Commentary Culture Investigations

‘The quality of life and the wealth that is generated by the United States and its economy is a miracle.’

If what he described is tantamount to putting a ‘thumb on the scale’ of U.S. politics, Vance is also guilty.

Congress ought to call it what it is: a war.

With the words “he has gone insane” over his shoulder as if it was a cry for help from his producer, MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell crammed a lot of crazy into just two-and-a-half minutes of Monday’s The Last Word. After praising the Iranian regime for shooting down an American F-15E because it “humiliated” President Trump, he decried the rescue operation as a notion because 80 years ago 120,000 Americans were prisoners of war during WWII.

“[A]nd they humiliated Donald Trump by proving him wrong, by shooting down his planes, shooting down two of his planes,” O’Donnell boasted as if Trump himself owned the jets, nearly 12 minutes into his longwinded opening monologue.

With that statement, O’Donnell let the mask slip on his ghoulish nature. He was happy about the shootdown – the shootdown that could have killed the two American airmen and/or could have seen them captured and tortured – because it “humiliated” the orange man.

It proved O’Donnell wanted American service members hurt or killed because he could use them against Trump. It demonstrated why, multiple times during the war, he demanded Trump’s son Barron be forcibly conscripted and sent to the ‘frontlines,’ that way he could be hurt or killed and used by him.

Keeping the hate train rolling, O’Donnell then took issue with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for declaring “we leave no man behind” because it didn’t use gender inclusive language (Click “expand”):

O’DONNEL: And today at the White House, that brilliant rescue was described by the secretary of defense and by General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a long standing American military rule of never leaving anyone behind.

HEGSETH: We leave no man behind.

O’DONNELL: That is, of course, the old school version of the idea. Back when only men flew American military planes, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it this way.

CAINE: We leave no one behind.

O’DONNELL: The general knows, unlike Pete Hegseth, that that could have been a woman they were trying to rescue, and it might be a woman the next time.

O’Donnell, who never served in America’s armed forces, had a twisted smile on his face as he then decried the very notion of never leaving a man behind. Why would he scoff at such a thing? Because there were American POWs over 80 years ago.

 

In 2-and-a-half minutes, MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell touts how Iran “humiliated” Trump by shooting down the planes, decried Hegseth saying “we leave no man behind” because it was not gender inclusive, decries the notion of rescuing 1 airman like that because 120,000 Americans… pic.twitter.com/HmkTbIYCtK
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 7, 2026
 

“But this 21st century notion that we leave no one behind ignores the 120,000 prisoners of war held by German and Japanese forces in World War II for years, who were left behind,” he chided.

He then attacked the ideal of never leaving a man behind because late Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was shot down and captured: “And the idea of using 155 aircraft and hundreds of military personnel on an immediate rescue mission for a single person of any rank, was inconceivable in World War II or in Vietnam, where we left John McCain behind.”

What an insulting thing to say about the men who defeated Nazism and imperialism, the very things MS NOW had been claiming were emanating from the Trump White House. Insulting to those who did everything they could, including putting their own lives on the line to rescue their comrades.

It’s ridiculous for O’Donnell – who again, knew absolutely nothing about service and self-sacrifice – to argue such rescue missions were “inconceivable in World War II or in Vietnam,” because they managed to pull off their own daring rescue missions without the technology we have today.

He was insulting men like Paul “Pappy” Gunn who went all Liam Neeson on the Japanese to rescue his family; and the Japanese-Americans of the 442 Infantry Division who broke through German lines to rescue the 1st Battalion of the 141 Infantry Regiment.

To really poke a hole in O’Donnell’s revisionist history, checkout Medal of Honor recipient Roy Benavidez of the 82nd Airborne who literally jump on a helicopter with nothing but a medic bag and knife to go rescue his fellow soldiers from the Vietnam jungle. And the 11th Airborne Division who carried out an epic raid on the Los Banos prison camp the Japanese set up. They rescued a little baby girl.

 

 

And that’s not to mention that many were captured because they were buying time for others to escape. Others like Hiroshi “Hershey” Miyamura in Korea, the soldiers of Fort Drum in the Philippines, and the 22 Americans of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of the 99th Infantry Division who blunted the German advance at the Battle of Lanzerath Ridge, which was critical to the Allies winning the Battle of the Bulge.

And while O’Donnell was using McCain as a bludgeon, McCain chose to reject an offer to be released from captivity early because he was wanted others to be released first. That didn’t stop O’Donnell from praising the North Vietnamese. “In fact, he was injured in the crash of his plane in a lake in Hanoi and was helped out of the water by the North Vietnamese people. His plane was there to attack,” he said.

