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MS NOW/SnapStream

Tuesday’s Morning Joe continued the worry from MS NOW over the Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily allow a Trump Executive Order on limits to mail-in voting amid the liberal morning show’s constant fears that the 2026 midterms would be stolen. Co-host Jonathan Lemire went as far as to falsely claim the court was “part of the team” for the Trump Administration, before Mika Brzezinski went on another rant about ICE.MS NOW Justice and Intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian, who left NBC in the Versant divorce, led with his own attacks on the court, as he paraphrased what he imagined both sides thought during the decision process.He led with the majority decision, which he called “extraordinary,” before he represented the liberal side’s views, which really just sounded like his own opinion on the case:And the dissenters, the liberals, are saying, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. The midterms are around the corner. Are you saying that we have to wait until the Trump Administration improperly interferes in an election that’s supposed to be governed by the states before you will act?’ And yet that’s what the Supreme Court has done here. And it’s not the first time they’ve done this in other cases involving the Trump Administration. Tuesday’s Morning Joe continued its fears over the 2026 Midterms after the Supreme Court temporarily allowed a Trump Executive Order on mail-in ballots to move forward. Jonathan Lemire declared, “The conservative majority, at times, acting like it’s part of the team.” pic.twitter.com/VmnAR4guJh— Nick (@nspin310) August 25, 2026 Lemire then jumped in to label the Supreme Court as followers of all Trump actions:And yet another moment where the Supreme Court, of course, seems highly deferential to President Trump and the executive branch, the conservative majority, at times, acting like it’s part of the team.This assertion by Lemire was false, as the Supreme Court had made a number of decisions against Trump in his second term, including when the court struck down his birthright citizenship order. At the time of the birthright citizenship order, SCOTUSBlog labeled the Supreme Court as a “wild-card court.”Lemire continued after his assertion of a possible stolen midterm election and exclaimed, “But there’s been this fear hovering over this election for – for a year or more, that the Trump Administration was going to find a way to put its thumb on the scale.”He used “ICE agents in the streets” and “the National Guard trying to crack down on voter rolls” as examples for his midterm election fears.Lemire closed, “But here it appears, at least temporarily, they’re getting yet another assist from the courts.” Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski also continued to bash ICE agents, who she described as untrained, and declared, “I’d be scared if I got near anybody like that,” while she opined the strategy was to deter people coming into the U.S. legally.Jonathan Lemire added, “What are we… https://t.co/dKKG8XMc9B pic.twitter.com/q1sYIbRrJK— Nick (@nspin310) August 25, 2026 After the election fears, the show returned to even more familiar territory, as Mika Brzezinski, who has had multiple freakouts over ICE in just the past year, once again attacked agents and the overall deportation agenda.She claimed ICE activity actually deterred people from entering the country legally:And the list goes on of story after story after story of people being nabbed off the street in violent ways, often by ICE agents that don’t appear to be trained to even be able to use their weapons correctly.I’d be scared if I got near anybody like that. And everybody is scared when they see a situation like that. And isn’t that part of the point here? How could it not be to fear people into not showing up and doing their process and trying to be here legally? Are, again, we going after the worst of the worst, or are we just going after people to create a level of fear out there where laws can be broken, people can be detained for months, and children have to show up alone for the detention hearings? The list goes on as to how backwards, un-American, and sick this is.” Lemire later said it was a “human issue…about our nation’s decency,” and stated, “we’re failing that test.”Willie Geist then claimed deportations were not of criminals, as he described a case of people who “were not criminals, other than overstaying a visa…” pic.twitter.com/UeD7kt78mJ— Nick (@nspin310) August 25, 2026 Lemire responded with drama: “What are we doing here as a nation? What are we doing?” He then said the issue was “more than a political issue. It’s a human issue. It’s about humanity. It’s about our nation’s decency. And we’re failing that test.Election fearmongering combined with more attacks on ICE portrayed just another day of division wanted by those at MS NOW.The transcript is below. Click expand:MS NOW’s Morning JoeAugust 25, 20266:06:40 AM Eastern(…)KEN DILANIAN: The other extraordinary thing about this decision is that it’s once again an example of where the conservative majority has said, ‘Oh, no, no, we’re not ruling on the merits, but you haven’t shown that you’ve been injured yet. You states have not shown that you have actually experienced an injury, and so we can’t rule yet.’And the dissenters, the liberals, are saying, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. The midterms are around the corner. Are you saying that we have to wait until the Trump Administration improperly interferes in an election that’s supposed to be governed by the states before you will act?’ And yet that’s what the Supreme Court has done here. And it’s not the first time they’ve done this in other cases involving the Trump Administration. As Lisa said, it’s not the end of the story. We’re going to see more litigation on this. And the Supreme Court may well ultimately decide that what’s happening here is improper. But what they’ve done is they’ve left a sense of unease here, along with all the other ways that we are concerned that the Trump Administration is going to try to interfere in the elections with this midterm. Here is the latest example, Willie.JONATHAN LEMIRE: And yet another moment where the Supreme Court, of course, seems highly deferential to President Trump and the executive branch, the conservative majority, at times acting like it’s part of the team. And J. Mart, let’s talk about the politics of this. You know, the polls suggest this November we could be heading for a democratic wave. Strategists in both parties think the House is heavily favored to go Democrat. Senate, true toss-up now, something that would have been unthinkable a year ago, considering the map looked pretty favorable for Republicans. But now Democrats think they’ve got a chance. But there’s been this fear hovering over this election for – for a year or more, that the Trump Administration was going to find a way to put its thumb on the scale. Whether that was the ICE agents in the streets, the National Guard trying to crack down on voter rolls. You know, of course, we’ll see if they even accept the results if they don’t like them come November. But here it appears, at least temporarily, they’re getting yet another assist from the courts.JONATHAN MARTIN: Yeah. Let’s just get straight to the point. The coverage and the attention to this ruling would be vanishingly small, at least in terms of the national media, were it not for precedent, to borrow a legal term. We all lived through the 2020 election and the aftermath, John, like that. That’s the reason for the concern. We know what Trump is capable of, and we know the degree to which we as a country relied on the courts in the aftermath of 2020 to effectively cast aside Trump’s challenges, one after the other, and affirm Joe Biden’s election and swearing in as president. So once again, we’re at the mercy of the courts. That’s why this matters so much, because, yes, I think there is this assumption for good reason, given his past action, that Trump is not going to sit by and lose control of one or both chambers of Congress without a protracted fight, that invariably will get into the courts. And here we will be again, much as we were six years ago, hoping and waiting for the court to do the right thing.(…)6:58:36 AM EasternMIKA BRZEZINSKI: The Department of Homeland Security says Border Patrol arrested Avila’s father during a vehicle stop in Key West, but Aviles claims his father has a driver’s license, Social Security card, and work permit, and has lived in the United States for 19 years. And here is one of the problems exactly a case like this, where you have people like Mr. Aviles who is trying to do the process and trying to do everything right, and this comes at great cost to people who are doing everything they can to be here legally and do things the right way. And it is bankrupting for many people to do that while trying to make it here in America. And now they’re too afraid to show up to their immigration meetings or hearings. They’re too afraid to show up because of these violent tactics by ICE, because of the videos that we’ve seen across the country of people getting shot, of U.S. Citizens getting treated violently, documented or undocumented, there is illegal activity should not happen to anybody on American soil. Due process should happen to everybody on American soil. But what you have is these intense violent tactics against documented or undocumented people that make them too afraid to actually follow the law. And it’s the violence and the fear that is now exacerbating what is a horrible situation, again, deployed by ICE and the way they do business. (…)7:01:32 AM EasternBRZEZINSKI: So, fleeing violence from their countries, and this is what you’ve got here in America. You get in a car accident, you go to the E.R. – A mother and a daughter are ripped out of the E.R. like that, Jonathan Lemire. And the list goes on of story after story after story of people being nabbed off the street in violent ways, often by ICE agents that don’t appear to be trained to even be able to use their weapons correctly.I’d be scared if I got near anybody like that. And everybody is scared when they see a situation like that. And isn’t that part of the point here? How could it not be to fear people into not showing up and doing their process and trying to be here legally? Are, again, we going after the worst of the worst, or are we just going after people to create a level of fear out there where laws can be broken, people can be detained for months, and children have to show up alone for the detention hearings? The list goes on as to how backwards, un-American, and sick this is.LEMIRE: What are we doing here as a nation? What are we doing? This is not the worst of the worst that President Trump promised that he would focus on during the campaign. And his administration keeps saying that they’re targeting a mother and daughter at a hospital, a video impossible to watch. And then the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has just had a record deployment in the Middle East with terrible conditions on board, conditions that the Trump Administration won’t admit to. But we know from relatives of sailors who have been on that ship how bad things got, so bad that some members tried to jump overboard. And yet, while one of those sailors was serving his country for months at sea, his father was detained. And he has to write that heartbreaking Facebook message telling him, telling him, Willie, that, you know, stay strong, dad. I’ll be home soon.I mean, this is – I mean, yes, there’s the political angle of this, that this is why Trump is so underwater and what used to be a signature issue, immigration. This is partially why Republicans are expecting to do poorly this November. But it’s more than a political issue. It’s a human issue. It’s about humanity. It’s about our nation’s decency. And we’re failing that test.WILLIE GIEST: I mean, we’re told it was rapists and murderers who are going to be shipped out, right? This whole time during the campaign in 2024, again, to which people said, ‘Yes, please secure the border and get out the violent criminals.’ We just heard as Mika read those stories, these were not criminals, other than overstaying a Visa and awaiting their asylum hearing.(…)

