Commentary Culture Investigations

Might it be better, for some students and subjects, to work within shorter time spans?

The Virginia public school district that allowed a 19-year-old illegal immigrant to enroll in high school and sexually assault multiple girls is now paying a global law firm to “investigate” the crimes and offer legal advice, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. The big league firm, the state’s largest, is billing taxpayers up to $1,850 an hour to tame blowback ignited by the scandal, which involves Fairfax High School in northern Virginia, a Washington D.C. suburb. The campus is part of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), the Old Dominion state’s biggest public school system and ninth largest in the U.S. with and enrollment of 177,000 across 200 campuses. FCPS prides itself on serving a “diverse population” that speaks 194 languages and the district with a budget of $3.9 billion spends $21,986 per student, which is above the national average of around $16,000. FCPS received dozens of complaints about female students being groped and sexually assaulted before the high school finally had the illegal immigrant arrested, information obtained by Judicial Watch reveals.
Thanks to sanctuary policies that protect illegal immigrants—even those convicted of serious crimes—Virginia is inevitably a magnet for the undocumented. In this case an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, Israel Flores Ortiz, was welcomed into the community and allowed to enroll in 11th grade, despite his advanced age. Virginia officials claim Ortiz is 18 years old but federal authorities confirm he is 19 and living in Fairfax after entering the U.S. illegally in 2024 and released into the country under Biden’s disastrous open border policies. A Fairfax Police investigation determined that Ortiz, “an adult male student assaulted numerous female juvenile victims.” The illegal alien was transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center last month and charged with 13 counts of assault and battery. He is scheduled for a court hearing in early April. Initially Ortiz was charged with nine counts, but additional victims came forward, according to city officials. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is demanding that Fairfax County sanctuary politicians not release the “illegal alien pedophile” who groped high school girls. “This 19-year-old criminal illegal alien should NOT have been attending a Virginia high school and allowed to prey on innocent teenage girls,” said DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.
The agency blasted Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger for ending cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and “siding with criminal illegal aliens over American citizens.” DHS confirms the recently elected governor has released pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and murderers onto Virginia’s streets. Earlier this year Spanberger issued an executive order terminating all cooperation between state law enforcement agencies and corrections departments and ICE, the DHS law enforcement agency charged with protecting national security and public safety by, among other things, enforcing immigration laws. The directive will put more Virginians and law enforcement in danger, according to a Virginia congressman, who condemned the order. “This action creates a dangerous situation where liberal paid protestors can interfere with federal officers who are working hard to get dangerous criminals off our streets,” said Republican John McGuire, who is serving his first House term. “Law enforcement cooperation with local, state and federal agencies is vital to the safety of our Commonwealth.”
Spanberger’s order will undoubtedly attract more criminal aliens like Ortiz, who will feel protected from federal immigration authorities and shielded from deportation. Even for a local government like Fairfax County that has long offered illegal immigrants sanctuary, failing to act against a repeat sexual predator on school grounds takes it to the next level. Now the school will spend taxpayer dollars to “retain an independent outside law firm to conduct a comprehensive review,” according to a statement issued by FCPS Superintendent Michelle Reid. The goal, according to the superintendent, is “to establish a clear understanding of what occurred, when it occurred, and confirm that all policies, procedures, and regulations were properly followed.” The law firm hired by the district, McGuireWoods, claims its experience in high-stakes litigation and government investigations is second to none. “We have represented Fortune 100 companies and individuals in some of the most prominent criminal, regulatory and investigative matters in recent years, repeatedly earning top national accolades,” the firms website states. The records obtained by Judicial Watch indicate the firm bills from $700 per hour for associates to $1,850 per hour for senior partners and that the firm agreed to offer FCPS some unspecified “discount.”
The post Public School Dist. That Let 19-year-old Illegal Alien Sexually Assault Multiple Girls Hires Global Law Firm appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Despite the liberal media’s hyperbolic chicanery fearing President Trump’s Truth Social post about wiping out Iranian infrastructure and their civilization writ large if the terrorist regime didn’t agree to a peace plan and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump’s maximalist position bore fruit as he announced a ceasefire at 6:32 p.m. Eastern.

Other than looking like fools, it was worst-case scenario for ABC, CBS, and NBC as the post came out at the onset of their flagship network evening newscasts. ABC’s World News Tonight was particularly embarrassed as they seemed to do little to upend their taped propaganda reports and instead footnote the sudden change at the end, rendering their slop wholly irrelevant.

In contrast, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News didn’t seem to panic, play taped reports that no long mattered, etc. They instead remained calm and almost certainly cleared space in the newscast for extra discussion and immediate reaction. And, in NBC’s case, scrap part of the newscast’s run in the Eastern and Central time zones for a network-wide Special Report.

