their fifth annual Truth Seekers Summit in August in order to, in the words of partner organizer Variety, “speak about his approach to crafting political humor for broad audiences.”
  737.  
  738. If The Daily Show wants to do humor for a broad audience, it can mock Iran’s threat, but using it to make fat jokes is unseemly and designed for a narrow audience.
  739.  
  740. Here is a transcript for the July 10 show:
  741.  
  742.  
  743. Comedy Central The Daily Show
  744.  
  745. 7/10/2025
  746.  
  747. 11:04 PM ET
  748.  
  749. RONNY CHIENG: But let’s move on from the war Trump is trying to stop to the one he's trying to start. The one with Iran. They've been real pissy at Trump just because he dropped the world's biggest bomb on them. Okay, get over it. That was two weeks ago. And now some Iranians are suggesting that they could strike back in a very specific way.
  750.  
  751. CARLEY SHIMKUS: A senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader now issuing assassination threats against President Trump, reportedly telling local media, quote, "Trump has done something he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago, as he lies there with his stomach to the sun, a small drone might hit him in the navel. It's very simple."
  752.  
  753. CHIENG: Let me be clear. This isn't just an attack on Trump. It's an attack on all of America. Because now we all have to picture him with his bare belly glistening in the sun. I'm just kidding, you don't have to picture it. I'll show you. It’s beautiful. I think I prefer this. Is this really a threat, though? What? You're going to hit his navel with a small drone? Like, Iran went from building a nuclear bomb to "We're going to turn his outie to an innie." Are they threatening to assassinate him or poke him like he's the Pillsbury Doughboy? [Pillsbury Doughboy noises] 
  754. </description>
  755.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 9:34 AM</pubDate>
  756.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  757.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289804</guid>
  758.    </item>
  759. <item>
  760.  <title>Column: PolitiFact Seeks to Spoil the Spin of Scott Jennings</title>
  761.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/11/column-politifact-seeks-spoil-spin-scott-jennings</link>
  762.  <description> The “fact checkers” at PolitiFact barely touch the talking heads on cable television anymore. They used to have a serious tilt against the Fox News hosts in prime time. So it’s unsurprising that on July 9, they published their first attack on conservative CNN analyst Scott Jennings, who offered a few tough words about Medicaid beneficiaries.
  763.  
  764. "There are like almost 5 million able-bodied people on Medicaid who simply choose not to work," Jennings said July 1 on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip. "They spend six hours a day socializing and watching television. And if you can't get off grandma's couch and work, I don't want to pay for your welfare."
  765.  
  766. Abby Phillip leapt on that immediately, questioning where Jennings found these numbers. Before we get into the “facts” at hand, let’s investigate PolitiFact’s target selection. There is no page on PolitiFact for Phillip. There is one other “fact check” on Phillip’s show, a “True” rating for liberal New York Times columnist Charles Blow.
  767.  
  768. There is no page on PolitiFact for former MSNBC weekend host Tiffany Cross, who smeared ICE on Phillip’s show on July 8: “We are normalizing a government agency disappearing people. We're talking about it like it's no big deal that they are kidnapping people and transporting them to concentration camps, both domestic and foreign.” She said “concentration camps” four times.
  769.  
  770. New York Post writer Kelly Jane Torrance tried to interrupt her and tell her these terms were inaccurate and insensitive to Jews, but Cross just kept rolling – and Phillip said nothing, unlike when Scott Jennings makes a conservative point.  
  771.  
  772. As usual, the PolitiFact scribe on the Jennings case, Loreben Turquero, rounded up a conga line of liberal experts – two from the Harvard T. H. Chan School for Public Health, as well as the Brookings Institution, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Urban Institute. None of them are assigned a label. But Jennings cited the “conservative” American Enterprise Institute.
  773.  
  774. This is one of many ways PolitiFact reads exactly like every other liberal media outlet that pretends that liberals are the most nonpartisan, independent experts you can find.
  775.  
  776. Turquero pointed out that the Harvard folks nitpicked Scott’s “almost five million” number, claiming the Congressional Budget Office didn’t say all of these people “chose not to work,” but that they would lose Medicaid coverage due to work requirements. This is a distinction without much of a difference, but liberal “fact checkers” pounce anyway. 
  777.  
  778. What Jennings said that really offended the ears at PolitiFact was that Medicaid recipients are sitting around watching TV for six hours a day. Did he mean that as a statement of fact or was he making a rhetorical point? Because people make a lot of rhetorical points on CNN that don’t get “fact checked.”
  779.  
  780.  
  781. Scott Jennings gets tagged for the first time by @PolitiFact, since they don't like him talking on CNN about lazy people on Grandma's couch getting Medicaid. How dare he! It's not fact checking, it's spin-spoiling. https://t.co/Q6JymwAWld pic.twitter.com/o8zkBbRI0w
  782. — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 11, 2025
  783. PolitiFact’s experts were aggressively utilized to dismiss the notion that there are actually many “able-bodied” Medicaid recipients. As Turquero concluded: “Studies of nonworking Medicaid recipients have found the majority are women and have a high school education or less. The average age is 41, and more than half have a work history in the past five years.” This doesn’t disprove “able-bodied,” yet they seem to be saying that women over 40 can’t be expected to meet work requirements?
  784.  
  785. This article illustrates that these liberal outlets are often not “fact checkers” as much as they are “spin spoilers.”  They appear offended by the tone of conservative commentary, and they want to discredit it even if the points are rhetorical.
  786.  
  787. The “fact checkers” have spoken: conservatives probably shouldn’t impose work requirements, or suggest people who don’t meet them are lazy. </description>
  788.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 6:30 AM</pubDate>
  789.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  790.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289801</guid>
  791.    </item>
  792. <item>
  793.  <title>OMISSION: NBC Nightly News Fails to Report Secret Service Suspensions</title>
  794.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/11/omission-nbc-nightly-news-fails-report-secret-service-suspensions</link>
  795.  <description>The anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump is upon us and with it, news of the actions taken by the Secret Service after reviewing the many breakdowns that led to the current President of the United States almost getting gunned down in Butler, Pennsylvania. This is without a doubt a story of enormous national import, and yet, NBC News has not seen fit to cover it.
  796.  
  797. For context, watch ABC’s report, which aired tonight (click “expand” to view transcript):
  798.  
  799.  
  800.  
  801.  
  802.  
  803.  
  804. ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
  805.  
  806. 7/10/25
  807.  
  808. 6:42 PM
  809.  
  810. DAVID MUIR: Tonight, nearly one year after the assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump, we have learned that six Secret Service agents have now been suspended. Here's Pierre Thomas.
  811.  
  812. PIERRE THOMAS: Tonight, for the first time, the Secret Service revealing that it suspended a half dozen agents for their role in the, quote, “operational failure” that led to a nearly successful assassination of then candidate Donald Trump.
  813.  
  814. DONALD TRUMP: Take a look at what happened…
  815.  
  816. THOMAS: Sources telling ABC News those disciplined included supervisory-level and line agents, with suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days without pay. In the wake of the attack, which killed firefighter Cory Comperatore and nearly cost Trump his life, the Secret Service faced withering criticism on Capitol Hill. Today, the agency again admitting to a stunning list of mistakes including a failure to coordinate with local authorities, a failure to secure the rooftop with a direct line of sight to Trump's podium. And anti-drone technology that malfunctioned.
  817.  
  818. RONALD ROWE: We could have maybe stopped him.
  819.  
  820. THOMAS: Tonight the agency announcing a number of reforms ranging from improved information sharing with local authorities, to better training and deployment of technology, David.
  821.  
  822. MUIR: Pierre Thomas live in Washington. Pierre, thank you.
  823.  
  824.  
  825. This was a perfectly serviceable albeit brief report. The Secret Service conducted a review after Butler, found glaring deficiencies, and these are the things they did to correct them: from disciplinary action to the acquisition of new equipment. Good form.
  826.  
  827. The CBS Evening News ran a similarly-formatted report last night which ran a bit longer because it was a bit more detailed and included portions of an interview with Deputy Director Matt Quinn. A followup was teased for tonight’s Evening News but did not run. Again, a perfectly serviceable update.
  828.  
  829. NBC, though, found no time on the Nightly News for such reporting. There was simply no time over the past couple of days to run such a report. NBC could simply not bump more important matters such as the Cincinnati boy rescued from a claw machine, the introduction of Diabetes Barbie, Paul McCartney’s new tour, and anchor Tom Llamas chowing down on a Chicago Italian beef sandwich. 
  830.  
  831. There’s still time for NBC to come out with this reporting ahead of the actual anniversary of the shooting at Butler (7/13). The very least that any self-respecting media outlet can do is to lay out the reforms and changes implemented so that Butler happens again.
  832.  
  833. Click “expand” to view the transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Wednesday, July 9th, 2025:
  834.  
  835.  
  836. CBS EVENING NEWS
  837.  
  838. 7/9/25
  839.  
  840. 6:45 PM
  841.  
  842. MAURICE DuBOIS: It has been nearly a year since then-candidate Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Now, Matt Quinn has given our Nicole Sganga his first interview since he was named Deputy Director of the Secret Service in May. Quinn talked about accountability and moving forward. Nicole?
  843.  
  844. NICOLE SGANGA: Maurice, CBS News has learned six U.S. Secret Service personnel were suspended without pay for up to six weeks, then placed into restricted duty roles with less operational responsibility. It's the first we’re learning of suspensions since the agency launched its internal investigation. Quinn told me that the Secret Service won’t be terminating employees. Instead, he says the agency is laser focused on addressing operational failures that played out last July 13th. To do that, they've introduced a new fleet of military-grade drones. There were notably no drones at that July 13th campaign rally last year. The agency is also rolling out new mobile command posts that allow agents to communicate over radio directly with local law enforcement. That capability didn't exist last year, and it prevented the Secret Service from learning about Thomas Crooks' whereabouts until shots were fired. 
  845.  
  846. And so, for the average American who remembers what happened on July 13th, if they are asking has the Secret Service done enough, what's the answer?
  847.  
  848. MATT QUINN: The answer is that Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler. Butler was an operational failure. And we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again and executing our strategic plan to increase technology, to improve communications, to make sure our personnel are well trained, equipped, and deployed.
  849.  
  850. SGANGA: And Maurice, all of the agency's radio communications will now be recorded, and we will have an inside look at new technology deployed by the U.S. Secret Service tomorrow on CBS Mornings and right here on the CBS Evening News.
  851.  
  852. DuBOIS: Looking forward to that. Nicole Sganga, thanks so much.
  853.  
  854.  
  855.  </description>
  856.  <pubDate>July 11th, 2025 1:41 AM</pubDate>
  857.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  858.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289803</guid>
  859.    </item>
  860. <item>
  861.  <title>CBS Undermines Its Own Report on Trump’s Executive Order on Logging</title>
  862.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/10/cbs-undermines-its-own-report-trumps-executive-order-logging</link>
  863.  <description>For its longform Eye on America  segment, the CBS Evening News delivered a visually beautiful report on President Trump’s executive order on logging- backdropped by lush Oregon forests. The report featured a heavy dose of advocacy against logging in national forests. But the report was undercut by an earlier item that underscores why such forest clearing is needed in the first place.
  864.  
  865. Watch the report close out with a heavy tilt towards the anti-logging position (click “expand” to view transcript):
  866.  
  867.  
  868.  
  869.  
  870.  
  871.  
  872. DAVID SCHECTER: Quinn Reed is the executive director of the nonprofit Oregon Wild.
  873.  
  874. QUINN REED: These trees have seen a lot.
  875.  
  876. SCHECTER: She doesn't dispute the importance of careful thinning, but says the size and speed of Trump's plan will destroy the forest.
  877.  
  878. REED: I think the justifications, if they were true, are certainly worthy, but if you look at what’s actually called for, it doesn't meet any of those goals. This is the kind of logging that’s simply for profit.
  879.  
  880. SCHECTER: And now that the Trump administration has fired 10% of the U.S. Forest Service workforce, Reed says there are not enough people to enforce careful cutting.
  881.  
  882. REED: This used to be a forest much like we just saw just a few moments ago.
  883.  
  884. SCHECTER: So some of this is acceptable, or none of this is acceptable?
  885.  
  886. REED: You know, none of this is acceptable. They had a quota to meet, and so they came and they clear-cut it. This isn't what I want to see on the landscape. This isn't what I want to see on lands that we all collectively as Americans own.
  887.  
  888. SCHECTER: Do you see a possible risk that those clearcuts- what happened in the forests? With fewer staffers and fewer regulations?
  889.  
  890. JEFF BRINK: I certainly don't want to see it, and every stakeholder here that I've talked to doesn't want it, either.
  891.  
  892. SCHECTER: For some, the president's order is a long-overdue push toward responsible logging and fire reduction. Others would argue you can't save the forest by cutting it down.
  893.  
  894.  
  895. The “both sides” presented in this item were “a little clearing” and “no clearing”, with lip service paid to the pro-logging position. And just for flair, you get a little of DOGE- the mention of the firing of Forest Service employees. Hardly a model for balance.
  896.  
  897. But the weather report that aired a few minutes prior was framed with the following:
  898.  
  899.  
  900. MAURICE DuBOIS: Firefighters are battling dozens of wildfires in Oregon. They were started by lightning strikes.
  901.  
  902.  
  903. Wildfires in Oregon, you say? Destroying potential American timber, you say? If only there were some way to manage the forest so that it is saved from devastation by wildfires AND wean us off of having to import timber from Canada. 
  904.  
  905. These reports aired minutes apart, proving It’s almost as if the left hand doesn’t know what the far left hand is doing over at CBS.
  906.  
  907. Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Thursday, July 10th, 2025:
  908.  
  909.  
  910. MAURICE DuBOIS: Firefighters in Southern California are making progress against the largest wildfire the state has seen this year. The Madre, in San Luis Obispo, has burned more than 80,000 acres. It is now about two-thirds contained. Very large fires are happening more often in the West. The Trump administration believes more logging is the answer, but not everyone agrees. David Schechter has tonight's Eye on America.
  911.  
  912. DAVID SCHECTER: We are in the emerald mountains of Oregon's Willamette National Forest.
  913.  
  914. JEFF BRINK: This is my backyard and my home, and I don't want to see it burn.
  915.  
  916. SCHECTER: It’s where Jeff Brink, on the left, works the same land his father used to. Brink's job is to reopen roads by removing trees burned in mega forest fires.
  917.  
  918. BRINK: Those are hazards to the public.
  919.  
  920. SCHECTER: The larger hazard he'd like the country to address is not just the roads, but the fires themselves. Doing that, he says, requires the regular thinning out of green healthy trees so there's less fuel to burn.
  921.  
  922. BRINK: We're not talking about “yeah, logging, let's get some wood moving.” We’re talking about proactive fuels management, and that can be done in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
  923.  
  924. SCHECTER: Tree thinning, though, rarely happens here- in part, because of legal protections for endangered species and habitats. That was swept away in March by the Trump administration. It ordered an immediate expansion of American timber production, instructing federal agencies to disregard regulations where possible. The goal is to increase logging by 25% on federal lands.
  925.  
  926. LOGGER: So we've got somewhere around 40 loads out today.
  927.  
  928. SCHECTER: The policy would cut America's reliance on imported timber, generating new work and higher profits for people such as Brink and the rest of the struggling timber industry. It would also reduce fire risk by removing more trees.
  929.  
  930. Incredible. Enormous trees.
  931.  
  932. QUINN REED: The scale is remarkable.
  933.  
  934. SCHECTER: Quinn Reed is the executive director of the nonprofit Oregon Wild.
  935.  
  936. REED: These trees have seen a lot.
  937.  
  938. SCHECTER: She doesn't dispute the importance of careful thinning, but says the size and speed of Trump's plan will destroy the forest.
  939.  
  940. REED: I think the justifications, if they were true, are certainly worthy, but if you look at what’s actually called for, it doesn't meet any of those goals. This is the kind of logging that’s simply for profit.
  941.  
  942. SCHECTER: And now that the Trump administration has fired 10% of the U.S. Forest Service workforce, Reed says there are not enough people to enforce careful cutting.
  943.  
  944. REED: This used to be a forest much like we just saw just a few moments ago.
  945.  
  946. SCHECTER: So some of this is acceptable, or none of this is acceptable?
  947.  
  948. REED: You know, none of this is acceptable. They had a quota to meet, and so they came and they clear-cut it. This isn't what I want to see on the landscape. This isn't what I want to see on lands that we all collectively as Americans own.
  949.  
  950. SCHECTER: Do you see a possible risk that those clearcuts- what happened in the forests? With fewer staffers and fewer regulations?
  951.  
  952. BRINK: I certainly don't want to see it, and every stakeholder here that I've talked to doesn't want it, either.
  953.  
  954. SCHECTER: For some, the president's order is a long-overdue push toward responsible logging and fire reduction. Others would argue you can't save the forest by cutting it down. For Eye on America, I’m David Schecter in Oakridge, Oregon.
  955. </description>
  956.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 11:36 PM</pubDate>
  957.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  958.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289802</guid>
  959.    </item>
  960. <item>
  961.  <title>Hypocrite: MSNBC Host Rips Peter Doocy as ‘Babbling Buffoon,’ ‘Dumbest’ WH Reporter</title>
  962.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/10/hypocrite-msnbc-host-rips-peter-doocy-babbling-buffoon-dumbest-wh</link>
  963.  <description>On Wednesday night, MSNBC’s The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell went low in blasting Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy as a “babbling” and “incompetent buffoon” lacking “a shred of embarrassment” but brimming with “revealed stupidity” and “white male privilege” but also used to be “the stupidest reporter in the White House press corps” until “the dregs of Trump-worshipping media” came along.
  964.  
  965. What prompted O’Donnell to hurl this venom Doocy’s way? It turns out Doocy asked about a Justice Department probe into former Deep State denizens John Brennan and James Comey instead of colluding with White House correspondents at CNN and The New York Times in grilling President Trump Wednesday about the status of arms shipments to Ukraine.
  966.  
  967.  
  968.  
  969.  
  970.  
  971.  
  972.  
  973.  
  974.  
  975. O’Donnell led into the string of insults by decrying the revelation that the Trump administration was looking into those who gave oxygen to the Trump-Russia collusion fable, insisting this was done by “a cesspool of pathological liars” to distract from those upset about there being no Jeffrey Epstein client list.
  976.  
  977. “[I]t was Fox’s White House reporter today who, operating as usual as an energetic collaborator in Donald Trump’s distraction games, did everything he could without a shred of embarrassment about his own revealed stupidity to help Donald Trump push his new distraction,” O’Donnell huffed.
  978.  
  979. He then played the exchange between Doocy and Trump:
  980.  
  981.  
  982. DOOCY: Thank you, President Trump. James Comey and John Brennan now under criminal investigation related to the Trump Russia probe. Do you want to see these two guys behind bars?
  983.  
  984. TRUMP: Well, I know nothing about it other than what I read today, but I will tell you, I think they’re very dishonest people. I think they’re crooked as hell and maybe they have to pay a price for that. I believe they are truly bad people and dishonest people, so whatever happens happens.
  985.  
  986.  
  987. The “stop the hammering” guy and former Hollywood writer went to immediate rage with the slew of insults:
  988.  
  989.  
  990. What a babbling buffoon. And I mean the reporter this time, the Fox so-called reporter. “Do you want to see these two guys behind bars?” That reporter used to be by far the stupidest reporter in the White House press corps, but he has now been outdone by the dregs of Trump-worshipping media that have been allowed to join the White House press corps.  So, if you work at Fox and your father got you the job because he’s the morning host there and you enjoy all of the white male privilege that comes from your father being a morning host at Fox for many years, you then become the Fox White House correspondent who thinks, “do you want to see these two guys behind bars?” is a good question for a president.
  991.  
  992.  
  993. O’Donnell then tagged Doocy as an “incompetent buffoon” for asking Trump that kind of question because an answer in the affirmative of wanting Brennan and Comey in jail would lead to a mistrial. 
  994.  
  995. The insults continued, calling him “thinly educated in the law or presidential history” and possessing “stupidity every day with a kind of egotistical obliviousness that comes from the deep well of ignorance that you bring to your job every day.”
  996.  
  997. Someone show O’Donnell questions Doocy has asked Karoline Leavitt this year (such as ones written about here) and tell me if they’re softballs.
  998.  
  999. In his pivot to Ukraine and that CNN’s Kaitlan Collins and The New York Times’s Shawn McCreesh as having asked about the correct topics, O’Donnell cartoonishly claimed the Trump White House press corps have acted to assist, not challenge or berate, him:
  1000.  
  1001.  
  1002. Usually, White House reporters want to go their own way when questioning Donald Trump, which is a huge mistake. They would be better off if they repeatedly followed up the unanswered question that Donald Trump just tried to evade with the previous reporter. That is the kind of illuminating teamwork that the White House press corps could do, but usually doesn’t do. It’s as if they have some kind of pride of authorship in changing the subject for Donald Trump to help, in effect, Donald Trump evade with a cloud of meaningless words a response to the previous reporter.
  1003.  
  1004.  
  1005. As the full-time beat writer for all White House press briefings since 2017, that’s a certifiable farce.
  1006.  
  1007. To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from July 9, click here.
  1008.  
  1009. (h/t: Mediaite)</description>
  1010.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 5:10 PM</pubDate>
  1011.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  1012.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289799</guid>
  1013.    </item>
  1014. <item>
  1015.  <title>OXYMORON: AEI ‘Free Speech’ Panel Roots for Big Tech’s Right to Censor</title>
  1016.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2025/07/10/oxymoron-aei-free-speech-panel-roots-big-techs-right-censor</link>
  1017.  <description> A panel at the American Enterprise Institute turned into a Big Tech lovefest, with the panelists advocating that social media companies have the right to censor Americans.
  1018.  
  1019. Kate Ruane, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Corbin Barthold, a TikTok U.S. Content Advisory Council member, expressed their disdain for free speech in response to an audience question about whether Big Tech platforms should be considered "common carriers." This classification would require social media platforms to host all users' content to receive liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
  1020.  
  1021.  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 
  1022.  
  1023.  </description>
  1024.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 4:47 PM</pubDate>
  1025.    <dc:creator>Tom Olohan</dc:creator>
  1026.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289798</guid>
  1027.    </item>
  1028. <item>
  1029.  <title>Psaki 'Surprised' Trump Isn't Helping ‘Trump Supporters’ in Texas, Blames FEMA Cuts</title>
  1030.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/10/psaki-surprised-trump-isnt-helping-trump-supporters-texas-blames</link>
  1031.  <description>On Tuesday night, MSNBC’s The Briefing With Jen Psaki cited FEMA cuts as a main factor for the response to the Texas floods. Psaki still used this narrative despite multiple reports coming out that emergency management and response had been on par with or exceeded expectations.  
  1032.  
  1033. Psaki let the irony flow with this statement:
  1034.  
  1035.  
  1036. Unlike California, Texas is of course a red state with a Republican governor and plenty of Trump supporters. So if Trump was going to help any state, you’d think it would be a state like Texas. And he did sign a major disaster declaration within days of the flood, but what’s unclear right now is how much help FEMA is capable of providing anymore. Even when Trump wants to provide it, because for months now we have seen report after report of people inside FEMA warning that the agency hasn’t been preparing for disasters the way it normally does.
  1037.  
  1038.  
  1039.  
  1040.  
  1041.  
  1042.  
  1043.  
  1044.  
  1045.  
  1046.  
  1047. Despite claiming that Trump had been “weaponizing FEMA” to “punish political enemies,” Trump had never withheld funding to disasters for political reasons. Ironically, under the Biden administration, a FEMA staffer was fired for telling workers to ignore homes of Trump supporters during Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
  1048.  
  1049. It was the blind leading the blind when Psaki decided to cite independent journalist Marisa Kabas of the far-left Handbasket on how FEMA cuts directly related to mismanagement of the Texas flooding:
  1050.  
  1051.  
  1052. In fact, the agency has reportedly been losing employees at such an alarming rate, rather than staffing up to prepare for disaster season, which is normally what they would be doing during this period of time. In Texas, where there are, again, at least 161 people unaccounted for, sources within FEMA told independent journalist Marisa Kabas that quote, “barely any staff members deployed.” As one FEMA staffer put it, quote, “We are doing a lot less than normal.” And the acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson, is, quote, “nowhere to be found.” Now, this is important because recovery in a place like Texas is not one day or four days, it’s weeks, it’s months, it could be years in some places. 
  1053.  
  1054.  
  1055. The reason “barely any staff members deployed” was because the state of Texas had deployed 2,100 of their own personnel spanning across 20 different agencies to help with disaster relief. Everything Governor Abbott had asked for from the federal government had been approved, from a major disaster declaration to Black Hawk helicopters. In order to streamline federal relief, the Trump administration elected to have FEMA support resemble state block grants when it came to sending money for relief. 
  1056.  
  1057. Later, Psaki had on former FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who oversaw the management of Hurricane Helene. According to an Elon University poll, only 37 percent of Carolina residents approved the government's handling of disaster management:
  1058.  
  1059.  
  1060. PSAKI: To go to just your last point you made, because this is sort of — there’s an impact of underfunding and cutting staff, and there’s been a range of reports, and we don’t have them confirmed, about how many staff are actually on the ground at this point in time. What do you make? And this is not blaming a particular person, but what do you make from what you can see of how understaffed they may be or what needs are not being met? And you’ve touched on some of them, I just wanted to dig into it more specifically.
  1061.  
  1062. DEANNE CRISWELL: Yeah, Jen, I think, you know, the first thing that they would send is an Incident Management Assistance Team that sits side by side with that state director, embeds in that state emergency management office so they can work together. And I do believe one of those teams has been deployed, but they also are going to be talking, that team is going to be talking to them about other resources. We would typically send out what we call Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams. These individuals that can go out, walk the community door to door, go into places where people are; shelters, churches, community centers and help people get registered for assistance or understand what their needs are, and actually even help match them up with other nonprofits and other non-governmental agencies. But that program has been stopped as far as I know. I haven't heard anything differently, and that's such a critical resource to bring government to the people instead of making people come find the government.  
  1063.  
  1064.  
  1065. The reason they haven’t been deployed was because the Texas Division of Emergency Management deploys their own team called the Incident Support Task Force, who can also conduct this role. 
  1066.  
  1067. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  1068.  
  1069.  
  1070. MSNBC’s The Briefing With Jen Psaki
  1071. 9:05:31 PM ET
  1072. July 8, 2025
  1073.  
  1074. JEN PSAKI: The idea of a president, any president weaponizing FEMA like that, which is essentially weaponizing disaster relief that people in red states and blue states and purple states and people who aren’t political at all depend on. All to punish political enemies is obviously unbelievably alarming, it should alarm everybody, even people who voted for him.
  1075.  
  1076. Unlike California, Texas is of course a red state with a Republican governor and plenty of Trump supporters. So if Trump was going to help any state, you’d think it would be a state like Texas. And he did sign a major disaster declaration within days of the flood, but what’s unclear right now is how much help FEMA is capable of providing anymore. Even when Trump wants to provide it, because for months now we have seen report after report of people inside FEMA warning that the agency hasn’t been preparing for disasters the way it normally does.
  1077.  
  1078. In fact, the agency has reportedly been losing employees at such an alarming rate, rather than staffing up to prepare for disaster season, which is normally what they would be doing during this period of time. In Texas, where there are, again, at least 161 people unaccounted for, sources within FEMA told independent journalist Marisa Kabas that quote, “barely any staff members deployed.” As one FEMA staffer put it, quote, “We are doing a lot less than normal.” And the acting FEMA administrator David Richardson, is, quote, “nowhere to be found.” Now, this is important because recovery in a place like Texas is not one day or four days, it’s weeks, it’s months, it could be years in some places.       
  1079.  
  1080. (...)
  1081.  
  1082. 9:51:06 PM
  1083.  
  1084. [INTERVIEW WITH FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR DEANNE CRISWELL]
  1085.  
  1086. PSAKI: To go to just your last point you made, because this is sort of — there’s an impact of underfunding and cutting staff, and there’s been a range of reports, and we don’t have them confirmed, about how many staff are actually on the ground at this point in time. What do you make? And this is not blaming a particular person, but what do you make from what you can see of how understaffed they may be or what needs are not being met? And you’ve touched on some of them, I just wanted to dig into it more specifically.
  1087.  
  1088. DEANNE CRISWELL: Yeah, Jen, I think, you know, the first thing that they would send is an Incident Management Assistance Team that sits side by side with that state director, embeds in that state emergency management office so they can work together. And I do believe one of those teams has been deployed, but they also are going to be talking, that team is going to be talking to them about other resources. We would typically send out what we call Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams. These individuals that can go out, walk the community door to door, go into places where people are; shelters, churches, community centers and help people get registered for assistance or understand what their needs are, and actually even help match them up with other nonprofits and other non-governmental agencies. But that program has been stopped as far as I know. I haven't heard anything differently, and that's such a critical resource to bring government to the people instead of making people come find the government.  
  1089. </description>
  1090.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 4:40 PM</pubDate>
  1091.    <dc:creator>Matthew Seck</dc:creator>
  1092.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289781</guid>
  1093.    </item>
  1094. <item>
  1095.  <title>National 'PUBLIC' Radio Watch: NPR's 'Fresh Air' Aired ZERO Conservative Journalists</title>
  1096.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/10/national-public-radio-watch-nprs-fresh-air-aired-zero-conservative</link>
  1097.  <description>As NPR aired Fresh Air here in DC on Thursday, an underwriting announcement said one foundation was funding the show for its "engaging in meaningful conversations." That's a clever term for "liberal trash talk." 
  1098.  
  1099. Fresh Air is a daily talk show out of WHYY in Philadelphia (which airs nationwide) that has a serious tilt toward the left. A NewsBusters review of Fresh Air programs from January 1 through June 30 reveals there have been 36 interviews with liberal and leftist journalists, and precisely zero with conservative journalists. Just like PBS's Washington Week with The Atlantic, conservative journalists are never invited -- on something they call "public" broadcasting. 
  1100.  
  1101.  
  1102.  
  1103. Some of the radical voices from MSNBC were granted most of an hour on this supposed oasis of "civic discourse," like Joy Reid and Molly Jong-Fast (about her memoir about her mother). Radical Elie Mystal of The Nation promoted his new book. As they explained, "In Bad Law, Elie Mystal argues that our country's laws on immigration, abortion and voting rights don't reflect the will of most Americans, and we'd be better off abolishing them and starting over."
  1104.  
  1105. One of the 36 was CNN's Jake Tapper, whose book Original Sin is very critical of Democrats who hid Biden's mental decline. Terry Gross wasn't thrilled. She asserted "Republicans, I think, are very happy with your book....Do you think that what you found in your book is worthy of a congressional investigation? Is that an appropriate response to what you found, in your opinion?"
  1106.  
  1107. Then Gross turned to the opposite view (the NPR audience view): Many Democrats are unhappy about your book, and this dates back to before the news of the past few days. A lot of Democrats feel like, why are you going back and talking about Biden and his problems? It distracts from putting the focus on how Trump is using or abusing his power."
  1108.  
  1109. Some liberal outlets were especially favored: 
  1110.  
  1111. The New York Times: 11
  1112. The Atlantic: 8
  1113. The New Yorker: 4
  1114. The Washington Post: 3
  1115. The Guardian: 2
  1116. MSNBC: 2
  1117. These outlets drew one each: 
  1118.  
  1119. CNN
  1120. Bloomberg News
  1121. ProPublica
  1122. The Economist
  1123. The Nation
  1124. NPR (I count their Lisa Hagen as a liberal journalist, some might discount the internal booking).
  1125. Today's guest was -- shocker -- another New York Times reporter, legal correspondent Adam Liptak, trash-talking the conservatives on the Supreme Court and discussing the wonders of liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. 
  1126.  
  1127. NPR's air will never be "fresh" enough for
  1128.  
  1129. Fox News
  1130. Newsmax
  1131. The Washington Examiner
  1132. The Washington Times
  1133. The New York Post
  1134. Washington Free Beacon
  1135. Daily Caller
  1136. Daily Signal 
  1137. Daily Wire
  1138. ....okay, you get the point. We certainly would never expect a NewsBusters interview...because they can't handle the truth about what NPR is -- taxpayer-subsidized liberal PR for liberals. 
  1139.  
  1140. Before this year, Fresh Air has routinely promoted authors of books savaging the Republican Party and expecting Republicans to pay for it. 
  1141.  
  1142. New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters for his book Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted.
  1143. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank and his book The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party
  1144. New York Times writer Robert Draper, who authored Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind 
  1145. The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, an MSNBC regular who authored Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell
  1146. </description>
  1147.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 3:15 PM</pubDate>
  1148.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  1149.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289763</guid>
  1150.    </item>
  1151. <item>
  1152.  <title>WashPost Welcomes a Clown To Insist Trump's a Fascist, Not a Clown</title>
  1153.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/10/washpost-welcomes-clown-insist-trumps-fascist-not-clown</link>
  1154.  <description>Democracy dies in darkness… or clown noises; The Washington Post isn’t quite sure which. On Thursday, the Post welcomed president of the board of Clowns Without Borders Tim Cunningham to their op-ed section to write a column insisting that people refer to President Trump as a fascist, not a clown.
  1155.  
  1156. In the pages that PBS talking head David Brooks warned owner Jeff Bezos was helping Trump “dismantle the idea of the press,” Cunningham began with a series of liberal quotes referring to Trump as a “clown” or his administration as a “clown show.”
  1157.  
  1158. Yet, he was not happy, “But none of this qualifies Trump for such a title. I am a clown and board president of the nonprofit, Clowns Without Borders. I’m here to set the record straight.”
  1159.  
  1160. According to this clown, “All Clown shares the common values of healing, empathy and reflection. Our work touches people in need of joy everywhere. I’ve witnessed the smiles that clowns bring to the faces of people in hospitals, war zones, refugee camps and homeless shelters.”
  1161.  
  1162. Cunningham laments, “Yet, our joyful work has been diminished into an insult. Every election season, the word ‘clown’ resurfaces to compare tumultuous Washington politics to a circus. Political commentators and social media users are not the only ones who wrongfully sling this jibe. ‘Clown’ is used by almost everyone to belittle those seen as foolish or incompetent. The more we mistreat the word, the more we lose understanding of a sacred art form.”
  1163.  
  1164. He then suggests that people should “find a better metaphor to despise and depose fascism. Keep Clown out of Trumpian comparisons, and for that matter, all politics. Offer Clown the respect it deserves and invoke us for good: in alliance with other artists, activists and humans who believe in a better, happier world.”
  1165.  
  1166. Finally, Cunningham concludes, “For centuries clowns have been uniting people in laughter, levity and creativity. That’s what real clowns have to offer. If you’re still stuck on the broken comparison ingrained in our national dialogue, here’s an alternative: Try ‘buffoon.’”
  1167.  
  1168. Okay, fine. The Washington Post is full of buffoons, and all the people who thought Bezos’s decision to forbid the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris was evidence that Bezos would turn the paper into a Trump-friendly publication are also buffoons.</description>
  1169.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 2:22 PM</pubDate>
  1170.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  1171.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289792</guid>
  1172.    </item>
  1173. <item>
  1174.  <title>POLITICIZED? CNN's Cornish Grabs Panel to Criticize Brennan-Comey Probe</title>
  1175.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/07/10/politicized-cnns-cornish-grabs-panel-criticize-brennan-comey</link>
  1176.  <description>
  1177. "This is, unfortunately, a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community, of the national security process, and quite frankly, I'm really shocked that individuals who are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency . . .  on something that clearly is just politically based."
  1178.  
  1179.  
  1180. Wow! Who would ever expect CNN to air such a stunning denunciation of the actions of John Brennan and James Comey in fostering the fake story of Trump's supposed Russian collusion during the 2016 campaign?
  1181.  
  1182. Oh, wait. That wasn't a denunciation of Brennan and Comey. The quote was by Brennan himself, denouncing the Trump administration for investigating him and Comey! Apparently it's not politicized when they do it.
  1183.  
  1184. CNN This Morning aired it on Thursday's show. And host Audie Cornish assembled a panel exclusively composed of people joining Brennan -- and Cornish herself -- in criticizing the Justice Department's investigation.
  1185.  
  1186. First up was Sara Fischer. She's the CNN media analyst we caught last month claiming that it might have been "folks on the right" who destroyed stores in the post-George Floyd riots.
  1187.  
  1188. So you know where Fischer was coming from, and sure enough, she claimed that by investigating the allegations against Brennan and Comey, the Trump administration is "stooping" to a "wild level."
  1189.  
  1190. Commenting on the Brennan quote above, Fischer said:
  1191.  
  1192.  
  1193. "I think that Brennan's comments echo what a lot of people are saying."
  1194.  
  1195.  
  1196. Hilarious! Yes, Brennan's comments do indeed "echo what a lot of people are saying" -- if you reside in the liberal media/Democrat echo chamber!! 
  1197.  
  1198.  
  1199.  
  1200.  
  1201.  
  1202. Cornish wasn't just a disinterested moderator of the discussion. With a "yeah," she agreed with Fischer's claim that the investigation of Brennan and Comey is a  waste of the government's "time, energy, and resources."
  1203.  
  1204. And Cornish suggested to ex-GOP Rep. Charlie Dent (who endorsed Biden in 2020) that, rather than being a "big thing," the goal of the investigation is "really just creating an irritant, trying to make the lives of those people more difficult." Dent said these probes are worse than an irritant, they're costly and "very traumatizing." Former Biden comms person Meghan Hays mourned the "reputational damage" that would result. CNN wasn't in the habit of  sympathizing when the Russia probe "traumatized" and damaged reputations in the other direction. 
  1205.  
  1206. Cornish also suggested "It is also something to talk about that's not Jeffrey Epstein or some of these other things that these very departments, like FBI in particular, have struggled with and sort of fallen on their faces on."
  1207.  
  1208. Here's the transcript.
  1209.  
  1210.  
  1211. CNN This Morning
  1212. 7/10/25
  1213. 6:32 am EDT
  1214.  
  1215. AUDIE CORNISH: So, the investigators are now under investigation. The FBI is probing former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey. A source briefed on the matter tells CNN Comey and Brennan are being looked at for allegedly making false statements to Congress in a 2016 Russia election interference probe. And it comes after a referral by the current CIA director. 
  1216.  
  1217. . . . 
  1218.  
  1219. Now, John Brennan says he had no idea he was under criminal investigation until the reports came out. 
  1220.  
  1221. JOHN BRENNAN [speaking with Nicolle Wallace]: And I think this is, unfortunately, a very sad and tragic example of the continued politicization of the intelligence community, of the national security process, and quite frankly, I'm really shocked that individuals who are willing to sacrifice their reputations, their credibility, their decency, to continue to do Donald Trump's bidding on something that clearly is just politically based. 
  1222.  
  1223. CORNISH: OK, the group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this because, again, specific targeting of people, specifically for their relationship to Trump's kind of legal issues in the past. 
  1224.  
  1225. Sarah, what do you hear in the way Brennan responded? 
  1226.  
  1227. SARA FISCHER: I mean, the 2016 date is just absolutely wild to me, because Donald Trump had four years to investigate in his first term for anything that he alleges happened in 2016. We're now in 2025, and we're still looking at comments made to Congress, which are public? That's a pretty wild level that you're stooping to at that point. 
  1228.  
  1229. I think that Brennan's comments echo what a lot of people are saying, which is, is this how we're going to be utilizing our federal government, our investigators' time, energy, and resources?
  1230.  
  1231. CORNISH: Yeah.
  1232.  
  1233. FISCHER: It feels like a huge waste. 
  1234.  
  1235. CORNISH: Your answer kind of sounded like Trump's answer on Epstein, where he was like, why are we still talking about this? 
  1236.  
  1237. Meanwhile, there's a file cabinet somewhere being opened on Brennan and Comey. 
  1238.  
  1239. . . .
  1240.  
  1241. CHARLIE DENT: It's clear to me that people are being targeted. 
  1242.  
  1243. . . . 
  1244.  
  1245. CORNISH: Do you think these investigations really become a big thing, or is it really just creating an irritant, trying to make the lives of those people more difficult?
  1246.  
  1247. DENT: It's it's, well, it's more than an irritant if you're being investigated. I mean, this is going to cost these people a lot of money and time and aggravation and there might be might be hostile and malicious prosecutions, but it's still going to be very traumatizing, I suspect. 
  1248.  
  1249. MEGHAN HAYS: The reputational damage to these people that happens every time that this gets talked about in the media and every time that Trump says something, also the financial damage that this does to people, this is ruining for people financially. It's the same thing going on with the Comey investigation. 
  1250.  
  1251. People have to pay for their own lawyers, and it's tens of thousands of dollars a month that these people are having to pay, and they are public servants. Yes, they have been out now, and they probably are sitting on boards making more money than we probably all make together, but I don't think people understand the impact that these, like, very flippant remarks from Trump and his team, what it causes to people at a human level. 
  1252.  
  1253. FISCHER: Yeah, just want to add to that. Do you remember in 2016, all we were talking about was Hillary Clinton's emails? And that still was a thing in 2020. I think at this point, we're no longer talking about Hillary Clinton's emails. That's kind of what this feels like to me. Like we're grabbing onto something old so that we can have a message that's in the media to remind people of who the foe is, when in reality, this is really a dated complaint that doesn't really have much. 
  1254.  
  1255. I mean, we'll see what these investigations turn up, but to my understanding, it feels less based in solid fact and more based in politicization. 
  1256.  
  1257. CORNISH: It is also something to talk about that's not Jeffrey Epstein or some of these other things that these very departments, like FBI in particular, have struggled with and sort of fallen on their faces on.
  1258. </description>
  1259.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 2:14 PM</pubDate>
  1260.    <dc:creator>Mark Finkelstein</dc:creator>
  1261.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289790</guid>
  1262.    </item>
  1263. <item>
  1264.  <title>The View’s Conservative Cries at Work Since ‘This Is a Very Hard Job’</title>
  1265.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/10/views-conservative-cries-work-very-hard-job</link>
  1266.  <description> The occupant of the so-called “conservative” seat of ABC’s The View, Alyssa Farah Griffin utterly embarrassed herself during Wednesday’s episode when she admitted on-air that she “cried at this job at least a half-a-dozen times.” Her reasoning? Because it’s “a very hard job” and she’s often the only one who voiced some form right-leaning opinions, which she rarely did a good job with normally.
  1267.  
  1268. The cast was discussing a Vice article about Gen-Zers crying at work when Farah Griffin, a Millennial, admitted that she cried at work, and goes and hides in “every corner of this building”:
  1269.  
  1270.  
  1271. FARAH GRIFFIN: I cry at work but I hide it, so my bosses will never know.
  1272.  
  1273. SUNNY HOSTIN: You cry at work?!
  1274.  
  1275. FARAH GRIFFIN: I have cried at this job at least a half-a-dozen times. Are you kidding?! Have you done this job?
  1276.  
  1277. HOSTIN: I have! I’ve done it for years!
  1278.  
  1279.  
  1280. Co-host Joy Behar pressured her to spill the beans, meanly demanding: “What did you cry about? Give me an example.”
  1281.  
  1282. “This is a very hard job to do and I oftentimes have the only opinion that's different at a table of five people,” Farah Griffin bellyached.
  1283.  
  1284.  
  1285.  
  1286.  
  1287.  
  1288.  
  1289.  
  1290.  
  1291.  
  1292. Shortly thereafter, Farah Griffin tried to walk it back by saying she loved her job and their executive producer produced good hugs:
  1293.  
  1294.  
  1295. FARAH GRIFFIN: I would like to state for the record, this is a great job and every time I've cried Brian gives great hugs.
  1296.  
  1297. SARA HAINES: Oh, Brian’s listened to too much crying.
  1298.  
  1299. FARAH GRIFFIN: I know.
  1300.  
  1301.  
  1302. Moderator Whoopi Goldberg took on a matriarchal role with Farah Griffin as she tried to comfort her and let her know she could confide in them.
  1303.  
  1304. “You know, the thing that shocks me - For me, is there is nothing that people should be able to do to you to make you cry,” Goldberg said. “Let us support you. Let us support you because nobody should be crying at this job. Nobody.”
  1305.  
  1306. As for some of the other co-hosts, Sunny Hostin opined: “I have a never felt the luxury to be able to cry at work. I just try to get my work done, be as excellent as I can, and go home and chill out. I don't know.” Sara Haines quipped about crying both on and off-air and how she doesn’t like to cry in the bathroom. And Goldberg said she was her own safe space.
  1307.  
  1308. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  1309.  
  1310.  
  1311. ABC’s The View
  1312. July 9, 2025
  1313. 11:27:19 a.m. Eastern
  1314.  
  1315. (…)
  1316.  
  1317. SUNNY HOSTIN: This crying at work thing -- some of the article is about crying at work. I don't know, I have a never felt the luxury to be able to cry at work. I just try to get my work done, be as excellent as I can, and go home and chill out. I don't know. You know, but I'm --
  1318.  
  1319. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I cry at work but I hide it, so my bosses will never know.
  1320.  
  1321. HOSTIN: You cry at work?!
  1322.  
  1323. FARAH GRIFFIN: I have cried at this job at least a half-a-dozen times. Are you kidding?! Have you done this job?
  1324.  
  1325. HOSTIN: I have! I’ve done it for years!
  1326.  
  1327. FARAH GRIFFIN: Reminds me of The Simpsons meme with Bart Simpson, I think I have it.
  1328.  
  1329. [Screen shows Simpsons meme]
  1330.  
  1331. “This is where I come to cry. Cool” That's like every corner of this building.
  1332.  
  1333. JOY BEHAR: What did you cry about? Give me an example.
  1334.  
  1335. FARAH GRIFFIN: This is a very hard job to do and I oftentimes have the only opinion that's different at a table of five people.
  1336.  
  1337. (…)
  1338.  
  1339. 11:28:39 a.m. Eastern
  1340.  
  1341. FARAH GRIFFIN: I would like to state for the record, this is a great job and every time I've cried Brian gives great hugs.
  1342.  
  1343. SARA HAINES: Oh, Brian’s listened to too much crying.
  1344.  
  1345. FARAH GRIFFIN: I know.
  1346.  
  1347. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You know, the thing that shocks me - For me, is there is nothing that people should be able to do to you -
  1348.  
  1349. HOSTIN: Yeah.
  1350.  
