ABC Reporter, KJP Team Up to Trash Butker for Pro-Life, Pro-Family Speech

ABC reporter Karen Travers used her round of Q&A during Thursday’s White House press briefing to invite a willing accomplice in Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to join the liberal media mob against Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for his alleged crime of giving a pro-family, pro-life, pro-parenting commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. “I want to ask you about the topic that's getting a lot of attention,” Travers began, adding Butker’s “facing criticism for his recent commencement address where he told female graduates that the most important title a woman can hold is homemaker.”     Fact-check: Pants on fire. Butker did not, in fact, say that. Here’s a transcript of his full speech, but here’s a key line: “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.” Travers’s softball wasn’t done: “He was critical about surrogacy, IVF, and Pride Month, and he also criticized the President for being a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Has the President seen those comments? Does he have a reaction to that?” Jean-Pierre had the gall to initially bat it down by saying Biden’s “been pretty busy today, so I haven't had a chance to — to focus on this particular issue” and she herself had only seen “some reports on it.” Nonetheless, Jean-Pierre pivoted to implicitly torching Butker and argued Biden won’t “back away from supporting women and reproductive rights, reproductive health care” because “it is important to fight for all of our freedoms”. She obviously had to throw in the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade and argued pro-lifers support putting women “in a position to not get the health care that they need” and “causing chaos”. Jean-Pierre’s rant dragged on, tying Butker to “extreme Republican” (click “expand”): And then you have extreme Republicans that continue to talk about — to talk about how they want to put national abortion ban. It's causing chaos. It's causing chaos for women. It’s causing chaos for families. When you're saying that a family can't make a decision on IVF, that's not what this President is about. He wants to make sure that women have the right to make these incredibly difficult decisions about their health care, so families could make a decision about how they want to build and — and move forward with building a family.  And so I can't — I can't speak to those direct comments, but what I can speak to is what the President has committed to, and he has shown that over and over again and you have a Vice President that has toured the country talking exactly about that, about how we have to protect our freedoms and freedoms of — of — obviously, reproductive health as — as we're speaking right now. Travers offered a follow-up to further attack Butker and implicitly accuse him of being a partisan tool: “As the President gets ready to give his own commencement address, does he think a message like that is appropriate at a commencement address?” Jean-Pierre stuck to the same pattern with this second answer, first insisting she hadn’t “heard this in context” other than seeing “some reporting” then tearing into Butker without saying his name by arguing Biden — unlike the Chiefs kicker — views “commencement day as such an important moment for not just the students, but for their families, obviously, their loved ones” The press secretary gave a whopper of a garbled mess as she said in part that Biden wants “to talk about the future, to talk about how — how they — how in the world that we are in — that — in the world that we're in now, how do we move forward? And you’re [sic] hear with themes from this President on that particular message, and he understands how critical and important that have those messages — especially a message from the President of the United States, how much it matters.” To see the relevant transcript of the May 16 briefing, click “expand.” White House press briefing [via ABC News Live subfeed] May 16, 2024 2:32 p.m. Eastern KAREN TRAVERS: I want to ask you about the topic that's getting a lot of attention. The Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is facing criticism for his recent commencement address where he told female graduates that the most important title a woman can hold is homemaker. He was critical about surrogacy, IVF, and Pride Month, and he also criticized the President for being a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Has the President seen those comments? Does he have a reaction to that? KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: You know — ah — the President's been pretty busy today, so I haven't had a chance to — to focus on this particular issue. I think I've heard some reports on it. Look, the President is not going to back away from supporting women and reproductive rights, reproductive health care. It is important to do that. It is important to fight for all of our freedoms, and that's what you're seeing the President do. He's not going to back away from that and look, I can't speak to this specific thing because I haven't heard it in — in — in its entirety. But, look, you know, you have a former administration that — uh — that had said — a former President that said, over and over again that they were going to do everything they can to get rid of Roe v. Wade, was successful in doing that, by putting forward judges that made that happen. We saw the Dobbs decision in 2022 and what that caused is chaos. It caused women to — to have to — do — you know — to have — you know, be in a position to not get the health care that they need. I mean, that's — should not be where we are as a country. It should not be. And then you have extreme Republicans that continue to talk about — to talk about how they want to put national abortion ban. It's causing chaos. It's causing chaos for women. It’s causing chaos for families. When you're saying that a family can't make a decision on IVF, that's not what this President is about. He wants to make sure that women have the right to make these incredibly difficult decisions about their health care, so families could make a decision about how they want to build and — and move forward with building a family. And so I can't — I can't speak to those direct comments, but what I can speak to is what the President has committed to, and he has shown that over and over again and you have a Vice President that has toured the country talking exactly about that, about how we have to protect our freedoms and freedoms of — of — obviously, reproductive health as — as we're speaking right now. TRAVERS: I know you said can't speak to the comments. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. TRAVERS: As the President gets ready to give his own commencement address, does he think a message like that is appropriate at a commencement address? JEAN-PIERRE: From — from this particular — TRAVERS: Yes. Mmhmm. JEAN-PIERRE: — look again, I haven't heard — I haven't heard this in context. I — I saw some reporting, so want to be super mindful. Look, the — the President sees commencement day as such an important moment for not just the students, but for their families, obviously, their loved ones to talk about the future, to talk about how — how they — how in the world that we are in — that — in the world that we're in now, how do we move forward? And you’re [sic] hear with themes from this President on that particular message, and he understands how critical and important that have those messages — especially a message from the President of the United States, how much it matters. I don't want to get ahead of the President. He's going to, obviously, layout and speak to his commencement address on his own, but he's done this many times before. He's done — he's done this when — he's — given commencement address as a senator, has done it, obviously as Vice President, and now President, and this is an incredible important, impactful — impactful moment.

ABC, NBC RAGE at Butker’s ‘Controversial’ Speech, Cheer ‘Growing’ ‘Backlash’

On Thursday, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today seethed with disgust at Christians and anyone who values being a parent over their careers (or any other accomplishment or trait) in light of the Benedictine College commencement address by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, which they deemed “controversial” and worthy of “backlash” and “growing outrage” for going “too far” by stressing the inherent importance of parenting. “Commencement controversy. Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker under fire for his message to women during a graduation speech...Inside the growing uproar he sparked,” scoffed Today co-host Hoda Kotb in a tease in between a clip of Butker saying he’d “guess...the majority of” female graduates before him are “most excited about” marriage and parenting than “successful careers” they might lead.     Kotb — who’s had a long, public journey to parenthood and adoption — apparently was incensed by Butker’s remarks. In a second tease, co-host (and best-selling Christian author) Savannah Guthrie boasted of “growing outrage” against Butker for the “controversial graduation speech” and correspondent Kaylee Hartung whined the kicker’s “remarks have stunned many”. Early in her full report on the faux controversy, Hartung bragged that “many” saw his support for Catholicism and strong families as having gone “too far”. Check out how Hartung was enraged by the notion that someone would argue being a parent is a high calling (click “expand”): HARTUNG: In a controversial commencement speech at Benedictine College over the weekend, three-time Super Bowl champion Harrison Butker railing against everything from President Biden to Pride Month to IVF and speaking directly to the women in the audience. BUTKER [on 05/14/24]: Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring. HARTUNG: Invoking his own family — BUTKER [on 05/14/24]: My beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as mother. [SCREEN WIPE] That all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school — [CRIES] would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all, homemaker. HARTUNG: — Butker also criticizing gay rights when telling the students to take pride in their school — BUTKER [on 05/14/24]: Not the deadly sin sort of pride that has the entire month dedicated to it. HARTUNG: — and had a message for the men. BUTKER [on 05/14/24]: Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men HARTUNG: The NFL responding saying “Butker gave a speech in his personal capacity” and “his views are not those of the league”. Hartung snidely added that “[w]hile outrage builds online...some pointing out the Georgia native’s own mother is a physicist in the Department of Oncology at Emory.” Of course, Butker said nothing of the sort about women being barred/discouraged from the workforce. Follow this link to read his full speech. After melting down about Butker throwing in a Taylor Swift reference, she attempted to claim “some students” were “left hurt by the experience” based on a single TikTok video and lamented “Butker hasn’t responded to the firestorm” he “ignited.” Hartung even seemed to voice support for this mob rule by gushing “the court of public opinion is in session.” Co-host Craig Melvin reacted to this by kissing up to longtime liberal NBC journalist Maria Shriver: “I would encourage folks to check out the Maria Shriver rebuttal posted online.” Kotb concurred: “[T]hat may be the — the best takedown if you’re looking for that.” Irony alert: Melvin released a children’s book two weeks ago that focused on — yes — the joy of having children. ABC’s Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts made her intentions clear in a tease: “Kansas City chiefs kicker facing backlash for his commencement speech remarks on gay rights, abortion and women’s role in society.” With the chyrons “Chiefs Kicker Under Fire for Commencement Speech” and “Faces Backlash for Comments on Abortion, Gay Rights & Women”, correspondent Stephanie Ramos kvetched that he made “headlines for remarks off the field” and “sound[ed] off about working women” and “referr[ed] to Pride Month, which celebrates the LGBTQ community, as a deadly sin.”     Ramos even brought in Kate Ellis, the CEO and president of GLAAD — the far-left organization that believes biological men can be women if they feel like it — to denounce Butker for voicing “such an outdated antiquated view on LGBTQ women and women and using religion in a way.” Ramos also pointed to the supposed outrage from Taylor Swift fans, but had the decency to concede Butker “did receive a standing ovation from the graduates — from many graduates and some attendees there.” The almost always self-centered Roberts then had the gall to complain “usually, the commencement address is about the graduates, not about your personal views”.  That’s interesting since Roberts talked about herself in 2015 when giving the Emerson College commencement address. Or that, later in the show, the team approved of Jennifer Coolidge talking about her career journey at the Washington State University commencement. Since the joy and significance of parenthood should be at least downgraded behind, say, one’s career, then why did they have subsequent segments about Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner co-parenting despite no longer being together, Olivia Munn discussing freezing her eggs before a hysterectomy in the face of a breast cancer diagnosis, and gushing over David Beckham talking about how much his wife and children mean to him? To see the relevant transcripts from May 16, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).

BREAKING: Biden, Trump Agree to Presidential Debates in June on CNN, September on ABC

UPDATE, 11:58 a.m. Eastern: In addition to the CNN debate on June 27, former President Donald Trump and President Biden revealed on their respective social media accounts that they’ve both agreed to a second presidential debate for Tuesday, September 10 on ABC. The move was also confirmed by ABC News. In turn, this fulfills the two debates requested for June and September by the Biden campaign with moderators only to be selected from liberal media networks ABC, CBS, CNN, or Telemundo. As of this update, no word on whether Team Biden will agree to the Trump campaign’s request for two additional debates in July and August. The original post continues below. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Following a flurry of developments Wednesday morning that publicly began with the Biden campaign’s lengthy statement and cut-filled video of President Biden goating former President Donald Trump, the two sides agreed just before 11:00 a.m. Eastern to an audience-less presidential debate for Thursday, June 27 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern inside CNN’s newly-minted Atlanta, Georgia compound in Techwood. CNN’s invitation came curiously not long after the Biden regime’s essay-lengthy demands, most notably calls for debates in June and September with the vice presidential debate in July and that moderators could only come from ABC, CBS, CNN, or Telemundo. “CNN will host an election debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald J. Trump on June 27, 2024 at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia. The debate will be held in CNN’s Atlanta studios. To ensure candidates may maximize the time allotted in the debate, no audience will be present,” the network said in a press release. It added that, in an important tidbit for this website and readership, “[m]oderators for the debate and additional details will be announced at a later date.” Time to start taking bets. Fake News Jim? Jake Tapper? Anderson Cooper, who co-moderated one of the Trump-Hillary Clinton 2016 debates? Erin Burnett, who just conducted a softball interview with Biden? Late-night liberal hack Abby Phillip? Or do they run it back with Chris Wallace? While it then alluded to requiring candidates fulfilling all constitutional qualifications, sufficient appearances on state ballots, and polling benchmarks, this arrangement as a result of informal talks between the two campaigns would appear to have been done to cut out the Presidential Commission on Debates and thus exclude third-party candidates, including the high-polling independent bid by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. An on-air announcement came during Acosta’s hour of CNN Newsroom to coincide with a CNN Public Relations tweet. “Alright, more on the breaking news right now, Former President Donald Trump has accepted CNN’s invitation for debate with President Biden. That is setting up a June showdown...[T]his is going to happen very quickly if — if all a plays out the way it’s happening right now,” Acosta proclaimed to CNN’s resident Biden apple polisher, Arlette Saenz. Saenz then relayed what her side of the aisle wanted out of this debate, noting the lengthy Biden regime’s list of “very specific” demands “about what they want to see” such as “the microphones can only be on when each candidate is expected to speak, potentially eliminating some of that very intense back-and-forth that we saw in the very first debate between Biden and Trump back in 2020.” #BREAKING: CNN announces that both President Biden and Donald Trump have accepted their invitation for a presidential debate on Thursday, June 27 at CNN's Atlanta studios at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, no studio audience. pic.twitter.com/YIaBwSDqSr — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 15, 2024 Acosta and chief national affairs correspondent Jeff Zeleny then discussed more of the details, including how this will be a throwback to the first-ever presidential debate on TV in 1960 between future Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon (click “expand”): ACOSTA: CNN will host and election debate between Biden and Trump on June 20, at. 9:00 p.m. in the Atlanta studios of CNN. Our new studios, not at the old building, but the new building. ZELENY: The historical Techwood studios. ACOSTA: The Techwoods campus and it says here, “to ensure candidates may maximize the time a lot in the debate, no audience will be present”. ZELENY: Right. ACOSTA: That’s interesting. ZELENY: And that is — it really takes us back, Jim, to those first televised debates in 1960, of course, in CBS news and Chicago. ACOSTA: Oh, yeah. ZELENY: On ___ street clerk shirt at WBBM as you well know. ACOSTA: My old stomping ground, yeah. ZELENY: And it’s certainly is designed, at least the Biden campaign is hoping, that it will focus on the issues, on the candidates, and the contrast port. And also that it’s an Atlanta. Obviously, Georgia is a central battleground in this election. It’s some — state that has really been the subject of so much conversation. Donald Trump claimed he won it. He did not win it, of course court cases, et cetera, but it is a key battleground as well. But this is a fast moving development and the point is, you can tell I didn’t k-mean has been working on this for awhile. ACOSTA: Oh yeah. ZELENY: And clearly, they’ve been preparing for the idea of a debate, but it could just happen weeks after the first criminal trial’s in. ACOSTA: That’s right. ZELENY: So, certainly the outcome of that will also be hanging over this debate. Minutes after this announcement, a Trump campaign memo was made public by campaign co-managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles arguing “there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves.” In turn, they announced they agree to not only the Biden campaign’s proposals for the September showdown and the vice presidential candidate sparring session, but two additional debates in July and August because “[w]e believe the American people deserve more than what the Biden administration has to offer.”

Go Figure: Liberal Media Lie Their Pants Off on Katie Britt’s Pro-Life Proposal

Last Thursday, Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) teamed up with fellow Republican Senators Kevin Cramer (ND) and Marco Rubio (FL) to unveil the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act aimed at giving pregnant women a federally-backed “clearinghouse” of resources — called Pregnancy.gov — for “expecting and postpartum moms, as well as those with young children,” and create grants for caregiving organizations helping women enter the world of parenting. Along with expanding child support to include a woman’s pregnancy, a press release from the senators said the MOMS Act would “provide critical support to women during typically challenging phases of motherhood – prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood development – and bolster access to resources and assistance to help mothers and their children thrive.” Not surprisingly, the far-left, abortion-loving liberal media have decided to be as focused on defeating this pro-life bill with misinformation as they were about pushing women to murder their unborn children. In story after story, the liberal media have claimed the bill would create a database of women currently pregnant for the federal government - in some liberal dystopia/twisted fantasy - to surveil women to prevent abortions. The problem? It’s all voluntary and shy from divulging one’s location. The Guardian went full send with a headline beyond parody: “Katie Britt proposes federal database to collect data on pregnant people; Republican US senator from Alabama best known for delivering widely ridiculed State of the Union speech in March”. Writer Léonie Chao-Fong doubled down with a disregard for biology, claiming without evidence the bill “create[s] a federal database to collect data on pregnant people” by having them “enter their personal data and contact information.” Chao-Fong also whined: “[t]he bill specifically forbids any entity that ‘performs, induces, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions’ from being listed in the database, which would in effect eliminate swaths of OB-GYN services and sexual health clinics across the country.” Yes, Léonie, the point is to give women facing sudden pregnancies options beyond abortion. NBCNews.com and longtime Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen piled on in a story whining about the bill giving federal funds to pro-life pregnancy crisis centers and pedaled the lie about HHS becoming a surveillance agency (click “expand”): This is, to be sure, standard GOP fare. Republican officials tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that the party’s sole focus in this area is imposing abortion restrictions, and the MOMS Act appears designed to package familiar GOP measures on the issue. The fact that these senators intend to extend grants to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” is part of the conservative agenda, and a reminder of why the legislation doesn’t have — and won’t have — any Democratic support in the chamber. But a HuffPost report noted that the Pregnancy.gov provisions in the bill are drawing additional scrutiny because they allegedly raise the prospect of “a federal database storing information on pregnant people.” It was against this backdrop that Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington joined with 10 other Senate Democratic women to denounce Britt’s bill, saying it would, among other things, “create a new government-run website to collect data on pregnant women and direct them to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.” To be sure, Britt’s office has thoroughly rejected the idea that the legislation is designed to create some kind of “registry,” but the press release from the 11 Senate Democratic women added that under the Pregnancy.gov plan, the website would “encourage users to provide their contact information, ‘which the Secretary may use to conduct outreach via phone or email to follow up with users’ — meaning that pregnant women would be encouraged to provide data to a potential Trump administration and potentially allow a government bureaucrat to follow up with them about the status of their pregnancy.” The tools at HuffPost did the same in a piece with the headline “Critics Rip Sen. Katie Britt For Celebrating Moms With ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Like Proposal” and hilariously then referred to women as “pregnant people”. Yahoo! News promptly cross-posted this under the same headline. Salon and Raw Story weren’t going to be left out either. Cue the laugh tracks for the latter’s headline: “Katie Britt shredded for ‘Handmaid’s Tale’-type proposal to ‘register’ pregnant women”. At Salon, they melted down at women even being told groups that support women and babies exit: “The bill also outlines the creation of a database of ‘pregnancy support centers,’ or crisis centers, which critics say provide women with misleading information in an effort to keep them from having abortions.” Someone call GLAAD on HuffPost, NBC, Raw Story, and the like for using the term “pregnant women!” Now, for the facts. Here was a piece from the (now digital-only) Alabama newspaper conglomerate AL.com: Britt spokesman Sean Ross said users are not required to register or log in to the site to search for resources. The website will not ask for the user’s pregnancy status or for personally identifiable information. “These social media posts are intentionally, flagrantly false,” Ross said. Website users could voluntarily enter their contact information if they wanted personal follow up from a staff member at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those services would also be available to friends and family members who are not pregnant if an individual was worried about sharing her information with the website. The website would invite users to take an assessment and provide consent to be contacted. The website would not require people to take the assessment to receive more information about local resources, Ross said. “Through the website, anyone can view the relevant resources in a given locale without disclosing any personally identifiable information to the government,” Ross said. The headline, however, only met Britt halfway with a scoffing headline: “Claims that bill would create registry of pregnant women ‘flagrantly false,’ says staff for Alabama Sen. Katie Britt.”

Editor’s Pick: WashTimes Showcases Report on How Few of Today’s Immigrants Work

In a front-page story for Tuesday’s print edition and published Monday online, The Washington Times’s intrepid reporter Stephen Dinan shared the findings of a new Center for Immigration Studies report that said only 46 percent of recent immigrant arrivals — both illegal and legal — are holding down jobs and contributing to the American economy. “The Center for Immigration Studies, using Census Bureau numbers, calculates that 46% of immigrants who arrived over the past two years are employed. That challenges a key selling point from immigration advocates that the stream of newcomers is critical to the U.S. economy,” he explained, pointing out this means even though “[s]ome immigrants say they are looking for work...most...are out of the labor force.” He cited this key quote from CIS officials Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler: “Immigration clearly adds workers to the country, but it just as clearly adds non-workers who need to be supported by the labor of others.” Dinan later went through the push and pull of whether mass, persistent immigration benefits an economy: One persistent issue has been whether immigrants are a net benefit or a drain. The Congressional Budget Office says that taken as a whole, the economy grows faster with more people. The reason is simple: More potential workers means a more productive total economy. The CBO says the average worker is slightly worse off. Again, the reason is simple: The pie may be bigger, but it is divided by even more people. The CBO says the population has a large range of outcomes. Those at the higher economic rungs come out better off with higher immigration levels, while those on the lower rungs, who are more likely to compete with less-educated newcomers, end up worse off. (....) The CIS said the unemployment rate among immigrants from Latin America, overlapping heavily with illegal immigrants, without a college education is 10%. That rate has held steady for several decades. The Biden administration is trying to get official work permits for newly arrived illegal immigrants who are caught and released into the interior. Immigrant rights advocates say that will allow the migrants to support themselves and stop using government assistance. To read Dinan’s story, click here.

Turning into a Noem: Psaki to Alter Book After Lying About Biden, Afghanistan

Axios White House reporter Alex Thompson flagged on Monday former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s new memoir Say More will have an altered passage in future printings following the revelation that it falsely claimed President Biden never looked at his watch during the August 29, 2021, dignified transfer of remains for the 13 Americans murdered in Kabul during the U.S.’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan. Thompson highlighted the key passage in which she claimed Biden has been a victim of “misinformation” aimed to make “him appear insensitive” when, in her (alternate) reality, “the president looked at his watch only after the ceremony had ended. Moments later, he and the First Lady headed toward their car.” Of course, it flew in the face of live footage from the scene and professional photographers. Psaki quoted friendly media with a (fake) fact-check via USA Today, but she couldn’t even get that right as she attributed it to The Washington Post. Thompson also noted that Psaki’s claim “contradict[s] news photos and firsthand accounts of Gold Star families” At the time, our Nick Fondacaro torched these partisan tools for “drag[ging] those grieving families through the mud” by downplaying what they had seen with their own eyes. And, over on the broadcast networks, Fondacaro noted they ignored it completely in the news cycle after it happened.   It's true. Joe Biden checked his watch during the dignified transfer of the servicemembers killing in Afghanistan at the airport. You can see him jerk his left hand to pull the watch out from under his sleeve, then look down at it. pic.twitter.com/M3QVzJbTIm — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) August 29, 2021   Psaki cowardly “initially declined to comment”, but emerged only after Thompson’s story was posted to admit a “detail in a few lines of the book about the exact number of times he looked at his watch will be removed in future reprints and the ebook”. Further, Psaki channeled her former boss to both Axios and our friend Brian Flood at FoxNews.com by making it about — wait for it — Beau Biden: The story on Afghanistan is really about the importance of delivering feedback even when it is difficult told through my own experience of telling President Biden that his own story of loss was not well received by the families who were grieving their sons and daughters The rest of Thompson’s piece emphasized in broad strokes the reality as we barrel toward the November presidential election that Afghanistan remains one of if not the biggest stain on the President.