For a few examples of ABC’s hyperbole, anchor David Muir — always a sensationalist — beamed in a tease and was followed minutes later by chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce (click “expand”):

MUIR: Tonight, there are several breaking stories as we come on the air. President Trump’s new threat to Iran If no deal by 8:00 p.m. Eastern “a whole civilization will die tonight.” If no deal, the U.S. will destroy bridges and power plants. And what the American pope is now saying about President Trump’s threats. And the outrage from lawmakers over his words. We’ll go live to Mary Bruce and Ian Panell in the region tonight. Iran this evening with their own new warning how they’ll respond.

(….)

BRUCE: The President of the United States sending shock waves through the nation and the world with his dire warning about Iran. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” He called the run-up to tonight’s 8pm deadline one of the most important moments in the history of the world, saying “47 years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end.” And finally, this, “God bless the great people of Iran.” The President’s extraordinary threat that a whole civilization will die tonight condemned by the first American pope…Here at home, by dozens of Democratic lawmakers…Trump’s close ally, Tucker Carlson, disgusted.

Bruce offered more of this spin and, after concluding with sound from someone inside Iran unsurprisingly opposed to Trump, Muir admitted Trump had announced a deal:

Unlike CBS and NBC, the pivot to Trump’s Truth Social on Iran by ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’ was….rough.
Anchor David Muir and chief WH correspondent Mary Bruce offered an extremely hyperbolic intro then lead report…only to then all but say nevermind. They then aired chief… pic.twitter.com/JnGBOzWZ2x
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 8, 2026
“And Mary, we have become accustomed to news breaking as we’re on the air with the network newscast at 6:30. And tonight is no different. You have learned tonight of a potential, a potential two week cease-fire. Who’s agreed to this and where does it stand,” Muir declared.

Bruce simply read excerpts of the post before casting doubt on its validity because there was “no word yet from Iran.”

Muir reiterated that and, instead of having Bruce say more or going live to chief foreign correspondent Ian Panell, ABC and Muir aired Panell’s now-irrelevant 63-second taped story “from the region.” Only then did Muir ask again from he’s heard word from the Iranians to which Panell would only say Trump’s post was “significant” and could be “a significant lowering of the temperature.”

Scintillating analysis!

Going to Exhibit A of how to handle the change, CBS senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang came immediately out of her taped story at 6:34 p.m. Eastern — and just two minutes after Trump’s post — to read the key phrases aloud. 

Jiang calmly asserted Trump’s “threats are on hold for now, because, just moments ago, President Trump posted on Truth Social” and “for now, the attacks are on hold, and there will be more time to try to sort out a permanent deal.”

This was a great on-the-fly pivot by the @CBSEveningNews by @TonyDokoupil, @Weijia Jiang, and @AaronBMacLean starting at 634pm Eastern to cover the breaking news of Trump’s Truth Social post on an Iranian ceasefire.
They almost certainly cleared space in the newscast for extra… pic.twitter.com/n42bQrt4aX
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 8, 2026
With CBS News national security analyst Aaron MacLean on-set, anchor Tony Dokoupil immediately scrapped whatever he had planned to ask him in favor of simply, “what do you make of it” followed by inviting him to explain to viewers the importance of Strait of Hormuz. 

On the former, MacLean said “the devil is going to be in the details about this cease-fire” and what kinds of ships (from Iranian allies, adversaries, or both) would be allowed to move through the strait.

As for the latter, MacLean ran contrary to the legacy media by calmly telling viewers Trump had “a series of ambitious, but limited objectives” in the war of defeating “Iran’s missile program, its infrastructure to build missiles, its navy, its nuclear program, and its support for terror proxies.” But as part of accomplishing that, Iran played one of its only remaining cards in holding “the global economy hostage” via the strait’s closure.

Dokoupil and MacLean continued their recalibrated discussions about Iran acquiescing to Trump’s threats (as opposed to the rest of the press asserting it’s Trump who caved), why and how Iran still remains a threat, the role of Pakistan, and the biggest questions going forward. Click “expand” to read it as it’s the kind of sober analysis the hair-on-fire Bluesky Brigade could use as a needed sedative:

DOKOUPIL: As much as people heard the President’s comments like ending Iranian civilization and thought he’s not a rational actor in this, it didn’t seem like the Iranian side was a rational actor in this. What do you make of them suddenly saying, actually, we will reopen the strait?

MACLEAN: Well, there’s a lot we don’t know. We don’t know actually who the President is talking to through these intermediaries in Iran. It is possible, when you work your way through the details of this revolutionary regime, you’re going to find somebody who’s willing to buy some time. The Ayatollah Khamenei, who, of course, was killed on the first day of this war, occasionally took the limited option, occasionally took the way out in past rounds of violence. After his death, we seem pretty stuck in on round after round of escalation. It’s possible they have found somebody who is willing to do a deal. However, they have to watch what this means. What does it mean that the Strait of Hormuz is actually open? The Iranians are sort of famous for making an agreement and then taking a few steps back.

DOKOUPIL: And then will the shipping companies actually trust the cease-fire and will the flow of oil continue? One of the things I have been confused by, and I think people at home probably are as well, is, we have thousands upon thousands of successful strikes on Iran. How is it that, after all of those strikes, they are still capable of launching missiles and drones that hit Israel, that hit our bases in the Middle East, that hit our allies?