  1351. GOLDBERG: - to make you cry. And if you feel -
  1352.  
  1353. HAINES: Oh, I got stuff to tell you.
  1354.  
  1355. GOLDBERG: Yes, you do. You should, because let us support you.
  1356.  
  1357. HAINES: You support me.
  1358.  
  1359. GOLDBERG: Let us support you. Let us support you because nobody should be crying at this job. Nobody.
  1360.  
  1361. We'll be right back.
  1362. </description>
  1363.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 2:05 PM</pubDate>
  1364.    <dc:creator>Nicholas Fondacaro</dc:creator>
  1365.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289791</guid>
  1366.    </item>
  1367. <item>
  1368.  <title>Stelter Sees 'A Narrative Against Public Media That Is Very Loud and Convincing'</title>
  1369.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/07/10/stelter-sees-narrative-against-public-media-very-loud-and</link>
  1370.  <description> The July 2 edition of Slate’s “What Next” podcast, “Is This the End of NPR and PBS?” began its argument for continuing to fund public television and radio with an ancient 1969 clip of Fred Rogers testifying before Congress. Before being officially introduced, guest Brian Stelter, CNN media analyst and all-around defender of the legacy media, was heard calling the clip “mesmerizing.”
  1371.  
  1372.  
  1373. Podcast host Mary Harris: I called up Brian Stelter, the media analyst at CNN, because this footage is so unlike anything we’re seeing this year when once again, conservatives have put public media on the chopping block.
  1374.  
  1375.  
  1376. Defunding NPR and PBS isn't ending them. Stelter reminisced about the good old days of congressional hearings (dominated by Democrats) in the Sixties.
  1377.  
  1378.  
  1379. Brian Stelter, CNN’s “Reliable Sources”: That hearing back then, it was a truly good-faith discussion. It’s what I think we grew up being told congressional hearings were actually about versus the reality of what they are now in a polarized America.
  1380.  
  1381.  
  1382. So it's not "reality" that PBS has a dramatic liberal bias? For one, PBS displays it by putting on Brian Stelter and no conservative media critics. After a clip of Rogers reciting lyrics to a song for children about controlling one’s feelings:
  1383.  
  1384.  
  1385. Harris: Back in 1969, it took just six minutes for Mr. Rogers to win his audience over. As soon as he was done reciting those lyrics, his funding seemed to be secured.
  1386.  
  1387.  
  1388. So enamored with Rogers they were, they skipped right over the blatant "transphobia" from one of Rogers’ other recitations.
  1389.  
  1390.  
  1391. Fred Rogers: ….for a girl can be someday a lady and a boy can be someday a man.
  1392.  
  1393.  
  1394. Harris continued the mawkish approach.
  1395.  
  1396.  
  1397. Harris: Do you feel like there’s going to be any kind of Mr. Rogers moment this time around?
  1398.  
  1399. Stelter: No. The short answer is no, and the longer answer is no because there’s no figure like him. There’s no desire to hear from a figure like him. There’s very little desire to have preconceived notions and impressions and assumptions challenged….
  1400.  
  1401.  
  1402. But digging up old Mister Rogers clips misses the source of conservative anger, which is directed at the political lean of PBS news programming, not an ancient feud with the children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which went off the air in 2001.
  1403.  
  1404. Stelter laid out the details of Trump’s efforts to strip funding from PBS and NPR via a “rescissions package” by July 18, before a history lesson regarding the creation of public broadcasting in the late 1960s. Stelter offered up his own approximation of what conservatives think of PBS and NPR -- a little overwrought but basically accurate.
  1405.  
  1406.  
  1407. Stelter: If you’re a part of the MAGA movement. You believe PBS and NPR are part of a liberal agenda to undermine what you believe is right and just in America. You believe the PBS NewsHour exists to get Democrats elected and to get Republicans out of office. You believe NPR is pushing a transgender agenda and hurting children. You believe that all of this programming is fundamentally against your way of life.
  1408.  
  1409. There is a narrative against public media that is very loud and convincing. And even though I think it does not hold up to scrutiny, there’s a lot of evidence to the contrary of everything I just said, you know [frustrated noise] that’s where we are.
  1410.  
  1411.  
  1412. But Stelter transformed the perfectly mainstream push to cut taxpayer funding from PBS and NPR into a sinister quest by President Trump to squelch dissent, an idea he delivered over doleful piano tones:
  1413.  
  1414.  
  1415. Stelter: ….And that’s part of a much broader push that we’re seeing against the American news media. Trump wants people to trust Trump. He doesn’t want other sources of information. He doesn’t want people watching 60 Minutes. He doesn’t want people trusting ABC or the New York Times. If he could, he would sue them, and he’s already sued some of them. So this push against public media, it’s part of a broader attempt to strip away independent arbiters of what is true and real and reliable….
  1416.  
  1417.  
  1418. Those outlets are just as liberal as PBS and NPR, so wouldn’t it be natural for Trump or conservatives not to trust them as well? But in Stelter Land, the most flagrantly liberal outlets are the definition of "independent arbiters."</description>
  1419.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 1:11 PM</pubDate>
  1420.    <dc:creator>Clay Waters</dc:creator>
  1421.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289783</guid>
  1422.    </item>
  1423. <item>
  1424.  <title>MSNBC's Velshi Gives Approval to Rubin’s Dangerous Rhetoric on ICE, Trump Bill</title>
  1425.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2025/07/10/msnbcs-velshi-gives-approval-rubins-dangerous-rhetoric-ice-trump</link>
  1426.  <description>On his eponymous Sunday show, MSNBC host Ali Velshi concurred with ex-Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin as the embittered ex-Republican trashed the GOP over its deportation policies. She also claimed that 50,000 people a year will die as a result of the Republican budget plan. If that wasn't enough, a fellow dranged former Republicanin The Atlantic's Norman Ornstein demonized law enforcment in Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) by predicting that it will be a "Trump vigilante group going out to wreak havoc."
  1427.  
  1428. Velshi responded to this insanity by suggesting that support for mass deportations puts Republicans at odds with the Founding Fathers:
  1429.  
  1430.  
  1431. [H]e talked about deficits being against Republican orthodoxy. So is government overreach. So are these -- this sort of, like Norm says, sort of, this force that we've just created of people who take people off the streets. I mean, our Founding Fathers, 249 years ago, if someone told them this is what's going to happen -- they limited the ability of the military, of the government and the force that they could use against Americans. Another place we've gotten in the wrong direction.
  1432.  
  1433.  
  1434. Rubin tore into her former party:
  1435.  
  1436.  
  1437.  
  1438.  
  1439.  
  1440.  
  1441.  
  1442.  
  1443. They are no longer conservatives. There is no Republican party. There is a fascist party that is supporting the cult of the great leader and, as a result, they are turning us into a police state. We are going to have not only one detention camp like the one in Miami in the Everglades that people are using a funny term to describe -- we're going to have those kind of camps all over the country. We still have 200 individuals rotting away in CECOT. We have an occupied city in Los Angeles where people are still being terrorized and a lawsuit being filed describing the really inhumane conditions that are taking place.
  1444.  
  1445.  
  1446. She continued churning invective and incitement against law enforcement:
  1447.  
  1448.  
  1449. his is one giant human rights atrocity in the making. If this were another country, we would be putting sanctions on them. So the notion that these people care about a limited government, about a restricted executive, about living within our means, this is nonsense. They no longer believe in anything other than getting reelected, feeding money to their enormously rich donors, and paying tribute to Donald Trump. And if this isn't a wakeup call for the American people that we have one normal party and one fascist party that is not only attacking our democracy, but attacking our health, our security, our nutrition -- I don' t know what will.
  1450.  
  1451.  
  1452. Velshi chimed in: "Yeah, I agree with you."
  1453.  
  1454. A bit earlier, as the Republican budget was being discussed, Rubin pushed the Democrat narrative:
  1455.  
  1456.  
  1457. That's the lie that allows them to justify taking food off the tables of poor families, taking health care away from families, closing down rural hospitals. That is perhaps the most pernicious of all because it's running away from the extreme moral debauchery of this entire endeavor, which is they are taking people who are in need -- the most vulnerable Americans -- taking things away from them to give very rich people tax cuts. And that's the most important thing to remember about that bill. And these three lies that we've just outlined are all part of it.
  1458.  
  1459.  
  1460. She then recommended targeting moderate Republicans who supported the plan, and added without evidence that tens of thousands would die: "The results of the heinous bill have to be brought back and have to be tied to the lawmakers who voted for this. They are responsible not just for the deficit, the debt -- but for the hardship, the pain, the starvation, the lack of health care, and the deaths that will result from this -- 50,000 people or so a year will die because of this. Thanks very much, Lisa Murkowski."
  1461.  
  1462. Click to read the relevant transcript:
  1463.  
  1464.  
  1465. MSNBC's Velshi
  1466. July 6, 2025
  1467. 12:09 p.m. Eastern
  1468.  
  1469. JENNIFER RUBIN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: [T]hey are building in the assumption that they will be paying out benefits to hundreds of thousands of fewer people. So, that lie is we can simply take money out of healthcare. We can take money out of food stamps, and everyone is made whole. That's the lie that allows them to justify taking food off the tables of poor families, taking health care away from families, closing down rural hospitals. That is perhaps the most pernicious of all because it's running away from the extreme moral debauchery of this entire endeavor, which is they are taking people who are in need -- the most vulnerable Americans -- taking things away from them to give very rich people tax cuts and that's the most important thing to remember about that bill. And these three lies that we've just outlined are all part of it. But I think what we need to do going forward is to present the people who voted with -- for this with the results of their votes. Let's see how many people lose health care in Alaska, so maybe Lisa Murkowski can understand what she has done. Maybe we should present the number of people who have fallen off food stamps to Susan Collins, who allowed the bill to go forward on the floor by voting on a motion to proceed. The results of the heinous bill have to be brought back and have to be tied to the lawmakers who voted for this. They are responsible not just for the deficit, the debt -- but for the hardship, the pain, the starvation, the lack of health care, and the deaths that will result from this. 50,000 people or so a year will die because of this. Thanks very much, Lisa Murkowski.
  1470.  
  1471. (...)
  1472.  
  1473. 12:12 p.m. Eastern
  1474.  
  1475. NORMAN ORNSTEIN, THE ATLANTIC CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: And we have to add one more thing. For all of this pain, the biggest thing that troubles me even more is an ICE army that is larger than the FBI and all of the federal law enforcement forces that's going to be a public Trump vigilante group going out to wreak havoc on large numbers of people -- not just those who are here undocumented. They're rounding up citizens, they're taking foreigners and throwing them into detention camps because they're here on tourist visas. The costs of this bill are so widespread and so broad and the level of deception to make it happen is breathtaking.
  1476.  
  1477. ALI VELSHI: It's kind of interesting, Jen, because it's also -- he talked about deficits being against Republican orthodoxy. So is government overreach. So are these -- this sort of, like Norm says, sort of, this force that we've just created of people who take people off the streets. I mean, our Founding Fathers, 249 years ago, if someone told them this is what's going to happen -- they limited the ability of the military, of the government and the force that they could use against Americans. Another place we've gotten in the wrong direction.
  1478.  
  1479. RUBIN: They are no longer conservatives. There is no Republican party. There is a fascist party that is supporting the cult of the great leader and, as a result, they are turning us into a police state. We are going to have not only one detention camp like the one in Miami in the Everglades that people are using a funny term to describe -- we're going to have those kind of camps all over the country. We still have 200 individuals rotting away in CECOT. We have an occupied city in Los Angeles where people are still being terrorized and a lawsuit being filed describing the really inhumane conditions that are taking place. This is one giant human rights atrocity in the making. If this were another country, we would be putting sanctions on them. So the notion that these people care about a limited government, about a restricted executive, about living within our means, this is nonsense. They no longer believe in anything other than getting reelected, feeding money to their enormously rich donors, and paying tribute to Donald Trump. And if this isn't a wakeup call for the American people that we have one normal party and one fascist party that is not only attacking our democracy, but attacking our health, our security, our nutrition -- I don' t know what will.
  1480.  
  1481. VELSHI: Yeah, I agree with you.
  1482. </description>
  1483.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 11:26 AM</pubDate>
  1484.    <dc:creator>Brad Wilmouth</dc:creator>
  1485.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289762</guid>
  1486.    </item>
  1487. <item>
  1488.  <title>MSNBC: Stop Blaming People for Texas Floods, Blame Climate Change</title>
  1489.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/10/msnbc-stop-blaming-people-texas-floods-blame-climate-change</link>
  1490.  <description>On her eponymous show Wednesday afternoon, MSNBC’s Chris Jansing decided maybe it was time to stop pointing fingers over the prevention of last weekend’s devastating Texas floods. Jansing didn’t imply that President Trump, who made cuts to the National Weather Service, was at fault. She didn’t place any definitive blame on Texas officials for not having certain warning systems in place. According to her and her guests, there was no point in assigning guilt since each and every one of us was responsible for not combating climate change sooner.
  1491.  
  1492.  
  1493.  
  1494.  
  1495.  
  1496.  
  1497.  
  1498.  
  1499.  
  1500. Jansing asked controversial climate alarmist Michael Mann, the Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media, “What does the science tell us about what the future holds?” Unsurprisingly, the guy with a title like that went into a whole spiel about the various reasons climate change was supposedly the biggest factor at play:
  1501.  
  1502.  
  1503. Yes, there are a whole bunch of things that came together, but climate change has made these events worse. It's made them more deadly. And at some level, it's actually really simple. It's simple physics that tells us you warm up the planet, you warm up the oceans two degrees Fahrenheit, which is what they've warmed up so far, you put about 7 percent more moisture in the atmosphere. So when you get rainfall, you get that much more rainfall.
  1504.  
  1505. (...)
  1506.  
  1507. And then on top of that, these weather systems are increasingly likely to become stalled. They just sit in the same location day after day. Our own research suggests that that, too, is a pattern that is being favored by human-caused warming. And so you put it all together, you get these extreme flooding events. And even worse, we're seeing extremes on both sides of the spectrum. So one summer, extremely dry drought, wildfires, the next summer, huge amounts of rainfall.
  1508.  
  1509.  
  1510. Of course, most, if not all, of Mann’s claims were either unproven or flat-out wrong.
  1511.  
  1512. For example, his statistic of ocean temperatures increasing by two degrees Fahrenheit was accurate, but only if you ignored the fact Mann never gave a timeline for that increase. This two percent change, shown in an EPA graph, began in 1880, before climate change was even a concern, and featured multiple spikes prior to the twenty-first century, demonstrating that these temperature increases were not necessarily as significant as climate activists made it out to be.
  1513.  
  1514. The claims that climate change was stalling storms and causing drastic weather changes were both unproven, neither having any conclusive studies to back them up. Nothing Mann argued actually held any water. Still, Jansing was all in on climate change concerns, asking:
  1515.  
  1516.  
  1517. Could this be a turning point … to have at least a larger climate conversation, to maybe talk about the idea of don't put all your money in after the fact, after people have died, after their communities have been washed away or burned away, but maybe to mitigate before the fact so they don't have to deal with the after the fact?
  1518.  
  1519.  
  1520. Jansing teed Mann up to keep pontificating. For Mann, no amount of preparation could ever be enough if we did not push politicians to enact policy to combat climate change. He argued a clean energy economy was the only way to prevent such tragedies in the future, saying “Mother Nature doesn't care whether or not politicians believe in climate change. It's true nonetheless and we're dealing with the consequences,” without expressing the least bit of sympathy for the tragedy.
  1521.  
  1522. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  1523.  
  1524.  
  1525. MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports
  1526. July 9, 2025
  1527. 12:09 p.m. EST
  1528.  
  1529. (...)
  1530.  
  1531. CHRIS JANSING: In the last week, we've ticked off, we did this at the top of the show, at least four mass flooding events that our climate unit here describe as thousand-year flood events. So, when you look at that and the very smart questions that were just raised by Lewis, tell us what is going on here. What does the science tell us about what the future holds?
  1532.  
  1533. MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, there's no question that climate change is an exacerbating factor here. Yes, there are a whole bunch of things that came together, but climate change has made these events worse. It's made them more deadly. And at some level, it's actually really simple. It's simple physics that tells us you warm up the planet, you warm up the oceans two degrees Fahrenheit, which is what they've warmed up so far, you put about seven percent more moisture in the atmosphere. So when you get rainfall, you get that much more rainfall. But that's just part of it.
  1534.  
  1535. It turns out the increase can be much greater than that, not just seven percent, but 20, 30 percent because of the fact that you get more powerful storms that entrain more moisture into the air. And so there's that factor alone.
  1536.  
  1537. And then on top of that, these weather systems are increasingly likely to become stalled. They just sit in the same location day after day. Our own research suggests that that, too, is a pattern that is being favored by human-caused warming. And so you put it all together, you get these extreme flooding events.
  1538.  
  1539. And even worse, we're seeing extremes on both sides of the spectrum. So one summer, extremely dry drought, wildfires, the next summer, huge amounts of rainfall. And then you get these compound events where, for example, because the ground is so parched, it can't absorb the water that's coming down, and so it funnels more water into these rivers and you get worse flooding. A whole bunch of things that came together, climate change playing a role in each one of those.
  1540.  
  1541. (...)
  1542.  
  1543. 12:16 p.m. EST
  1544.  
  1545. LOUIS AMESTOY: The recriminations, I think, to me right now at this point, aren’t really helpful. I think the bigger question is going to be, does Texas have the political will to say, ‘no, we're not going to let you build here again? No, we're not going to let you do this.’ Now, here in Kerr County, climate change discussion, that's a nonstarter, unfortunately, for elected officials. They don't believe it. They are not going to, you know, they're not going to accept it necessarily.
  1546.  
  1547. So, I mean, I don't know what's going to change their thinking here, but I think that there will be plenty of actions here on this from the National Weather Service front, from the Code Red part of this all the way down to will you give counties at the state level – And remember, Texas has done a really good job of stripping out counties and cities from kind of controlling their own destinies when it comes to urban development and planning and development. And will they allow that to change at the local level, right?
  1548.  
  1549. One size doesn't fit all here in Texas. Kerrville and Kerr County are a heck of a lot different than Austin and Houston and Dallas. And so, that's going to be an interesting question. And remember our state representative here put a bill up about cloud seeding. So that's one of my questions I have to answer all the time now. What about the cloud seeding? How did that happen?
  1550.  
  1551. JANSING: Yeah. So let me ask you finally, Michael, I mean, if local governments, state governments, and of course the federal government, could this be a turning point, maybe not, as Lewis points out, maybe not in some areas of Texas, but across the country, to have at least a larger climate conversation. To maybe talk about the idea of don't put all your money in after the fact, after people have died, after their communities have been washed away or burned away, but maybe to mitigate before the fact so they don't have to deal with the after the fact?
  1552.  
  1553. MANN: Yeah, you know, Mother Nature doesn't care whether or not politicians believe in climate change. It's true nonetheless and we're dealing with the consequences. And here's the thing. Certainly, there are ways to promote more resilient policies, policies that will help people deal with these sorts of extreme events. And we have to reconsider, you know, building codes and where things should be built and where they shouldn't. All of that is true.
  1554.  
  1555. But if we continue to warm the planet and amplify these events, the impacts will exceed our adaptive capacity. There's nothing that we can do to prevent the harm, the damage. And unfortunately, mortality, if we continue to warm up the planet and amplify, make these events even worse, the droughts and wildfires worse, the floods worse.
  1556.  
  1557. What we need to do is put in place policies to deal with the consequences we're already dealing with and recognize that we have to transition rapidly away from our dependence on fossil fuels towards a clean energy economy, if we want to prevent the worst consequences of climate change. Consequences that will be far worse and far, far more recurrent than what we're witnessing right now so far this summer.
  1558.  
  1559. JANSING: Michael Mann, Louis Amestoy, thank you both. Very important conversation.
  1560. </description>
  1561.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 11:02 AM</pubDate>
  1562.    <dc:creator>Lucas Escala</dc:creator>
  1563.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289779</guid>
  1564.    </item>
  1565. <item>
  1566.  <title>Couric: Everyone Needs Traditional Media to Battle Trump's 'S*** Show'</title>
  1567.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/10/couric-everyone-needs-traditional-media-battle-trumps-s-show</link>
  1568.  <description>Former CBS and NBC anchor Katie Couric went to bat for her former colleagues on a Wednesday Substack video interview with fellow Substacker Liz Plank. Couric claimed that “for everybody shitting on the mainstream,” they still rely on it for their news and that it is still needed to combat “the shit show that is the Trump administration.”
  1569.  
  1570. Alluding to a couple of lawsuit settlements President Trump has had with two of the big three networks, Couric began by reporting that she is seeking to make a documentary about “what has happened to journalism and how it has really changed and how it's so critical for a democracy to have a free press and, you know, obviously corporate stuff that's going on at ABC and CBS.”
  1571.  
  1572.  
  1573.  
  1574.  
  1575.  
  1576.  
  1577.  
  1578.  
  1579.  
  1580. She also added that for all the hate the industry gets, the haters could not do their job without it, “A lot of these social media creators, you know, for everybody shitting on mainstream media, you know, they depend on a lot of mainstream outlets to get their information and then to report it. It's not like they're on the scene… I asked the Midas Touch guys about this. And they said, ‘Oh, we do some original reporting,’ but a lot of it isn't original, although in fairness they can watch the CSPAN feeds, they can see what's going on at press conferences and all that stuff, so they can write directly from an event, but sometimes they're reporting what other outlets have reported, so I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media.”
  1581.  
  1582. Ultimately, Couric would claim that the media isn’t needed to simply tell people what is happening in their country but to be a part of the anti-Trump resistance, “So I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media, and I think we need it all, to be honest, especially at this moment in our history and what's happening in our country and the shit show that is the Trump administration.”
  1583.  
  1584. On one hand, Couric isn’t completely wrong. Plenty of news commentators do rely on traditional media for their news. That’s why the MRC exists because, in 2025, TV viewership numbers aren’t everything. If the original source is biased, then the secondary source, such as Katie Couric’s Next Question podcast, is also potentially problematic. However, on the other hand, if traditional media simply refuses to cover certain stories or leaves out critical information in the stories they do report on, then it is left to alternative media to fill the gaps.
  1585.  
  1586. Here is a transcript for the July 9 show:
  1587.  
  1588.  
  1589. Katie Couric and Liz Plank Substack Video
  1590.  
  1591. 7/9/2025
  1592.  
  1593. 13 Minutes, 25 Seconds
  1594.  
  1595. KATIE COURIC: But you know, one thing interesting, and I've talked to, like, friends of mine in more traditional media—
  1596.  
  1597. LIZ PLANK: Yeah.
  1598.  
  1599. COURIC: —because I'm actually trying to develop a documentary on what has happened to journalism and the news business—
  1600.  
  1601. PLANK: Oh, yeah.
  1602.  
  1603. COURIC: —and how it has really changed and how it's so critical for a democracy to have a free press and, you know, obviously corporate stuff that's going on at ABC and CBS, anyway, so what was I talking about, Liz?
  1604.  
  1605. PLANK: You want to make a documentary about—
  1606.  
  1607. COURIC: Oh yeah. No, wait, wait, wait—   
  1608.  
  1609. PLANK: About the state of news—
  1610.  
  1611. COURIC: I was talking to a friend to recently. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and we're saying a lot of these social media creators, you know, for everybody shitting on mainstream media, you know, they depend on a lot of mainstream—
  1612.  
  1613. PLANK: That’s true.
  1614.  
  1615. COURIC: —outlets to get their information and then to report it. It's not like they're on the scene—
  1616.  
  1617. PLANK: Yeah.
  1618.  
  1619. COURIC: —It's on the ground. It's not like they're, you know, sometimes, you know, I asked the Midas Touch guys about this. And they said, "Oh, we do some original reporting," but a lot of it isn't original—
  1620.  
  1621. PLANK: It’s true.
  1622.  
  1623. COURIC: —although in fairness they can watch the CSPAN feeds, they can see what's going on at press conferences and all that stuff, so—
  1624.  
  1625. PLANK: Context.
  1626.  
  1627. COURIC: —they can write directly from an event, but sometimes they're reporting what other outlets have reported, so I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media, and I think we need it all, to be honest—
  1628.  
  1629. PLANK: Yeah.
  1630.  
  1631. COURIC: —especially at this moment in our history and what's happening in our country and the shit show that is the Trump administration.
  1632. </description>
  1633.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 10:17 AM</pubDate>
  1634.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  1635.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289788</guid>
  1636.    </item>
  1637. <item>
  1638.  <title>Barnes &amp; Noble Hawked Nutty Book to Me that Compared Trump to Mass Murderer Jim Jones</title>
  1639.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/10/barnes-noble-hawked-nutty-book-me-compared-trump-mass</link>
  1640.  <description>As a bookworm, I'm naturally the obsessive compulsive buyer that Barnes &amp; Noble seeks to attract. But one of my recent trips to their Frederick, MD store showed me just how much the bookseller giant was willing to go to sneak anti-Trump agitprop into their customers’ information diet. 
  1641.  
  1642. As I was checking out some books for purchase last month, the cashier hawked his company’s “Monthly Pick” to me called Cultish published in 2021 by author Amanda Montell, who apparently became known in part for her third-wave feminist drivel Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language (2019).
  1643.  
  1644. You can already tell where this is going. I’ve never heard of Cultish nor expressed previous interest in buying it until the cashier waved it in my face. But I’ll admit I was morbidly curious after the cashier’s sales pitch. After all: I make a living doing media analysis and I’m no stranger to the exhausting number of lowbrow Trump-Is-A-Threat-To-Democracy cheesy-page-turners that plague Barnes &amp; Noble bookshelves.
  1645.  
  1646. Buried in the fourth chapter of the book — purported to be a deep-dive into the psychology and rhetoric that guides cult and cult-like movements — there was one of the stupidest comparisons I’ve ever witnessed in print. According to Montell, President Donald Trump is like Jim Jones — yeah, the frenetic maniac responsible for the “Drink-the-Kool-Aid” Jonestown Massacre of 1978, which killed over 900 people through murder-suicide in Guyana.
  1647.  
  1648. One of their supposedly shared traits that Montell saw fit to highlight was the fact that they’re both “white” men with “booming, exaggerated baritones” that have invoked “big topics like God and government” at some point or another from the bully pulpit. In turn, snorted Montell, “many listeners are likely to listen by default — to hear the deep pitch and ‘standard’ English dialect and trust it without much questioning.” I wish I was joking.
  1649.  
  1650. Read the relevant passage from Amanda Montell's book Cultish below.
  1651.  
  1652.  
  1653.  
  1654. What a way to insult the 70-plus million people who voted for Trump in 2020.
  1655.  
  1656. Apparently, Barnes &amp; Noble had no problem nudging its members across its 600 U.S. stores to buy this garbage exercise in intellectual contempt from the “Wordslut” gal, to borrow a term from another book I purchased there by economist Richard Thaler and Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein Nudge (2009). 
  1657.  
  1658. According to Montell, “Cultish language isn’t a magic bullet or lethal poison; it’s more like a placebo pill.” Okay? She then banked on an essay collection by leftist comedian Lindy West to spew, “As long as someone is white, male, telling us to pay attention to him, we’ll follow ‘even the most obviously bumbling con artist dumbass ever birthed by the universe,’ West says.”
  1659.  
  1660. Montell then took it a step further and lumped Trump in with another notorious American serial killer, peppering him with adjectives ripped straight out of the unhinged leftist lexicon: “Even rude, mediocre, murderous Ted Bundy. Even buffoonish Fyre Festival fraudster Billy MacFarland. Even racist fascist misogynist Donald Trump. Even diabolical despotic Jim Jones.” 
  1661.  
  1662. That’s three wild-eyed adjectives in one sentence. This doesn’t even qualify as a clever polemic. Trump and Jones couldn’t be more diametrically opposed, starting on ideological grounds. This was evidenced by Jones himself during the infamous “Death Tape” where he can audibly be heard urging frightened cultists into drinking cyanide in the name of communism:
  1663.  
  1664.  
  1665. Stop this hysterics… This is not the way for people who are socialistic Communists to die … no way for us to die. We must die with some dignity … If you have any respect at all… Are we black, proud and Socialist, or what are we? Now stop this nonsense, don’t carry this on any more, you’re exciting your children.
  1666.  
  1667.  
  1668. Leaving aside the utter absurdity of comparing Trump to a psychopathic murderer, since when did Trump have anything to do with preaching the poisonous ideals of socialism and communism? 
  1669. Montell must have known that putting Trump in the same sentence as Jim Jones was insane. She admitted that “it isn’t always productive to make blanket statements equating Donald Trump (or any problematic leader) to Jim Jones. That’s chiefly because it’s not the most useful way to evaluate their specific danger.”
  1670.  
  1671. But then she pivoted: “I am not the first person to point out the similarities between Jones and Trump, but I highlight their overlapping oratories more as an invitation to consider the precise language forms that contributed to Trump’s deceptive and violent charisma, not to drum up fear that the man is capable of orchestrating a mass poisoning in Guyana (I doubt Trump could even name which continent Guyana is on).” 
  1672.  
  1673. This sounds awfully like the cacophony of excuses we at MRC hear any time a deranged media talking head shouts Trump is Hitler from their platforms and wants to be taken seriously. 
  1674.  
  1675. If Montell wants to behave like a “Wordslut,” she should have no problem embracing that moniker on her own without Barnes &amp; Noble putting its own endorsement on her work and isolating its customers who happen to support Trump. 
  1676.  
  1677. Now, to be fair: the cashier who hawked Montell’s book was just doing his job, but this should serve as a lesson to Barnes &amp; Noble proper to be more judicious about which books its leadership chooses to feature as the corporation’s monthly “pick(s).” 
  1678.  
  1679. I — and hopefully other conservative journalists — will be watching more closely from now on. 
  1680.  
  1681.  </description>
  1682.  <pubDate>July 10th, 2025 9:46 AM</pubDate>
  1683.    <dc:creator>Joseph Vazquez</dc:creator>
  1684.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289757</guid>
  1685.    </item>
  1686. <item>
  1687.  <title>NewsBusters Podcast: MANY Things Are More American Than One-Sided PBS</title>
  1688.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/09/newsbusters-podcast-many-things-are-more-american-one-sided-pbs</link>
  1689.  <description>Brian Stelter's "Reliable Sources" newsletter for CNN carried the headline "Countdown for NPR &amp; PBS." The Senate must vote by next Friday to rescind $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or that funding remains. Stelter reported PBS even put an advertisement for itself during its July 4 special, A Capital Fourth. We couldn't find it "during" the show.
  1690.  
  1691. But one of the most maddening things about PBS and NPR is that they refuse to accept any form of negative messaging about them on their own networks. When the funding topic comes up, it's all advertising. The conservative case about defunding and relentless bias is not allowed.
  1692.  
  1693. So there's no doubt that the word "public" in their name is a fraud. When Americans aren't allowed to criticize their supposedly "public" networks, when their viewpoints are offhandedly labeled misinformation, they cease to be networks that represent all the public. They then represent only a fraction of the public, that fraction being the pompous liberal elite who want to tell the public what to think while invalidating any and all disagreement. This is the exact opposite of what America has always represented.
  1694.  
  1695. This also happens on other networks, like CBS on Sunday, where John Dickerson said to PBS star Ken Burns, "make the case for PBS." They showed him testifying before the House in 1999. That's amazing, since I also testified that day, and Burns had to listen to me vent about the "PBS-DNC Complex." The hearing was balanced. PBS and NPR never are.
  1696.  
  1697. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
  1698.  
  1699. </description>
  1700.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 10:49 PM</pubDate>
  1701.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  1702.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289786</guid>
  1703.    </item>
  1704. <item>
  1705.  <title>OMISSION: NBC Is the Only Legacy Newscast to Report Biden Doc Taking the Fifth</title>
  1706.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/09/omission-nbc-only-legacy-newscast-report-biden-doc-taking-fifth</link>
  1707.  <description>As the legacy media continue to demonstrate, their role in helping to cover President Joe Biden’s physical, mental and cognitive decline from the American public is a decidedly uncomfortable matter. Case in point: CBS and ABC omitting from their newscasts that Biden’s doctor, when asked about that very real and evident decline, took the Fifth before the House Oversight Committee.
  1708.  
  1709. Watch the sole report on Dr. Kevin O’Connor’s testimony before House Oversight, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, July 9th, 2025 (click “expand” to view full transcript):
  1710.  
  1711.  
  1712.  
  1713.  
  1714.  
  1715.  
  1716. TOM LLAMAS: Now to the fireworks on Capitol Hill with former President Biden's doctor subpoenaed by Republicans, declining to answer questions about Biden's health while he was in office, citing his Fifth Amendment rights. Here’s Kelly O'Donnell.
  1717.  
  1718. KELLY O’DONNELL: Today, the type of housecall that a former White House physician did not want to make. Dr. Kevin O'Connor, who treated former President Biden for at least 16 years, asserted his Fifth Amendment today and declined to give testimony after he was subpoenaed by House Republicans investigating Mr. Biden's medical and mental fitness while in office.
  1719.  
  1720. JAKE GREENBERG: Dr. O’Connor, were you ever told to lie about the president's health?
  1721.  
  1722. KEVIN O’CONNOR: On the advice of counsel I must respectfully decline to answer based upon physician-patient privilege and in reliance on my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
  1723.  
  1724. JAMES COMER: This is unprecedented. And I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover up.
  1725.  
  1726. O’DONNELL: But a lawyer for O’Connor insists the doctor could not testify without risking his medical license, writing: “Dr. O’Connor will not violate his oath of confidentiality for any of his patients, including President Biden.” The 82-year-old former president is now being treated for an aggressive prostate cancer. 
  1727.  
  1728. JOE BIDEN: I feel good!
  1729.  
  1730. O’DONNELL: Recent books allege episodes of mental decline while he was president, like not recalling the names of long time aides. The former president has disputed that. Democrat Jasmine Crockett defended Biden’s mental fitness.  
  1731.  
  1732. JASMINE CROCKETT: I did have an opportunity to interact with the president. I never had a concern.
  1733.  
  1734. O’DONNELL: Dr. O'Connor is among several close Biden aides being called to testify as Republicans question whether Biden was in command during his presidency. Tom.
  1735.  
  1736. LLAMAS: All right, Kelly O’Donnell. Kelly, thank you.
  1737.  
  1738.  
  1739. The report, of course, is not flawless. Kelly O’Donnell helpfully reinforces patient confidentiality as a reason for which Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth. However, there remain many open questions over O’Connor’s role (or lack thereof) in the conspiracy to hide Biden’s obvious and painful decline from the American public. There was Jasmine Crockett coming out and shilling for Biden’s mental acuity at this late hour, and O’Donnell ended her report with what sounded like a veiled “Republicans Pounce”.
  1740.  
  1741. There wasn’t much extra time to allocate to begin with, because the networks ran another full day of Texas Flood coverage at the top of the newscasts. Although with the legacies failing to pin the story on perceived Trump malevolence (NWS, FEMA) and having to settle for local incompetence (Kern County talking flood alarms for 20 years), one expects that the story will recede from national focus.
  1742.  
  1743. Nonetheless, the autopen investigations are a major story that should’ve made it into everyone’s roundup- or, at minimum, a brief. ABC allocated that time to local crime: specifically, the California mom that left her babies to die in a hot car while she got lip filler. CBS focused that time on the end of the Philly city workers’ strike.
  1744.  
  1745. This particular omission reminds me of something I learned in freshman art class many years ago: the empty spaces are as important as those that are covered, if not more so. Leaving Biden’s doctor taking the Fifth in front of House Oversight is a major empty space.
  1746.  
  1747.  </description>
  1748.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 9:55 PM</pubDate>
  1749.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  1750.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289785</guid>
  1751.    </item>
  1752. <item>
  1753.  <title>Bill Nye Pops Up on CNN to Tie TX Flooding to U.S. Not Ditching Fossil Fuels</title>
  1754.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/09/bill-nye-pops-cnn-tie-tx-flooding-us-not-ditching-fossil-fuels</link>
  1755.  <description>Far-left cosplaying scientist Bill Nye popped up Wednesday afternoon on CNN’s Inside Politics to tie the apocalyptic and deadly Texas Hill Country floods to not only climate change, but America having yet to go the way of the left’s dreams and ditch fossil fuels.
  1756.  
  1757. Weekday host Dana Bash set the table by invoking floods in Texas as well as others in Chicago, North Carolina, and New Mexico and that Nye was there “to try to make sense of this.” She argued the adage of once-in-a-lifetime to describe extreme weather shouldn’t be the case because “it’s just where we are with the climate and the environment.”
  1758.  
  1759.  
  1760.  
  1761.  
  1762.  
  1763.  
  1764.  
  1765.  
  1766.  
  1767. Nye obviously agreed and said these disasters are “exactly what was predicted” and contradicted himself by arguing that, while it is “very difficult to tie any one weather event to climate change…warm weather events are actually easier to tie to climate change.”
  1768.  
  1769. He also threw in with those demanding a siren system akin to parts of the world susceptible to tsunamis as water’s weight and ferocity make large volumes difficult for anyone to withstand:
  1770.  
  1771.  
  1772. [E]verybody has talked about this for years, and there are the technologies for warning systems exist. Where people have tidal or tsunami events, these sort of warning systems can be put up, but you got to get to higher ground very quickly. And the thing, the point that I believe was being made in the moment — in the video a moment ago was the mass of the water, a 20-foot high mass of water in a half hour is — you can’t — you can’t just float your way out of it. It knocks everything over. Everybody knows — you pick up a bucket of water, you know how heavy it is and you get a lot of water going that fast.
  1773.  
  1774.  
  1775. Then came the “fossil fuels” nonsense: “So, what are we going to do about it is the ancient question, and it would be to stop burning fossil fuels. When you’re in a hole, stop digging, and so on. But the fossil fuel industry has been very successful in getting organizations — like the U.S. Congress — to think that it’s really not happening.”
  1776.  
  1777. Bash took this deranged talk hook, line, and sinker: “Well. And the first six months of the Trump administration, we’ve seen an end to some of the federal efforts on not just fossil fuel, but other efforts that had been in place government-wide to promote alternative energy.”
  1778.  
  1779. Nye continued to lament:
  1780.  
  1781.  
  1782. Yes. To be the world leader, to be — to have the U.S. lead the world in renewable energy sources, so that we would be able to export our technologies, that people would want to come to the U.S. to learn how to do this up and so on. So, the opportunities still exists, but we do need to turn things around and this is, of course, you are getting my side of the story.
  1783.  
  1784.  
  1785. “How do you feel about that? Well, I mean, it’s the science side,” Bash replied, to this Nye invoked Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution by arguing Congress should embrace the “science.”
  1786.  
  1787. After a back-and-forth about his Hill advocacy against NASA cuts and a closing about Nye’s interactions over texts with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (which allegedly ended with Nye blocking Kennedy), Nye told her to “keep up the good work” in the name of the “First Amendment.”
  1788.  
  1789. To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 9, click here.</description>
  1790.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 7:19 PM</pubDate>
  1791.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  1792.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289784</guid>
  1793.    </item>
  1794. <item>
  1795.  <title>Kate Bolduan Suggests Doublethink on NWS Cuts Impacting Texas Floods</title>
  1796.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/09/kate-bolduan-suggests-doublethink-nws-cuts-impacting-texas-floods</link>
  1797.  <description>While interviewing Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California Tuesday morning, CNN News Central co-host Kate Bolduan gave a suggestion straight out of 1984 in order to justify biased reporting. The dystopian world she lived in? One where the White House disagreed with the media’s accusations that cuts to the National Weather Service were directly responsible for the death toll in the recent Texas floods.
  1798.  
  1799. Even though evidence for any negative impact from Trump’s cuts was lacking, Bolduan seemed set on telling such a narrative:
  1800.  
  1801.  
  1802. There are big questions being raised about the warnings that happened and the impacts also of cuts to – that the Trump administration had made to the National Weather Service. And while everyone you speak to says a review needs to be done, analysis needs to be done, there's no direct throughline. I did have a former administrator of NOAA just on this morning who said that he thinks the administration's workforce cuts at the National Weather Service contributed to the problem.
  1803.  
  1804. (...)
  1805.  
  1806. You have Chuck Schumer now who's sent a letter asking for the Commerce Department to investigate whether staffing shortages contributed to the tragedy. Here, the White House is pushing back very hard and suggesting that this is all motivated by politics.
  1807.  
  1808.  
  1809.  
  1810.  
  1811.  
  1812.  
  1813.  
  1814.  
  1815.  
  1816.  
  1817. Bolduan didn’t ever ask Swalwell whether or not he thought this was true. She took it as a given. Her question instead was how Democrats should frame their messaging around the issue so as to not become overly political.
  1818.  
  1819. When Swalwell answered, he talked about sympathizing with the families before taking Bolduan’s bait and firing an obvious shot at Trump by proclaiming: “for the last six months, we've seen an effort to undermine the hard work of government workers, whether it's air traffic controllers who keep planes from colliding in the air, or FEMA first responders who go into the hardest hit places in America.”
  1820.  
  1821. Bolduan doubled down on her original question:
  1822.  
  1823.  
  1824. I think the question is then how do you, – I don't know if it's if it's threading the needle, I don't know if it's saying we can have two thoughts in our head at the same time, but how do you not let this become political but still push for answers?
  1825.  
  1826.  
  1827. Bolduan suggested doublethink, holding one thought in mind while actively professing another, as a possibility for any Democrats hoping to blame Trump in a more sensitive fashion, the same approach encouraged by the government of George Orwell’s classic novel.
  1828.  
  1829. Even while suggesting it, Bolduan practiced doublethink, arguing her purely political argument was not political in the slightest. Bolduan wanted to frame the Texas floods as a failing of the Trump administration, all the while practicing doublethink and claiming her argument was not a matter of politics.
  1830.  
  1831. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  1832.  
  1833.  
  1834. July 8, 2025
  1835. 9:33 a.m. EST
  1836.  
  1837. (…)
  1838.  
  1839. KATE BOLDUAN: A very different thing, but very important story we’re covering and we'll continue to is these deadly floods in Texas as these – the search continues for the missing. There are big questions being raised about the warnings that happened and the impacts also of cuts to – that the Trump administration had made to the National Weather Service. 
  1840.  
  1841. And while everyone you speak to says a review needs to be done, analysis needs to be done, there's no direct throughline. I did have a former administrator of NOAA just on this morning who said that he thinks the administration's workforce cuts at the National Weather Service contributed to the problem. Let me play this for you:
  1842.  
  1843. (Cuts to video)
  1844.  
  1845. RICHARD SPINRAD: I am convinced that the staff cuts that we saw were a contributing factor to the inability of the emergency managers to respond. The staffing was just fine and the White House has concurred with this to get the forecast out, to get the watches and warnings issued. 
  1846.  
  1847. But when you send a message, there's no guarantee it's being received. So someone needs to follow up. And that's the warning coordination meteorologist, a position that was vacant.
  1848.  
  1849. (Cuts to live)
  1850.  
  1851. BOLDUAN: You have Chuck Schumer now who's sent a letter asking for the Commerce Department to investigate whether staffing shortages contributed to the tragedy. Here, the White House is pushing back very hard and suggesting that this is all motivated by politics. Let me play Karoline Leavitt from yesterday.
  1852.  
  1853. (Cut to video)
  1854.  
  1855. KAROLINE LEAVITT: Unfortunately, in the wake of this, once in a generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.
  1856.  
  1857. (Cuts to live)
  1858.  
  1859. BOLDUAN: Do you think Democrats need to be careful on this?
  1860.  
  1861. REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Well, first, I mean, as a parent, this is just heartbreaking. I have two kids at camp this week. They're not old enough for sleepaway camp, but you put them, you know, in the responsibility of people who you don't know. And this is a parent's nightmare. And so I do grieve with those families. 
  1862.  
  1863. And I also thank the first responders who put their lives on the line to try and rescue as many people as possible. One of my colleagues, a Republican colleague, had two of his daughters at this camp. Fortunately, they made it out. I do think as lawmakers, we have a responsibility, though, to look at did cuts affect the ability for folks on the ground and at the camp to have an earlier, better warning.
  1864.  
  1865. But this is really going to should we just attack government for government's sake? And for the last six months, we've seen an effort to undermine the hard work of government workers, whether it's air traffic controllers who keep planes from colliding in the air, or FEMA first responders who go into the hardest hit places in America. But if the president's press secretary doesn't like the way this is being described, I would recommend that the President go to Texas and talk to the families and show leadership, because that's what presidents do.
  1866.  
  1867. BOLDUAN: He is going to go. I mean, he did say he is going to go. I think the question is then how do you, – I don't know if it's if it's threading the needle, I don't know if it's saying we can have two thoughts in our head at the same time, but how do you not let this become political but still push for answers?
  1868.  
  1869. SWALWELL: Right, and again, my job is to make sure that we put resources in place to keep people safe. Our primary job as lawmakers is the safety of the public. And if there's a possibility that cuts at that agency affected the safety of those girls, we should understand that, and we should do better as we make funding decisions in the future. 
  1870.  
  1871. But again, right now, you know, as they're still looking for missing people, I understand the sensitivity around the issue. And again, first and foremost, I'm a parent and this is just heartbreaking. And no parent wants to have to think that this could happen when their kid goes to camp. So lawmakers should get serious about resources. We put in place.
  1872.  
  1873. BOLDUAN: Congressman, thank you very much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
  1874. </description>
  1875.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 4:25 PM</pubDate>
  1876.    <dc:creator>Lucas Escala</dc:creator>
  1877.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289759</guid>
  1878.    </item>
  1879. <item>
  1880.  <title>Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment</title>
  1881.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brent-baker/2025/07/09/washington-examiners-liberal-media-scream-mrcs-assessment</link>
  1882.  <description> 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).
  1883.  
  1884. This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2025.
  1885.  
  1886. &gt; 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:
  1887.  
  1888. &gt; 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.)
  1889.  
  1890.  
  1891.  
  1892. 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.
  1893.  
  1894. (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.)
  1895.  
  1896.  
  1897.  
  1898. ■ New on July 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos blames downpour deaths on Trump
  1899.  
  1900. 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.
  1901.  
  1902.  
  1903.  
  1904. ■ June 30, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS embraces socialist Mamdani, calls GOP criticism ‘hateful’
  1905.  
  1906. (Washington Examiner post)
  1907.  