CBS, NBC Blames ‘Defiant’ Netanyahu for No Ceasefire, Argue He Wants War to Avoid Jail

On Friday, CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today bellyached about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of President Biden abandoning Israel and argued Netanyahu has not only “already cross[ed] President Biden’s red line” on Rafah with limited strikes by the Israel Defense Forces, but he’s holding up ceasefire talks and prolonging the war so as to avoid jail time. Foreign correspondent Ramy Inocencio returned to the well of former Israeli national security adviser Chuck Freilich for the second day in a row to suggest without evidence that Netanyahu’s kept Israel’s war against Hamas going for personal gain. Right on cue, Inocencio pointed out Freilich was referring to indictments against Netanyahu “for fraud, bribery, and breach of trust”: Netanyahu derangement syndrome on 'CBS Mornings' as they imply the Israeli Prime Minister is only keeping the war going so he can stay in power and out of prison pic.twitter.com/XJRsNQucjw — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 10, 2024 Over on NBC’s Today, chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel also had some Netanyahu bashing, but first some classic sob story propaganda for Hamas: The U.N. announced that, as of this morning, more than 100,000 Palestinians have fled the city of Rafah in southern Gaza. Many civilians had originally been ordered by Israel to come here for their safety. Now, they say, they have nowhere to go. We are tired, says this man. Either they should kill us all at once and send us up to God or they stop the war.  Engel bemoaned that “Netanyahu is determined to press on with an offensive against Rafah” with tough talk about Israel being willing to go it “alone” and has “much more than our fingernails”. In an act of irony, Engel had the gall to complain about Netanyahu sitting for “a lengthy and nonconfrontational interview with talk show host Dr. Phil” that ripped “protests on college campuses in the U.S.” IRONY ALERT: NBC's 'Today' complains about a 'nonconfrontational' interview Netanyahu gave to Dr. Phil. Gee, what were all those Jimmy Carter and Kennedy family interviews over the years? Also, notice how Richard Engel argues Israel has "already cross[ed]" Biden's "red line" pic.twitter.com/SsGlzUwYpA — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 10, 2024 Engel doled out more sob stories on Gazans and openly wondered if Israel has “already cross[ed] President Biden’s red line” with limited strikes on Rafah, which he claimed NBC’s Gazan stringers have proven “already” “attack[ed] Rafah’s main population centers” He also concluded by suggesting Israel — not Hamas — is why there’s no ceasefire/hostage deal: “The Rafah operation has also derailed hostage negotiations and talks to achieve a cease-fire with one senior diplomat telling NBC News the talks have effectively collapsed.” To see the relevant transcripts from May 10, click here (for CBS) and here (for NBC).

More of This, Please! More in the Media Need to Replicate NewsNation’s Border Special

In an hour-long primetime special Thursday night called Crisis on the Border, NewsNation did something the liberal media — and TV news in general — needed to emulate, which was a more accurate, consistent, and raw depiction of the Biden border crisis from the side of law enforcement and the dangers unfettered illegal immigration posed to the public.  Hosted by Dan Abrams, it featured three different reporters live in the field, new reporting, facts about the border, and interviews with four police chiefs on how open-border policies have harmed their communities. Abrams opened by declaring this won’t be “about politics.” Instead, NewsNation’s goal was to inform viewers “about what is actually happening at our southern border and maybe — maybe — even spur some change.”     From there, the special took on the feeling of an episode of his other show, Reelz’s On Patrol: Live (and its predecessor in spirit, A&E’s Live PD) as Abrams immediately tossed to indefatigable correspondents Ali Bradley and Brian Entin (click “expand”): ABRAMS: But we have some — some breaking news because just, as we’ve been preparing for the show, Ali Bradley NewsNation’s border correspondent on the front lines has been there when they just found three migrants trying to hide there and they’ve been arrested in Hidalgo County, Texas. Ali, what just happened? BRADLEY: Yeah, hey, Dan. So we’re out here, we’re actually embedded with an elite brush team with Texas DPS. They are working in conjunction with Border Patrol, so we’ve got state and federal partners working together and we have the chopper in the air. Let me show you what we just witnessed. So, we pulled three people out of this, look at how hard it is down here. This is what they’re up against, so they had to get down in there. That’s basically a canal, a drainage ditch of sorts, pulled these three individuals out, one young man from Honduras, telling us that he was on the hook with the cartel to pay $16,000 to get to Virginia. And guess what Dan? They’re actually working another two people that are in the canal further up. So, we’re gonna go up there, I’m going to send it back to you here. We’re going to keep our feet on the ground. And we’re gonna go after these other two people that are in the water up there.” ABRAMS: Alright, so remember. This is just happening live down there. And we’re going to be staying with Ali Bradley. We’re going go back to her in — in a moment. Ali, thank you for that reporting. You know what? Let’s go now to Pinal County in Arizona. Our senior national correspondent Brian Entin is live patrolling there, what they call smugglers highway Brian, what are you seeing? ENTIN: Yeah, it’s I-10 the nickname — Smugglers Highway. Just a minute ago, we pulled over a semi with Sheriff Lamb here — a semi that’s been reported stolen. I’m not sure exactly — he’s been talking to the driver. Figure out what’s going on. Sheriff Lamb, have you — is this immigrant involved? What have you been able to figure out? PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA SHERIFF MARK LAMB: We’re going check the back right now. It’s a stolen — it’s stolen trailer. So, we’re going to check the back. We’ve seen ‘em in — in trailers before. (....) ABRAMS: I mean, look, you can just tell based on what we just showing you, right? We have two correspondents at the border who, in the last 10 minutes, have seen major activity related to migrants and the border. That’s why it’s important to be there and to be there live. You don’t get that sense without actually watching the stuff as it happening? All right. So we were just with Ali Bradley. Alright? And she said — she is — she’s going to be going back out to that scene following that story that we were just watching, but she’s the one who got this exclusive interview with this current border agent. And again, that is the video — oh, actually that video is just coming in, ok?  So that is the video now of up to of the three migrants who were just arrested there hiding in that area and, literally in the last 10 minutes that came in. The reason we weren’t able to show that to you a moment ago is because we just got the video into us. It happened moments before we went on the air. And you heard that Ali Bradley had actually talked to — talked to one of them as they were as they were there. And again, you know, this is a quite common occurrence at the border. Bradley also taped a bombshell interview with an anonymous border agent, who told her what Americans don’t realize was “we do not control the border, the cartel controls the border” and “[e]verything that we do is a reaction to things that they have planned” with those apprehended merely “pawns while the kings and queens are doing whatever they want.” They added “[n]o one” from the government will be able “to protect you” since “[e]ven at the local law enforcement level, we’re seeing them be defunded and overwhelmed to where your life has to be threatened for them to make you a priority.” In part two, Bradley asked if they’re “scared to do your job.” The agent said while they are from “a more earthly” perspective with “policies changed” that endanger agents and place “illegals...before us,” they’re a Christian who knows God “has my back”. Bradley’s last question about whether they’re more scared of the government or the cartels drew a surprising answer:  Look at the way you have me presented to do an interview when I’m off-duty. I’m terrified to talk to the media because I’m sacred of what, you know, the government could do, which obviously, would be losing my job, right, which I don’t think is fair. At three different points, Abrams brought out charts about apprehensions, gotaways, and key border sectors to show “what our border patrol agents are up against” with the first showing “2.5 million encounters for the whole of last year,” “up from 1.7, just two years before” and 1.3 million already this year. Bradley came back near the bottom of the hour with a fascinating segment about a so-called “cartel kit” and how, in many places, the cartels controlled the desert:     It wasn’t just Bradley and Entin with Abrams as the NewsNation host also spoke with Border Report correspondent Salvador Rivera, who provided two liveshots from San Diego (where an allegedly Peruvian family gave themselves up to Border Patrol), the four police chiefs, and interviewed Texas DPS Lieutenant Chris Olivarez on the state role. The hour concluded with a tense chase as Bradley and Olivarez raced to catch up and assist Border Patrol with five people who’ve breached the border wall in hopes of apprehending them before they can reach a cartel/smuggler’s getaway car and thus prevent “a high-speed chase.” They arrived to find only two of the five captured, but then were dispatched to join in another pursuit seconds later (click “expand” to see a transcript from some of the key moments):     BRADLEY: [W]e just pulled over here. We’re tracking that group that we were telling you about. So there’s a couple individuals here. Some single adults here that were just picked up by border patrol. I — we just arrived on scene. Lieutenant Olivarez, let’s talk a little bit about kind of what’s unfolding here. We literally just arrived, so we have not talked to Border Patrol, so we don’t know much about these individuals. OLIVAREZ: Actually, we got to go. We’ve got some more. We’ve got to go. You’ve got to go get some more guys. All right. Let’s go! (....) BRADLEY: You actually see a Border Patrol motorcycle dirt bike over here to our left. So, we’ve got activity out here. We’re following a Border Patrol car. A lot activity here right now down, Dan. So again, out here, you have ATVs, you have horseback, you’ve got helicopters, we have different lights over here. We’ve got another law enforcement vehicle that’s searching in this area, so it looks like they kind of believe that somebody might be on foot in this area that we are — we are that we are traveling along. And we’ve got our windows down, we’re looking out we’re trying to find if there’s anybody out here, this is what we’re up against. So, like, Lieutenant Olivarez says, these individuals are reaching this wall so quickly, a matter of seconds, and it is basically off to the races for these individuals and they’re hiding in this very thick brush. And look at this, this industrial — there are buildings everywhere. There are so many places to hide before these individuals are really picked up by these load vehicles, so that’s what they’re contending with down here like Lieutenant Olivarez says, it’s a very dynamic situation. So, again, we have multiple agencies on the ground right no. We are embedded with this elite brush team that, as you can see, they have to pivot and go in the vehicles and go after individuals that are getting into these smuggling vehicles before it can become a pursuit and a bigger problem for law enforcement and also for the community. It’s very dangerous when these pursuits go through these communities. (....) BRADLEY: [This] is what they’re doing every single night down here. This is what we did last night as well. But right now, we are looking for people that are we are on foot that just breached the border wall and we’re trying to get them before they get into a loaded vehicle — a smuggling vehicle and then end up basically going north toward San Antonio and then north from there into whatever stash house or whatever other area they kind of disappear into in the interior of our country. With time having run out on the hour, Abrams summarized this as just “happen[ing] to be a Thursday”: “That’s about all that makes today special and we just decided it’s important to see what’s happening at the border on a typical day. And we’ve got a little taste of it. That’s all. That’s all we saw. Just a little bit.” By giving viewers a raw, live sense of what a day on the border looked like (as opposed to a sanitized, pro-illegal-alien perspective), it was an absolute home run by NewsNation. To see the relevant transcript from the May 9 special, click here.

Nets Play Propagandists for Biden in Wisconsin, Bemoan ‘Stubborn’ Economy

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC dutifully complied with suckling coverage of President Biden’s trip to Racine, Wisconsin as part of Microsoft announcing a new headquarters for its artificial intelligence (A.I.) division and bemoaning how the economy’s remained a “stubborn challenge” for Biden to break through to Americans who’ve stupidly been “nostalgic” for the Trump economy. ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News each served up a full report on Wednesday with the former, of course, turning to chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher, Mary Bruce.     “President Biden traveling to the critical battleground of Wisconsin today, where a new poll has him leading Donald Trump by the slimmest of margins. Biden there to announce Microsoft will build a $3.3 billion artificial intelligence center on the very same site of a failed Trump era project that was supposed to create tens of thousands of jobs, but never got off the ground,” Bruce began, sounding as though she were handed a script from Karine Jean-Pierre. Bruce cited all the key talking points about Microsoft’s alleged plans and how it will be positioned in the same spot that a largely failed Foxconn deal hawked by then-President Trump in 2018 fell through. “But the project fizzled. The field where Trump once broke ground with golden shovels now empty,” Bruce bragged, adding her President is “eager to sell his economic accomplishments to skeptical voters.” “Now, work on this new Microsoft project, we’re told, is already underway. President Biden certainly well aware of that new poll out today showing him leading Donald Trump in Wisconsin 50 percent to 44 percent in a two-way race,” she concluded. NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt also parroted the trip as Biden “work[ing] to sell voters on his economic achievements and the strength of the U.S. economy”, but fretted “he is still facing plenty of skepticism.” NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander started off much like Bruce with the fluff:  President Biden tonight in Wisconsin, his fourth visit to the crucial battleground this year, announcing the creation of a multibillion dollar A.I. datacenter. Microsoft promising to bring thousands of jobs. (....) The President also trying to cast a contrast here at the same site where then-President Trump announced a $10 billion electronics factory, but that massive project never materialized. After a softball soundbite from a union worker who attended the event, Alexander put up the idea of skepticism by admitting “Biden has a lot of convincing to do” with “[a] poll this week shows Americans trust Mr. Trump over the President on the economy and inflation by double digits while two-thirds of Americans say they’re living paycheck to paycheck.” He also spoke to an ice cream shop owner who expressed frustration that “everything costs more” and “four years ago,” she “could just go to work — right — come home, not really have to worry about so much.” Thursday’s CBS Mornings gave CBS its puff ball piece. Fill-in co-host Natalie Morales played the opening stenographer: “President Biden is highlighting his record on the economy as he tries to deflect criticism over high inflation, and he underlined that message to voters in a campaign trip to the battleground state of Wisconsin where he praised a multibillion dollar project by Microsoft.” Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes whined the economy’s been “a stubborn challenge” and seemed perturbed voters would say they wanted a return to the Trump economy when, in 2020, they said it was poor. Gee, wonder what happened that year (click “expand”): CORDES: You know, 80 percent of voters tell us in polls that the economy is a major factor for them in this election. It is the biggest issue and, when it comes to the economy, many voters say they’re nostalgic for the past, so President Biden is getting more aggressive about contrasting his record with former President Donald Trump’s. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: On my watch, we make promises, and we keep promises. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] CORDES: President Biden paid a visit to this site in Racine, Wisconsin, Wednesday, not only because it’s the future home of a $3 billion Microsoft data center, but also because it’s where his predecessor wielded a golden shovel seven years ago to tout a project that ended up falling flat. DONALD TRUMP [in June 2018]: Really something, thank you, fellas. CORDES: Back then, the Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn was promising a plant with 13,000 jobs, but later, Foxconn scaled that number back by 90 percent. BIDEN: Foxconn turned out to be just that, a con. [LAUGHTER] Go figure. CORDES: Biden is trying to tackle a stubborn challenge. In the battleground state of Wisconsin, 62 percent of voters think the economy was better under Trump even though only 36 percent of Wisconsin voters actually rated the economy as good when Trump was President in 2020. BIDEN [on CNN]: We have the strongest economy in the world. CORDES: In his interview with CNN yesterday, Biden touted the nearly 15 million jobs created since he took office as the nation bounced back from the pandemic. BIDEN [on CNN]: He’s never succeeded in creating jobs, and I’ve never failed. NBC’s Today had a partial segment on Biden’s roadtrip with senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez conceding “[r]ecent polls show Americans trust Mr. Trump over Biden on the economy”, but noted the President jabbed the American people on CNN by saying “they have the money to spend.” To see the relevant transcripts from Mary 8, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC). For transcripts from May 9, click here (for CBS) and here (for NBC).

Election Interference: CNN Uses Audio of Private Briefing to Falsely Smear GOP’s Scott Perry

With Republicans holding a razor-thin House majority and President Biden struggling to build momentum against former President Trump, there’s no limit to how far the liberal media will go into interfere in the presidential election. Such an odious example came up on Wednesday as CNN.com eagerly published an account using audio from a private House Oversight Committee meeting to falsely paint Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) as a racist. Typing unofficially on behalf of her liberal sources hellbent on ousting Perry, Annie Grayer bragged of “audio of Perry’s comments shared with CNN” that alleged Perry told colleagues “in a closed door briefing...on Tuesday that the Ku Klux Klan is the ‘the military wing of the Democratic party’ and that migrants coming to the US ‘have no interest in being Americans.’” Grayer further kvetched in the second graph that Perry’s “a right-wing Republican who has repeated elements of the anti-immigrant and antisemitic replacement theory before.” Nowhere in her smear job did Grayer allude to how Perry’s comments came about, what they were in response to, or that private briefings and hearings are meant to be secret with lawmakers and staff largely abiding by that in the name of this thing called trust. It took until a fourth paragraph for Grayer to even quote entire sentences from Perry, which she clearly tried to paint as inaccurate: “The KKK in modern times, a lot of young people think somehow it’s a right-wing organization when it is the military wing of the Democratic Party. Decidedly, unabashedly, racist and antisemitic,” Perry said according to the recording. The KKK is not affiliated in any way with the modern Democratic Party. Ah, splitting hairs, she is! Someone needs a history lesson like we had to provide to USA Today back in 2020. And we should also ask at this point: Will Grayer release the audio? And was what was said before Perry included? Funny how it works with the liberal media and anonymous sources. Grayer then deceptively argued Perry somehow brought up replacement theory out of the blue when one could almost certainly bet it was first invoked as a taunt by a House Democrat (click “expand”): Perry then defended replacement theory, which is the idea that white people are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. “Replacement theory is real” Perry said according to the recording shared with CNN. “They added white to it to stop everybody from talking about it.” While Perry said he is happy to accept people “that are here legally,” pointing to his ancestors who migrated to the US, he has an issue with migrants that are “un-American.” “What is happening now is we’re importing people into the country that want to be in America … but have no interest in being Americans, and that’s very different and to disparage the comments is to chill the conversation so that we can continue to bring in more people that we never met that are un-American,” Perry said, according to the recording. Earth to Annie: What part(s) of this are inaccurate? For example, since President Biden took office, there have been 7.5 million border encounters with illegal immigrants and an educated guess of another 1.7 million people who escaped detainment. That certainly doesn’t indicate attempts are made to stem the flow! Grayer also dishonestly refused to note the tail end of her quotation indicated Perry was addressing someone who had attacked him and/or those critical of illegal immigration. Who was that? Follow this link for a list of the Democrats on the committee. Take your best guess! Only at the bottom did she provide a statement from Perry excoriating “the radical Left” for “twist[ing] facts in order to silence conversation about its own crimes and Biden’s intentional failures to enforce laws and close or regulate our borders.” Grayer had no shame as she implied Perry supports mass murders and is even anti-Semitic: Replacement theory is the idea that white people are being slowly and intentionally replaced by minorities and immigrants. The xenophobic and racist rhetoric associated with the theory has found its way into the mainstream of American politics and elements of it appear to have motivated some of the most heinous recent mass murders in the US and around the world. There are specific antisemitic elements of the unfounded theory as well, that Jews specifically are organizing a flood of non-white immigrants.