MACLEAN: Well, Tony, you may be familiar with the Adam Smith quote that there’s a great deal of ruin in a nation. There’s a great deal of ruin in a military as well. Take the Iranian missile program, for an example. These missile stockpiles are buried deep underground. We bomb the entrance to the stockpile, the tunnel that leads into it. The Iranians dig it back out again. There is no question that the United States has heavily degraded Iran’s missile capacity, just to stick with this one category. It’s not capable of the kind of things it was capable of at the start of this war. It’s certainly not capable of what it was back in 2023 post- October 7. But that doesn’t mean it can’t fire five, 10, 25 missiles a day, which is enough not to accomplish serious military objectives, but it is enough to be destabilizing. It is enough potentially to retaliate if the President went after Iranian nuclear — or power plants.

DOKOUPIL: What’s the significance of Pakistan playing the mediator here?

MACLEAN: It’s a very interesting aspect of all this. Pakistan, of course, is very close to China. And that’s a question I want to pull the thread on here in the days ahead, is, what is China’s role in all of this? What is the significance of Pakistan asserting itself as an intermediary like this? You know who’s not happy about this? It’s going to be the Indians, of course, who have longstanding tensions with the nation of Pakistan.

DOKOUPIL: All right, so of the new information we got tonight, just moments ago, we have a cease-fire. What’s the most important thing to watch between now and the next beat in this war?

MACLEAN: When we wake up in the next few days, if this cease-fire indeed sticks and if the Strait of Hormuz rhetorically is open, is it actually open? Do we see ships going through the international channel in the middle of the strait? Is the U.S. Navy allowed to sail back into the Persian Gulf? Or are we asking Iranian permission to do that? That’s another thing I’d ask.

Over on NBC Nightly News, they played out the string on senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez’s voice-over report before breaking the news and spending the next roughly two minutes relaying the Truth Social post (click here to read the transcript):

Over on @NBCNightlyNews, anchor Tom @LlamasNBC and senior WH correspondent @GabeGutierrez did a solid job adjusting on the fly to Trump’s Truth Social post about a ceasefire with Iran.
For a show that’s tightly scheduled out, solid adjustment (and to then drop everything less… pic.twitter.com/MpjhjrgN4T
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 8, 2026
Less than ten minutes later and using a commercial break as a brief prep period, Llamas brought the entire NBC network together across the timezones for an NBC News Special Report with Gutierrez and Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kube:

This NBC News Special Report by Tom @LlamasNBC during @NBCNightlyNews reminds me of when Brian Williams had to drop everything and bring the full country in during the Boston bomber manhunt pic.twitter.com/p9sdYkJIU1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 8, 2026
From there, he simply pivoted back to hosting the first edition of Nightly News, making it appear easy when it certainly wasn’t.

MS NOW star Rachel Maddow should have extra time to prepare her long lecturing monologues on Monday night, since she’s only doing one show a week for a reported $25 million a year (nice work if you can get it). But on April 6, she borrowed from an NPR story to underline how the Trump administration is mistreating the veterans in this time of war. It’s too bad she didn’t actually seem to read the whole article that she was sharing with her superfans.

It unfolded like this, next to the graphic “Breaking Bad,” as if Trump is like the drug kingpin in that show.  

MADDOW: How are these guys doing taking care of the troops and the veterans who come home from war? This is the lede from NPR. Quote, more than 10,000 veterans lost their homes to foreclosure since May of last year, when the Trump administration shut down a key safety net in the VA home loan program. Quote, the Trump administration was warned this would happen. At a hearing in March 2025 before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, a representative from the Mortgage Bankers Association warned about it explicitly. quote, ‘Foreclosure. Period. That’s really where it’s going to come to. Nevertheless, less than two months later, the Trump administration shut down the rescue program anyway. Since then, more than 10,000 U.S. veterans have lost their homes through foreclosure sales.

Rachel Maddow makes propaganda with an NPR story on veterans losing their homes under Trump.
She left out the part where NPR explained “The roots of the crisis go back to a mistake made during the Biden administration…” Because Maddow makes propaganda. https://t.co/6ATT2mDAg7 pic.twitter.com/5Y25HdlLeW
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 7, 2026
Maddow left out the part where NPR’s investigative reporters explained the problem goes back to the Biden administration, even if the story still pushed an anti-Trump angle: 

The roots of the crisis go back to a mistake made during the Biden administration, when the VA abruptly shut down a pandemic assistance program while thousands of vets were still in the middle of it. Struggling homeowners who used the program to skip some mortgage payments suddenly had to pay those payments back all at once — an unaffordable burden for many of them. After an NPR investigation exposed the problem, the VA halted foreclosures for a year while it rolled out a fix.

Republicans in Congress, citing costs, wanted to kill that fix and replace it with something else. But last spring, the mortgage industry warned that shutting down the program without first replacing it would be a disaster.