  1908.  
  1909. PBS is doubling down on its leftist bias that has drawn President Donald Trump’s support for defunding the taxpayer-supported service, this time embracing New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani while ripping GOP criticism of the self-declared socialist as “disgusting” and “hateful.”
  1910.  
  1911. While some liberal politicians are disowning Mamdani for his extreme positions, the support by Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour is this week’s featured Liberal Media Scream because it flies in the face of a promise to provide “intelligent, balanced” reporting.
  1912.  
  1913. On Friday, News Hour didn’t feature the candidate’s left-wing promises to defund police and provide freebies to residents, but instead condemned the conservative reaction to him.
  1914.  
  1915. Said featured liberal commentator Jonathan Capehart, “I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting.”
  1916.  
  1917. From Friday’s PBS News Hour:
  1918.  
  1919. NEWS HOUR HOST AMNA NAWAZ: I got to ask you both, too, about Tuesday night’s events in New York City, the Democratic mayoral primary contest the entire country was paying attention to when Zohran Mamdani, who was a little-known state assemblyman, went on to beat the former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s 33 years old, he’s a self-described Democratic socialist, and his win, we should point out, has really fueled a hateful response from some on the Right. There’s a major MAGA voice named Charlie Kirk, who posted this: ‘24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.’”
  1920.  
  1921. Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles actually called for Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, to be denaturalized and deported. Jonathan, what does Mamdani’s win tell us about Democrats and their message, if anything, and what does the response tell us about Republicans and theirs?
  1922.  
  1923. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the response, I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting. It also tells me that Republicans are deathly afraid of their prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. Especially if they’re going after a guy who just simply won the primary in a municipal election. The other thing folks need to understand, the reputation of New York City is of a liberal bastion, and it’s a city where there’s a six-to-one Democratic registration advantage over Republicans. And yet this city, that has a reputation of being a liberal bastion, elected Rudy Giuliani twice and Mike Bloomberg three times, the first time as a Republican, the next two times as an independent. And so, what I take from Mamdani’s win, above all else, is that he went out there and asked New Yorkers for their votes. He did not do a Rose Garden strategy. He asked people for their votes, and he gave them something to vote for, and that’s the thing Democrats should emulate. Ask people for their votes.
  1924.  
  1925.  
  1926.  
  1927.  
  1928.  
  1929. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “In pleading for donations in the wake of the effort to end taxpayer funding of PBS, the News Hour website ludicrously claims ‘your gift supports America’s #1 most trusted news source in providing intelligent, balanced and in-depth reporting.’ This coverage of Mamdani is just the latest proof of the hollowness of that promise, a pledge PBS has never made any genuine effort to provide. Where’s the balance in ignoring the elephant in the room of Mamdani’s extremist views while treating conservative reaction to him as the most important event that must be condemned?”
  1930.  
  1931. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
  1932.  
  1933.  
  1934.  
  1935.  
  1936. ■ June 23, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Feckless Margaret Brennan thinks she’s secretary of state
  1937.  
  1938. (Washington Examiner post)
  1939.  
  1940.  
  1941. 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!”
  1942.  
  1943. 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.
  1944.  
  1945. “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.
  1946.  
  1947. 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.”
  1948.  
  1949. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:
  1950.  
  1951. 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?
  1952.  
  1953. 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.
  1954.  
  1955. BRENNAN: No, but that is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that.
  1956.  
  1957. RUBIO: No, it’s not.
  1958.  
  1959. BRENNAN: Yes, it was.
  1960.  
  1961. RUBIO: No, it’s not.
  1962.  
  1963. BRENNAN: That the political decision had not been made.
  1964.  
  1965. RUBIO: No, I know — well, I know that better than you know that. And I know that that’s not the case.
  1966.  
  1967. BRENNAN: But I’m asking you whether the order was given.
  1968.  
  1969. 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?
  1970.  
  1971. BRENNAN: Right.
  1972.  
  1973. 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.
  1974.  
  1975. 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.
  1976.  
  1977. RUBIO: How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? How do you know what the intelligence assessment says?
  1978.  
  1979. 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.
  1980.  
  1981. 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.
  1982.  
  1983.  
  1984.  
  1985.  
  1986.  
  1987. 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.”
  1988.  
  1989. Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
  1990.  
  1991.  
  1992.  
  1993.  
  1994. ■ June 16, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS sees Trump ‘suspending elections’
  1995.  
  1996. (Washington Examiner post)
  1997.  
  1998.  
  1999. 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.
  2000.  
  2001. 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.”
  2002.  
  2003. 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.”
  2004.  
  2005. 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.”
  2006.  
  2007. “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?”
  2008.  
  2009. Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour:
  2010.  
  2011. 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.
  2012.  
  2013. 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.
  2014.  
  2015. 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.
  2016.  
  2017.  
  2018.  
  2019.  
  2020.  
  2021. 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.”
  2022.  
  2023. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
  2024.  
  2025.  
  2026.  
  2027.  
  2028. ■ June 9, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Pompous Pelley warns America ‘is doomed’
  2029.  
  2030. (Washington Examiner post)
  2031.  
  2032.  
  2033. Just when we thought CBS’s Scott Pelley couldn’t get any more pompous, he proved us wrong — again.
  2034.  
  2035. 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.”
  2036.  
  2037. 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.”
  2038.  
  2039. 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.
  2040.  
  2041. 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:
  2042.  
  2043. ANDERSON COOPER: Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists?
  2044.  
  2045. 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.
  2046.  
  2047. 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.
  2048.  
  2049. COOPER: What is your message to people about, who have just watched this, and are worried?
  2050.  
  2051. 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.
  2052.  
  2053.  
  2054.  
  2055.  
  2056.  
  2057.  
  2058. 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.”
  2059.  
  2060. Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
  2061.  
  2062.  
  2063.  
  2064.  
  2065. ■ June 2, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos tries to top Pelley with his Trump hate
  2066.  
  2067. (Washington Examiner post)
  2068.  
  2069.  
  2070. 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?
  2071.  
  2072. 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.
  2073.  
  2074. 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.”
  2075.  
  2076. 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.
  2077.  
  2078. 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.
  2079.  
  2080. For his hypocrisy, Stephanopoulos’s rant is our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
  2081.  
  2082. Stephanopoulos on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, with the quoted text displayed on screen:
  2083.  
  2084. “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.
  2085.  
  2086. “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.’”
  2087.  
  2088.  
  2089.  
  2090.  
  2091.  
  2092. 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.”
  2093.  
  2094. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
  2095.  
  2096.  
  2097.  
  2098.  
  2099. ■ May 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Trump ‘dictator’ to bow before
  2100.  
  2101. (Washington Examiner post)
  2102.  
  2103.  
  2104. 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.
  2105.  
  2106. 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.”
  2107.  
  2108. 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.
  2109.  
  2110. 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.”
  2111.  
  2112. Dean Obeidallah, during the noon hour on Saturday of Velshi on MSNBC:
  2113.  
  2114. 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.”
  2115.  
  2116. 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.”
  2117.  
  2118. 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.
  2119.  
  2120. 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.
  2121.  
  2122.  
  2123.  
  2124.  
  2125.  
  2126. 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.”
  2127.  
  2128. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
  2129.  
  2130.  
  2131.  
  2132.  
  2133. ■ May 19, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric calls news objectivity ‘old fashioned’
  2134.  
  2135. (Washington Examiner post)
  2136.  
  2137.  
  2138. 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.
  2139.  
  2140. 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.
  2141.  
  2142. 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.
  2143.  
  2144. That, and her slam on conservatives for calling out bias in liberal media “fact-checking,” make Couric our Liberal Media Scream of the Week.
  2145.  
  2146. 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:
  2147.  
  2148. “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?“
  2149.  
  2150. “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.“
  2151.  
  2152. “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?”
  2153.  
  2154.  
  2155.  
  2156.  
  2157.  
  2158. 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.”
  2159.  
  2160. Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
  2161.  
  2162.  
  2163.  
  2164.  
  2165. ■ May 12, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC prays Pope Leo XIV will ‘counter’ Trump
  2166.  
  2167. (Washington Examiner post)
  2168.  
  2169.  
  2170. 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.
  2171.  
  2172. 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.
  2173.  
  2174. ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz, our pick for the Liberal Media Scream of the week, led that prayer group last week.
  2175.  
  2176. Raddatz used her hosting duties in Rome for This Week as a platform to ask her guests how Leo will challenge the president.
  2177.  
  2178. “Will he be a counterbalance for what’s happening in American politics right now in President Trump?” she asked the archbishop of Chicago.
  2179.  
  2180. 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?”
  2181.  
  2182. 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]?”
  2183.  
  2184. 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.”
  2185.  
  2186. From ABC’s This Week on Sunday:
  2187.  
  2188. 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?
  2189.  
  2190. …..
  2191.  
  2192. 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?
  2193.  
  2194. …..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?
  2195.  
  2196. 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.
  2197.  
  2198. 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.
  2199.  
  2200.  
  2201.  
  2202.  
  2203.  
  2204. 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.”
  2205.  
  2206. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
  2207.  
  2208.  
  2209.  
  2210.  
  2211. ■ May 5, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Pompous’ media on public TV’s dole rip Trump cuts
  2212.  
  2213. (Washington Examiner post)
  2214.  
  2215.  
  2216. 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.
  2217.  
  2218. But that is exactly what happened over the weekend, making it our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
  2219.  
  2220. 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.”
  2221.  
  2222. 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.”
  2223.  
  2224. 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.”
  2225.  
  2226. Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour:
  2227.  
  2228. 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.
  2229.  
  2230. 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.
  2231.  
  2232. 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.
  2233.  
  2234.  
  2235.  
  2236.  
  2237.  
  2238. 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.”
  2239.  
  2240. Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
  2241.  
  2242.  
  2243.  
  2244.  
  2245. ■ April 28: No Liberal Media Scream this week
  2246.  
  2247.  
  2248.  
  2249. ■ April 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Chris Matthews returns more unhinged than ever
  2250.  
  2251. (Washington Examiner post)
  2252.  
  2253.  
  2254. 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.
  2255.  
  2256. After about five years on the sidelines, former Hardball host Chris Matthews is reviving his show on Substack.
  2257.  
  2258. 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.
  2259.  
  2260. 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.
  2261.  
  2262. “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.”
  2263.  
  2264.  
  2265.  
  2266.  
  2267.  
  2268. 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.”
  2269.  
  2270. From Jim Acosta’s video show Friday for Substack:
  2271.  
  2272. 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.
  2273.  
  2274. CHRIS MATTHEWS: I got a nasty one for you.
  2275.  
  2276. ACOSTA: Okay, well, good, I’m just wondering, I mean—”
  2277.  
  2278. MATTHEWS: What did Hitler do? What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries.
  2279.  
  2280. ACOSTA: Yeah.
  2281.  
  2282. 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.
  2283.  
  2284. 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?
  2285.  
  2286. MATTHEWS: Well, it gets them out of the country.
  2287.  
  2288.  
  2289.  
  2290.  
  2291.  
  2292. 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.”
  2293.  
  2294. Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
  2295.  
  2296.  
  2297.  
  2298.  
  2299. ■ April 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Media eat their own and rip Bill Maher for dining with Trump
  2300.  
  2301. (Washington Examiner post)
  2302.  
  2303.  
  2304. 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.
  2305.  
  2306. 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.
  2307.  
  2308. 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.
  2309.  
  2310. But some in the media weren’t happy that the two met.
  2311.  
  2312. 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.”
  2313.  
  2314. From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
  2315.  
  2316. 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?
  2317.  
  2318. 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.
  2319.  
  2320. BILL MAHER: You don’t have to patronize me, dude —
  2321.  
  2322. ROGIN: OK. Fair enough.
  2323.  
  2324. MAHER: I don’t know you, I never met you, not everybody has to like it.
  2325.  
  2326. ROGIN: I’m just saying that this comes from a place of love. All I’m saying —
  2327.  
  2328. 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.
  2329.  
  2330. ROGIN: No, no.
  2331.  
  2332. MAHER: Did you hear what I said?
  2333.  
  2334. ROGIN: Yeah.
  2335.  
  2336. MAHER: What is the alternative to not talking? Just sitting at your lunch table and don’t talk to anybody?
  2337.  
  2338. ROGIN: I’ve talked to him, I’ve interviewed Trump. Piers has interviewed Trump.
  2339.  
  2340. MAHER: This was not an interview. This was not an interview.
  2341.  
  2342. 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.
  2343.  
  2344. 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.
  2345.  
  2346. 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 —
  2347.  
  2348. 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.
  2349.  
  2350. ROGIN: It’s not a judgment, but it’s a little bit of a judgment.
  2351.  
  2352.  
  2353.  
  2354.  
  2355.  
  2356. 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.”
  2357.  
  2358. Rating: FOUR out of five screams.
  2359.  
  2360.  
  2361.  
  2362.  
  2363. ■ April 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN cheers X-rated comic dumped by press corps
  2364.  
  2365. (Washington Examiner post)
  2366.  
  2367.  
  2368. 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.
  2369.  
  2370. 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.
  2371.  
  2372. 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.”
  2373.  
  2374. She said, “I lost the gig because I was out here talking s***.”
  2375.  
  2376. From Saturday’s airing of Have I Got News For You on CNN:
  2377.  
  2378. 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?
  2379.  
  2380. 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.
  2381.  
  2382.  
  2383.  
  2384.  
  2385.  
  2386. 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.”
  2387.  
  2388. Rating: FIVE out of five screams
  2389.  
  2390.  
  2391.  
  2392.  
  2393. ■ March 31, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Trump has made Bob Woodward deranged
  2394.  
  2395. (Washington Examiner post)
  2396.  
  2397.  
  2398. 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.
  2399.  
  2400. 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?
  2401.  
  2402. “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.
  2403.  
  2404. For that, he wins this week’s Liberal Media Scream with five out of five screams.
  2405.  
  2406. 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:
  2407.  
  2408. 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.
  2409.  
  2410. 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?
  2411.  
  2412. 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.
  2413.  
  2414.  
  2415.  
  2416.  
  2417.  
  2418. 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.’”
  2419.  
  2420. Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
  2421.  
  2422.  
  2423.  
  2424.  
  2425. ■ March 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: All TDS on PBS as centrist calls Trump an ‘extortionist’
  2426.  
  2427. (Washington Examiner post)
  2428.  
  2429.  
  2430. 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.
  2431.  
  2432. In focus is the nightly PBS News Hour program that regularly features guests critical of Trump.
  2433.  
  2434. 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.
  2435.  
  2436. “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.
  2437.  
  2438. 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.
  2439.  
  2440. From Friday’s PBS News Hour:
  2441.  
  2442. 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?
  2443.  
  2444. 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.
  2445.  
  2446. 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.
  2447.  
  2448. NAWAZ: David?
  2449.  
  2450. 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.
  2451.  
  2452. 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.
  2453.  
  2454. 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.
  2455.  
  2456. 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.
  2457.  
  2458.  
  2459.  
  2460.  
  2461.  
  2462. 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.”
  2463.  
  2464. Rating: FOUR out of five screams
  2465.  
  2466.  
  2467.  
  2468.  
  2469. ■ March 17, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: NBC urges harsher Trump hate by Democrats
  2470.  
  2471. (Washington Examiner post)
  2472.  
  2473.  
  2474. 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.
  2475.  
  2476. 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.
  2477.  
  2478. “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.
  2479.  
  2480. “Another missed opportunity,” said MSNBC senior Washington correspondent Eugene Daniels, who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
  2481.  
  2482. From Sunday’s Meet the Press on NBC:
  2483.  
  2484. 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?
  2485.  
  2486. 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.
  2487.  
  2488. …..
  2489.  
  2490. 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.
  2491.  
  2492. 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.
  2493.  
  2494. WELKER: You’re saying another missed opportunity for Democrats. Shocking!
  2495.  
  2496. DANIELS: Another missed opportunity to get on the same —
  2497.  
  2498. BELCHER, DANIELS: Shocking that the Democrats are bad on messaging!
  2499.  
  2500. 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.
  2501.  
  2502.  
  2503.  
  2504.  
  2505.  
  2506. 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.”
  2507.  
  2508. Rating: Four out of five screams.
  2509.  
  2510.  
  2511.  
  2512.  
  2513. ■ March 10, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Sunny Hostin tells Democrats fight or ‘people will die’
  2514.  
  2515. (Washington Examiner post)
  2516.  
  2517.  
  2518. 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.
  2519.  
  2520. 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.
  2521.  
  2522. 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.
  2523.  
  2524. As a result, we give her outburst a rare five-scream trophy.
  2525.  
  2526. The View on Friday:
  2527.  
  2528. JOY BEHAR: Ten Democrats voted to censure Green.
  2529.  
  2530. SUNNY HOSTIN: Do you want a list of the 10?
  2531.  
  2532. BEHAR: Do you want to hear their names?
  2533.  
  2534. HOSTIN: Yes, I do.
  2535.  
  2536. BEHAR: Why go after them too? Go after the Republicans.
  2537.  
  2538. 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!
  2539.  
  2540. BEHAR: And also, I might point out some of them are from the most liberal states like New York, Hawaii, California.
  2541.  
  2542. HOSTIN: They should be ashamed of themselves! They should have all walked out with him!
  2543.  
  2544.  
  2545.  
  2546.  
  2547.  
  2548. 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.”
  2549.  
  2550. Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
  2551.  
  2552.  
  2553.  
  2554.  
  2555. ■ March 3, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS twists Trump press pool diversity as ‘sinister’
  2556.  
  2557. (Washington Examiner post)
  2558.  
  2559.  
  2560. 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.
  2561.  
  2562. 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.
  2563.  
  2564. 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.
  2565.  
  2566. 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.
  2567.  
  2568. 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.
  2569.  
  2570. 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.
  2571.  
  2572. From Friday’s PBS News Hour:
  2573.  
  2574. 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.
  2575.  
  2576. 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.
  2577.  
  2578.  
  2579.  
  2580.  
  2581.  
  2582. 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.”
  2583.  
  2584. Rating: Three out of five screams.
  2585.  
  2586.  
  2587.  
  2588.  
  2589. ■ February 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Mike Johnson cuts off CBS bedwetting
  2590.  
  2591. (Washington Examiner post)
  2592.  
  2593.  
  2594. 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.
  2595.  
  2596. 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.
  2597.  
  2598. “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.”
  2599.  
  2600. Now, he added, “that term, constitutional crisis, is back.”
  2601.  
  2602. 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.
  2603.  
  2604. “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.
  2605.  
  2606. From CBS News Sunday Morning:
  2607.  
  2608. 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.
  2609.  
  2610. 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.
  2611. 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.
  2612.  
  2613. 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.
  2614.  
  2615. COSTA: The tensions brought a certain phrase to the fore of the American conversation.
  2616.  
  2617. JOHN CHANCELLOR, NBC ANCHOR, OCT. 20, 1973: The country in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history.
  2618.  
  2619. COSTA: Now that term, ‘constitutional crisis,’ is back.
  2620.  
  2621. JULIAN CASTRO, former House Democrat from Texas: We’re headed toward a constitutional crisis.
  2622.  
  2623. U.S. SENATOR ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): We’re fast barreling toward a constitutional crisis.
  2624.  
  2625. COSTA: Many Democrats are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump’s use of executive power.
  2626.  
  2627. U.S. REP. SEAN CASTEN (D-ILL): The actions that Musk and his IT goons have taken, they’re illegal.
  2628.  
  2629. 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.
  2630.  
  2631. SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I have been asked so many times, aren’t you uncomfortable with this? No. I’m not.
  2632.  
  2633. 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.
  2634.  
  2635.  
  2636.  
  2637.  
  2638.  
  2639. 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.”
  2640.  
  2641. Rating: Four out of five screams.
  2642.  
  2643.  
  2644.  
  2645.  
  2646. ■ February 17, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Scott Pelley, now TV’s top Trump hater
  2647.  
  2648. (Washington Examiner post)
  2649.  
  2650.  
  2651. 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.
  2652.  
  2653. 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.”
  2654.  
  2655. However, other than gnawing down his reading glasses, Pelley had no impact. All of Trump’s picks to get a Senate floor vote won.
  2656.  
  2657. 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.
  2658.  
  2659. 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.
  2660.  
  2661. From the lead story on Sunday’s 60 Minutes:
  2662.  
  2663. 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.
  2664.  
  2665. 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.
  2666.  
  2667. 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.
  2668.  
  2669. 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…
  2670.  
  2671. …
  2672.  
  2673. 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.
  2674.  
  2675. 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.
  2676.  
  2677. 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.
  2678.  
  2679. PELLEY TO NATSIOS: How do you view this moment in history?
  2680.  
  2681. 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.
  2682.  
  2683. PELLEY: Is the constitutional order breaking down?
  2684.  
  2685. 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.
  2686.  
  2687. PELLEY: What happens then?
  2688.  
  2689. NATSIOS: Well, I don’t know.
  2690.  
  2691. PELLEY: No one knows.
  2692.  
  2693. NATSIOS: No one knows.
  2694.  
  2695.  
  2696.  
  2697.  
  2698.  
  2699. 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.”
  2700.  
  2701. Rating: Five out of five screams.
  2702.  
  2703.  
  2704.  
  2705.  
  2706. ■ February 10, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS airs extreme TDS, ‘starvation,’ ‘death’
  2707.  
  2708. (Washington Examiner post)
  2709.  
  2710.  
  2711. 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.
  2712.  
  2713. 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.”
  2714.  
  2715. 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.”
  2716.  
  2717. 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.
  2718.  
  2719. From the February 7 edition of Washington Week with The Atlantic on PBS:
  2720.  
  2721. 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.”…
  2722.  
  2723. 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.
  2724.  
  2725.  
  2726.  
  2727.  
  2728.  
  2729. 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.”
  2730.  
  2731. Rating: Five out of five screams.
  2732.  
  2733.  
  2734.  
  2735.  
  2736. ■ February 3, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Call on MSNBC for weekly Trump impeachment votes
  2737.  
  2738. (Washington Examiner post)
  2739.  
  2740.  
  2741. Have you heard this one? Democrats want to impeach President Donald Trump.
  2742.  
  2743. This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a SiriusXM host demanding on left-leaning MSNBC that Democrats vote to impeach Trump weekly.
  2744.  
  2745. “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.
  2746.  
  2747. “Donald Trump was eligible for impeachment one minute into his inaugural address,” he said.
  2748.  
  2749. “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.
  2750.  
  2751. 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.
  2752.  
  2753. 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:
  2754.  
  2755. 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. …
  2756.  
  2757. 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.
  2758.  
  2759. 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.
  2760.  
  2761. 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.”
  2762.  
  2763.  
  2764.  
  2765.  
  2766.  
  2767. 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?”
  2768.  
  2769. Rating: Five out of five screams.
  2770.  
  2771.  
  2772.  
  2773.  
  2774. ■ January 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Vance schools CBS and bishops on illegal immigration
  2775.  
  2776. (Washington Examiner post)
  2777.  
  2778.  
  2779. America is learning pretty quickly that Vice President JD Vance is no pushover easily cornered on tough issues.
  2780.  
  2781. 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.
  2782.  
  2783. 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.
  2784.  
  2785. 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.
  2786.  
  2787. 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.”
  2788.  
  2789. 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?”
  2790.  
  2791. 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.
  2792.  
  2793. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:
  2794.  
  2795. 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?
  2796.  
  2797. 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.
  2798.  
  2799. 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.
  2800.  
  2801. BRENNAN: So, you personally support them going into schools and churches?
  2802.  
  2803. 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 —
  2804.  
  2805. BRENNAN: Of course.
  2806.  
  2807. VANCE: — to go and get that person out.
  2808.  
  2809. BRENNAN: Of course.
  2810.  
  2811. VANCE: So, then what’s the point of the question?
  2812.  
  2813. 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.
  2814.  
  2815. VANCE: Exactly. We empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere to protect Americans.
  2816.  
  2817. BRENNAN: But that also has a knock-on effect, a chilling effect, arguably, to people to not send their kids to school.
  2818.  
  2819. VANCE: I desperately hope it has a chilling effect —
  2820.  
  2821. BRENNAN: In the churches …
  2822.  
  2823. VANCE: — on illegal immigrants coming into our country.
  2824.  
  2825. BRENNAN: You think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are actively hiding criminals from law enforcement?
  2826.  
  2827. 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.
  2828.  
  2829.  
  2830.  
  2831.  
  2832.  
  2833. 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.”
  2834.  
  2835. Rating: Four out of five screams.
  2836.  
  2837.  
  2838.  
  2839.  
  2840. ■ January 19, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CBS sucks up to Biden to the end: ‘Did deliver’
  2841.  
  2842. (Washington Examiner post)
  2843.  
  2844.  
  2845. 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.
  2846.  
  2847. “In many ways,” CBS chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes said, “he did deliver.”
  2848.  
  2849. 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.
  2850.  
  2851. From CBS News Sunday Morning:
  2852.  
  2853. 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.
  2854.  
  2855. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The duty of a president is to defend what is best about America.
  2856.  
  2857. CORDES: He did so while racking up major legislative victories, including massive new investments in clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing.
  2858.  
  2859. BIDEN: I believe, to my core, there isn’t a single thing this country cannot do when we put our mind to it.
  2860.  
  2861. CORDES: And he scored a win that eluded his predecessors: signing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
  2862.  
  2863.  
  2864.  
  2865.  
  2866.  
  2867. 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.”
  2868.  
  2869. Rating: Four out of five screams.
  2870.  
  2871.  
  2872.  
  2873.  
  2874. ■ January 13, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS delights that Trump will forever be a ‘convicted felon’
  2875.  
  2876. (Washington Examiner post)
  2877.  
  2878.  
  2879. 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.
  2880.  
  2881. 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.
  2882.  
  2883. 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.
  2884.  
  2885. 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.”
  2886.  
  2887. From Friday’s PBS NewsHour:
  2888.  
  2889. 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.
  2890.  
  2891. 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.
  2892.  
  2893. 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.
  2894.  
  2895. 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.
  2896.  
  2897. 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.
  2898.  
  2899.  
  2900.  
  2901.  
  2902.  
  2903. 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.”
  2904.  
  2905. Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.
  2906.  
  2907.  
  2908.  
  2909.  
  2910. ■ January 6, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC the sole #Joementia denier
  2911.  
  2912. (Washington Examiner post)
  2913.  
  2914.  
  2915. 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.
  2916.  
  2917. 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.
  2918.  
  2919. “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.”
  2920.  
  2921. From Sunday’s Meet the Press:
  2922.  
  2923. 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?”
  2924.  
  2925. 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.
  2926.  
  2927. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: But it’s not true that the president doesn’t have the mental acuity.
  2928.  
  2929. SHORT: Of course it is, Symone. The American people saw that for themselves in the debate—
  2930.  
  2931. 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.
  2932.  
  2933.  
  2934.  
  2935.  
  2936.  
  2937. 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.”
  2938.  
  2939. Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.
  2940.  
  2941.  
  2942.  
  2943.  
  2944. &gt; Liberal Media Screams for 2023 and 2024
  2945.  
  2946. &gt; Liberal Media Screams for 2021 and 2022
  2947.  
  2948. &gt; For all of 2020.
  2949.  
  2950. &gt; For all of 2019.
  2951.  
  2952. &gt; For all of 2018.
  2953.  
  2954. &gt; For July through December 2017.
  2955.  
  2956. &gt; For January through June 2017.
  2957.  
  2958. &gt; For July through December 2016.
  2959.  
  2960. &gt; For January through June 2016.
  2961.  
  2962. &gt; For July to December 2015.
  2963.  
  2964.  </description>
  2965.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 3:52 PM</pubDate>
  2966.    <dc:creator>Brent Baker</dc:creator>
  2967.    <guid isPermaLink="false">288260</guid>
  2968.    </item>
  2969. <item>
  2970.  <title>Without Evidence, ABC News Hosts Hint Trump Is on Epstein Client List</title>
  2971.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/09/without-evidence-abc-news-hosts-hint-trump-epstein-client</link>
  2972.  <description> Only after Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that there was no client list linked to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, which divided elements of America’s political right, did ABC’s The View really care enough to talk about it. Of course, they used it as an opportunity to smear their favorite hate object: President Donald Trump. Far-left ABC News co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin used part of Wednesday’s episode to suggest, without evidence, that Trump was on the client list.
  2973.  
  2974. With moderator Whoopi Goldberg teeing the segment out to mock and further drive divisions within the MAGA coalition, Hostin was the first to hint that Trump was involved in Epstein’s pedophile ring:
  2975.  
  2976.  
  2977. HOSTIN: I'm not saying that this indicates that Trump had any involvement in Epstein's crime, but there are videos of Trump with Epstein, there are pictures with Trump with Epstein.
  2978.  
  2979. JOY BEHAR: Photographs.
  2980.  
  2981. HOSTIN: He was on flight logs of Epstein's plane. I think seven times, all of that has been widely reported and all of a sudden, he doesn't want to talk about Epstein and his friend is a creep or his colleague.
  2982.  
  2983.  
  2984. “I don’t know. Not colleague. I don't know what to say,” she added.
  2985.  
  2986. Behar followed up by showing off her own rhetorical conspiracy theory corkboard and telling the audience “you guys do the math”:
  2987.  
  2988.  
  2989. He calls him a creep in this particular video. By the way, he seems very defensive to me in this particular thing. But besides that, in 2020 - 2002, he told New York magazine, Trump, ‘I've known Jeff for 15 years, terrific guy,’ he said. ‘He's a lot of fun to be with. It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side.’ Okay, that's Trump. That's trump in 2002. Today, he calls him a creep. You guys do the math! Okay?
  2990.  
  2991.  
  2992.  
  2993.  
  2994.  
  2995.  
  2996.  
  2997.  
  2998.  
  2999.  
  3000. This kind of guilt by association wasn't employed against former President Bill Clinton when he was on The View in June. He too had some sort of friendship with Epstein.
  3001.  
  3002. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin pushed back by noting that, “It's been widely reported that he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago years after that. That’s documented. Before he was in political life before people had strong feelings about Donald Trump.”
  3003.  
  3004. “Yeah. That’s why I don’t want to call him a friend or colleague. Maybe they had a falling out,” Hostin agreed.
  3005.  
  3006. Upset with Trump’s frustration with a reporter asking him about the list ahead of a major cabinet meeting, co-host Sara Haines bristled:
  3007.  
  3008.  
  3009. And when Donald Trump asks, ‘why do people still care about Epstein?’ There have been problems with pedophilia for years in different institutions. When you even watch The Keepers on Netflix it was proven it was men in power, doctors, police officers, people with money, people in the government that were part of it, which is why it was covered up and these victims were double victimized and never found.
  3010.  
  3011.  
  3012. “So, people like me care not because I care who is on -- I don't believe there's a list. I don't care who it is, we need to uncover this abuse of power in this continued victimization of young people,” she declared.
  3013.  
  3014. Goldberg seemingly wanted to add something herself, given the grimace on her face, she stopped herself and went to a commercial break.
  3015.  
  3016. There was no legal note after they leveled their accusations against Trump.
  3017.  
  3018. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  3019.  
  3020.  
  3021. ABC’s The View
  3022. July 9, 2025
  3023. 11:19:28 a.m. Eastern
  3024.  
  3025. (…)
  3026.  
  3027. SUNNY HOSTIN: Trump saying, ‘why are we still talking about Epstein?’ He talked about Epstein endlessly!
  3028.  
  3029. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Endlessly. Well, that was my point.
  3030.  
  3031. HOSTIN: Not to mention, I'm not saying that this indicates that Trump had any involvement in Epstein's crime, but there are videos of Trump with Epstein, there are pictures with Trump with Epstein.
  3032.  
  3033. JOY BEHAR: Photographs.
  3034.  
  3035. HOSTIN: He was on flight logs of Epstein's plane. I think seven times, all of that has been widely reported and all of a sudden, he doesn't want to talk about Epstein and his friend is a creep or his colleague
  3036.  
  3037. BEHAR: That's my point.
  3038.  
  3039. HOSTIN: I don’t know. Not colleague. I don't know what to say.
  3040.  
  3041. BEHAR: He calls him a creep in this particular video. By the way, he seems very defensive to me in this particular thing. But besides that, in 2020 - 2002, he told New York magazine, Trump, ‘I've known Jeff for 15 years, terrific guy,’ he said. ‘He's a lot of fun to be with. It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side.’ Okay, that's Trump. That's trump in 2002. Today, he calls him a creep. You guys do the math! Okay?
  3042.  
  3043. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: It's been widely reported that he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago years after that. That’s documented. Before he was in political life before people had strong feelings about Donald Trump.
  3044.  
  3045. HOSTIN: Yeah. That’s why I don’t want to call him a friend or colleague. Maybe they had a falling out.
  3046.  
  3047. SARA HAINES: And when Donald Trump asks, ‘why do people still care about Epstein?’ There have been problems with pedophilia for years in different institutions. When you even watch The Keepers on Netflix it was proven it was men in power, doctors, police officers, people with money, people in the government that were part of it, which is why it was covered up and these victims were double victimized and never found.
  3048.  
  3049. So, people like me care not because I care who is on -- I don't believe there's a list. I don't care who it is, we need to uncover this abuse of power in this continued victimization of young people.
  3050.  
  3051. [Applause]
  3052.  
  3053. GOLDBERG: We'll be right back.
  3054. </description>
  3055.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 1:52 PM</pubDate>
  3056.    <dc:creator>Nicholas Fondacaro</dc:creator>
  3057.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289777</guid>
  3058.    </item>
  3059. <item>
  3060.  <title>UNHINGED Former MSNBC Host Compares Alligator Alcatraz to Auschwitz </title>
  3061.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/09/unhinged-former-msnbc-host-compares-alligator-alcatraz-auschwitz</link>
  3062.  <description>Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross delivered an unhinged rant on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, also known as “Thunderdome” around these parts, wherein she compared ICE detention facilities to concentration camps. To be more precise, she was ALLOWED to deliver her rant with no pushback whatsoever. 
  3063.  
  3064. Watch the entire rant in its full context (click “expand” to view transcript):
  3065.  
  3066.  
  3067. WATCH: former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross delivered an insane rant to Kelly Jane Torrance of the NY Post on immigration, making multiple comparisons of ICE detention facilities to CONCENTRATION CAMPS and accusing the admin of "disappearing" people. This as Antifa tries to lure ICE… pic.twitter.com/ZCtzH3U3N4
  3068. — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 9, 2025
  3069.  
  3070. CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP
  3071.  
  3072. 7/8/25
  3073.  
  3074. 10:36 PM
  3075.  
  3076. ABBY PHILLIP: I guess what I'm saying, like, if you show up at a park and all you see are kids, why would you go forward with the operation? And the people that you, maybe they were, I don't know, they haven't actually said, to your point, they've said virtually nothing about this. The ICE spokesperson told CNN the agency is not commenting on ongoing operations. We don't know if they were looking for someone. We don't know if they arrested anybody. But clearly, whoever they were looking for, there was no one there but kids.
  3077.  
  3078. TIFFANY CROSS: I think this is the challenge I have with even talking about this. We are normalizing a government agency disappearing people. We are normalizing, we're talking about it like it's no big deal that they are kidnapping people and transporting them to concentration camps, both domestic and foreign.
  3079.  
  3080. KELLY JANE TORRANCE: I find that- I think that's kind of insulting to Jewish Holocaust survivors. 
  3081.  
  3082. CROSS: I think it’s insulting what they’re doing. It is not insulting to Jewish -- I find it insulting that you could even fix your mouth to defend this disgusting behavior.
  3083.  
  3084. TORRANCE: Are there gas ovens at these camps? 
  3085.  
  3086. CROSS: It doesn't matter. It's a concentration camp what they're doing. And they are disappearing people claiming that these are people who have committed the most harsh crimes. But according to the reporting, less than 10 percent of these people have committed harsh crimes. So to do the Victim Olympics and decide who had it worse, I can tell you, I can participate in that too. And everybody who says, oh, this is not the America I know, I can guarantee you it is the America I know.
  3087.  
  3088. TORRANCE: Let's be absolutely honest. 
  3089.  
  3090. CROSS: The fact that we're presenting this like it's political fodder that a government agency is disappearing people, it is not a political point. It has nothing to do with Jewish people because despite the fact that 20 percent of immigrants in this country are white, we do not see white people getting carted off to concentration camps. So if we can just focus on the most people, the people who are harmed the most by this and not make yourself or somebody else the center of attention when that's not who's being impacted by this -- 
  3091.  
  3092. TORRANCE: I'm not Jewish, but I'm saying that kind of language--
  3093.  
  3094. CROSS: -- or anyone else, the center of attention, they don't heighten using that kind of language. I think it's not because this BS administration is kidnapping people. It has nothing to do with my language. It has to do with the actions that are being taken by this administration. 
  3095.  
  3096. TORRANCE: And how many people have been disappeared that you've never heard from again? And we don't know anything about them or where they've gone.
  3097.  
  3098. (CROSSTALK)
  3099.  
  3100. CROSS: Thousands of people are never heard about them. Where they're going.
  3101.  
  3102. (CROSSTALK)
  3103.  
  3104. CROSS: Are you a reporter? Are you not a reporter? Yes. Thousands of people, thousands of people 
  3105.  
  3106. TORRANCE: -- in El Salvadoran prisons who, you know -- 
  3107.  
  3108. CROSS: I'm sorry. I just want to be clear. Are you defending what's happening? 
  3109.  
  3110. TORRANCE: I am not defending. I'm saying let's be accurate about what's happening. 
  3111.  
  3112. CROSS: I'm being very accurate. And it is very disgusting what this administration is doing. And ten, five, six months, 20 years from now, I hope that you can look back at this very clip and realize that you are on the wrong side of history. If you're trying to remotely defend what's happening, there are fathers, mothers and young people who are being carted off to concentration camps. And less than 10 percent of these people have committed any sort of violent crime. They are coming up, people whose kids are in school, they are never to see their family again.
  3113.  
  3114.  
  3115. The context within which this happened was a conversation about the presence of ICE officers and National Guard members at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California, which appeared to trigger mayor Karen Bass. As usual, liberal framing demands that immigration enforcement operations be cast in the worst possible light- legitimate government function as authoritarian excess. And then Cross opens her mouth.
  3116.  
  3117. Where to even begin? Cross accuses the government of disappearing people (not a peep when the Biden administration LITERALLY DISAPPEARED close to 300,000 kids but it’s (D)ifferent), of “transporting them” to “concentration camps”, indignantly says this is not offensive to Jews, doubles and triples down on the claim with Nazi-evocative language while chiding Kelly Jane Torrance of The New York Post about being on the right side of history.
  3118.  
  3119. To be clear, that such unhinged dribble would fly out of Tiffany Cross’s mouth comes as a surprise to no one. The crack about the “Victim Olympics” was on par with the kind of stuff she’d say while hosting her MSNBC weekend show. 
  3120.  
  3121. The issue here is that Abby Philip let Cross rant unchecked and uninterrupted for almost three minutes. Compare that to her lightning interruptions of Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton or any other conservative guest when they begin to say something even remotely contrary to whatever the progressive consensus is on any given issue. Compare that also to her ref stoppages whenever any of the liberal panelists is in the process of being wrecked by the aforementioned conservatives. 
  3122.  
  3123. Cross is who she is. The issue here is the double standard, without which there’d be none at all.
  3124.  
  3125.  </description>
  3126.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 1:50 PM</pubDate>
  3127.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  3128.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289778</guid>
  3129.    </item>
  3130. <item>
  3131.  <title>PBS Mourns Defunding of Planned Parenthood, Anniversary of Roe's Demise</title>
  3132.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/09/pbs-mourns-defunding-planned-parenthood-anniversary-roes-demise</link>
  3133.  <description>PBS is not only lamenting that its federal funding could be cut; it is also now lamenting that Planned Parenthood’s funding has been eliminated. On Tuesday’s Amanpour and Company, guest host Bianna Golodryga and New York Times reporter Caroline Kitchener lamented not only the GOP’s Planned Parenthood decision but also the three-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade’s demise.
  3134.  
  3135. Golodryga began, “Let's start with Planned Parenthood, because as we've covered for so many years now, it does more than just provide abortion care. Obviously, it provides a great deal of non-abortion services for women and family planning. Can you spell out what it means for the average viewer here who doesn't quite understand what happens if Medicaid funding is stripped?”
  3136.  
  3137.  
  3138.  
  3139.  
  3140.  
  3141.  
  3142.  
  3143.  
  3144.  
  3145. Kitchener simply repeated Planned Parenthood’s line, “Planned Parenthood says that it serves about a million women a year who have Medicaid. And, you know, as we know, Medicaid cannot cover abortions, but it can cover the wide array of other services that Planned Parenthood provides. So, things like birth control, Plan B, things like cancer screenings, and STD testing.”
  3146.  
  3147. She further repeated, “What Planned Parenthood is saying is that without this funding, approximately one-third of its clinics, 600 clinics total Planned Parenthood has, so one-third of those are at risk of closing. So, you have abortion rights advocates here talking about this as a, you know, quote, 'backdoor abortion ban,' because so many clinics will be forced to shutter.”
  3148.  
  3149. Planned Parenthood claims to love choice, so it now has a choice: it can do cancer screenings, or it can do abortions, but lest anyone think that PBS is only talking about abortion in the context of rape, incest, or medical emergencies, Golordyga later recalled:
  3150.  
  3151. Well, it has just been over three years now since Roe was overturned. You won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the impact of that decision over that course of time. And you wrote a widely read piece about a Texas teenager who wanted an abortion, who couldn't get one, and ultimately ended up having twins. Just talk to us about some of the real-life stories and the impact of this legislative rollback that it's had on the country.
  3152.  
  3153.  
  3154.  
  3155.  
  3156.  
  3157.  
  3158.  
  3159.  
  3160.  
  3161. Kitchener replied, “I think the impact is enormous, and we are just beginning to see what that looks like. I mean, you know, that young woman that I followed, you know, I'm still in touch with her and she now, you know, she has twin baby girls. I think they're, you know, and they're not babies anymore. They're three years old. And you know, she is living a life completely different than the one that she thought she would be living.”
  3162.  
  3163. In that article, her profile of Brooke Alexander shows a complicated figure. On one hand, she is portrayed as someone who supports abortion rights and a teenager who wanted an abortion out of nothing but convenience but couldn’t get one. There is plenty of discourse on the loss of freedom and assumption of responsibilities that come with not being a parent for both Brooke and her now husband, Billy. However, she is also shown being grateful her twins were born, ‘“Who’s to say what I would have done if the law wasn’t in effect?’ she said. ‘I don’t want to think about it… It’s really scary thinking that I wouldn’t have them.’”
  3164.  
  3165. PBS didn’t touch on the part of Brooke’s story where she shutters at the idea of the twins not being alive. Instead, Kitchener lamented, “We know that there are certainly, you know, many women out there who have become mothers when they were not intending to be, largely because of these bans. But even beyond that, you know, there are a lot of, you know, varied experiences that people have had because of these bans.”
  3166.  
  3167. Kitchener further decried:
  3168.  
  3169.  
  3170. They are scared that, you know, something might happen to them, and they don't want to go to the hospital. You know, right now, I think it's important to say that women cannot get arrested for having an abortion under the current abortion laws. But I think the overarching point is that there is so much fear around this procedure right now, especially in those states with bans. 
  3171.  
  3172.  
  3173. While Golodryga intended Kitchener’s segment to be a solemn lament on the state of abortion in America, it was actually a promotion for taxpayer-subsidized abortion providence on taxpayer-subsidized TV in the name of convenience.
  3174.  
  3175. Here is a transcript for the June 8 show:
  3176.  
  3177.  
  3178. PBS Amanpour and Company
  3179.  
  3180. 7/8/2025
  3181.  
  3182. BIANNA GOLODRYGA: So, let's start with Planned Parenthood, because as we've covered for so many years now, it does more than just provide abortion care. Obviously, it provides a great deal of non-abortion services for women and family planning. Can you spell out what it means for the average viewer here who doesn't quite understand what happens if Medicaid funding is stripped?
  3183.  
  3184. CAROLINE KITCHENER: Well, Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider and this strips Planned Parenthood of federal funding. So, you know, Planned Parenthood says that it serves about a million women a year who have Medicaid. And, you know, as we know, Medicaid cannot cover abortions, but it can cover the wide array of other services that Planned Parenthood provides. So, things like birth control, Plan B, things like cancer screenings, and STD testing.
  3185.  
  3186. And what Planned Parenthood is saying is that without this funding, approximately one-third of its clinics, 600 clinics total Planned Parenthood has, so one-third of those are at risk of closing. So, you have abortion rights advocates here talking about this as a, you know, quote, "backdoor abortion ban,” because so many clinics will be forced to shutter.
  3187.  
  3188. …
  3189.  
  3190. GOLODRYGA: Well, it has just been over three years now since Roe was overturned. You won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the impact of that decision over that course of time. And you wrote a widely read piece about a Texas teenager who wanted an abortion, who couldn't get one, and ultimately ended up having twins. Just talk to us about some of the real-life stories and the impact of this legislative rollback that it's had on the country.
  3191.  
  3192. KITCHENER: I mean, I think the impact is enormous, and we are just beginning to see what that looks like. I mean, you know, that young woman that I followed, you know, I'm still in touch with her and she now, you know, she has twin baby girls. I think they're, you know, and they're not babies anymore. They're three years old. And you know, she is living a life completely different than the one that she thought she would be living.
  3193.  
  3194. But beyond her and beyond that situation, I mean, we know that there are certainly, you know, many women out there who have become mothers when they were not intending to be, largely because of these bans. But even beyond that, you know, there are a lot of, you know, varied experiences that people have had because of these bans.
  3195.  
  3196. I've talked to a lot of women who have, you know, were intent that they would get an abortion, even if they were in states with bans and they have, you know, ordered pills online and they have been scared because, you know, they — while that medication is, as we've said, safe and effective, they are scared that they're going to get arrested. They are scared that, you know, something might happen to them, and they don't want to go to the hospital.
  3197.  
  3198. You know, right now, I think it's important to say that women cannot get arrested for having an abortion under the current abortion laws. But I think the overarching point is that there is so much fear around this procedure right now, especially in those states with bans. 