Here Are the Best & Worst Moments From the House NPR Hearing with MRC’s Graham

On Wednesday, the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham testified before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations during a hearing on the decades-long liberal boondoggle that is National Public Radio (NPR). Not surprisingly, he came armed with examples of their virulent bias and hate for conservatives. Joined by Americans for Tax Reform’s James Erwin, the American Enterprise Institute’s Howard Husock, and Free Press co-CEO Craig Aaron, Graham took questions from lawmakers that fell into all-predictable camps of Republicans recognizing the problem and Democrats not only denying reality, but accusing critics of NPR of putting the lives of journalists in danger. Before we dive into the highlights and lowlights, here was Graham’s opening statement, which included examples dating back to the 1980s of NPR’s shameless partisan hackery (click “expand”):     I represent the Media Research Center, America’s preeminent conservative media watchdog organization. It was founded in 1987, and I joined up in 1989. We monitor national media outlets on a daily basis and provide daily coverage of the media’s tilt at NewsBusters.org.  Uri Berliner obviously tried to make the point that media bias became a bigger problem when Donald Trump ran for president. We are here to tell you this has been a problem for a very long time. NPR legal reporter Nina Totenberg destroyed the Douglas Ginsburg nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, then she tried again with Clarence Thomas in 1991. They energetically channeled the accusers of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and when a man arrived in an Uber on Kavanaugh’s street two years ago with weapons and plans to assassinate Kavanaugh, NPR failed to file a single feature story on it. Nina Totenberg could not be found. NPR, a supposed source of civility, didn’t demonstrate that cared one bit about this potential political violence. But in March, between Morning Edition and Fresh Air, Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford was granted an hour of taxpayer-funded air time to reproduce her unproven charges of teenaged sexual assault. Now, most of us, what we remember best has been mentioned. The Exhibit A here of NPR’s bias is the New York Post series on Hunter Biden’s laptop in October of 2020. Most of the so-called “mainstream media” tried to dismiss this story – falsely – as Russian disinformation. But NPR stood out. NPR’s Public Editor Kelly McBride quoted Terence Samuel, NPR’s Managing Editor for News. He said: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.” He dismissed the Post stories as a “politically driven event.” That’s interesting, since you could argue Nina Totenberg’s hostile reporting on Supreme Court nominees created “politically driven events.” Instead of seeking to investigate the Biden family’s influence-peddling, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast a story titled “Experts Say Attack On Hunter Biden’s Addiction Deepens Stigma For Millions.” There wasn’t one word in it about Hunter Biden’s business practices involving his father, which was the point of the Post stories. The pattern continues today. When a House Oversight Committee had a hearing in March that Hunter Biden where he was supposed to appear, NPR’s All Things Considered wouldn’t consider a feature story on it. NPR covered the Pelosi-picked House January 6 Committee live for every minute, and then it couldn’t do a two-minute story on the Biden impeachment inquiry. Instead, the next morning NPR’s homepage was topped the next morning by their hot story: new details on Rupert Murdoch’s British phone-hacking scandal of 2011. NPR’s website did have a Biden mention. White House reporter Deepa Shivaram had a TikTok-like video shoot on President Biden grabbing a trendy boba tea in Las Vegas under the headline “Food stops can tell you a lot about a campaign.” NPR, that network of civility, also has encouraged chaos and disorder in society: On August 27, 2020, NPR’s blog “Code Switch”, with the slogan “Race In Your Face,” posted an interview promoting a new book titled In Defense of Looting. On The NPR Politics Podcast on July 17, 2021,they promoted a book by Yale law professor Elizabeth Hinton saying that protests against policy should not — they shouldn’t be called riots. They should be called “rebellions”. On NPR’s Fresh Air on April 15, 2023, their movie critic John Powers praised the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline, hailing it as “hugely timely”. You know, this is what NPR is doing. They can devote our taxpayer dollars to getting behind looting, rioting, and blowing up pipelines . And yet, NPR represents the Republicans as uniquely extreme. We’ve seen this throughout this Congress where they come on and say, “oh, the hard right Republicans are ruining everything.” Um, they were doing this morning discussing Miss Taylor Greene, but they have had several sappy interviews with Hakeem Jeffries. Steve Inskeep at one said — said, “you say to Republicans drive the car off the cliff. We are not going to grab the wheel.” This is the way they treat Republicans, basically as nutballs who are gonna drive the car off the cliff. You might understand that’s why we might get a little upset. Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was on the flip side, accusing those investigating NPR’s political tilt of a “disturbing” return to “the dark days of McCarthyism” when, instead, the House should crack down on private “right-wing media organizations that have a long history of peddling misinformation, disinformation, promoting partisan agendas and sowing fear and division.” “Public cynicism about the media doesn’t come from NPR. It comes from the right-wing media,” he added as if to suggest NPR hasn’t done anything itself to harm its reputation. Congresswoman and full committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) was the first member in the Q&A to speak with Graham, which afforded him the chance to call out Ranking Member Cathy Castor’s (D-FL) for claiming media critics are akin to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and those in the Chinese Communist Party: .@HouseCommerce Chair @CathyMcMorris on @NPR: “Mr. Graham, I’ll start with you. As you’re aware, Mr. [Uri] Berliner, in — wrote this op-ed, and in it, quote, he says, “By 2023, the picture was completely different. Only 11% describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative,… pic.twitter.com/QO7TTwvlMX — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 8, 2024 As the Democratic witness, Aaron served as a stand-in for NPR and lamented to Pallone that the motives of journalists would be questioned. This led Pallone to argue adversarial critiques of the news media are acts of political intimidation. Aaron agreed and said sustained (and outside) criticism of journalists made them “more timid, more cautious, more unwilling to ask hard questions” and thus it’s not only “harder for them to do their job”, but their lives are on the line. Moments later, Congressman Jeff Duncan used his time to lambaste NPR as “a Democrat propaganda machine funded by U.S. tax dollars” and mock the idea they’re providing “objective reporting”: GOP @RepJeffDuncan on @NPR in @HouseCommerce hearing: “You know, I used to drive 65,000 miles a year in my truck and like Mr. [@TimJGraham], I used to listen to NPR a good bit. In fact, I enjoyed All Things Considered. But unfortunately all things aren't considered now. The… pic.twitter.com/11JKUZq1bR — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 8, 2024 Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) went to Graham after noting “there’s a hunger in our society for just plain, unbiased news” that also doesn’t send blood pressures soaring. She asked Graham about what’s needed “to ensure NPR provides impartial coverage and serves a broader audience”:     And, in response to a question from Lesko, Erwin brought up what precipitated the last congressional hearing about NPR (that Graham also testified at), which was “a scandal where local affiliates were sharing donor lists with Democratic Party operatives” and suggested a remedy of allowing taxpayers to opt out of funding NPR (and PBS) on their tax forms. Congressman Gary Palmer (R-AL) astutely focused on the connection public broadcast has to far-left foundations: .@USRepGaryPalmer at @HouseCommerce hearing on @NPR: “I'd like to respond to my Democratic colleagues concerns about local media and the role that NPR plays in that. There was an article that pointed out that traditional outlets like The New York Times have moved so far to the… pic.twitter.com/pZFCMJKtWf — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 8, 2024 Later, Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY) and Aaron fretted it’s “very dangerous” to be “attacking the media” because that’s how “democracies” die:     Sanity was restored when Congressman John Joyce (R-PA) acknowledged that “my constituents in south Central and southwestern Pennsylvania would be a target audience for NPR” with large, rural swaths dependent “on radio for news for emergency alerts and more”, but aren’t as NPR’s squandered away their trust with their liberal biases. Graham explained how NPR has strayed from its mission of representing all voices by explaining how, oftentimes, stories will claim to feature a Republican voice, but said voice will be from, say, Liz Cheney. Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) closed out the hearing by adding his voice to what were a parade of voices on the Republican side denouncing NPR CEO Katherine Maher from declining to appear before the committee. He then asked Graham about NPR’s future with Maher (click “expand”):     CRENSHAW: [Y]ou’ve collected a pretty impressive assortment of NPR’s failures on — and — and failures to have unbiased reporting. Give us your thoughts on that and is Ms. Maher a good — a good fit to change course? GRAHAM: Oh, I don’t think there’s any intention to change course. I think that’s why she was selected. It would be interesting to hear her try to explain, you know, what it is that they’re trying to do, because when we listen to this radio network on a regular basis, it’s quite clear. You can understand why the Democrats don’t want to have a hearing about this. It works very, very well for them, right? You can understand why the gentleman from Free Press has to say he’s not here to represent public broadcasting, but they’re very closely affiliated and fight for the funding together. You know, obviously, Democrats like the system exactly as it is right now. CRENSHAW: Yeah. GRAHAM: And so, the very least we can do is — yes, have the CEO in and try to explain who in there is doing anything to suggest maybe we should have a more balanced set of interviews. CRENSHAW: Yeah. GRAHAM: Let’s — let’s have a more balanced set of journalists. You won’t see anybody from Fox News on NPR. CRENSHAW: No, and you would think that’s what the whole point — if you’re gonna do unbiased media, then it has to be unbiased. Biased media is okay. You know, just — just admit it, though. MSNBC does not try to claim that it’s unbiased. I don’t even think Fox tries to claim it’s unbiased anymore. It’s just not right. It’s we’ve had. We’ve had biased media in this country since their founding, but if you’re going to be a taxpayer-funded media company, you actually have to adhere to the principles of — of unbiased news broadcasting or say the quiet part out loud and maybe that’s the benefit of the new CEO. She has said the quiet part out loud, pretty clearly. And so, there can be no — there can be no question about what direction NPR is headed and it — and it can be simply written off and maybe we should — we should look at ways to defund it. How — how would we in Congress, perhaps, some suggestions on how we would change course in NPR? To see the relevant transcript from the hearing on May 8, click here.

Levin NUKES ‘Linguini’ Biden, Media ‘Censorship’ Downplaying Oct. 7, Touting Hamas

Back on Saturday during his Fox News Channel Show Life, Liberty, & Levin, our friend and conservative talk radio legend Mark Levin used his opening monologue to torch President Biden and his allies in the liberal media for downplaying the animalistic October 7, 2023 terror attacks by Hamas on innocents in Israel the further we get from the attacks to commiserate with Gazans (despite their reported widespread support for their government’s attacks). Levin began by tearing into Biden’s brief May 2 speech about the pro-Islamic terrorism college students, calling it “not so much a speech” and instead “a statement” by a “pathetic” man with “linguini for a spine” and who’s “ so thoroughly pathetic” with “no moral center”.     Biden continued, taking issue with the media’s refusal to show (or even return to) the graphic footage from the attacks: How many news organizations, how many news platforms have played for you the video of what took place on October 7? Well, a lot of it. It’s on the internet. We have a lot of it because the monsters who perpetrated those heinous crimes of inhumanity, they took the video. They are very proud of it. The video was captured by the IDF, the Israelis. As I say, it is online. There’s a 47-minute video that shows in excruciating detail how the Islamist Hamas Nazis murdered people, raped people, butchered people, burned them alive, decapitated them, cut off their breasts, shot them in the groin. Oh, there’s all kinds of stuff — mass rape. Have you ever seen it on TV? Cable or network. No, you haven’t. Why? You haven’t even seen video that doesn’t show the worst of it, video where the terrorists are just going through the Nova festival field showing — showing of the kids they murdered, shot in the back, shot in the chest, shot in the head. Have you seen any of that on TV? No, you haven’t seen any of it. “[W]e don’t get video in our media, our main media of October 7. Oh, it is too gruesome. Instead, we get these looped videos over and over again of buildings in Gaza that have been destroyed because Hamas either destroyed them or they had the terrorists there, or they had their munitions there, and of course, it’s Israel’s fault,” he lamented. Levin dropped the hammer: “[Y]ou won’t see the video that exists. Why is that? It’s called censorship. That’s why. The American media is censoring what took place on October 7. Again, you can see it online, but the mass media where most people go for their news, you won’t see it. It is being covered up.” Levin expanded on this contrast and the lengths General Dwight D. Eisenhower went to ensure the horrors left behind were broadcast (click “expand”): When soldiers of the Fourth Armored Division entered the camp, they discovered piles of bodies, some covered with lime, others partially incinerated on pyres. The ghastly nature of their discovery led General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe to visit the camp on April 12th, with Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley.And after his visit, Eisenhower cabled General George C. Marshall, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington, describing his trip to the death camp. He said, “the things I saw beggar description...The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering so as to leave me a bit sick...I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give firsthand evidence of these things, if ever in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” Eisenhower’s cable to Marshall on April 19, 1945, and I quote: “We continue to discover German concentration camps for political prisoners, which conditions of indescribable horror prevail.” From Eisenhower to General Marshall for eyes only. “I visited one of these myself, and I show you that whatever has been printed on them today has been understated. If you would see any advantage and asking about a dozen leaders of Congress and a dozen prominent editors to take a short visit to this theater in a couple of C-54s, I will arrange to have them conducted to one of these places, where the evidence of bestiality and cruelty is so overpowering, as to leave no doubt in their minds about the normal practices of the Germans in these camps. I am hopeful that some British individuals in similar categories will visit the northern area to witness similar evidence of atrocities.” And then Eisenhower the same day received this response: “Your proposal has been cleared and approved by the Secretary of War and the President.” — Truman — “Plans are being formulated and you will be kept advised.” This is what Eisenhower wrote in “Crusade in Europe” in its pages in his book: “The same day, [April 12, 1945], I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I’ve never felt able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face-to-face with the indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I’m certain however, that I’ve never at any other time experienced an equal sense of shock. I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at firsthand about these things in case they ever grew up at home, the belief or assumption that the stories of Nazi brutality were just ‘propaganda’. Some members of the visiting party were unable through the ordeal to go through it. I only did so, but as soon as I returned to Patton’s headquarters that evening, I’d sent communications to both Washington and London, urging the two governments to send instantly to Germany, a random group of newspaper editors and representative groups from the national legislatures. I felt that the evidence should be immediately placed before the American and British publics in a fashion that will leave no room for cynical doubt.” He said: “Of all these displaced persons, the Jews were in the most deplorable condition. For years, they’d been beaten, starved, and tortured.” And in Ike, the Soldier: As They Knew Him, Merle Miller quotes Eisenhower speaking on April 25, 1945 to members of Congress and the journalists who had been shown Buchenwald the day before. He said: “You saw only one camp yesterday, there are many others. Your responsibilities, I believe, extend into a great field at informing the people at home of things like these atrocities is one of them...Nothing is covered up. We have nothing to conceal. The barbarous treatment of these people received in the German concentration camps is almost unbelievable. I want you to see for yourself and be spokesman for the United States.” Back in 2024, Levin noted the lack of (constant) focus on the horrors on October 7 by the liberal media is because “they are giving aid and comfort to the terrorists to Iran, to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to the PLO” as well as “their front organization, Students for Justice in Palestine, the Jewish Vote, CAIR” and “the Marxist and Islamist professors”. Later, Levin powerfully concluded that not only will history look poorly on Biden, but the President and his allies in academia who’ve “given aid and comfort to the modern Nazis, in Iran, Hamas, and in our own country, the Hitler Youth and the imams that spew their hate” will be remembered like those in the 1930s and 1940s who “gave aid and comfort to Nazi Germany”. To see the relevant Fox transcript from May 4, click here.

Jacqui Time Drops Hammer on WH Supporting Israel, Whether Student Camps Need to Go

In case you missed it, Monday’s White House press briefing was dominated by questions about Hamas supposedly agreeing to a ceasefire deal that, as we would quickly find out, was one they more or less concocted on their own (as opposed to one backed by Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and the U.S.), so Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich made a point to wonder whether the Biden regime still wants Israel to win the war. “John, noting everything that you’ve said about the concerns expressed by the U.S., about the risk to Palestinians in Gaza with a full-scale operation, is the U.S. still aligned with Israel in its intention to eliminate the terrorist threat posed by Hamas,” Heinrich wondered to national security spokesman John Kirby.     When Kirby replied with a simple “of course”, Heinrich followed up: And is there any feeling that Hamas may be trying to trick the public in some way? You heard Israeli officials commenting on this latest proposal as a trick, and there’s been a lot of pressure...on the administration to make sure that the needs of Palestinians are — are being served and that the U.S. support for Israel isn’t, you know, overhanded. And you had the — the report come out earlier today, or maybe yesterday that the U.S. was potentially weighing withholding an arms shipment to Israel. Is there any concern that Hamas was trying to capitalize on that public pressure and, you know, play a trick, as Israeli officials put it? Since he’s apparently the only adult in the room with ounces of moral clarity (but not here when he did his best Jean-Pierre impression), Kirby said he would only be able to “answer that question unless I got between the ears of Mr. Sinwar, and that’s a place I really don’t want to be” and these questions need to go to him. Kirby then lowered the boom on these radical Islamists: You know, it’s interesting. I stand up here and answer questions. Karine, Matt Miller at the State Department, Pentagon colleagues, the President does, Prime Minister Netanyahu does, and the IDF military spokesman does. You know who hasn’t answered a single question about his intentions and what games he might be playing or where he intends to take this? Mr. Sinwar, head of Hamas, and I think it’s a — I think it’s high time that he answers some of these questions, and he come clean about what his intentions are. After he said the administration’s examining it, Heinrich questioned whether it’s “still a good idea to try to negotiate with terrorists”. Kirby countered that, unfortunately, “you gotta negotiate with who you got to negotiate to get people back with their families.” Heinrich closed whether she began with concerns about the U.S. supporting “Israel’s intention to eliminate Hamas.” Kirby didn’t back down and said Israel has the “right and responsibility to go after the Hamas threat — to eliminate that threat” that inflicted such harm on their citizens. The Fox correspondent also got in a few questions to Jean-Pierre on the pro-Hamas encampments on college campuses. After a “no” on the possibility that Biden would “get out there and talk to students,” Heinrich asked about whether President Biden and the administration would support a dismantling of a the (terrorist sympathizing) camp at the George Washington University (click “expand”): HEINRICH: GW’s president has called for Metro police in D.C. to intervene to dismantle what they’ve deemed an illegal encampment and D.C. police have so far refused to respond to that call. It’s happening in the President’s backyard. Is there any reaction from the White House on what should happen?” JEAN-PIERRE: So, that is something that I’m going to leave to the local law enforcement and universities., That’s for them to figure out — for them to work it through. They know what is happening on the ground, and we’ve always been very clear about that and we’ll continue to be clear about that. We’re going to continue to call for peaceful protest and, you know, dissent cannot lead to disorder and so going to continue to be very, very clear, as the President has been — as I have been, and so many of us here in this administration has been. HEINRICH: Any idea why DC police would not respond to this call? JEAN-PIERRE: I would — I would refer you to the D.C. police. That’s something for them to speak to. Elsewhere in the briefing, an Al Jazeera correspondent and The Wall Street Journal’s Annie Linskey kvetched to an unfortunately sympathetic Kirby about Israel shutting down the pro-Hamas, Qatari-funded Al Jazeera (click “expand”): LINSKEY: And just really quickly. The Israelis stopped broadcast of Al Jazeera over the weekend. Can you comment on whether that’s appropriate action for a United States ally? KIRBY: We don’t support that action. As we said, very clearly on World Press Freedom Day on Friday, I know Karine talked about this, the work of independent journalism around the world is absolutely vital. Um — it’s important to an informed citizenry and public, but it’s also important to — to — uh — to help inform the policy making process, so we don’t support that at all. LINSKEY: And did the President bring it up at all in his call? KIRBY: The focus of the call was on hostage deal and on Rafah. KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I’m gonna give you to — KIRBY: But you say my — sorry — I think I put a statement out this morning on that. So we have officially reacted to it. JEAN-PIERRE: Go ahead, Al Jazeera in the back. AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you so much, Karine. Thank you, John. Uh, is that administration planning on discussing the banning of Al Jazeera in Israel with the Israeli government? We just celebrated the freedom of the press here in the United States and across the globe, and then this decision came and it was really a big shock. KIRBY: As I just said, we don’t — AL JAZEERA CORRESPONDENT: Will this administration raise this issue with the government of Israel? KIRBY: We have raised this issue and I made a — a public statement about it. On a different topic NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez and CBS’s Ed O’Keefe ended the briefing by questioning Jean-Pierre about the seemingly never-ending saga of Governor Kristi Noem’s (R-SD) memoir: NBC's @GabeGutierrez: “Just really quickly. What's your response to Kristi Noem’s comments, implying that Commanders should be put down?” KJP: “Look, you know, when we learned last week, obviously, like all of you in her book that she killed her puppy, you heard me say that was… pic.twitter.com/QmxlsIZlms — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 6, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the May 6 briefing, click here.

ABC Commiserates with Nathan Wade, Bemoan ‘Whirlwind of Distraction’ From Jailing Trump

On Sunday’s World News Tonight and Monday’s Good Morning America (GMA), ABC rolled out the first two segments on their flagship newscasts of their network exclusive interview with former Fulton County, Georgia special prosecutor Nathan Wade over losing his job nearly two months ago in the 2020 election case against former President Trump and 18 others because of his illicit romantic relationship with District Attorney Fani Willis. Correspondent, Sunday World News Tonight anchor, and ABC News Live host Linsey Davis didn’t lob one softball after another, but she largely let him off the hook by fretting Wade and Willis were caught and thus were a collective “whirlwind of distraction” from the fourth Trump indictment and letting Wade offer no serious apologies as he called their trysts “as American as apple pie.” On Sunday night, Davis opened with Wade’s soundbite that “[w]orkplace romances are as American as apple pie” and occur with “everyone” but bemoans the fact that they were caught. Asked if he regrets becoming involved with Willis, Wade replied he only “regret[s]” this “private matter became the focal point of this very important prosecution”. In the other Q&A, Davis only wondered if they had really grappled with the fact that “democracy is on the line, as has been described” and thought of putting the country above their relationship. Wade again displayed zero remorse, only saying he’d “concede that that could have been an approach, but...when you are in the middle of it, these feelings are developing, and you get to a point to where the feelings are — are — are so strong that, you know, you start to want to do things that really are none of the public’s concern.” While Wade won’t end up in prison, the guy belongs in some sort of dog house or horny jail for how shameless the man remains about his escapades. Monday’s GMA brought about just over six and a half additional minutes of this cringe. Davis boasted that “Wade had a lot to get off his chest” about losing the case he had “spen[t] 865 days” working on what would be yet another case of election interference.     Setting the tone this wouldn’t be grilling by starting with Wade telling her he “want[s] people to know the real me”, Davis reracked the first exchange that aired on Sunday night about office sex is “as American as apple pie” and he only regrets being caught. Davis then fretted “[t]he relationship created a whirlwind of distraction from the indictment of former President Trump and 18 others for alleged election interference” and put the brakes on their prosecutions. As a way to seem tough, she quoted far-left feminist Post columnist Monica Hesse and wondered why it took them 25 days to fight back (click “expand”): DAVIS [TO WADE]: A Washington Post columnist wrote, “what were they thinking? How would they start a romance, embroiled in the prosecution of a former President, start a romance and not see this trouble coming a mile away.” And so, what were you thinking in that moment? WADE: You know, again, you — you don’t plan to — to develop feelings. You don’t plan to — to fall in love. You don’t plan to — to — to have some relationship in the workplace that we — you don’t set out to do that and those things develop organically. They develop over — over time. And the — the minute we had that sobering moment, we discontinued it. DAVIS: For nearly one month after news of their relationship broke, neither prosecutor acknowledged it publicly. [TO WADE] So, for 25 days, we didn’t hear from — from you or District Attorney Willis. You’re a public servant — right — getting paid by the state of — of Georgia. Why not say, okay, we’ll — we’ll make a statement, get on top of this? WADE: Let me say this. My conversation here with you today is just that. It’s — it’s Nathan’s conversation. I — I do not speak for the district attorney’s office. I do not speak for their position. As a matter of fact, I am certain that they would rather me not be having this — this exchange with you. So, with that, I want to continue to protect the integrity of this prosecution. I don’t want to say or do anything that would jeopardize this case. After a comical aside with Wade claiming his relationship with Willis hasn’t had an effect on the case, Davis somewhat incredulously and somewhat sympathetically played along as he claimed he wasn’t ready for the public spotlight from having been named to the case and whined about Trump attacking him (click “expand”): DAVIS: One aspect Wade said he wasn’t prepared for was the intense public scrutiny and harassment he said he’s faced. [TO WADE] So, you didn’t realize when you took the case your life was going to be under a microscope? WADE: I did not realize that my life would be in danger. The microscope — I don’t have a problem with. The truth is I — you know, the worst that you could find was the fact that I had a relationship with someone or that I — I happened to be going through a divorce, that’s okay. That — that’s okay. I — I had nothing to — to hide. DAVIS: And some of the attacks have come from the former President himself. [TO WADE] Is there any part of you that regrets that you gave him any aspect to say, oh, you have to question the credibility of this case because of the relationship between Fani Willis and Nathan Wade? WADE: So, while — while I will concede, Miss Davis, that the relationship did not happen in ideal timing, I don’t think that anything that occurred during the course of the relationship should cause question as it would relate to the efficiency of the indictment, as it would relate to evidence that was uncovered and — and — and may or may not be presented at — at trial. Following one final clip of Wade expressing confidence the trial will happen, Davis told the GMA crew back live that “one thing Wade says he does regret is the impact the scandal has had on his adult children” and “[h]e wants people to know he was separated at the time of the relationship with Fani Willis”. To see the relevant ABC transcripts, click here (for May 5) and here (for May 6).