Adult Democrats are far more pessimistic than Republicans, regardless of whether they’re assessing the outlook for the quality of life, the economy, government or the next generation, a new survey by The Economist/YouGov finds.The national survey of U.S. adult citizens, conducted August 21-24, asked a series of questions to gauge the degree of optimism on various topics. In each case, Democrats expressed significantly more pessimism than Independents and, especially, Republicans.In the broadest question, the poll asked citizens how they felt “generally” about “the future as far as you personally are concerned?”Just one in four Democrats (25%) said they were “generally optimistic” about their overall future, compared to 59% of Republicans. Conversely, nearly half (47%) of Democrats said they were “generally pessimistic,” while only 23% felt the same.Other questions asked about optimism about the future of “the following things for the next ten or twenty years”:“Our System of Government”“The Nation’s Economy”“The Quality of Life in this Country”“Your Own Quality of Life”“The Quality of Life for the Next Generation”Regarding the outlook for the nation’s system of government, just 18% of Democrats voiced optimism. In contrast, 52% of Republicans expressed optimism, including 17% who said they were “very optimistic.”Likewise, economic optimism was reported by 22% of Democrats and more than twice as many (55%) of Republicans. Again, 17% of Republicans said they were very optimistic.In the quality-of-life questions, Democrats were more negative than Republicans in their expectations for the nation as a whole, the next generation and themselves, personally:Optimistic About the Quality of Life in this Country:GOP: 60% (19% “very”)Dem: 22% (6% “very”)Optimistic About Own Quality of Life:GOP: 65% (28% “very”)Dem: 49% (11% “very”)Optimistic About Quality of Life for the Next Generation:GOP: 45% (15%)Dem: 18% (3% “very”)