 

 

Of course, O’Donnell was ignorant of history.

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

MS NOW’s The Last Word
April 6, 2026
10:11:47 p.m. Eastern

(…)

O’DONNELL: … and they humiliated Donald Trump by proving him wrong, by shooting down his planes, shooting down two of his planes.

The pilot of that plane was rescued within hours of the shootdown. The still unnamed, seriously injured colonel had to hide for 48 hours before the rescue team could find him and save him without losing any other military personnel in that very risky mission.

They did lose two rescue planes worth $100 million each that they had to leave behind in Iran and destroy as they were leaving.

And today at the White House, that brilliant rescue was described by the secretary of defense and by General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a long standing American military rule of never leaving anyone behind.

HEGSETH: We leave no man behind.

O’DONNELL: That is, of course, the old school version of the idea. Back when only men flew American military planes, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it this way.

CAINE: We leave no one behind.

O’DONNELL: The general knows, unlike Pete Hegseth, that that could have been a woman they were trying to rescue, and it might be a woman the next time.

But this 21st century notion that we leave no one behind ignores the 120,000 prisoners of war held by German and Japanese forces in World War II for years, who were left behind.

And the idea of using 155 aircraft and hundreds of military personnel on an immediate rescue mission for a single person of any rank, was inconceivable in World War II or in Vietnam, where we left John McCain behind.

John McCain was shot down in the skies over North Vietnam, and at the time, no one tried to rescue him. In fact, he was injured in the crash of his plane in a lake in Hanoi and was helped out of the water by the North Vietnamese people. His plane was there to attack.

(…)

While it’s certain to not always be the case, Sunday’s 60 Minutes offered a possible harbinger of things to come if editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is to turn CBS News into a network with journalism that appeals to all Americans. The episode including a lengthy piece blasting California’s high-speed rail boondoggle and then a closing minute from Christian evangelist Franklin Graham about Easter.

Correspondent John Wertheim laid bare the ugly reality of how America went from having trains as a central part of the country’s history to an afterthought as a jumping off point to an attempt by California for a bullet train “connecting L.A. and San Francisco has lurched, derailed, cost billions and may never happen.”

He opened with a fake-out, touting a reliable high-speed rail system before admitting it’s in Morocco. In contrast, he noted California voters passed nearly 28 years ago “a ballot measure for a train connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours” for “estimated price tag” of $33 billion and expected completion in 2020.

Still thinking of how incredible this ‘60 Minutes’ story was about how much of a disaster California’s Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail project was.
Just incredible.
John Wertheim’s intro: “It’s hard to exaggerate the role of the train in the American story, or the… pic.twitter.com/I0JrkSlQEM
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 7, 2026
Unsurprisingly, the current state of the project is less than ideal:

Status update: today, the state’s high-speed rail authority is preparing to lay its first tracks at roughly the same cost. Only, slight course correction here: Instead of L.A. to San Francisco, it will run one-third of that distance, connecting — wait for it — the metropolis of Bakersfield and Merced, population 96,000. Oh, and when will it open? 2033. Maybe.

Central Valley-area Congressman Vince Fong (R-CA) was surprisingly given prime billing off the top and told Wertheim this “nightmare is the probably quintessential example of government waste and mismanagement.”

Wertheim then paraphrased more of what Fong told him: “He says that when California voters first approved high-speed rail, the promise and price tag were more marketing campaign than realistic projection.”

But when Wertheim took these concerns to California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin and rail board member Anthony Williams, Omishakin seemed to argue voters are the real problem in this project for not understanding how difficult it would be to make a reality:

California California’s Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin first blames VOTERS for the state’s failure to not build any high speed rail.
“There were mistakes made. Some of the criticism on this project, I think, are very fair… I don’t think the voters fully understood,… pic.twitter.com/zrBIfW1Yby
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 6, 2026
The next portion focused on how red tape dooms such herculean ambition. Wertheim explained for the uninitiated that, “[t]o get the necessary political buy-in from the whole state, the plan called for the train to run inland, threading the farmland of the Central Valley.”

Left unsaid was that, in essence, the call was to run it through the red part of the state because the blue supermajority doesn’t want it cutting through their neighborhoods.

Even that wasn’t enough: “Yet, the rail authority hadn’t answered basic questions, like precisely where it could lay down its tracks, what’s known as right-of-way.”