ICYMI: Hamill Derails WH Briefing, Doocy Battles Inept KJP Over Her Alma Mater

Friday’s White House press briefing began with a distinct 2016 vibe as the Biden administration demanded it be taken seriously on the reelection front with Star Wars actor Mark Hamill surprising reporters ahead of May 4 (aka May the Fourth Be With You!) and a few dutifully complied by asking him questions despite the fact that, as we’d later learn, one hasn’t seen any of the movies. Elsewhere, the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre faced her usual hardballs from the like of Fox colleagues Edward Lawrence on tax cuts and basic respect for laws on the books and then Peter Doocy on both-sides-ing anti-Semitism and Islamphobia, Jean-Pierre’s alma mater, and the now-famous UNC fraternity brothers.     Hamill led off with his surprise appearance and donning a pair of aviators to match the President before saying he “was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the President, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime” and listing off standard party talking points. He then opened it up to questions after thanking The New York Times’s Peter Baker in the second row for his most recent book which was, naturally, an anti-Trump tome with wife Susan Glasser. ABC’s Selina Wang seized the opportunity: “Thank you, Mark Hamill, for being here. What did you ask? What did you talk about with the President?” After Hamill replied this was his first time visiting a White House on his own in the Oval and thus more special (as opposed to going in a group), CBS’s Weijia Jiang had the other question:  JIANG: Did President Biden bring up Star Wars to you, sir? HAMILL: Well, you know, I called him Mr President. He said, you can call me Joe and I said, “can I call you Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi?” Jiang returned to this topic during her Q&A with a genuine question about why Hamill came to the White House, but Jean-Pierre didn’t like her tone and it quickly devolved into a mini-roast of the CBS correspondent for admitting she’s never watched the movies (click “expand”): JIANG: And then just to close the loop. What was Mark Hamill doing here today? JEAN-PIERRE: I think he said. He said he was meeting with — he was having a meeting. Did you not like having him in? JIANG: No, I mean, that’s not — we all loved meeting him, but —  JEAN-PIERRE: It sounded — it sounded — it sounded very kind of like, why? Why here? Um, he was no, He said it himself. I — we — we wanted to make sure that he provided — which is one of the reasons he spoke to — why he was here himself. He wanted to meet with the President. They had a meeting, and — JIANG: About what? JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, you guys asked him questions. Uh — uh — uh — uh, they had a meeting about — um — what the President has been able to do on behalf of the American people. Mark Hamill was in town. They met. I think it was — it was important as someone — you all — you all know Mark Hamill. He is someone who has who is very much invested in our country — very much invested in — um — in the direction of this country. And so — uh — they had a — you know, they had a meeting. It was — he — he went into that meeting, and I thought — we thought it would be fun for him to come out here and lighten up — and lighten up the room a little bit on a Friday. We also believe that you guys are — so — there are some Star Wars fans in here. Uh — but, you know, the President — I mean, the President meets with a lot of people. There’s a lot of people that come through the White House that the President has an opportunity to sit down and talk with. You just happen to — you just happen to see Mark Hamill today because we thought it would be a nice gesture to have him come out and say hello, but I wouldn’t put too much. I really wouldn’t put too much into it. He meets with a lot of people here.  JIANG: Thank you. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. All right. Jeez. Weijia is not happy about Mark Hamill being here. [REPORTERS LAUGH] That’s okay. I’m not gonna tell him. He’s not watching probably. I won’t tell him. REPORTER: Have you [inaudible] JIANG: I don’t — I haven’t seen the movies. JEAN-PIERRE: Do you — do you not like Star Wars? You have not seen Star Wars. What? JIANG: I will now. I will now. [REPORTERS BOO] JEAN-PIERRE: That’s why that happened, folks. That’s why I got the question. Yeah. JIANG: I’m gonna watch. I’m going to watch. REPORTER: She’s not alone. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, there’s more.  REPORTER: What? JEAN-PIERRE: Well, All right. I’m gonna let that go. Fast-forwarding to the back end of the briefing, Lawrence fact-checked the administration on tax cuts: “So, the President says that he wants to let the tax cuts — the Trump tax cuts expire. If that law expires, it does raise taxes on almost every American. So, does he still support that expiring without anything else in place?”     Jean-Pierre deflected by claiming while Biden will “let the Trump tax cut expire....he will not raise taxes on anyone less than $400,000” and he’s “been very clear about that.” Lawrence doubled down: “[T]he President can’t pick and choose which part of the law sunsets. The entire law will sunset and the Tax Foundation says that someone who’s married, two kids, making 85,000 would pay $1,700 more in taxes. That’s somebody under $400,000”. Jean-Pierre didn’t budge on any of her talking points, including the irrelevant claim about Republicans “want[ing] to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security” Doocy Time began with this both-sidesism that, if it were done by a Republican president, would trigger liberal media-wide excoriations: “So, in the President’s remarks yesterday, he’s talking about Islamophobia on campuses. Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric on campuses. Does he think Islamophobia is just as big of a problem on campus as anti-Semitism?” Jean-Pierre shamelessly wouldn’t fully rebut that and instead remained in neutral with a standard word salad about Bide being able “to call out all forms of hate, always” and opposing protests that aren’t “within the law”.     Doocy next used Jean-Pierre’s own words against her when noting no one had asked her about the fact that anti-Semitic protest hotbed Columbia University is Jean-Pierre’s alma mater. Pathetically, Jean-Pierre mocked Doocy for having done “some research” (click “expand”): DOOCY: Something else that it somehow slipped my mind. JEAN-PIERRE: How is that — DOOCY: — over the last couple of weeks. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, goodness. DOOCY: You are an alumna of Columbia — OTHER REPORTERS: Ooooo! DOOCY: — University. JEAN-PIERRE: Wow, that’s a shocker. DOOCY: You, in all the talking about it — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: — you haven’t brought it up. Uh, you told Columbia students a few years back. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: “Don’t” — JEAN-PIERRE: Oh! DOOCY: — “lose the idealism that you have.” So what do you tell them now? JEAN-PIERRE: You did — you did some research. Oh, my God! DOOCY: All I do is research and just hope that you call me. JEAN-PIERRE: [LAUGHS] You did some —” DOOCY: But no! What do you tell, the — JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, look —“ DOOCY: — the students who are following in your footsteps? JEAN-PIERRE: — look — I mean, look, going to be — oh, and that’s actually gonna be a great segue to — uh — to the student — student journalist that we have in the room, Danny — um — after I answer this question. DOOCY: I do have one more, though. [REPORTERS LAUGH] JEAN-PIERRE: Ah! DOOCY: Sorry, Danny. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s okay. Uh — so, look — I’m not speaking on behalf of me. I’m not. I speak on behalf of this President. That’s my job, and I believe in this president. I believe in the work that we do. It is an honor and a privilege to stand at this lectern every day to speak to you and all your colleagues and to take your questions. It is not about me — uh — and really your question and what you’re asking me and — and what I have said to students is pretty much what the President has said. All Americans have the right to peacefully protest within the law. They have to — we have the right. That’s what makes this country so great, right? That’s what makes what — when we’re talking about our freedoms, our democracy. That’s what’s so important — to have the opportunity to agree and disagree and do it in a peaceful way in a peaceful way. That’s important, and the President also called out — if you’re — if you are breaking and entering and you are taking over buildings, that is not peacefully protesting, and the President was very clear about calling that out as well and also anti-Semitism and calling it what it is. It is hate speech. Doocy closed by being the first reporter to bring up in the briefing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who “saved an American flag from an angry mob of protesters” and there was “a GoFundMe where people can donate to throw them a rager.” Amazingly, Doocy asked if Biden “would...donate” to which Jean-Pierre was incredulous: “You never disappoint, my friend.” She then gave a standard answer about how ripping down the American flag as anti-Israel students was not an example of peaceful protest”. When Doocy asked if Biden would even give them a call, Jean-Pierre only said “protecting the American flag is admirable.” To see the relevant transcript from the May 3 briefing (including a question from the left by the AP on anti-Semitic campus protests and a long back-and-forth with April Ryan directly lobbying for a pardon of former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby), click here.

ABC, CBS Play White House Pravda Fawning Over State Dinner for Teachers

Less than week after President Biden used his White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) speech to order the liberal media to get to work on behalf of democracy (aka his reelection campaign), ABC’s Good Morning America and CBS Mornings took this to heart with puff ball pieces Friday on a White House state dinner held to celebrate teachers. This was especially par for the course on ABC. Co-host Michael Strahan even had a tease at the top of the second hour: “From the classroom to the White House. The historic event for teachers who help others make their dreams come true. We got ready with the national teacher of the year.”     “Going to turn now to the White House, honoring America’s top teachers last night, including the national teacher of the year. Senior White House correspondent Selina Wang was there and ABC got an exclusive behind the scenes access,” he added moments later. Wang did her best impression of colleague and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce: [T]he White House, for the first time, hosting a state dinner for teachers. Now, these are lavish events for heads of state, but this time, teachers got to experience the glitz and glam and we got that exclusive look behind the scenes. Overnight, the White House hosting the first ever teachers of the year state dinner. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden toasting honorees from nearly every state and territory. Following soundbites from Jill and Joe Biden, Wang touted ABC’s exclusive look at national teacher of the year Mindy Testerman — an ESOL teacher in Tennessee — getting ready and as she made her grand entrance where celebrities and politicians often pose for photos upon rival for state dinners. “Testerman hoping to use her platform to encourage other teachers to advocate for students,” Wang added, asking her inside the White House, “[w]hy is teaching so important?” “Teaching is so important because as this country moves forward, educators make every other single profession possible,” Testerman replied. Wang concluded with a line from Testerman’s speech, which sounded like it was crafted by the Democratic National Committee as she talked about preserving “democracy”: And guys, Missy Testerman said in her speech last night that teachers make democracy possible by educating the next generation. And, look, the learning goes both ways. She told me that her students have taught her courage, calling them her heroes[.] Having been the ones to reveal both Testerman as the award recipient and there would be a state dinner for all state and national teachers, CBS Mornings was ebullient and made sure viewers knew it. “For the first time ever, America’s top teachers were invited to a special dinner at the White House to honor their work. First Lady Jill Biden hosted last night’s event, upgrading the usual White House reception for state and national teachers of the year,” fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan began, tossing to chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes. Cordes made sure to twice name-check the show (click “expand”): [V]ery glitzy. You might recall that the First Lady revealed right here on CBS Mornings last month that she was going to host a state dinner for the nation’s top teachers. And so, last night, the educators traded in their school clothes for gowns and suits as they were each announced individually at the event. Now, this is a big deal since White House state dinners are typically reserved for visiting heads of state, prime ministers, the Hollywood elite. It’s the toughest ticket in town. But this space, take a look, may look familiar. Missy Testerman joined CBS Mornings last month when we revealed that she was named the 2024 national teacher of the year. The English as a Second Language program director at Rogersville City School in Tennessee has been teaching for more than three decades. She was celebrated last night.  Like a Biden press secretary, Cordes added “[t]he nation’s top educators received an inspirational message from the First Lady, who has also been teaching for more than 30 years” and “thanked them for everything they do to change the world.” It grew even more pathetic and partisan when she complimented the President’s message: “Her other half, President Biden, also stopped by to honor the teachers. He told them, ‘you are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft.’ Very poetic, guys. Maybe he has a teacher in the house.” Or, a speechwriter, but whatever. To see the relevant transcripts from May 3, click here (for ABC) and here (for CBS).

Editor’s Pick: Washington Times Covers DISTURBING Move by BlackRock in China

Our friends at The Washington Times had a front-page story for Thursday’s print edition that showed, once again, The Times has in-depth reporting the rest of the print media wouldn’t dare to touch. This time, national security correspondent Bill Gertz highlighted a report that infamous Wall Street firm BlackRock “is investing millions of dollars in an estimated 30 Chinese military-linked companies sanctioned by the U.S. government”. The report, which came courtesy of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, also revealed BlackRock — a company known for backing woke “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) policies under boss Larry Fink — “has invested in companies working on China’s large-scale nuclear weapons buildup.” Despite its woke pedigree, Gertz said BlackRock specifically has given “nearly $50 million” to “Chinese companies sanctioned under the 2022 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act”. Here was more from Gertz’s disturbing story: “China’s political leadership wants to redirect capital to emerging technologies with military application in preparation for a potential war with the United States,” the report said. “Beijing also wants to continue its campaign of oppression against the Uyghurs and other minority groups in northwestern China.” Noting that BlackRock has said it does not do business with companies in China producing nuclear arms, the report concludes: “The reality is that BlackRock holds stock in Chinese companies pursuing an aggressive buildup of nuclear warheads meant to hold United States territory at risk.” (....) The report singled out MSCI Inc., a leading provider of support tools for global investors known as indexes, for its role in BlackRock’s investments in banned military-linked companies in China. Christopher Berger, a spokesman for BlackRock, which reports managing $10 trillion in assets, had no immediate comment on the report. MSCI officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. (....) BlackRock became the first global asset manager allowed to operate a wholly owned mutual fund business in China in 2021. Chief Executive Larry Fink was among the senior American business leaders who reportedly paid $40,000 for a seat at a dinner table with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to California in November. The company said on its website that one of its principles is “we are committed to a better future.”      (....) The report identified MSCI as BlackRock’s main index provider, with more than $15 trillion in assets. “As MSCI’s most important customer and second largest shareholder, BlackRock could demand the exclusion of Chinese military companies and human rights violators from its indexes,” the report said. “Instead, BlackRock fails to acknowledge that its exposure to U.S.-sanctioned entities is a problem, claiming that it ‘complies with all applicable U.S. government laws.’” To read Gertz’s full story, click here.

CBS Lionizes Climate Losers Blocking Traffic, Throwing Paint, Interrupting Conservative Gala

Like being able to visit museums without climate freaks throwing soup on world-renowned paintings? Looking to enjoy a night out at a gala? Need a peaceful commute without anyone blocking the road? If the answer to any of these questions is no, CBS Mornings all but said no way, Jose. On Thursday, they ran a lengthy puff piece fawning over Climate Defiance and even followed them as they interrupted the March 6 gala for our friends at American Moment.     Co-host Nate Burleson incredibly wove in the climate freaks with the live scenes from UCLA as “police are clashing with protesters against the war in Gaza”. “College campuses aren’t the only places where protesters are making their voices heard. This morning in our Climate Watch series, we’re focusing on climate activists who are taking direct action to make their point. Last week one group blockaded the entrance to the global headquarters of CitiGroup in Manhattan. They demanded the banking giant stop funding fossil fuel interests,” boasted fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan. She added “[s]enior national and environmental correspondent Ben Tracy [took] a closer look at one climate group that says it doesn’t need to be liked to be effective.” The chyron was unsurprisingly stupid: “Climate Watch; Protests for the Planet; A Look at What’s Driving Climate Activists to Get Aggressive”. With that stacked deck, Tracy gave unassuming and seemingly neutral (i.e. pro-thuggery) open: “Blocking traffic, throwing red powder on a case housing the U.S. Constitution, and dousing a global-covered Van Gogh with soup, climate protesters are not just marching in the streets. They’re finding new and more aggressive ways to demand climate action.” Tracy was then shown following around Climate Defiance in their preparation, execution, and aftermath of their storming of the American Moment gala. Tracy and CBS cameras even palled around with one of their leaders as they scouted out the hotel a day beforehand. Of course, Tracy denied our friends the full free advertising by refusing to name them (click “expand”): MAXWELL DOWNING: We can still cause a little bit of a scene. Cause some chaos. TRACY: On a recent Wednesday night in Washington, D.C. — DOWNING: I know exactly the route that we can go. TRACY: — 21-year-old Maxwell Downing shared his plan to cause a scene at this nearby hotel. [TO DOWNING] What exactly are you guys doing tonight? DOWNING: We’re going to a fancy, schamncy gala that J.D. Vance — Republican senator from Ohio — is going to be speaking at. J.D. Vance is one of the top 20 recipients of oil and gas money in Congress. TRACY: Downing cased the hotel the day before they found the best escape routes. DOWNING [TO FELLOW THUGS]: Who does not have $50 in cash? TRACY: So, after making sure that everyone had money in case they got arrested — DOWNING [at American Moment gala]: J.D. Vance is a climate supervillain! TRACY: — these climate protesters stormed the ballroom — DOWNING: Come out, J.D., face us. CLIMATE DEFIANCE PROTESTER: He’s a climate criminal. TRACY: — interrupting the event until security finally threw them out. DOWNING: Face us! Off fossil fuels! AMERICAN MOMENT SECURITY GUARDS: Get out. Get out. DOWNING: Immediately, security guards hands around the neck, which is not usual. Nearly a minute and a half into the five-minute-and-37-second block, Tracy finally identified the group as Climate Defiance, taking them at their word that they don’t “engage in vandalism or violence” and have “become notorious for surprise confrontations with oil executives...and politicians on both sides of the aisle.” Tracy even served at the group’s unofficial spokesman by having CBS ask Senator J.D. Vance “for his reaction to the disruption” at the gala he was speaking at. Of course, Vance’s team “did not respond”. One could presume this question to Climate Defense executive director Michael Greenberg was meant to be adversarial: “When you burst into a room and you call somebody like Senator Manchin a sick f-word, what is the outcome you’re hoping to achieve?” Greenberg was unapologetic in explaining they “don’t necessarily expect to move Manchin or whatnot” but instead “make climate change a top issue in American politics”....via intimidation. “He says their protests are designed to go viral on social media, attracting new members to their cause, and raising awareness of climate change as an existential issue,” Tracy added. Tracy’s other question came with a drive-by-ish tone: “Do you worry about turning people off, that they see you as more annoying or more of a threat than actually helping the cause you say you’re trying to help?” The only mild, official pushback from Dana Fisher, an American University professor who penned “a new book about climate activism” (Click “expand”): GREENBERG: We’re trying to shake the public awake. TRACY [TO GREENBERG]: Do you worry about turning people off, that they see you as more annoying or more of a threat than actually helping the cause you say you’re trying to help? GREENBERG: Yeah, we’re definitely an acquired taste. Not everybody loves us. You don’t need to be popular to be effective. FISHER: And their goal is media attention, plain and simple. [TO STUDENTS] When you guys look at the general population — TRACY: Dana Fisher is a professor at American University and author of a new book about climate activism. DOWNING: He is a criminal! TRACY: She calls these kinds of activists “shockers,” not unlike some of the AIDS activists of the 1980s who desperately tried to get people’s attention. [TO FISHER] How do we know if this is actually effective? FISHER: I think it’s going to be a hindsight thing. I mean, I do not think that the whole movement should shift toward these kinds of actions because I think it will be a detriment to the movement itself, but it is playing a role in helping to keep the conversation going. The CBS correspondent closed by bragging that “they have had some success” in securing “a meeting with John Podesta, the White House’s chief climate adviser” and were “part of the pressure campaign that recently led President Biden to pause the expansion of liquefied natural gas exports.” Duthiers gushed about how “this is such a great piece” with “a lot to digest,” adding “you can understand that they want cameras there...because it does cause people to pay attention” since “politicians...have enacted or have at least put plans into place to address climate issues.” Duncan also voiced her support: “But only time really will tell in terms of what action is actually taken, what policies are actually passed as a result of bringing attention to something that I think everyone, at this point recognizes, is a problem.” “We love shock value. But we’ll see if this is counterproductive or not in the future,” Burleson said. Exit question: How would liberal journalists feel if protesters stormed and occupied their studios, or say, blocked roads that made them late for family emergencies? To see the relevant CBS transcript from May 2, click here.

Doocy, Wegmann, Gutierrez Grill Inept KJP Over Biden’s Inaction on Pro-Hamas Students

Before being shamed into speaking on-camera Thursday to the American people about the dangerous anti-Semitic hooligans who’ve thrown college campus into chaos, Wednesday’s White House press briefing was dominated by numerous reporters — including Fox’s Peter Doocy, Real Clear Politics’s Philip Wegmann, and even NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez — pressing the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre on why Biden hasn’t been more public in denouncing these scenes. The initial questions were rather pedestrian. After AP’s Zeke Miller asked “[w]hy haven’t we heard directly from the President”, he was followed by ABC’s Karen Travers wondering whether “anyone from the administration been in touch with...any of these universities that are seeing these protests”, CBS’s Weijia Jiang asking the same except with the NYPD, and NPR’s Mara Liasson inquiring as to how read in Biden is on the chaos. Gutierrez finally called out what had been denials from Jean-Pierre about how much Biden knows and why he’s been out of sight aside from paper statements: I wanted to follow up on a previous question that was asked. And, respectfully, you didn’t quite answer it. The question was, why hasn’t the President been more forceful in talking about the protests. You talk about how he’s talked about anti-Semitism. But specifically on the protest, why hasn’t the President been more forceful on that? Jean-Pierre grew defensive, claiming she “hear[s] the question....but...the President has been the — one — the — no other president has spoken about anti-Semitism than this President.”     Gutierrez countered that was “not the question” and Jean-Pierre hit back that she was “answering it in the way that, I believe, is the best way to” do so with binder notes about Biden’s “strategic plan to deal — to counter anti-Semitism more than 100 new actions...across the administration.” Some blah, blah, blah later, Gutierrez followed up with a fact-check (click “expand”): GUTIERREZ: You mentioned that the President has taken questions on this. Again, respectfully he — he hasn’t. He did take a question where he said he “condemns those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” I know you’ve been asked about that. But since you brought up Charlottesville, what do you say to those critics who say that he is trying to have it both ways that he’s essentially, you know, trying to talk about both anti-Semitism and what’s going on with the Palestinians? JEAN-PIERRE: I would say to those critics is no. He’s not doing a both sides scenario here. When you think about Charlottesville, you think about the — the — the vile anti-Semitism that we heard on the streets of Charlottesville, right here, uh, in Virginia — right — not far from here. The President and many of us wanted to make sure that was called out. Somebody died. A young woman lost her life and, when the President saw that, it put him in a situation where he believed it was the right thing to speak against that. He wrote an op ed that was in The Atlantic because — about that — about that. He decided to run because of what he saw in Charlottesville and that was just vile, nasty rhetoric. And you had — um — you know, a former President talk about both sides. There was no both sides here. None. Absolutely none. As it relates to the Palestinians, he was talking about the humanitarian — a dire humanitarian situation — that we’re currently seeing. I just mentioned the Secretary — Secretary Blinken is going to be talking about the humanitarian aid that we are trying to get into Gaza for the people of Gaza. We’re trying to get this hostage deal done so that we can get hostages home and create an environment to get humanitarian aid that would lead — also, the hostages would lead to a ceasefire. Those things are not the same. They are just not the same. Fundamentally, not the same. And it is in bad faith. It is in bad faith to say that. Incredibly, one reporter moments later wondered if President Biden’s concerned the rise of campus protests are “turning“ ”the court of public opinion...against what the President is standing for” in supporting Israel: Reporter: “These protests that have been going on college campuses, we're hearing that some of them are starting to wane a little bit, but they're not just a one day protest. This has been going on for quite some time. Is there some concern within the Biden administration that… pic.twitter.com/97C14wXBvF — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2024 USA Today’s Joey Garrison had a few questions from the left, including twice bringing to the forefront concerns about how university leaders and law enforcement have acted “harshly” in ““forcibly shut[ting] down” encampments: USA Today's @JoeyGarrison: “With that said, I mean, does the President believe New York Mayor Adams and leaders of Columbia University and — and City College of New York acted appropriately by having the protesters at those colleges — colleges arrested and their encampments… pic.twitter.com/7sJ80I5s1e — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2024 After having been ignored on Monday, she called on Doocy and, like always, he asked something no one else in the room had brought up: Some of these encampments, they had a matching tents. We’re being told that there are professional outside agitators involved. We don’t know if they’re being paid to sow chaos by domestic folks or foreign entities. Does President Biden want his administration to find out who is funding some of these protests? Our friend Nicole Silverio of the Daily Caller had it right when she tweeted the Jean-Pierre promptly “short-circuited”.     Click “expand” to read her psychobabble and Doocy’s hardball follow-up wondering if Biden’s silence served as further indication that he’s “worried about losing the youth vote” if he were to firmly denounce them: JEAN-PIERRE: What I can say — you know — um — I cannot — uh — I cannot speak to — uh — the organizations that are being reported out on the ground. That is not something for me to speak to. That is obviously something that local governments — uh — local officials — I keep saying local government — local officials are going to speak to. They’ll have better information on that. What we have said — and I don’t think I’ve iterated that yet from here is that the DOJ and FBI is going to continue to offer support to universities and colleges — uh — with — in respect to federal laws, so that is something that the DOJ and FBI is doing. As far as local organizations and what is all being reported on the ground, that is something that — I’m — that local law enforcement, I’m certainly, is looking into. DOOCY: And I understand that President Biden historically has spoken — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: — very forcefully about anti-Semitism, but this week, he’s not. He’s MIA. Is he that worried about losing the youth vote with these protesters? JEAN-PIERRE: I’m going to be mindful. You’re talking about youth vote. You’re talking about 2024. DOOCY: Support of young people. JEAN-PIERRE: No, no, no, no. I — I — I — I have to say what I have to say and just give me a second.  (....) JEAN-PIERRE: I’ll speak more broadly. I can’t speak to youth people, youth and support and voters. That’s not something I can do from here. Uh, the President has taken a lot of policy actions here that he knows that young people care about and a lot of those actions are popular with those young folks, whether it’s giving a little bit of breathing room with student debt relief — so we made announcement today, matter of fact, and we are going to continue to do that, because we think it’s important as families or as an American and you coming out of college and you wanna build a family by home — uh — you have the opportunity to do that and not be crushed by student debt. The President understands how important it is to deal with that issue. Climate change — something that young people really truly care about. One of the crises that the President said he came into having to deal with was the climate change crisis. This is a President that has taken more — has taken aggressive, aggressive action to deal with climate crisis. You know, look, I can’t speak to — um — I can’t speak to youth voters or their support, but we’re going to do continue to take actions that we believe helps all Americans and all communities. Doocy had one more question: “[Y]ou mentioned what he said in 2017 after Charlottesville. He said, about Trump’s response then, ‘Charlottesville, for me, was a moment where I thought silence would be complicity.’ So how does he explain — how do you explain his silence this week?” Like with Gutierrez, Jean-Pierre stood pat and reiterated Biden “has not been silent on this issue when it comes to hate speech, anti-Semitism” but Doocy noted “he hasn’t” and his written words obviously mean nothing since “a school building at an Ivy League campus got taken over.” Jean-Pierre dithered away and ran out the clock until Wegmann came up to close the briefing.  Like Doocy, Wegmann stuck to his reputation of going against the grain. This time, he wondered what the administration made of “some of these college campuses where we’ve seen the U.S. flag torn down and the Palestinian flag replace it.” Jean-Pierre declined to comment and instead spoke more generally about how none should be able to “disturb campuses in the way of taking over buildings in the way that we have seen” and “it is a dangerous time for [the Jewish] community and we have been very clear about what we need to do to fight that hate.” The Press Secretary also refused to weigh in on Wegmann’s other question about whether Biden believes “higher education has gone off the rails that, you know, something more fundamental has gone wrong on these college campuses” given the rampant anti-Semitism among younger Americans. To see the relevant transcript from the May 1 briefing (including even more protests-related questions), click here.