Call it pay for pray.
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will appear at a “clergy round table” this week with a black Detroit pastor to whom the El-Sayed campaign has quietly paid $82,500 for “strategic consulting,” part of a gambit to help the far-left Democrat shore up his anemic support from black voters.
Horace Sheffield, the pastor of New Destiny Christian Fellowship and father of Detroit’s mayor, will host the event with El-Sayed at his church on Wednesday. The Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, Sheffield’s nonprofit, is listed as an organizer of the event.
It comes as El-Sayed and Sheffield have faced allegations of political “pay-for-play” over their lucrative but undisclosed financial relationship. El-Sayed has touted the endorsement of Sheffield, whom he calls a “Detroit political powerhouse and community advocate,” on the campaign trail and his campaign website, but without mentioning that his campaign pays $7,500 per month to the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance for “consulting,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. The campaign has paid the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance a total of $82,500 since October 21, according to campaign finance disclosures.
Sheffield—who has praised antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan for preaching “the truth”—endorsed El-Sayed weeks after those initial payments, in a November 8 interview with El-Sayed on his weekend talk radio show, The Wake-Up Call. Sheffield did not disclose that he was in El-Sayed’s payroll in the interview, nor did he disclose the payments during two other fawning interviews he conducted with the candidate on July 25 and August 1.
“Lord, help this man win,” Sheffield said in the July 25 interview. El-Sayed quipped in the August 1 interview to Sheffield and his cohosts that “you all treat me a lot better than CNN.”
Sheffield has also published social media posts in which he attacked El-Sayed’s then-primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, over support she received from AIPAC and “other Jewish organizations.” Sheffield hosted El-Sayed at his church for an event in December and organized a get-out-the-vote event for the campaign on August 1.
The scheme has stoked comparisons to Al Sharpton, who interviewed Kamala Harris on his MSNBC show after the Harris campaign paid $500,000 to Sharpton’s nonprofit, the National Action Network. Sheffield is the head of the National Action Network’s Detroit chapter.
El-Sayed has struggled to woo black voters, many of whom are more socially conservative than the candidate, a close ally of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party who supports sex-change surgeries for minors and allowing of biological males in women’s sports. In addition to his alliance with Sheffield and other black church leaders, El-Sayed has cozied up to members of the Nation of Islam, an antisemitic group that nonetheless has considerable influence among Detroit’s black community. He has also supported reparations to black Americans for slavery and for redlining, by which financial institutions refused to do business in black neighborhoods.
“We need reparations in this country,” he said in May.
Sheffield, whose daughter Mary Sheffield was elected Detroit mayor last year, oversees an interlocking network of nonprofit organizations centered around both historically black churches and businesses in Detroit. In addition to the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance, Sheffield leads the Detroit Association of Black Organizations and is closely affiliated with 5Plus1, a political dark money group.
In addition to the handsome consulting fees, other funds linked indirectly to El-Sayed are flowing Sheffield’s way,
Fighting for Michigan PAC, a Super PAC partially funded by El-Sayed’s wealthy father-in-law that is also the largest outside group supporting his campaign, contributed $19,285 last month to 5Plus1, according to campaign disclosures. 5Plus1 has aired a series of pro-El-Sayed ads on local radio stations, according to FCC filings. While Sheffield has tried to distance himself in the past from 5Plus1, the group’s previous FCC filings list Sheffield’s email address and phone number on radio ad disclosure documents.
El-Sayed’s payments to Sheffield’s operation has raised questions about the registration status of the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance. Sheffield registered the nonprofit in 2010, but that lapsed in 2014. Sheffield told the Detroit News this month that he did not know why his charity’s registration had lapsed.
“I don’t handle that information,” Sheffield told the newspaper. “I will have them look. It’s probably just a matter of them reinstating it.”
El-Sayed, asked by the News about hiring Sheffield, said that “we work through a number of consultants all over the state to get the vote out, etc.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has not responded to the Free Beacon’s requests for comment.
Sheffield’s political endorsements have stirred controversy before. In 2018, Sheffield was suspended from his talk radio show after revelations that Rep. Shri Thanedar (D., Mich.), a candidate for governor at the time, paid tens of thousands of dollars to the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance. Sheffield interviewed Thanedar, who ran in that election against El-Sayed and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D.), on his radio show but failed to disclose the payments.
(Like El-Sayed, Thanedar struggled with black voters. Unlike El-Sayed, he lost his primary this summer after the black community united behind one candidate.)
Sheffield’s radio station suspended his show at the time and filled airtime with polka music in its place. His current show airs on a radio station owned by Salem Media. The company disavowed Sheffield’s endorsements for El-Sayed, saying his statements “do not reflect the views of our company.”
Reached by phone earlier this month, Sheffield told a Free Beacon reporter he was “barking up the wrong tree” when asked about the payments from El-Sayed’s campaign, though he did not expand on the idiom.
Sheffield did not answer specific questions this week about the payments, the clergy roundtable, or the Ecumenical Ministers Alliance.
“Closed to the press,” he responded in a text message on Tuesday.
El-Sayed is scheduled to headline a convention over Labor Day weekend for the Islamic Society of North America, where he will share a stage with a cleric who has called the Holocaust a “hoax.”
The post Pay for Pray: Black Pastor Paid $82,500 by Abdul El-Sayed Will Host Him at ‘Clergy Round Table’ as Democrat Struggles With Black Voters appeared first on .

It will be interesting to see whether the residents of S.C. decide to look past Trump’s endorsement in this race.