“Foreclosure. Period. That’s really where it’s gonna come to,” warned Elizabeth Balce, representing the Mortgage Bankers Association, at a hearing in March of 2025 before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Less than two months later, the Trump administration shut down the rescue program anyway.

The story highlights sympathetic veterans who now can’t make the payments that are suddenly demanded. There’s really nobody from the Republican side quoted (the Trump VA offered a written statement). So the NPR story has an anti-Trump slant — but not as propagandistic as Maddow’s little cartoon of a commentary. (The piece that aired on Morning Edition sounded more anti-Trump than the online version.)

Remember, Maddow’s fans in the media have long gushed over her as a “Wonky-Tonk Woman” who always “does her “homework.” Well, she flunked this exam. 

PBS debuted a new two-part documentary on Tuesday by Lucy Worsley that seeks to cover the American Revolution from the British perspective and how its series of missteps led to the loss of the colonies. At one point in part one, Worsley interviewed Prof. Olivette Otele in a segment that sounded like it came out of The 1619 Project, as both suggested the Dunmore Proclamation had a lot to do with the Southern colonies being pushed to join the rebellion despite the historical timeline not matching up with such an assertion.

Worsley teased that, “At the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, I’m meeting a historian to examine newspaper reports from December 1775. They tell a remarkable story about Lord Dunmore, Britain’s royal governor in Virginia.”

After Otele repeated that biographical information, Worsley asked, “And what was going on in Virginia? Was it a tough assignment? Was there rebellion?”

 

On PBS’s documentary on the American Revolution from the British perspective, Lucy Worsley and Prof. Olivette Otele give a 1619 Project-esque view of the rebellion in the southern colonies.
Worsley says “I guess if I were a plantation owner then and I was feeling pretty loyal to… pic.twitter.com/3uOJDXiYtM
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 8, 2026
 

Otele replied:

He found a colony that was extremely wealthy and that had the largest enslaved people’s population in the colonies, in the 13 colonies.

But at the same time, he was lacking supplies and he didn’t have reinforcement, and he was more or less forced to do—to take initiative. So what he decided to do is to issue a proclamation, and this is what the proclamation says. ” And I do hereby further declare all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be.”

He is willing to offer freedom to any enslaved people or to indentured servants who’d be willing to join the British side.

After the pair discussed how Dunmore did not issue the proclamation out of the goodness of his heart but rather as a strictly practical measure, Worsley declared, “I guess if I were a plantation owner then and I was feeling pretty loyal to the British, not very keen on the rebellion, this might tip me over the other way.”

Otele agreed, “Yes, the colonists were absolutely outraged. They actually believed that enslaved people would be freed by the British all across the colonies, and therefore it was an assault on their livelihood, on the economy. They saw it as an attempt at, you know, stopping their right to ownership and property.”

The duo then discussed how Dunmore’s move backfired before Worsley added, “This proclamation had dramatic and far-reaching consequences. Emancipation was being used as a weapon of war. And it pushed more Southern, slave-owning colonies straight into the revolutionary camp.”

The idea that the Dunmore Proclamation helped fuel the rebellion was The 1619 Project’s key bit of evidence that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery before professional historians called them out on it. The main counterargument is that the Dunmore Proclamation was a response to a rebellion that was already growing and not the cause of one, which Worsley and Otele sort of alluded to but ultimately minimized with Worsley’s conclusion.

Additionally, the Dunmore Proclamation was issued in November 1775, but by that point Virginia had sent delegates to the First Continental Congress in September 1774. George Washington, a Virginian himself, was appointed to lead the Continental Army in June 1775 by the Second Continental Congress that convened a month earlier. By July of 1775, all 13 colonies would join Congress.

Human motives are not always pure, and there were probably some people who fell into the camp Worsley and Otele were describing, but Virginia joined the Revolution out of solidarity with Boston and opposition to British taxes and other offenses. No matter how much PBS or The 1619 Project tries to make slavery a key part of the revolution, it will not suddenly become true.

Here is a transcript for the April 7 show:

PBS Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution: The Break Up

4/7/2026

9:44 PM ET

LUCY WORSLEY: At the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, I’m meeting a historian to examine newspaper reports from December 1775. They tell a remarkable story about Lord Dunmore, Britain’s royal governor in Virginia.

Tell me a bit about Lord Dunmore. Who was he?

OLIVETTE OTELE: He was the fourth Earl of Dunmore, known as John Murray, and he was the royal colonial governor of Virginia.

WORSLEY: And what was going on in Virginia? Was it a tough assignment? Was there rebellion?

OTELE: He found a colony that was extremely wealthy and that had the largest enslaved people’s population in the colonies, in the 13 colonies.

But at the same time, he was lacking supplies and he didn’t have reinforcement, and he was more or less forced to do—to take initiative. So what he decided to do is to issue a proclamation, and this is what the proclamation says. ” And I do hereby further declare all indentured Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops as soon as may be.”

He is willing to offer freedom to any enslaved people or to indentured servants who’d be willing to join the British side.