Nets Catch the Sads for Florida Curbing ‘Abortion Care’, Cheer It as ‘Key’ to 2024

On Wednesday, the “big three’ of ABC, CBS, and NBC had full stories on their flagship morning news shows to reiterate their joy over Biden regime being so “eager” to make “abortion care” “front and center in the fight for the White House” and “drive voters to the polls” with the latest case being the focus on Florida’s six-week pro-life law being “one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States.” As these round-ups usually go, ABC’s Good Morning America was the giddiest thanks to the team of co-host/former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos and chief White House correspondent/chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce. “Abortion rights fight. As Florida’s six week ban takes effect this morning, President Biden puts the issue front and center in the fight for the White House,” Stephanopoulos boasted in an opening tease. Later on with the chyron reading in part “Abortion Showdown Takes Center Stage”, Bruce gushed that her friends are “eager to put the issue of abortion front and center in this campaign, and today, sending the Vice President, Kamala Harris — t heir chief messenger on this — down to Florida”.     Bruce made sure to highlight Trump’s Time magazine interview and that gotcha question about states surveilling pregnant women and even did her President a solid by not playing a campaign video released overnight and instead reading a portion herself (since it’s littered with jump cuts thanks to Biden’s inability to string together coherent thoughts). “[T]he Biden campaign is hoping all of this will drive voters to the polls for them in November,” she later concluded, to which fill-in co-host Gio Benitez conurred it’s “[a] major issue to be sure.” Over on NBC’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie called Florida’s law an “abortion showdown” in a tease and said NBC will get into “[w]hat it means for millions of women” (as opposed to babies). During a segment about the raging anti-Semites creating chaos on college campuses, White House correspondent Peter Alexander told Guthrie they’ve distracted voters “away from the issues the Democrats want to talk about, issues like reproductive rights, issues more broadly about health care” and the Trump indictments. NBC then did the Biden team a solid by talking about what they want. Co-host Hoda Kotb relayed that abortion was “front and center today” (says who?) “as one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States takes effect in Florida.” Correspondent Marissa Para bemoaned the lack of access for “abortion care” in the Sunshine State and only footnoted the pro-life cause with sound from one of the law’s state House sponsors (who correctly declared “abortion is not health care”) (click “expand”): PARA: Clinics like the one you see behind me have been preparing for today. Today is day one of Florida’s new law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and the vast majority of cases with some exceptions for things like incest and rape. But with former President Trump making controversial new comments to issue, Hoda, we are already seeing how much abortion rights will play a role come November. This morning, an abortion ban with ripples far beyond the Sunshine State. PRO-BABY KILLERS: Our body, our choice! PARA: After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states began to form their own rules. Many women from surrounding states in the south, which have the strictest rules in the country, traveled to Florida seeking abortion care. Florida, now banning the procedure before most women know they are pregnant. Starting today, the closest drivable options for abortion care are North Carolina and Virginia. Florida clinics like A Woman’s World in Ft. Pierce have been working overtime, trying to squeeze in every patient over six weeks pregnant before it became a felony to do so.  A WOMAN’S WORLD MEDICAL CENTER OWNER CANDACE DYE: Last week, the phones were crazy. We couldn’t answer the phones fast enough. PARA: Supporters of the ban point out the law has exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, and life of the mother. State Rep Mike Beltran, one of the bill’s sponsors, says the days of what he calls “abortion tourism” from other states are over. FLORIDA STATE REPRESENTATIVE MIKE BELTRAN (R): Abortion is not health care. There are many countries where abortion is illegal or more restrictive than the Florida rules. CBS Mornings also checked the box. Fill-in co-host Jericka Duncan teased in the Eye Opener a report on “Florida’s new restrictive abortion law tak[ing] effect today” and words from “ Florida doctor who’s bracing for the fallout.” Co-host Nate Burleson had the open to said segment: “A new abortion law goes into effect today in Florida, sharply restricting the procedure after six weeks before many women know that they are pregnant. That means almost every state in the south has severe limits on abortion In most, it’s nearly outlawed.” Political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns decried Florida putting to a stop the “influx of patients from out of state as it was one of the last remaining places in this region with fewer restrictions” and made an abortionist the focus of her piece (click “expand”): DR. SHELLY TIEN: There’s fear. There’s uncertainty. HUEY-BURNS: Jacksonville Dr. Shelly Tien stood ready to see patients until the stroke of midnight when Florida’s six-week abortion ban was set to take effect. TIEN: It is, in essence, a total and a complete abortion ban. HUEY-BURNS [TO TIEN]: As a physician, what is it like for you operating under these circumstances? TIEN: Sure, you know — and I — I think, you know, certainly, it’s — it’s stressful. We see physicians that are scared to take care of basic issues and we’ve seen patients turned away from emergency rooms, delivering in public floor bathrooms. I mean, really, really awful, scenarios. HUEY-BURNS: Florida’s new law includes exceptions for rape, intest, fetal abnormalities, and life of the mother. FLORIDA STATE REPRESENTATIVE DEAN BLACK (R): It’s a victory. HUEY-BURNS: State Republican lawmaker Dean Black voted for the six-week ban. BLACK: We think we have a good law, a compassionate law, a moral law. It can serve as a guide for other states. After quoting Trump’s comments about surveilling women and an excerpt of the Biden ad (which featured three jump cuts for two sentences), Huey-Burns touted Florida as some sort of battleground as the pro-life law “has attracted the attention of the Biden campaign” with Vice President Kamala Harris flocking to Jacksonville “as part of her nationwide reproductive freedom tour.” To see the relevant transcripts from May 1, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

CNN Frets ‘Escalation’ by Police Disrupted ‘Peaceful’ Students ‘Dancing’ for Hamas

During a rare moment Tuesday when CNN wasn’t obsessing over the first Trump trial, correspondent Dianne Gallagher used a live shot from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to fret police caused “a very intense escalation” with pro-Hamas students, whom she said were merely holding a “rally and silent vigil” with “dancing and chanting” amid their tent cities. Oh, and they had torn down the American flag at the center of campus and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. And, by the way, the mostly white pro-Hamas crowd repeatedly threw water bottles and other projectiles at black police officers. Gallagher ignored the latter because reasons. “What I can tell you is that this is a very intense escalation from how it has been for the past several hours,” Gallagher began, whining police had soured the vibes at what “was a rally and silent vigil for Palestine” and the raising of the Palestinian flag at a campus flagpole.       Alas, the fun and games were over when “a large group of police officers [came] down Polk Place and just sort of [came] for the students who had interlocking arms around this flag pole” to reinstall the American flag. “But with the force that this was done, pushing down students, some into these barricades that were placed up this morning after police cleared an encampment that had been here on Polk Place for about 90 hours,” she fretted. Adding the students being told early in the morning to disperse left them feeling uneasy because it had been such “a very peaceful encampment”, she revealed “about 30 people were detained” with the local district attorney telling her “that is mix of arrest and citations.” “The University of North Carolina says that they were in violation of negotiations that have been ongoing by putting tents back up on Sunday afternoon. The university students who were at the encampment told me today that they felt like there was no real negotiation with the university. They felt like this was more of a one-sided conversation,” she countered, giving more credence to the students. Explaining students told her “[t]hey had taken the tents down twice already” and “there had been no real discussion with the university”, she reiterated her supposedly neutral description of the “intense escalation from what we saw just 20 minutes ago or so” when “there were students dancing and chanting” to police arriving (in order to restore order). Gallagher never explained what the pro-Palestinian students were saying or what any of their signs read. Rather, she boasted what had been happening was “incredibly peaceful and very low key” with there even having been a “silent vigil” (click “expand”): We had lots of speakers out here earlier that we were listening to, roughly five or six hours after many of those people who were either arrested or cited were released. Now, they put barricades up after the encampment was cleared this morning, and we did see these protesters — you can see there’s a couple of skirmishes over here. We did see those protests or sort of remove those barricades after several hours of that — protests and silent vigil to come and take down the American flag, put up the Palestinian flag, and continue their chants.  Everything that we have observed today from about noon on has been incredibly peaceful and very low key for the most part up until we saw the officers run across this lawn here. That is really the most intense energy that we have felt. I’m — I’m gonna let you kind of look at what is going on again here, but it does appear they’re just trying to raise this American flag up. I’m gonna get my photographer westward to just sort of show the growing number of students that is starting to come here to Polk Place. Now, again, this is not what the situation necessarily looked like just a few moments ago here at the University of North Carolina. Exit question for CNN: If pro-Holocaust college students and their well-funded allies taking over campuses is “peaceful”, then what was Charlottesville? CNN Special Report: Trump Hush Money Trial April 30, 2024 2:40 p.m. Eastern ERIN BURNETT: And we are watching dramatic developments unfold at college campus protests nationwide right now, Wolf. WOLF BLITZER: I want to get right to CNN’s Dianne Gallagher. She’s on the scene for us at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These are live pictures we’re showing our viewers right now, Dianne. Update our viewers. DIANNE GALLAGHER: Alright, I cannot hear on IFB anymore, but I’m assuming that you are on our pictures right now. What I can tell you is that this is a very intense escalation from how it has been for the past several hours. There was a rally and silent vigil for Palestine that occurred for several — after they — I don’t know if you can see right now — they’re taking the Palestinian flag down off the flagpole, which was put up there about 30 minutes or so ago by protesters. They took the American flag down, raised the Palestinian flag. About five minutes or so ago, we saw a large group of police officers come down Polk Place and just sort of come for the students who had interlocking arms around this flag pole. It appears they’re trying to remove the Palestinian flag and re-raise an American flag up on this flagpole here. But with the force that this was done, pushing down students, some into these barricades that were placed up this morning after police cleared an encampment that had been here on Polk Place for about 90 hours. The University of North Carolina sent an e-mail, sent out a paper statement basically warning the students at 5:37 this morning, they had to clear the encampment by 6:00 a.m. Many of the students we spoke with said that they were sleeping and did not know until some faculty came down about ten minutes before six to get out. According to the university, about 30 people were detained. I spoke with the district attorney. He said that is a mix of arrest and citations. Talking to students, they say that, again, they were very surprised by this. They felt that it had been a very peaceful encampment up to that point. The University of North Carolina says that they were in violation of negotiations that have been ongoing by putting tents back up on Sunday afternoon. The university students who were at the encampment told me today that they felt like there was no real negotiation with the university. They felt like this was more of a one-sided conversation. They had taken the tents down twice already, but there had been no real discussion with the university, those students say, about their demands of divestment and disclosure of finances. Now, they say that — that is why they put those tents back up on Sunday afternoon, what the university deemed as that violation for them to go and clear the encampment this morning. The students again saying there was no real honest negotiation, they felt, with the school and that was why they kept those up. Now, again, this is an intense escalation from what we saw just 20 minutes ago or so, there were students dancing and chanting. You can now hear other students coming and staying USA, USA. We’re seeing more students now come to Polk Place. This sort of green area where we’d actually been seeing sort a decrease in people out here. They were finishing for the day. We had lots of speakers out here earlier that we were listening to, roughly five or six hours after many of those people who were either arrested or cited were released. Now, they put barricades up after the encampment was cleared this morning, and we did see these protesters — you can see there’s a couple of skirmishes over here. We did see those protests or sort of remove those barricades after several hours of that — protests and silent vigil to come and take down the American flag, put up the Palestinian flag, and continue their chants. Everything that we have observed today from about noon on has been incredibly peaceful and very low key for the most part up until we saw the officers run across this lawn here. That is really the most intense energy that we have felt. I’m — I’m gonna let you kind of look at what is going on again here, but it does appear they’re just trying to raise this American flag up. I’m gonna get my photographer westward to just sort of show the growing number of students that is starting to come here to Polk Place. Now, again, this is not what the situation necessarily looked like just a few moments ago here at the University of North Carolina. BURNETT: All right, Dianne Gallagher showing us these images. You know, of course, at the beginning when we were seeing those police come in to try to reach voice that American flags, some of those images Diane had were really dramatic. Kids sort of being thrown out from that coordinate of police officers from what we could see, a few of them and now, chanting and it looks like a — police are re-raising that American flag. A very dynamic situation at UNC-Chapel Hill. Our Dianne Gallagher is there. We’re going to be checking back in with that here over these next few moments.

‘We Need You’ as ‘Mamala’; Here’s the Worst Moments From Drew Barrymore’s Kamala Chat

Vice President Kamala Harris’s taped interview with actress-turned-daytime-talk-show host Drew Barrymore aired Monday and while it was a brisk watch, it nonetheless remained a gag-tastic abomination as Barrymore sat Indian-style on her curvy couch and held hands with Harris as she gushed over the awkward far-left politician as America’s “Mamala” and someone the country “respects so much” who can be “a great protector”. Well, unless you’re talking about unborn babies, (real) Christians, or those who possessed marijuana back when she was San Francisco district attorney. Because, in those cases, forget about it.     At the end of the first block, Barrymore almost broke down as, after Harris talked about her blended family with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and his daughters from his first marriage and that his girls call her “Mamala”, she proclaimed Harris should adopt the title for the whole country: Well, that’s a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now, but in our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country.  Amid raucous cheers and applause, Harris awkwardly drank it in like a villain receiving new powers: “I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no.” Barrymore kept laying it on thick: “And as a woman who respects so much and wants to share and wants to be confident and has no ounce of meat that has competitiveness. When we lift each other up, we all rise.” Harris’s bizarre infatuation with herself was on display as she responded to these compliments with, “that’s exactly right. That’s right, that’s right.” She finally said more than words of affirmation (for herself) after Barrymore called her “a great protector (click “expand”): Well you know, part of it is, I think that sadly over the last many years, there has been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down, instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up...You know, and — and if you ever want to measure, if you ever just want some indication — objective indication of your individual power, see what you can do to help other people, people in need.  What — and it could be, you know, just a simple act, including just taking some interest and actually listening to how people are feeling and to sincerely — sincerely have some interest and care and concern about their well-being or their suffering. And I think we all know that’s what we want in each other. That’s what we want from leaders, but let’s be intentional about it and open about saying, you know, that’s really what strength looks like. And that’s the kind of strength that we want. In the next block, Barrymore sounded off about her ongoing but futile life on the dating scene and asked if Harris could help find her a man because “you are Mamala” and Harris’s marriage to Emhoff was thanks to a friend setting them up. After a block with taped questions from Emhoff about their dating history, the show was almost over and, with the time left, Barrymore told Harris, “I appreciate you more every single day. Not only thank you for going out and championing on behalf of all of us, but thank you for being the mother, the woman, the sister, and the daughter.” Once again, Harris couldn’t seem to accept a compliment (even attributing her to being a mother when she has no children of her own) without being weird: And friend and I love my — and I just — it’s really important. I think most of us — I — I will speak for myself. I could not do anything that I do on a daily basis, much less have arrived at this point, without an extraordinary network of friends. I mean, my best friend from kindergarten is still one of my best friends. Harris added she “mentor[s] a lot of young women mostly, but young men also, and I say...choose to be around people who love you, who care about you, who are going to be honest with you.” The Vice President then brought up how “my staff, for example, sometimes they’ll show me little things that just amuse me” such as “apparently, some people love to talk about the way I laugh”, but it was clearly Harris brought up not because it amused her, but it leaves her seething. Barrymore cheered her up: “Oh, yes! I love your laugh!” Harris defended her awkward, Disney villain-like cackle by saying she has her “mother’s laugh and I grew up around a bunch of women, in particular, who laughed from the belly”. “I think it’s really important for us to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like,” she concluded. With time running out and brain cells having been destroyed long before this, Barrymore gushed as she wrapped before signing off, “I love your laugh and I love that message.” To see the relevant transcript from April 29, click “expand.” The Drew Barrymore Show [via WJLA] April 29, 2024 3:06 p.m. Eastern DREW BARRYMORE: Well, that’s — VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: You have to sort that out. BARRYMORE: — a great segue to say that I keep thinking in my head that we all need a mom. I’ve been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now, but in our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] HARRIS: I know. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, no. BARRYMORE: And as a woman who respects so much and wants to share and wants to be confident and has no ounce of meat that has competitiveness. HARRIS: Yeah. BARRYMORE: When we lift each other up, we all rise. HARRIS: That’s exactly right.  [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] That’s right, that’s right. BARRYMORE: However, we need a great protector. HARRIS: Yeah. Well you know, part of it is, I think that sadly over the last many years, there has been this kind of perverse approach to what strength looks like, which is to suggest that the measure of one’s strength is based on who you beat down, instead of what we know the true measure of your strength is based on who you lift up. BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: Right? BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: You know, and — and if you ever want to measure, if you ever just want some indication — objective indication of your individual power, see what you can do to help other people, people in need. What — and it could be, you know, just a simple act — BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: — including just taking some interest and actually listening — BARRYMORE: Yes. HARRIS: — to how people are feeling and to sincerely — sincerely have some interest and care and concern about their well-being or their suffering. And I think we all know that’s what we want in each other. That’s what we want from leaders, but let’s be intentional about it and open about saying, you know, that’s really what strength looks like. And that’s the kind of strength that we want. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] (....) 3:13 p.m. Eastern BARRYMORE: However, getting to know each other first through questionnaires felt really exciting to me. HARRIS: Yeah. BARRYMORE: And we’ve lost the art of that. So there’s a college that has a blind questionnaire. HARRIS: Mmmm. BARRYMORE: [A]nd then they match you up with one person and you meet. And the success rate apparently is phenomenal. We just did a story about it. HARRIS: Have you tried it? BARRYMORE: I would like that opportunity. I never really got to go on a blind date, funny enough. I know. If someone set you up to — to I never have asked anyone to set me up. I never want to burden anyone with that, but you are Mamala. [LAUGHTER] If anyone comes to mind. HARRIS: Okay, okay. BARRYMORE: I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve never asked anyone. HARRIS: I’m going to about it. BARRYMORE: Oh my goodness. HARRIS: I’ll think about it. (....) 3:26 p.m. Eastern BARRYMORE: I appreciate you more every single day. Not only thank you for going out and championing on behalf of all of us, but thank you for being the mother, the woman, the sister, and the daughter HARRIS: And friend and I love my — and I just — [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] — it’s really important. I think most of us — I — I will speak for myself. I could not do anything that I do on a daily basis, much less have arrived at this point, without an extraordinary network of friends. I mean, my best friend from kindergarten is still one of my best friends. AUDIENCE: Awww. HARRIS: And I think — and again, I mentor a lot of young women mostly, but young men also, and I say to them, you know, it’s really important — and I say this to everybody — choose to be around people who love you, who care about you, who are going to be honest with you. Like, girl you need a mint, you know? [LAUGHTER] People — BARRYMORE: Deb! HARRIS: — who will be like, you know, if you if you trip and fall, they’ll laugh with you, but then they’ll pick you back up and push you back out there. You know, you were asking me earlier about what it means to be, like, the first woman, and you know, it’s funny because people still got to get used to this, right? I mean, my staff, for example, sometimes they’ll show me little things that just amuse me. Like, apparently, some people love to talk about the way I laugh. BARRYMORE: Oh, yes. HARRIS: Ok. BARRYMORE: I love your laugh. HARRIS: Well, let me just tell you something. I have my mother’s laugh. BARRYMORE: Awww! HARRIS: And I grew up around a bunch of women, in particular, who laughed from the belly. They laughed. They would sit around the kitchen and HAD — drinking their coffee telling big stories with big laughs. You know, I’m never going to be hahahaha. Like, that’s just — [LAUGHTER] — I’m not that person and I think it’s really important for us to remind each other and our younger ones, don’t be confined to other people’s perception about what this looks like and who you — how you should act in order to be, right? It’s really important. It’s important. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] BARRYMORE: I love your laugh and I love that message.