CNN This Morning 8-25-26

On Tuesday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish dressed down Group Chat member Jesse Arm of the Manhattan Institute for allegedly putting words in her mouth. Cornish’s words were unusually pointed for a morning show host. The topic was Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s attempt to put distance between himself and antisemitic Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Piker, who has appeared with El-Sayed on the campaign trail, recently said on his stream: “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s gonna come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” Cornish introduced the story by saying Piker had made remarks “suggesting American Jews supporting Israel would make antisemitism worse.” She then played the clip and asked the panel to discuss the backlash and the role of outside voices in campaigns. Arm pushed back, arguing the show’s framing was too charitable, that “you were suggesting, the show was suggesting, Piker’s comments were essentially just that antisemitism is rising because Jews are Zionist.”Cornish cut him off with rising irritation: “If you’re going to come on the show, I need you to listen. I really need you to listen and respond to the things I say. Because we spend a lot of time writing this stuff, and I didn’t use any of the words you just said….  Do not put words in my mouth! It’s something that really bothers me, ’cause I spend a lot of time trying to be careful for the audience. So if you wanna tell me what you hear in what Piker said, let’s do it. But please don’t put words in my mouth. The tone was personal and proprietary — closer to a warning that he would not appear in the future rather than a simple clarification.  

‘Don’t Put Words in My Mouth!’—CNN’s Cornish Scolds Conservative Guest Over Piker Remarks@AudieCornish @CNNThisMorning @Jesse_Leg pic.twitter.com/y09DP2wdNy— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) August 25, 2026