  3199. </description>
  3200.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 1:18 PM</pubDate>
  3201.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  3202.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289775</guid>
  3203.    </item>
  3204. <item>
  3205.  <title>Editor’s Pick: Free Beacon Shares Op-Ed From Meteorologist Taking Down TX Flooding Bias</title>
  3206.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/09/editors-pick-free-beacon-shares-op-ed-meteorologist-taking-down-tx</link>
  3207.  <description>The great people at the Washington Free Beacon published an outstanding and illuminating column Wednesday morning from Chris Martz, a recent meteorology graduate whose viral X posts have come to serve as must-reads when combating the rampant liberal bias and misinformation surrounding last weekend’s apocalyptic Texas Hill Country floods.
  3208.  
  3209. First, here were a few of his viral posts that calmly laid out the facts, thoroughly dismantling every claim after claim and explaining in part the National Weather Service did its job. Worse yet, it was a uniquely awful event as it occurred in the middle of the night:
  3210.  
  3211.  
  3212.  
  3213.  
  3214.  
  3215.  
  3216.  
  3217.  
  3218.  
  3219.  
  3220.  
  3221.  
  3222.  
  3223.  
  3224.  
  3225.  
  3226.  
  3227.  
  3228.  
  3229.  
  3230.  
  3231.  
  3232.  
  3233.  
  3234.  
  3235. In “I’m a Young Meteorologist Who Questioned the Idea of Man-Made Climate Change. The Climate Zealots Wanted Me Punished, Silenced, and Expelled,” Martz began with an anecdote about his interactions following these viral posts:
  3236.  
  3237.  
  3238. Over the weekend, Sam Zeff, a reporter for KCUR, Kansas City’s NPR affiliate, told me over X that "you wasted your money on your degree."
  3239.  
  3240. I am a recent college graduate with a degree in meteorology. Zeff was replying to my post on social media, pointing out that he, and other climate activists, were ignoring basic scientific facts when they blamed man-made climate change for the tragic flooding in Texas. The truth is that the rainfall and flooding along the Guadalupe River were not historically unprecedented and had little, if anything, to do with climate change. Neither heavy rainfall nor river flooding has increased in the Texas Hill Country over the last six decades.
  3241.  
  3242.  
  3243. He correctly stated the truth that last week’s floods were “a reminder of the importance of meteorology and accurate science when it comes to understanding the weather” and thus “no time for politics or finger-pointing from either the left or the right.”
  3244.  
  3245. Martz shared how he’s taken down conspiracy theories on both extremes:
  3246.  
  3247.  
  3248. As a trained meteorologist with a passion for truth, I can authoritatively tell folks on the right that the floods were not caused by cloud seeding or "chemtrails." Yet, when I also try to explain the data to social media users on the left, showing them that there is no evidence climate change caused or exacerbated the Texas floods, the conversations quickly devolve into insults or even threats.
  3249.  
  3250. Indeed, taunts from people like the NPR reporter who mocked my education have become sadly familiar.
  3251.  
  3252.  
  3253. The rest of his piece explained his journey through meteorology in college at Lancaster County, Pennsylvania’s own Millersville University, which included online harassment for his social media presence and refusal to go along with the far-left climate mob.
  3254.  
  3255. Unfortunately, the blowback wasn’t only directed at him:
  3256.  
  3257.  
  3258. Throughout college, university officials were tagged in X comments from (mostly) anonymous accounts, pressuring them to kick me out of school. What’s more, my professors received emails almost weekly from attackers saying that I was a disgrace to the meteorology program and should be punished for spreading supposed "misinformation." Other critics would grab personal photos from my family’s social media accounts to decorate their posts denouncing me.
  3259. </description>
  3260.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 12:41 PM</pubDate>
  3261.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  3262.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289774</guid>
  3263.    </item>
  3264. <item>
  3265.  <title>Associated Press Deems USA Responsible For Condoms in Liberia</title>
  3266.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/09/associated-press-deems-usa-responsible-condoms-liberia</link>
  3267.  <description>On Tuesday, the Associated Press published an article detailing the “abrupt end” to USAID support to people in Liberia not being able to gain access to contraceptives. The AP used cherry-picked and one-sided narratives to paint the Trump administration as monsters.
  3268.  
  3269. The article started with a woman named Roseline Phay, a 32-year-old farmer who has two daughters and was “determined not to have more children.” In search of contraceptives, Phay “trekked for hours” to find condoms had run out at the local clinic. 
  3270.  
  3271. Bong County, where Phay lived, was no stranger to logistical shortcomings due to its rural location in the center of Liberia. These shortcomings date long before USAID cuts and were even experienced while USAID was at full funding during the Ebola crisis. 
  3272. AP spun the narrative that the sole responsibility of Liberia’s access to contraceptives fell strictly on the United States and USAID. They failed to give the narrative that these failures also fall on the Liberian government’s ability to protect their citizens. For example, AP published an article in February that showed Liberia’s president suspended over 450 government officials for failing to declare their assets.
  3273.  
  3274. The United States had been funding aid for over six decades. From 2014 to 2023, the U.S. sent an average of $527.6 million taxpayer dollars to Liberia per year. We made up 2.6 percent of their GDP. Despite all of this funding, the percentage of women estimated to have unmet needs for contraceptives has stayed at 29-27 percent since 2012. This measurement report showed that USAID had not been as effective as AP wanted people to believe.
  3275.  
  3276. Perhaps, instead of giving out aid with no end in sight, the administration deemed it more responsible to teach Liberia how to make their own condoms. Liberia currently boasts a significant rubber latex industry, but lacks domestic processing capabilities to make the liquid latex into contraceptives. 
  3277.  
  3278. 60 percent of Liberia’s population lives below the poverty line, despite decades of aid, suggesting inefficiencies that justify the administration's right to reevaluate. Under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, USAID was swapped out in favor of a department that relies on trade and sustainable development over handouts and never ending charity. 
  3279.  
  3280. Former USAID Administrator under Biden, Samantha Power, told Congress herself that only 10.5 percent of funding from USAID went to local partners. 
  3281.  
  3282. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce cited the new changes to aid make it more efficient, effective, and nimble. She claimed that foreign assistance for each specific region will sit with the bureau assigned to it as opposed to a massive agency. Citing that there was nothing to be proud of when 90 percent of aid wasn’t going to where it was promised.
  3283.  
  3284. The Associated Press also receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation.</description>
  3285.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 12:38 PM</pubDate>
  3286.    <dc:creator>Matthew Seck</dc:creator>
  3287.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289755</guid>
  3288.    </item>
  3289. <item>
  3290.  <title>Meta AI’s ROE-bot Sides with Pro-Aborts Again After Wisconsin Ruling</title>
  3291.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/jonah-messinger/2025/07/09/meta-ais-roe-bot-sides-pro-aborts-again-after</link>
  3292.  <description> Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta AI once again sided with those in favor of abortion, applauding a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that ruled that an 1849 ban on abortion is no longer applicable nor enforceable due to the state’s more recent legislation. 
  3293.  
  3294. Meta AI spouted anti-pro-life sentiments in response to MRC queries, refusing to display even an ounce of objectivity. The chatbot only viewed the ruling positively, citing that it “reaffirm[ed] … abortion access” in a direct attempt to “address[] the ‘devastating impact’ of the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.” It further deemed the state Supreme Court’s ruling on the abortion law case Kaul v. Urmanski a “net positive” because it would “uphold[] modern abortion laws.”
  3295.  
  3296. Meta AI only mentioned the pro-life perspective in a short quip, which labeled pro-life advocates “anti-abortion” — a term used primarily by abortion activists attempting to reduce the pro-life movement to one issue. It also ignored other ways the ruling could have received condemnation, including its politicization of the courts and judicial overreach. 
  3297.  
  3298. The Wisconsin Court ruled in a 4-3 decision —  reflecting the personal, ideological sentiments of the justices —  that more recent legislation “impliedly repealed [Wis. Stat.] § 940.04(1)” an 1849 law that specified that “[a]ny person, other than the mother, who intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child is guilty of a Class H felony.” The Court argued that Roe made the law unenforceable, leading to decades of the Wisconsin legislature creating new laws allowing and limiting abortion in various capacities.
  3299.  
  3300. MRC researchers additionally asked five other major AI chatbots —  OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, China’s DeepSeek, Google’s Gemini and xAI’s Grok — the same question: “Do you see the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling in Kaul v. Urmanski, 2025 WI 32 as a net positive or a net negative?”
  3301.  
  3302. While its bias was tamer than Meta AI's answer, ChatGPT also failed to even-handedly explain both perspectives. OpenAI’s chatbot labeled the ruling “profoundly stabilizing for abortion access in Wisconsin,” and repeated a quote from the state’s Attorney General Josh Kaul, asserting that it “ensures women aren’t ‘denied autonomy and freedom.’” As ChatGPT has done in previous searches, the AI chatbot regurgitated leftist talking points. In this instance, ChatGPT equated abortion with “essential reproductive healthcare,” a mere euphemism for abortion. 
  3303.  
  3304. Unlike ChatGPT and Grok, which both used “pro-life” to characterize people who want to protect the unborn, Meta AI and DeepSeek used the negatively-connotated term “anti-abortion.” On the contrary, Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot remained far more tight-lipped, opting to provide responses void of mentioning either label. 
  3305.  
  3306. Similarly, Copilot, Deepseek, Gemini and Grok more clearly identified and described the pro-life perspective. X owner Elon Musk’s Grok produced the most neutral response, refusing to parrot liberal talking points and letting the individual determine their personal perspective.
  3307.  
  3308. Meta AI’s continued stance against the rights of the unborn came just days after MRC researchers exposed the AI chatbot for similarly siding with abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court provided a ruling implicitly allowing states to bar Medicaid recipients from receiving care at abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, aptly prompting the Meta AI chatbot to deem the ruling a “net negative” that inflicted a “setback for reproductive rights.”
  3309.  
  3310. Broader Context of Kaul v. Urmanski Case
  3311.  
  3312. In Kaul v. Urmanski, Attorney General Kaul and District Attorney Joel Urmanski debated the enforceability of Wisconsin's 1849 ban on abortion, given the overturning of Roe and the body of abortion legislation the state has developed over the last 50 years. 
  3313.  
  3314. Justice Rebecca Dallet, who wrote the majority opinion striking down the abortion ban, claimed that more recent legislation on the matter “so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion.” 
  3315.  
  3316. Dissenting Justices Annette Kingsland Ziegler and Rebecca Grassl Bradley rebuked their recently elected colleague Justice Janet Protasiewicz for her obvious contempt for the abortion ban. Ziegler noted that while running for Wisconsin Supreme Court, Protasiewicz called the 1849 law “‘draconian’ and decried the idea that the law might stay in place.” Bradley added that during Protasiewicz's campaign, she effectively “declared her support for abortion and her disdain for the law she now overturns.”
  3317.  
  3318. Methodology: On the morning of July 3rd, 2025, the day after the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Kaul v. Urmanski, MRC researchers prompted six AI chatbots with a question regarding the ruling. MRC researchers prompted the Meta AI, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok, Microsoft’s Copilot and Communist Chinese government-tied DeepSeek with the following question: “Do you see the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ruling in Kaul v. Urmanski, 2025 WI 32 as a net positive or a net negative?” MRC researchers then compared and analyzed the responses generated by each AI chatbot, being careful to note potential biases and spin. 
  3319.  
  3320. 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.</description>
  3321.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 11:17 AM</pubDate>
  3322.    <dc:creator>Jonah Messinger</dc:creator>
  3323.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289773</guid>
  3324.    </item>
  3325. <item>
  3326.  <title>The Hidden Cost of Union Power: Rich Contracts and Layoffs Down the Road</title>
  3327.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/john-stossel/2025/07/09/hidden-cost-union-power-rich-contracts-and-layoffs-down-road</link>
  3328.  <description>Progressives love unions.
  3329.  
  3330. Not only do unions protect workers, they say, unions gave us the weekend and the middle class.
  3331.  
  3332. I say, capitalism created the middle class. Employers, competing for better workers, gave us the weekend.
  3333.  
  3334. But whatever you think about capitalism, few people question the claim that unions help workers.
  3335.  
  3336. But I will. It’s the focus of my new video.
  3337.  
  3338. A couple years ago, the Teamsters demanded more pay from UPS. Seemed like UPS could easily afford it. The company made almost $13 billion in 2021.
  3339.  
  3340. UPS used some of that money to hire more union workers. Then they offered them raises.
  3341.  
  3342. But Teamster boss Sean O’Brien wanted more. He threatened a strike.
  3343.  
  3344. UPS gave in.
  3345.  
  3346. MSNBC called that “collective bargaining at its finest!”
  3347.  
  3348. Today, full-time drivers make $170,000 a year.
  3349.  
  3350. Good for them -- for those who still have jobs.
  3351.  
  3352. But paying for the new Teamster contract meant UPS wasn’t as competitive as before. They raised some prices and lost business to other shippers.
  3353.  
  3354. Profit dropped.
  3355.  
  3356. In 2024, UPS laid off 12,000 workers. The next year, 20,000.
  3357.  
  3358. It wasn’t just the wage hikes; it’s also the work rules.
  3359.  
  3360. The Teamsters agreement includes hundreds of pages -- limits on subcontracting, bans on employees working long hours, etc. ... many of which made it hard for a company to adapt and cut costs.
  3361.  
  3362. “These headline-grabbing union deals are delivering short-run sugar highs with long-run hangovers,” says Mercatus Center economist Lily Palagashvili, “UPS is just one example of this.”
  3363.  
  3364. Another was Yellow Corp -- once one of the largest freight carriers in America.
  3365.  
  3366. Then the Teamsters threatened to strike, demanding faster payments of healthcare and pension benefits.
  3367.  
  3368. The company warned that a strike could bankrupt it.
  3369.  
  3370. But O’Brien kept pushing, saying, “The company has two more days to fulfill its obligations, or we will strike. Teamsters at Yellow are furious and ready to act!”
  3371.  
  3372. Yellow gave in. The strike was averted.
  3373.  
  3374. Days later ... the trucking company shut down for good.
  3375.  
  3376. Thirty thousand people lost their jobs.
  3377.  
  3378. Asked if he felt responsible for the lost jobs, O’Brien said, “No, not at all ... they were so mismanaged.”
  3379.  
  3380. “That’s true,” says Palagashvili. “(Yellow Corp) was having a lot of financial issues. But if you’re on the verge of collapse, the last thing you need is a Teamsters Labor Union contract that says you have to increase labor costs. Yellow is basically covered in gasoline, and Sean O’Brien comes and lights the match.”
  3381.  
  3382. Meanwhile, union leadership help themselves. The Teamsters now brag that they have $1 billion in assets. Sean O’Brien pays himself more than $430,000 per year.
  3383.  
  3384. The same year Yellow went bankrupt, United Auto Workers went on strike against Stellantis, the company that owns Chrysler. Stellantis gave in, giving the UAW a pay raise and promising to open a new plant.
  3385.  
  3386. But then Stellantis started laying off workers: 1,340 during the strike and 2,450 more the next year.
  3387.  
  3388. In 2024, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers walked off the job demanding better pay from Boeing. Boeing gave in.
  3389.  
  3390. One month later, Boeing announced a 10% workforce cut.
  3391.  
  3392. When I grew up, Midwestern states were called the “Steel Belt.” Now they’re called the “Rust Belt.”
  3393.  
  3394. The media blame, “Free trade!” and, “Globalization!” On social media, people say, “Foreigners took our jobs.”
  3395.  
  3396. But Palagashvili says, “It wasn’t trade that killed the Rust Belt. It was labor unions. Unions in the Rust Belt were striking. Companies said, ‘Higher labor costs, tons of strikes, productivity isn’t going up, we’re going to relocate,’ and they did.”
  3397.  
  3398. Unions help some workers. But they hurt many more.</description>
  3399.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 10:55 AM</pubDate>
  3400.    <dc:creator>John Stossel</dc:creator>
  3401.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289771</guid>
  3402.    </item>
  3403. <item>
  3404.  <title>Undeterred by Facts, Media Blame Trump for TX Flood Deaths</title>
  3405.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2025/07/09/undeterred-facts-media-blame-trump-tx-flood-deaths</link>
  3406.  <description> Whenever a natural disaster occurs while a Republican is president, corporate media concern trolling soon follows. So it was with the horrific flooding in Texas over the 4th of July weekend; as soon as the news reached the newsrooms, the talking heads and teleprompter pilots rushed to google to determine which Trump-era executive action they could most convincingly blame for the tragedy.
  3407.  
  3408. First, some context: 
  3409. The National Weather Service (NWS) has stated publicly that its offices in both Austin and San Antonio had “adequate staffing and resources” to issue warnings to affected Texas residents. On Thursday afternoon, July 3, they issued a flood watch, which was followed by a second rain warning an hour later. Shortly after midnight, in the early morning hours of July 4, the NWS issued a flash flood warning to 30,000 people.
  3410.  
  3411. All of that is to say, no federal- or state-level NWS official has indicated in any way that they were short funds, short-staffed, or short anything else they might need to adequately warn Texas residents of a potential flash flood.  But of course, this didn’t stop the corporate media from trying to blame the disaster on the Trump administration’s budget cuts. 
  3412.  
  3413. Surprisingly, though, most of them actually recalibrated their reporting on the flash flood after the NWS made the above information public. Only CNN, whose anchors and reporters alike had been gleefully pointing fingers from the outset, remained steadfast in its assertions that, no, Trump and DOGE actually were (probably) somehow still at fault:
  3414.  
  3415.  
  3416.  
  3417.  
  3418.  
  3419.  
  3420.  
  3421. Facts first, as always.</description>
  3422.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 10:45 AM</pubDate>
  3423.    <dc:creator>Bill D'Agostino</dc:creator>
  3424.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289770</guid>
  3425.    </item>
  3426. <item>
  3427.  <title>AI Race Continues: Policy Pursuits to Avoid as Tech Lunges Forward</title>
  3428.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/michael-morris/2025/07/09/ai-race-continues-policy-pursuits-avoid-tech-lunges</link>
  3429.  <description> As artificial intelligence development races on toward the unknown, the known for AI—whether it be rampant leftist political bias, hallucinations or outright censorship—continues to show a concerning trend of negative externalities for users.
  3430.  
  3431. But the reasons to run, not walk, toward artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) are many: massive economic, strategic and societal advantages; national security risks and global dominance concerns; and overall efficiencies in scientific progress, among others.
  3432.  
  3433. Thus, global tech firms are continuing to race. As they do, there are important policy pursuits that should be avoided going forward. Below is a non-exhaustive list of recent flashpoints in tech development policy that could rear their heads again in the not-so-distant future:
  3434.  
  3435. Moratoriums on State AI legislation
  3436.  
  3437.  
  3438. The U.S. House passed a 10-Year moratorium on AI legislation by states. One key argument for this policy was to make sure that America does not lag behind other nations in the AI arms race, keeping U.S. adversaries like China in check. But what the 10-year moratorium didn’t do was allow states to protect their states’ citizens’ free speech liberties, like Texas and Florida have tried to do by passing anti-censorship laws in recent years. Instead, Big Tech would be empowered to continue the same sort of censorship it has wrought on Americans in the recent past with near impunity. If the COVID-19 era has taught conservatives anything, it should be that states must not be shackled by federal regulations or legislation that prevents them from protecting their constituents' freedoms. 
  3440.  
  3441. Senate Republicans attempted to pass a compromise on the 10-year moratorium via a five-year one-way ratchet amendment. For varying reasons, some seeking to protect children and others concerned with states’ rights and federalism, opposition to the 10-year moratorium emerged and a far worse, five-year one-way ratchet amendment was proposed in the waning hours before passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 
  3443. Under the proposed amendment, state statutes that prohibited censorship by AI companies — statutes the U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld — would be all but nullified. In the same fell swoop, state regulations that incentivize censorship, such as legislation pushed by leftist politicians in the state of New York or elsewhere, would remain. Thankfully, and at nearly the last possible moment, the five-year one-way ratchet amendment was also put to bed, albeit seemingly not for pro-free speech purposes.
  3444.  
  3445. But don’t be fooled, as Politico noted on July 2, the AI moratorium is likely to make its way back onto the scene. While it is possible that a provision exists that could thread the needle for the U.S. to outpace China while preserving states’ rights to prevent censorship, conservatives must be armed with information and ready to defend liberty in the event that legislation like the most recent iteration rears its head again. 
  3446.  
  3447. Censorship by Another Name 
  3448.  
  3449.  
  3450. Beware of efforts by well-intentioned people pushing “safety” and “age verification” laws, like the Senate Democrat version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). There are good ways and bad ways to provide an online environment that is safe for everyone, including for America’s kids, but using “safety” as a cudgel while leaving openings for censorship is not the way to go about it. The House version of KOSA does a much better job at striking such a balance. Instead of providing censorship loopholes, the House version stripped the controversial “duty of care” provisions pushed by Democrats in the Senate version of the bill. 
  3452. Similar to the Senate version of KOSA, some age verification laws across the country have a tendency to provide greater incentives for Big Tech to censor. As MRC President Emeritus Brent Bozell said about online censorship and child safety: “Protecting children is extremely important, but we should not fall into the trap of allowing Big Tech to censor us, which we know will happen on issues like gender ideology and abortion.”
  3453.  
  3454.  
  3455. X is adding AI to its (less-bad, but still not good) Community Notes censorship feature. In an X post last Tuesday, X CEO Linda Yaccarino bragged that the X platform would be “advancing the frontier again,” ushering in “‘AI Note Writers.’” As Fox News columnist David Marcus put it for MRC Free Speech America, Community Notes are “a crowdsourced alternative to professional fact-checking, and while some conservatives appear to like the results better, the warning labels are still a form of censorship, albeit by a different name.” Adding AI to the crowdsourced so-called fact checks on X, AI-created notes will be added to the mix if enough users rate them as “helpful” to the conversation, “accelerat[ing] the speed and scale of Community Notes.” 
  3457. If the free speech concerns with Community Notes were not immediately apparent, this new AI acceleration coupled with X owner Elon Musk’s and Yaccarino’s penchant for parroting former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s anti-free speech “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach” philosophy should make it more clear. As the saying goes: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? 
  3458.  
  3459. Avoiding Big Tech Antitrust Exemptions
  3460.  
  3461.  
  3462. Avoiding another iteration of the media cartel bill — this time with AI. Not so long ago, politicians on the left argued that in order to preserve free speech we had to squash it. In doing so, they pushed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2022. This “media cartel bill” would have created “a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for print, broadcast and digital news companies to allow news outlets to jointly negotiate payment terms for content distribution on social media,” as reported by MRC Free Speech America. Laudable as it was for the left to argue for an end to Big Tech cartels, this was a horrible attempt. As former MRC VP Dan Gainor simply put it: “Cartels are bad. Trying to fix one set of cartels by creating another set of cartels is a bad solution.”
  3464. And as if almost on queue, here they go again. The left, instead of outright calling for cartels, AI companies and legacy media appear to be recreating the same cartels — but this time by using AI. 
  3465.  
  3466. Using copyright as a blunt instrument to tie the hands of AI companies, the flailing legacy media are now pushing AI companies to enter into so-called licensing agreements. Such arrangements only serve to provide the left control over what Americans see and hear from AI large language models, or chatbots (Big Tech’s new search tool). 
  3467.  
  3468. Enter Trump AI Czar David Sacks to address the left’s AI copyright gambit. 
  3469.  
  3470. “[What] AI models do in pre-training is they take millions of texts, millions of documents and they understand the positional relationship of the words and they translate that into math, into a vector space called positional encoding. That is a transformation of the underlying work. In the same way that a human can read a body of works and then come up with their own point of view, that is basically what AI models are doing.”. 
  3471.  
  3472. Sacks went on to explain that AI companies need to be allowed to use as many sources as possible in training to be as robust and helpful as possible. Sacks said, “So, if AI models violate someone's copyright by outputting something that's identical, then, obviously, that's a violation, but if all they're doing is transforming the work, they're doing positional encoding and then coming up with their own unique work product. This judge [Alsup] said that that is not a violation of copyright.” 
  3473.  
  3474. And while Sacks argued thoughtfully about how placing too many restrictions on AI learning would weaken AI models, potentially making American companies fall behind China, he did not mention the disturbing Big Tech-legacy media trend toward “exclusivity contracts.” 
  3475.  
  3476. Some AI companies, most notably OpenAI, may be violating antitrust laws by signing what amount to exclusivity contracts with left-leaning publications like The Associated Press, The Washington Post, Axios, Time, Vox, The Atlantic and The Financial Times, among others.
  3477.  
  3478. The problem with such exclusivity contracts is plain: AI companies training their models on legacy media content, particularly if combined with restrictions preventing those same companies from training on other sources, means that AI models will provide biased, left-leaning responses (and citing to the legacy media sources on which they were trained). 
  3479.  
  3480. Conservatives may disagree on how to rein in Big Tech while beating China to the punch on AI, but all can agree that safeguarding liberty, especially America’s first freedoms, must be top of mind in every policy pursuit.
  3481.  
  3482. 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.</description>
  3483.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 9:46 AM</pubDate>
  3484.    <dc:creator>Michael Morris</dc:creator>
  3485.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289767</guid>
  3486.    </item>
  3487. <item>
  3488.  <title>Anderson Smears Trump As a Racist And a Nazi</title>
  3489.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/09/anderson-smears-trump-racist-and-nazi</link>
  3490.  <description>This week is Anthony Anderson’s annual trip to ABC to guest host Jimmy Kimmel Live! and no such week is complete without allegations of racism being hurled at Republicans. On Tuesday, Anderson not only rattled off several racist, including Nazi, inspired parody movies and TV shows for President Trump’s new streaming service but also took aim at the Big Beautiful Bill, claiming “the only bill that's [bleep] more young people is Belichick.”
  3491.  
  3492. Anderson announced that “Trump’s media company has just made their streaming platform, Truth+, available worldwide. They also announced that Truth+ will be the first streaming network to call BET+ the N-word.”
  3493.  
  3494.  
  3495.  
  3496.  
  3497.  
  3498.  
  3499.  
  3500.  
  3501.  
  3502. He continued, “In all fairness, I looked it up, and they do have some great shows on Truth+ like The Amazing Racist, Friday Night Whites, Third Reich From The Sun, Illegal Alien vs. Predator, The Search for OJ’s Gold, Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Roadkill Kitchen, Rupaul’s Normal Guys Dressed in Khakis Race, Dumb[Bleep] Dynasty, and White-ish.”
  3503.  
  3504. Anderson did something like this last year for the RNC where he listed a bunch of parody GOP rappers, including the Wu Klux Klan. He’s also been prone to call black Republicans Uncle Toms.
  3505.  
  3506. Moving on, Anderson teed up a clip of Trump, “You know, the show I really want to see is the one where Trump teaches kids new vocabulary words, like this lesson he dropped today while talking about the recent bombing in Iran.”
  3507.  
  3508. In the video, Trump said of the B-2s, “Those machines flew for 37 straight hours and didn't stop. They went skedaddle. You know the word skedaddle? I mean skedaddle.”
  3509.  
  3510. Anderson quipped, “Yes, we know the word 'skedaddle.' As in, we'd like to see you skedaddle your ass out of the White House.”
  3511.  
  3512. Shifting gears yet again, Anderson declared, “You know, Trump has been riding high after Congress passed his Big Beautiful Bill. Now, this bill gives $100 billion to ICE, kicks 17 million Americans off their health care, and cuts food assistance for kids. At this point, the only bill that's [bleep] more young people is Belichick.”
  3513.  
  3514. Bill Belichick is the 73-year old former head coach of the New England Patriots, who has a well-earned reputation of not being the warmest personality in front of a camera, and now has the same job at the University of North Carolina. His girlfriend, Jordan Hudson, is a 24-year old former cheerleader. The fact that Belichick is three times her age is only one part of the utterly bizarre nature of their relationship. What is also bizarre is how the late night comedy shows continue to rail against the Big Beautiful Bill’s Medicaid and food stamp reforms without any mention of work requirements.
  3515.  
  3516. Here is a transcript for the July 8 show:
  3517.  
  3518.  
  3519. ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
  3520.  
  3521. 7/8/2025
  3522.  
  3523. 11:39 PM ET
  3524.  
  3525. ANTHONY ANDERSON: Speaking of which, Trump’s media company has just made their streaming platform, Truth+, available worldwide. They also announced that Truth+ will be the first streaming network to call BET+ the N-word. 
  3526.  
  3527. In all fairness, I looked it up, and they do have some great shows on Truth+ like The Amazing Racist, Friday Night Whites, Third Reich From The Sun, Illegal Alien vs. Predator, The Search for OJ’s Gold, Dog The Bounty Hunter’s Roadkill Kitchen, Rupaul’s Normal Guys Dressed in Khakis Race, Dumb[Bleep] Dynasty, and White-ish.
  3528.  
  3529. That might be the only spinoff we didn't think of. You know, the show I really want to see is the one where Trump teaches kids new vocabulary words, like this lesson he dropped today while talking about the recent bombing in Iran.
  3530.  
  3531. DONALD TRUMP: Those machines flew for 37 straight hours and didn't stop. They went skedaddle. You know the word skedaddle? I mean skedaddle. 
  3532.  
  3533. ANDERSON: Yes, we know the word “skedaddle.” As in, we'd like to see you skedaddle your ass out of the White House. You know, Trump has been riding high after Congress passed his Big Beautiful Bill. Now, this bill gives $100 billion to ICE, kicks 17 million Americans off their health care, and cuts food assistance for kids. At this point, the only bill that's [bleep] more young people is Belichick. 
  3534. </description>
  3535.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 9:38 AM</pubDate>
  3536.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  3537.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289765</guid>
  3538.    </item>
  3539. <item>
  3540.  <title>Column: Networks Yawn at Mamdani's Fake Claims of Blackness</title>
  3541.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/09/column-networks-yawn-mamdanis-fake-claims-blackness</link>
  3542.  <description> On June 25, 33-year-old Democrat Zohran Mamdani became a new socialist sensation in the media when he won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. But when Republicans pounced on his radicalism, their journalistic instinct was to back away from the story.
  3543.  
  3544. In the seven days after his victory, ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS combined for 56 minutes and 26 seconds of air time discussing Mamdani — but only 85 seconds on any of his woke policy prescriptions. NBC spent 85 seconds on just one idea, taxing “whiter” neighborhoods. Instead, they presented him as a “charming” political upstart with fresh economic ideas about “affordability,” as if there’s anything fresh about socialism.
  3545.  
  3546. The surprise within the liberal media came on July 3, when The New York Times published a story revealing that when Mamdani was a high school senior in 2009, he applied to Columbia University and checked identity boxes for “Asian” – true, since his family is from India – and “Black,” which is a lie. Just like that Cherokee, Elizabeth Warren. When The Times asked him about it, Mamdani said he didn’t consider himself either Black or African American, but rather “an American who was born in Africa.”
  3547.  
  3548. People have made this joke about South African-born Elon Musk, and in 2004, about John Kerry’s wife Teresa, born in Mozambique. But that’s not “black.” The Times even soft-pedaled the lie in their online subhead: “He doesn’t consider himself Black but said the application didn’t allow for the complexity of his background.” Hiding behind “complexity” is not something “fact-based” outlets should admire.
  3549.  
  3550. Reporters Benjamin Ryan, Nicholas Fandos, and Dana Rubinstein played up the “complexity” argument: “Mr. Mamdani’s self-identification as both Black or African American and Asian on his application points to the heterogeneity of his background and upbringing as the child of Indian Ugandan and Indian American parents who brought him up in Uganda, South Africa and New York City.” Lying is excused by “heterogeneity.”
  3551.  
  3552. Even The Times delayed putting this scoop in the paper until Sunday, July 6, and then put it on page A-24 under the bland headline “Mamdani Faces Scrutiny Over College Application." To date, ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS haven’t found a minute for this story, or even half a minute.
  3553.  
  3554. NPR didn’t have it, but on All Things Considered on July 3 – the day of the Times scoop – anchor Juana Summers had an interview with Democrat Party chairman Ken Martin, suggesting the party elites got something wrong: “We just saw Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, win the New York mayoral primary over the establishment candidate, Andrew Cuomo. I'll just note that Mamdani did not have the Democratic Party's support. Does that win make you reconsider your strategy when it comes to backing establishment Democrats in the midterms?”
  3555.  
  3556. Martin said no, “my strategy has always been to support whoever our Democratic nominee is, right? And Mamdani is our Democratic nominee, and we will support him.” Martin proclaimed admiration for Mamdani staying “on message” about affordability, and insisted any Democrat is better than a Republican. Whether those Democrats lie to get ahead on college admission forms isn’t an issue, according to taxpayer-funded “public” radio.
  3557.  
  3558. The Times took so much heat from their leftist base that their “standards” editor Patrick Healy published a Twitter thread explaining how and why they reported what the Left called a “hit piece.” It underlined what the Left expects of their media outlets: blind partisan loyalty.
  3559.  
  3560. Inconvenient truths about Democrats should be buried. Facts that help Republicans should be dismissed. Lies about race aren’t really lies, they’re just “complexity.” </description>
  3561.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 5:52 AM</pubDate>
  3562.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  3563.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289761</guid>
  3564.    </item>
  3565. <item>
  3566.  <title>Legacy Newscasts Mostly SUPPRESS Antifa ICE Attack</title>
  3567.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/09/legacy-newscasts-mostly-suppress-antifa-ice-attack</link>
  3568.  <description>The recent attack on a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, Texas drew wide coverage across the broadcast dial. However, a more troubling attack has gone uncovered except for a brief on the CBS Evening News.
  3569.  
  3570. Watch the report in its entirety as aired on Tuesday, July 8th, 2025:
  3571.  
  3572.  
  3573. This brief on the CBS Evening News was the sole item on the Antifa attack against the ICE facility at Alvarado, TX across the legacy network newscasts (a full report streamed on CBSEN+). pic.twitter.com/478JBo5i3j
  3574. — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 9, 2025
  3575.  
  3576. MAURICE DuBOIS: Ten people are charged with attempted murder after allegedly staging an ambush at an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Investigators say some of the suspects lured officers outside by shooting fireworks at the building and painting graffiti. An officer was shot and is out of the hospital. Authorities are investigating whether the July 4th attack is linked to a shooting yesterday at a Border Patrol facility in McAllen, TX. 
  3577.  
  3578.  
  3579. Needless to say, the attack was much more complex than what could fit into CBS’s brief. Per the Department of Justice:
  3580.  
  3581.  
  3582. After approximately 10 minutes of convening, one or two individuals broke off from the main group and began to spray graffiti on vehicles and a guard structure in the parking lot at the facility.  An Alvarado police officer responded to the scene after correctional officers called 911 to report suspicious activity.  When the Alvarado police officer arrived, one alleged defendant positioned in nearby woods shot the officer in the neck area.  Another alleged assailant across the street fired 20 to 30 rounds at unarmed correctional officers who had stepped outside the facility.
  3583.  
  3584. As alleged in the complaint, AR-style rifles were found at the scene.  The assailants fled from the detention center but were stopped by additional law enforcement officers.  Some defendants were wearing body armor, some were armed, and some had two-way radios.  A total of twelve sets of body armor were found during searches of vehicles associated with the defendants, on their persons, and in the area around the Prairieland Detention Center.  
  3585.  
  3586. Additionally, officers found spray paint, flyers stating, “FIGHT ICE TERROR WITH CLASS WAR!” and “FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS,” and a flag stating, “RESIST FACISM – FIGHT OLIGARCHY.”  One of the alleged attackers had cell phones inside a “Faraday bag,” used to block phone signals and commonly used by criminal actors to try to prevent law enforcement from tracking their location.
  3587.  
  3588.  
  3589. The Alvarado police officer that was shot during this attack is expected to survive, and there is a remaining suspect in the wind. This attack was far more complex than was reported.
  3590.  
  3591. If there is anything to ding for this report, it is CBS's use of scare quotes for "ambush". This was, by definition, an ambush. But credit to CBS for airing the item to begin with. These 25 seconds shown on the Evening News are 25 seconds more than was shown on both ABC World News Tonight and on NBC Nightly News. The catastrophic Texas flood still dominated the evening news, and rightly so. But that is no excuse for not airing what could be reasonably described as an insurrection against the United States or, at minimum, aid and abettance of the invasion that happened over the preceding four years. 
  3592.  
  3593. ABC could not be bothered to air anything on the Alvarado attack. Not with Diddy’s judge setting an October sentencing date. Couldn’t bump that, no sir! 
  3594.  
  3595. NBC could’ve found the time but, alas, there was footage of a Michigan fireworks explosion to air. Furthermore, there was the urgent public safety matter of the liver damage caused by overconsumption of turmeric supplements, as well as the closure of European tourist attractions due to wildfires.
  3596.  
  3597. Antifa carried out an organized attack against an immigration operations center and the same media that caterwauled over January 6th was nowhere to be found. This is the state of today’s media.
  3598.  
  3599.  </description>
  3600.  <pubDate>July 9th, 2025 12:08 AM</pubDate>
  3601.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  3602.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289764</guid>
  3603.    </item>
  3604. <item>
  3605.  <title>'CBS Mornings Plus' Worried ICE Will Nab Illegals Out of Hospitals</title>
  3606.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/08/cbs-mornings-plus-worried-ice-will-nab-illegals-out-hospitals</link>
  3607.  <description>With Immigration and Customs Enforcement continuing nationwide arrests and deportations, the liberal media have hysterically cranked up the hysteria. On Tuesdays, CBS Mornings Plus, for example, they claimed some illegal immigrants are “avoiding health care” in fear of being arrested by ICE...as if that will suddenly stop ICE from upholding the law. 
  3608.  
  3609. The left-wing media want people to put illegal immigrants first by being empathic to their struggles. Co-host Tony Dokoupil began, “Now hospitals are preparing employees on what to do if ICE agents show up in the middle of care.” Does CBS think that ICE agents will show up in the middle of a heart surgery, and take the illegal immigrant being operated away?
  3610.  
  3611.  
  3612.  
  3613.  
  3614.  
  3615.  
  3616.  
  3617.  
  3618.  
  3619. Dokoupil asked CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder if the raids in hospitals have started yet or if it is fear circulating rumors, to which she claimed: 
  3620.  
  3621.  
  3622. As for official raids by ICE, that is still something we are waiting to see if we're going to have that happen. But we are seeing ICE agents in health care facilities. They are often bringing in people that they've detained for medical clearance. We see this often with law enforcement, but it is creating an atmosphere of fear. And my colleagues and I have had numerous patients tell us that they hesitated or waited too long to come in for health care. So, if you're talking about a heart attack, you're talking about heart muscle when you're delaying care. When you're talking about a stroke, you're talking about brain cells, when you're delaying care. So those delays really matter. 
  3623.  
  3624.  
  3625. Long story short, Gounder confirmed that ICE agents have not shown up at the hospitals, but they are “creating an atmosphere of fear.” Obviously, no one should have to be in fear about getting necessary medical treatment, but the liberal media twist the narrative towards the illegal immigrants rather than applauding the ICE agents.  
  3626.  
  3627. Another person who was covered in the segment was Hannah Janeway, an emergency medicine physician operating in different hospitals across Los Angeles, who stated: 
  3628.  
  3629.  
  3630. Many times they're arriving with ski masks and looking very intimidating to the general patient who you might find in the emergency department. This is affecting the overall health of the community because it's creating an atmosphere of fear in the emergency department instead of an atmosphere of wellness. 
  3631.  
  3632.  
  3633. Ironic that the person who advocated for “an atmosphere of wellness” goes by they/them pronouns and in 2018, co-founded Refugee Health Alliance at the U.S.-Mexico border, where the company believes in the "abolition of barriers” according to their website.  
  3634.  
  3635. So yes, CBS Mornings Plus chose a person who is against ICE agents and worked with illegal immigrants to cover this segment on health. No bias at all here.  
  3636.  
  3637. Gounder continued to empathically advocate for the illegal immigrants: 
  3638.  
  3639.  
  3640. Well, if you think about who has come here as an immigrant, many of them have faced real trauma in their home countries. It could be physical violence, sexual assault, any number of things. And so, this kind of really what feels like militarization of an emergency room can be very retraumatizing cause some very real mental health impacts. 
  3641.  
  3642.  
  3643. Again, why did CBS Morning Plus support the care of people who are in this country illegally rather than give respect to the ICE officers who put their lives on the line to protect the nation? Bring back news channels that tell the facts and do not twist the story to fit their narrative.  
  3644.  
  3645. Click here for the transcripts.
  3646.  
  3647.  
  3648. CBS Mornings Plus
  3649. 7/8/25
  3650. 9:34 a.m. Eastern
  3651.  
  3652. TONY DOKOUPIL: All right, time for today's health watch. As the Trump administration continues its push to detain undocumented migrants, some of them say they are avoiding health care, even necessary health care, out of fears over ICE raids. Well, now hospitals are preparing employees on what to do if ICE agents show up in the middle of care. Here to explain is CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder. She's also the editor at Large for Public Health at KFF. And Doctor Gounder joins us now. Thank you very much for joining us. Is [sic] this happened yet or is this just fears of this happening kind of the raids while care is being provided at a hospital?
  3653.  
  3654. CELINE GOUNDER: As for official raids by ICE, that is still something we are waiting to see if we're going to have that happen. But we are seeing ICE agents in health care facilities. They are often bringing in people that they've detained for medical clearance. We see this often with law enforcement, but it is creating an atmosphere of fear. And my colleagues and I have had numerous patients tell us that they hesitated or waited too long to come in for health care. So, if you're talking about a heart attack, you're talking about heart muscle when you're delaying care. When you're talking about a stroke, you're talking about brain cells, when you're delaying care. So those delays really matter.
  3655.  
  3656. JO LING KENT: You spoke with an emergency physician in Los Angeles, where I live, where ICE agents are bringing in detainees who need medical care. Let's listen to that.
  3657.  
  3658. [CLIP]
  3659.  
  3660. HANNAH JANEWAY [they/them pronouns]: Many times they're arriving with ski masks and looking very intimidating to the general patient who you might find in the emergency department. This is affecting the overall health of the community because it's creating an atmosphere of fear in the emergency department instead of an atmosphere of wellness.
  3661.  
  3662. [BACK TO LIVE]
  3663.  
  3664. KENT: So how else are you hearing ICE impacting patient care in L.A.?
  3665.  
  3666. GOUNDER: So that was Doctor Hannah Janeway. They are an emergency medicine physician working in a number of different hospitals in the Los Angeles area. Doctor Janeway told me that ICE agents have insisted on all kinds of, frankly, ethical violations. So not showing their identification, not identifying themselves, wearing a ski mask, along with green fatigues and a bulletproof vest in the E.R. while patients are being seen, not accommodating the need for patient privacy during an interview and examination, preventing doctors from contacting family for necessary medical information or preventing family from visiting, so these are really standard things that every patient should have the right to these kinds of provisions for good health care.
  3667.  
  3668. KENT: In addition to the physical health. I mean, what is the medium to long term impact on mental health of these patients with this kind of fear?
  3669.  
  3670. GOUNDER: Well, if you think about who has come here as an immigrant, many of them have faced real trauma in their home countries. It could be physical violence, sexual assault, any number of things. And so, this kind of really what feels like militarization of an emergency room can be very retraumatizing cause some very real mental health impacts. And we've heard of also even children and families being impacted by their older relatives not being able to seek care.
  3671.  
  3672. DOKOUPIL: What are the obligations of patients when they show up at the hospital? Do they have to show an I.D.? Do they have to identify themselves?
  3673.  
  3674. GOUNDER: No. So in fact, we have a quote, Jane Doe or John Doe on the emergency room board all the time. So, you know, if you pick up a homeless person on the street who needs medical care, they may not have an I.D. In fact, a lot of patients don't have an I.D. That's not who needs to be presenting I.D. It's if you're a law enforcement official coming into a hospital or health care facility, you need to be identifying yourself as such. You need to be showing your badge or your I.D., and that is -- you know, if you want to be going into patient, private patient areas. You also need to be showing a judicial warrant. And that is not being consistently done.
  3675.  
  3676. KENT: Do you expect to see quickly, you know, any ,,,pushback in the courts on this?
  3677.  
  3678. GOUNDER: Well, I think the problem is a lot of health care providers don't know what their rights are, and they need to be saying, you know, where's your I.D., where's your warrant, turning into risk management for advice in the hospital if they need that, and documenting thoroughly as we would in any complicated medical or legal situation, documenting those encounters thoroughly.
  3679.  
  3680. KENT: Doctor Celine Gounder, thank you so much for your reporting. We appreciate it. 
  3681. </description>
  3682.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 8:19 PM</pubDate>
  3683.    <dc:creator>Shannon Sauders</dc:creator>
  3684.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289760</guid>
  3685.    </item>
  3686. <item>
  3687.  <title>Maddow: Trump ‘Taking Action’ to ‘Lessen Our Readiness’ for Floods</title>
  3688.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ashley-taylor/2025/07/08/maddow-trump-taking-action-lessen-our-readiness-floods</link>
  3689.  <description>On Monday night's episode of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, viewers were treated to a familiar ritual in left-wing media: the exploitation of tragedy to advance a partisan agenda. This time, the devastating floods in Texas served not as a moment of national unity, but as a launchpad for attacking political opponents with science as the supposed casualty.
  3690.  
  3691. Maddow’s conversation with meteorologist Eric Holthaus was less an interview and more a political indictment dressed up as weather commentary. Holthaus, a frequent contributor to progressive publications like The Guardian, wasted no time blaming the Trump administration for climate-related disasters, claiming it had "systematically undercut science."
  3692.  
  3693.  
  3694.  
  3695.  
  3696.  
  3697.  
  3698.  
  3699.  
  3700.  
  3701. Missing from the conversation? Any acknowledgment that disaster preparedness and environmental policy were shared responsibilities across local, state, and federal levels, something that the large state of Texas had often struggled to meet.
  3702.  
  3703. Maddow's leading question was a perfect example of that (click "expand" to read): 
  3704.  
  3705.  
  3706. MADDOW: The rescue and recovery operations in Texas are still underway. It is heartbreaking. It's also, I think, increasingly infuriating that we're in this situation. Is it fair to say that we are taking action as a country to basically lessen our readiness, to lessen our ability to protect people and warn people in the face of this kind of disaster?
  3707.  