WORSLEY: That’s a really extraordinary statement, isn’t it? He’s saying, “Look, if you’re enslaved, and you’re on the rebel side, and if you come over to the British loyalist side, I will give you your freedom.”

And do you think he was doing that because he actually believed that they deserved freedom and that slavery was a bad thing?

OTELE: No, Dunmore was calculating, it was strategic. What he wanted to do was to have more men fighting on the British side, and he was backed into a corner. That’s why he made the decision.

WORSLEY: Do you know how many formerly enslaved black Virginians joined up who actually, you know, became part of the British army?

OTELE: We don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s between 800 and 2,000 people who joined him. And he set up a regiment, which was the Ethiopian Regiment.

WORSLEY: I guess if I were a plantation owner then and I was feeling pretty loyal to the British, not very keen on the rebellion, this might tip me over the other way.

OTELE: Yes, the colonists were absolutely outraged. They actually believed that enslaved people would be freed by the British all across the colonies, and therefore it was an assault on their livelihood, on the economy. They saw it as an attempt at, you know, stopping their right to ownership and property.

WORSLEY: So from the point of view of Lord Dunmore, this seems to me like a total own goal.

OTELE: Yes, Lord Dunmore didn’t think, I think, this through. He thought about the immediate consequences, but not necessarily the long-term impact on the war after that.

WORSLEY: This proclamation had dramatic and far-reaching consequences. Emancipation was being used as a weapon of war. And it pushed more Southern, slave-owning colonies straight into the revolutionary camp.

War is a deadly serious business, and should not be waged except in that spirit.

ANN ARBOR and EAST LANSING, Mich.—The left-wing Democrat running for Michigan’s open Senate seat, Abdul El-Sayed, campaigned Tuesday alongside anti-American streamer Hasan Piker. El-Sayed railed against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and what he called the “genocidal” war in Iran, suggesting that U.S. lawmakers only support the war because of money from the pro-Israel advocacy group.
“Our president is waging a genocidal, illegal, unjustifiable war in Iran that is torching our tax dollars to the tune of $1.5 billion a day,” El-Sayed said during his second campaign stop at the University of Michigan. “I am proud that AIPAC has called me the single most dangerous candidate for the U.S. Senate. I’m the only candidate in this race who’s never asked for an AIPAC endorsement, only candidate in this race that is not supported by the Israel lobby.”
“In America we believe that it should be one person, one vote, not $100 million corrupting our entire politics because AIPAC said so,” El-Sayed continued. He made similar comments at an earlier rally at Michigan State University. After asking the crowd, “Why are we at war with Iran?” an audience member shouted back, “AIPAC.” El-Sayed paused his speech to point at the person approvingly.

JUST IN: Abdul El-Sayed (D) has taken the stage for his rally at MSU, asking the crowd: “Why are we at war with Iran?”
He says Netanyahu finally found a “dumbass willing to do it,” referring to President Trump. When someone shouts “AIPAC,” he grins and points right back at… pic.twitter.com/xJI0juP132
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 7, 2026

El-Sayed rallied alongside Piker—who has said “America deserved 9/11” and argued that it “doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7″—as well as Reps. Summer Lee (D., Pa.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), both members of the “Squad.” Piker lashed out at those who call him anti-Semitic, saying the criticism is no longer “consequential.”
“The smear campaigns that started shortly after October 7 were obviously a lot more consequential, a lot more successful back then, but now I can easily say, ‘F— them,’ because I’m no longer alone,” Piker said at the University of Michigan rally. “Neither are you. That’s a positive change you should hold close to your chest, and that’s exactly the attitude.” Earlier in the day, at the Michigan State event, Piker said “people like myself and people like yourselves” were “smeared” as “radical … and yet we persevered.”

JUST IN: Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has said America deserved 9/11, is on stage for Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s packed rally at Michigan State University. Piker said “smear campaigns started shortly after Oct. 7.” @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/chrcnVJktk
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 7, 2026

El-Sayed is locked in a tight three-way Democratic primary in which he’s the most extreme candidate. His appearance with Piker is his latest controversial move, coming a week after a Washington Free Beacon report on a private campaign strategy call held one day after the death of former Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. El-Sayed said he could not make a public statement about Khamenei’s death because “there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad,” the Free Beacon reported. After the call was published, El-Sayed said the Free Beacon “may have illegally and unethically obtained” the audio. His statement did not mention Khamenei.
El-Sayed’s primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens and state senator Mallory McMorrow, criticized El-Sayed’s decision to campaign alongside Piker. Stevens said the streamer built a career on “hurtful and anti-Semitic comments,” while McMorrow described Piker as “somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks.”
“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider, referencing the recent Hezbollah-inspired terror attack on a Michigan synagogue. “You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.”
About 40 minutes southwest of that synagogue, at the University of Michigan, El-Sayed rallied alongside Tlaib, who represents the Arab-majority city of Dearborn where the synagogue attacker lived. Tlaib, sporting a keffiyeh, said she backs El-Sayed because “I don’t want to have to convince my senator not to fund another bomb, another destruction, another dime to genocide.”