Interestingly, the panel didn’t zero in on the most ominous element of Piker’s statement: the prediction that someone would “take action” against American Jews.” That sharper reading came instead from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whom Cornish quoted as calling it “the malicious claim that American Jews are inciting violence against themselves” and labeling it “dangerous and antisemitic.” The panel spent considerable time on platform dynamics. CNN media reporter Sara Fischer offered a useful explanation of how Twitch works. Creators stream for hours at a time while viewers can subscribe, tip, or send real-time paid reactions. That instant feedback loop strongly incentivizes streamers to escalate intensity and double down on whatever the live audience is rewarding in the moment. Arm challenged Fischer on her reluctance to describe Twitch streamers as “polarizing.” He also pointed out that El-Sayed did not mention Piker by name in his distancing statement. Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha tried to downplay El-Sayed bringing Piker to campaign events, mentioning that he himself brings girlfriends to campaign events. Arm immediately pressed him, saying that, unlike Piker, “I assume your girlfriends” weren’t invited to speak on stage at the events. Cowboy hat notwithstanding, Rocha meekly backed down: “No, they weren’t.” The segment never fully confronted the content of Piker’s prediction of violence against American Jews. Instead, viewers were treated to a host who became visibly angry when her careful framing was challenged, and a panel that largely preferred to discuss surrogates and media platforms. But kudos to Arm for his willingness to take on all of his left-leaning fellow panelists! Here’s the transcript. CNN This Morning 8/25/26 6:11 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: Okay, in Michigan, the Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is putting some distance between himself and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, the left-wing influencer he has appeared with several times on the campaign trail. Now, Piker recently made some remarks suggesting American Jews supporting Israel would make antisemitism worse. El-Sayed’s opponent, Mike Rogers, condemned the comments and called Piker El-Sayed’s running mate. Now, El-Sayed released a statement saying in part, quote, “Nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople. And while politicians and pundits try to make this race about a Twitch streamer, we’re going to be talking about gas, groceries, good schools, and health care.” The Group Chat is back. Before we begin, let me just play for you what Hasan Piker actually said on his Twitch stream last week so you can understand why this is kicking up a fresh furor. Here we go. HASAN PIKER: If Jews in America keep putting this, this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s gonna come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews. CORNISH: All right. So talk about the backlash to him, and the role of these outside voices in campaigns. Cause I think ever since the Joe Rogan backing of Trump, all I’ve heard is, “We need a Rogan for the left,” from the left. And now they get something like it, and it’s not working out so great. SARA FISCHER: Well, when you think about a surrogate, which is a voice that you’re using from the outside to promote your campaign, you typically want it to be somebody who shares your values. And so I think the challenge here with Piker, and why El-Sayed is trying to distance himself, is he’s clearly saying, we don’t have shared values, this is not the person that should be the surrogate for me. I also want to note that when it comes to Twitch, the way that you engage an audience, the way that you’re successful, is by being intense. Is by playing into the reward system of your audience, in real time. CORNISH: You’re speaking for a really long time, and they are responding over time. FISHCER: And the way that the platform works, so you can obviously pay to subscribe to somebody’s channel. You can reward somebody in real time for what they’re saying, almost like getting kudos, is it’s going to reward you to double down on the things you say. It’s going to incentivize you to double down on things that you say that your audience in real time says they like. CORNISH: I’m gonna come to your defense, they’re saying. PANELIST: Yes. That’s why Twitch streamers tend to be, I don’t wanna say polarizing, but they tend to be very intense and passionate in what they’re saying and their views. When you’re trying to — JESSE ARM: You don’t want to say polarizing? FISCHER: Well, not every Twitch streamer is that. ARM: I’m sorry. I think this frame is incredibly charitable. At the front end there, you were suggesting, the show was suggesting, Piker’s comments were essentially just that antisemitism is rising because Jews are Zionist. CORNISH: To be clear, we played the comments so that you can characterize it yourself. I did not characterize it. ARM: Okay, so here’s what the comments were. You did characterize it. CORNISH: I said, “Hey, here’s the clip.” ARM: No, but before that, you said that it was about pro-Israel sentiment within the Jewish community is making antisemitism rise. The reality is, Piker said that — CORNISH: It doesn’t say that. If you’re going to come on the show, I need you to listen. I really need you to listen and respond to the things I say. Because we spend a lot of time writing this stuff, and I didn’t use any of the words you just said. And I wanna be very clear: “Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed putting some distance between himself and Hasan Piker.” Okay? ARM: So the distance he put between himself and Hasan Piker — CORNISH: Piker recently made remarks suggesting American Jews supporting Israel will make antisemitism worse. ARM: That’s what I’m saying. CORNISH: And then we played the clip. Do not put words in my mouth. ARM: I didn’t put words in your — CORNISH: I will tell you right now, it’s something that really bothers me, ’cause I spend a lot of time trying to be careful for the audience. So if you wanna tell me what you hear in what Piker said, let’s do it. But please don’t put words in my mouth. ARM: Okay, what did— All right, we’re moving on. Hasan Piker said that Jews singularly focused on Israel is what is making him more upset. That suggests that they don’t care about the United States. That’s a major problem. Also, this comment that El-Sayed is putting distance between himself and Piker, I don’t think is accurate, because the statement that went out supposedly doing that made no mention of Hasan Piker by name! Clearly, El-Sayed isn’t interested in condemning his campaign’s top surrogate throughout this cycle, because they’re simpatico! And I think that’s going to be a major problem if you’re trotting out the guy who says America deserved 9/11. CORNISH: So the person who agrees with you, Hakeem Jeffries, said the malicious claim that American Jews are inciting violence against themselves is dangerous and antisemitic. So then Piker responded to him — this was all on social media. Piker said, “Look, this argument is about false conflation between Zionism and Judaism.” I found it interesting that you have the Democratic House leader feeling like he has to step in here, because it’s a Senate race, right? So what is he doing here? CHUCK ROCHA: First of all, surrogate, as Sara said, is a word we use in campaigns for somebody who’s paid or allied. Friends, not friends, campaign with or not. He’s come out with a statement: I speak for this campaign, and my official spokesmen speak for this campaign. CORNISH: But he spent all this time on stage with the guy. ROCHA: Absolutely. ARM: Paid or allied? ROCHA: Paid by the allied is how you define allied. ARM: He brought him to campaign events and brought him out on stage giving speeches. ROCHA: I’ve brought girlfriends to campaign events. It don’t [sic] mean they speak for my campaign. You can bring anyone you want to! ARM: But if you put him on stage and have him speak at the campaign rally, he’s speaking for your campaign. I assume your girlfriends weren’t doing that. ROCHA: No, they weren’t.

Dolly Parton was one of those rare celebrities who are truly worthy of admiration

‘Managing’ prices, to use a euphemism, is to suppress valuable information — and it is all too likely to end in a shambles.