Along with land disputes, Wertheim added other pitfalls included “California’s exacting environmental regulations, which triggered all manner of reviews, lawsuits, and delays” and “high U.S. labor and construction costs.”

60 Minutes exposes how California’s burdensome environmental regulations prevent anything from being done, particularly with their high-speed rail:
“California’s exacting environmental regulations, which triggered all manner of reviews, lawsuits, and delays. As anyone who’s… pic.twitter.com/UuEB2WAnNr
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 5, 2026
After pointing out far-left Governor Gavin Newsom “didn’t respond to repeated interview requests,” Wertheim said the project changed to run just in the Central Valley as years went by and with nothing to show for it, even though it’d be “a route few clamored for and fewer are likely to ride.”

The visuals of empty concrete beams and overpasses (sans any tracks) put the project’s waste into perspective, bolstered by Wertheim sharing that “[l]ocals here jokingly refer to it as their own Stonehenge.”

60 Minutes EXPOSES California’s incomplete high speed rail system, locals in the Central Valley call it “Stonehenge”:
“Locals here jokingly refer to it as their own Stonehenge. Ideally, these bridges and viaducts will one day be used to support California high-speed rail. But… pic.twitter.com/FLEDroMPmh
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) April 5, 2026
“[F]or now, these are curiosities in a field, monuments to promises that haven’t been met, and plans that haven’t been executed,” he added.

He took a detour for the next few minutes to spotlight Brightline, a private rail company aiming to build a high-speed train that would consist of a two-hour span Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2029 (versus a five-hour drive).

It currently has a semi-high-speed line in Florida spanning Orlando to Miami and goes 125 miles per hour, but here again, Wertheim found problems with it (even though it should be a leftist dream) (click “expand”):

WERTHEIM: Cultural questions aside, Brightline’s Florida trains run at street level through crowded neighborhoods. And according to numbers compiled by the Miami Herald and local public radio, more than 200 people have been hit and killed by the trains in the near-decade since operations began. Brightline says that running rail in the desert out West — where track crossings won’t be at street level — will be a safer proposition. Then there are the finances: the stratospheric costs of building and running a rail line vastly outstrip revenues. Analysts have downgraded Brightline’s debt to junk, raising questions about private rail as a business. [TO REININGER] To what extent, big picture, do you worry about the future financial viability of Brightline?

REININGER: The business has built slower than we originally expected it to build. We thought we would be carrying more passengers today than we are. The business is, in fact, growing month over month, year over year. That’s a great thing. That solidifies in our mind the viability of the business.

WERTHEIM: Brightline’s West Coast project has already received some federal funding and is hoping for a $6 billion loan from the Trump administration.

REININGER: If you look around the world, for the most part, the infrastructure systems are funded by the public sector.

WERTHEIM [TO REININGER]: You do see a role for government here?

REININGER: Absolutely. We — we welcome it.

The rest of his piece was on the government-run disaster in California with officials telling him this short span from small town to small would cost $126 billion, which Wertheim acknowledged is “more funding than Amtrak has received in its history and still leaves a shortfall of roughly $90 billion.”

Wild stat — the current portion of Gavin Newsom’s so-called high-speed rail running from small towns to small towns and not connecting LA and SF is now up to $126 billion in cost, which is far more than Amtrak has received in its entire history. pic.twitter.com/SoZnwo7LTq
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 7, 2026
Liberals can melt down all they want about this reality check, but the first story — led by Scott Pelley — was more up their alley as it focused on the soaring cost of health insurance and the free health care clinic charity known as Ram.

Shifting to the end of the show, CBS’s other supposed sin was giving Graham — the son of the late American preacher Billy Graham — a few minutes to talk about the connection between Christianity and America (click “expand”):

Evangelist Franklin Graham, who’s preached in all 50 U.S. states, says he believes faith in God is the value that played the biggest role in shaping the nation. pic.twitter.com/9Jc6pG07ct
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 5, 2026

Faith. Faith in God is the value that most shaped America. Remember, the pilgrims, they came to this land to find freedom to live out their faith. And it’s people of faith who have been the bedrock, the driving force behind our nation. In years past, where did people turn after a disaster? Not FEMA, not to the government. It was the church that took them in, fed them, gave them shelter, clothed them. It was people of faith who established our health care in this country. Our higher education was started by people of faith. Harvard, Yale, Princeton were founded to train ministers of the gospel. From the remote villages of Alaska to the tip of the Florida Keys today, you’ll find houses of worship and people of faith making a difference. As a follower of Jesus Christ, I want all people to know that God loves them, that He cares for them. So, I see faith as the most important defining value in our nation and in every single life.