JUST IN: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has taken the stage at Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s rally at the University of Michigan.
“I don’t want to have to convince my senator not to fund another bomb, another destruction, another dime to genocide.” @FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/HS8aoPh1qX
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 8, 2026

Ahead of the Michigan State rally, a reporter asked El-Sayed if he disavows any of Piker’s views.
“I’m not here to disavow people’s views,” he said. “This whole gotcha game, platform policing, cancel culture, I thought we were over it.”
Piker, for his part, said El-Sayed is “what the moment needs, and that’s why I said yes to coming on board.”
Earlier in the day, during a Fox News appearance, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker. He argued that the streamer’s comments need to be viewed in “context.”
“It’s important to talk about context,” he told Fox and Friends host Lawrence Jones. “The issue that you’re trying to do is paint me … with out-of-context quotes taken out of context specifically to ask me these questions.”
El-Sayed also said Piker’s critics are engaging in “cancel culture.”
“Because you appear with somebody doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything,” he contended. “My question to you is, when did we start bending to cancel culture?”
Just hours before the rallies, however, El-Sayed appeared to agree with an X post from Piker  reading, “donald trump is adolf hitler.” Piker’s statement came in response to Trump’s threat to bomb Iranian infrastructure sites and destroy “a whole civilization” if the Islamic Republic did not agree to a ceasefire deal by 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Trump announced a ceasefire hours ahead of that deadline as El-Sayed and Piker campaigned at Michigan State.

“I mean, when you’re threatening genocide against the whole people, that speaks for itself,” El-Sayed told Politico when asked about Piker’s post. “You’re talking about a country of 93 million and he’s talking about a whole civilization ceasing to exist. That is Hitler-like rhetoric.”
Piker has long defended terrorism against the United States and its allies. He said during a 2019 video appearance that “America deserved 9/11, dude. F— it, I’m saying it.”
On his show, Piker called Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack a “direct consequence” of Israeli and U.S. government actions and said that if civilian women were raped during the assault, it “doesn’t change the dynamic for me.” He has also said “hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, called Orthodox Jews “inbred,” and praised the “mujahideen” who attacked U.S. soldiers during the War on Terror as “brave.”
When Jones, the Fox News host, asked El-Sayed about his leaked Khamenei remarks ahead of Wednesday’s rallies, the Democrat drew an equivalence between the “regime” of the Islamic Republic and the “regime” of the United States.
“I’m no apologist for any regime, including our own,” he said. “And at the end of the day, the question is whether or not a leader focuses on his or her people. Clearly, the Ayatollah did not, and clearly Donald Trump and this administration is not either.”
Tuesday was not the first time El-Sayed appeared with Piker. Both El-Sayed and Piker were featured speakers during a March 28 online rally held by the left-wing group Progressive Victory. When the left-wing streamer Vaush said he did not know how the “Democratic Party can survive” without making opposition to Israel a core tenet of its platform, El-Sayed jumped in.
“I think you hit the nail on the head,” he said. “If this is not a legitimate space for conversation about where our tax dollars go in the aftermath of having subsidized genocide and now getting pulled into an absolutely insane war in Iran because Netanyahu finally found an American president stupid enough to take us there, then I don’t know what is.”
At the University of Michigan, El-Sayed told attendees, “How dare I say that I love Jewish people without standing up against the genocide against the Palestinian people.”

JUST IN: At his University of Michigan rally, Dem. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told the crowd, “How dare I say that I love Jewish people without standing up against the genocide against the Palestinian people.”@FreeBeacon pic.twitter.com/HGV8NNdNmo
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 8, 2026

The rally opened with remarks from Amir Makled, a Dearborn-based civil rights attorney and candidate for an open seat on the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents. Makled represented nearly a dozen University of Michigan students who faced criminal charges stemming from their involvement in an illegal anti-Israel campus encampment in 2024.
The post Michigan’s El-Sayed, Campaigning Alongside Anti-American Streamer Hasan Piker, Suggests US Lawmakers Only Support ‘Genocidal’ Iran War Because of AIPAC appeared first on .

Fresh off of cheering on Iran for how they “humiliated” President Trump by trying to kill American airmen, MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell kicked off Tuesday night’s show by suggesting Adolf Hitler wasn’t as bad a leader as Trump. He went even further and suggested that America committed suicide as a civilization when voters elected Trump a second time.

As O’Donnell was coming on the air, his first words were a jab a trump and praise for Hitler. “’A whole civilization will die tonight.’ Hitler never said that,” he declared for the man who wanted to exterminate the Jews and wrote an entire book about it.

According to O’Donnell, no villain in the history of the world was as bad as Trump. “No head of state in the history of the world ever said that. Civilization had to wait literally thousands of years until today, April 7th, 2026 at 8:06 A.M. for a head of state to say and threaten ‘A whole civilization will die tonight,’” he asserted.

Adding: “No cruel king ever threatened that, no mass murdering tyrant anywhere in the world ever said that, or even thought it was possible.”