  3708. HOLTHAUS: Yeah. I mean, unfortunately that's exactly right. I think that what the Trump administration has been doing is systematically undercutting science. I mean, let's take a step back. Here we are in the middle of the most severe problem our species has ever faced in climate change. And that problem is accelerating. Emissions are accelerating, and this administration has really decided to just say, “nope, we're not going to pay attention to that and we'll hope that everyone can, you know, fend for themselves.” And it's really, really infuriating as someone who's been covering this beat for 20 years now. I have little kids, you know, like I wake up at night and am just worried for, you know, when's– where's the next flood going to be? We haven't entered hurricane season yet and it's just it's going to be bad and it's heartbreaking.
  3709.  
  3710.  
  3711. To pin this tragedy on federal budget cuts was lazy, politically motivated reporting.
  3712.  
  3713. The National Weather Service in Texas has said themselves that the loss of life was a result of the amount of rainfall in addition to the nocturnal timing of the storm, a combination that proved to be the culprit in what made this flood so deadly.  
  3714.  
  3715. But this wasn't the first time that Texas' emergency response to weather was lacking. In 2021, Texas suffered an intense winter storm that took out the state’s power grid, stripping millions of Texans of electricity and heating. The death toll for that storm rose past 200, and Texas’ emergency weather preparedness was also to blame then, not the White House.
  3716.  
  3717. The exchange made one thing painfully clear: when progressives talk about disasters, they don’t just want action they want someone to blame. Even in the face of a natural disaster that demands cooperation and compassion, Maddow and her guest prioritized partisanship. Budget cuts to federal agencies became a stand-in for a broader narrative: that conservatives were anti-science, anti-fact, and anti-compassion.
  3718.  
  3719. But that narrative conveniently ignored the complexity of government funding, the realities of bureaucratic obstacles, and the actual science around weather forecasting. Suggesting that fewer positions at NOAA directly led to a specific weather-related tragedy was both irresponsible and unprovable. But that didn’t stop MSNBC from implying it.
  3720.  
  3721. Holthaus even asserted that the reason for the government budget cuts was because our officials think they can stop weather events from occurring. "I don't really understand any reason for that other than this idea that, you know, if you stop predicting something, that it won't happen– which obviously is a fairy tale,” he declared.
  3722.  
  3723. What viewers witnessed was not journalism but a carefully scripted performance meant to stir outrage and assign moral blame. Holthaus spoke of losing sleep over his children’s future, a sentiment any parent can sympathize with. But the implication that his anxiety was caused by a particular political party was emblematic of the emotional manipulation that increasingly defines mainstream media.
  3724.  
  3725. That kind of coverage hasn’t helped the public understand science; it has weaponized it. And when media institutions like MSNBC portray scientific funding as a zero-sum battle between good and evil, they not only distort the facts but sow fear among the public.
  3726.  
  3727. When the public needed news that reported on natural disasters with facts and empathy, they got partisan talking points disguised as concern to meet an agenda.
  3728.  
  3729. The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
  3730.  
  3731.  
  3732. MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show
  3733. July 7, 2025
  3734. 9:52:24 PM ET 
  3735. RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now is Eric Holthaus. He's a meteorologist and the founder of Currently Weather Service. He's been doing some frankly harrowing reporting on the collision of budget cuts and climate change and science for The Guardian newspaper. His latest article for The Guardian is titled “Texas Floods Reveal Limitations of Disaster Forecasting Under Climate Crisis.” Mr. Holthaus, thank you very much for joining us. I really appreciate it.
  3736.  
  3737. ERIC HOLTHAUS: Yeah, thank you so much. It's a real honor to be here.
  3738. MADDOW: The rescue and recovery operations in Texas are still underway. It is heartbreaking. It's also, I think, increasingly infuriating that we're in this situation. Is it fair to say that we are taking action as a country to basically lessen our readiness, to lessen our ability to protect people and warn people in the face of this kind of disaster?
  3739.  
  3740.  
  3741. HOLTHAUS: Yeah. I mean, unfortunately that's exactly right. I think that what the Trump administration has been doing is systematically undercutting science. I mean, let's take a step back. Here we are in the middle of the most severe problem our species has ever faced in climate change. And that problem is accelerating. Emissions are accelerating, and this administration has really decided to just say, “Nope, we're not going to pay attention to that and we'll hope that everyone can, you know, fend for themselves.” And it's really, really infuriating as someone who's been covering this beat for 20 years now. I have little kids, you know, like I wake up at night and am just worried for, you know, when's– where's the next flood going to be? We haven't entered hurricane season yet and it's just it's going to be bad and it's heartbreaking.
  3742.  
  3743.  
  3744. MADDOW: I feel like one of the things that we've all had to learn in these last few years is that climate change means climate chaos. It means weather chaos, and it means unpredictability when it comes to dealing with severe weather events of all kinds. One of the things that I think we're looking to science for right now, in terms of resilience, is to try to sort of increase predictability, to try to increase what we understand about how weather goes haywire in this type of climate crisis that we're in. Is that the kind of science that is being abandoned or turned off by this administration?
  3745.  
  3746.  
  3747. HOLTHAUS: Right. I mean, there's one thing with the National Weather Service cuts. So, you know, the Austin-San Antonio office, which has responsibility for Kerr County in this case, was missing its Warning Coordination Meteorologist as you outlined. And that is the person who coordinates with emergency officials as a representative of meteorologists employed by the federal government to manage that disaster. And, yes, they had enough people on hand during the storm to cover that role. But as you said, you lost someone with decades of experience for no reason. And systematically now throughout the administration, you know, as we're going through this budget process the last couple of months, the parts of NOAA, parts of the parent of the National Weather Service that have been cut most are the researchers. So, the people that are working to make our science, moving it forward, those positions are being cut. You know, the Environmental Modeling Center, which is based in Maryland, their only job is to improve the weather models that every single person in the United States, every weather app, and anytime you get a weather forecast, these are the models that that forecast comes from. And those people have been fired. And it's just like, I don't really understand any reason for that other than this idea that, you know, if you stop predicting something, then it won't happen– which obviously is a fairy tale.
  3748.  
  3749.  
  3750. MADDOW: Well, yeah, it doesn't even count as magic, bad magic to even try that. Eric Holthaus, founder and Chief Meteorologist at Currently Weather Service. Thank you for being with us, again, in the midst of this still ongoing disaster. We look forward to having you back to talk about talk about this more in the future. Eric, thanks.
  3751. </description>
  3752.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 6:38 PM</pubDate>
  3753.    <dc:creator>Ashley Taylor</dc:creator>
  3754.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289756</guid>
  3755.    </item>
  3756. <item>
  3757.  <title>New York Times Blames Victim: Israel's Defensive War Has Made It a Global Pariah</title>
  3758.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/07/08/new-york-times-blames-victim-israels-defensive-war-has-made-it</link>
  3759.  <description> Michael Shear, a senior correspondent for the New York Times, made the front page of Sunday’s newspaper discussing how everyone dislikes Israel for good reason in his “news analysis,” “Today’s Israel: More Secure, More Isolated.”
  3760.  
  3761. First, he declared victory on Israel’s behalf.
  3762.  
  3763.  
  3764. It’s Israel’s Middle East now.
  3765.  
  3766. After three-quarters of a century fighting hostile neighbors, the tiny Jewish country, about the size of New Jersey, has all but vanquished its enemies -- Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen and now even Iran itself, the one backing them all.
  3767.  
  3768.  
  3769. But why does Shear describe Israel fighting to win a war it didn’t start in such negative terms?
  3770.  
  3771.  
  3772. The exercise of raw power has allowed Israel, for the first time since its creation in 1948, a future mostly free from immediate threats. The risk of a nuclear Iran is diminished, or perhaps gone. Israel has stable, if uneasy, relations with Persian Gulf Arab states. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cemented his partnership with President Trump.
  3773.  
  3774. The new reality in Israel, said Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and former top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, is that places once under constant threat from Lebanon, Syria or Gaza “will be more secure than Manhattan.”
  3775.  
  3776. But at what cost?
  3777.  
  3778. Mr. Netanyahu’s relentless and unapologetic military response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that killed 1,200 people and took 250 people hostage has cemented the view of Israel as a pariah, its leadership accused of genocide and war crimes, and disdained by some world leaders. In opinion polls globally, most people have a negative view of Israel.
  3779.  
  3780.  
  3781. So what’s new? Israel’s very existence has always been loathed by Islamic states and lately, the international left. Notice how Shear and The Times don't use words like "genocide" and "war crimes" and "pariah" for actual terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They get the bland treatment. The only description for their fanatical viewpoint is "pro-Palestine."
  3782.  
  3783. "Militancy" is mentioned once, but the word "extremist" is saved for Israelis:
  3784.  
  3785.  
  3786. There has been a surge in violence by extremist settlers against Palestinian civilians.the most intense crackdown on West Bank militancy in a generation, carrying out destructive raids, killing hundreds of people and arresting thousands.
  3787.  
  3788.  
  3789. There was more of that: 
  3790.  
  3791.  
  3792. In Gaza, the war against Hamas has taken a devastating toll, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving more than a million homeless and hungry. Much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble. Poverty and hopelessness are rampant.
  3793.  
  3794.  
  3795. Israel is apparently to blame for violence against Jews worldwide:
  3796.  
  3797.  
  3798. ….support for the country has become a fiercely contentious issue in Congress, the subject of angry debates and protests on college campuses and fuel for a surge in antisemitic incidents in the United States and around the world.
  3799.  
  3800. The political climate has become deeply polarized. Many supporters of Israel denounce any criticism as antisemitic hate, while those opposed to Israeli policies vow not to be silenced by a label they call unfair.
  3801.  
  3802.  
  3803. Shear does discuss and name anti-Semitic attacks but strained to contextualize them, noting that the Columbia protest group was a bit "extreme" -- without mentioning their celebrated leader Mahmoud Khalil.
  3804.  
  3805.  
  3806. On Oct. 7, 2024, a year after the attacks by Hamas inside Israel, the pro-Palestine group that had organized student encampments at Columbia University issued a statement calling for “liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.”
  3807.  
  3808. The statements were meant to shock and provoke. They were at the extreme end of the spectrum and did not represent the views of most students, experts say.
  3809.  
  3810. Around the world, outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza has been expressed largely as peaceful protests demanding an end to the war, but also by praise for the Hamas attacks, and even by some targeted attacks on Jews, killed in the name of opposition to Israel.
  3811.  
  3812.  
  3813. Shear had a petulant response to the Trump administration having "seized on the campus divisions to accuse universities of failing to respond to antisemitism."
  3814.  
  3815.  
  3816. Democratic lawmakers say Mr. Trump is exaggerating the situation for political gain. In April, five Jewish senators wrote in a letter to the president that his stated goal of fighting antisemitism was “simply a means to an end to attack our nation’s universities.”
  3817.  
  3818.  
  3819. “Exaggerating the situation”? Jew-exclusion zones on campus, facilitated by the university itself? A “Zionists don’t deserve to live” video by a student leader of a pro-Hamas encampment?</description>
  3820.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 6:14 PM</pubDate>
  3821.    <dc:creator>Clay Waters</dc:creator>
  3822.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289747</guid>
  3823.    </item>
  3824. <item>
  3825.  <title>Gross: ABC, CNN Reporters Hijack Texas Flooding Presser to Demand Scalp For Deaths</title>
  3826.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/08/gross-abc-cnn-reporters-hijack-texas-flooding-presser-demand-scalp</link>
  3827.  <description>Tuesday morning’s Kerr County, Texas press conference on last week’s apocalyptic floods flew off the rails because of the showboating antics of ABC and CNN’s reporters on scene — ABC with Matt Gutman and CNN with both Shimon Prokupecz and Isabelle Rosales — shouting at local officials (and, at one point, each other) and demanding heads roll for the death toll that crossed north of 100 people.
  3828.  
  3829. Rosales started things off, twice asking officials to “outline what specific discussions and actions were taken between the time the first flood emergency came in at 1:14 a.m. and then when the river first started flooding its banks hours later.”
  3830.  
  3831.  
  3832.  
  3833.  
  3834.  
  3835.  
  3836.  
  3837.  
  3838.  
  3839. Kerr County, Texas Sheriff Larry Leitha started to answer but this was all he got out before Prokupecz jumped in: “What I can tell you when I was first notified it was around the 4 to 5 area. One of my sergeants was in dispatch when the first calls started coming in the actual 911 calls come in.”
  3840.  
  3841. Prokupecz scoffed, stating in an exasperated sense: “That was at, like, four in the morning?”
  3842.  
  3843. Leitha continued:
  3844.  
  3845.  
  3846. It was between 4 or 5 when — when I got notified, okay? But prior to that in that 3 to 4 area my understanding is and we’re in the process of trying to put a timeline. You know, that’s going to take a little bit of time. As I’ve told you several times ,that is not my priority at this time. There’s three priorities that’s locating, locating the people out there, identifying and notify the next of kin. That — that is what I’m taking is my job as sheriff here to do, okay?
  3847.  
  3848.  
  3849. Channeling Jim Acosta, Gutman jumped in: “With all due respect, sir, I think that the community here is asking these questions. What happened? When did it happen? Was it emergency manager awake at the time? Did they push the button to issue an emergency alert?”
  3850.  
  3851. Anytime a reporter blurts “with all due respect” out of nowhere, it’s a sign it is not, in fact, respectful or just asking question.
  3852.  
  3853. Leitha scoffed back, seeming to recall Gutman at past press conferences: “Sir, it’s not that easy when you — and you just push a button, okay? There’s a lot more to that. And we’ve told you several times.”
  3854.  
  3855. It was at this point that both Gutman and Prokupecz were yelling at Leitha. Hilariously, Gutman even paused his hectoring at Leitha to tell Prokupecz to shut up (click “expand”):
  3856.  
  3857.  
  3858. GUTMAN: So, did it happen, sir?
  3859.  
  3860. LEITHA: I can’t tell you at this time, okay? 
  3861.  
  3862. GUTMAN: You can’t tell me if the emergency manager —
  3863.  
  3864. PROKUPECZ: Who is —
  3865.  
  3866. GUTMAN: — of the county actually —
  3867.  
  3868. PROKUPECZ: — sir, sir —
  3869.  
  3870. GUTMAN: — issued an emergency alert? Okay.
  3871.  
  3872. PROKUPECZ: — sheriff, who is — 
  3873.  
  3874. GUTMAN: Shimon, just give me a second and let him answer the question.
  3875.  
  3876. PROKUPECZ: — who is the emergency operations center? Who runs —
  3877.  
  3878. GUTMAN: Let him answer the question.
  3879.  
  3880. PROKUPECZ: — the emergency operations center?
  3881.  
  3882. LEITHA [TO GUTMAN]: I’ll come back to you. I ain’t going nowhere.
  3883.  
  3884. GUTMAN: I appreciate it.
  3885.  
  3886. PROKUPECZ: Who runs the emergency operations center?
  3887.  
  3888. LEITHA: We — we have a communication center — a dispatch, okay? We have a communication center. That’s where the calls that actually go to the police department. Then they’re forwarded to us.
  3889.  
  3890.  
  3891. Prokupecz won out and continued lecturing Leitha:
  3892.  
  3893.  
  3894. [L]eading up to this, in monitoring the weather, there is, in any large city, in any state, there’s an office of emergency management that is monitoring the weather, that is watching and listening and getting briefings. Who was getting those briefings in this city, in this county? Who was receiving that information? And who would have ultimately made the decision to evacuate hearing what was coming in from the Weather Service and other [INAUDIBLE].
  3895.  
  3896.  
  3897. Leitha started to reply that “I’m going to tell you this,” but Prokupecz interrupted: “You’re not in emergency management though, right? The sheriff’s not EOC. Who is EOC?”
  3898.  
  3899. The sheriff gave up, letting Texas Game Warden Lt. Colonel Dan Baker fight back. Once Baker got out that “we understand you have many questions,” Prokupecz tore into Baker: “Right. No, I understand, but you’re going to — you’re not going to go answer the question because that’s up to the city manager and the mayor to answer those questions.”
  3900.  
  3901. Instead of yelling at each other, Gutman and Prokupecz teamed up to blast local officials for “ducking” their questions while Baker insisted their focus “is...on bringing people home” and the questions for these national hacks will be answered later (click “expand”):
  3902.  
  3903.  
  3904. GUTMAN: It’s the county emergency management. 
  3905.  
  3906. BAKER: We understand —
  3907.  
  3908. GUTMAN: That’s what — that’s what —
  3909.  
  3910. BAKER: — you have many questions.
  3911.  
  3912. PROKUPECZ: Where is the judge? The judge is not — is not here.
  3913.  
  3914. BAKER: We understand that. But right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home.
  3915.  
  3916. GUTMAN: We — we understand that too.
  3917.  
  3918. BAKER: That’s our focus. 
  3919.  
  3920. PROKUPECZ: There are a number of questions leading up to —
  3921.  
  3922. GUTMAN: [INAUDIBLE]
  3923.  
  3924. PROKUPECZ: — this.
  3925.  
  3926. BAKER: All those questions will be answered but the priority right now — 
  3927.  
  3928. GUTMAN: It seems like you’re ducking.
  3929.  
  3930. BAKER: — is bringing people home.
  3931.  
  3932.  
  3933. Gutman then sounded like their colleagues a few weeks ago when they insisted they’re gleefully breathless reporting claiming the U.S. strikes in Iran were a failure: “We totally understand that and we value the incredible work that is being done by those first responders. We’re seeing them out there muddy and sweaty and grinding it out day after day, but your community is asking these questions.”
  3934.  
  3935. Oh, there it is. Cloaking yourself in just asking questions because the “community” wants them asked. What a cop-out.
  3936.  
  3937. There was one last team-up by Gutman and Prokupecz (click “expand”):
  3938.  
  3939.  
  3940. BAKER: And we will have —
  3941.  
  3942. GUTMAN: Was the emergency manager —
  3943.  
  3944. BAKER: — we will get answers. 
  3945.  
  3946. GUTMAN: — in the county —
  3947.  
  3948. BAKER: Right now —
  3949.  
  3950. GUTMAN: — awake at the time —
  3951.  
  3952. BAKER: — all of our resources are focused —
  3953.  
  3954. PROKUPECZ: Chief Baker, who is — you should be able to answer —
  3955.  
  3956.     BAKER: — to recovery.
  3957.  
  3958.     PROKUPECZ: — who is — who was in charge of the emergency operations center at the time that was getting any briefings, if any?
  3959.  
  3960.  
  3961. Thankfully, another report in the audience — presumably a more local one versus these fly in, fly out national reporters who won’t bear the brunt of recovery — asked an actual question:
  3962.  
  3963.  
  3964. I think I’ll focus on what local people can be looking for. We’re looking at some erosion in roads and safety and they’re traveling. What can we tell people to make sure right now and what they can do in they daily life [sic]? Should they worry about traveling on roads? Do we know anything about that infrastructure?
  3965.  
  3966.  
  3967. Without fail, national reporters — huge crews, large salaries, and more — will always make it about themselves as though they’re stars of the show, not the middle-class Americans who will still be cleaning up trees and mud once these big whigs leave.
  3968.  
  3969. To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 8, click here.</description>
  3970.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 4:33 PM</pubDate>
  3971.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  3972.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289758</guid>
  3973.    </item>
  3974. <item>
  3975.  <title>Texas Soaked, Bloomberg Smoked? Lefty Billionaire Blames ‘Climate Denialism’ for Floods</title>
  3976.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/08/texas-soaked-bloomberg-smoked-lefty-billionaire-blames</link>
  3977.  <description>Lefty billionaire Michael Bloomberg is back in the spotlight exploiting the disastrous Texas floods to blow a gasket over arguably his most obsessive political issue — you guessed it — climate change.
  3978.  
  3979. The anti-American energy media mogul belched out a new op-ed on Bloomberg Opinion pontificating how “The Texas Floods Were Made Worse by Climate Denialism.” No, he wasn’t kidding.
  3980.  
  3981. Bloomberg railed about how “[t]he scientific evidence is clear that the more frequent extreme weather we are experiencing is being driven by climate change — and that it’s only going to get worse.” Of course the Texas floods which killed over 100 people couldn’t just be the result of a natural disaster without shoe-horning climate politics into it, right?
  3982.  
  3983. But Bloomberg channeled his dubious eco-scare porn to instigate political backlash against Texas’s elected leaders: “[Texas elected officials] owe [the victims’ families] a sincere commitment to righting their deadly wrong, by tackling the problem they’ve turned their backs on for too long: climate change.”
  3984.  
  3985. JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy blasted Bloomberg for his outrageously tone-deaf political hot take in comments to MRC Business. “It's sad to see radical climate activists like Michael Bloomberg trying to exploit the tragic Texas flooding to advance its political agenda.” As Milloy analyzed, “Just for the record: This area of Texas is known for flash floods, extreme rainfall is not correlated with emissions and there hasn't even been any ‘global warming’ over the past five days.” 
  3986.  
  3987. But Bloomberg clearly saw an opportunity to use the deaths of Texans to drag the climate boogeyman back into the national conversation. “The refusal to recognize that climate change carries a death penalty is sending innocent people, including far too many children, to early graves,” he spewed.
  3988.  
  3989. Bloomberg then — along with other media talking heads — ridiculously tried to blame the Texas floods as being an indirect result of President Donald Trump gutting bloated government waste on climate activist pet projects and undoing absurd eco-regulations on the U.S. economy:
  3990.  
  3991.  
  3992. The Trump administration has erased the words ‘climate change” — and critical climate data and information — from government websites, as if the problem could be wished away. It is attempting to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency’s obligation to fight climate change.
  3993.  
  3994.  
  3995. Milloy pointed out that “the National Weather Service was sufficiently staffed and issued warnings in time for local officials to be aware of the risks.” The NWS’s X account was issuing warnings to Texas residents from Thursday, July 3 into the wee hours of Friday, July 4. Milloy concluded that an “[i]nvestigation will show how the warning system failed and improvements will be made. We should pray for the families and condemn the climate ambulance chasers.” No kidding. Bloomberg actually even tried to make the tragedy a Get-Out-The-Vote platform:
  3996.  
  3997.  
  3998. There is much more that our governments can be doing to protect us — and our children and theirs — from the worsening effects of climate change. But for that to happen, all of us need to make our voices heard, and our votes count.
  3999.  
  4000.  
  4001. Despicable. This behavior is par for the course for Bloomberg — worth a whopping $104.7 billion —  who has proven to have more of an affinity for advancing his own political interests than the less affluent. After all, this is the same billionaire who pledged at least $1 billion to wipe out America’s entire coal industry in the name of Gaia, which would undoubtedly obliterate the jobs of the 42,600 workers employed in that sector. 
  4002.  
  4003. No one should be under any illusions. Bloomberg is obsessed with advancing his own political agenda more than he’ll ever be with taking up the causes of the plebeians. And it’s not even close. </description>
  4004.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 2:51 PM</pubDate>
  4005.    <dc:creator>Joseph Vazquez</dc:creator>
  4006.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289752</guid>
  4007.    </item>
  4008. <item>
  4009.  <title>Whoopi: 'I'm Not Pointing a Finger' at Trump for Texas Flooding</title>
  4010.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/08/whoopi-im-not-pointing-finger-trump-texas-flooding</link>
  4011.  <description> It’s rare that one of the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View would voice a sensible political position, especially during a crisis that involved the mass loss of life. But on Tuesday’s episode, moderator Whoopi Goldberg bucked the rest of the liberal media’s narrative and openly refused to blame President Trump for the freak flash flood that devastated part of Kerr County, Texas, surprising herself. Contrast that with co-host Sunny Hostin who sought to make the tragedy political.
  4012.  
  4013. At the top of the segment, Goldberg played a clip of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and agreed with him that it was wrong to politicize the flooding. But she did want there to be a conversation about it could have been prevented (Click “expand”):
  4014.  
  4015.  
  4016. GOLDBERG: And questions are growing about what we could have done to prevent this tragedy, and here's what Senator Ted Cruz had to say about it.
  4017.  
  4018. [Cuts to video]
  4019.  
  4020. SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I think there have been some eager to point at the National Weather Service and say, cuts there led to a lack of warning. I think that's contradicted by the facts. [Transition] For either side to attack their political opponents, I think that -- I think that's cynical and not the right approach, particularly at a time when we're dealing with a crisis and we're dealing with grief.
  4021.  
  4022. [Cuts back to live]
  4023.  
  4024. GOLDBERG: This is true but these safety concerns came up before this tragedy happened, and have been coming up for years. People in power have had the opportunity to make changes to the grid, to all of these things that we are seeing.
  4025.  
  4026.  
  4027. Goldberg’s refusal to blame Trump came near the end of the segment, and she even surprised herself. “So, it's important, I think, for everyone to understand that – and I'm shocked that this is coming out of my mouth – I’m not pointing a finger at the man in the White House,” she declared.
  4028.  
  4029. She did seem to blame the state of Texas broadly. “I'm saying, there's a state that is in trouble and has been and it doesn't seem like anything is changing and maybe we need to get on top of that,” she said; a criticism for a state’s action she didn’t share for California’s refusal to invest heavily in wildfire management activities.
  4030.  
  4031. Her comment came as a forceful end to a contentious argument between the rest of the cast member regarding when and who to blame.
  4032.  
  4033.  
  4034.  
  4035.  
  4036.  
  4037.  
  4038.  
  4039.  
  4040.  
  4041. Of course, it was Hostin who sought to make it political first. She lashed out a Kerr County for not installing flood sirens, and decried – without evidence – that they spent the money on border security (despite being roughly eight hours from the border). “So, these sirens could have saved lives. It was rejected as too expensive and money instead was funneled to border security,” she huffed.
  4042.  
  4043. Hostin even manically gloated that “the president of Mexico sent Mexican firefighters and people to go and help these Americans! People why wanted to keep out!”
  4044.  
  4045. But the firefighters came over legally as part of relief efforts and not trying to stay.
  4046.  
  4047. Co-host Joy Behar actually went to bat for making the flooding political because Trump. “Yeah, but Trump does it all the time. He immediately starts the blame game,” she insisted without evidence of Trump politicizing the flood.
  4048.  
  4049. Co-hosts Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin were in agreement that now wasn’t the time to cast blame or imply that the flooding could have been avoided because it was a freak act of nature. Hostin responded by trying to equate the flood to a school shooting and complaining about how people don’t want those politicized:
  4050.  
  4051.  
  4052. HOSTIN: I don't think it's about pointing fingers, I think it’s about assessing how this could have been avoided, why it was -- why it happened. You know, when we have the school shootings, everyone sends thoughts and prayers but they never want to talk about it.
  4053.  
  4054. FARAH GRIFFIN: But there is difference.
  4055.  
  4056. HOSTIN: And then we forget about it because another school shooting happens and another one happens!
  4057.  
  4058. FARAH GRIFFIN: There's a difference. School shooting it's fair to say this could be avoided because there is an X factor of a person with a gun and the will to do it. With a natural disaster I disagree that it’s like, ‘this could have been avoided.’ Nature does not discriminate.
  4059.  
  4060.  
  4061. “The sirens,” Hostin and Behar literally parroted each other.
  4062.  
  4063. What was absent from the conversation was the fact that the flash flood watch and warning was issued hours in advance, but the summer camps weren’t evacuated.
  4064.  
  4065. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  4066.  
  4067.  
  4068. ABC’s The View
  4069. July 8, 2025
  4070. 11:18:01 a.m. Eastern
  4071.  
  4072. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Welcome back. Search and rescue efforts are still happening over deadly floods in Texas, and we want to start by thanking all of the first responders who have been putting their lives on the line to find and help survivors.
  4073.  
  4074. [Applause]
  4075.  
  4076. And there are volunteers out there who are doing the same thing, folks are just -- Americans are stepping up for Americans, because, you know, the flood doesn't care who you voted for. Floods don't care. They come take your house, they take your family. This is what we've seen.
  4077.  
  4078. And questions are growing about what we could have done to prevent this tragedy, and here's what Senator Ted Cruz had to say about it.
  4079.  
  4080. [Cuts to video]
  4081.  
  4082. SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I think there have been some eager to point at the National Weather Service and say, cuts there led to a lack of warning. I think that's contradicted by the facts. [Transition] For either side to attack their political opponents, I think that -- I think that's cynical and not the right approach, particularly at a time when we're dealing with a crisis and we're dealing with grief.
  4083.  
  4084. [Cuts back to live]
  4085.  
  4086. GOLDBERG: This is true but these safety concerns came up before this tragedy happened, and have been coming up for years. People in power have had the opportunity to make changes to the grid, to all of these things that we are seeing. And I'm just wondering, when is the right time to ask this question then?
  4087.  
  4088. SUNNY HOSTIN: I think now is the right time to ask the question. And I understand that people are grieving. I myself sent my children away to sleepaway camp in Maine and in New Hampshire and the thought that my kids would not be coming back is something that is for me unfathomable and I feel such empathy for these family. But this could have been either mitigated or avoided altogether.
  4089.  
  4090. In 2017, my understanding is that Kerr County, the county where it happened, contemplated installing a flood warning system. That would have been sirens, not emails that the kids wouldn't get; because kids in camp don't have their phones with them. They take them away. So, these sirens could have saved lives. It was rejected as too expensive and money instead was funneled to border security. Border security.
  4091.  
  4092. And I want to also say this, you say Americans are stepping up. Well, the president of Mexico sent Mexican firefighters -
  4093.  
  4094. JOY BEHAR: That’s right.
  4095.  
  4096. HOSTIN: - and people to go and help these Americans! People why wanted to keep out!
  4097.  
  4098. [Applause]
  4099.  
  4100. And I'll also say this last thing, a single siren can cost as high as $50,000 but the small unincorporated town of Comfort had something that Kerr County didn't have! They put the money to the sirens and not one person died! Not one person died!
  4101.  
  4102. SARA HAINES: So, I agree with all your assessment and your facts but I respectfully disagree that this is the time right now. And I say that mainly because if my child had left for camp and didn't come home, to know what happened to them this raw and recent, I don't think I'd want to know it could have been avoided, yet.
  4103.  
  4104. What I need to do is have the bodies found, there are at least 105 people still missing, maybe more that we don't know about. While they're still retrieving them, I think everyone needs to stay on the mentality is everyone is getting in there and learning; because I do think there is a time for that conversation and the sirens are probably the answer, because I grew up in the Midwest where we had tornado sirens our whole lives.
  4105.  
  4106. So, I know that that is going to be coming up, but right now I can't help but imagine that if my child was on right now and I heard someone say that it have been avoided, I don't know how'd I'd take my next step really.
  4107.  
  4108. ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: And I’ve got to say, I think that – the first and foremost the focus right now should be on first responders and victims and ways to help them. I'm sure we have stuff on our website that tells you how you can. But there's also a distinction between politicizing a tragedy and pointing fingers and saying here are the lessons learned.
  4109.  
  4110. Now, first is the first response. There are still bodies being pulled from the water. There’s people still looking for their family. The next is what could we learn from this? I agree with your assessment but respectfully disagree that it could have avoided a loss of life altogether.
  4111.  
  4112. HOSTIN: It avoided a loss of life in that one county that was up river.
  4113.  
  4114. FARAH GRIFFIN: Yes, because this was specifically a once in a hundred-year storm. They’d something close in 1987 but not to this degree and the sirens could have gone a long way.
  4115.  
  4116. But I want to highlight this. I think in the worst moments of tragedy because hurricanes don't choose if you're a blue or red state, who you voted for. The best in humanity steps up. And this Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskin helped pull 165 people from it.
  4117.  
  4118. [Applause]
  4119.  
  4120. It was his first ever mission. And I just, like, I think of that and I actually know people who attended this camp. It's so heartbreaking.
  4121.  
  4122. I think after action reports are really important but politicizing and pointing fingers is not the answer.
  4123.  
  4124. BEHAR: Yeah, but Trump does it all the time. He immediately starts the blame game. Some maybe this Leavitt should talk to her boss.
  4125.  
  4126. HOSTIN: I don't think it's about pointing fingers, I think it’s about assessing how this could have been avoided, why it was -- why it happened. You know, when we have the school shootings, everyone sends thoughts and prayers but they never want to talk about it.
  4127.  
  4128. FARAH GRIFFIN: But there is difference.
  4129.  
  4130. HOSTIN: And then we forget about it because another school shooting happens and another one happens!
  4131.  
  4132. FARAH GRIFFIN: There's a difference. School shooting it's fair to say this could be avoided because there is an X factor of a person with a gun and the will to do it. With a natural disaster I disagree that it’s like, ‘this could have been avoided.’ Nature does not discriminate.
  4133.  
  4134. BEHAR: But she's talking about the sirens!
  4135.  
  4136. HOSTIN: The sirens!
  4137.  
  4138. BEHAR: The sirens!
  4139.  
  4140. FARAH GRIFFIN: I know but to say that would have resulted in no loss -- I don't think there's anything –
  4141.  
  4142. [Crosstalk]
  4143.  
  4144. BEHAR: Well, they would have at least knowing it was coming!
  4145.  
  4146. GOLDBERG: Here's where I'm going to end this. What I'm going to say is the conversation is really about we know that you've been aware because we've had loss of life.
  4147.  
  4148. HOSTIN: Yeah.
  4149.  
  4150. Goldberg: There.
  4151.  
  4152. HOSTIN: In this particular area.
  4153.  
  4154. GOLDBERG: In this particular area. We have talked about the fact that you need to improve your grid. We have talked about all of this. So, it's important, I think, for everyone to understand that – and I'm shocked that this is coming out of my mouth – I’m not pointing a finger at the man in the White House. I'm saying, there's a state that is in trouble and has been and it doesn't seem like anything is changing and maybe we need to get on top of that. That's my thought.
  4155.  
  4156. [Applause]
  4157.  
  4158. We'll be right back.
  4159. </description>
  4160.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 2:38 PM</pubDate>
  4161.    <dc:creator>Nicholas Fondacaro</dc:creator>
  4162.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289754</guid>
  4163.    </item>
  4164. <item>
  4165.  <title>Amanpour, Ex-Husband Warn Trump's Budget Cuts Will Get People Killed</title>
  4166.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/08/amanpour-ex-husband-warn-trumps-budget-cuts-will-get-people-killed</link>
  4167.  <description>For their Tuesday podcast, CNN/PBS anchor Christiane Amanpour and ex-husband/former Clinton official Jamie Rubin warned that Trump’s budget cuts, both foreign and domestic, will get people killed.
  4168.  
  4169. Discussing the Texas floods, Amanpour wondered, “So Jamie, do you feel comfortable linking what just happened with the cuts that President Trump has enacted from day one in all the executive orders?”
  4170.  
  4171. Rubin tried to hedge, “Look, it's probably not possible, nor really we should be pointing a finger like that and so directly, because who knows whether a better prediction would have yielded a better preparation on the part of the people at this camp.”
  4172.  
  4173.  
  4174.  
  4175.  
  4176.  
  4177.  
  4178.  
  4179.  
  4180.  
  4181. However, he had no problems claiming, “What we can say is that to cut off our nose, that is the ability to predict climate, predict weather, because scientists came up with the conclusion verified by everyone in the scientific community that climate change has a man-made component. That's what motivated the Trump and Musk people, and think about that. Musk claims to be this great environmentalist who has electric cars, and yet he allowed the Trump administration and his people allowed them to cut at the Weather Service precisely because they don't like the conclusions the Weather Service goes to someday, somehow, someway those cuts will hurt or harm or kill people.”
  4182.  
  4183. Concluding, Rubin gave another unsatisfying qualification, “Whether it happened in this case, whether it's going to happen down the road, it's hard to know. And I don't think that finger should be particularly blamed at a time like this. But we know that cutting science, cutting knowledge can kill people.”
  4184.  
  4185. Amanpour agreed, “And he has rolled back so much in the climate space, you can't even name all the departments, but it's essentially complete. It's almost as somebody said, ‘We are now sleepwalking into climate catastrophe,’ and nobody right now is paying a huge amount of attention because there's so much else coming at us, but it is the world's global existential threat.”
  4186.  
  4187. That somebody was U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
  4188.  
  4189. Later, the conversation shifted to foreign aid, with Amanpour wondering, “Are they just hoping that nobody pays attention and they can just cut this vital soft power and humanitarian life-saving aid without anybody noticing or anybody caring?”
  4190.  
  4191.  Rubin began into a lengthy denunciation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “Well, I certainly hope not, and that's why we're doing this podcast, and that's why a lot of reporters have spent their time looking into this. I mean, think about Secretary of State Rubio, who had a pretty good reputation, often talked about the great work that AID.”
  4192.  
  4193.  
  4194.  
  4195.  
  4196.  
  4197.  
  4198.  
  4199.  
  4200.  
  4201. Amanpour then interrupted to play a 2019 clip of Rubio “because it is the height of hypocrisy.” In the video, Rubio claimed, “Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than one percent of our budget. It's just not true.”
  4202.  
  4203. That doesn’t prove hypocrisy. If USAID wandered so far off course that its elimination and the complete restructuring of U.S. foreign aid was the only recourse, then cutting it out of principle is justified.
  4204.  
  4205. Nevertheless, Amanpour quipped, “But sorry, sorry. He is now a convert to cutting it.”
  4206.  
  4207. Rubin then resumed his lengthy anti-Rubio speech, “Well, of course, he's a convert to whatever Donald Trump wants. That's what's so sad about Marco Rubio… I thought he was one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party. How do you justify these things one after another? Musk cut AID, you know, destroyed it while Rubio was on a trip in El Salvador working with one of the most right-wing dictators there. And they were cutting programs that were holding that dictator to account.”
  4208.  
  4209. He also suggested that the fate of USAID is one of those great historical moments, like the Holocaust, that requires one to take a stand and that Rubio has failed:
  4210.  
  4211. So, Marco Rubio has a lot of questions that he's going to face for the rest of his life about what he did in his time in government. You know, I always remember when I was growing up and you always said to yourself when you learned about great moments in history: World War II, the Holocaust, all that, you know, what would you do if you were in power? How would you behave? Would you just go along? Would you fight? Would you quit? Would you be an honorable person?
  4212.  
  4213. Whatever one thinks of foreign aid, the idea that the USAID bureaucracy was so vitally important that those defending it are somehow Churchillian figures standing up at a critical junction of history is more than a little hyperbolic.
  4214.  
  4215. Here is a transcript for the July 8 show:
  4216.  
  4217.  
  4218. Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files with Jamie Rubin             
  4219.  
  4220. 7/8/2025
  4221.  
  4222. 1 Minute, 7 Seconds
  4223.  
  4224. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So Jamie, do you feel comfortable linking what just happened with the cuts that President Trump has enacted from day one in all the executive orders?
  4225.  
  4226. JAMIE RUBIN: Look, it's probably not possible, nor really we should be pointing a finger like that and so directly, because who knows whether a better prediction would have yielded a better preparation on the part of the people at this camp. But what we can say is that to cut off our nose, that is the ability to predict climate, predict weather, because scientists came up with the conclusion verified by everyone in the scientific community that climate change has a man-made component. That's what motivated the Trump and Musk people, and think about that. Musk claims to be this great environmentalist who has electric cars, and yet he allowed the Trump administration and his people allowed them to cut at the Weather Service precisely because they don't like the conclusions the Weather Service goes to someday, somehow, someway those cuts will hurt or harm or kill people.
  4227.  
  4228. Whether it happened in this case, whether it's going to happen down the road, it's hard to know. And I don't think that finger should be particularly blamed at a time like this. But we know that cutting science, cutting knowledge can kill people.
  4229.  
  4230. AMANPOUR: And he has rolled back so much in the climate space, you can't even name all the departments, but it's essentially complete. It's almost as somebody said, “we are now sleepwalking into climate catastrophe” and nobody right now is paying a huge amount of attention because there's so much else coming at us, but it is the world's global existential threat.
  4231.  
  4232. …
  4233.  
  4234. 12 Minutes, 34 Seconds
  4235.  
  4236. AMANPOUR: Are they just hoping that nobody pays attention and they can just cut this vital soft power and humanitarian life-saving aid without anybody noticing or anybody caring?
  4237.  
  4238. RUBIN: Well, I certainly hope not, and that's why we're doing this podcast, and that's why a lot of reporters have spent their time looking into this. I mean, think about Secretary of State Rubio, who had a pretty good reputation, often talked about the great work that AID—
  4239.  
  4240. AMANPOUR: Let me stop you because we have that sound bite. Let me stop you.
  4241.  
  4242. RUBIN: Can we, let's play it.
  4243.  
  4244. AMANPOUR: We're going to play it because it is the height of hypocrisy.
  4245.  
  4246. MARCO RUBIO [AUGUST 21, 2019]: Anybody who tells you that we can slash foreign aid and that will bring us to balance is lying to you. Foreign aid is less than one percent of our budget. It's just not true.
  4247.  
  4248. AMANPOUR: But sorry, sorry. He is now a convert to cutting it.
  4249.  
  4250. RUBIN: Well, of course, he's a convert to whatever Donald Trump wants. That's what's so sad about Marco Rubio. He had a great reputation as a-- quite a quality thinker in the Senate on foreign affairs, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I thought he was one of the brightest stars in the Republican Party. How do you justify these things one after another? Musk cut AID, you know, destroyed it while Rubio was on a trip in El Salvador working with one of the most right-wing dictators there. And they were cutting programs that were holding that dictator to account.
  4251.  
  4252. So, Marco Rubio has a lot of questions that he's going to face for the rest of his life about what he did in his time in government. You know, I always remember when I was growing up and you always said to yourself when you learned about great moments in history: World War II, the Holocaust, all that, you know, what would you do if you were in power? How would you behave? Would you just go along? Would you fight? Would you quit? Would you be an honorable person? And that's what made me fight so hard for Bosnia and Kosovo when I was in government.
  4253.  
  4254. As you know, I was prepared to get fired because it seemed that important. So, here are these people who care about power so much and their fame and their glory, but what are they part of? They're part of something that's going to haunt them for the rest of their life. Things they did, things they allowed to happen. And he's in charge. Marco Rubio is in charge. He's got AID, he's in charge of. The National Security Council, he's in charge of, and the Secretary of State. He's Donald Trump's one-man foreign policy apparatus. And he is allowing this to happen. And I don't know, I don't know how he's going to defend himself with this constituency for the rest of his life.
  4255.  
  4256. Remember this is a man who came from Cuban refugees who came to this country promoting democracy and saying how important it was to fight communism. And now who's going to gain from all these cuts in foreign aid around the world? The Chinese Communist Party.
  4257. </description>
  4258.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 2:33 PM</pubDate>
  4259.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  4260.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289753</guid>
  4261.    </item>
  4262. <item>
  4263.  <title>Abrams and Anderson Suggest Trump Will Cancel Elections Like Putin</title>
  4264.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/08/abrams-and-anderson-suggest-trump-will-cancel-elections-putin</link>
  4265.  <description>Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Anthony Anderson welcomed the left’s favorite election denier, Stacey Abrams, to ABC on Monday to promote her new book but also to spread a new election conspiracy theory that alleges President Trump is following the ten steps to autocracy that people like Vladimir Putin have also done to ultimately cancel elections. However, Abrams’s evidence was as nonsensical as it was outrageous.
  4266.  
  4267. Anderson put the ball on the tee, “Stop stupid or slow it down, brings me to my next question. Over the weekend you went viral for laying out ten steps to autocracy. Run us through those steps so we all know.”
  4268.  
  4269. Abrams began by trying to make analogies, “Okay, so this happens in every nation that has become an autocracy, having been a democracy. So whether we're talking about Brazil with Bolsonaro, or India, or Putin and Russia, the Philippines with Duterte, so start with winning an election. Usually the last one you're going to get to have for real.”
  4270.  
  4271.  
  4272.  
  4273.  
  4274.  
  4275.  
  4276.  
  4277.  
  4278.  
  4279. Bolsonaro was replaced by a left-wing socialist, while Duterte was replaced by a pro-American alternative, so their elections were not the last. Meanwhile, Abrams’s preferred Indian candidates losing does not mean democracy is over, and Putin murders his opponents, so he isn’t the best person to try to use as a comparison for Trump.
  4280.  
  4281. Nevertheless, Abrams continued, “Number two, you have an expansion of executive power. The president decides he wants more than he is supposed to have. Number three, you start to make the Congress complicit. So, you weaken them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary, like, oh, I don't know, the Supreme Court is giving you unfettered power and saying, ‘We don't have the ability to stop things.’" 
  4282.  
  4283. Fact-check: The Supreme Court did not say that. They made a ruling on nationwide injunctions, but they still have the power to declare presidential acts unlawful.
  4284.  
  4285. Moving on, Abrams claimed the unelected bureaucracy is the epitome of democracy, “Then you move on to firing all the people who know how to make government work. So you gut the civil service. And you do that because you want to break democracy so people forget the stuff that used to get done, so you can't get your Social Security checks.”
  4286.  
  4287. Abrams also acted as if Trump was the first president ever to want loyalty out of his cabinet members, “Then you put in place these loyalists, people who are only responsive to you. You put them in charge of the FBI, so they go after your enemies. You put them in charge of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense so they can signal to their friends and tell them all about the evil plans that you have.”
  4288.  
  4289. She also alleged, “You criticize the media, and you create your own echo chamber of propaganda. You call it truth even though you know you're lying.”
  4290.  
  4291. Continuing with her theme that she is democracy personified, Abrams went to bat for DEI, “Then you go to the next step, and I call that step seven. It's at step seven you have to blame someone. You have to blame someone for the broken government, for the broken promises. So, you go after DEI. You go after the vulnerable, the disposed, you go after any community that didn't look like what you think power should be.”
  4292.  
  4293. Furhter on, Abrams again acted like history began yesterday, “You get to step nine and you start to encourage and incentivize private violence. You send the U.S. Marines into spaces they should not be. You send the National Guard in. You kidnap people off of the streets and pretend that's normal, because that's how you quiet dissent, because you make everyone afraid that if they don't do what you want, they might be next.”
  4294.  
  4295. Finally, she brought things full circle, “And once you've done those nine steps, step ten is easy. That's when you decide there won't be new elections because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit.”
  4296.  
  4297. It’s ironic; in one week, Major League Baseball will hold its All-Star Game in Atlanta after previously yanking the game from the city in 2021 because people like Abrams, who spread conspiracies about her 2018 gubernatorial loss, lied when they said Georgia’s new election law was an exercise in voter suppression. Now, Abrams has moved on from allegations of suppression to cancelation, but a conspiracy theorist who claims to have discovered a new conspiracy is still just a conspiracy theorist.