Don Lemon Shows No Remorse for Trump-Russia Probe, Mocking MAGA in WILD Interview

In an interview posted Friday with The Intercept’s Ryan Grim and Federalist editor/National Journalism Center (NJC) director Emily Jashinsky, former CNN host Don Lemon showed zero regret or remorse for CNN’s Trump-Russia obsessions, mocking Trump voters as Boomer rubes, and insisted CNN had no liberal bias. Grim and Jashinsky scored the Lemon interview as the first long-form sit-down for their show Counter Points as part of the Breaking Points network, helmed by Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti. The pompous liberal journalist couldn’t even fully engage with the two questions about whether he felt like he had more freedom to cover topics now that he’s in independent media versus his days inside corporate media and, in a follow-up, whether he was restricted at CNN. Lemon’s arrogance came out as he bragged he “probably had the most editorial freedom on — on my own network than anyone” perhaps in part due to the airtime (before admitting, yes, having an independent show has helped him foster “community” and better engagement with viewers). After an amusing exchange when Lemon refused to engage with Jashinsky’s questions about whether his comment about Nikki Haley being past “her prime” truly outraged CNN bosses or was just an excuse to fire him, Lemon strongly pushed back when Grim next asked him whether he agreed CNN missed the ground swell on the far-left for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020.  In essence, Lemon told Grim to stop whining and get over it since Sanders supporters were likely why Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton (click “expand”): I didn’t necessarily think CNN was — was left. I thought that CNN was about facts. I think CNN has the best journalists in the world, but I also think — you asked me what my editorial meetings were like. I mean, we, no one was trying to push Bernie Sanders, at least in my editorial meetings and I would — I would venture to, to speak for the network now. Well, I’ll speak for myself. I don’t think that anyone was trying to push Bernie Sanders out. I think that Bernie Sanders may have had sort of — this sort of — sort of outsized influence with a certain segment of the Democratic Party. But all polls in 2016 pointed to Hillary Clinton, all polls in 2020 and public sentiment pointed to Joe Biden. And so, what was shocking, I think, to myself was the — the reaction from Democrats to the nomination of Hillary Clinton instead of Bernie Sanders in — in ‘16, especially in 2020. You know, I — I couldn’t get to gauge it because I didn’t get to go to the conventions. I think that was around, you know, because of COVID. But here’s a shocking thing. (....) [T]he public wanted Hillary Clinton. They didn’t want Bernie Sanders. So, I say that to say when, after all of, you know, Republicans did not love Donald Trump. They held their nose and they voted for him, all of the Never Trumpers, all of the people, you know, from Ted Cruz on down, when he became the nominee, everyone got behind him. When we were at the convention, it was Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. It wasn’t Jeb. It wasn’t, you know, Cruz, it wasn’t Rubio, it wasn’t any of those people. By the time we got to the Democratic convention and Hillary Clinton was a nominee, people were yelling, Bernie, Bernie and we were like, what the hell is going on? So, I think that Bernie Sanders, that — that — that wing of the Democratic Party actually did as much if not more damage to Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. (....) I think Bernie Sanders is a fantastic politician, but I do think that there is a lesson in it for Democrats that you have to get behind the person who is the actual nominee and you cannot have sour grapes of the person who did not become the nominee. That’s how the process worked. So, I know that people are upset and they’re upset about the progressive wing and they don’t think it gets covered enough, but this is where we are. The nominee — or the person is Joe Biden, the nominee or the person then was Hillary Clinton. I think the Bernie Sanders progressive wing of the party should have gotten behind — should have gotten behind them. And that’s the reason — one of the reasons — the main reasons that we’re in the predicament that we are now and that we had a Trump presidency. (....) Bernie Sanders was not going to win....Republicans fall in line. Democrats fight each other. Democrats usually wet the bed. I — I’m sorry, but Bernie Sanders was not the nominee nor was he ever going to become the nominee. And I know that people are upset by it, but that’s the truth. It’s the same thing for Republicans. Nikki Haley is not the nominee. She’s not gonna become the nominee. Donald Trump is a nominee, regardless if you like it or not. The guy is in court and guess what? Republicans are going to fall in line. Jashinsky then confronted Lemon over the infamous 2020 segment with Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali in which they mocked Trump supporters as moronic “Boomer rubes.” Jashinsky called it “a low point, honestly, in media coverage of Donald Trump” and wondered if Lemon regretted “seeing other Americans through that lens”. Lemon flatly denied he participated in any of that demeaning behavior, claiming he only laughed about the idea Americans couldn’t find Ukraine on a map: Truly remarkable exchange in the Don Lemon interview on 'Counter Points' when @EmilyJashinsky and @RyanGrim asked about Lemon's infamous January 2020 segment (https://t.co/rLV6JVKz7G) laughing about MAGA supporters with Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali. Zero remorse. Jashinsky:… pic.twitter.com/OUxhoytJiz — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 Lemon’s scoffing even brought Grim to push back and fact-checked Lemon’s claim from earlier that 2020 polls always had Biden as a lock for the Democratic nomination (click “expand”): GRIM: [T]o the point about the polling that, that you mentioned —  LEMON: I mean, you can’t say that —  GRIM: — oh, just one point — LEMON: — you can’t say that. GRIM: — on Joe Biden’s polling. Joe — Joe Biden was not polling ahead. You — you had said that Joe Biden was pulling ahead. Joe Biden was in the toilet the entire time. He finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, got annihilated in — in Nevada — LEMON: Where was he by the time — where was he by the time got to the convention? GRIM: — yeah. And — and then he — he won after, you know, $175 million in — in free media between Nevada and South Carolina. And then he wins Super Tuesday and he won the nomination, no doubt about it. LEMON: Yeah. GRIM: But he wasn’t polling ahead, uh, before that. Jashinsky drew even more defensiveness from Lemon when she wondered if the press had made any strides to understand Americans outside their corporate liberal bubbles, adding Lemon himself was still somewhat in one since his new studio was on Park Avenue. Also in the clip above, Lemon’s skull was so thick he denied Park Avenue was any sort of elite bubble because it’s still “part of America” and argued the media do “a great job of — of — of talking to people from, you know, from all parts of the country”. Lemon somehow poured out even more elitist drivel when he claimed Trump supporters and Bernie supporters were far too “overrepresented” in the media and people like Grim and Jashinsky should get over it: Another WILD exchange in the Don Lemon interview on 'Counter Points' with @EmilyJashinsky and @RyanGrim was when Lemon claimed corporate media do “a great job” making all voices heard. In fact, he said, it's MAGA supporters and Bernie voters who are “overrepresented” in the… pic.twitter.com/t9kk55DLgC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 Later, he strongly took exception to Grim’s analysis on CNN being an establishment Democratic Party “mouthpiece” since it’s “only because of the Republican side and mostly Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, the facts were not on their side” (click “expand”): Don Lemon to @RyanGrim on the notion of CNN having become DNC-TV: “I — I — I don’t like that. I don’t believe in that whole — I don’t believe in the premise of — of — listen, I’m not trying to be confrontational. I don’t agree with the premise of what you’re saying and when… pic.twitter.com/HvA44cvmuB — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 26, 2024 The interview ended with more barbs being thrown when Jashinsky flatly told Lemon that CNN’s “Russia coverage was not great,” but Lemon said that’s only “your opinion” because “the Russia coverage on CNN was — was good” and the media in general having done “the best jobs that they could”. Further, he told her to both stop “Monday morning quarterback[ing]” what happened and falling into the trap of many “people” who “romanticize the time that we were in, like people romanticize, you know, COVID.” Grim threw one more jab, asking whether CNN had “ever said that there actually was not, never proven collusion between the Trump campaign and the” Russians. Lemon initially said “You’ll have to ask CNN”, but then dove in head-first by falsely claiming that’s not true and there were indeed “accounts of collusion”. Amazing. To see the relevant transcript from April 26, click here.

HOT DAMN: NY Post’s Nelson Details ‘Failed...Coup to Oust’ KJP by Biden Aides

The great Steven Nelson of the New York Post has always had great questions at White House press briefings and even went over half a year without being called on by the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre, so it won’t be entirely shocking when it happens again thanks to his bombshell Friday morning piece about what the headline dubbed a “failed White House coup to oust” Jean-Pierre. While it was surprising to see Nelson report the depths to which even senior White House officials were behind this, what was unsurprising was it failed due to Jean-Pierre’s stubborness that one source described as “come hell or high water” to stay through the election and the reality that a black lesbian axed by white people would make her a martyr. Nelson began by explaining “[t]op aides to President Biden secretly hatched a plan this past fall” to oust her as even they had seen she “developed the exasperating habit of reading canned answers directly from a binder to reporters at her regular briefings” and thus provided “a less-than-compelling pitch for the 81-year-old Biden”. As for who led this, Nelson revealed it was “[d]e facto White House communications chief Anita Dunn, 66, the wife of Biden personal attorney Bob Bauer” who “decided to call in prominent Democrats to explain to Jean-Pierre, 49, that the time was ripe to move on” with one source saying “[t]here were a number of people she asked to engage Karine” such those who she “trusts” about quitting. While Dunn herself has one of the widest leashes in any Democratic administration, Nelson said this had both the blessing and backing of White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients According to one source, this gentler approach was deployed because they “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will” and “afraid of what” the DEI crowd were “going to say” if they kicked her out. A source had some brutal words for their colleague, which has been plainly obvious to those in reality, ripping Jean-Pierre for lacking “an understanding of the issues and she reads the book [binder] word-for-word” while simultaneously not “hav[ing] a grasp of the issues and doesn’t spend the time to learn.” The source was correct in pointing out predecessor Jen Psaki would remark during briefings about studying up on issues beforehand (and we would add Kayleigh McEnany also did in sharing facts she learned from experts and fellow White House officials). Despite Jean-Pierre’s failure to even speak basic English, the source said Jean-Pierre believes “she’s doing an amazing job” and, unfortunately for Team Biden knows she won’t leave “on her own.” A different source had more hard truths for Jean-Pierre that, despite what some people may think, “[t]here’s an enormous amount of work that goes into getting ready” and, of course, she doesn’t do any of that. Nelson connected this to what NBCNews.com reported in February about one possible escape hatch of having Jean-Pierre resign to take over the pro-baby-killing group EMILY’s List (click “expand”): In December, not long after word of Dunn’s plan circulated in the White House, Jean-Pierre received and rejected an unsolicited offer to become president of EMILYs List, a major Democratic group that raises money for female candidates who support expanded abortion rights. When NBC News reported on the offer in February, the outlet said Jean-Pierre had emphatically told the group that she was “committed to the president” and “I’m not going anywhere.” Both the initial offer to Jean-Pierre from EMILYs List and its disclosure to NBC are topics of intrigue within the White House — with unsubstantiated theories suggesting the hand of Dunn behind the approach and Jean-Pierre behind its leak. EMILYs List did not respond to a request for comment. By December, Dunn appeared to have accepted that Jean-Pierre was secure in her post. A West Wing official supportive of the press secretary provided The Post with text from an email written by Dunn ahead of Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi’s Dec. 11 article that noted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby’s increased profile as co-briefer alongside Jean-Pierre. “I am happy to talk to [Farhi]. And tell him KJP isn’t going anywhere so this is a ridiculous piece,” Dunn wrote in the message. The pro-Jean-Pierre official also told The Post that Dunn was among those who had backed the press secretary’s promotion from being Psaki’s deputy — with the comms chief even calling in a former White House official to request their help communicating to reporters that “Karine is very strong and doing a very good job in the briefing room.” “She is an incredibly quick study on a variety of policy issues that she has to be appraised of every single day,” that ex-official said. And, on the reported feud with frequent briefing partner and longtime Democratic foreign policy and military spokesman John Kirby, Nelson cited one source who said “[s]ometimes he talks to her and she acts as if he is not talking” with Jean-Pierre “pretty aggressive[ly]...marking her territory.” It’s plainly obvious for briefing observers that not only does Kirby come off as more prepared and professional, but also that he’s “widely respected by journalists as a valuable source of both information and soundbites”. Nelson wrapped with a few words on Jean-Pierre still “hav[ing] important allies within the White House, including first lady Jill Biden’s top adviser Anthony Bernal,” whom Nelson recently reported as having sexually harassed colleagues.

Everyone Point and Laugh at Team Biden Hating the NYT for Not Being Liberal Enough

In need of a laugh? Check out this unintentionally comical story running 3,850 words from Thursday in Politico about the Biden regime’s apparently disgust with The New York Times: “The Petty Feud Between the NYT and the White House; Biden’s people think they’re ‘entitled.’ The Times says ‘they’re not being realistic.’” In short, Politico’s Eli Stokols revealed the Biden campaign and White House are up in arms with The Times for being what they’ve come to believe are insufficiently loyal to The Cause of liberalism and not antagonistic enough toward Donald Trump given democracy supposedly being on the line in November. The comical tale of liberal eating themselves began with a seemingly innocuous mix-up between a Times reporter not on the White House beat being unaware with how to attribute quotes from a junior White House press aide becoming a hissy fit that resulted in the Times temporarily being kicked off the administration’s “‘tier one’ email list for background information about various briefings and other materials”. “Biden’s closest aides had come to see the Times as arrogant, intent on setting its own rules and unwilling to give Biden his due. Inside the paper’s D.C. bureau, the punitive response seemed to typify a press operation that was overly sensitive and determined to control coverage of the president,” Stokols explained. Stokols further summarized his tome as based on “interviews with two dozen people on both sides” about “the relationship between the Democratic president and the country’s newspaper of record — for years the epitome of a liberal press in the eyes of conservatives” that’s become “remarkably tense, beset by misunderstandings, grudges and a general lack of trust.” Here came the first of many laughers as Stokols proclaimed that “the Times is unique, reflecting the resentment of a president with a working-class sense of himself and his team toward a news organization catering to an elite audience — and a deep desire for its affirmation of their work.” Biden? “[W]orking-class sense of himself”? Please. Not surprisingly, Team Biden must think they’re owed Obama-like snuff pieces seeing as how, in their mind, The Times has “fall[en] short in a make-or-break moment for American democracy, stubbornly refusing to adjust its coverage” away from “impartial neutrality, often blurring the asymmetries between former President Donald Trump and Biden when it comes to their perceived flaws” when America itself is at stake. Stokols further explained with more hilarious prose and revealed the resentment dates back to Biden not being The Times’s preferred candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary (click “expand”): Biden aides largely view the election as an existential choice for the country, high stakes that they believe justify tougher tactics toward the Times and the press as a whole. Some Times reporters have found themselves cut off by sources after publishing pieces the Bidens and top aides didn’t like. Columnist Maureen Dowd, for example, complained to colleagues that she stopped hearing from White House officials after a column on Hunter Biden. For many Times veterans, such actions suggest that the Trump era has warped many Democrats’ expectations of journalists. “They’re not being realistic about what we do for a living,” Bumiller told me. “You can be a force for democracy, liberal democracy. You don’t have to be a force for the Biden White House.” [A]ides to Biden...said they didn’t know anyone on the politics team well. “Unlike some outlets, the Times just never invested in a reporter who really knew and understood Biden and his appeal,” said one former campaign staffer. “And the coverage reflected that.” (....) While Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was gaining ground in early polls and enjoying positive early coverage, stories about Biden in the Times frequently depicted him as a relic, out of step with younger, more liberal primary voters and, following defeats in the early contests, poorly organized. Although it had nothing to do with the newsroom, the Opinion page’s double endorsement of Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota....helped cement Biden world’s view that the Times was out of touch with the broader electorate — an electorate personified by the Times security guard who gushed over Biden in the Times elevator as he was headed up for his interview with the editorial board. (....) Biden aides, who spent months privately imploring the paper’s editors and reporters not to write him off too early in the cycle, still hold a grudge under the belief that the paper was institutionally aligned toward Warren and progressives. Worse yet, Team Biden resented the fact that The Times would even acknowledge Hunter Biden’s life of ruin (even if they were part of the 2020 coverup of Hunter’s laptop). Stokols later pointed out The Times has “devoted pages of coverage to the president’s early legislative successes”, but none of that has mattered to the regime as a “focus on Biden’s advanced age and his low numbers in the NYT’s approval poll have frustrated the president and top aides to no end.” Once again, the White House is apparently gnashing its teeth over the paper even entertaining the slightest allusions to Biden’s age and other concerns or critiques because, in their eyes, their friends in the media should be wholly focused on the danger of Trump. In other words, stories like these, these, these, and these are verboten (despite stories like this one and this one that do what their elected overlords want). Along with those gripes, check out the hilarious quotes from two Times leaders about their supposed impartiality, including claims they “don’t” “put [our] thumb on the scale” and instead “hold power to account” everyday (click “expand”): The Times’ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, whose stories about Biden’s age have regularly strummed a particularly sensitive nerve, told me that the administration’s frustrations over his and his colleagues’ coverage wasn’t all that unique. “Every White House I’ve covered complains about our coverage. It comes with the territory,” he said. “But because of Trump, there’s this new assumption that the New York Times and other media are supposed to put their thumb on the scale and take sides and we don’t do that.” Privately, other Times reporters who have engaged with the Biden White House and campaign view the frustration with the paper as a misguided effort to control its coverage. Beyond that, they believe writing about Trump with the stronger language Biden aides seem to want would likely do more to affect the newspaper’s brand, and the public’s trust in it, than Trump’s. “We haven’t been tough enough on Trump? I mean, give me a break,” Bumiller responded when I asked about that oft-heard complaint. “Have they read our coverage? I don’t have to go through all the things we have covered on Trump so I just — we just do our jobs.” Still, the White House and campaign officials most incensed by the Times’ coverage often trace their outrage back to Trump, who they see as a true threat to American democracy and, by extension, a free press...[t]hey viewed the matter as bigger than their or even Biden’s self-interest, expressing aggravation over the Times’ determination to maintain its neutral voice of God approach to an election that, in their view, is a matter of democracy’s survival. When describing their grievances with the Times, almost every Biden administration and campaign official used the word “entitled” to characterize the institution writ large and several of the individuals within the newsroom, where “Timesian” is an adjective routinely deployed without irony. Those officials described reporters who refused to correct minor errors or mischaracterizations in stories or those who haven’t been willing to engage with anyone besides the most senior administration officials. That said, many White House officials maintain productive working relationships with most of the Times reporters who cover the beat. Bumiller and other Times White House reporters note that it’s always been the newspaper’s prerogative to determine what to cover and how. “This is pretty much par for the course,” Bumiller said. “No White House has ever been happy with our coverage and I don’t see why they should be. Our job is to hold power to account.” The end of Stokols’s piece revolved around a story in Semafor about off-the-record visits by news organizations to Biden’s reelection headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware to meet with staff and specifically that details of The Times’s visit leaked out. “Times reporters believe the leak had to have come from the campaign, the only ones who’d have had knowledge of all the meetings. And it led to conversations on the politics staff about whether to even engage with Wilmington in an off-the-record capacity. But campaign aides are certain the leak came from the Times side,” he explained. But the most public backlash to the piece on Thursday came from the other half of the piece, which alleged The Times’s coverage of Biden has been dictated by publisher AG Sulzberger’s annoyance with the President refusing to sit for an interview with Times reporters. On that, he would admittedly have a point as Biden has only given two print interviews thus far with one going to AP backscratcher Josh Boak and the other to his own personal biographer, Evan Osnos, to publish in The New Yorker. In response, multiple Times personalities have lashed out and denied these claims of retribution and a spokesperson sent out a lengthy statement pushing back. Go figure.