Screenshot via CBS/Snapstream

For the second time in less than a week, CBS Mornings continued to distinguish itself Tuesday from ABC and NBC by mentioning the expanding influence of anti-Semite and far-left streamer Hasan Piker inside the Democratic Party, particularly his close ties to Michigan Democratic senatorial candidate Abdul el-Sayed.ABC and NBC have yet to mention Piker this year on their flagship morning or evening shows, but the praise for CBS only goes so far, as in both cases, they omitted critical details.To name a few examples, campaign correspondent Ed O’Keefe skipped notable Piker comments that America deserved 9/11, blasting a Vietnamese refugee as “motherf***ing…psychotic,” calling for Senator Rick Scott’s (R-FL) murder, comparing Asian Americans to “dogs,” declaring he didn’t care about women being raped on October 7, lamenting the U.S. “unfortunately” “defeated the USSR,” saying it’s “funny” Iran shot down two U.S. airmen, and praising Mao Zedong.Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers set it up by calling “progressive activist” Piker’s “recent words” explaining away American Jews being attacked and overall “rhetoric” as “a growing issue for some Democratic Party candidates in November.”Duthiers ludicrously described Piker’s focus on the Middle East as him having simply “repeatedly criticized Israel for its war on Gaza.”

Here was the Hasan Piker piece on ‘CBS Mornings’ from Ed O’Keefe, which is notably the second time CBS has brought up Piker on an AM (or PM) show. ABC and NBC have yet to even do that.O’Keefe also played or quoted Piker’s comments that Jews are engaged in “propaganda” and… pic.twitter.com/FGc1dBDE3J— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 25, 2026

O’Keefe conceded that “Hasan Piker may not be a name that many of our viewers know, but his in — influence has only increased in recent months as he’s been campaigning with progressive or socialist candidates across the country.”“But he rocked the boat in recent days by making comments that both Democrats and Republicans call anti-Semitic, and el-Sayed has also denounced the comments, saying he stands with the Jewish community,” he added.O’Keefe insisted it’s only been in the last few days that “[p]rogressive influencer Hassan Piker…sent the Democratic Party into damage control” because of his “incendiary comments during a live stream on Twitch last Thursday, arguing ‘the idea that Jews are monolithic is…a very dangerous mode of propaganda.’”He then played another offending clip of Piker suggesting last week that American Jews should watch their backs: “If Jews in America keep putting this — this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s gonna come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”O’Keefe explained that, in response, “Republicans quickly pointed to Piker’s ties to Abdul el-Sayed,” who “embraced the left-wing podcaster during his primary campaign in hopes of winning over Piker’s more than eight million social media followers.”To his credit, the CBS correspondent did show part of an August 3 exchange he had with el-Sayed that invoked another notable Piker comment, which was that he, in O’Keefe’s retelling, “didn’t have an issue with Hezbollah,” which “resonates more in this state than in many others.”O’Keefe played el-Sayed’s troubling response, which was to defend his desire to “reach out to his audience” while at the same time not “hold[ing] myself accountable to the worst thing he said[.]”O’Keefe wrapped with more reaction, but curiously said House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries (D-NY) was “direct” even though his initial statement never mentioned Piker’s name (click “expand”):O’KEEFE: But el-Sayed has repeatedly denounced anti-Semitism and said again in a statement Monday, his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters.” Other Democrats were more direct. House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries called Piker’s comments, “dangerous and anti-Semitic,” and Michigan’s Democratic Congresswoman Hillary Scholten dismissed the streamer as “a hack who thrives on hate.” [EXPLOSION] Progressives like Piker and el-Sayed are outspoken critics of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza, a divisive issue for the Democratic Party ahead of the midterms.JOEL PAYNE: I think the thing that Hassan Piker kind of forces on the people who he, you know, supports campaigns with, he forces them, I think, to clarify what do you agree with and what do you not agree with?O’KEEFE: Piker says the response to his comments is a “Republican smear campaign.” Mike Rogers, who’s the Republican running against el-Sayed in Michigan, criticized the Democrats’ decisions to distance himself from Piker and called el-Sayed a “con man[.]”To see the relevant transcript from August 25, click here.

The upcoming Dune installment got me thinking about the burden of following two great films.

On behalf of a grateful nation.