  4298.  
  4299. Here is a transcript for the July 7-taped show:
  4300.  
  4301.  
  4302. ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
  4303.  
  4304. 7/8/2025
  4305.  
  4306. 12:23 AM ET
  4307.  
  4308. ANTHONY ANDERSON: Well, you know, stop stupid or slow it down, brings me to my next question. Over the weekend you went viral for laying out ten steps to autocracy. Run us through those steps so we all know.
  4309.  
  4310. STACEY ABRAMS: Okay, so this happens in every nation that has become an autocracy, having been a democracy. So whether we're talking about Brazil with Bolsonaro, or India, or Putin and Russia, the Philippines with Duterte, so start with winning an election.
  4311.  
  4312. ANDERSON: Uh-huh.
  4313.  
  4314. ABRAMS: Usually the last one you're going to get to have for real. Number two, you have an expansion of executive power. The president decides he wants more than he is supposed to have. Number three, you start to make the Congress complicit. So, you weaken them, and you neutralize or neuter the judiciary, like, oh, I don't know, the Supreme Court is giving you unfettered power and saying, "We don't have the ability to stop things." 
  4315.  
  4316. Then you move on to firing all the people who know how to make government work. So you gut the civil service. And you do that because you want to break democracy so people forget the stuff that used to get done, so you can't get your Social Security checks. So, the CDC doesn't know what diseases are anymore. 
  4317.  
  4318. Then you put in place these loyalists, people who are only responsive to you. You put them in charge of the FBI, so they go after your enemies. You put them in charge of the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense so they can signal to their friends and tell them all about the evil plans that you have. Then you make certain that you break how we communicate. 
  4319.  
  4320. So, you criticize the media, and you create your own echo chamber of propaganda. You call it truth even though you know you're lying. Then you go to the next step, and I call that step seven. It's at step seven you have to blame someone. You have to blame someone for the broken government, for the broken promises. So, you go after DEI. You go after the vulnerable, the disposed, you go after any community that didn't look like what you think power should be. 
  4321.  
  4322. While you're doing that you make certain that you, in step eight, you eliminate anybody that can help them. So, you sue law firms that do pro bono cases. You go after philanthropies and accuse them of giving money to the wrong people. 
  4323.  
  4324. You go after colleges and universities that can teach people what possibly what else they should know. 
  4325.  
  4326. You get to step nine and you start to encourage and incentivize private violence. You send the U.S. Marines into spaces they should not be. You send the National Guard in. You kidnap people off of the streets and pretend that's normal, because that's how you quiet dissent, because you make everyone afraid that if they don't do what you want, they might be next. And once you've done those nine steps, step ten is easy. That's when you decide there won't be new elections because everyone is either afraid, poor, broken, or complicit. 
  4327. </description>
  4328.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 11:48 AM</pubDate>
  4329.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  4330.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289751</guid>
  4331.    </item>
  4332. <item>
  4333.  <title>Other Presidents Complained, But Trump Made NATO Step Up</title>
  4334.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/larry-elder/2025/07/08/other-presidents-complained-trump-made-nato-step</link>
  4335.  <description>President Donald Trump joined a long line of presidents who complained that the NATO countries fail to pay their fair share and therefore take advantage of the United States. In 2014, the European NATO countries agreed to a target of spending 2% of their GDP on defense by 2024. In 2014, only the United States, the U.K. and Greece were spending at least 2%. In a recent interview, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said just 23 of NATO’s 32 countries met the 2024 target of 2%.
  4336.  
  4337. President Barack Obama complained. In March 2014, the AP reported, “President Barack Obama says he’s concerned that some NATO allies are reducing their spending on defense.”
  4338.  
  4339. In February 2015, Defense News wrote, “US President Barack Obama warned British Prime Minister David Cameron against allowing defense spending to slip below NATO’s target of 2 percent of gross domestic product ...”
  4340.  
  4341. President George W. Bush complained. In an April 2008 speech in Romania, he said: “Building a strong NATO Alliance also requires a strong European defense capacity. So, at this summit, I will encourage our European partners to increase their defense investments to support both NATO and EU operations.”
  4342.  
  4343. Trump not only complained. He raged. At the 2018 NATO breakfast meeting in Brussels, Trump delivered a beat down: “Just look at the chart. Take a look at the chart. It’s public. And many countries are not paying what they should. And, frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they’re delinquent, as far as I’m concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them. So, if you go back 10 or 20 years, you’ll just add it all up. It’s massive amounts of money is owed. The United States has paid and stepped up like nobody. This has gone on for decades, by the way. This has gone on for many presidents. But no other president brought it up like I bring it up. So, something has to be done ...”
  4344.  
  4345. Trump was just getting warmed up. He continued: “And I think that these countries have to step it up not over a 10-year period; they have to step it up immediately. ... So, we’re going to have to do something because we’re not going to put up with it. We can’t put up with it. And it’s inappropriate.”
  4346.  
  4347. Fast forward to the June 2025 NATO summit. The BBC reported: “NATO allies promised to raise defense related spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. ... NATO’s chief Mark Rutte heaped praise on Trump and gave him the credit: ‘America expects European allies and Canada to contribute more. And that is exactly what we see them doing.’”
  4348.  
  4349. Several factors pressured the NATO countries to go from dragging their feet to hit 2% to agreeing to the much larger target of 5%. President Joe Biden’s abrupt and chaotic pullout from Afghanistan raised questions about America’s competence, leadership and willingness to stick to its commitments. The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought to Europe’s doorstep the possibility of Russian aggression. But the biggest factor was Trump himself. When Rutte praised Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, he admitted NATO deserved Trump’s kick in the pants for not spending a larger percentage of their GDP on defense.
  4350.  
  4351. Rutte, in a private message Trump made public, said: “Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe, and the world. You will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done. Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.”
  4352.  
  4353. Not only did Trump demand and obtain a commitment from the NATO countries to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, but he also said the United States need not do so. Trump said, “I don’t think we should, but I think they should. We’ve been supporting NATO so long. ... So, I don’t think we should, but I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely.”
  4354.  
  4355. Apparently neither George W. Bush nor Barack Obama were available for comment.</description>
  4356.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 10:27 AM</pubDate>
  4357.    <dc:creator>Larry Elder</dc:creator>
  4358.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289717</guid>
  4359.    </item>
  4360. <item>
  4361.  <title>Kroft Claims '60 Minutes' Staff Fear 'Losing The First Amendment'</title>
  4362.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2025/07/08/kroft-claims-60-minutes-staff-fear-losing-first-amendment</link>
  4363.  <description>Comedy Central’s The Daily Show returned from two weeks of vacation on Monday with Jon Stewart welcoming former 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft to the program to claim that his former colleagues fear “losing the First Amendment” after mutual parent company Paramount settled with President Trump in a lawsuit over their 2024 campaign interview with Kamala Harris. Elsewhere, Stewart ranted and raved against the Big Beautiful Bill, claiming that supporters better get used to people like Zohran Mamdani, because he is “the best case scenario.”
  4364.  
  4365. Stewart declared, “Paramount, which is the parent company for CBS and 60 Minutes, and also for Comedy Central, recently made the unusual arrangement of settling a lawsuit that President Trump brought for—and I don't even really know what it was for. And they paid him—”
  4366.  
  4367.  
  4368.  
  4369.  
  4370.  
  4371.  
  4372.  
  4373.  
  4374.  
  4375. Kroft interrupted to add, “It was making one edit.”
  4376.  
  4377. Stewart then continued, “They made an edit. You bastards. They paid him $16 million. What is—I would assume internally, that is devastating, to the people who work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism.”
  4378.  
  4379. It is statements like that that make the late night comedy shows unintentionally funny. 60 Minutes has constantly performed hit pieces against Republicans and was spreading fake news before that became a popular term.
  4380.  
  4381. Naturally, however, Kroft agreed with Stewart, “No, devastating’s a good word. I think there's a lot of fear over there.”
  4382.  
  4383. After Stewart asked him to elaborate, Kroft proceeded, “Fear of losing their job. Fear of what's happening to the country. Fear of losing the First Amendment.”
  4384.  
  4385. Stewart then asked why Paramount agreed, and Kroft responded by doing the “some say” form of answering, “Well, you know, a couple of congressmen think it was bribery.”
  4386.  
  4387. Earlier in the show, Stewart played a clip of GOP Rep. Troy Nehls discounting the Congressional Budget Office’s estimations of how many people will lose their health insurance due to the BBB because they are “wrong half the damn time.”
  4388.  
  4389. Work requirements omitted from his rant, Stewart declared that Nehls gets sexually aroused at the idea of kicking people off Medicaid and food stamps, “A congressman who just voted to force people off of Medicaid and food assistance, just smoking a fatty, with both hands bandaged from what I can only assume was a friction burn from too much celebratory masturbation. There is no other way around it. ‘Ugh, Medicaid and food stamps! I've got blisters on me fingers!’”
  4390.  
  4391.  
  4392.  
  4393.  
  4394.  
  4395.  
  4396.  
  4397.  
  4398.  
  4399. He then claimed, “The problem in our country isn't the sliver of able-bodied people that are somehow coasting on the unearned medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work [bleep] full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance. That's the system that's broken. Fix that system! What are we talking about? And yet, oh, we're gaslit into this framework of "The deserving poor."
  4400.  
  4401. Concluding his monologue, Stewart did his parody impression of a Republican, “Excuse me? Who ate the porridge that was here? Who ate the porridge? You boy! What day is it, boy? Christmas Day? Take this dubloon, buy the biggest Christmas goose you can find, and take it to the heliport. I have a pilot—"
  4402.  
  4403. Reverting to his normal Angry Man persona, Stewart warned, “Look, blaming migrants and the able-bodied poor is why Trump won this election, but a system where working people struggle so much is why Mamdani won his election. And for all the people who are worried about Mamdani's socialist tendencies. Guess what? He's the best case scenario, because this system is not sustainable. And if this doesn't change, there's going to be more drastic action.”
  4404.  
  4405. After putting up the picture of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries holding a baseball bat, Stewart wrapped up, “Really? We're going to need a bigger bat.”
  4406.  
  4407. If Stewart thinks excessive taxation, rent control, government-run grocery stores, and seizing the means of production is “the best case scenario,” one shudders at what he thinks “a bigger bat” would mean.
  4408.  
  4409. Here is a transcript for the July 7 show:
  4410.  
  4411.  
  4412. Comedy Central The Daily Show
  4413.  
  4414. 7/7/2025
  4415.  
  4416. 11:18 PM ET
  4417.  
  4418. JON STEWART: A congressman who just voted to force people off of Medicaid and food assistance, just smoking a fatty, with both hands bandaged from what I can only assume was a friction burn from too much celebratory masturbation. There is no other way around it. "Ugh, Medicaid and food stamps! I've got blisters on me fingers!” The [Bleep]? The problem in our country isn't the sliver of able-bodied people that are somehow coasting on the unearned medical coverage they may or may not use, but the millions and millions of people in this country who work [bleep] full-time jobs and still need food and medical assistance.
  4419.  
  4420. That's the system that's broken. Fix that system! What are we talking about? And yet, oh, we're gaslit into this framework of "The deserving poor."
  4421.  
  4422. …
  4423.  
  4424. STEWART: "Excuse me? Who ate the porridge that was here? Who ate the porridge? You boy! What day is it, boy? Christmas Day? Take this dubloon, buy the biggest Christmas goose you can find, and take it to the heliport. I have a pilot —" Look, blaming migrants and the able-bodied poor is why Trump won this election, but a system where working people struggle so much is why Mamdani won his election. And for all the people who are worried about Mamdani's socialist tendencies. Guess what? He's the best case scenario, because this system is not sustainable. And if this doesn't change, there's going to be more drastic action. Really? We're going to need a bigger bat. 
  4425.  
  4426. …
  4427.  
  4428. STEWART: Paramount, which is the parent company for CBS and 60 Minutes—
  4429.  
  4430. STEVE KROFT: Yes.
  4431.  
  4432. STEWART: — and also for Comedy Central, recently made the unusual arrangement of settling a lawsuit that President Trump brought for— and I don't even really know what it was for. And they paid him—
  4433.  
  4434. KROFT: It was making one edit.
  4435.  
  4436. STEWART: They made an edit.
  4437.  
  4438. KROFT: Yes.
  4439.  
  4440. STEWART: You bastards. They paid him $16 million. What is — I would assume internally, that is devastating, to the people who work in a place that pride themselves on contextual, good journalism.
  4441.  
  4442. KROFT: No, devastating’s a good word.
  4443.  
  4444. STEWART: Yeah.
  4445.  
  4446. KROFT: I think there's a lot of fear over there.
  4447.  
  4448. STEWART: Fear of —
  4449.  
  4450. KROFT: Fear of losing their job.
  4451.  
  4452. STEWART: Right.
  4453.  
  4454. KROFT: Fear of what's happening to the country. Fear of losing the First Amendment.
  4455.  
  4456. STEWART: Right.
  4457.  
  4458. KROFT: All of those things.
  4459.  
  4460. STEWART: Why do you think they paid the $16 million?
  4461.  
  4462. KROFT: Well, you know, a couple of congressmen think it was bribery.
  4463. </description>
  4464.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 9:46 AM</pubDate>
  4465.    <dc:creator>Alex Christy</dc:creator>
  4466.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289750</guid>
  4467.    </item>
  4468. <item>
  4469.  <title>STUDY: PBS 'Washington Week' Roundtable Still Spreading Fear and Loathing of Trump</title>
  4470.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/07/08/study-pbs-washington-week-roundtable-still-spreading-fear-and</link>
  4471.  <description>Washington Week with The Atlantic, public television’s taxpayer-funded weekly political roundtable featuring a rotating stable of journalists, touts itself as "objective.”
  4472.  
  4473. But a review of the last three months of Washington Week (April 4, 2025 – June 27, 2025) proved Trump-phobic liberalism still reigns over the public airwaves. While unemployment is falling, inflation is down, illegal border crossings are plummeting under Trump, and the president dealing successfully with Iran’s nuclear threat, little of that positive news penetrated the tax-funded liberal bubble.
  4474.  
  4475.  
  4476.  
  4477. Key Findings:
  4478.  
  4479. ■ The panelists spent 83 minutes opining on Republicans, focusing on Trump and his administration, in 93% negative fashion (77 minutes negative, six minutes positive).
  4480.  
  4481. ■ Show “intros” by moderator Jeffrey Goldberg often set a mocking anti-Trump tone, not the “civil discourse” promised.
  4482.  
  4483. ■ Of the 14 different media outlets that were represented on Washington Week during the study period, all but one hailed from the left end of the political spectrum – and that single one (The Dispatch) sounded as liberal as the rest.
  4484.  
  4485. Our previous Washington Week study from March 2024 found coverage fixated on the upcoming elections, and also included Trump’s courtroom controversies and leadership strife in the Republican-controlled Congress. Back then, coverage ran 90% negative against the Republican Party and Trump.
  4486.  
  4487. This time around, even with supposedly bipartisan foreign policy issues on the table like Iran, the coverage only became more slanted, at 93% negative.
  4488.  
  4489.  
  4490.  
  4491. Top Five Most-Discussed Republican Issues
  4492.  
  4493. Trump’s Tariffs: 730 total seconds, 664 seconds negative, 66 seconds positive, 91% negative coverage
  4494.  
  4495. Donald Trump in General*: 659 total seconds, 587 seconds negative, 72 seconds positive: 89% negative coverage
  4496.  
  4497. Trump’s Immigration Policy (including judiciary conflict): 468 total seconds, 468 seconds negative, 0 seconds positive: 100% negative coverage
  4498.  
  4499. Trump’s Foreign Policy in General (excluding Israel/Iran and Russia/Ukraine): 463 total seconds, 428 seconds negative, 35 seconds positive: 92.4% negative coverage
  4500.  
  4501. Republicans in Congress: 297 total seconds, 297 seconds negative, 0 seconds positive: 100% negative coverage
  4502.  
  4503. * Coverage of Trump without ties to a specific, current political issue; for example, Trump reacting to the new pope, his social media postings about journalists, or a look back at his first 100 days in office
  4504.  
  4505. Worth a mention is the #6 item on the list, Trump and Iran. Despite Trump’s success in ordering a successful strike on Iran’s dangerous bomb program after weeks of diplomacy, Washington Week coverage was resoundingly negative, both before and after the successful strike on the Fordow nuclear site: 292 total seconds, 239 seconds negative, 53 seconds positive: 82% negative coverage
  4506.  
  4507.  
  4508.  
  4509. Top Five Most-Discussed Democratic Issues
  4510.  
  4511. In contrast, there were only trace mentions of the Democratic Party over the study period, always within broader Trump-related discussions -- outside the special episode devoted wholly to the Biden campaign expose book Original Sin on the coverup of President Joe Biden’s decline into decrepitude.
  4512.  
  4513. Here’s how Washington Week panelists treated the top five most-discussed Democratic political personalities/groups over the three-month study period:
  4514.  
  4515. The Biden White House: 565 total seconds, 0 seconds positive, 565 seconds negative, 100% negative
  4516.  
  4517. The Biden Debate Fiasco: 174 total seconds, 0 seconds positive, 174 seconds negative, 100% negative
  4518.  
  4519. President Biden himself: 118 total seconds, 7 seconds positive, 111 seconds negative, 94% negative
  4520.  
  4521. Kamala Harris: 46 total seconds, 0 seconds positive, 46 seconds negative, 100% negative
  4522.  
  4523. Democrats in Congress: 42 total seconds, 0 seconds positive, 42 seconds negative, 100% negative
  4524.  
  4525. Virtually all Democratic coverage came from the May 23 special episode on the Biden campaign expose Original Sin. Remove that episode, and the Democrats received a piddling 61 seconds of “coverage” (18 seconds negative, 43 seconds positive), which consisted of fleeting mentions within Trump-related stories.
  4526.  
  4527.  
  4528.  
  4529. GOLDBERG’S SPICY SET-UPS
  4530.  
  4531. Upon taking up the show’s moderator reins in August 2023, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, bragged that the renamed Washington Week with The Atlantic was “a space for civil and extended conversation about the issues affecting the news and our world.” But that promised civility has yet to transpire under his supervision as host.
  4532.  
  4533. Goldberg raised his own profile across PBS on the March 28, 2025 Washington Week episode (outside this study’s parameter) mocking the administration while talking about how he had been accidentally added to a White House encrypted group chat on the Signal phone app where administration officials discussed bombing the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
  4534.  
  4535. Goldberg also made himself the center of attention with his loaded introductions to the weekly panels, setting anti-Trump tones from the start. Here’s a sampling of his conversation starters:
  4536.  
  4537. April 4: “Financial markets have tanked as angry allies and adversaries alike retaliate against America after President Trump announces drastic new tariffs.”
  4538.  
  4539. April 11: “Like all of you, I'm trying to figure out if there's a method to the seeming [tariff] madness we've all experienced this past week. This is the kind of week in which you shouldn't, among other things, look at your 401(k) too closely. I did, mistake.”
  4540.  
  4541. May 30: “Most presidents wait until they leave the White House to cash in. President Trump takes a different approach. Crypto deals, hotels, golf courses, 747s, everything is on the table. If there's a way to make money off the presidency, he's on it. Tonight, we'll talk about all the ways Trump is treating the White House and Mar-a-Lago as places to help make him richer than he already is, next.”
  4542.  
  4543. June 6: “….at home, the rule of law is in real danger, next.”
  4544.  
  4545. “Civil” conversation?
  4546.  
  4547.  
  4548.  
  4549. Who’s Talking?
  4550.  
  4551. Goldberg moderated 11 of the 13 weekly episodes included in the study, with reporters Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS News Hour and Ashley Parker of The Atlantic guest moderating one episode each.
  4552.  
  4553. In all, 29 individual panelists (including moderator Goldberg) landed on Washington Week during the study period, some making multiple appearances. They represented 14 different media outlets, mostly legacy media, all but one (The Dispatch) reliably parked on the left end of the spectrum.
  4554.  
  4555. The New York Times led the pack with appearances by six different reporters, and staff from Goldberg’s Atlantic had five different appearances (Goldberg himself counting as a single appearance).
  4556.  
  4557. In the abstract, the increased presence on the roundtable of journalist Stephen Hayes of the center-right anti-Trump outlet The Dispatch was a small step toward balance. Hayes made four appearances over the 13 episodes; however, Hayes’s contributions were in line with those from the legacy media outlets, matching their harsh anti-Trump tone. On April 25 he lamented of Trump’s foreign policy, “the ethos is, sadly, we are the bully and we're unapologetic about it.”
  4558.  
  4559. Tied with Hayes at four appearances was Nancy Youssef, representing the Wall Street Journal (but recently poached by Goldberg to write for The Atlantic). White House reporter Peter Baker of the New York Times, Ashley Parker of The Atlantic, and David Ignatius, foreign policy columnist of the Washington Post, made three appearances each.
  4560.  
  4561. On an ironic note, Eugene Daniels, MSNBC reporter and head of the White House Correspondents’ Association, accused the White House on April 18 of “frankly, lying” that the WHCA had not brought in new organizations to cover the White House, bragging the WHCA had brought in, among others “The Daily Caller, right, Christian Broadcast News, all these different types of organizations….”
  4562.  
  4563. Yet unlike Daniels’ employer MSNBC, The Daily Caller never appears on the Washington Week panel. Neither do staffers from Fox News, The Washington Times, Washington Examiner, or Washington Free Beacon.
  4564.  
  4565.  
  4566.  
  4567. What they Said: Trump Administration Has "Repeatedly Emboldened Extremists"
  4568.  
  4569. Moderator Goldberg was far from the only harsh critic of Trump and his administration on Washington Week. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl made an over-the-top prediction in an April11 discussion of Trump’s back and forth on tariff threats as “actually threatening us with not just a bad stock market but with a potential economic meltdown.”
  4570.  
  4571. Reacting to liberal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska expressing fear of Trumpian attacks, PBS News Hour White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez ranted on April 18:  “….this shouldn't really be a surprise to her or to others that Republicans are in this situation because the administration, even before Trump took office, have repeatedly emboldened extremists and used hate speech to talk about their political enemies.” Later she said: “And normalizing the populace to political violence is a trait of authoritarianism.”
  4572.  
  4573. Following some vague hints of trouble at The Pentagon from NPR’s Asma Khalid, Goldberg gave some unsolicited advice to Trump on the April 25 show: “Why doesn’t he fire [Secretary of Defense] Pete Hegseth?”
  4574.  
  4575. On May 9, Susan Glasser of The New Yorker magazine complained of backlash about the new American pope from “very conservative, very right-wing Catholics in the United States.”
  4576.  
  4577. Veteran NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell said on May 16 that in Trump’s Washington, “The real game-changer is the level of open corruption.”
  4578.  
  4579. Even in the otherwise laudable May 23 episode wholly devoted to talking to the authors of Original Sin, Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios, Goldberg and Tapper made unwarranted excuses for the media’s passive coverage. Not mentioned: Goldberg himself in a 2023 Washington Week episode insisted of the obviously declining Biden, “Mentally, he’s quite acute.”
  4580.  
  4581. On May 30, Leigh Ann Caldwell of Puck faulted Trump’s popular move against Harvard University, saying, “this just seems pretty extreme for people who want immigration crackdown and want lower costs.”
  4582.  
  4583. During another special episode on June 6 featuring a single panelist, veteran New York Times foreign affairs correspondent Thomas Friedman, after Friedman pondered what would happen if Democrats took power and started acting like Trump, Goldberg set him up.
  4584.  
  4585.  
  4586. Thomas Friedman: And if that happens, we're really off to the races, then the whole thing just starts to disappear.
  4587.  
  4588. Goldberg: What country does that remind you of, that condition?
  4589.  
  4590. Friedman: You know, I mean so many dictatorships just in general that I've covered over the years….”
  4591.  
  4592.  
  4593. Praise for Trump on Washington Week came in fleeting spurts. Goldberg gave the president credit on May 9 for praising the new American-born pope on social media (“the president was very kind about the new pope”) while Friedman on June 6 ironically admitted Trump’s transactional approach to foreign policy in the Middle East might not be all bad ("Some things are also true even if Donald Trump believes them….his transactionalism sometimes can also be an advantage. For instance, I'm glad he's sitting down with the Iranians”).
  4594.  
  4595.  
  4596.  
  4597. CONCLUSION:
  4598.  
  4599. The publicly funded Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that airs Washington Week with The Atlantic was launched in 1969 by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was born with a congressional mandate to maintain "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.” Yet judging by our findings from the early days of the second Trump Administration, the tax-funded Washington Week with the Atlantic continues to grossly betray its mandate to the American taxpayer to provide ideological balance.
  4600.  
  4601.  
  4602.  
  4603. METHODOLOGY:
  4604.  
  4605. We tallied all explicitly evaluative comments from Washington Week with The Atlantic panelists (e.g., colorful, mocking, flattering, and ideologically loaded descriptions) regarding Democrats or Republicans. Straightforward descriptions, explanations, and analysis were not included.
  4606.  
  4607. The top five areas of discussion involving each party were then ranked based on the total amount of time in which they were positively or negatively evaluated, along with a percentage figure documenting the resulting spin, whether positive or negative.
  4608.  
  4609. We also counted and sorted the media affiliation of the panelists.</description>
  4610.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 9:10 AM</pubDate>
  4611.    <dc:creator>Clay Waters</dc:creator>
  4612.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289643</guid>
  4613.    </item>
  4614. <item>
  4615.  <title>PBS's NYT Guest Gushes Over Justice Amy Coney Barrett, 'Beacon of Hope for Liberals'</title>
  4616.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/07/08/pbss-nyt-guest-gushes-over-justice-amy-coney-barrett-beacon-hope</link>
  4617.  <description>The Independence Day edition of the PBS News Hour, guest-anchored by John Yang, featured two liberal Supreme Court experts sympathetically discussing Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee whose votes have trended leftward of late, pleasing liberals and disappointing conservatives.
  4618.  
  4619. Besides using left-wing lingo on transgender issues, the panelists also discussed conservative death threats against Barrett without mentioning the left-wing assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
  4620.  
  4621. After discussing with left-leaning SCOTUS blog co-founder (now PBS Supreme Court analyst) Amy Howe about how “the court's conservative majority delivered a string of legal victories for President Trump, many of them in emergency appeals….” The topic switched to Trump-nominated Justice Amy Coney Barrett and New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor's recent favorable profile of Barrett, the left's latest heroine.
  4622.  
  4623.  
  4624.  
  4625.  
  4626.  
  4627.  
  4628. Anchor John Yang: Jodi, the majority opinion on the case involving nationwide injunctions was written by, who's gotten a lot of attention, some skepticism from conservatives. You took a deep dive into Barrett's jurisprudence and the criticism about her. What did you find?
  4629.  
  4630. Jodi Kantor, The New York Times: She's very much the justice of the season for several reasons. She's part of the fulcrum of the court right now, the center of the court, along with Chief John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh. This is a court where the power is really concentrated in those three people. Those are the three people you have to convince.
  4631.  
  4632.  
  4633. Kantor continued by spotlighting the revolting threats made against Barrett, while crowning her a "beacon of hope for liberals."
  4634.  
  4635.  
  4636. ...Earlier this year, there was a series of extraordinary attacks and threats against her by MAGA figures. Remember, she was appointed by President Trump. A lot of these statements were way over the line. They were personal. They were about her family. Like many other federal judges, she was getting some very scary threats. At the same time, she became something of a beacon of hope for liberals who began to notice something we were able to quantify in numbers, which is that she was showing signs of leftward drift. Then, as you say, she wrote the birthright citizen opinion, which was remarkable for a relatively junior justice to take on....
  4637.  
  4638.  
  4639. As usual, conservatives are blamed for instigating a "culture war" started by the left, in this case transgender issues and the misnomer of "gender-affirming care" (i.e. genital mutilation surgery) for teenagers.
  4640.  
  4641.  
  4642. John Yang: And, Amy, one of the other issues or the areas that the court got into this year was the culture wars. Talk about some of those cases.
  4643.  
  4644. Amy Howe: Yes, so there were a couple of those cases. The court in December heard a challenge to Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care. And by a vote of 6-3, the justices upheld the Tennessee law….
  4645.  
  4646.  
  4647. The topic then turned to threats made against Supreme Court justices.
  4648.  
  4649.  
  4650. Yang: Jodi also talked about the threats that have gone against some of these justices. The day after the court's term ended, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke at a judicial conference in North Carolina and addressed the rising criticism and threats….Jodi, in your story about Justice Barrett, you found threats not only against her, but against her family.
  4651.  
  4652.  
  4653. Kantor’s mid-June piece on Justice Barrett included anecdotes of threats and pointed the finger at “Mr. Trump’s allies.”
  4654.  
  4655. PBS left the implication that the only violent threats against the Supreme Court come from the left. There was no mention of the assassination attempt on a conservative justice loathed by the media, the June 2022 attempt on the life of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
  4656.  
  4657. This slanted segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway.
  4658.  
  4659. A transcript is available, click "Expand."
  4660.  
  4661.  
  4662. PBS News Hour
  4663. 7/4/25
  4664. 7:08:39 p.m. (ET)
  4665.  
  4666. John Yang: As the Supreme Court headed into its summer break, the justices gave President Trump a big win, saying that district court judges do not have the authority to issue the sort of nationwide injunctions that had blocked administration policies.
  4667.  
  4668. It capped a term in which the court's conservative majority delivered a string of legal victories for President Trump, many of them in emergency appeals, what's called the shadow docket.
  4669.  
  4670. Earlier, I spoke with two court watchers about the term just ended and what could be coming next.
  4671.  
  4672. PBS News Supreme Court analyst Amy Howe is the co-founder of SCOTUSblog, and Jodi Kantor, a New York Times investigative reporter who's covered the justices and the court in depth.
  4673.  
  4674. Amy, how unusual is the administration's use of emergency appeals?
  4675.  
  4676. Amy Howe: It's really unusual.
  4677.  
  4678. And when I think back at this term that's just ending, that's really what we're going to remember, because it wasn't the kind of historic decisions on the merits that we had in past terms on issues like abortion and gun rights and administrative law, but the administration came to the Supreme Court over and over again on its emergency appeals dockets.
  4679.  
  4680. And these are the cases that the Supreme Court is generally deciding without oral argument and sometimes without written decisions or even knowing how all of the justices voted.
  4681.  
  4682. And in fact the Trump administration in the first 5.5 months or so of — since the inauguration on January 20 has already come to the Supreme Court on the emergency docket more than 20 times, which is more than twice as many, just to put it into context, than the George W. Bush administration and the Obama administration combined in 16 years.
  4683.  
  4684. John Yang: And how have they done? What's their success rate, as it were?
  4685.  
  4686. Amy Howe: Their success rate is high. I mean, the biggest victory was the victory on the universal or nationwide injunctions. That was a case in which the Supreme Court did hear oral argument and issue a written decision on the merits.
  4687.  
  4688. But they have had a lot of success on other issues, including immigration and the president's efforts to remake the federal work force. And although these are theoretically temporary rulings that pause lower courts' orders while the litigation continues in the lower courts, they can have permanent repercussions if you're talking about firing federal employees, about deporting people or separating transgender service members from the military.
  4689.  
  4690. John Yang: Jodi, the majority opinion on the case involving nationwide injunctions was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who's gotten a lot of attention, some skepticism from conservatives. You took a deep dive into Barrett's jurisprudence and the criticism about her. What did you find?
  4691.  
  4692. Jodi Kantor, The New York Times: She's very much the justice of the season for several reasons.
  4693.  
  4694. She's part of the fulcrum of the court right now, the center of the court, along with Chief John Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh. This is a court where the power is really concentrated in those three people. Those are the three people you have to convince.
  4695.  
  4696. Earlier this year, there was a series of extraordinary attacks and threats against her by MAGA figures. Remember, she was appointed by President Trump. A lot of these statements were way over the line. They were personal. They were about her family. Like many other federal judges, she was getting some very scary threats.
  4697.  
  4698. At the same time, she became something of a beacon of hope for liberals who began to notice something we were able to quantify in numbers, which is that she was showing signs of leftward drift. Then, as you say, she wrote the birthright citizen opinion, which was remarkable for a relatively junior justice to take on.
  4699.  
  4700. I mean, this is a decision that does some reordering of our legal system. And we can start to hear her voice clearly, more clearly than ever before, and to see that, really just five years after coming onto the court, her influence is very much rising.
  4701.  
  4702. John Yang: And, Amy, one of the other issues or the areas that the court got into this year was the culture wars. Talk about some of those cases.
  4703.  
  4704. Amy Howe: Yes, so there were a couple of those cases. The court in December heard a challenge to Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care.
  4705.  
  4706. And by a vote of 6-3, the justices upheld the Tennessee law. And this will affect similar laws in a number of other states. This was a case in which Justice Barrett actually joined the six-justice majority and then wrote a concurring opinion and said — in which she would have gone further and reached an issue that the majority didn't address, whether or not transgender people are a suspect or a protected class.
  4707.  
  4708. And then they issued a decision in a case out of Montgomery County, Maryland, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. They ruled that parents have a right to opt their children out of instruction using LGBTQ-themed storybooks.
  4709.  
  4710. John Yang: Amy, you heard Jodi say that Justice Barrett is in the center of the court, along with the chief justice, John Roberts, and Justice Kavanaugh.
  4711.  
  4712. What does it say about the ideological spectrum or ideological shift of this court that these three would be in the middle? They're not moderates, are they?
  4713.  
  4714. Amy Howe: They're definitely not moderates in any definition of the word. It just says that the center of the court has shifted to the right.
  4715.  
  4716. John Yang: Jodi also talked about the threats that have gone against some of these justices. The day after the court's term ended, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke at a judicial conference in North Carolina and addressed the rising criticism and threats.
  4717.  
  4718. JOHN ROBERTS, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: The danger, of course, is somebody might pick up on that. And we have had, of course, serious threats of violence and murder of judges just simply for doing their work. Threatening the judges for doing their job is totally unacceptable and people should be careful about doing that.
  4719.  
  4720. John Yang: Jodi, in your story about Justice Barrett, you found threats not only against her, but against her family.
  4721.  
  4722. Jodi Kantor: Exactly.
  4723.  
  4724. We actually obtained the police report about a bomb threat to her sister in South Carolina. The language is really menacing. It's really specific. It was an empty threat. There was no bomb. But it is a truly scary sign of the times that it's not just the jurists who are being threatened. It's their extended families.
  4725.  
  4726. John Yang: And you also say that her youngest son asked why mommy has a bulletproof vest.
  4727.  
  4728. Jodi Kantor: She conjured up this really memorable moment in a recent speech. She talks about being at home and her young son spies the bulletproof vest lying somewhere in the house and asks her, what is this? Why do you have it?
  4729.  
  4730. John Yang: Amy, how are the justices coping with this?
  4731.  
  4732. Amy Howe: It's hard to say exactly. The court does not comment on the justices' security. I have been going to the Supreme Court for a long time. There was visibly more security at the Supreme Court when the court is in session and then surrounding the justices when they are out and about in the public.
  4733.  
  4734. But I imagine it has to really weigh on them.
  4735.  
  4736. John Yang: Amy Howe, Jodi Kantor, thank you both very much.
  4737.  
  4738. Amy Howe: Thank you.
  4739.  
  4740. Jodi Kantor: Thank you.
  4741. </description>
  4742.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 6:04 AM</pubDate>
  4743.    <dc:creator>Clay Waters</dc:creator>
  4744.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289735</guid>
  4745.    </item>
  4746. <item>
  4747.  <title>DISGUSTING: Univision Suggests Trump Admin ‘Had an Effect’ on Deadly Texas Flood</title>
  4748.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/jorge-bonilla/2025/07/08/disgusting-univision-suggests-trump-admin-had-effect-deadly</link>
  4749.  <description>We regret to inform you that Univision joined the race to the bottom to attempt to blame the catastrophic Texas floods on the Trump administration and on DOGE. An exchange on the network’s morning Despierta América suggested to viewers that the alleged cuts “had an effect” on the deaths in Texas Hill Country.
  4750.  
  4751. Watch as anchor Satcha Pretto and weekend anchor Felix de Bedout do the dance and plant the seed of Trump administration malfeasance in viewers’ minds:
  4752.  
  4753.  
  4754.  
  4755.  
  4756.  
  4757.  
  4758. UNIVISION DESPIERTA AMERICA
  4759.  
  4760. 7/7/25
  4761.  
  4762. 7:05 AM
  4763.  
  4764. SATCHA PRETTO: Felix, and we know there's controversy surrounding the Trump administration's cuts to the National Weather Service and also FEMA. Is it known whether they may or may not have had an effect on this tragedy? What are they saying in Texas?
  4765.  
  4766.  
  4767. De Bedout proceeds to give Pretto a word salad answer wherein he neither answers nor refutes her question, therefore leaving it open for interpretation in the minds of viewers. Of course, this is total nonsense. As has been widely reported, the National Weather Service responded to the crisis with “surge staffing”, and issued multiple warnings in advance of the deadly flooding.
  4768.  
  4769. None of this matters to the Trump-deranged Univision, which insists on politicizing a tragedy even as little girls are being dug out of the mud and from under debris. The stories of courage under the worst conditions are beginning to emerge and we are only now beginning to comprehend the staggering scope of human loss resulting from this flood.
  4770.  
  4771. None of that matters beyond trying to score cheap political points off of a tragedy. Disgusting.
  4772.  
  4773. Click “expand” to view the cited portion of the aforementioned report as aired on Univision’s Despierta América on Monday, July 7th, 2025:
  4774.  
  4775.  
  4776. UNIVISION DESPIERTA AMERICA
  4777.  
  4778. 7/7/25
  4779.  
  4780. 7:05 AM
  4781.  
  4782. SATCHA PRETTO: Felix, and we know there's controversy surrounding the Trump administration's cuts to the National Weather Service and also FEMA. Is it known whether they may or may not have had an effect on this tragedy? What are they saying in Texas?
  4783.  
  4784. FELIX DE BEDOUT: That's the debate right now, and the president's words yesterday were a little, I don't know... disconcerting, because he was talking about President Biden's responsibilities, but he said it wasn't his fault. And we have to emphasize something I was mentioning to you. Natural tragedies, whoever the president is, are going to happen as expected - and what's needed is the necessary prevention so that the consequences aren't catastrophic, as has happened here. And here, although there were alerts, because in the area the alerts went off- and many people are wondering why no evacuation call was made. Several reasons were: it was very difficult to get so many people out in the middle of those conditions, but the questions are increasing, and this will have to be resolved as the days go by, especially so that if anything remains from this tragedy, it's that the lessons are learned and nothing like this happens again.
  4785.  
  4786. PRETTO: And I hope not, Felix. Even one of the mayors in the area said they're used to this kind of flash flooding and thought it might be just another one. And we saw that wasn't the case. Felix de Bedout, thank you for bringing us this live report in Kerrville, Texas.
  4787.  
  4788.  
  4789.  </description>
  4790.  <pubDate>July 8th, 2025 12:20 AM</pubDate>
  4791.    <dc:creator>Jorge Bonilla</dc:creator>
  4792.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289749</guid>
  4793.    </item>
  4794. <item>
  4795.  <title>NewsBusters Podcast: Why Must Democrats Accuse the GOP of Mass Murder?</title>
  4796.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/07/newsbusters-podcast-why-must-democrats-accuse-gop-mass-murder</link>
  4797.  <description> On Sunday, ABC featured a Democrat citing an estimate from the "Yale Policy Lab" that Trump's "big beautiful bill" would kill 100,000 people over ten years. Last week, NBC promoted a report claiming 14 million people would die from Trump's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Reporters hinted that adorable little girls drowned in a Texas flood because of Trump's cuts to the National Weather Service. But the media claim they are "fact-based."
  4798.  
  4799. When news is breaking on a tragic natural disaster, there is great uncertainty in the first few days on how government performed in life-and-death matters. It should be a time for sensitivity, neutrality, and humility. It should not be a time where liberal journalists quickly start ginning up a conspiracy theory that DOGE-squad cuts in government may have led to little girls dying needlessly.
  4800.  
  4801. ABC's George Stephanopoulos warned of "significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service’s offices in the region." CNN's Dana Bash claimed the local Weather Service in Texas "are missing some key staff members. A director of the NWS union told CNN that the Austin, San Antonio, office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist due to the Trump administration's buyouts." She wondered if that "played a role" in the deaths.
  4802.  
  4803. Last October, close to the election, Bash fiercely defended the Biden-Harris response to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, and now she's attacking Trump over these Texas flash floods. You can either call that wildly inconsistent, or you can call it perfectly consistent, that she lines up with the Democrats after every scary weather event.
  4804.  
  4805. It’s just sad that every disaster threatens to devolve into a squabble over which politicians are guilty of manslaughter. I’d at least want to wait a week or two or three for congressional hearings or something. To pounce on this, to seize on it, in the first few days, it’s just gross.
  4806.  
  4807. Earlier, after both houses of Congress passed the same version of Trump's "big beautiful bill," Democrats took to their fundraising emails and suggested the Republicans were creating a "dark and deadly moment" when food would be ripped out of the mouths of children. Nancy Pelosi called it "sinful."
  4808.  
  4809. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 
  4810.  
  4811. </description>
  4812.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 10:51 PM</pubDate>
  4813.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  4814.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289748</guid>
  4815.    </item>
  4816. <item>
  4817.  <title>MSNBC Panelists Drool Over Comparing Trump to ‘The Godfather’ </title>
  4818.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/matthew-seck/2025/07/07/msnbc-panelists-drool-over-comparing-trump-godfather</link>
  4819.  <description>On Sunday night, MSNBC’s The Weekend Primetime ran a segment comparing President Trump and his administration to the Corleone family from The Godfather, a movie about an Italian mob boss. This group struggle session had panelists drooling over themselves to spew out any anti-Trump rhetoric they could think of while relating him to a fictional character. 
  4820.  
  4821. While mispronouncing Corleone as Caponey (a mispronunciation of Capone, who’s not involved in the movie), MSNBC co-host Elise Jordan delusionally said: “One of the greatest movies ever made now feels more like a blueprint for dealing with the Trump presidency. Kiss the ring or feel the wrath of the Don.”
  4822.  
  4823.  
  4824.  
  4825.  
  4826.  
  4827.  
  4828.  
  4829.  
  4830.  
  4831. Her peak journalism led to this response from former New York Democratic Representative Max Rose, where he compared the Trump administration to a criminal enterprise, going as far to say “there’s no doubt” about it:
  4832.  
  4833.  
  4834. I mean, I do think that Donald Trump is running a criminal enterprise here. There's absolutely no doubt. And no member of the Republican Party will stand up to him to include members of the House or the Senate. And that was actually the purpose of the separation of powers, that this wasn't about political parties. But what I hear from members, you know, still serving is that they're astounded the degree to which these Republicans will hold overnight hearings, will do anything, will contradict themselves. It does not matter how embarrassing they are to themselves, they will do whatever Donald Trump needs them to do.
  4835.  
  4836.  
  4837. Rose never proffered any evidence of the supposed “criminal enterprise,” leading viewers to base his claims off of, well, nothing. Ironically, in The Godfather, the Corleone family paid off multiple New York politicians. 
  4838.  
  4839. MSNBC author Hayes Brown tried to join in on the fun but ended up looking ignorant while crying authoritarianism over the Trump vs. Paramount settlement:
  4840.  
  4841.  
  4842. BROWN: Yes, absolutely. They need to face consequences and they need to see that there is an alternative to just caving. Because what baffles me is how, time and again, we see the “don't hit me” response to Donald Trump, where you see groups cave before anything has really been done. We just saw it – I’d forgotten that The Godfather was a Paramount picture until we just showed that clip and there was a little bug at the top. And it's wild because Paramount just signed over, what was it, several million dollars?
  4843.  
  4844. JORDAN: 16.
  4845.  
  4846. BROWN: $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library fund in order to make a lawsuit that was entirely frivolous go away. That is a prime example of the urge to say, ‘I have no power here,’ and make that into a truism, like, by saying, oh, there's nothing we can do here. They make that into fact.
  4847.  
  4848.  
  4849. As much as Hayes made it seem as though the Paramount settlement with Trump over editing of a 60 minutes interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 was "frivolous," he was operating with the same amount of evidence as the rest of America, yet still claimed that Paramount would have won had they just fought back.
  4850.  
  4851. He operated on this assumption despite their settlement of $16 million and agreement to release unedited interview transcripts with presidential candidates from now on. 
  4852.  
  4853. Co-host Antonia Hylton ran from the terrible Godfather comparison to continue with the Paramount outrage (Click “expand”): 
  4854.  
  4855.  
  4856. HYLTON: How alarmed are you by the Paramount/CBS – I mean, the implications for our industry, really? I mean, it's obviously part of this long line of examples Catherine just spelled out here, but at a time when our industry is trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships, this certainly can't help.
  4857.  
  4858. BROWN: No, I feel like the terribly ironic thing is they – probably the people at the top of the corporations who are making those decisions which are separate from CBS News or ABC News when the Disney corporation signed over their $16 million agreement, they're looking out. They think – they probably do think that they are acting in their own best interest, that they are working to make sure that their other deals don't get hindered by the FCC. They're making to – working to make sure that it –  really does boil down to giving favors in order to get favors the way that –
  4859.  
  4860. So, I am worried that without a solid, independent, financially stable media, that it's going to be impossible to push back on that. If you have to worry about what is going on at the level so much higher above you when you're trying to tell the truth, that is a terrible recipe for democracy and for our country.
  4861.  
  4862.  
  4863. While Hylton claimed the media was “trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships,” you certainly don’t gain trust from the majority of American voters by comparing their president to a fictional crime boss! 
  4864.  
  4865. Brown responded by saying that media outlets can’t "tell the truth” when they were being sued for lying. Remember when MSNBC had to settle for defaming a doctor by calling him the “uterus collector?” Maybe people would trust the media more if they didn’t whine about the truth right after lying!
  4866.  
  4867. The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
  4868.  
  4869.  
  4870. MSNBC’s The Weekend: Primetime
  4871. July 6, 2025
  4872. 8:15 p.m. EST
  4873.  
  4874. ELISE JORDAN: One of the greatest movies ever made now feels more like a blueprint for dealing with the Trump presidency. Kiss the ring or feel the wrath of the Don. Vanity Fair made the mafia comparison, calling the Trump White House, quote, “the godfather presidency,” adding, quote, “even the mighty Caponey  – Capone was brought down by the government. Trump, in contrast, has made the executive branch, indeed the three branches of the US government, his. And has done so swiftly, effectively, and in a manner that makes him, for now at least, untouchable.”
  4875.  
  4876. Okay, well, we're going to discuss it now. Joining us now is Hayes Brown, MSNBC daily columnist and editor, and former Democratic Congressman Max Rose of New York. He's also a senior adviser for VoteVets.
  4877.  
  4878. (...)
  4879.  
  4880. 8:17 p.m. Est
  4881.  
  4882. FRM. REP. MAX ROSE (D-NY): I mean, I do think that Donald Trump is running a criminal enterprise here. There's absolutely no doubt. And no member of the Republican Party will stand up to him to include members of the House or the Senate. And that was actually the purpose of the separation of powers, that this wasn't about political parties. But what I hear from members, you know, still serving is that they're astounded the degree to which these Republicans will hold overnight hearings, will do anything, will contradict themselves. It does not matter how embarrassing they are to themselves, they will do whatever Donald Trump needs them to do.
  4883.  
  4884. CATHERINE RAMPELL: There are other institutions, of course, that have caved beyond the Republican Party. You've seen a lot of universities cave, law firms cave. Actually, the thing that I like most about the law firm arc is that a lot of those law firms thought that they were acting in their own narrow financial interest by caving to Donald Trump on these, you know, ludicrous things that he was asking them to do, and then they lost all their clients. So it's like, nice to see some comeuppance here. 
  4885.  
  4886. What would it take, do you think, for other institutions to start fighting back more?  Like, do they need to face consequences that incentivize them to stand up?
  4887.  
  4888. HAYES BROWN: Yes, absolutely. They need to face consequences and they need to see that there is an alternative to just caving. Because what baffles me is how, time and again, we see the “don't hit me” response to Donald Trump, where you see groups cave before anything has really been done. We just saw it – I’d forgotten that The Godfather was a Paramount picture until we just showed that clip and there was a little bug at the top. And it's wild because Paramount just signed over, what was it, several million dollars?
  4889.  
  4890. JORDAN: 16.
  4891.  
  4892. BROWN: $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library fund in order to make a lawsuit that was entirely frivolous go away. That is a prime example of the urge to say, ‘I have no power here,’ and make that into a truism, like, by saying, oh, there's nothing we can do here. They make that into fact.
  4893.  
  4894. ANTONIA HYLTON: How alarmed are you by the Paramount/CBS – I mean, the implications for our industry, really? I mean, it's obviously part of this long line of examples Catherine just spelled out here, but at a time when our industry is trying to gain trust, rebuild relationships, this certainly can't help.
  4895.  
  4896. BROWN: No, I feel like the terribly ironic thing is they – probably the people at the top of the corporations who are making those decisions which are separate from CBS News or ABC News when the Disney corporation signed over their $16 million agreement, they're looking out. They think – they probably do think that they are acting in their own best interest, that they are working to make sure that their other deals don't get hindered by the FCC. They're making to – working to make sure that it –  really does boil down to giving favors in order to get favors the way that –
  4897.  
  4898. So, I am worried that without a solid, independent, financially stable media, that it's going to be impossible to push back on that. If you have to worry about what is going on at the level so much higher above you when you're trying to tell the truth, that is a terrible recipe for democracy and for our country.
  4899.  
  4900. LAMPELL: So, Max, let me ask you a version of the question that I asked Hayes, which is what would it take for Republicans to, like, what incentives would they need to face for them to finally grow a spine, or does it not exist? Like I keep thinking, well, maybe if they just lose really, really badly in the next election, that will teach them that they need to weigh, at least politically, some of their other instincts against the instinct to bow to Trump. But that doesn't happen.
  4901.  
  4902. (...)
  4903.  
  4904. 9:22 p.m. Est
  4905.  
  4906. BROWN: But I think part of it is that they are hoping that their constituents just don't notice because of the way they built this bill, the way that they've structured it. Honestly, the fact that – that's part of what makes it feel so shady and criminal in nature is they know exactly what the bad things are. And so they're frontloading…
  4907.  
  4908. JORDAN: The timing, exactly!
  4909.  
  4910. BROWN: The timing of it. They're pushing all of the bad cuts, the Medicare cuts, the making states have to pay more for food stamps until after the midterm elections. They're pushing – they're making it so that the tax cuts that they're putting in there, the extra no – the extra money you get to keep from Social Security, the taxes on tips thing, that expires after Trump's term. They know that they have to – that they – that in defending this bill they only have to do it for so long and they just have to keep Trump happy until then.
  4911.  
  4912. (...)
  4913. </description>
  4914.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 9:44 PM</pubDate>
  4915.    <dc:creator>Matthew Seck</dc:creator>
  4916.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289746</guid>
  4917.    </item>
  4918. <item>
  4919.  <title>MSNBC Gives Representative Hakeem Jeffries Another Soapbox to Talk Your Ear Off</title>
  4920.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/lucas-escala/2025/07/07/msnbc-gives-representative-hakeem-jeffries-another-soapbox-talk</link>
  4921.  <description>Al Sharpton hosted Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on his MSNBC' show PoliticsNation Saturday evening, just days after Jeffries’s historic 8 hour and 44 minute waste of time on the House floor arguing against the Big Beautiful Bill. One might think giving a man capable of wasting that much time on-air an interview would be a dangerous call, but for Sharpton, who led a softball interview without offering any pushback, Jeffries talking too much did not seem to be a concern.
  4922.  
  4923. After he spoke on his attempted filibuster, Sharpton guided Jeffries through a slew of topics, opening each one with a question designed to tee up Jeffries for a long winded response. 
  4924.  
  4925.  
  4926.  
  4927.  
  4928.  
  4929.  
  4930.  
  4931.  
  4932.  
  4933. Sharpton tried to give Jeffries the chance to politicize the tragic flooding in Texas over the weekend:
  4934.  
  4935.  
  4936. Authorities are searching for more than two dozen people missing from a girls summer camp after flash floods that left at least 32 people dead. Authorities are being questioned over whether the camp had sufficient warning about the severe weather. The incident comes as the Trump administration is making deep cuts to weather forecasting services and openly discussing shifting more of the burden for disaster recovery from FEMA to state governments. How concerned are you in light of this?
  4937.  
  4938.  
  4939. Jeffries, however, did not follow Sharpton’s lead, opting instead to advocate for bipartisan support for recovery while not responding to the question of what role FEMA cuts may have played into the disaster. Despite having been ignored, Sharpton simply moved on without pushing the question.
  4940.  
  4941. In a similar vein, Sharpton asked about President Trump’s Everglades detention center, painting an absurd picture of racism for Jeffries to comment on:
  4942.  
  4943.  
  4944. Florida's attorney general says that the first group of immigrants have arrived in the Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” President Trump visited there earlier this week. The Trump administration has embraced the idea of alligator guards as a joke. Those of us familiar with the history of the Jim Crow South know the idea of using black babies as alligator bait has a long, ugly history. The White House tries to claim its immigration policies aren't about race, but don't these stunts expose their motivations very clearly, or at least should raise their sensitivity?
  4945.  
  4946.  
  4947. This comparison was a stretch even by generous terms. Trump’s offhand joke that the detention center would have “a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators” in the Everglades, a National Park known for its alligator population, was obviously unrelated to Jim Crow-era targeted racial propaganda.
  4948.  
  4949. This time, however, since it suited the narrative he wanted to push, Jeffries indulged Sharpton’s weak connection. He accused Trump of erasing African-American history and called the detention center an extreme and toxic stunt, accusations he could not back up and wasn’t asked to.
  4950.  
  4951. Once again opting not to press further, Sharpton switched to his final topic: downplaying New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani and his misrepresentation of his race on college admissions. Jeffries outright ignored the question, instead praising Mamdani on his goal of making New York City affordable. 
  4952.  
  4953. Sharpton allowed his question to go unanswered, consistently refusing to do anything but give Jeffries another floor on which he could speak as long as he wanted.
  4954.  
  4955. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
  4956.  
  4957.  
  4958. MSNBC's PoliticsNation
  4959. July 5, 2025
  4960. 5:01 p.m. EST
  4961.  
  4962. AL SHARPTON: Good evening and welcome to PoliticsNation from New Orleans, Louisiana. Tonight's lede: aftermath.
  4963.  
  4964. President Trump and Congressional Republicans are celebrating the passage of their tax and spending bill this 4th of July weekend. There's no question that it's big, but its beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The richest among us can look forward to more than $4 trillion in net tax cuts over the next decade. The administration's mass deportation efforts witness a historic windfall, with $45 billion in new funding for ICE alone. But for those who are less wealthy and powerful, it's a different story.
  4965.  
  4966. 12 million Americans are likely to see their health insurance go away. Three million will watch their SNAP benefits disappear. Economists warn it could be a formula for disaster, adding more than $3 trillion to our national debt in just the coming 10 years, leaving future generations to face the consequences of the political decisions of our leaders and what they made happen today. 
  4967.  
  4968. Joining me now to get us started is the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Democratic Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Thank you for joining us. And, Congressman, you made history. You used your “magic minute” during the spending bill debate this week to deliver the longest House floor speech in U.S. history. For anyone who missed the full eight hours and 45 seconds, can you tell us tonight what's wrong with this piece of legislation?
  4969.  
  4970. (...)
  4971.  
  4972. REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): The “One Big Ugly Bill” hurts everyday Americans and rewards billionaires. It's the largest attack on healthcare in American history. More than 17 million people will lose their healthcare as a result of this “One Big Ugly Bill.” It will end, effectively, Medicaid as we know it. Hospitals will close. Nursing homes will shut down. Community-based health clinics won't be able to operate. 
  4973.  
  4974. And as a result of the fact that so many people will not be able to get access to health care, folks are going to die all across the United States of America. And for those who have private insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles are likely to go up for millions of Americans. But it also represents the largest cut to supplemental nutritional assistance in American history. Republicans are literally ripping food out of the mouths of hungry children, veterans and seniors.
  4975.  
  4976. And all of this, Reverend Sharpton, is being done so that Republicans can award billionaires massive tax breaks as part of an effort to jam their extreme trickle-down economic theory down the throats of the American people and explode the debt by more than $3 trillion.
  4977.  
  4978. SHARPTON: Now, there are some Democrats right now who are outraged over what President Trump is doing, who are frustrated Democrats can't do more right now to block him legislatively. What is your message to those critics?
  4979.  
  4980. JEFFRIES: Well, listen, it's incredibly important to note that House Democrats and Senate Democrats were united in their strong and principled opposition against Donald Trump's extreme agenda. The problem that we confront is that Republicans have effectively become a rubber stamp for Donald Trump's ideology and his extremism, and have chosen to abandon their role as part of a separate and co-equal branch of government.
  4981.  
  4982. You know, as members of Congress, we don't work for Donald Trump. We don't work for JD Vance. We don't work for Elon Musk. We work for the American people. That's why, as House Democrats, our determination was going to stand up for the healthcare, the American people, stand up for veterans and farmers, everyday Americans, the children, the older Americans, the people with disabilities who are all going to be hurt by this “One Big Ugly Bill.” 
  4983.  
  4984. And the problem that we confront in the legislative branch right now is that Republicans have basically conducted themselves like they're a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Incorporated, not independently elected folks who are supposed to be serving the best interests of the American people.
  4985.  
  4986. SHARPTON: Now, we're following breaking news this weekend out of Texas hill country. Governor Abbott held a news conference just in the last hour. Authorities are searching for more than two dozen people missing from a girls summer camp after flash floods that left at least 32 people dead. Authorities are being questioned over whether the camp had sufficient warning about the severe weather. The incident comes as the Trump administration is making deep cuts to weather forecasting services and openly discussing shifting more of the burden for disaster recovery from FEMA to state governments. How concerned are you in light of this? And we’re all praying for the families, but how concerned are you in light of this with the county’s readiness for extreme weather, right now, heading into the hurricane season?
  4987.  
  4988. JEFFRIES: Such a very shocking and sad tragedy. And our thoughts and prayers, of course, go out to all of the families of those who have been lost, of those who are still missing. And we also want to express our thanks and appreciation for the first responders who are right now in the midst of a search and rescue operation. I think we are going to have to figure out what happened, why did it happen, and how do we prevent this type of tragedy from ever happening again? And so the question of readiness is certainly something that congress should be able to explore in a bipartisan way, particularly as we head into a summer where we can expect intensifying extreme weather events hitting massive parts of the United States of America throughout July, August into the fall.
  4989.  
  4990. SHARPTON: Let me go to another issue. Florida's attorney general says that the first group of immigrants have arrived in the Everglades detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” President Trump visited there earlier this week. The Trump administration has embraced the idea of alligator guards as a joke. Those of us familiar with the history of the Jim Crow South know the idea of using black babies as alligator bait has a long, ugly history. The White House tries to claim its immigration policies aren't about race, but don't these stunts expose their motivations very clearly, or at least should raise their sensitivity?
  4991.  
  4992. JEFFRIES: Yeah, the last thing I would expect from this particular toxic administration at this point is sensitivity to any of the painful parts of our history. They've tried to erase our history, sanitize and whitewash our history. You know, the big problem with the Trump administration, we see all of these stunts that continue to take place, very toxic stunts, extreme stunts in many, in many cases. But what have they done to actually address the issues of importance to the American people, like lowering the high cost of living? This guy, Donald Trump, promised to lower the high cost of living, lower grocery costs on day one. Costs aren't going down. They're going up. 
  4993.  
  4994. And by the way, as a result of this one big ugly bill, you're going to see utility bills start to skyrocket as a result of some of the things that have been done in this reckless Republican budget. And instead, they're focused on stunts like this “Alligator Alcatraz” situation.
  4995.  
  4996. By the way, Rev, what they should be doing, what they promised to do was to deport violent felons who are undocumented. Instead, in many cases, they're going after law-abiding immigrant families. We all want to secure the border, but what is taking place right now is not what I believe the American people signed up for last November.
  4997.  
  4998. SHARPTON: Now, I want to take us home for a minute. I'm in New Orleans at the Essence Festival, but I want to ask you about the Democratic nominee for New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Last weekend, you said you were still getting to know Mamdani and wanted him to clarify some of his positions on Israel and anti-Semitism. This week you defended Mamdani when the President attacked his Muslim faith and questioned his immigration status. Have you had any additional conversations with Mamdani in the past few days, and has your thinking on his candidacy evolved at all?
  4999.  
  5000. JEFFRIES: Yeah, I haven't had any opportunity to talk with him over the last few days based on the fact that so much has been going on in Washington, D.C as we – as House Democrats have been united in our fight to try to stop this extremism that Donald Trump and Republicans are jamming down the throats of the American people. Real painful stuff in terms of healthcare and nutritional assistance and beyond. 
  5001.  
  5002. But we are in the process of getting a meeting in person, scheduled likely to take place in East New York or Brownsville, Canarsie, at which point we'll have the opportunity to discuss a whole host of issues, his vision for the future. I can share with him some of my thoughts about the district that I'm privileged to represent, and also talk about the importance of making sure that we're all on board with the need to take back control of the House of Representatives next November, so we can end this national nightmare in Washington, D.C., begin that process and actually try to bring out an America that is the best version of herself.
  5003.  
  5004. SHARPTON: Now, a quick follow up. New York City Mayor Eric Adams is attacking Mamdani over reports that he identified himself as African American and Asian on college application. Mamdani was born in Uganda, his parents from India. What are your thoughts on this issue? Mamdani has checked multiple boxes trying to capture what he calls the fullness of his background. I mean, is this a real issue to you?
  5005.  
  5006. JEFFRIES: I think to me, you know, the issue that we have to deal with in New York City, which our Democratic nominee did talk about extensively during the primary campaign, is affordability. And particularly in many of the neighborhoods that are being overwhelmed by gentrification and wiped out by housing displacement, that whoever is going to be the next mayor of the city of New York really needs to articulate a concrete plan for making sure that working-class communities, including working-class neighborhoods of color, can still have a place in our great city, the city that both of us love, but we know is changing significantly in terms of the opportunity for working families and middle class folks to be able to continue to call it home.
  5007.  
  5008. SHARPTON: Well, I want to thank you for coming on.
  5009. </description>
  5010.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 7:00 PM</pubDate>
  5011.    <dc:creator>Lucas Escala</dc:creator>
  5012.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289745</guid>
  5013.    </item>
  5014. <item>
  5015.  <title>NY Times Lib Claims ICE Raids Are on People Not ‘American Enough’ </title>
  5016.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/shannon-sauders/2025/07/07/ny-times-lib-claims-ice-raids-are-people-not-american-enough</link>
  5017.  <description>On Monday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe invited New York Times opinion writer, Mara Gay, who did not hold back her left-wing bias regarding the continuous arrests and deportations made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gay went as far as to claim that the policy in the White House implemented was about “othering people who are not seen as American enough.”  
  5018.  
  5019. On Friday, President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the liberal media had some hot takes about the money that was going towards aiding ICE. Gay stated:  
  5020.  
  5021.  
  5022. I remember being told there’s no money in America for healthcare, for public education, for new parks, all kinds of initiatives that we were told there’s no money for this. But then suddenly there’s money to deport farm workers. There’s money to sweep up, you know, people who worked with our troops in Afghanistan. There’s funding to separate families, people who have really not committed crimes, but have come here to work to be a part of this country.  
  5023.  
  5024.  
  5025.  
  5026.  
  5027.  
  5028.  
  5029.  
  5030.  
  5031.  
  5032.  
  5033. This was where the media fell short, they didn’t want to admit the truth that the people who were being arrested and deported by ICE were illegal immigrants and are criminals for crossing the border illegally. Of course, no one wants to see families separated, but that was not the reason why ICE was sent aid. ICE was established to uphold the order and law of the land by removing people who were here illegally.   
  5034.  
  5035. If the liberal media wanted to talk about “no money” then they should have turned their heads to the previous administration that gave billions of dollars to Ukraine, but left barely anything for the disaster floods that hit the mountainous areas of North Carolina and Tennessee last fall.   
  5036.  
  5037. Along with aiding ICE, putting Americans first also included strong borders and security, which was what ICE was enforcing. Yet, Gay went on a tangent criticizing the Trump administration:  
  5038.  
  5039.  
  5040. And I just think that the cruelty underlying this really shows that this isn’t about immigration policy for this White House. This is about a policy of othering people who are not seen as American enough. And I think that is chilling. And you see that throughline with this Alcatraz. You know, I don’t, I mean, it’s so disturbing.  
  5041.  
  5042.  
  5043. No, Mara, the Trump administration was not arresting people who were not “American enough.” They were arresting people who weren’t following our laws and skipped the line to get in.  
  5044.  
  5045. Gay lamented that the ICE raids were “going to just be turbocharged and without any kind of accountability.”  
  5046.  
  5047. The Trump administration had made it clear that upholding law and order to protect the country was a top priority. It would seem like increasing funding was just action to support the command, but the left-wing media detested the thought of having strong borders and security in this country. 
  5048.  
  5049. Click here for the transcript.
  5050.  
  5051.  
  5052. MSNBC’s Morning Joe
  5053. 7/7/25
  5054. 9:25 a.m. Eastern
  5055.  
  5056. (...)
  5057.  
  5058. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The co-host of MSNBC’s the weekend prime time, Elise Jordan, is back with us. Also joining us, opinion writer at The New York Times, Mara Gay. And, Mara, I’m first of all wondering – I’m trying to think of the limits that might be pushed with this new funding coming in from the bill.
  5059.  
  5060. MARA GAY: Ha, limits? I think unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that these ICE raids have now, it’s going to just be turbocharged and without any kind of accountability. Congress has not shown an appetite, under Republican control, for any kind of oversight.
  5061.  
  5062. And we’re talking about spending dollars for ICE and ICE raids and DHS that rival some countries, the entire budget of other countries. So, there’s a lot of concerns about just wantonness, I would say.
  5063.  
  5064. We already don’t actually have much insight at all into what’s happening on America’s streets. Where these raids are happening, the way they’re being conducted. And I just – I think that Americans should be asking their congress people to take a far more active role in oversight.
  5065.  
  5066. And you know, I think there’s an underlying tragedy here. We were told for years, you know, I’m not even 40 years old, I remember being told there’s no money in America for healthcare, for public education, for new parks, all kinds of initiatives that we were told there’s no money for this.
  5067.  
  5068. But then suddenly there’s money to deport farm workers. There’s money to sweep up, you know, people who worked with our troops in Afghanistan. There’s funding to separate families, people who have really not committed crimes, but have come here to work to be a part of this country.
  5069.  
  5070. And I just think that the cruelty underlying this really shows that this isn’t about immigration policy for this White House. This is about a policy of othering people who are not seen as American enough. And I think that is chilling. And you see that thoughline with this Alcatraz. You know, I don’t, I mean, it’s so disturbing. It’s honestly hard to get my-
  5071.  
  5072. [Crosstalk]
  5073.  
  5074. ELISE JORDAN: Mara, I do you think you-
  5075.  
  5076. GAY: words around it. 
  5077.  
  5078. JORDAN: - hit the nail on the head though, talking about the cruelty.
  5079.  
  5080. GAY: Yeah.
  5081.  
  5082. JORDAN: I, you know, It sounds like the migrants who are being deported to South Sudan have committed some pretty unsavory crimes. That said, how is it within humanitarian law to send people to a war zone, to an active war zone? Okay, Mika, I just think it sounds insane, and I just can’t believe we’re doing this as a country.
  5083.  
  5084. BRZEZINSKI: It's hard to get your mind around for sure.
  5085. </description>
  5086.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 5:35 PM</pubDate>
  5087.    <dc:creator>Shannon Sauders</dc:creator>
  5088.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289743</guid>
  5089.    </item>
  5090. <item>
  5091.  <title>Morning Joe: 'Not To Throw Cold Water,' But Iran Strikes Could Make Us 'Less Safe!'</title>
  5092.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2025/07/07/morning-joe-not-throw-cold-water-iran-strikes-could-make-us</link>
  5093.  <description> For every silver lining, we must find a cloud!
  5094.  
  5095. That is, if you're the liberal media, and the Trump administration and Israel have pulled off audacious strikes on Iran, severely damaging its nuclear facilities and eliminating many of its top military leaders and nuclear scientists.  
  5096.  
  5097. Thus it was that on Monday's Morning Joe, Katty Kay introduced a segment on the results of the strikes by proclaiming her intent was "not to throw cold water on any potential optimism" as to how there could be a moment for Israel to find peace with Saudi Arabia and in Gaza.
  5098.  
  5099. In a discussion with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, Kay then proceeded to cite a conversation with Karim Sadjadpour, an Iranian-American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
  5100.  
  5101. According to Kay, Sadjadpour described several possible scenarios that:
  5102.  
  5103.  
  5104. "Could see Iran rushing for a nuclear weapon now, not doing what the Americans are asking and completely disbanding their nuclear program, but actually doing the opposite. And there is a potential that the strikes actually could precipitate a situation in which we're less safe, not more safe, with Iran."
  5105.  
  5106.  
  5107. Ignatius said his sense was "pretty similar to our friend Karim's."
  5108. Ignatius told Kay, "You're right to be cautionary. There's no sign of a breakthrough with Iran." And to the contrary, Ignatius said that whereas there was "extensive dialogue" with Iran prior to the B-2 bunker buster strikes, now, we're "not getting any budge at all from Iran." 
  5109.  
  5110.  
  5111.  
  5112.  
  5113.  
  5114. Nice try, Morning Joe! If not quite a bunker buster, you attempted to drop a big bucket of cold water on Israeli and US accomplishments regarding Iran! 
  5115.  
  5116. Note: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where the Iran analyst Kay relied on and whom Ignatius described as "our friend" works, describes itself as "nonpartisan." 
  5117.  
  5118. Let's have a look at its officers, past and present.
  5119.  
  5120. Current president: Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar. Appointed by Gov. Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown as a Justice of the Supreme Court of California, and a former official in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
  5121.  
  5122. Cuellar was the successor to William Burns, Biden's CIA director.
  5123.  
  5124. Burns was preceded as president by Jessica Tuchman, a former official in the Carter and Clinton administrations.
  5125.  
  5126. The current chairperson of the Endowment's Board of Trustees is Jane Hartley, a former ambassador appointed by Obama and Biden.
  5127.  
  5128. Yup, sure sounds "nonpartisan!"
  5129.  
  5130. Here's the transcript.
  5131.  
  5132.  
  5133. MSNBC
  5134. Morning Joe
  5135. 7/7/25
  5136. 6:36 am EDT
  5137.  
  5138. KATTY KAY: Not to kind of throw cold water on any potential optimism that there might be that you're expressing there, I had a long conversation with Karim Sadjadpour who we had on the program a lot. It's hard to believe that it's only two weeks in this kind of frenetic news world. We tend to forget news very quickly but it's only two weeks until  those strikes. 
  5139.  
  5140. Karim was laying out a kind of scenario in which there are multiple ways that the strikes could lead to some sort of different type of government or some sort of successor to the Ayatollah in Iran.
  5141.  
  5142. But that amongst those different scenarios, several of them could see Iran rushing for a nuclear weapon now, not doing what the Americans are asking and completely disbanding their nuclear program, but actually doing the opposite.
  5143.  
  5144. And there is a potential that the strikes actually could precipitate a situation in which we're less safe, not more safe, with Iran. 
  5145.  
  5146. What's your take on where we are with the Iranian nuclear program at the moment and this idea that there could be a rush in Iran for a nuclear weapon?
  5147.  
  5148. DAVID IGNATIUS: So, Katty, my sense is probably pretty similar to our friend Karim's. It's clear that the intensity of Israeli and then American bombing has delayed the Iranian nuclear program. It will take months, maybe years, we just don't know, to put it back together. 
  5149.  
  5150. There is still this question of where the highly enriched uranium that Iran had already accumulated is, that could quickly be moved to bomb grade in a, as what you describe a dash by Iran towards having a nuclear weapon. 
  5151.  
  5152. I think the most pessimistic factor that I see is that when I talk to the people involved in the negotiations, they say they're not getting any budge at all from from Iran.
  5153.  
  5154. Before the U.S. sent the B-2s up with the bunker busting bombs, there was an extensive dialogue between Witkoff, the special envoy, and the Iranian foreign minister. That seems to have ended. 
  5155.  
  5156. And so we're just in a situation where the only recourse in the future, if Iran does move toward a bomb, is for U.S. and Israeli intelligence to detect it, and then somebody to go in and bomb it again. 
  5157.  
  5158. So in that sense, I think you're right to be cautionary. There's no sign of a breakthrough with Iran. 
  5159. </description>
  5160.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 4:56 PM</pubDate>
  5161.    <dc:creator>Mark Finkelstein</dc:creator>
  5162.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289733</guid>
  5163.    </item>
  5164. <item>
  5165.  <title>CNN Hack Doubles Down on Trump Being Possible Cause of Flooding Deaths</title>
  5166.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/07/cnn-hack-doubles-down-trump-being-possible-cause-flooding-deaths</link>
  5167.  <description>Having been thoroughly lambasted on X over the weekend for her takes speculating with a rhetorical wink and nudge that Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) caused the deaths of nearly 100 people (as of this blog) in Texas floods, CNN senior national security analyst and former Obama official Juliette Kayyem used appearances on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday to double down on this just-asking-questions escapade.
  5168.  
  5169. Her first attempt came Saturday afternoon just before 5:00 p.m. Eastern after a press conference with federal, state, and local officials in the Hill Country:
  5170.  
  5171.  
  5172.  
  5173.  
  5174.  
  5175.  
  5176.  
  5177. Fill-in co-host Erica Hill joined in on the just-asking-questions crusade, telling viewers “multiple things can be true at once” as officials ought to “be actively involved in rescue missions” and “mourn those lives that were lost” while also finding a culprit or villain, which she masked as just “ask[ing] those questions” because....climate change.
  5178.  
  5179. Kayyem replied that, in essence, people complaining about those like her going “political” should just get over it (click “expand”):
  5180.  
  5181.  
  5182.  
  5183.  
  5184.  
  5185.  
  5186.  
  5187.  
  5188. KAYYEM: [P]eople will say that that’s political or whatever, but actually, you’re hearing it from the parents, you’re hearing it from the community and you know — and you heard about faith and faith driving this community through. But part of what faith is, is also recognizing that that danger will come again and we owe it to future generations to do better in terms of either the alerts by the locals or, of course, changes to the federal government disaster system. I am — I am — being honest here, I am — I’m looking at the data. I cannot answer the question yet. Were cuts directly responsible? I know what’s happened to the Texas National Weather Service and NOAA. I know what weather — and weather reporters and locals there are saying.
  5189.  
  5190. HILL: Yeah.
  5191.  
  5192. KAYYEM: And also, we don’t know what the time frame is in terms of did National Weather Service — you know, consistently, I saw the alerts.
  5193.  
  5194. HILL: Sure.
  5195.  
  5196. KAYYEM: They were consistently getting more panicked, obviously. Did — was there just too much of a delay? There — those girls — you know, obviously the campsites is what were focused on, but there are other areas. There may have been not enough time regardless, but I don’t think we should pretend that we have nothing to learn.
  5197.  
  5198.  
  5199. Kayyem returned in the 9:00 p.m. Eastern hour with this set-up from Situation Room co-host Wolf Blitzer: “[S]ome officials have blamed the National Weather Service Forecast for a lack of information.”
  5200.  
  5201. Even though he had just hung up, Kayyem lectured Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) — one of the House members whose constituents were affected — to use his “oversight capacity to do the honest lessons learned, not to place blame, but because there will be more floods and there will be more damage.”
  5202.  
  5203.  
  5204.  
  5205.  
  5206.  
  5207.  
  5208.  
  5209.  
  5210.  
  5211. She then floated the “depletions in the National Weather Service and NOAA...because of DOGE and firing” as the sources of blame for the casualties as merely “one theory or one explanation” even though “we don’t know right now.”
  5212.  
  5213. “[W]hat worries a lot of us who watch this is that those decisions will be made not on merit, not on need, not on what or harm, but will be based on political calculations and because we don’t know what the White House has in mind. Disasters are always political. We should all, you know — there’s nothing surprising about our times when it comes to politics — I mean, to disasters. Disasters are the fight for limited resources during times of need,” she added.
  5214.  
  5215. Incredibly, Kayyem returned for more on Sunday, starting with CNN This Morning. After going through the hoops of how the state, local, and federal agencies work together on search, rescue, recovery, and rebuilding phases, CNN News Central co-host Boris Sanchez turned to DOGE and Trump as the entities to blame because, in this ecosystem, someone has to be the villain (click “expand”):
  5216.  
  5217.  
  5218. SANCHEZ: And, Juliette, to the point about staffing at the offices of the National Weather Service and the folks that are in charge of making sure that these warnings get to where they need to go in time for folks to make it out, what is your view on that? Are they properly staffed to handle this kind of major weather event when many of these offices, these NWS offices around the country, they no longer operate 24/7?
  5219.  
  5220. KAYYEM: I’ve been one of many screaming from the rooftops that these are government capacities that you only miss when you need them, right? That you may say, oh, we can just cut NWS or NOAA and that’s fine. That’s just part of the DOGE process, but we will find out whether there is a direct connection between what was happening to NWS and NOAA and warnings. I’ve seen some of the what we call tick-tocks (ph), and it appears that NWS and NOAA were doing these alerts. What we don’t know is why were there gaps in local response? It may be this was such a historic storm, no one could have done anything. But this is something that we have to learn more generally. Unless you believe this is the last major climate disaster the United States is ever going to have, we need to focus on weather, science, alerts, early warning systems, and the capacity to get people out so that they can survive. Human life is all that matters in these disasters. Time is short. We need to invest in the capacities that save people’s lives. It’s not just weather. It’s, of course, FEMA, Coast Guard, local and state capacity. This is something that, you know — look, you know, no government thinks that they every — let me put it a different way. Every administration ends up having to deal with disasters. And the more that we can invest in preparing and anticipating them, the fewer horrors than what we’re seeing this weekend will happen as we see them and so, we’ll find out specifically about this. But more generally, we need to invest in these systems to protect us from the climate harms that are surely going to come in the weeks and months and years ahead.
  5221.  
  5222.  
  5223. A few hours later, she cropped up again with Sanchez for a similar discussion, fretting Trump will make disaster recoveries more “partisan” not true “investment in science, and understanding what is happening to weather and how to protect communities when it comes early alert systems and of course investments in the Department of Homeland Security that are very much focused on border and not on emergency management.”
  5224.  
  5225. Kayyem took a break until the 7:00 p.m. Eastern hour when she insisted “nobody knows” anything for certain yet, but promptly scoffed at beliefs that disasters happen. In her mind, everything is preventable:
  5226.  
  5227.  
  5228. I do not buy into the argument that there’s nothing that could have been done. This is a hundred-year storm. We’ve got decades and decades of disaster management to protect children like this. So, everyone needs to stop pretending that either the other party did it or this was not preventable — this tragedy. We have lessons to be learned...[T]he assessment by the President or the governor or outsiders that we know is not true. It’s just not and we need to really find out what happened, because this is beyond a tragedy, it’s — I’m speechless. We should not— we are better at this. And something horrible went wrong.
  5229.  
  5230.  
  5231. She continued, speculating about whether a coordinator position having been open at the local National Weather Service office caused the tragedy, citing “a lot of discussion about coordination positions at the National Weather Service that were not available that is translating the flash flood warnings into action” to really make sure they paid attention (i.e. looked at their phones or weather radios).
  5232.  
  5233. This went on and closed with another disgusting rhetoric wink:
  5234.  
  5235.  
  5236.  
  5237.  
  5238.  
  5239.  
  5240.  
  5241. Situation Room co-host Pamela Brown backed her up, saying it was “interesting” she brought those up and wondered if this disaster will cause President Trump to have “any second thoughts” if the federal government could have done anything “to save these young girls.”
  5242.  
  5243. CNN saved highlights from this appearance to reair multiple times overnight into Monday on both an edition of CNN Newsroom International and Early Start.
  5244.  
  5245. Kayyem returned live on CNN News Central with co-host Kate Bolduan having the two go down the path of climate fatalist (click “expand”):
  5246.  
  5247.  
  5248. BOLDUAN: [W]hen people say, it’s something — I’ve never seen anything like this, it is something — saying those words is something that people are going to have to get more and more used to saying because of the nature of the climate crisis, the effects of which we’re already seeing, harsher, faster, bigger flooding, and that also impacts preparation for, which is exactly kind of what you’re getting at it. It’s — as the ball game changes, they all need to start looking at it a slightly different way and part of — and Alayna was talking about this, there are questions being raised about the impact — the role of the federal government in this preparation. And kind of the nature of the federal government cuts that the administration is putting in place. 
  5249.  
  5250. (....)
  5251.  
  5252. KAYYEM: I think everyone needs to take a step back and realize that our investments in preparing these communities to climate disasters, you don’t even — we don’t even debate climate change. It’s a commitment that we owe these children, but it is what government is about. This is when people need government, when their homes are destroyed, their children are lost, and we need to reinvest in that preparedness. You know, and I’m going to be a little bit personal here, I wrote a book called The Devil Never Sleeps, about sort of ongoing large disasters. But it actually is aligned from a woman who’s very faithful from Joplin, Missouri. They lost over a hundred people in a tornado over a decade ago, but the second part of her line is more important. So The Devil Never Sleeps. But he only wins if we don’t do better next time. And people of all face and no face have to commit to that because we will see these disasters again and again and again.
  5253.  
  5254.  
  5255. To see the relevant CNN transcripts, click here (for July 5), here (for July 6), and here (for July 7).</description>
  5256.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 4:51 PM</pubDate>
  5257.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  5258.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289744</guid>
  5259.    </item>
  5260. <item>
  5261.  <title>‘God Knows What Else He May Have Done’: ABC Suggests Musk Stole 2024 Presidential Election</title>
  5262.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/07/god-knows-what-else-he-may-have-done-abc-suggests-musk-stole</link>
  5263.  <description> Following their vacation for the week of America’s birthday, ABC’s The View was coming in hot on Monday during their “Hot Topics” segment; ABC News co-host Ana Navarro suggested that Elon Musk stole the 2024 presidential election for President Trump. She received no push back from anyone for the accusation, instead, she received support from co-host Sunny Hostin. She even tried to ghoulishly politicize the tragic floods in Texas over the weekend.
  5264.  
  5265. During their opening segment about the continuing war of words between Trump and Musk, Navarro erroneously implied that Trump had made no public comments about the flooding in Texas, nor the deaths of dozens of people, including children. Instead, she shrieked about how “Trump was tweeting” while “there is death, sorrow, and tragedy in Texas.”
  5266.  
  5267. She continued to decry how Trump was supposedly staying silent on the tragedy: “I don't understand why instead about -- of saying to the American people, ‘we're going to get to the bottom of what went wrong if we have to  change things in -- in Texas, in the weather system, NOAA, if we have to change things at FEMA we will.’ Instead of that, he's taking the time to fight with his former bromance partner Elon Musk.”
  5268.  
  5269. Without evidence of what she was eluding to, Navarro demanded that Musk “look at what he did in this past election” with “his 300-plus-million dollars” spent. Again, without evidence, she suggested that he did more than just spend money, all while getting vocal support from Hostin:
  5270.  
  5271.  
  5272. NAVARRO: But I think Elon Musk needs to look at what he did in this past election.
  5273.  
  5274. HOSTIN: Yes.
  5275.  
  5276. NAVARRO: We have a broken system right now because there is no oversight. We have a broken system because there is a President who doesn't believe in the Constitution and who defies judicial orders. And Elon Musk and his 300-plus-million dollars, and God knows what else he may have done that we don't know of, own the problem that he created.
  5277.  
  5278. HOSTIN: Yeah.
  5279.  
  5280.  
  5281.  
  5282.  
  5283.  
  5284.  
  5285.  
  5286.  
  5287.  
  5288.  
  5289. This wasn’t the first time this kind of ugly election denialism had popped up on ABC’s The View this year. In May, ABC News moderator Whoopi Goldberg suggested that Trump had rigged the election and that he should be careful or people would start investigating. In June, Hostin herself asserted that Musk knew how the election was stolen.
  5290.  
  5291. Back on Monday, Navarro, who ABC insisted was a “Republican” voice on the panel, proclaimed that her goal “for the next year-and-a-half [was] getting Hakeem Jeffries elected speaker of the House, because that' the choice in front of me right now.” She also wanted to make “sure that Democrats regain the majority.”
  5292.  
  5293. While speaking with Congressman Jeffries (D-NY) later in the show, Navarro ghoulishly tried to get him to use the dead bodies of little kids as a platform to attack Trump for the flooding in Texas. Jeffries didn’t take her bait, and said it shouldn’t be politicized:
  5294.  
  5295.  
  5296. NAVARRO: Before you go, I want you to say something about Texas, because the entire country is in mourning and people have questions about why this happened and could it have been avoided. Is there something that you can do?
  5297.  
  5298. JEFFRIES: It's an unspeakable and horrific tragedy and, you know, our thoughts and prayers go out to every single family that has experienced a loss. And we know -- you know, I mean, no parent should ever have to bury their child, and dozens will now have to bury their children. And so, with extreme weather events and the climate crisis and these natural disasters we should never play politics, ever. Not play politics with the wildfires. Not play politics with these floods.
  5299.  
  5300.  
  5301. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
  5302.  
  5303.  
  5304. ABC’s The View
  5305. July 7, 2025
  5306. 11:07:27 a.m. Eastern
  5307.  
  5308. (…)
  5309.  
  5310. ANA NAVARRO: I was appalled last night that Donald Trump was tweeting and Truth Socialing, about this – this fight with Elon Musk at a time when there is death, sorrow, and tragedy in Texas. I don't understand why instead about -- of saying to the American people, ‘we're going to get to the bottom of what went wrong if we have to  change things in -- in Texas, in the weather system, NOAA, if we have to change things at FEMA we will.’ Instead of that, he's taking the time to fight with his former bromance partner Elon Musk.
  5311.  
  5312. And far as Elon Musk the guy is mercurial. There was a ton of people who thought they could have a partnership with him, an association with him. I mean, whether it's Don Lemon, my friend, or Donald Trump, not my friend, or women, or you just name it. So, you know, he is mercurial.
  5313.  
  5314. But I think Elon Musk needs to look at what he did in this past election.
  5315.  
  5316. SUNNY HOSTIN: Yes.
  5317.  
  5318. NAVARRO: We have a broken system right now because there is no oversight. We have a broken system because there is a President who doesn't believe in the Constitution and who defies judicial orders. And Elon Musk and his 300-plus-million dollars, and God knows what else he may have done that we don't know of, own the problem that he created.
  5319.  
  5320. HOSTIN: Yeah.
  5321.  
  5322. NAVARRO: So, you know, I am going to be focused right now for the next year-and-a-half in getting Hakeem Jeffries elected speaker of the House, because that' the choice in front of me right now. Do I think both -- either party is perfect? No. But I think we need oversight and the only way to do it is by making sure that Democrats regain the majority.
  5323.  
  5324. (…)
  5325.  
  5326. 11:26:25 a.m. Eastern
  5327.  
  5328. NAVARRO: Before you go, I want you to say something about Texas, because the entire country is in mourning and people have questions about why this happened and could it have been avoided. Is there something that you can do?
  5329.  
  5330. REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): It's an unspeakable and horrific tragedy and, you know, our thoughts and prayers go out to every single family that has experienced a loss. And we know -- you know, I mean, no parent should ever have to bury their child, and dozens will now have to bury their children. And so, with extreme weather events and the climate crisis and these natural disasters we should never play politics, ever. Not play politics with the wildfires. Not play politics with these floods. And get the American people the relief that they need and deserve. That's my commitment.
  5331.  
  5332. (…)
  5333. </description>
  5334.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 3:42 PM</pubDate>
  5335.    <dc:creator>Nicholas Fondacaro</dc:creator>
  5336.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289742</guid>
  5337.    </item>
  5338. <item>
  5339.  <title>Summers Heat Stroke? Economist Loses Noggin Nuggets Over Trump’s ‘2,000 Days of Death’ </title>
  5340.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/business/joseph-vazquez/2025/07/07/summers-heat-stroke-economist-loses-noggin-nuggets-over</link>
  5341.  <description>Former President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council director has slipped from being the voice of reason on inflation to going full Cocaine Bear by screeching that President Trump was killing people with his economic agenda.
  5342.  
  5343. You can’t make this up.
  5344.  
  5345. Economist Larry Summers waved around a ridiculous Yale Budget Lab report to seethe July 6 to ABC’s This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) “will kill, over ten years, 100,000 people. That is two thousand days of death like we’ve seen in Texas this weekend...In my 70 years, I've never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th.”
  5346.  
  5347. Yes, Summers actually exploited the tragic deaths of at least 90 people who were killed by the disastrous floods in Texas to score political cheap shots at the president and his allies. “Tone-deaf” doesn’t even begin to describe Summers’s insane argument. Of course, the smug lefty Snuffleupagus — er, Stephanopoulos — didn’t seem to mind, since he too tried to pin political blame on Trump for the Texas tragedy.
  5348.  
  5349. Summers also explicitly contradicted himself. He first claimed that the BBB would instigate “[m]ore inflation, higher interest rates, more risk of Fed raising interest rates and run the risk of recession, more stagflation.” He then did a complete switcheroo later by admitting he really doesn’t know what’s going to happen: “None of us can forecast what's going to happen to economic growth.” Uh, what?
  5350.  
  5351.  
  5352.  
  5353.  
  5354.  
  5355.  
  5356.  
  5357.  
  5358.  
  5359. When CNN State of the Union co-host Dana Bash tried to whip out the Yale Budget Lab against Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent July 6, he immediately pointed out the ideological makeup of the staff and advisory board that ultimately compromises its objectivity as an economic authority. “This week, I actually went on their website. They're all ex-Biden officials, so I think we can discount everything they say.” Stephanopoulos didn’t bother disclosing those details, or the fact that Summers himself is a member of the Yale Budget Lab advisory board. 
  5360.  
  5361.  
  5362.  
  5363.  
  5364. Sec. Scott Bessent on the "Yale Budget Lab" analysis: "This week, I actually went on their website. They're all ex-Biden officials, so I think we can discount everything they say... What we have here is a middle class and working class bill."pic.twitter.com/qyYV9Aiqe4
  5365. — Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) July 7, 2025
  5366.  
  5367.  
  5368. MRC Business followed up on Bessent’s argument and discovered that top leadership within the Yale Budget Lab were in fact former employees of the Biden administration. This included the following:
  5369.  
  5370. Yale Budget Lab President and Co-Founder Natasha Sarin: Previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and later as a Counselor to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Sarin is also a reported Biden donor and was recently a focus of a NewsBusters investigation exposing Bloomberg Opinion columnist Alexis Leondis for dubiously sending the Treasury Department Q&amp;A questions in advance of an interview with Biden’s Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Lily Batchelder, of which Sarin assisted in editing her answers. 
  5371. Executive Director Martha Gimbel: Previously served as Senior Advisor for Biden’s White House Council of Economic Advisers.
  5372. Director of Economics Ernie Tedeschi: Previously served as Biden’s Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
  5373. Associate Director of Economic Analysis Harris Eppsteiner: Previously served as Special Assistant to the Chairman and Research Economist at Biden’s White House Council of Economic Advisers.
  5374. Bessent excoriated Summers in a thread on X for turning “a human tragedy into a political cudgel. Such remarks are feckless and deeply offensive.” He continued: “If he is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the cruelty of his remarks, [his affiliated nonprofit and for-profit organizations] should consider Harvard's example and make his unacceptable rhetoric grounds for dismissal.”
  5375.  
  5376.  
  5377.  
  5378.  
  5379. Today, former Treasury Secretary @LHSummers showed why he was forced to step down as president of @Harvard: a lack of humanity and judgment. 1/4
  5380. — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) July 7, 2025
  5381.  
  5382.  