Election Year Pandering: Nets Spend 22 Mins Peddling Biden Propaganda to Voters

On Wednesday, ABC, CBS, and NBC combined for a whopping 22 minutes and 18 seconds on their lead morning shows playing Baghdad Bobs and Barbies, touting the Biden regime as dedicated to the American people with segments on their fight to ban non-complete clauses in the workplace, cracking down on airlines slow-walking refunds when things go wrong, expanding overtime rules, and letting women murder their babies at will. When including its third-hour, NBC’s Today came out on top with 10 minutes and 55 seconds. It started with the Biden administration fighting to ensure baby murder remains easily accessible in Idaho. Co-host Hoda Kotb touted the “blockbuster” Supreme Court arguments “concerning reproductive rights, raising the legal and political stakes headed into the November election.” Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson hyped the case as part of an issue that will have “enormous” “stakes” on the outcome of the election. She eagerly adopted the Biden administration’s framing and even referred to an expecting mother as “a pregnant patient”. She at least gave a soundbite to the great Roger Severino with our friends at the Heritage Foundation (click “expand”): JACKSON: The question: whether a federal law guaranteeing emergency care for patients overrides an Idaho law banning most abortions with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The Biden administration saying that federal law should take precedence, arguing Idaho’s law requires doctors to wait until the health of a pregnant patient gets worse before performing an abortion. But Idaho’s attorney general, in a statement, accuses the administration of showing a “reckless disregard for Idaho’s right to protect life.” SEVERINO: The Biden administration has twisted this law. [SCREEN WIPE] They’re trying to use federal executive power when the law does not support it. This is beyond the breaking point and I’m hopeful the Supreme Court will rein them back in. JACKSON: And with Idaho allowed to enforce the near total abortion ban for now, many OBGYNs are leaving the state, including Dr. Lauren Miller, who moved her practice to Colorado. She says Idaho’s law has created a dilemma for doctors. (....) JACKSON: The legal fight raising political stakes heading into the November upcoming election with voters in 11 states likely to decide abortion rights on ballot measures this fall. President Biden, in Florida Tuesday, slamming that state’s six-week abortion ban set to go into effect six days from now and blaming his predecessor. The show went next to the daily messaging from the Department of Transportation. Co-host Savannah Guthrie touted the “big news regarding air travel” with co-host Craig Melvin adding “it could affect folks in a good way.” Longtime transportation correspondent Tom Costello even explicitly said he’d be providing “the bullet points coming from the Biden administration” about their desire to have airlines “provid[e] compensation quickly to passengers who are owed money from an airline and if that passenger declines other alternative transportation needs or credits” that’ll be “cutting through all of the clutter and making it very clear what the rules are for every airline.” Costello and Melvin then focused on the other piece with fee transparency, the latest step in Biden’s ongoing obsession with ending so-called junk fees. In the 3rd Hour of Today, Costello returned for more banter and praising the regime for these crackdowns. ABC’s Good Morning America came next with six minutes and 33 seconds over four segments.  Like NBC, they began with abortion. Congressional correspondent Rachel Scott passed along the Biden Justice Department’s arguments and stomped on a single sentence provided to the opposition, which led into a nauseating love letter voiced by chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce (click “expand”): SCOTT: And the stakes here are high. This is the first time that the Supreme Court is considering the scope of a state’s abortion ban since Roe vs. Wade was overturned. At the center of the case is Idaho. The state bans abortions in nearly all cases. It does include a narrow exception to save the life of the mother. But the Justice Department is arguing that, even in states where abortion is banned under federal health care law, hospitals are still required to terminate pregnancy if the patient’s life or health is at serious risk. The Justice Department is pointing to a law from decades ago before Roe vs. Wade was overturned that was originally created to ensure patients who do not have insurance are turned away from hospitals. Anti-abortion rights advocates argue that the Biden administration is misusing this law to try to justify abortions. On the other side, though, we have talked to doctors and patients who told us they are caught in a web of confusing laws. Some doctors have told us they have questioned whether or not their patient is sick enough before they can even provide life saving care. And doctors, of course, face serious penalties, loss of license, fines, and, in some cases, even prison time. And, all of this is playing out in the back drop of an election year where the Biden administration is hoping to use this to energize voters ahead of a very critical, George. GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, Rachel, on that point, President Biden is targeting Donald Trump over abortion rights, blasting him yesterday at a Florida campaign event over a six week abortion ban going into effect in the state next week. [BIDEN CLIP] (....) BRUCE: Well, President Biden is eager to put the issue of abortion front and center in this campaign. As you heard there, he is trying to make Donald Trump own this, blaming him for the new restrictions and bans that we are seeing across the country. Yesterday, in that speech in Florida, the president’s first major campaign address on this issue, by our count at least a dozen times the President argued Trump should be held accountable and is to blame for us. Now, Donald Trump has bragged about overturning Roe vs. Wade, appointing the three justices who helped strike it down. And since then, 21 states have now enacted tough new restrictions and bans. The former President, though, said this should be up to the states. He says they are handling it brilliantly. President Biden, obviously, strongly disagrees. He says Trump has to be held accountable and he is hoping this issue will drive voters to the polls in November. He is well aware that every time this issue has been on the ballot since Roe was struck down, abortion rights have won. Bruce’s North Korean-state-run-media behavior went right into ABC’s airlines segment. Co-host Robin Roberts proclaimed that “[t]he Biden administration [is] taking action this morning to protect airline consumers” with “[n]ew rules that mandate automatic refunds.” “This is a major change from the Department of Transportation. And, again, it affects your money,” said transportation correspondent Gio Benitez at the start of his report. In the second hour, ABC made sure to reiterate all the supposedly great things a President running for a second term has done for Americans. This time, correspondent Elizabeth Schulze held up a vote by the Biden Federal Trade Commission “that could make it easier for workers to quit their jobs”. “The FTC voting to ban non-compete agreements, which prevent workers from switching jobs to work for a rival company. The nationwide ban means workers applying for a new job wouldn’t be forced to sign a non-compete and almost all existing non-compete clauses would be voided,” she added. For good measure, Schulze also shared a Biden Labor Department initiative that’ll be “a major expansion of overtime” which, starting in July, will see the salary threshold of workers eligible for overtime rise to $44,000 ahead of a $60,000 ceiling in January. CBS Mornings clocked in third with a still-strong four minutes and 50 seconds of stenography. After a segment about the Senate passing the bill to force TikTok to be sold from its Chinese parent company (or be banned in the U.S.), co-host Tony Dokoupil brought up the airlines and FTC stories as other examples of “words turning into action in Washington” with “[s]ome big changes there that could have an effect on millions of Americans”. Transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave and senior tech correspondent Jo Ling Kent came next doubling as regime mouthpieces (click “expand”): VAN CLEAVE: The next time you run into travel troubles, you could be eligible for a cash refund. These new Department of Transportation rules that will be going into effect say you can get a refund for a canceled flight, but if you’re delayed more than three hours for a domestic flight or more than six hours internationally, you can also get a refund if you choose not to fly. Also, bag fees must be refunded if a checked bag is significantly delayed, and refund must be given if any services you paid for aren’t provided like broken wi-fi. Airlines are also required now to disclose what fees they charge up front for things like a checked bag, a carry-on bag, a cancel or change fee. Now, most airlines in the U.S. already do that. These new rules will be phased in over the next 12 months[.] (....) KENT: [T]he Federal Trade Commission wants to make it easier for you to get a new job. It plans on banning non-compete clauses, and those are the parts of employer contracts that bar workers across industries from leaving for a competitor or starting a competing business. Now, some saying non-competes help employers protect their trade secrets and allow them to invest in training for employees without fear of losing them, while others argue the clauses are overly restrictive on the workers. The FTC says its ban would translate to $524 more each year for the average worker, yield as many as 29,000 more patents, and create at least 8,500 new businesses. But, of course, this is not set in stone yet. The U.S. Chamber of commerce called the ban an unlawful power grab and said it would sue the FTC to block it. CBS conveniently and immediately pivoted to abortion, but longtime Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford kept it straight (as usual). While she said “the Biden administration is challenging Idaho’s pretty strict restrictions with a really creative legal argument”, she also gave two soundbites to Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R) to defend his state’s pro-life law. To see the relevant transcripts from April 24, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Just Join the Biden Campaign: ABC’s Bruce Celebrates Biden Celebrating Baby-Killing

Another day, another act of Biden campaign propaganda. As we’ve seen day after day, ABC’s Good Morning America openly and unapologetically ate out of the hand of the Biden press office with a full report on the regime’s preferred topic of the day. On Tuesday, it was chief White House correspondent and chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce cheering Biden traveling to Florida to celebrate murdering children in the womb. A simple perusing of the NewsBusters tag for Bruce would show she’s a diamond-level frequent rider of the Biden train.     Co-host Robin Roberts did her part as well setting the table: “And now, this morning, President Biden taking his message about a woman’s right to choose to Florida exactly one week before the state’s new law outlawing most abortions goes into effect.” Even the chyron served its purpose: “New This Morning; President Biden Heading to Florida; States’s New Abortion Ban Takes Effect in One Week”. Bruce giddily boasted of “the Biden campaign...trying to seize this moment, blasting new abortion restrictions across the country” and huffing that “Donald Trump did this as he boasts of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe.” Ignoring the fact that Florida is increasingly a fervently red state, Bruce added: “Now, in Tampa today, President Biden will hold his first major campaign on the issue, one week before Florida is set to ban most abortions after six weeks before most women even know that they are pregnant.” After pointing out “Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the charge on this issue” before Tuesday’s visit, the brisk, 56-second segment wound down with her waving pom-poms for Biden as “a staunch defender of the abortion access” amid “a complicated evolution on the issue” since he’s “a Catholic.” Challenge for Mary Bruce: Please be objective and keep yourself from getting weak knees over your liberal handlers. Impossible. Right to the end, she shilled in claiming abortion would define the election: “[T]he campaign knows this is going to be a defining issue for this campaign and they’re eager to put it front and center, Robin.” To see the relevant transcript from April 23, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 23, 2023 7:15 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; President Biden Heading to Florida; States’s New Abortion Ban Takes Effect in One Week] ROBIN ROBERTS: And now, this morning, President Biden taking his message about a woman’s right to choose to Florida exactly one week before the state’s new law outlawing most abortions goes into effect. Our chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce will be traveling today with the President. Good morning, Mary. MARY BRUCE: Good morning, Robin. Well, the Biden campaign is trying to seize this moment, blasting new abortion restrictions across the country, urging Donald Trump did this as he boasts of appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. Now, in Tampa today, President Biden will hold his first major campaign on the issue, one week before Florida is set to ban most abortions after six weeks before most women even know that they are pregnant. Now, so far Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the charge on this issue. The President, of course, is a staunch defender of the abortion access, but, as a Catholic, he’s had a complicated evolution on the issue, but the campaign knows this is going to be a defining issue for this campaign and they’re eager to put it front and center, Robin. ROBERTS: Alright, Mary, thank you. And safe travels today.

Liberal Media, Soros-Funded Group Attack Ted Cruz for....Hosting a Podcast

For years, the liberal media have constantly lost their noodles over the alleged, supposed crime that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a walking campaign violation for co-hosting a hit podcast that’s been three years running, Verdict With Ted Cruz. Originally launched during the first Trump impeachment with Daily Wire host Michael Knowles, the show continues to publish episodes three times a week alongside longtime conservative talk show host and commentator Ben Ferguson. The liberal media helped set the table with a litany of sites coincidentally publishing nearly identical stories. Here’s the headline from one of two stories by the tools at the Daily Beast: “The Ugly Truth Behind Ted Cruz’s Super PAC Podcast”. And Newsweek — which has an unhealthy obsession with the junior senator from Texas — had not one but two stories waving pomp pomps about said complaint. Here was the headline for one of them: “Ted Cruz Faces Second Investigation in Less Than a Year”. Expand the scope and there was everyone from local and state media (the Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly, Texas Tribune, and Laredo Morning Times to name a few) to liberal gadflys at Business Insider, The New Republic, Raw Story, and Rolling Stone. As for the complaint, National Review’s James Lynch wrote last week that, along with the constant liberal belly-aching, “[l]eft-wing legal and advocacy groups are targeting” him for alleged “campaign finance issues” just so conveniently as the general election between Cruz and Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX) begins in earnest. Lynch explained that “[t]he Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and End Citizens United, two left-leaning watchdog groups, filed a complaint last week with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing Cruz of campaign finance violations by putting podcast ad revenue towards a pro-Cruz super PAC.” “The complaint demands the FEC investigate the situation and accuses Cruz of violating campaign finance laws prohibiting corporations from contributing directly to campaigns,” he added. With some help from the Capital Research Center, Lynch revealed to what’s probably no surprise to you, NewsBusters readers, that said groups are funded by none other than George Soros: Left-wing foundations such as the Sandler Foundation, Ford Foundation, McArthur Foundation, and George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society have bankrolled the Campaign Legal Center, according to Influence Watch, a project by watchdog think tank Capital Research Center. “Campaign Legal Center is a Soros-funded left-wing attack group, and its 501(c)(4) arm was a puppet of Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced ex-crypto-billionaire who gave Democrats almost as much cash as Soros. End Citizens United is little better than a scam PAC and endorses Democratic candidates. In short, Sen. Cruz is lucky in his enemies, because these groups disgrace themselves when they pretend to be nonpartisan watchdogs,” Capital Research Center President Scott Walter told National Review. CLC has repeatedly targeted Cruz with ethics complaints, and each time the complaints have been rebuked. In 2022, CLC filed an ethics complaint to the Senate ethics committee accusing him of improperly accepting a gift from iHeart media. The Senate Ethics Committee shot down the CLC complaint. A Cruz spokesman called it “bewildering to see...lazy attacks during an election year”, particularly on something he does “for free”. Cruz himself spoke to Houston-area CBS affiliate KHOU about this nonsense and tore into these leftist “front groups” looking to engage in election interference (click “expand”): There are two groups that file these complaints. And they’re both Democrat front groups. So what they do every election cycle is they file complaints against Republicans. And that’s what they exist to do—create news stories that are just attack vehicles. It’s interesting because these same groups previously filed a complaint...about my podcast...The Senate Ethics Committee dismissed it and said that [my podcast] is entirely consistent with law...I’m very proud of my Podcast...Verdict with Ted Cruz. I do it three days a week, and we have nearly a million people across Texas and across the country who tune in. The reason that I do the podcast is to tell Texans and Americans what’s happening in Washington...I do it because much of the media refuses to report the news fairly. And so people are turning to podcasts to understand what’s really going on...The podcast is something I’m very proud of. I think it’s integral to my job as a Senator to talk to Texans about what is happening in the U.S. Senate that affects the state of Texas and to talk to Texans about the threats that they are facing, whether from open borders, releasing criminals, or Iran getting billions of dollars from the Biden administration—all of which are topics that I have discussed at great length on the podcast.

CBS Frets ‘Apparently Anti-Semitic Incidents’ at Columbia Marred ‘Peaceful Protests’

CBS broke the ice Monday (after a footnote last week then silence) on the rampant anti-Semitism and terrorist sympathizing at Columbia University by pro-Hamas elements of the student body and like-minded fiends, but they went full-blown ‘fiery but mostly peaceful’ as CBS Mornings co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King fretted the “apparently anti-Semitic incidents” overshadowed “peaceful protests”. CBS only spent 49 seconds in an extended news brief delivered by King, which began innocently enough: “Back here in New York, Columbia University has moved all classes on line today as pro-Palestinian demonstrations continue on and near the campus.”     King then did her best impression of CNN’s Omar Jimenez and MSNBC’s Ali Velshi: “Although there have been peaceful protests, a series of apparently anti-Semitic incidents near campus prompted one rabbi at the school to call for all Jewish students to leave. However, Jewish groups on campus pushed back on that saying students should stay.” After reading an excerpt of a statement from White House social media troll Andrew Bates, King acknowledged Monday night marks the start of Passover and noted the heat Columbia’s president received from “both sides of the aisle...last week about anti-Semitism on college campuses”. Even the chyron was harsher as it stated without a qualifer that “Anti-Semitic Incidents Occur[red] Amid Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations”. In the “Eye Opener”, co-host Nate Burleson also downplayed the anti-Semitism: “Protests lead to charges of anti-Semitism on the campus of Columbia University as a crackdown fails to stop the demonstrations.” In both cases, Burleson and King certainly wouldn’t have been as muted if those calling for harming Jews were uttered by middle-aged or elderly white males like in Charlottesville. ABC continued its coverage with a 67-second segment on Good Morning America, starting with vague allusions by co-host Robin Roberts of “security concerns...at Columbia University amid the Israel/Hamas war.” World News Now/America This Morning co-host Rhiannon Ally spoke of “growing concern about safety at the school, as protests stemming from that Israel/Hamas war intensify” and the remote learning day following “a fifth day yesterday of Columbia pro-Palestine students protesting.” The so-called protests, she explained, have merely been aimed at having Columbia “divest its stocks, funds, and endowments from companies that they say profit from Israel’s violation of international law and Palestinian human rights.” Ally never explained what the threats were to Jewish students, omitting shouts wanting an “intifada”, praising Hamas fighters Al-Qassam, calling for the restoration of Palestine (i.e. an ethnic cleansing of Jews), demanding Tel Aviv be burned to the ground, telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland”, or praising the “martyrs” who died slaughtering Jews on October 7. NBC’s Today had the most time with a two-minute-and-49 second segment. After warning in a tease of “crisis on campus”, co-host Hoda Kotb downplayed the scene with more esoteric descriptions of “[p]ro-Palestinian protesters have been demonstrating on campus for days”. Correspondent Erin McLaughin provided a little bit more detail (click “expand”): MCLAUGHLIN: Last week, more than 100 protesters were arrested on campus and now a rabbi is urging Jewish students to return home as soon as possible citing concerns over their safety and classes today are happening virtually. All of this ahead of Passover, the Jewish holiday, which begins at sundown tonight. PRO-HAMAS PROTESTERS: We will free Palestine! MCLAUGHLIN: This morning, as demonstrations continue on university campuses, New York’s Columbia University announcing all classes will be held virtually today. University president Minouche Shafik issuing a statement saying “we need a reset...to deescalate the rancor” and the university announcing it is adding more security on campus, including 111 additional safety personnel. The move comes as a rabbi at Columbia is urging students to “return home as soon as possible.” Rabbi Eli Buechler. in a letter to Jewish students this weekend, going on to say, “no one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” PRO-HAMAS PROTESTERS: In-ti-fada! MCLAUGHLIN: The campus tense amid demonstrations denouncing the Israel-Hamas war. New York Mayor Adams condemning video such as this, which he says shows a young woman with a sign pointing to Jewish students saying, Al Qassem’s next targets. Adams also pointing to one incident last week: a demonstrator chanting, “we are Hamas”. Shafik saying in her statement, “tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia”. BAUM: As a Jew, I no longer feel welcome, I no longer feel safe on campus, and I no longer feel like I belong. SONYA POZNANSKY: To be honest, no, I think my safety has definitely been compromised in a lot of ways over the last few days. McLaughlin concluded her report with press releases from the Columbia president and the White House, but proceeded them with some serious belly-aching from Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine: Last night in a press release, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine expressed frustration over, “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us”, adding the group rejects “any form of hate or bigotry.” To see the relevant transcripts from April 22, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

Doocy SLAMS KJP Over Biden’s Latest Tall Tale: ‘Where Did the Cannibalism Come From?’

In case you missed it from Friday, Fox’s Peter Doocy clashed with the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre during the White House press briefing when Doocy called out the President for falsely claiming his uncle not only died during World War II, but was cannibalized in Papua New Guinea by blood-thirsty natives. Jean-Pierre ducked, attacking Doocy and invoking the dubious “suckers” and “losers” tall tale about Donald Trump from The Atlantic. Doocy respectfully cut to the case: “Why is President Biden saying that his Uncle Bosie was eaten by cannibals?”     Jean-Pierre complained she already “answered this question yesterday” and “your network” even played “clips....about me answering this question” before claiming Doocy saw for himself if he was on the trip to Scranton that Biden “had an emotional and, um, I think a symbolic moment” in taking “an opportunity, as President, to honor his uncle’s service in uniform.” “He had an opportunity...to speak to the bravery of his uncle and not just his uncle, but many U.S. service members that put their lives on the line on behalf of this country,” she added, with his uncle Ambrose Finneagan serving as an example “for honoring our sacred commitment to equip those — we stand — we sent to war and take care of them and their families when they come home.” She then made it about Trump [A]s he iterated, the last thing American veterans are — or the last thing Americans should be called or suckers and losers and — and that is — those types of words should not come from a commander in chief, as we have in the past. And we should actually be lifting up our American veterans and honoring them and that’s what you saw from this President. Doocy said he felt the same about how veterans should be treated and that “Second Lieutenant Ambrose J. Finnegan was a war hero, but the Pentagon says, for unknown reasons, the plane was forced to ditch in the ocean and both engines failed at low out — altitude.” He then ripped Biden for why then did he have to lie when his uncle was already a war hero: “Why is President Biden saying he was shot down? There’s no evidence of that. And why is he saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals? That’s a bad way to go.” Instead of conceding Biden lied or moving on, Jean-Pierre attacked Doocy by alleging he’s disrespectful of the dead: “[W]e should not make jokes about this.” Doocy clapped back before letting Jean-Pierre drone on: “[I]t’s not. The President — Biden said with his own lips he was eaten by cannibals.” “[N]o, no, I mean, your — your last line. It’s — it’s for a laugh. It’s for a funny — funny statement and he takes this very seriously. His uncle who served and protected this country lost his life serving and that should matter,” Jean-Pierre whined. After she again deflected to Trump, Doocy tried one last time: “Where did the cannibalism come from?” Jean-Pierre punted one last time, alleging Doocy “miss[ed] the point” and not recognizing Biden “lifts up American veterans” and “our U.S. service members.” Doocy’s first question concerned the anti-Semitic, far-left terrorist sympathizers at Columbia University as a follow up to CNN’s Priscilla Alverez (click “expand”): ALVAREZ: More than 100 people protesting the war in Gaza were cleared off the Columbia University campus yesterday and arrested. Is the President aware of these arrests? And what is his message to these protesters? JEAN-PIERRE: So, just let me say at the top because I have to be mindful here. As you know, there is a — a — an investigation currently being led by the Department of Education. It’s an ongoing civil rights investigation of Columbia University, so I won’t speak to specifics about the protest here. There’s a couple things I do want to say — is that — is that we know this is a deeply painful moment for many communities impacted by this conflict. The President and our administration continues to speak out enforcely [sic] — forcefully condemn anti-Semitism and our administration is implementing the first ever national strategy to counter anti-Semitism. In recent months, we’ve seen a shocking rise in anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, in anti-Arab hate in the U.S. And around the world. He has also been clear that hate has no place in America, whether it is based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or any other form of hate, which is why there is no place for discrimination on college campuses or anywhere, anywhere in America. The President also believes that free speech debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important American values. When students are subject to hostile environments because of their faith or ethnicity, schools must act. Students must be safe to learn, and that’s where we stand on that one. [TO DOOCY] Go ahead. DOOCY: And to just follow up on the protest. I get you don’t want to go into specifics, but what does the President think about young people in America, saying things like “we are all Hamas” and “long live Hamas”? JEAN-PIERRE: Can —  I will say — look, this is a President that has been, uh, since he’s been in office, and the reason why he ran has been very clear about what he witnessed in Charlottesville. Let’s not forget what we saw the anti-Semitism, the bigotry, the hate that we saw in the streets of Charlottesville, which, as I just stated, was one of the reasons that he decided to run. And no president has taken more action to combat anti-Semitism than this President. And so you know, in our national strategy, we made clear that, when Jews are targeted because of their beliefs, because of their identity, or when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hate — hatred, that is anti Semitism, and that is completely, completely unacceptable. In contrast, the reporter who sat in the NPR seat hit from the left, giving oxygen to the notion that cracking down on these thugs are “threat to speech or assembly”. Speaking of softballs, the AP’s Darlene Superville brought up gas prices and lobbed a softball that ran counter to the actual questions Fox Business’s Ed Lawrence asked a few days earlier: Average gasoline prices have raised about 20 cents a gallon in the past month. Oil production — domestic oil production is down slightly from its recent peak and now we have the situation in the Middle East. How concerned is the administration about the combination of all of those things? To see the relevant transcript from the April 19 briefing (including a softball from The Washington Post about Biden being “a student of history”), click here.

WILD: ABC’s Moran Blames ‘Gravitational Pull of the Trump Melodrama’ for Self-Immolation

Friday afternoon featured one of the more disturbing incidents one will ever see on live TV as, amid rolling coverage on cable news and streaming platforms of the Trump trial brought by far-left Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, a man lit himself on fire in the so-called protest space outside the New York City courthouse. On ABC News Live, longtime network correspondent Terry Moran invoked January 6 and repeatedly implied without evidence Trump and “the gravitational pull of the...melodrama” around him drove a disturbed person to harm themselves.     Investigative reporter Olivia Rubin was discussing the breaking news that a full jury had been selected for the trial ahead of Monday’s opening statements when a commotion broke out nearby with the man’s self-immolation. After a shaken Rubin narrated the scene, Moran jumped in and, instead of stopping after coaching her along and reassuring her she was doing great, he put his foot in his mouth: “Let me just ask. It seems then, that the gravitational pull of the Trump melodrama that has gripped the nation since he came down the escalator has now, it appears, resulted in someone coming to that where protesters have gathered and lit himself on fire.” Rubin politely but strongly pushed back on the veteran correspondent: “Well, we’ll have to see exactly what, you know, it ends up being. I think we all have been in scenarios where happens. Information unfolds later and it’s not exactly what we thought first. But certainly, there appears to have been some sort of demonstration...just outside of the courthouse.” Rubin then continued to narrate the scene as the fire was extinguished and the man was placed on a stretcher. A few minutes later, Moran complimented Rubin for the “real smart caution” and acknowledged “[t]hat’s a big courthouse” with “a lot of cases going on.” Just like before, Moran could have stopped there and stuck to what was known. Alas, Moran couldn’t help himself and chalked this up to possibly an example of how “the Trump era” caused “feelings” to run “very, very high right across the political spectrum”.     He even invoked the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021: Political violence has resulted from those high feelings, obviously, at the United States Capitol most — most intensely. But, as Olivia says, we don’t know right now and having covered a lot of trials, a lot of courthouses, it — there is a tremendous amount of misery that goes through the courthouse as human misery, people having the worst day of their lives, the worst experience of their lives, murder trials, people going bankrupt, divorce, child, all kinds of things that can send people into the depths of anguish. We don’t know why this man set himself on fire, but there it was in that park, once again, where the protests have been occurring. Protests we can expect continue. It’s an awful situation. Moran couldn’t stop falling on his face. Yet again, he correctly said “caution is fully justified” about what led this person to take this sad step and “there have been a lot of people on the streets who have mental issues,” but tripled down on the blame-Trump route. Along with arguing Trump coming “down that escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign” had “changed American politics, raised it to a pitch of intensity,” Moran fretted “the — the style, the rhetoric, and the policies that — that he proposed is so different, so inspiring to some, so infuriating to others, that we are now as polarized the country as we ever have been.”     “And the emotions around politics are ratcheted up to something that we haven’t seen at least since the 1960s in this country, where there was, you know, a good deal of unrest and turmoil,” he added. Eventually, he conceded that what we do know was “something awful has happened, something truly horrific and one has to — one has to have to pray for that for the person who is drawn to that extreme and has done that”. To see the relevant transcript from April 19, click “expand.” ABC News Live April 19, 2024 1:41 p.m. Eastern TERRY MORAN: Let me just ask. It seems then, that the gravitational pull of the Trump melodrama that has gripped the nation since he came down the escalator has now, it appears, resulted in someone coming to that where protesters have gathered and lit himself on fire. OLIVIA RUBIN: Well, we’ll have to see exactly what, you know, it ends up being. I think we all have been in scenarios where happens. Information unfolds later and it’s not exactly what we thought first. But certainly there appears to have been some sort of demonstration, potentially, just outside of the courthouse, if it’s unrelated, potentially, they’re bringing out a stretcher now that they have and they are lifting the man who is severely burned, Terry, and putting him onto the stretcher. They are bundling the ropes around him and it does seem like all of the fire is out now. I can’t see any flames and we could see the flames from where we were standing before and they are carrying him out on stretcher. (....) 1:42 p.m. Eastern MORAN: Olivia offering, a real smart caution. That’s a big courthouse. A lot of cases going on in there. Obviously, in our justice system, there are plenty of issues and plenty of personal issues that people can get caught up in the justice system, that can — that can break them. And so, we don’t know that this incident police now apparently from our Aaron Katersky that a man lit himself on fire in the courthouse — just outside the courthouse where the trial of Donald Trump is going in the square with protesters, pro-Trump anti-Trump have been gathering. So, that is a ground that has seen some protest activity. But this — this incident, a man lighting himself on fire in front of that courthouse. Now, obviously, the Trump era has had feelings running very, very high right across the political spectrum. Political violence has resulted from those high feelings, obviously, at the United States Capitol most — most intensely. But, as Olivia says, we don’t know right now and having covered a lot of trials, a lot of courthouses, it — there is a tremendous amount of misery that goes through the courthouse as human misery, people having the worst day of their lives, the worst experience of their lives, murder trials, people going bankrupt, divorce, child, all kinds of things that can send people into the depths of anguish. We don’t know why this man set himself on fire, but there it was in that park, once again, where the protests have been occurring. Protests we can expect continue. It’s an awful situation. (....) 1:47 p.m. Eastern MORAN: Alright, once again, that — that caution is fully justified, Aaron. That — that whatever we it may be, we don’t know yet. And courthouses and that one in particular, as you say there, there have been a lot people on the streets who have mental issues and gather there sometimes and there are a lot of things that happen in courthouses that can stress people to the point of breakdown. We don’t know what is going on, except that, as Olivia Rubin has pointed out, there was a man taken away in a stretcher, badly burned. (....) 1:50 p.m. Eastern MORAN: But the Trump era, which is what we have been living in since he came down that escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential campaign and changed American politics, raised it to a pitch of intensity, the — the style, the rhetoric, and the policies that — that he proposed is so different, so inspiring to some, so infuriating to others, that we are now as polarized the country as we ever have been. And the emotions around politics are ratcheted up to something that we haven’t seen at least since the 1960s in this country, where there was, you know, a good deal of unrest and turmoil. But once again, just to underline, it does seem, from Olivia’s reporting, from what we have as well, that a man has set himself on fire in the park outside the courthouse where the hush money criminal trial of Donald Trump has been underway. The completed jury selection today and we don’t know if it’s this incident, this man setting himself fire is related to what was going on in the — in the courtroom where Donald Trump was sitting, watching the completion of jury selection or if this is someone with other issues — either in the courts or just in life — but clearly something awful has happened, something truly horrific and one has to — one has to have to pray for that for the person who is drawn to that extreme and has done that and is taken away. Police were on and very quickly put it and put the fire out on him. As Olivia saw and reported, and he was taken away in an ambulance to a hospital where he will get care.

Editor’s Pick: National Review’s Geraghty Takes Blowtorch to NPR Over Berliner Debacle

Writing Thursday morning over at National Review in the Morning Jolt newsletter, senior writer Jim Geraghty went postal on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) over its handling of now-former senior business editor Uri Berliner’s bombshell essay for The Free Press meticulously dismantling NPR for its decades of liberal media bias. Geraghty (correctly) stated it’s been “refreshingly honest” to see how “NPR responded to the revelations and accusations of 25-year veteran Uri Berliner” with “biased, one-sided, arrogant, and dismissive” condemnations of Berliner because “that’s exactly how NPR likes it” sinc ethey “didn’t get this way accidentally; this is what it wants to be.” He acknowledged anyone who’s “been around long enough” has “seen this sort of journalistic story-cycle before” in which some sort of hubbub breaks out at a liberal media heavyweight, they claim to be sorrowful and have “strayed from its original mission to report the news”....and then nothing happens. He went back through a slew of examples as way of saying “[t]here’s something a bit refreshing, if depressing, about the way NPR responded to” Berliner: You can think back to Dan Rather and CBS News, or Eason Jordan and CNN, or Stephen Glass at the New Republic. Or, more recently, the staff panic and outrage that ousted James Bennet from the editorial page at the New York Times. Heck, you could go back to Janet Cooke and the Washington Post, or all the way back to Walter Duranty’s work for the New York Times in the Soviet Union, echoing the propaganda of Stalin. “This time at NPR, there is no rubbing of the chin, furrowed brows, or begrudging concession that the critic has a point, and that they must do better. Nope, NPR’s management thinks they’re doing a terrific job, and they don’t see any reason to change. In their minds, the true villain of this story is Berliner,” he added with “former colleagues are similarly indignant that anybody could possibly doubt the quality of the work that they’re doing.” After winding through NPR’s heavily slanted coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and the Hunter Biden laptop, Geraghty observed “NPR management” has clearly decided that, lacking any fear of cajoles from Republicans to defund them, they could treat Berliner’s concerns “the same way” they “treated the counterevidence for the Trump–Russia collusion narrative, or the Hunter Biden laptop, or the evidence pointing to a lab leak.” To read Geraghty’s full story, click here.

GAG: ABC’s Bruce Giddily Cheers Biden Being Able to Campaign as Trump’s on Trial

ABC’s Good Morning America and its chief White House correspondent/chief Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce were emanating warm fuzzies and weak knees on Wednesday over their allies in the New York legal system interfering in the 2024 presidential election, preventing former President Trump from campaigning five days a week and allowing their candidate — President Joe Biden — to have the country to himself. Co-host Michael Strahan had a tease giving Team Biden what they want by boasting of Trump on day two of jury selection “test[ing] the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.”     Former Clinton official and fellow co-host George Stephanopulos later tossed to Bruce with more state-run phrasing: “While Donald Trump is tied up in court, President Biden has been on the campaign trail in battleground state of Pennsylvania.” Even the chyron flashed their glee with the situation: “President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail; Slams Trump’s Values & “Failed” Economic Policies in Pennsylvania”. Bruce’s 51-second report was nauseatingly hacktastic and a fine audition to replace the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary in a hypothetical second Biden term, starting with her gleeful proclamation about “Biden...trying to seize this moment and create a real splitscreen, leaning into his roots in Scranton, arguing he and Donald Trump have very different values.” As usual, Bruce exhibited zero pushback and relayed Biden spin as news: He said he understands the middle class in a way that Donald Trump simply never will, saying that Trump will always put the wealthy and himself first. While the President has been careful not to comment on details of Trump’s trial, he has been taking more swipes at his rival, joking about Trump’s legal debt and telling supporters here last night that he would never take advantage of a woman. Now, the President is spending three days in Pennsylvania this week. It is a battleground where he has spent the most time by our count, visiting 30 times since taking office. Michael, the President well aware this state is a must win. Not to be left out, CBS Mornings had its own glorified press release with the Biden campaign stops woven into its report on day two of the Trump trial. In the first “Eye Opener” co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King bragged about the jurors being tabbed “as President Biden campaigns in a very important swing state.” Co-host Tony Dokoupil later touted the “two very different schedules for our presumptive presidential nominees as former President Donald Trump spends the week in New York in a courtroom for jury selection in his criminal trial” and “President Biden is on the campaign trail with multiple stops in Pennsylvania.” Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes proclaimed that “the Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this split-screen moment where you’ve got former President Trump holed up in a New York courtroom for much of the week, while President Biden is on the campaign trail here in the nation’s largest battleground state for three days this week.” Later and after a creepy video of an enthused Biden walking and holding hands with a band of small children, Cordes bragged of “Biden popping into his childhood home Tuesday and stumping with supporters in Scranton” on the heels of “[n]ew fundraising figures show the Biden campaign brought in nearly double the Trump team’s haul in the first three months of the year”. She continued with more propaganda (click “expand”): CORDES: The Biden team has used some money to open 14 campaign offices across Pennsylvania and to hire two dozen staffers in the state since February. BIDEN: We’ve opened more campaign offices because of you all than — he don’t — hasn’t opened any that I’m aware of. I’m not being facetious. CORDES: President Biden is waking up here in Scranton today. He will then head to Pittsburgh where he’s expected to push for tariffs to triple on Chinese steel and aluminum. This as he works to line up union support. To see the relevant transcripts from April 17, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 17, 2024 7:00 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Trump on Trial; First Seven Jurors Selected] MICHAEL STRAHAN: The first jurors have been selected in the criminal trial of Donald Trump. Trump on Trial. Seven jurors sworn in to hear the case against the former President. What we know about the three women and four men, including a nurse, teacher and two lawyers as Trump tests the patience of the judge while President Biden hits the campaign trails in a battleground state.  (....) 7:06 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; President Biden Hits the Campaign Trail; Slams Trump’s Values & “Failed” Economic Policies in Pennsylvania] GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: While Donald Trump is tied up in court, President Biden has been on the campaign trail in battleground state of Pennsylvania. Mary Bruce is on the scene in Scranton. Good morning, Mary. MARY BRUCE: Good morning, George. Well, President Biden is trying to seize this moment and create a real splitscreen, leaning into his roots in Scranton, arguing he and Donald Trump have very different values. He said he understands the middle class in a way that Donald Trump simply never will, saying that Trump will always put the wealthy and himself first. While the President has been careful not to comment on details of Trump’s trial, he has been taking more swipes at his rival, joking about Trump’s legal debt and telling supporters here last night that he would never take advantage of a woman. Now, the President is spending three days in Pennsylvania this week. It is a battleground where he has spent the most time by our count, visiting 30 times since taking office. Michael, the President well aware this state is a must win. STRAHAN: Yeah, it is a must win there, Mary. Thank you very much for that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ CBS Mornings April 17, 2024 7:00 a.m. Eastern [TEASE] GAYLE KING: The first seven jurors have been picked in former President Trump’s criminal trial as President Biden campaigns in a very important swing state. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Court and Campaigning] PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: A guy came up to me and asked if I could help, drowning in debt. I said, I’m sorry, Donald, but I can’t help you. [LAUGHTER] (....) 7:04 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Trial & the Trial; Trump Sits for Jury Selection as Pres. Biden Campaigns in Pennsylvania] TONY DOKOUPIL: Alright, we’re going to turn now to politics, as promised, and two very different schedules for our presumptive presidential nominees as former President Donald Trump spends the week in New York in a courtroom for jury selection in his criminal trial. President Biden is on the campaign trail with multiple stops in Pennsylvania. Nancy Cordes is out there as well, traveling with the President and joins us now from Biden’s hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nancy, good morning. NANCY CORDES: Good morning, Tony. Yeah, the Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this split-screen moment where you’ve got former President Trump holed up in a New York courtroom for much of the week, while President Biden is on the campaign trail here in the nation’s largest battleground state for three days this week. (....) 7:06 a.m. Eastern CORDES: And while Trump has denied all the allegations, the trial will pull him off the campaign trail. DONALD TRUMP: I should be right now in Pennsylvania. BIDEN SUPORTERS: We want Joe! CORDES: His rival is in Pennsylvania. President Biden popping into his childhood home Tuesday and stumping with supporters in Scranton. BIDEN: When I look at the economy, I don’t see it through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago. I see it through the eyes of Scranton. CORDES: New fundraising figures show the Biden campaign brought in nearly double the Trump team’s haul in the first three months of the year. The Biden team has used some money to open 14 campaign offices across Pennsylvania and to hire two dozen staffers in the state since February. BIDEN: We’ve opened more campaign offices because of you all than — he don’t — hasn’t opened any that I’m aware of. I’m not being facetious. CORDES: President Biden is waking up here in Scranton today. He will then head to Pittsburgh where he’s expected to push for tariffs to triple on Chinese steel and aluminum. This as he works to line up union support. (....) 8:00 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Campaigning and Court] DOKOUPIL: President Biden hits the campaign trail as former President Trump attends day two of his criminal trial in New York. CORDES: The Biden campaign is clearly looking to play up this splitscreen moment.

ABC Mocks ‘Partisan’ Mayorkas Impeachment as ‘All for Show’ While CBS Lobs Softballs

On Wednesday ahead of the impending impeachment trial of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for his role in the Biden border crisis, ABC’s Good Morning America continued its wildly partisan dismissal of this entire episode while CBS Mornings lobbed softballs at him a network exclusive originally billed as a chance for him to sound competent on the issue of online child exploitation. As they’ve been since the start of the impeachment push, ABC’s Good Morning America has led the way with snarky dismissals and partisan pontificating. Co-host and former Clinton tool George Stephanopoulos has been the ringleader. Wednesday was no except as he didn’t even ask a question of chief congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, but instead belly-ached about how “the partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “[T]he partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.”@RachelVScott: “Yeah and this really could be over very quickly. Look, Republicans want a full trial. They impeached Secretary… pic.twitter.com/NMLgLBjPQb — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 17, 2024 Also a liberal hack, Scott scoffed “this really could be over very quickly” even though “Republicans want a full trial” for Mayorkas’s “handling of the border, but it is Democrats who control the Senate.” Showing her political allegiance, Scott stated as though it were a fact that Democrats “point out there is no evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, that this is all over a policy dispute and they will be looking to dismiss these charges very quickly.” Prior to the Mayorkas interview, CBS Mornings also had a partial and dry segment about the Mayorkas impeachment trial with co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King and congressional correspondent Nikole Killion (click “expand”): KING: Nikole, before you go, listen, I know it’s a busy day there because we’ve got the impeachment trial of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, begins in the Senate which, by the way, the secretary of state [sic] has just arrived. We’re talking about another topic, but we’ll certainly get to that. So, what can we expect on that front? KILLION: Well, senators will be sworn in this afternoon for a trial. Tuesday, House impeachment managers walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House back in February. He is charged with refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats want to dismiss this trial quickly, while most Republicans argue that it should be allowed to proceed. A DHS spokesperson has called the proceedings baseless. Mayorkas surfaced for the start of the second half-hour and, after nearly seven minutes letting him conveniently seem wholly concerned about U.S. national security in a joint interview with a Meta executive on online child exploitation. The remaining nearly three minutes (2:53) was split between his impeachment and the war in the Middle East (with Mayorkas offering a boilerplate answer giving equal weight to anti-Semitism and Islamophobia). Co-host Tony Dokoupil didn’t focus on debating the merits of the impeachment and instead asked him “what’s on the table, what’s being discussed” “to stop the flow of people over the border” (click “expand”): DOKOUPIL: Mr. Secretary, you’re here with us, but meanwhile in Washington there’s an effort to impeach you and it comes at the very same time that people are waiting on the Biden administration to issue some sort of an executive order to stop the flow of people over the border, maybe by changing the asylum laws. That’s the reporting anyway. What — what’s on the table, what’s being discussed, is that still even a possibility? MAYORKAS: So, a couple — a couple thoughts. First of all, as they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process. We need Congress to pass the bipartisan legislation that a group of senators worked on. That is the enduring solution. We cannot resource ourselves, we need Congress to do so. We cannot change a broken immigration system, only Congress can do that. KING: But — but how do you explain — DOKOUPIL: But there is no executive order, so you’re pulling it off the table? MAYORKAS: Oh, no. Not at all. You know, we — we — we explore options every single day. That’s the responsibility of good government. We are considering options. We have been throughout, but really, the enduring solution is legislation because executive actions invariably are challenged in the courts. Like the loyal liberal apparatchik she is, King praised Mayorkas for “continu[ing] to do your job” despite the impeachment charges in what must “feel surreal” and “like you have on gasoline underwear” with “a lot of incoming” from Republicans he’s simultaneously “negotiating with” as they try to remove him. “How do you balance that two, knowing that — how they feel about you and that they want you out,” King wondered, to which Mayorkas twice said it’s “precisely why I focus on the work.” Gag. NBC’s Today was actually the least objectionable of the three (aside from the fact it was only a 32-second partial segment) as Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles gave a sentence to each camp (click “expand”): GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about another item. The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. The articles of impeachment — which are basically the charges — now go to the Senate for a trial, but what is expected to happen there? NOBLES: Yeah, that’s right. The Senate today is expected to swear in senators as jurors, but it is expected to be an incredibly short trial against Mayorkas. Republicans say that he ignored the law and created chaos at the border, but Democrats argue that this is nothing more than a political stunt. They’re planning to dismiss or table the trial as soon as this week. To see the relevant transcript from April 17, click “expand.” ABC’s Good Morning America April 17, 2024 7:11 a.m. Eastern GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Rachel, the partisan House impeachment of Homeland Secretary Mayorkas is heading now to the Senate, but it’s all for show now.  [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; House Sends Mayorkas Impeachment Articles to Senate; Republican Senators Demanding Full-Scale Trial for DHS Secretary] RACHEL SCOTT: Yeah and this really could be over very quickly. Look, Republicans want a full trial. They impeached Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the border, but it is Democrats who control the Senate. And they point out there is no evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors, that this is all over a policy dispute and they will be looking to dismiss these charges very quickly, George. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CBS Mornings April 17, 2024 7:08 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Trial; Homeland Security Sec’y Expected to Survive Senate Trial] GAYLE KING: Nikole, before you go, listen, I know it’s a busy day there because we’ve got the impeachment trial of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, begins in the Senate which, by the way, the secretary of state [sic] has just arrived. We’re talking about another topic, but we’ll certainly get to that. So, what can we expect on that front? NIKOLE KILLION: Well, senators will be sworn in this afternoon for a trial. Tuesday, House impeachment managers walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House back in February. He is charged with refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust for his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats want to dismiss this trial quickly, while most Republicans argue that it should be allowed to proceed. A DHS spokesperson has called the proceedings baseless. Gayle? KING: All right. We’ll see how that plays out. Nikole, thank you very much. In our next half hour, homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas will be here in the studio to discuss his impeachment trial and the reason why he’s here — we booked him a while ago to talk about this — a big, new campaign to keep your kids safe online. (....) 7:31 a.m. Eastern KING: We’re — we’re very glad to have you here. Nice to meet you, Antigone. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: Thank you. KING: Especially for you, Secretary Mayorkas because, listen, you’re in the news, your ears must be burning because, even as we speak, they’re trying to impeach you on Capitol Hill. We’ll get to that in just a second. (....) 7:36 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Trial; DHS Sec’y on Impeachment Charges Brought by Republicans] TONY DOKOUPIL: Mr. Secretary, you’re here with us, but meanwhile in Washington there’s an effort to impeach you and it comes at the very same time that people are waiting on the Biden administration to issue some sort of an executive order to stop the flow of people over the border, maybe by changing the asylum laws. That’s the reporting anyway. What — what’s on the table, what’s being discussed, is that still even a possibility? MAYORKAS: So, a couple — a couple thoughts. First of all, as they work on impeachment, I work in advancing the missions of the Department of Homeland Security. That’s what I’ve done throughout this process. We need Congress to pass the bipartisan legislation that a group of senators worked on. That is the enduring solution. We cannot resource ourselves, we need Congress to do so. We cannot change a broken immigration system, only Congress can do that. KING: But — but how do you explain — DOKOUPIL: But there is no executive order, so you’re pulling it off the table? MAYORKAS: Oh, no. Not at all. You know, we — we — we explore options every single day. That’s the responsibility of good government. We are considering options. We have been throughout, but really, the enduring solution is legislation because executive actions invariably are challenged in the courts. KING: Yeah. You were making it clear, Mr. Secretary, you’re going to continue to do your job. But, I’m wondering personally, does this feel surreal? Do you feel like you have on gasoline underwear? Cause you a lot of incoming — you must feel — or do you feel like you’re sitting on the hot seat? Cause, on one hand, you’re negotiating with Republicans. And then, on the other hand, they’re trying to impeach you. How do you balance that two, knowing that — how they feel about you and that they want you out? MAYORKAS: Gayle, that is precisely why I focus on the work. KING: Mmmmm. DOKOUPIL: Should we — MAYORKAS: That is precisely why I focus on the work. DOKOUPIL: — speaking of the broader mission separate from the border, we’ve got Israel and Iran now in a confrontation. I think a lot of people reasonably wonder whether what’s happening overseas may become a threat to the homeland. KING: Yeah, yes. DOKOUPIL: Is there an increased risk in America of some sort of attack tied to sympathies in the Middle East? KING: Yes. MAYORKAS: We have seen an increase in anti-Semitism. We have seen an increase in Islamaphobia following the October 7 terrorist attacks. There is no question, as Director Wray of the FBI and I have expressed publicly, we are in a heightened threat environment and what we worry about is an increase in what we call domestic violent extremism — the radicalization of individuals already here, driven to violence based on an ideology of hate. DOKOUPIL: Credible threats right now as we speak? MAYORKAS: We — I have no known credible threats at this time, but we are in a heightened threat environment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NBC’s Today April 17, 2024 7:14 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Mayorkas Impeachment Heads to Senate] SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about another item. The House impeached Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. The articles of impeachment — which are basically the charges — now go to the Senate for a trial, but what is expected to happen there? RYAN NOBLES: Yeah, that’s right. The Senate today is expected to swear in senators as jurors, but it is expected to be an incredibly short trial against Mayorkas. Republicans say that he ignored the law and created chaos at the border, but Democrats argue that this is nothing more than a political stunt. They’re planning to dismiss or table the trial as soon as this week.