The horror! Check out the vile, unhinged replies and quoted replies seething over an X post of Graham’s simple message about how Americans have turned to churches for education, health care, relief after disaster, and even a search for our meaning.

To see the relevant CBS transcripts from April 7, click here and here.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for records on the Biden FBI’s search warrants used in the April 2021 raid on former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s residence and office (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-01158)). Giuliani served as a personal attorney and informal adviser to President Donald Trump. 
On April 28, 2021, at approximately 6 a.m., federal agents executed search warrants at Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and his office, seizing his cellphone and other electronic devices. Agents reportedly seized additional materials, including a computer used by longtime assistant Jo Ann Zafonte. 
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to a February 2026 FOIA request. The request, which included a signed certification of identity from Giuliani himself, seeks all records related to the April 2021 search warrants, including:

Warrant applications, affidavits, attachments, draft versions, and approval memoranda;
Supervisory and Main Justice approvals;
Attorney search approvals under Justice Manual guidelines;
Records concerning privilege review, “taint team” procedures, privilege determinations, and any special master involvement;
Coordination with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York; and
Emails, memoranda, briefing materials, and other communications outside formal case files discussing Giuliani, the raids, or the underlying investigation.

 According to public reports, the raid was tied to an investigation into whether Giuliani violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in connection with his activities involving Ukrainian officials while he was seeking information related to Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. 
Giuliani’s then-attorney Robert Costello noted that federal agents ignored Hunter Biden’s computer hard drives when they raided the apartment, contradicting the order on the warrant “to seize every electronic device in his home.”
“The Biden DOJ’s pre-dawn raid on Rudy Giuliani was a textbook example of weaponized justice — targeting a loyal advocate of President Trump’s while agents deliberately ignored Hunter Biden’s hard drives sitting in the same apartment,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This selective enforcement exposes a corrupt two-tiered system.”
Judicial Watch is a national leader in exposing the lawfare and abuse targeting Trump and other American citizens.
In April 2026, Judicial Watch obtained records that revealed the FBI’s concerns about the legal basis for the 2022 raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home. The records exposed explicit objections from field agents who warned the Justice Department that the unprecedented raid on Trump’s home lacked probable cause.
In March 2026, the Justice Department reported that the FBI found about 1.9 million pages of records that are responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit. These documents were reportedly stored in a “hidden room” at FBI headquarters and were first revealed by former Deputy Director Dan Bongino (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:25-cv-04047)). 
In March 2026, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for records from the FBI’s Biden-era “Arctic Frost” probe, specifically involving the Criminal Division, the Office of Information Policy, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:26-cv-00746)).
In March 2026, Judicial Watch asked a Georgia state court to reject Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ efforts to continue hiding records about her office’s communications with Jack Smith’s office and the January 6 Committee (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Fani Willis et al. (No. 24-CV-002805)).
In February 2026, Judicial Watch secured the release of rosters identifying the names of top deputies who worked for former Special Counsel Jack Smith (Judicial Watch Inc. v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-01485)).
In January 2026, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for communications of FBI agents regarding the prosecution of former Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:26-cv-00079)).
In January 2025, a federal court ordered the Justice Department to provide Judicial Watch information on communications between Jack Smith and Fani Willis regarding the prosecution of Trump. In May 2025, the Justice Department was directed to search text messages from the Special Counsel’s Office for responsive records (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 23-cv-03110).
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The post Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Records on Biden FBI Search Warrants Used in Raid on Rudy Giuliani appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Even though the wealth tax is supposed to hit only the superrich, it will certainly expand and expand.

The Washington, D.C., chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, an organization that claims to uphold the ethics of the journalism industry, is giving ex-Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah the Distinguished Service Award. Attiah gained notable public attention for being fired from the Post because of her inflammatory comments following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The Spectator P.M. Podcast hosts Ellie Gardey Holmes and Lyrah Margo highlight the absurdity of the award, highlighting Attiah’s victim mentality. Ellie and Lyrah review Attiah’s recent work and point out her flawed beliefs about white women, Palestine, and racial segregation.
Tune in to hear their discussion!

Read Ellie and Lyrah’s writing here and here.
Listen to the Spectator P.M. Podcast on Spotify.

Watch the Spectator P.M. Podcast on Rumble.