  5383. Summers could be just trying to re-ingratiate himself with the leftists he’s angered over the years for predicting (correctly) that President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus would set inflation into overdrive. Perhaps being an honest liberal doesn’t pay dividends in his line of work. C'est la vie. </description>
  5384.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 2:30 PM</pubDate>
  5385.    <dc:creator>Joseph Vazquez</dc:creator>
  5386.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289739</guid>
  5387.    </item>
  5388. <item>
  5389.  <title>DeSantis to Leftist Media Ratings Firm: You’re Not Welcome Here</title>
  5390.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/tom-olohan/2025/07/07/desantis-leftist-media-ratings-firm-youre-not-welcome-here</link>
  5391.  <description> Under a new law, Florida won’t be giving a dollar to anti-free speech groups seeking to silence disfavored media outlets by choking off their advertising revenue.
  5392.  
  5393. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the conservative firebrand,  blocked organizations like media ratings firm NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index from receiving any state funds. This marked the latest blow to the left’s attempts to rate, stigmatize and drive away ad dollars from outlets that challenge them on COVID-19, transgenderism and other issues.
  5394.  
  5395.  [Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 
  5396.  
  5397. The DeSantis Photo was included in the article courtesy of the Executive Office of Governor Ron DeSantis. </description>
  5398.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 1:58 PM</pubDate>
  5399.    <dc:creator>Tom Olohan</dc:creator>
  5400.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289741</guid>
  5401.    </item>
  5402. <item>
  5403.  <title>CNN Reporter Spends Saturday Speculating DOGE Cuts Played Role in TX Flooding Deaths</title>
  5404.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2025/07/07/cnn-reporter-spends-saturday-speculating-doge-cuts-played-role-tx</link>
  5405.  <description>Throughout Saturday, CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein couldn’t help but work into her live shots blatant speculation about whether cuts to the National Weather Service by President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) played a role in the deaths of what was then 50 known dead in catastrophic flooding that struck Texas’s Hill Country.
  5406.  
  5407. Klein’s hijinks started in the 1:00 p.m. Eastern hour with an allusion to President Trump’s desire to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a way to wonder if there would be a “full extent of this federal response” and “if there will be a request for additional aid from Congress.”
  5408.  
  5409. She upped the ante two hours later, adding for the doom and gloom effect that “the so-called Big Beautiful Bill that the President signed into law just yesterday does make cuts or even closes some weather research laboratories that are vital to forecasting and improving forecasts:
  5410.  
  5411.  
  5412.  
  5413.  
  5414.  
  5415.  
  5416.  
  5417.  
  5418.  
  5419. By the 5:00 p.m. Eastern hour, she added DOGE to the equation, alluding to the “cuts for hundreds of employees at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency, as well as the National Weather Service” while also trying to claim “[i]t’s really too soon to say whether those cuts contributed to any of the lack of alerts here.”
  5420.  
  5421. For anyone who recognizes the game the liberal media play, merely introducing a possible narrative is as good as gold and more than enough to create doubt and sow division.
  5422.  
  5423. She doubled down an hour later, cloaking the DOGE mention in merely “people asking questions in the immediate aftermath of how something like this could happen”:
  5424.  
  5425.  
  5426.  
  5427.  
  5428.  
  5429.  
  5430.  
  5431. By the 7:00 p.m. Eastern hour, Klein had settled on a narrative (click “expand”):
  5432.  
  5433.  
  5434. KLEIN [at 7:36 p.m. Eastern]: Two other points I want to note. Number one, the President has been deeply critical of FEMA. He says he plans to phase out that agency at the end of this hurricane season. And second, going forward, the President’s budget for fiscal year 2026, which they are already starting to implement, does make cuts and even closes. Some of these weather research labs that are so critical for forecasting. They really give that data that we need for better forecasts. The tools that they use to collect that data are now experiencing cuts. DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency also cut hundreds of employees at NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the National Weather Service. It’s really too soon to know at this stage whether this had any sort of impact on this notification effort. But Secretary Noem was pressed on the alerts from the National Weather Center. Here’s how she defended the administration.
  5435.  
  5436. NOEM: That is something and one of the reasons that when President Trump took office that he said he wanted to fix and his currently upgrading the technology and the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years. But I do carry your concerns back to the federal government, to President Trump and we will do all we can to fix those kinds of things that that may have felt like a failure to you.
  5437.  
  5438. KLEIN: Now, the storm that created the conditions for this flash flooding was completely unpredictable, truly unprecedented.
  5439.  
  5440. (....)
  5441.  
  5442. KLEIN [at 8:38 p.m. Eastern]: But I want to point out two additional things as we continue to track this federal response. Number one is that the President has been deeply critical of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He says that he plans to phase it out at the conclusion of this year’s hurricane season. Separately, the Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget is which it’s already abiding by, offers massive cuts to some weather research labs that are vital to forecast extreme weather events like this. They collect better data for better forecasts and the tools that they are using here are experiencing cut right now. Now, DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency has also cut staffers at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as the National Weather Service. But Secretary Noem was really pressed on the National Weather Service’s alerts leading up to this. Here’s what she said as she defended the administration.
  5443.  
  5444. NOEM: That is something and one of the reasons that when President Trump took office that he said he wanted to fix and is currently upgrading the technology. And the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years. But I do carry your concerns back to the federal government and to President Trump and we will do all we can to fix those kinds of things that may have felt like a failure to you.
  5445.  
  5446. KLEIN: Of course, this storm was extremely unpredictable. The water rising so quickly, so unprecedented.
  5447.  
  5448.  
  5449. In her final live shot of the night, she showed her mind wasn’t changing about speculating:
  5450.  
  5451.  
  5452.  
  5453.  
  5454.  
  5455.  
  5456.  
  5457. Before the first of two taped live shots for the 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Eastern hours, Situation Room co-host Wolf Blitzer gave her a just-asking-questions strategy a boost:
  5458.  
  5459.  
  5460. Meanwhile, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary is strongly defending the federal government’s response to the disaster in Texas. Secretary Kristi Noem says President Trump is “currently upgrading technology at the National Weather Service.” However, the President’s mega bill, which he just signed into law, makes cuts and even closes some weather research labs that help make forecast improvements. And his DOGE team, as it’s called, fired hundreds of employees at the National Weather Service and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA.
  5461.  
  5462.  
  5463. To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 5, click here.</description>
  5464.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 1:01 PM</pubDate>
  5465.    <dc:creator>Curtis Houck</dc:creator>
  5466.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289740</guid>
  5467.    </item>
  5468. <item>
  5469.  <title>POLL RESULTS: Worst Media Take of the Week Winner!</title>
  5470.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2025/07/07/poll-results-worst-media-take-week-winner</link>
  5471.  <description>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.  
  5472.  
  5473. Much appreciation to all who voted last week via NewsBusters and the MRC’s various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and X.com).  
  5474.  
  5475. The results of the Worst Media Take of the Week are in and the winner is…
  5476.  
  5477. Joy Reid!
  5478.  
  5479. Burnett won crushed the competition with 76 percent of the vote! The former MSNBC host took first place for accusing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis of rounding up “brown people” to put in his “concentration camp.” The Nation’s Elie Mystal finished in second place with 16 percent of the vote. ABC’s The View’s Sunny Hostin finished in third place with 8 percent. 
  5480.  
  5481. The following is a montage of all the nominees: 
  5482.  
  5483.  
  5484.  
  5485.  
  5486.  
  5487.  
  5488.  
  5489.  
  5490.  
  5491.  
  5492.  
  5493.  
  5494.  
  5495. WINNER (76 percent of the vote)
  5496.  
  5497.  
  5498.  
  5499. Joy Reid: Ron DeSantis Is Rounding Up “Brown People” To Put In His “Concentration Camp”
  5500.  
  5501. “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.”— Former MSNBC host Joy Reid on The Joy Reid Show podcast, June 28. 
  5502.  
  5503.  
  5504.  
  5505. SECOND PLACE (16 percent of the vote)
  5506.  
  5507.  
  5508.  
  5509. Elie Mystal: America Needs to Be Sanctioned, “We Are the Bad Guys” 
  5510.  
  5511. “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….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.”— The Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal on The Joy Reid Show podcast, July 2.
  5512.  
  5513.  
  5514.  
  5515. THIRD PLACE (8 percent of the vote)
  5516.  
  5517.  
  5518.  
  5519. Sunny Hostin: “Like Many Dictators” Trump Wants “State-Sponsored Television”
  5520.  
  5521. “I think he [Donald Trump] is much more comfortable — like many dictators and many authoritarians — with state-sponsored television….I’ve actually been to Russia, you watch television, you watch television in mainland China, you can’t trust what you’re hearing. And I think he is much more comfortable in that kind of space.”— Co-host Sunny Hostin on ABC’s The View, June 26.
  5522.  
  5523.  
  5524.  
  5525. Thanks again to all who participated! 
  5526.  
  5527.  
  5528.  
  5529. Funded by James P. Jimirro</description>
  5530.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 12:33 PM</pubDate>
  5531.    <dc:creator>Geoffrey Dickens</dc:creator>
  5532.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289738</guid>
  5533.    </item>
  5534. <item>
  5535.  <title>How Cynthia Nixon &amp; Lily Allen’s Push to Normalize Abortion Backfired Hard</title>
  5536.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/dawn-slusher/2025/07/07/how-cynthia-nixon-lily-allens-push-normalize-abortion</link>
  5537.  <description> There was a time when pro-abortion activists claimed to want abortion to be “rare.” Now, Hollywood starlet Cynthia Nixon sported a “Make Abortion Great Again” hat, as though ending unborn lives by the tens of millions was ever “great” or something to be celebrated. And singer Lily Allen giggled about not being able to remember how many abortions she’s had. Times have certainly changed.
  5538.  
  5539. Nixon posted the sun-soaked Instagram photo to protest Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill defunding abortion giant Planned Parenthood. Libs insist the government shouldn’t meddle in abortion but love it footing the bill.
  5540.  
  5541.  
  5542.  
  5543.  
  5544.  
  5545.  
  5546.  
  5547.  
  5548.  
  5549.  
  5550.  
  5551.  
  5552.  
  5553.  
  5554.  
  5555.  
  5556.  
  5557.  
  5558. View this post on Instagram
  5559.  
  5560.  
  5561.  
  5562.  
  5563.  
  5564.  
  5565.  
  5566.  
  5567.  
  5568.  
  5569.  
  5570.  
  5571.  
  5572.  
  5573.  
  5574.  
  5575.  
  5576.  
  5577.  
  5578.  
  5579.  
  5580.  
  5581.  
  5582.  
  5583.  
  5584.  
  5585.  
  5586.  
  5587.  
  5588.  
  5589.  
  5590.  
  5591.  
  5592.  
  5593. A post shared by Cynthia Nixon (@cynthiaenixon)
  5594.  
  5595.  
  5596. The post oozes Hollywood smugness, framing abortion as empowering, not the tragic loss it is. A failed “Democrat Socialist” politician, Nixon’s Instagram reads like a “How to be a Good, Virtue-Signaling, Hollywood Activist for Dummies” guide. But the performative hat post crossed a line for fans on both sides of the abortion issue:
  5597.  
  5598.  
  5599. “I’m pro-choice … (none) of my friends who had an Abortion thought it was Great.” -@tigbyhillvintage
  5600.  
  5601. “I am pro choice. But celebrating abortion as great is actually quite sick! It’s a traumatic decision for everyone and it leaves an emotional scar forever…” -@drgerstmannyc
  5602.  
  5603. “I’m pro-choice and I think that hat is absolutely repulsive.” -@stef.wilks1031
  5604.  
  5605. “Ask any woman who’s gone through an abortion if it was ‘great’. I can’t believe this post is still up.” -@thejamiemcguire
  5606.  
  5607. “This is truly depraved and evil. Why in the world would any human celebrate the genocide of infants?”- @rootedlifewellness
  5608.  
  5609. “This is pretty sick… there’s nothing ‘great’ about abortion. Even if you’re pro-choice… it’s not ‘great,’ it’s a tragedy.” -@mantarnyc
  5610.  
  5611. “Promoting the genocide of innocent human beings is sick.” -@natalgas
  5612.  
  5613.  
  5614. The vast majority of comments were critical of the post with only a sprinkling of comments supporting it, leading a couple of users to cheer:
  5615.  
  5616.  
  5617. “Thank you to all the sane humans because the comments confirms (sic) this post is completely distasteful and out of touch.” -@houseofhullihen
  5618.  
  5619. “I love the left and right agree that this is one sick hat..” -@spinkandy86
  5620.  
  5621.  
  5622. When she’s not virtue signaling on Instagram, Nixon plays a character who sleeps with a Catholic nun (played by Rosie O’Donnell) on HBO’s Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That.
  5623.  
  5624. She also stars in HBO’s period drama The Gilded Age. Victoria Robinson, CEO and Founder of Reassemble, a “post-abortion trauma counseling” organization, expressed her displeasure in watching the show:
  5625.  
  5626.  
  5627. "I turned off that channel for good, Seeing you on any show will now only remind me of this picture. So I’ll never be watching one again."
  5628.  
  5629.  
  5630. We can only imagine how such a glib slogan must affect the many women who are trying to heal from their abortion trauma.
  5631.  
  5632. At least two other users commented they won’t be supporting Nixon or HBO anymore, either:
  5633.  
  5634.  
  5635. “And ‘just like that’, I’ll never support anything you ever do. I’m so grateful my teenage mom chose life.” -@kelleyrosecovell
  5636.  
  5637. “@hbo @hbomax and just like that, I’m cancelling my subscription…” -@cesarame
  5638.  
  5639.  
  5640. Nixon claims her stance stems from her mother’s illegal abortion. How does learning your sibling was aborted inspire a cause to champion? Her sibling’s voice was silenced, yet Nixon enjoys the privilege of speaking out. And it could have been her own life that was lost had the timing been different.
  5641.  
  5642. Unfortunately, Nixon’s not alone in her extremism. Singer Lily Allen recently created a firestorm after bragging on her podcast that she “can’t remember” how many abortions she’s had after getting pregnant “so many times,” singing and giggling about it like a deranged Disney princess:
  5643.  
  5644.  
  5645.  
  5646. Then there’s the “Shout Your Abortion” crowd, peddling “Being PRO-ABORTION is the cutest” merch, (emphasis theirs) with shirts boasting “Everyone knows I had an abortion” and “Congratulations on your abortion” cards, which we refuse to link to.
  5647.  
  5648. While Nixon sails into the sunset preening for likes, the unborn don’t get a filter to pretty up their massacre. Abortion isn’t “great.” No snarky hat, “cute” merch, or vacuously braggadocios pop star can hide its tragedy. Hopefully, the backlash to Nixon and Allen will fuel pushback against the extreme pro-abortion movement’s attempt to normalize this atrocity.</description>
  5649.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 11:37 AM</pubDate>
  5650.    <dc:creator>Dawn Slusher</dc:creator>
  5651.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289737</guid>
  5652.    </item>
  5653. <item>
  5654.  <title>Death Spiral: Stephanopoulos, Bash Lamely Try to Pin Texas Flood Deaths on Trump</title>
  5655.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/07/death-spiral-stephanopoulos-bash-lamely-try-pin-texas-flood-deaths</link>
  5656.  <description>The devastating floods in Kerr County, Texas were breaking news on Sunday morning, and with it came desperate spin that somehow the human lives lost in the flood could be blamed on Trump budget cuts. On ABC’s This Week, former Democrat press secretary George Stephanopoulos launched into the claim of “staffing shortfalls” in National Weather Service offices in Texas:
  5657.  
  5658.  
  5659. STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Mireya, we're also learning that there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service’s offices in the region.
  5660.  
  5661. MIRAYA VILLARREAL: You know, George, as of right now, the local county officials really didn't want to address that just yet. What they are telling us is they expected between four and six inches of rain. That is what weather experts told them. The National Weather Service as well. They also knew that in remote locations, they might get anywhere from eight to ten inches. But this amount of rain, in such a short amount of time, it was very difficult to navigate. And when the Department of Homeland Security Secretary was here just yesterday, she acknowledged this was an issue. She was going to take these concerns to the White House as well and try and see if there was anything they could do to revamp the system. She says the president is committed to it.
  5662.  
  5663.  
  5664.  
  5665.  
  5666.  
  5667.  
  5668.  
  5669.  
  5670.  
  5671.  
  5672. George wasn't paying any attention to the Associated Press account, which said the NWS had extra staff on the ground, according to local meteorologist Jason Runyen: 
  5673.  
  5674.  
  5675. The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, which delivers forecasts for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, Runyen said.
  5676.  
  5677. Where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had up to five on staff.
  5678.  
  5679. “There were extra people in here that night, and that’s typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,” Runyen said.
  5680.  
  5681.  
  5682. On CNN’s State of the Union, host Dana Bash relied on a “director of the NWS union” for her claims, as if a union officials was totally objective about federal job cuts:
  5683.  
  5684.  
  5685. BASH: And just talking about the federal government and even the local government, two Texas National Weather Service offices involved in forecasting and warning about flooding on the Guadalupe River are missing some key staff members.
  5686.  
  5687. A director of the NWS union told CNN that the Austin, San Antonio, office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist due to the Trump administration's buyouts. Do you have any indication whether those or other cuts helped play a role in the fact that the people in the flood zone were not prepared and certainly not evacuated?
  5688.  
  5689. REP JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): No, I can't say that conclusively.
  5690.  
  5691.  
  5692.  
  5693.  
  5694.  
  5695.  
  5696.  
  5697.  
  5698.  
  5699.  
  5700. As the Maze Moore X account pointed out, last October, Bash was furiously spinning the other way after Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Any spin against the Democrats was "raw politics, and dangerous politics." Lara Trump came on the show to blame Biden-Harris FEMA money going to illegal aliens. How dare Lara spread "misinformation"! </description>
  5701.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 10:14 AM</pubDate>
  5702.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  5703.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289734</guid>
  5704.    </item>
  5705. <item>
  5706.  <title>CBS Nudges Ken Burns Into Preposterous Claim PBS Isn't Leftist, It Has 'Firing Line'</title>
  5707.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/07/cbs-nudges-ken-burns-preposterous-claim-pbs-isnt-leftist-it-has</link>
  5708.  <description> PBS partisans treat Ken Burns as if he was one of America’s finest treasures. In reality, he should be nobody’s idea of a nonpartisan historical filmmaker. He’s a fervent liberal Democrat. When Donald Trump first won in 2016, Burns admitted “I too needed some time in the fetal position, covers pulled up to my chin.” He represents the liberal bubble at PBS.
  5709.  
  5710. In 2024, according to Open Secrets, he donated $18,400 to the Democratic National Committee, $10,000 to the Democratic Party of Montana, and the maximum federal donation of $3,300 to Kamala Harris, Sen Jon Tester (D-Montana), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), and the congressional campaign of CNN analyst John Avlon in New York. In 2020, he donated $2,800 to socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
  5711.  
  5712. On Sunday's Face the Nation, CBS Evening News co-anchor John Dickerson interviewed Ultraliberal Ken about his new film on the American Revolution, but also supinely cued him up to make cockamamie arguments about PBS. 
  5713.  
  5714.  
  5715.  
  5716.  
  5717.  
  5718.  
  5719. JOHN DICKERSON: Are you worried about the future of PBS?
  5720.  
  5721. KEN BURNS: Of course I am. And I've always been worried about it. In the 1990s, I think I testified in the House or the Senate, in appropriations or authorization about the endowments are about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting a half dozen times.
  5722.  
  5723. JOHN DICKERSON: Make the case for PBS.
  5724.  
  5725. KEN BURNS: It is the Declaration of Independence applied to the communications world. It's a bottom up. It's the largest network in the country. There's 330 stations. It mostly serves, and this is where the elimination of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is so shortsighted, it mainly serves rural areas in which the PBS signal may be the only they get. [???] They also have not only our good children's and primetime stuff, they have Classroom of the Air continuing education, homeland security, crop reports, weather, emergency information. That we're going to take away? This seems foolhardy and seems misguided, mainly because there is a perception among a handful of people that this is somehow a blue or a left wing thing when this is the place that for 32 years gave William F. Buckley a show. And it's – I mean it's – and it's - - that show is, by the way, is still going on and moderated by a conservative.
  5726.  
  5727.  
  5728. This is a preposterous argument. Firing Line was the conservative exception to the liberal rule. They used it for exactly this purpose: to distract people from the leftist programming every night. Firing Line often had liberals on it. Other shows on PBS didn't have any balance.
  5729.  
  5730. It's especially lame for Burns to claim the ersatz new version of Firing Line is "moderated by a conservative" when Margaret Hoover sells herself as a gay-rights activist and her husband is John Avlon, the Democrat candidate that Ken Burns maxed out with campaign money.
  5731.  
  5732. But that's not quite as embarrassing as suggesting the hayseeds in rural America have no channels except PBS, and no cable or streaming or cell phones or internet. What happened to "CBS fact-checking in real time"?
  5733.  
  5734. Burns then proclaimed that he could go to any cable or streaming service and they would fall at his feet to air his films, but he needs ten years to finish a project, so he loves PBS. "And that has been under the system that has one foot tentatively in the marketplace and the other proudly out. Kind of like the national parks, or the Declaration of Independence, applied to the landscape. These are really good, American institutions that represent everybody from the bottom up, which is what it's always about. That's the essence of what Thomas Jefferson was talking about."
  5735.  
  5736. PBS doesn't represent everybody. It was created by liberal Democrats in 1967 to serve liberal Democrats with taxpayer money. To compare state-funded broadcasting to the Declaration of Independence is the worst kind of ideological flatulence.
  5737.  
  5738. PS: The footage CBS showed of Burns testifying to Congress about PBS in 1999 is the same hearing where I sat at the other end of the table to explain the dramatic liberal and partisan bias of PBS. His testimony that day was so arrogant and self-centered it became another reason for me to keep exposing the overall liberal arrogance of "public" broadcasting. It's too bad CBS can't challenge Burns with our conservative evidence from either then or now.</description>
  5739.  <pubDate>July 7th, 2025 5:55 AM</pubDate>
  5740.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
  5741.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289732</guid>
  5742.    </item>
  5743. <item>
  5744.  <title>PBS's Barron-Lopez Teams Up With Liberal 'Non-Partisans' to Bash Trump's Budget Bill</title>
  5745.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2025/07/06/pbss-barron-lopez-teams-liberal-non-partisans-bash-trumps-budget</link>
  5746.  <description>As President Trump’s big budget bill neared a crucial vote in the Senate on Monday, PBS News Hour’s most biased reporter, Laura Barron-Lopez, covered only one side of a critical part of the bill federal health care spending on Medicare and Medicaid.
  5747.  
  5748. The sole guest for the segment not only represented a liberal health group, KFF (previously known as the Kaiser Family Foundation), but misleadingly assured viewers that the group was “nonpartisan.” As “nonpartisan” as you can be while still publishing policy briefs titled “10 Key Data Points About the Experiences of LGBT+ Women and Their Access to Care” which use the term “cisgender” unironically.
  5749.  
  5750.  
  5751. Amna Nawaz, co-host: Recent changes made by Senate Republicans to President Trump's budget bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in health care spending over the next decade. That's according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, is here now with more on the bill's impact for millions of Americans.
  5752.  
  5753.  
  5754. Barron-Lopez emphasized the negative.
  5755.  
  5756.  
  5757. Laura Barron–Lopez: Amna, that Congressional Budget Office estimate also found the bill would result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance by 2034, the vast majority of those cuts hitting Medicaid. To discuss this, I'm joined by Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the nonpartisan KFF….So the Senate Republicans made a number of changes recently to this bill, and this bill would make the largest cuts to Medicaid in the history of the program. If Republicans end up passing it, what is the real-world impact for people who could lose coverage?
  5758.  
  5759.  
  5760.  
  5761.  
  5762.  
  5763.  
  5764. Levitt’s no “nonpartisan” source. His new op-ed at the New York Times states "Democrats will be able to point out that Republicans have just voted for the biggest health care cutbacks ever.”
  5765.  
  5766.  
  5767. Larry Levitt: That's right. This would be the biggest cut to Medicaid, in fact, the biggest cut to health care in history. And that number that the Congressional Budget Office has put out, that 11.8 million more people would be uninsured, really tells the story here. I mean, it's low-income kids. It's adults who are working, but don't have health insurance through their jobs. It's people with disabilities. It's seniors who need help paying their Medicare premiums or who are in nursing homes. Medicare does not cover nursing home or long-term care, so it's really Medicaid that ends up picking up the slack there….
  5768.  
  5769. Barron–Lopez: President Trump and Republicans have repeatedly claimed that part of this is about kicking undocumented migrants off of Medicaid. Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that that would total some 1.4 million undocumented people. What's the reality here? And are undocumented immigrants eligible for Medicaid?
  5770.  
  5771. Levitt: No, the reality is undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any federally funded program, whether that's Medicaid, Medicare, or the Affordable Care Act….
  5772.  
  5773.  
  5774. The phrase they’re looking for is “illegal immigrants.”
  5775.  
  5776. Barron-Lopez worked overtime to minimize any potentially potent GOP talking points about fraud in federal medical spending, inviting her liberal guest to neutralize the problem of health care fraud.
  5777.  
  5778.  
  5779. Barron–Lopez: As Republicans are trying to message and sell these cuts to Medicaid, the Trump administration announced today that it filed criminal charges in health care fraud schemes involving more than $14.6 billion. Where does health care fraud typically occur? And can you put today's announcement in context for us?
  5780.  
  5781. Levitt: ….That fraud is generally perpetrated by rogue health care providers who are billing for services that they don't provide. Fraud in Medicaid is not being perpetrated by individual enrollees trying to get access to health care. Republicans have tried to frame the cuts in this reconciliation bill as eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. But there is just not a trillion in fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid. And, in fact, there is very little in this bill that would actually go after the kind of fraud that the Justice Department announced today.
  5782.  
  5783.  
  5784. Despite such coverage pressing down on the “No” side, the bill squeaked through the Senate on Tuesday 51-50 on a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Vance.
  5785.  
  5786. This wholly anti-Trump budget segment was brought to you in part by Raymond James.
  5787.  
  5788. A transcript is available, click “Expand.”
  5789.  
  5790.  
  5791. PBS News Hour
  5792.  
  5793. 6/30/25
  5794.  
  5795. 7:33:29 p.m. (ET)
  5796.  
  5797. Amna Nawaz: Recent changes made by Senate Republicans to President Trump's budget bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in health care spending over the next decade. That's according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
  5798.  
  5799. Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron – Lopez, is here now with more on the bill's impact for millions of Americans.
  5800.  
  5801. Laura Barron – Lopez: Amna, that Congressional Budget Office estimate also found the bill would result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance by 2034, the vast majority of those cuts hitting Medicaid.
  5802.  
  5803. To discuss this, I'm joined by Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the nonpartisan KFF.
  5804.  
  5805. Mr. Levitt, thanks so much for joining us today.
  5806.  
  5807. Larry Levitt, Executive Vice President For Health Policy, KFF: Thanks for having me.
  5808.  
  5809. Laura Barron – Lopez: So the Senate Republicans made a number of changes recently to this bill, and this bill would make the largest cuts to Medicaid in the history of the program. If Republicans end up passing it, what is the real-world impact for people who could lose coverage?
  5810.  
  5811. Larry Levitt: That's right. This would be the biggest cut to Medicaid, in fact, the biggest cut to health care in history.
  5812.  
  5813. And that number that the Congressional Budget Office has put out, that 11.8 million more people would be uninsured, really tells the story here. I mean, it's low-income kids. It's adults who are working, but don't have health insurance through their jobs. It's people with disabilities. It's seniors who need help paying their Medicare premiums or who are in nursing homes. Medicare does not cover nursing home or long-term care, so it's really Medicaid that ends up picking up the slack there.
  5814.  
  5815. I mean, this would roll back many of the gains that the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare has succeeded in reducing the number of people with health insurance. And many more people would find themselves uninsured and without access to health care.
  5816.  
  5817. Laura Barron – Lopez: President Trump and Republicans have repeatedly claimed that part of this is about kicking undocumented migrants off of Medicaid. Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that that would total some 1.4 million undocumented people.
  5818.  
  5819. What's the reality here? And are undocumented immigrants eligible for Medicaid?
  5820.  
  5821. Larry Levitt: No, the reality is undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any federally funded program, whether that's Medicaid, Medicare, or the Affordable Care Act.
  5822.  
  5823. Some states have used their own money to provide health care to undocumented immigrants, and there was a proposal in this bill to cut off federal funding, to reduce the amount of federal funding for Medicaid to those states to effectively penalize them for using their own funds to cover undocumented immigrants.
  5824.  
  5825. Laura Barron – Lopez: As Republicans are trying to message and sell these cuts to Medicaid, the Trump administration announced today that it filed criminal charges in health care fraud schemes involving more than $14.6 billion.
  5826.  
  5827. Where does health care fraud typically occur? And can you put today's announcement in context for us?
  5828.  
  5829. Larry Levitt: Yes, I think this action by the Justice Department really illustrates what kind of fraud we see in programs like Medicaid. That fraud is generally perpetrated by rogue health care providers who are billing for services that they don't provide.
  5830.  
  5831. Fraud in Medicaid is not being perpetrated by individual enrollees trying to get access to health care. Republicans have tried to frame the cuts in this reconciliation bill as eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse. But there is just not a trillion in fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicaid. And, in fact, there is very little in this bill that would actually go after the kind of fraud that the Justice Department announced today.
  5832.  
  5833. Laura Barron – Lopez: I want to drill down a little bit more on the changes that Senate Republicans have made to this bill. First, one change puts a new cap on taxes for medical providers. This cap is something that GOP senators like North Carolina's Thom Tillis strongly oppose.
  5834.  
  5835. And that Republican Senator Tillis called the Medicaid cuts a betrayal. He said that President Trump was being advised by amateurs. What are provider taxes exactly and how do they help states pay for Medicaid cuts?
  5836.  
  5837. Larry Levitt: Yes, this gets super complicated super fast, and I will try to explain it simply.
  5838.  
  5839. States put taxes on hospitals to help fund their share of Medicaid expenses. And states in turn use that revenue to then increase the rates they pay hospitals for care they provide to Medicaid enrollees to ensure those rates are adequate. And because the federal government shares in the cost of Medicaid, that brings additional federal money into states.
  5840.  
  5841. So really the bottom line is these taxes on hospitals, which sounds like something hospitals wouldn't like, are actually a way of ensuring that hospitals get adequate rates to provide care for Medicaid enrollees. And that's especially true in rural areas. And many rural hospitals are operating right on the edge. And without these taxes, without adequate rates for providing care under Medicaid, those hospitals could go under.
  5842.  
  5843. Laura Barron – Lopez: This bill already created work requirements for Medicaid for the first time in the program's history, but the Senate added even stricter work requirements. What are those and what effect could they have?
  5844.  
  5845. Larry Levitt: That's right.
  5846.  
  5847. And work requirements are the biggest source of cuts in this bill. And it's an idea that I think resonates with a lot of people that people should have to work in order to qualify for public benefits like Medicaid. The reality is, most Medicaid enrollees are already working. About two-thirds of them are working. And if you look at the kind of exemptions that people would qualify for, in fact, 92 percent of adults on Medicaid are either working or would likely qualify for an exemption.
  5848.  
  5849. But this work requirement would still save a lot of money and kick millions of people off of Medicaid, not because they're not working or not qualified for an exemption, but because they would fail to navigate the paperwork, the red tape they would have to go through to report their work on, potentially as often as a monthly basis.
  5850.  
  5851. Laura Barron – Lopez: Larry Levitt of KFF, thank you for your time.
  5852.  
  5853. Larry Levitt: Thank you.
  5854. </description>
  5855.  <pubDate>July 6th, 2025 7:56 PM</pubDate>
  5856.    <dc:creator>Clay Waters</dc:creator>
  5857.    <guid isPermaLink="false">289675</guid>
  5858.    </item>
  5859. <item>
  5860.  <title>MSNBC Hosts Wallace and O'Donnell Ignore Video of Weed-Whacker Attack on Border Agents</title>
  5861.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/brad-wilmouth/2025/07/06/msnbc-hosts-wallace-and-odonnell-ignore-video-weed-whacker-attack</link>
  5862.  <description>As several MSNBC anchors covered the arrest of a landscaper and illegal alien, Narciso Barranco, in Santa Ana, California, they refused to show viewers video of him using his weed whacker to swing at a couple of Border Patrol agents even after it was released by Custom and Border Protection.
  5863.  
  5864. Nicolle Wallace covered it on her Deadline: White House show on three different days, beginning on June 23. She intoned: "A brutal new video shows just exactly what mass deportation looks like under the Trump administration. Alarming footage of approximately seven masked men wearing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vests pinning down and beating a father of three U.S. Marines while others watched before forcing him into an unmarked vehicle."
  5865.  
  5866. Reporter Jacob Soboroff made an appearance on the show and declared that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to "deliberately terrorize -- to scare people."
  5867.  
  5868. On the next day, Wallace scoffed at DHS accusing Barranco of attacking agents, calling it "propaganda." Wallace: 
  5869.  
  5870.  
  5871.  
  5872.  
  5873. DHS is in full -- what should we call it? -- pushback slash propaganda mode on this story -- called him an "illegal alien trying to evade law enforcement." They say that reports that he dislocated his shoulder are false. They say he swung weed whacker that he had been holding at an agent, but footage from several different angles seemed to undercut DHS's claim. They show Barranco was holding the weed whacker just running away from the agents while still holding the weed whacker because, as we said, he was at work weed whacking.
  5874.  
  5875.  
  5876. Wallace and several other MSNBC hosts ignored a stronger video released by CBP and instead focused on a more ambiguous video clip released by DHS. CBP sent out the video on June 24 in response to Soboroff's reporting, which shows two agents walking behind Barranco when he turned around and made what a appeared to be a deliberate swing at the two agents, but various MSNBC shows ignored the video and insisted that there was little if any evidence of DHS's accusations.
  5877.  
  5878. On the June 24 show, Wallace and Soboroff interviewed one of Barranco's sons, Alejandro, and let him deny that his father had attacked agents. At one point, Soboroff cued him up to compare his father's treatment to a war crime:
  5879.  
  5880.  
  5881. SOBOROFF: You served in Afghanistan. What would have happened if you would have treated a detainee that way in the Marines?
  5882.  
  5883. BARRANCO: I promise you, it would have been a war crime, and the situation would have been completely different.
  5884.  
  5885.  
  5886. She also repeated a couple of times her debunked claims that only a small percentage of Americans support deporting illegal immigrants who have jobs.
  5887.  
  5888. Later that evening, host Lawrence O'Donnell lambasted DHS and insisted that they had no case to accuse Barranco of attacking agents: "Narciso Barranco is not a criminal. He was doing his landscaping job for an IHOP in Santa Ana, California, when Border Patrol agents chased him, threw him to the ground, beat him, and handcuffed him. And now, those agents want you to believe that he committed the crime of resisting arrest..."
  5889.  
  5890. A bit later, he declared:
  5891.  
  5892.  
  5893.  
  5894.  
  5895. The Trump agents are now telling the story that Mr. Barranco was trying to assault them with that weed whacker, and they pretend that the video proves that when the video does not show that at all. It shows Mr. Barranco carrying his tool -- his work tool -- as he runs away from these people who are coming at him that way. Doesn't show him trying to hit anyone with any weed whacker at all in that video. So if that's the proof -- if that's the evidence they want to take into court, they're not going to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt anything about what happened with that weed whacker. There's no video showing that.
  5896.  
  5897.  
  5898. Other MSNBC anchors who gave coverage to the story on their shows include Chris Hayes, Ana Cabrera, and Katy Tur, and all omitted the more incriminating video sent out by CBP.
  5899.  
  5900. Transcripts follow:
  5901.  
  5902.  
  5903. MSNBC's Deadline: White House
  5904.  
  5905. June 23, 2025
  5906.  
  5907. 5:36 p.m. Eastern
  5908.  
  5909. NICOLLE WALLACE: A brutal new video shows just exactly what mass deportation looks like under the Trump administration. Alarming footage of approximately seven masked men wearing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol vests pinning down and beating a father of three U.S. Marines while others watched before forcing him into an unmarked vehicle. Take a look for yourself.
  5910.  
  5911. (...)
  5912.  
  5913. JACOB SOBOROFF: ... two hundred pound plus men kneeling -- just watch it -- beating a man who was out there cutting grass. He was cutting grass. And these heavily armed masked agents who don't identify themselves to people who are alleging that he tried to attack them with his weed whacker when, in fact, if you watch the video that DHS has put up, he was being sprayed with some kind of pepper spray as he ran away. They're ubiquitous all over the city right now, and the tactic is deliberately to terrorize -- to scare people.
  5914.  
  5915. (...)
  5916.  
  5917. WALLACE: The political reality is that 15 (percent), 12 (percent), and nine (percent) -- those are the numbers of Americans that support deporting people who have American-born children as this person -- as this gentleman Narciso does. ... They don't support deporting people with jobs. They don't support deporting people with jobs. So all of the raids are taking place -- where are they taking place? At Home Deport parking lots, as restaurants, in agricultural -- those are all people at work. Those are all -- they're only looking for people with jobs. There is very little evidence that they are pursuing the actual adjudicated criminals.
  5918.  
  5919. (...)
  5920.  
  5921. SOBOROFF: And when I watched armed Border Patrol agents crush a father of three Marines because he was outside an IHOP, I think of that phrase, "Weakness masquerading as strength."
  5922.  
  5923. (...)
  5924.  
  5925. Deadline: White House
  5926.  
  5927. June 24, 2025
  5928.  
  5929. 5:05 p.m.
  5930.  
  5931. WALLACE: DHS is in full -- what should we call it? -- pushback slash propaganda mode on this story -- called him an "illegal alien trying to evade law enforcement." They say that reports that he dislocated his shoulder are false. They say he swung weed whacker that he had been holding at an agent, but footage from several different angles seemed to undercut DHS's claim. They show Barranco was holding the weed whacker just running away from the agents while still holding the weed whacker because, as we said, he was at work weed whacking. He was pepper sprayed by one of the agents before even getting into any sort of physical altercation at all. So he already had impaired vision, and, as you can see on the video, was much smaller than one of the agents, and there were multiple. DHS has not responded to NBC's questions regarding the new videos.
  5932.  
  5933. (...)
  5934.  
  5935. SOBOROFF: Did you tell your dad what the Department of Homeland Security is saying about him -- that he tried to assault them? I wonder if you guys talked about then what he said?
  5936.  
  5937. ALEJANDRO BARRANCO, SON OF ILLEGAL ALIEN WHO WAS ARRESTED: I asked him. I said -- that was part of the things that I asked him -- I said, "Hey, they're trying to say that you hit them with a weed whacker." When he heard that, he like, he was shocked -- he was confused like, "What? When?" And I was like, "I'm not sure when they're saying." ... I see the video, but it's natural human movement -- natural human reaction. He gets pepper sprayed like seconds before that. He said he never intended to hurt anyone. He never intended to hit anyone, and it's just natural movement.
  5938.  
  5939. SOBOROFF: You -- you're a Marine Corps veteran, and your two brothers, Alejandro, are serving active duty in the Marines right now. The three of you all received training on use of force as Marines. When you look at the video of how those agents treated your father, do you agree with what Homeland Security said -- that that was a minimum use of force?
  5940.  
  5941. BARRANCO: I think it's the complete opposite. I think it's the maximum amount of force, and I think unprofessional force. ...
  5942.  
  5943. SOBOROFF: You served in Afghanistan. What would have happened if you would have treated a detainee that way in the Marines?
  5944.  
  5945. BARRANCO: I promise you, it would have been a war crime, and the situation would have been completely different.
  5946.  
  5947. (...)
  5948.  
  5949. MSNBC's The Last Word
  5950.  
  5951. June 24, 2025
  5952.  
  5953. 10:10 p.m. Eastern
  5954.  
  5955. LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Narciso Barranco is not a criminal. He was doing his landscaping job for an IHOP in Santa Ana, California, when Border Patrol agents chased him, threw him to the ground, beat him, and handcuffed him. And now, those agents want you to believe that he committed the crime of resisting arrest -- an arrest made by out of control masked men, including one chasing with a gun held in one hand that was then aimed innocently -- aimed at an innocent passing car. A car innocently pulls up in the parking lot as this is happening, and one of those agents sticks the gun right at the windshield of that car for absolutely no reason, holding the gun one-handed -- the kind of police conduct that would get you fired at any well-run police department in America.
  5956.  
  5957. There were very dangerous people running when Mr. Barranco was running for his life, and he was not one of those dangerous people. This is a story of two videos, both of which tell a story of very, very bad law enforcement work. Here's the Instagram video that went viral this weekend publicizing the case of Mr. Barranco. (shows video of Barranco being held on the ground and then being put into a vehicle by officers) In their defense -- they think it's a defense -- the Department of Homeland Security very stupidly and proudly posted another video of that encounter that included other angles and shows running away from the officers -- shows a wildly out of control officer brandishing a gun the way cops in movies used to hold guns before actors learned how guns are supposed to be held.
  5958.  
  5959. Here's the video which shows Mr. Barranco carrying his work tool -- which, of course, is a weed whacker -- as he was running away from masked, unidentifiable men approaching him with guns. (wrong video is shown) That wasn't the video we were trying to show you. The control room will let me know if we get the video that will show you the chase part of the video that will show you the officer with the gun being brandished like this, holding it out, aiming it first of all at the person he was chasing and then turning it to aim it at a car. All of that is captured on the video that the Department of Homeland Security then released, thinking it was a defensive video.
  5960.  
  5961. (...)
  5962.  
  5963. The Trump agents are now telling the story that Mr. Barranco was trying to assault them with that weed whacker, and they pretend that the video proves that when the video does not show that at all. It shows Mr. Barranco carrying his tool -- his work tool -- as he runs away from these people who are coming at him that way. Doesn't show him trying to hit anyone with any weed whacker at all in that video. So if that's the proof -- if that's the evidence they want to take into court, they're not going to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt anything about what happened with that weed whacker. There's no video showing that.
  5964.  
  5965. (...)
  5966.  
  5967. Deadline: White House
  5968.  
  5969. June 26, 2025
  5970.  
  5971. 5:35 p.m.
  5972.  
  5973. WALLACE: The video of Narciso's arrest is shocking and deeply disturbing. While at work doing his job as a landscaper, he was beaten by ICE agents and shoved into an unmarked car. It shocked millions of Americans. Alejandro now tells NBC News that his dad has been transferred to Adelanto, a private prison in the desert outside of Los Angeles.
  5974.  
  5975. (...)
  5976.  
  5977. Nine, 12, and 15 percent -- that's the number of Americans who support detaining people who have American-born children, who are married to U.S. citizens, or who have a job. He checks all those boxes.
  5978. </description>
  5979.  <pubDate>July 6th, 2025 5:23 PM</pubDate>
  5980.    <dc:creator>Brad Wilmouth</dc:creator>
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  5983. <item>
  5984.  <title>Left UPSET! NY Times Editor Goes to X to Defend Story on Mamdani Claiming to Be 'Black' </title>
  5985.  <link>https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2025/07/06/left-upset-ny-times-editor-goes-x-defend-story-mamdani-claiming-be</link>
  5986.  <description>The New York Times is getting slammed from the left for a story reporting that New York Democrat mayoral nominee Zohran Momdani that in 2009, as part of a college application to Columbia, Mamdani checked boxes indicating that he was both “Asian” and “Black or African American.” The story is accurate, but lefties don’t want anything damaging published! It's a "hit piece"! One Times editor, Patrick Healy, made a long X thread defending this story exposing a racial lie:
  5987.  
  5988.  
  5989. As the @nytimes assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust, I’ve received reader feedback regarding our reporting on Zohran Mamdani’s 2009 application to Columbia University. To provide context on how the reporting came together, I wanted to share some information:
  5990.  
  5991. The Times has been reporting comprehensively on Mr. Mamdani’s proposals for the city, his vision on the economy and affordability, his leadership record and his personal background, including his biography and South Asian heritage that he’s talked about during his campaign.
  5992.  
  5993. Times journalists for decades have done deep reporting on major party nominees for New York's mayor to provide insight, context and texture about their priorities, history and evolution. Our reporting helps readers better understand how candidates think and what they believe.
  5994.  
  5995. Our reporters obtained information about Mr. Mamdani’s Columbia college application and went to the Mamdani campaign with it. When we hear anything of news value, we try to confirm it through direct sources. Mr. Mamdani confirmed this information in an interview with The Times.
  5996.  
  5997. Mr. Mamdani shared his thinking about the limitations of identity boxes on forms like Columbia’s, and explained how he wrote in “Uganda,” the country of his birth – the kind of decision many people with overlapping identities have wrestled with when confronted with such boxes.
  5998.  
  5999. We sometimes receive information that has been hacked or from controversial sources. The Times does not solely rely on nor make a decision to publish information from such a source; we seek to confirm through direct sources, which we did with Mr. Mamdani.
  6000.  
  6001. Sometimes sources have their own motives or obtain information using means we wouldn't, like Trump's taxes, Wikileaks or Edward Snowden. It’s important to share what we can about sourcing, but we always independently assess newsworthiness and factual accuracy before publishing.
  6002.  
  6003. On sourcing, we work to give readers context, including in this case the initial source’s online alias, as a way to learn more about the person, who was effectively an intermediary. The ultimate source was Columbia admissions data and Mr. Mamdani, who confirmed our reporting.
  6004.  
  6005. We heard from readers who wanted more detail about this initial source. That’s fair feedback. We printed his online alias so readers could learn more about the person. The purpose of this story was to help illuminate the thinking and background of a major mayoral candidate.
  6006.  
  6007.  
  6008. Liam Scott at Columbia Journalism Review pointed the article indicated that the hacked materials had been provided, under the condition of anonymity, but the source was  "Crémieux," who was described only as “an academic and an opponent of affirmative action.” 
  6009.  
  6010.  
  6011. But there’s more to that source: as The Guardian reported in March, Crémieux is the social media alias of Jordan Lasker, a promoter of white supremacist views. The Times updated its article to note that Crémieux “writes often about IQ and race.”
  6012.  
  6013.  
  6014. Jamelle Bouie, a Times opinion columnist, posted on Bluesky, “i think you should tell readers if your source is a nazi.” He later deleted that and other posts criticizing the article, saying that they “violated Times social media standards.” In other words, he attacked his own newspaper's "objective" reporting.</description>
  6015.  <pubDate>July 6th, 2025 1:51 PM</pubDate>
  6016.    <dc:creator>Tim Graham</dc:creator>
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  6019.  
  6020.  </channel>
  6021. </rss>
  6022.  

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