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Commentary Culture Investigations

Mika’s ‘Know Your Value’ Segment: Male Breadwinner Norm is Something To ‘Break’

Filed Under: Commentary Culture Investigations

Charlotte Howard and Huma Abedin Morning Joe 7-31-26

Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski turned to her Know Your Value franchise Friday to examine the ostensible problem of what The Economist called “the stubborn scarcity of female breadwinners.” The magazine found that among dual-income heterosexual couples, just 30% of wives earn more than their husbands — even though women now make up three-fifths of American university graduates.The premise was explicit: this pattern is a problem. “So why has the male breadwinner model proved so difficult to break?” Mika asked.The Economist’s Charlotte Howard pointed to a gap between stated preferences and reality. Americans claim comfort with women earning more, she said, yet the 30% figure persists. “Gender roles are just very, very sticky,” Howard explained. Howard said that mentorship programs and higher college attendance rates are not enough. The problem, supposedly, is that couples still look to the model their parents had, as Boomers hand down their more traditional arrangements to younger generations. And even women who earn more, she noted, continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of household responsibilities.MS NOW contributor Huma Abedin agreed and offered a personal example. “When I was the primary breadwinner in my household, if I didn’t have a male partner at home taking on the majority of the household and childcare work, I couldn’t have done it.” Left unmentioned: Abedin’s current husband. After divorcing Anthony Weiner, in June 2025 she married Alex Soros. He chairs the Open Society Foundations, the $25 billion empire built by his father, the mega left-wing donor George. The woman who mentioned [bragged] about having been the primary earner has since chosen a life of extraordinary wealth in which her role as primary breadwinner is neither possible nor, apparently, desired. 

MS NOW’s Know Your Value Segment Treats Male Breadwinner Norm as a Bug, Not a Feature pic.twitter.com/VfLXPs6V1u— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) August 1, 2026

A second irony: Brzezinski’s own résumé shows years of solid but mid-level work — local reporting and anchoring in Hartford, overnight and desk roles at CBS, short stints at MSNBC — before Joe Scarborough selected her as co-host of Morning Joe. That selection, not an independent climb past structural barriers, turned her into a national figure and the platform for “Know Your Value.”The research, Abedin said, shows that even primary-earning women still handle most of the work at home. The question, she asked, is what it will take for women’s economic power to match “expectations at home.” [Huma has presumably been relieved of much of the mopping and dusting duties at their digs.]Howard suggested policies that ease home support, and a cultural shift in which men treat pride in their wives’ higher earnings as “macho rather than undermine their masculinity.” She gave “all credit to Travis Kelce” for saying [in a clip that opened the segment] that his wife Taylor Swift’s drive and success motivate him.What received zero acknowledgment was any role for biology or genetics. Only women [“our neighbors with a uterus,” in case James Talarico is reading] become pregnant, give birth, and are biologically equipped to nurse. Those realities produce discontinuous career paths and different trade-offs between career investment and childcare/related duties.Complementary roles — men more oriented toward provision and physical protection, women toward childcare — are not a Boomer invention. They appear across cultures and deep into human history for practical reasons. The panel treated the entire pattern as a purely cultural defect waiting to be fixed.The segment noted one cost of reversing the pattern. When wives become the primary earners, men are roughly 1.5 times as likely to report serious psychological distress — and that distress increases when the wife earns 70% or more of household income. [Abedin, for whom math is apparently not a key skill set, appeared to confuse “one and a half times” with “one and a half percent.”] More importantly, no one asked the obvious question: since the data show that their desired arrangement is seriously distressing to men, why are these women so intent on forcing the change?Brzezinski closed by calling the march toward making more women the primary breadwinners “a long struggle.” The struggle is less against “sticky norms” than against the persistent refusal to acknowledge the obvious.Here’s the transcript.MS NOWMorning Joe7/31/268:17 am EDTPAT MCAFEE [from show of 3/10]: Can we talk about Taylor for a second?TRAVIS KELCE: Of course, always.MCAFEE: You watching her do her thing, and continue to move and move and move and work. Has that certainly helped you think through this process of like, do I still wanna go? I’m getting older, body doing that. Do you think that is kind of—KELCE: Without a doubt. She has, we share the same love for what we do, and we’ve had this, you know, fortunately, we’ve had this desire since we were kids in our, in our selective professions. And it’s just, it’s amazing to see her keep going to the table, keep finding new things to write about, keep finding, you know, new melodies and things like that. And on top of that, still seeing her have that love and joy in what she does. And, yeah, of course that’s motivating, that’s motivating for anybody to see that.MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That was NFL star Travis Kelce earlier this year, talking about his now wife Taylor Swift and how her drive and success motivate him. Swift is also a rare example of a woman who out-earns her husband, one reason the couple is featured in the new analysis in The Economist, which examines why female breadwinners remain the exception. The Economist found that among dual-income heterosexual couples, just thirty percent of wives earn more than their husbands. It also found that when women become the primary breadwinners, men are one-and-a-half times more likely to report serious psychological distress. So why has the male breadwinner model proved so difficult to break? Here to answer is executive editor and New York bureau chief for The Economist, Charlotte Howard. Also here for the conversation, MS NOW contributor Huma Abedin, who is vice chair of the Forbes and Know Your Value 30/50 Summit. So, Charlotte of The Economist, let’s dive into this new research. Women now make up three-fifths of American university graduates. So why are seventy percent of wives still earning less than their husbands?CHARLOTTE HOWARD: Well, there’s a lot of things I found about this article that were very interesting. But one of the things that I found most fascinating is that the stated preference of Americans is that, Americans are, are very comfortable with women earning more than their husbands. And Americans now, women are more likely to have a college degree. They make up a majority of people in the workforce with a university education.And yet that figure remains, that you have just thirty percent of women out earning their husband. And so I think what that represents is this gap between America’s stated preference, women’s acquired skills, and the reality of how women exist at home and in the workplace.HUMA ABEDIN: You know, one of the things, aside from the statistic that Mika just mentioned, that men whose wives or female partners earn one-and-a-half percent, are more of the primary breadwinners are one-and-a-half percent, reporting that they have serious psychological distress, that actually goes up, that when women earn seventy percent or more of the household income, they’re even more stressed.And that the findings haven’t changed, that from 2001 to 2011, and then 2013 to 2023, it’s about the same. So why do you think this is still happening? HOWARD: I think there are a number of hypotheses I can put forward, but the main thing, and I’d love to know your view of this, is that gender roles are just very, very sticky. You know, people can go to college at a higher rate, we can have all these mentorship programs to keep women in the workplace. But some of these norms are generational. You know, people look at the model that their parents had, and it’s a big shift to go from, you know, if you think about a millennial now in the workplace, how their baby boomer parents existed in the home. It’s very, very different to see a totally different gender dynamic play out.And you have this self-reinforcing dynamic, I think. When you have a woman who is earning less, they will take on more household responsibilities. You know, even women who earn more, they have a disproportionate share of household responsibilities, and then that has this effect of perpetuating the idea that women are consistently earning less because they’re taking on more responsibility at home. They can’t invest the time that they would if they didn’t have those responsibilities at home. So it’s just a very, very sticky cycle.ABEDIN: You know, you mentioned mentorship, you mentioned the generational shifts, which I completely agree with. I mean, I take myself as an example. That when I was the primary breadwinner in my household, if I didn’t have a male partner at home taking on the majority of the household and childcare work, I couldn’t have done it. And what this research is showing is exactly what you’re underscoring, which is that, even when women are the primary breadwinners, they’re responsible for the majority of work at home. What do you think it’s gonna take? Like, what is the, what was found in this research that it will take for it to become more acceptable for women’s economic power to match the new expectations at home?HOWARD: I think it’s, you know, a combination of things, both wonky and cultural. You know, on the wonky side, you could list a whole number of policies that would make it easier for people to have more support at home and exist in the way they want to in the workplace as well. I also think, candidly, that having men talk about the pride that they take in their women’s work, and having that be something that is macho rather than undermine their masculinity is really powerful. And so, you know, all credit to Travis Kelce for saying that it’s motivating to him. I think that there are more role models that you probably need to see across different sectors, that don’t just have to do with your wife being a pop star, where men take real, you know, active pride in their wives’ work and are willing to do more at home too.MIKA: This has been a long struggle. You can read more about this phenomenon at theeconomist.com. Executive editor and New York bureau chief at The Economist, Charlotte Howard. Thank you so much for sharing this with us this morning, and Huma Abedin, as always, thank you as well.

Scarborough Says Republicans Are the True Socialists, Mocks DSA Fears

Filed Under: Commentary Culture Investigations

MS NOW/SnapStream

On Friday, as socialists continued their rise as a part of the Democratic Party through primary election victories, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough took his own route with socialism claims of his own and instead claimed the Republicans were actually the socialists. He also seemed to minimize the actual rise of socialists in the Democratic Party, a topic his show has recently covered extensively, as he called the DSA “fringe.”The conversation started at the very beginning of the premier liberal morning show as, between Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s bickering about who would lead the segment, Scarborough remarked, “Let’s start with the socialists… that nobody’s talking about.”After Brzezinski agreed, Scarborough continued, “but everybody should be talking about it because socialists are taking over some of the most important companies in America’s economy.” On Friday’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough labeled Republicans as “the socialists that nobody’s talking about” amid the rise of the DSA. He then downplayed the DSA as a “radical fringe group” even as they continue to be poised for more victories in Democratic primaries. pic.twitter.com/zLNc8v8cP0— Nick (@nspin310) July 31, 2026 The focus of the show’s socialism claims was based on government investment into AI and semiconductor chip companies through funds from the congressionally passed CHIPS Act.Brzezinski detailed the investment, and Scarborough interrupted, “Also known as socialism.”Scarborough turned to formulate a long-winded “question” to frequent guest Richard Haass, and claimed Republicans were the actual socialists: “…This is socialism. This is pre-Thatcher style socialism.”He then blamed Republicans solely for high budgets and high debt, even though greater blame could be placed on high spending in recent Democrat administrations, especially in the Biden years:“And the great irony. Here you have Republicans, small government Republicans running up the biggest deficits, the biggest debt ever, crippling this country. Not future generations. They’re going to cripple this generation with the biggest budgets ever, the biggest spending ever, the biggest socialized schemes ever. “Scarborough went on to read his own tweet about the topic, a new trend of lazy content on the show, as he proclaimed, “Trump socialism schemes spread as Republicans seize control of seven more private companies.”Then, in the second attempt to formulate an actual question to Haass, Scarborough mocked fears of a DSA rise because they were a “fringe” small group:Richard, they point at a radical fringe group in the Democratic Party and claim, ‘oh, this is what Democrats are doing, they’re socialists.’ And yet you actually have Republicans practicing socialism.Haass responded, “What it does show more than anything is it just underscores that today’s Republican Party has ceased to be a conservative party.”Later, Scarborough ended the Republican socialism discussion, “But Republicans, in the most socialist of ways, are picking winners and losers now.”After they spent months downplaying the actual rise of the DSA and defending socialist-aligned candidates like the now-disgraced Graham Platner before finally being forced to cover controversies of DSA candidates like Darializa Avila Chevalier, Morning Joe and Scarborough himself have taken the route of gaslighting and ‘Hey, look over there’ in the socialism fight.The transcript is below. Click “expand”:MS NOW’s Morning JoeJuly 31, 202606:03:31 AM Eastern(…)MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, we begin.JOE SCARBOROUGH: YeahBRZEZINSKI: May I? Oh wow!SCARBOROUGH: Let’s start with the socialists -BRZEZINSKI: Oh, okay.SCARBOROUGH: That nobody’s talking about –BRZEZINSKI: Okay. We can do that.SCARBOROUGH: – but everybody should be talking about because socialists are taking over some of the most important companies in America’s economy.BRZEZINSKI: The Department of Commerce is taking equity stakes in seven companies, developing semiconductor technologies for artificial intelligence and advanced computing systems -SCARBOROUGH: Also known as socialism.BRZEZINSKI: The department announced yesterday that it would designate more than $870 million in federal incentives under the Chips and Science Act in exchange for minor equity stakes in those companies. This practice has drawn criticism from lawmakers, including some Republicans like Senator Todd Young, who has said that the CHIPS Act was never intended to let the federal government take major stakes in private companies.SCARBOROUGH: Richard Haass, this is socialism. This is pre-Thatcher style socialism. And the great irony. Here you have Republicans, small government Republicans running up the biggest deficits, the biggest debt ever, crippling this country. Not future generations. They’re going to cripple this generation with the biggest budgets ever, the biggest spending ever, the biggest socialized schemes ever. And now you have these same Republicans – “Trump socialism schemes spread as Republicans seize control of seven more private companies,” I wrote yesterday. “This is a policy that poisoned pre-Thatcher Britain. That Republicans keep spreading socialism across the tech sector businesses is deeply disturbing. So too are the record deficits and debt.”  Richard, They point at a radical fringe group in the Democratic Party and claim, ‘oh, this is what Democrats are doing to socialists.’ And yet you actually have Republicans practicing socialism. First, they practice socialism with Intel, then they practice socialism by forcing other companies to do business with the federal government, or else they’re going to get cut out.And now the same thing here. Oh yeah, you can be involved in the CHIPS Act, but you’ve got to engage in a little act of socialism with us and let us take over stakes in your company. This is outrageous. I – every Republican, every Democrat, every small government conservative should be against this.RICHARD HAASS: Yeah. What it does show more than anything is it just underscores that today’s Republican Party has ceased to be a conservative party. Everything it is doing is antithetical to the principles of Thatcher, of Reagan, Hayek, you name it. Milton Friedman. This is not a conservative party anymore. The whole idea of government was to be minimal, to simply set the context for which the private sector would, would do its thing. And instead, the government is essentially making the private sector a quasi-public sector. And history suggests it’s expensive, it’s inefficient, it’s bad for the economy. It’s bad for democracy. It leads to corruption. It leads to inefficiency. And yet we’re doing it, and there’s no pushback. So, again, we don’t have a conservative party. We have a populist party. We have a personalist party, and this is an extension of it.(…)6:08:35 AM EasternSCARBOROUGH: What have conservatives like myself said forever about this? The government should not pick winners and losers. The government should allow everybody an equal opportunity for their small business, for their startup, for their company to succeed. But Republicans, in the most socialist of ways, are picking winners and losers now.(…)

Queens Man Indicted For Car Crash That Killed Jewish Woman Also Charged With Hate Crime For Destroying Property Outside Kosher Bagel Shop

Filed Under: Uncategorized

A Queens man who was indicted for manslaughter late last month after killing a woman in a three-car crash and then fleeing the scene was also charged with hate crimes yesterday for allegedly destroying property outside a kosher bagel shop just days before the crash.
Dawood Faisal, a resident of the Fresh Meadows neighborhood of Queens, allegedly drove more than 75 miles per hour in an area with a 35-mile-per-hour speed limit on the evening of May 25, speeding through two red lights and crashing into two cars. He hit the second car with such force that it careened into a crosswalk and struck two pedestrians, one of whom—71-year-old Cara Trager—suffered fatal injuries. According to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, Faisal attempted to flee the scene before bystanders chased him down. He faces more than 15 years in prison if convicted.
The incident came days after he allegedly vandalized a kosher bagel shop in Queens, Bagels & Co., on two separate occasions. On the evening of May 15, according to hate crimes charges brought against him on July 31, he knocked over nine metal plant stands outside the store—which displayed Israeli flags—and then allegedly threw dirt at the storefront. He returned in the middle of the night on May 23, allegedly pushing over 11 plant stands, dumping plants and dirt out onto the sidewalk, and ripping plants out of other pots. If convicted on the hate crime charges, he faces up to seven additional years in prison.
Trager, a longtime journalist, was known as an outspoken supporter of Israel and leader in the Queens Jewish community. Her husband, Michael—who was injured in the crash—told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency afterwards that he believed Faisal was “looking to do damage in a heavily Jewish area” like the neighborhood of Hollis Hills, a majority-Jewish section of Queens.
Faisal’s alleged crimes occurred amid a rise in antisemitic violence in New York City under Mayor Zohran Mamdani. That same month, according to NYPD data, antisemitic hate crimes jumped 46 percent compared to the three months that came before. New York City experienced 41 antisemitic hate crimes in May, averaging one every 18 hours, and hate crimes directed against Jews accounted for 60 percent of all hate crimes in the city.
The spike took place in the run-up to the June 23 New York primaries in which three anti-Israel candidates, all endorsed by Mamdani, won the Democratic nominations in their congressional districts. Claire Valdez, who defeated Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in the 7th district, has falsely accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza and called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas “almost immediately” after the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, according to progressive blog City and State. On the day of the attack, she liked an X post that described the massacres as “unthinkable bravery” and later sat for a friendly interview with a Twitch streamer who called Jews a “demonic ethnicity,” Jewish Insider reported.
Another Mamdani-backed candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier, defeated incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D., N.Y.) in the 13th district’s primary election. Avila Chevalier attended a pro-Hamas rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023 and helped organize the anti-Israel encampment on Columbia University’s campus alongside an organizer who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and who fantasized about “murdering Zionists.”
The third, Brad Lander, who defeated incumbent Dan Goldman in the state’s 10th district has accused Israel of committing a genocide and called to block U.S. aid to the Jewish state.
Mamdani has ratcheted up his anti-Israel rhetoric in the past several months. At a rally before the primaries, he described donors to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as “monsters” and issued a lukewarm response after the owner of a Brooklyn coffee shop banned Goldman from the premises, citing his pro-Israel views. After spending months threatening to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Netanyahu came to New York, Mamdani released a video statement accusing the Israeli prime minister of being “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.” The next day, a man stabbed two people on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after yelling “allahu akbar,” with one of the stabbings occurring near a synagogue.
UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein said after Mamdani’s video that the mayor’s “political grandstanding” has “real-world consequences for the Jews of New York.”
“We want the mayor to stop demonizing the only Jewish state, using the most vilifying rhetoric, focused solely on the only Jewish state and the supporters of it,” he continued. “Using language like ‘monstrous,’ using the most horrible, difficult language that inflames, that terrorizes, that causes people to do terrible things.”
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PolitiFact Slams Minor GOP Candidate on Israel, Skips AOC, Khanna, and Massie

Filed Under: Uncategorized

James Fishback is a minor candidate for governor of Florida on the Republican side – Rep. Byron Donalds has nearly 50 percent of the vote in recent polls, and Fishback has barely 10 percent. But Florida-based PolitiFact has performed three fact checks on Fishback in 2026. The latest Fishback claim is obviously wrong – that the U.S. voted to merge its military with Israel’s — but PolitiFact’s own article displays that it could have checked Democrats as well. It’s right there in Samantha Putterman’s review: Did Congress just approve a merger of the U.S. and Israeli militaries? That’s what U.S. politicians from both political parties are saying.“Yesterday, the United States Congress voted to merge our military with Israel’s military,” Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback said in a July 23 X video. “This may be the last straw for American sovereignty.”On July 21, a day before the House was scheduled to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said the bill “includes a provision to merge parts of our military with the (Israel Defense Force). This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy.”U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., also criticized Section 219 of the bill, which outlines U.S. and Israeli military cooperation, and co-introduced an amendment to strip it from the legislation. House leadership didn’t allow a vote on the amendment, and the House passed the legislation July 22. The Senate has yet to take it up.But Fishback’s and other politicians’ comments mischaracterize the legislation.So why not throw the “False” flag at AOC, or Khanna or Massie? They’re all actually elected officials. Massie has only one fact-check on PolitiFact since he was elected to Congress in 2012. Khanna has only six fact checks (and only two in the 2020s). The facts are wrong – and the people are clearing building a conspiracy theory where those shady Jews are taking over our military – but the choice of target here is curious. The facts didn’t have a liberal bias, but the targeting did. 

Eugene Daniels Tries To Claim The DSA Is Moderating

Filed Under: Uncategorized

MS NOW’s The Weekend co-host Eugene Daniels recently traveled to Chicago for the DSA convention and upon returning claimed on Saturday that the group of radicals is actually trying to moderate in order to be taken seriously.After playing part of his interview with co-hair Ashik Siddique, Daniels recalled, “So, guys, I think—what I thought was really interesting and what I left with was that they’re also understanding that this is a moment that they haven’t had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious.” Eugene Daniels tries to claim the DSA is moderating. After going to their Chicago convention, he claimed “What I left with was that they’re also understanding that this is a moment that they haven’t had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious…so when you talk… pic.twitter.com/hwI67zk7Lq— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 1, 2026 Seeing the upside in that, Daniels continued, “You know, when I was talking to the co-chair at the beginning there, one of the other parts of the conversation was that, you know, they know that people see them as like, silly little kids that are playing politics or — where in fact, they could, you know, take all of the anger that’s happening in this country and transition into something real.”Daniels’s idea of moderation was extremely generous:And so when you talk about, you know, that little pamphlet I had was something that they were giving out to everyone. And what was not in there was the stuff that has gotten the most attention from their platform. That’s on two pages. We have this in element one. There are a lot of things on there, but what wasn’t in that in that paper was there was no abolish the U.S. Senate, which has gotten them pilloried. There was no abolish the Defense Department. There was no there was nothing about defunding the police. That that was not in there. And what he said to me was this document that I was holding in my hand, has — was put together in the last month. So to me that signals that there may be some changes coming to the platform.”The problem for Daniels is that the other co-chair, Megan Romer, was on Fox News Sunday not even a week ago and affirmed the DSA’s desire to abolish the Senate, presidency, the Supreme Court as we know it, ICE, the border, prisons, defund the Pentagon, and have the government seize larger corporations.The fact that the DSA’s pamphlet Daniels mentioned didn’t talk about the nutty things Romer talked about does not mean that the DSA no longer believes them. It just means the DSA knows it has to do a better job of not saying the quiet part out loud. Unfortunately for them, Romer’s interview and their candidates’ social media histories exist. It is up to journalists to press these candidates on the sincerity of their campaign conversions and not just blindly accept them.Here is a transcript for the August 1 show:MS NOW The Weekend8/1/20269:41 AM ETEUGENE DANIELS: So, guys, I think—what I thought was really interesting and what I left with was that they’re also understanding that this is a moment that they haven’t had before, and that they actually have to appear more serious. You know, when I was talking to the co-chair at the beginning there, one of the other parts of the conversation was that, you know, they know that people see them as like, silly little kids that are playing politics or — where in fact, they could, you know, take all of the anger that’s happening in this country and transition into something real. And so when you talk about, you know, that little pamphlet I had was something that they were giving out to everyone. And what was not in there was the stuff that has gotten the most attention from their platform. That’s on two pages. We have this in element one. There are a lot of things on there, but what wasn’t in that in that paper was there was no abolish the U.S. Senate, which has gotten them pilloried. There was no abolish the Defense Department. There was no there was nothing about defunding the police. That that was not in there. And what he said to me was this document that I was holding in my hand, has — was put together in the last month. So to me that signals that there may be some changes coming to the platform. 

Bibi and Trump: News Outlets Over-Interpret Minor Details

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Were there smiles?How long and warm were the handshakes? How was the body language? How did Trump’s voice sound?What White House door did the Israeli Prime Minister use to go in and see the President?On – and on and on – went these and other questions from the American media as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu arrived at the White House for his latest meeting with President Trump. There are multiple examples of this kind of media scrutiny of the President and the Trump White House, where minor details are over-interpreted and become major obsessions, as the two leaders met. Samples:Newsmax: Former Envoy Sees Rift Between Trump, NetanyahuWith bold print for emphasis supplied, this story reported: “A former Israeli ambassador to the United States said Thursday that Israel’s influence on U.S. policymaking has “diminished greatly” and that the relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump has grown less intimate.Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. for most of the Biden administration, told an Israeli radio station that his opinion is based on the optics of Netanyahu’s roughly 90-minute meeting with Trump on Tuesday at the White House.The meeting was held behind closed doors. There was no news conference afterward. Netanyahu reportedly entered the White House through a side entrance that was only partially visible to reporters. He left without fanfare.”Then there was this from Fox: Fox News Crew Notes Trump Was ‘Irked’ by Netanyahu Ahead of Oval Office Sit-DownThe story reported this on Trump’s tone of voice from the Fox reporter: (Lucas) Tomlinson noted afterwards Trump “sounded a little irked there with the Israeli prime minister talking about this intelligence, talking to the press, and not dealing with him directly.”Meanwhile The Times of Israel headlined: Why Netanyahu got the side-door treatment at the White HouseThen there was also this from The Times on the optics: Wary of perception that Israel driving war, Trump and Netanyahu opt to avoid optics altogether President keeps press out of meeting amid concern that a widely covered sit-down, as he mulls renewing Iran offensive, would bolster belief that PM wields outsized influence over USOn and on go similar headlines and “news” stories. The purpose is always the same: To use media scrutiny of body language to interpret the substance of serious policy meetings between the American President and the Israeli Prime Minister.Can body language sometimes be a tell on substance? For sure.As a young Reagan White House aide, I recall exactly how the body language of the famous Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavik, Iceland summit was a distinct tell that the suddenly-called summit between the American President and Soviet leader had not gone well. The summit was held in a one-room school house. There was no press inside, only outside the building. It did not go well. And when Gorbachev pressed to get an agreement favorable to the Soviets, demanding Reagan give up his strategic defense initiative — dubbed “Star Wars” by liberal opponents —  Reagan, per our staffer colleagues who were there in the room, told the rest of us Reagan staffers back in Washington that the President slapped the table and snapped to his Secretary of State George Shultz: “Let’s go, George.”With that, Reagan got up and led an American walkout. Gorbachev raced after him, the cameras running as the two emerged at the door to the building and began descending the steps. Reagan was plainly angry, the anger visible with the scowl on his face. Gorbachev said he didn’t know what else he could have done. To which Reagan replied brusquely: “You could have said yes.” With that the President brusquely shook hands, got in the open door of his limousine, slammed it shut and the Secret Service agent at the wheel gunned the engine and the President was off to the airport and his waiting Air Force One.All of which is to say, Reagan knew the media was swarming outside the schoolhouse. And, actor that he was, he knew exactly how to visibly demonstrate his decidedly genuine anger. In fact, this episode was the exception that proved the rule. Most of the time Reagan had a smile on his face during encounters with foreign leaders.But that never stopped the media from trying to read Reagan’s body language or that of a visiting congressional or foreign leader to interpret what had happened in the closed door meeting with the President and whomever.Which goes to say, it is all too easy for the media to try and read presidential body language and then tell the American people that A, B or C had happened. And in doing so, getting the substance of what happened behind closed doors wrong.Not to mention that in Trump’s case — and Reagan’s before that — there are members of the media who want to always sound “in the know” all too willing to say X happened behind closed doors based on what they interpret — wrongly — as signaled by presidential body language.In short, media scrutiny of Trump can easily be erroneously based on style versus substance. Which is another way of saying that for the sake of accuracy and the historical record it would be wiser for the media to wait until they hear whatever news they are expecting straight from the President himself or, at the very least, from a participant inside the room of whatever meeting is being held.Not too much to ask, is it? Alas, in the day and age of 21st century media and its incessant drive to know whatever happened behind the scenes of this or that presidential meeting and know it now! — right now! —  the answer sadly is yes.So the world spins on. In the very long ago (1960s) there was a popular TV show Dragnet, featuring a fictional ace detective named Joe Friday, played legendarily by actor Jack Webb. And as “Detective Friday” set about interrogating somebody about the crime he was investigating Friday would famously say that what he wanted from the witness was: “The facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”But as today’s media follows President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu everywhere, those words and the sentiment behind them still ring true. What the American people deserve from the media covering President Trump are the facts — just the facts. Which, it would seem, is not too much to ask. But they can’t wait to sound like they know everything immediately.

NBC Mourns Spanish Border Crisis Has ‘Been Seized On By President Trump’

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On both Friday’s installment of Nightly News and Saturday’s edition of Today, NBC correspondents Raf Sanchez and Matt Bradley lamented that President Trump noticed footage of the mass mob of migrants that rushed into Spain on Thursday and “seized” on them as a warning of what could happen here if Democrats win in November. Additionally, both undersold just how frustrated the rest of Europe is with the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.Sanchez began his Nightly News report by claiming, “Tonight, a deadly border crisis in North Africa becoming a global political flashpoint. Stunning images show thousands of Moroccans surging through checkpoints into the Spanish territory of Ceuta, a tiny peninsula and Europe’s only land border with an African nation.” NBC’s Raf Sznchez claims the Spanish border crisis is “becoming a global political flashpoint” and goes with the old Republicans Seize angle “the images of chaos have rattled Europe and been seized on by President Trump.” He also undersells European frustration with Spain by… pic.twitter.com/pZpwhzZ6lH— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 1, 2026 Amid video footage of the chaos, Sanchez added, “Most coming by land, but others attempting a dangerous journey by sea. This man appears to emerge from the water with a bicycle. At least 57 people have died so far, authorities say and most of the migrants have already returned home, but the images of chaos have rattled Europe and been seized on by President Trump.”A brief clip of Trump showed him declaring, “That same thing will happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected.”Raf Sanchez then wrapped things up by trying to paint Pedro Sanchez’s critics as just being conservative, “Spain has now sent in the military to restore order and the country’s progressive prime minister appealed for calm, but the crisis exposing deep divides among European Union member states. Italy’s conservative leader suggesting the suspension of the EU’s open border policy, which allows for passport-free travel between 29 countries. A migrant crisis once again shaking politics worldwide.”It’s not just Italy. Finland and Denmark, the latter of which has a social democratic prime minister, have echoed Rome’s sentiment. Beyond the 29-country Schengen Area, 22 of the 26 non-Spain EU countries have signed a letter blaming Sanchez’s decision to give amnesty to up to 1.2 million illegal immigrants for the crisis. For the American media that likes to portray Sanchez as the global leader of the anti-Trump resistance, this is a good reminder that frustration with him is not and never has been a solely Trumpian phenomenon. Matt Bradley does likewise, “These images you’re seeing, they’re already being used as political currency here in Europe and in the United States. President trump spoke about it yesterday, as you mentioned, attempting to turn this brief European and northern African migration… pic.twitter.com/kOXAWDtM0K— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) August 1, 2026 But NBC was not done. The following morning, Bradley declared, “These images you’re seeing, they’re already being used as political currency here in Europe and in the United States. President Trump spoke about it yesterday, as you mentioned, attempting to turn this brief European and Northern African migration crisis into an election issue for the upcoming midterms.”After playing a slightly longer version of the Trump clip Sanchez played on Friday, Bradley claimed, “It’s still unclear exactly what sparked this mass exodus. Many said they went because they had heard on social media that the borders were open.”The allure of amnesty for illegal border crossings naturally encourages people to rush the border. That’s true whether it’s the American border or the Spanish border, and it is not outrageous for Trump to warn about Democrats doing the same thing.NBC Nightly News7/31/20266:40 PM ETRAF SANCHEZ: Tonight, a deadly border crisis in North Africa becoming a global political flashpoint. Stunning images show thousands of Moroccans surging through checkpoints into the Spanish territory of Ceuta, a tiny peninsula and Europe’s only land border with an African nation. These cars torched on the Moroccan side of the border. Authorities in Ceuta say at least 60,000 migrants have crossed since yesterday, many hoping for better opportunities in Europe.MAN: It’s been a very tough experience to go from the ocean.SANCHEZ: Most coming by land, but others attempting a dangerous journey by sea. This man appears to emerge from the water with a bicycle. At least 57 people have died so far, authorities say and most of the migrants have already returned home, but the images of chaos have rattled Europe and been seized on by President Trump.DONALD TRUMP: That same thing will happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected.SANCHEZ: Spain has now sent in the military to restore order and the country’s progressive prime minister appealed for calm, but the crisis exposing deep divides among European Union member states. Italy’s conservative leader suggesting the suspension of the EU’s open border policy, which allows for passport free travel between 29 countries. A migrant crisis once again shaking politics worldwide. Raf Sanchez, NBC news.***NBC Today8/1/20267:10 AM ETMATT BRADLEY: For now, it does look like this is mostly over. Almost all of the around 50,000, mostly Moroccan migrants have since left the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa. The short, but perilous journey from Morocco to Ceuta, which it isn’t in Europe, it actually is in northern Africa. It led to at least 77 deaths, and this, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry. Some swam that short distance over the breakwaters, others crossed through border fences. Almost all of them left disappointed. There were no places to stay or opportunities to travel to Europe. Here you can see Spanish soldiers escorting them back over the border to Morocco. These images you’re seeing, they’re already being used as political currency here in Europe and in the United States. President Trump spoke about it yesterday, as you mentioned, attempting to turn this brief European and Northern African migration crisis into an election issue for the upcoming midterms. DONALD TRUMP: It looks like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people and that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected. Except worse. BRADLEY: It’s still unclear exactly what sparked this mass exodus. Many said they went because they had heard on social media that the borders were open. 