Since NewsBusters already established that O’Donnell either didn’t know history or was obfuscating it from his audience, he might want to chat with the Jews and Gypsies Hitler tried to eradicate, the Ukrainians who survived Joesph Stalin’s Holodomor, anyone living through any of the ongoing genocides in Africa, or anyone who survived any communist regime anywhere.

“And with that statement, it could not be more tragically clear now that a whole civilization has already died,” O’Donnell sneered as he proceeded to rant about how American voters killed the American civilization.

 

Lawrence O’Donnell commends Hitler for being better than Trump because he supposedly never expressed “A whole civilization will die tonight” and claims America as a civilization was dead, that it committed suicide by electing Trump a second time:
O’DONNELL: ‘A whole civilization… pic.twitter.com/2n5e3BtHX6
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 8, 2026
 

O’Donnell’s disdain for the American voters who returned Trump to office was palpable. He essentially suggested they had led America to committing suicide:

The whole civilization, beginning with the model of the British parliament leading to the first independent American government formed under the Articles of Confederation, followed by the Constitution that wrote the presidency into existence, and nearly 250 years of the American presidency.

All of that, that whole civilization forming the presidency, died with the elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency a second time, proving that it wasn’t just an electoral college accident, the first time. The country that claimed so self-righteously to be the conscience of the world, and sometimes in some ways came very close to reaching that ideal, elected a president who had been convicted of business fraud and covering up payments to a porn star in a failed attempt to keep her quiet about his sexual relationship with her, while his third wife was still nursing his youngest child. A man who was indicted and criminally charged with violations of the Espionage Act and illegal possession of classified documents. A man who was indicted for conspiracy against the United States of America for trying to overthrow a presidential election.

“When that man was elected president of the United States the second time…this is what the collapse of a civilization looks like,” he proclaimed.

Steeped in theatrics, and suggesting hyperbolic words were greater than literal genocidal action, O’Donnell bloviated that, “the United States of America now must live with the permanent stain on our history, that we are the only country in the world who has produced a head of state, who said, ‘a whole civilization will die tonight.’”

It’s worth noting that he said all this with the words “Trump retreats. Again.” over his shoulder (pictured above), mocking the President for NOT killing a whole civilization that night.

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

MS NOW’s The Last Word
April 7, 2026
10:00:49 a.m. Eastern

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: ‘A whole civilization will die tonight.’ Hitler never said that. No head of state in the history of the world ever said that. Civilization had to wait literally thousands of years until today, April 7th, 2026 at 8:06 A.M. for a head of state to say and threaten ‘A whole civilization will die tonight.’

No cruel king ever threatened that, no mass murdering tyrant anywhere in the world ever said that, or even thought it was possible.

And so, the United States of America now must live with the permanent stain on our history, that we are the only country in the world who has produced a head of state, who said, ‘a whole civilization will die tonight.’

And with that statement, it could not be more tragically clear now that a whole civilization has already died. The whole civilization, beginning with the model of the British parliament leading to the first independent American government formed under the Articles of Confederation, followed by the Constitution that wrote the presidency into existence, and nearly 250 years of the American presidency.

All of that, that whole civilization forming the presidency, died with the elevation of Donald Trump to the presidency a second time, proving that it wasn’t just an electoral college accident, the first time. The country that claimed so self-righteously to be the conscience of the world, and sometimes in some ways came very close to reaching that ideal, elected a president who had been convicted of business fraud and covering up payments to a porn star in a failed attempt to keep her quiet about his sexual relationship with her, while his third wife was still nursing his youngest child. A man who was indicted and criminally charged with violations of the Espionage Act and illegal possession of classified documents. A man who was indicted for conspiracy against the United States of America for trying to overthrow a presidential election.

When that man was elected president of the United States the second time, the very fabric of the civilization that knitted the Constitution into an acceptable form of government for 13 states, with varying and sometimes conflicting interests, and delivered a presidency often occupied by the most admired person in the country and always occupied by someone who lived in awe of the civilization that produced the presidency, until Donald Trump. This is what the collapse of a civilization looks like.

(…)

CBS’s Stephen Colbert welcomed singer Brandi Carlile to Tuesday’s taping of The Late Show, where the duo looked back on a concert she gave in Minneapolis. According to Carlile, the concert was meant to honor the people there who showed the country how to “defeat something so oppressive.”

Colbert recalled that “in February, you played a show in Minneapolis. Raised $700,000—raised $700,000 for the families affected by ICE, and the show was live-streamed globally.”

He then wondered, “And I’m just curious, with that big platform, what is the message that you wanted to send?”

 

Stephen Colbert recalls singer Brandi Carlile raising “$700,000 for the families affected by ICE” and Carlile adds on “the people that already had tickets that were coming to the show and most of them have bought tickets, you know, before the, sort of, occupation that they were… pic.twitter.com/WZA1JqYDM6
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 8, 2026
 

Carlile replied, “I knew that there was going to be a certain kind of, like, like-mindedness in the crowd, you know, with the people… that already had tickets that were coming to the show, and most of them have bought tickets, you know, before the, sort of, occupation that they were dealing with as a city, and so they had just been through something really trying, and they had just set an example for the rest of the country for what it could look like to come together across the aisle in some way to defeat something so oppressive, which is what the takeover of ICE was in Minneapolis.”