Here We Go Again! Soros-Funded Group Behind Eco-Extremist ‘Project 2029’ Democrat Effort

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The Soros regime is firing on all cylinders ahead of the midterms and the upcoming presidential election in a couple of years.

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The Roosevelt Institute was apparently the editing brains behind a 155-page “Project 2029” document authored by a cohort of former Biden administration officials, academics and policy experts that seeks to be one facet of a broader leftist variant to the conservative Project 2025 policy handbook. The purpose of the document was to make the spectre of climate change a primary political selling point to voters. The Institute’s Director of Industry and Trade Todd Tucker, who wrote the introduction, beamed that this agenda constituted “a slice of what a ‘Project 2029’–type effort for climate would look like, including adapting Donald Trump’s means to progressive ends.” Specifically, Tucker wrote chillingly, he offers observations on “why green statecraft can help us solve structural problems (e.g., outsize power of finance and the courts) that narrowerapproaches like affordability or abundance cannot.” In his own words, “the politics is ripe for anti–status quo action.” Tucker reportedly told E&E News, which reported on the document, that “[w]e sort of see this as the first step of injecting this into the bloodstream.” Holy dystopia, Batman!Sounds a lot like when George Soros sneered that the COVID-19 pandemic provided a “revolutionary moment” for political change, emphasizing the symmetry between the leftist billionaire and his grantees. Soros fueled at least $6,292,500 into the Roosevelt Institute’s back pockets between 2016 and 2024. One of the state methods highlighted in the disturbing document was using Trump’s cronyist purchase of shares in companies like Intel as an excuse to foster greater state control over the means of production:A few points are worth underlining here. First, while the Trump administration did not use climate rationale to justify these interventions, they represent important precedents for clean energy policymaking. Many of the companies produce minerals and goods that can help decarbonization. Moreover, some of the deals involve board seats that give the government eyes, ears, and voice on setting corporate priorities in a way that one-off grants do not (and with lower transaction costs than the latter). While this power can be bad in the wrong hands, it can be useful in the right ones.Who in the world gets to decide which “hands” are the so-called “right ones?” Talk about overdosing on your own hubris! After all, it was Soros himself who boasted in 2019 that he was trying to “bend” the “arc of history” in “the right direction.” It would appear the Roosevelt Institute is channeling the same energy.MRC Business reported last year that Soros had spent at least an enormous $618 million towards his goal of purchasing an eco-utopia that coincides with his dark open society worldview. It is clear that he’s going to use “Project 2029” as one of his vehicles. Soros is already the top donor of the 2026 midterms so far, dumping at least $102 million to support radical candidates to swing control of Congress back to the left.