She also remembered how “at the end of the concert, we had this amazing group of women called The Singing Resistance come out, and they wrote this song called ‘It’s Okay to Change Your Mind,’ and I can get emotional talking about it, and they sang this outside the lodging and hotel rooms of ICE agents.”

Colbert, who was perfectly willing to hurl Nazi allegations at ICE, echoed the idea, “I heard them sing that song. It was beautiful. And a beautiful idea too. That invitation, like, it’s okay if at any point you feel, you feel you understand what you’re doing is wrong, we’re not going to give you hell for changing your mind. That’s okay. Change your mind.”

Carlile then continued, “So, they came out on stage at the end, and we sang that song, and it streamed out to people that maybe didn’t know what they were getting into, and that’s what I was sort of hoping for. That would be my message, it’s okay to change your mind.”

Throughout ICE’s time in Minneapolis, they never actually took over governance from the state or city. There was no “occupation,” but state and local officials do not have the right to declare themselves immune from federal law. Ultimately, Minneapolis proved that there is ultimately no such thing as a sanctuary city, and that is what Colbert and Carlile had a hard time accepting.

Here is a transcript for the April 7-taped show:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

4/8/2026

12:23 AM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: In February, you played a show in Minneapolis.

BRANDI CARLILE: Yeah.

COLBERT: Raised $700,000—raised $700,000 for the families affected by ICE, and the show was live-streamed globally.

CARLILE: Yeah.

COLBERT: A lot of music off of here, I assume? And I’m just curious, with that big platform, what is the message that you wanted to send?

CARLILE: Well, I knew that there was going to be a certain kind of, like, like-mindedness in the crowd, you know, with the people—

COLBERT: Your people.

CARLILE: —yeah—that already had tickets that were coming to the show, and most of them have bought tickets, you know, before the, sort of, occupation that they were dealing with as a city, and so they had just been through something really trying, and they had just set an example for the rest of the country for what it could look like to come together across the aisle in some way to defeat something so oppressive, which is what the takeover of ICE was in Minneapolis.

And at the end of the concert, we had this amazing group of women called The Singing Resistance come out, and they wrote this song called “It’s Okay to Change Your Mind,” and I can get emotional talking about it, and they sang this outside the lodging and hotel rooms of ICE agents.

COLBERT: I heard them sing that song. It was beautiful.

CARLILE: Just inviting them—

COLBERT: And a beautiful idea too.

CARLILE: Yeah.

COLBERT: That invitation, like, it’s okay if at any point you feel, you feel you understand what you’re doing is wrong, we’re not going to give you hell for changing your mind. That’s okay. Change your mind.

CARLILE: Yeah. Yeah. So, they came out on stage at the end, and we sang that song, and it streamed out to people that maybe didn’t know what they were getting into, and that’s what I was sort of hoping for. That would be my message, it’s okay to change your mind.

On Wednesday morning, Media Research Center President David Bozell joined Houston’s NewsRadio 740 KTRH to expose a disgusting new low for the elitist media. While the American military celebrates the heroic rescue of two airmen in “Operation Epic Fury,” the leftist press have already pivoted to their favorite pastime: carrying water for the Iranian regime to damage President Trump.

Bozell noted that instead of celebrating American bravery, outlets like CBS, PBS, and The New York Times have coordinated a “war crimes” narrative against the administration. This shift occurred even as Iran continued firing missiles and using civilians as human shields, crimes the media conveniently ignores.

.@DavidBozell: “The media are openly siding with terrorist regimes that have murdered thousands of Americans in the last 50 years because they hate Donald Trump so much.” pic.twitter.com/ixwfwKaBi5
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) April 8, 2026
“They’re just openly now siding with terrorist regimes that have murdered thousands of Americans in the last 50 years,” Bozell told KTRH. “They hate Donald Trump so much that they don’t want him to win this war.”

Bozell shredded the networks for acting as “judge, jury, and executioner”:

CBS News: Spent the bulk of a 4.5-minute segment accusing the President of war crimes.
The New York Times: Demanded to know if the President’s rhetoric itself amounted to a crime.
PBS: Featured “experts” claiming the Secretary of War had already committed offenses.

.@DavidBozell: The media are accusing President Trump of war crimes and appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner. pic.twitter.com/b7Sjs2w6Qz
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) April 8, 2026
Bozell pointed out the rank hypocrisy of the press “suddenly remembering” war crimes exist only when they can be used against Trump. Meanwhile, Iran’s blatant violations in the Strait of Hormuz get a total pass.

“They’ve become judge, jury, and executioner,” Bozell concluded. By echoing Iranian government talking points, the media has proven they would rather see an American defeat than a Trump victory.

Catch the full KTRH highlights below: