Newsbusters

It’s official! Friday will be Andrea Mitchell’s last day hosting her daytime MSNBC show Andrea Mitchell Reports. Mitchell made the official announcement on Monday’s show.

Back in October, Mitchell made the decision to step down from the daily duties of hosting her MSNBC show but will continue at NBC News in her roles as chief foreign affairs correspondent and chief Washington correspondent.

Before she departs on Friday, we at NewsBusters wanted to take a not-so fond look back at just some of her worst moments from MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports:  

 

Hailing Hillary’s “Star Performance” In “Suffragette White”  

 

 

“Hillary Clinton in a star performance, hoping her loss in 2016 may have paved the way for America to finally accept a woman as president….Clinton, dressed in suffragette white, said that [Kamala] Harris is now the one to break that ultimate glass ceiling….She feels and other women feel and male analysts, that she paved the way, she made it more acceptable for men and women to think of a woman as commander-in-chief.”— Host Andrea Mitchell discussing Hillary Clinton’s DNC speech as aired on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, August 20, 2024.

 

Are We Being Unfair To Biden, Just Like Hillary In 2016?

 

 

“76 percent of those polled in our recent poll are concerned about his [Joe Biden’s] age and far fewer concerned about Donald Trump’s age, who, when he’s not on teleprompter, you know, we’re not addressing that, the White House would point out….I can understand the basic point of fairness, especially after what happened in 2016 when there was a real argument that is exactly what happened to Hillary Clinton.”— Host Andrea Mitchell to correspondent Mike Memoli on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, February 9, 2024.

 

Mitchell Spreads Lie About DeSantis and Slavery  

 

 

“Let me ask you, what does Governor Ron DeSantis not know about black history and the black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?”— Host Andrea Mitchell to Vice President Kamala Harris on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, February 17, 2023. DeSantis has said himself that Florida law requires slavery and its aftermath to be taught. Mitchell offered a half-hearted correction on her Feb. 22, 2023 show.

 

Can Democracy “Survive” the 2022 Midterms?  

 

 

Host Andrea Mitchell: “How confident can we be that democracy does survive?”Former Newsweek editor, presidential historian and current MSNBC contributor Jon Meacham: “We can’t, we can’t be confident. We have to work really, really hard. This is the gravest test of citizenship since the Civil War and it’s, this is, as President Biden might say, it’s not hyperbole and it’s not a joke.”— MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, October 28, 2022.

 

After Roe V. Wade, Is Brown V. Board of Education Next? 

 

 

“If they [conservative Supreme Court justices] care so little about precedent and overruling precedent, what about Brown v. Board of Education? What about other major civil rights rulings of the 60s?”— Host Andrea Mitchell to Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, May 11, 2022.

 

Trump “Lost So Much Time” on Stopping Climate Change, Is It Too Late?  

 

 

“It’s been 15 years, though, since An Inconvenient Truth came out. How much ground have we lost because of inaction and the rollbacks under President Trump….over the past 15 years….Have we lost so much time that we are not going to be able to recover?”— Host Andrea Mitchell to former Vice President Al Gore on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, November 4, 2021.

 

Andrea All But Cues Up Rocky Theme Music to Get Joe to Run 

 

 

“[Philadelphia Eagles quarterback] Nick Foles said the other day, ‘Don’t be afraid to fail, failure is part of life. It’s part of building character. Without failure, who would we be?’ Does that inspire you when you think about — you’ve run for president twice — when you think about the future?…So is there some part of Joe Biden who’s identifying with Nick Foles and the team as they climb the steps of the art museum today? Is there a part of you that thinks about Rocky Balboa?”— Host Andrea Mitchell’s questions to former Vice President Joe Biden on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, February 8, 2018.

 

Trump Administration Isn’t “Incompetent” or “Evil” It’s Both!

Host Andrea Mitchell: “You posited that it’s either incompetence or evil. I would suggest that it could be both – that there is an evil desire to deter by making an example of these people, and then it was carried out with no planning – and that is the rank incompetence that makes it even that much worse.”MSNBC Legal Analyst Mimi Rocah: “Absolutely, and you’re right. It shouldn’t be presented as an either, or. It could be both.”— Discussion of Trump administration immigration policy on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, July 10, 2018.

 

Andrea Advances Election Conspiracy Theories For Hillary

“Some Clinton supporters are trying to mount a campaign to ask for an audit in key states to see if a recount should be ordered. According to a group of election lawyers and computer scientists cited by Gabe Sherman in New York magazine, there is, quote, ‘persuasive evidence that election results in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan may have been manipulated or hacked.’”— MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Andrea Mitchell Reports, November 23, 2016.

 

Fawning Over Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton Making “Magic” at On Stage

“You watched this event, it did seem like magic on that stage….Even their colors seem to match. And blend in with each other.”— Host Andrea Mitchell to former Obama advisor Anita Dunn on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, June 27, 2016.

 

No Conspiracy Here, Bill Just Likes to Party

“It, is, we are told, traditional that when Bill Clinton knows that a Cabinet secretary or another [Secret Service] protectee….is in the area, he’ll say, ‘Oh, let me say hello.’…Met with her [Loretta Lynch] for about 30 minutes. She said it was completely social. They talked about grandchildren. But this has led to a lot of conspiracy theories that even before Hillary Clinton has been interviewed by the FBI, to our knowledge, that somehow this is Bill Clinton talking to Loretta Lynch about clearing Hillary Clinton of the e-mail investigation.”— MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Andrea Mitchell Reports, June 30, 2016.

Elisabeth Bumiller has returned to the reporting beat after a long stint as the paper’s Washington bureau chief, and her seething, even paranoid hostility toward Republican presidents remains intact. The front page of Friday’s New York Times, “Blaming Diversity Hiring, Trump Turns Accident Into Grievance.” The text box read: “Recalling the Extremes of His First Term.”

Predictably, Bumiller’s prominently placed screed went beyond any justified criticism of Trump leaping to conclusions immediately after the D.C. airplane tragedy:

On the morning after a devastating midair collision of an American Airlines plane and an Army helicopter that sent 67 people, not one of whom survived, into the icy waters of the Potomac River, President Trump stood behind the White House lectern and for a brief moment did what presidents do….But then, as Navy divers continued their search for bodies in the Potomac, the president transitioned into some of the most extraordinary public statements he has ever made, among them equating diversity with incompetence.

“We do not know what led to this crash, but we have some very strong opinions and ideas,” Mr. Trump began, his tone moving from solace to irritation. “And I think we’ll probably state those opinions now.”

Meanwhile, the “No evidence!” canard continues its comeback in the press:

And so he did. For the next 30 minutes, citing no evidence, Mr. Trump blamed diversity efforts at the Federal Aviation Administration for lowering standards for air traffic controllers. He blamed the Obama administration, claiming it had determined that the F.A.A. work force was “too white.”

He blamed the Biden administration, too, and its secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg.

“That guy is a real winner,” Mr. Trump said, sarcastically. “He’s a disaster.”

But mostly the president of the United States, who was consulting prepared remarks, blamed diversity. Washington was in mourning, chaplains were at the scene of the crash, but Mr. Trump plowed ahead. His remarks were the latest offensive in the White House war to root out “woke” elements and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government.

For the record, Trump wasn’t blaming “diversity” per se, but the aggressive, federally mandated moves of D.E.I. (diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives).

Of course, she tried to spin the racism of DEI and spit it back at those who noticed:

The F.A.A. has not identified any of the controllers responsible for monitoring flights around the airport. The Pentagon has not named the helicopter pilots, or their race. But Mr. Trump, seeming as if he knew something, asserted that the pilots had failed.

(…)

…it was Vice President JD Vance, who was next up, who got to the point — the view that white people had lost out because of diversity hiring, and that nonwhite hires had put travelers at risk.

“If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin,” he said….

Fact-check: True.

She also perpetuated the debunked Trump-told-people-to-inject-bleach hoax as an example of the “extreme remarks” he made in his first term:

Then came the questions from a White House press corps that had lived through some of Mr. Trump’s most extreme remarks from the first term, like his suggestion that an injection of a disinfectant could battle Covid. But many reporters were nonetheless dumbfounded by what was unfolding.

After that unfair throwback to a rambling, COVID-era Trump press conference, Bumiller approvingly quoted another reporter deep in the tank for Democrats, Mary Bruce of ABC News.

Was Mr. Trump saying that the crash was the result of diversity hiring, Mary Bruce of ABC News asked, and what evidence had he seen to support that claim?

Hoping to avoid misinformation about President Donald Trump’s nominees and appointments on Wikipedia? Good luck. Wikipedia has designed a protocol that directly and unerringly produces the worst descriptions about conservatives and Republicans by virtually guaranteeing that right-leaning media sources cannot be cited. The once reliable online encyclopedia ran off the rails under the leadership of its previous CEO Katherine Maher, who made sure that not a single right-leaning outlet was deemed “reliable”—a stark contrast to the 84 percent of leftist media Wikipedia deems reliable.

A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America found that Wikipedia, the encyclopedia behemoth, has effectively blacklisted all right-leaning media from being used as source material, exclusively relying on leftist, legacy media notoriously known to spread misinformation and attack opponents of the left.

Among the effectively blackballed media sources are Breitbart, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN and the Media Research Center. Meanwhile, leftist media like The Atlantic, Jacobin, Mother Jones, Pro-Publica, The Guardian and National Public Radio (NPR) are given the green light. This blatant misinformation means that Wikipedia is purposely feeding Americans information exclusively through the lens of one side of the political spectrum—the left.

Positioning themselves as arbiters of truth, Wikipedia and its editors have effectively institutionalized a blacklisting system utilizing a “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page that forbids the use of some of the most popular media sources on the right when editing Wikipedia pages. Their claims? Right-leaning sources are not “reliable,” and in some cases literally “blacklisted” — Wikipedia’s actual word — from use on the platform altogether. The predictable effect? Conservatives, Republicans and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people. 

Such a blockade has resulted in a disparate balance that disturbingly disadvantages right-leaning media: Wikipedia effectively blocks 100 percent of right-leaning media sources – the ones more likely to give fair treatment to the majority in Congress as well as to incoming officials to the Trump administration. On the contrary, only 16 percent of left-wing media sources fail to win Wikipedia’s stamp of approval.

Pointing out how Wikipedia’s product has degraded over time, MRC Vice President Dan Schneider explained, “There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke. Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions. It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.”

Schneider added, “The leadership as well as the rank and file editors are in constant overdrive to tear down their political opponents. From the policy issues Wikipedia highlights to the tone their editors use to castigate Trump and his appointees. Wikipedia is obviously designed to indoctrinate Americans into despising anything good and decent about mainstream conservatives.” 

MRC’s findings come as the Senate holds confirmation hearings for the Trump cabinet and other nominees and appointments. Many Americans, including Senators presumably, turn to Wikipedia to learn about Trump’s nominees. Little do they realize that Wikipedia is marring its pages with derogatory misinformation due to the dominance of leftist media sources, poisoning the Senate confirmation process because it exclusively gives fodder to one political faction attempting to discredit Trump’s appointments and nominees.

Make no mistake—Wikipedia’s “reliable sources” page is tantamount to a blacklist, and it is part of a deliberate and systematic effort to make sure Americans only read media outlets that conform to the left’s political ideology. What’s worse is that Wikipedia is not even hiding it.

Where Does the Blacklist Come From?

Wikipedia provides what it calls its “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page, effectively a blacklist, as a “non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed.” 

This page is where Wikipedia editors tally their determinations of reliable and non-reliable sources. The determinations occur on a separate page dubbed “Reliable sources/Noticeboard.” Once a conclusion is reached, each outlet is given a label—either “generally reliable,” “no consensus,” “generally unreliable,” “deprecated” or “blacklisted.” 

As detailed below, any outlet that is not part of the “generally reliable” category is effectively blacklisted and deemed guilty by lack of association.

“Blacklisted” sources are considered spam and are “automatically” blocked from being cited by any source. These sources are thrown under a “spam blacklist” or in the “Wikimedia global spam blacklist.”

“Deprecated” sources, similar to those media sources included under blacklisted, are “generally prohibited,” with users who cite them being issued a “warning message” and their entries “tagged.” 

“Generally unreliable” sources are not far different from those included under blacklisted and deprecated. Wikipedia claims such sources “should normally not be used.” Users are urged to find a “more reliable source instead.” 

Wikipedia warns that if “no such source exists, that may suggest that the information 

is inaccurate.” In other words, the only media reports that are considered trustworthy are those reported by leftist, legacy media.

Media sources that fall under “No consensus” are “marginally reliable” and “may be usable depending on context,” Wikipedia warns. While editors have not reached a consensus on the media source’s reliability, each entry that cited that source may be reviewed on a “case-by-case” basis. In other words, users are expected to jump through hoops before confidently using such sources.

Finally, there is the “generally reliable” sources label, or the crème de la crème, under Wikipedia’s eyes. (More on this category further down.)

Which Outlets Are Effectively Blacklisted?

MRC Free Speech America used the publicly available Media Bias Chart provided by AllSides, a media ratings company that classifies media sources as having a right or left bias, to check Wikipedia’s ratings of right-leaning media outlets.

MRC researcher analysis determined that not a single media source listed by AllSides as “lean right” or “right” (29 in total) is deemed “generally reliable” by Wikipedia. 

On the contrary, an overwhelming majority of right-leaning media sources (22 out of 29) are stained with either the “blacklisted,” “deprecated” or “generally unreliable” label. The media sources that did not meet that initial guillotine were instead thrown under the “no consensus” category, which, as explained earlier, is more-or-less the same as being banned. In other words, Wikipedia effectively blacklists all right-leaning media sources.

Wikipedia impugned Breitbart News, one of the most recognized right-leaning media sources on the blacklist, due to perceived abuse. “The site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories as fact,” Wikipedia claims of the media outlet.

Wikipedia labels other right-leaning media sources as “deprecated,” including The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, Newsmax, OANN, ZeroHedge and The Epoch Times. 

Outlets deemed “generally unreliable” are: Fox News (politics and science; and talk shows) Blaze Media, The Daily Wire, The Federalist, the New York Post, The Post Millennial and the Washington Free Beacon. 

As MRC conducted this investigation, Wikipedia broke Fox News into three categories, describing its “talk shows,” and any news segments covering “politics and science,” as “generally unreliable.” The other Fox News news segments are placed under “no consensus.”

Outlets under the “no consensus” label are The American Conservative, the Independent Journal Review, National Review, The Washington Times and the Washington Examiner.

Wikipedia has yet to target the following media sources, which also means they have not received the encyclopedia’s approval: The American Spectator, Christian Broadcasting Network, Upward!, Just the News, The Free Press, Fox Business and The Dispatch.

To make matters worse, other media sources not included in the AllSides Media Bias Chart are also maligned. 

For instance, the Media Research Center and its flagship media subdivisions—MRCTV.org and NewsBusters—are dubbed “generally unreliable” because some Wikipedia editors “believe these sources publish false or fabricated information.”

Since its founding in 1987, not one MRC study—whether it is uncovering bias in cable news or exposing Big Tech election interference—has been proven false or fabricated.

Which Media Sources Wikipedia Rubber Stamps?

While none of the right-leaning media sources have received Wikipedia’s stamp of approval, the story is quite different for the media sources on the left. 

Wikipedia dubbed only one (AlterNet) out of 44 media sources deemed “center,” “lean left” or “left” by AllSides as “generally unreliable.” AllSides identifies 32 media sources that are also rated by Wikipedia as “lean left” or “left,” with 27 (or 84 percent) deemed “generally reliable.”

Meanwhile, the leftist encyclopedia gives the green light to (considers “generally reliable”) the following media sources in the “lean left” category: ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg News, CBS News, CNN, Insider, NBC News, The New York Times, NPR, Politico, Pro-Publica, TIME Magazine, USA Today, The Washington Post and Yahoo! News.

Wikipedia approves the following “left” media sources: The Associated Press, The Atlantic, The Guardian, HuffPost, The Intercept, Jacobin, Mother Jones, MSNBC, The Nation, The New Yorker and Vox.

The inclusion of some of these outlets as “generally reliable” is nothing short of astonishing, given their history of spreading misinformation, falsehoods and misleading information.

For instance, take the Wuhan laboratory leak theory, a story widely dismissed by the legacy media as a conspiracy theory but later confirmed as the likely cause of the COVID-19 pandemic.

By March 16, 2020, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), one of the first, publicly outspoken proponents of this theory, had his Wikipedia page soiled by a “Coronavirus conspiracy theories” subheader, detailing his position that the coronavirus outbreak could have been caused by the communist Chinese regime.

At that time, Wikipedia cited The Washington Post’s complete dismissal of the theory: “Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked.”

A little over a month later, Wikipedia scrubbed the “conspiracy theories” framing from Cotton’s “Coronavirus” subheader but continued to cite leftist media pouring cold water on the theory. For instance, a headline by The New York Times read: “Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins.”

Fast forward to 2025 and several federal agencies issued reports concluding that they believe COVID-19 leaked from the Wuhan lab, with the CIA becoming the latest entity to back this theory. The Washington Post—and The New York Times to a lesser degree—went on to edit their articles, with The Washington Post’s correction reading:  

“Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus. The term ‘debunked’ and The Post’s use of ‘conspiracy theory’ have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.”

Another great example is the Hunter Biden laptop scandal bombshell. 

Several media sources described as “generally reliable” by Wikipedia dismissed the New York Post’s Oct. 14, 2020 exposé on the infamous “laptop from hell”—which exposed the then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden had lied about his role in his son’s foreign business dealings.

NPR refused to report the story, suggesting it was false (it was not): “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

On April 1, 2021, NPR issued a correction after falsely claiming the story had been discredited: “A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect.”

The false claim was likely prompted by another misleading story by Politico, another outlet hailed as reliable by Wikipedia. At the height of the laptop scandal, Politico ran a story claiming the story “is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”

The still-published story blindly quoted over 50 former intelligence officials who—at the request of Anthony Blinken, then a Biden campaign surrogate—signed a public letter claiming the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Despite the assurances, the laptop scandal was not Russian disinformation. In fact, the FBI had possession of the laptop before the New York Post’s story and used its contents against the criminal charges of Hunter Biden.

The bombshell went on to be censored by Big Tech companies and legacy media, hindering the story’s reach. This coordinated media censorship, according to an MRC poll conducted by The Polling Company, swayed the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.

Despite these major issues, Wikipedia continues to praise the media outlets that committed journalistic malpractice by refusing to accurately report on these events. 

Wikipedia’s Long History of Leftist Bias

Wikipedia’s blacklisting system is not a random occurrence, as it appears to echo the vision of current NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher, the radical leftist who was previously the chief executive officer of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Maher joined Wikimedia in 2014 as a chief communications officer, directing the non-profit’s public image until she became executive director in 2016. From that time until she stepped down in 2021, Maher worked hammer and tong to create a system that presented the worst descriptions about her political opponents, censoring so-called disinformation and ensuring that Wikipedia relies almost exclusively on left-leaning sources that tend to be antagonistic to conservatives and Republicans

Maher seemingly referenced the blacklist during an interview with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DRFLab). When asked whether Wikipedia has faced any “threats” in terms of mis- and disinformation, Maher claimed that “the editing community has a very high sort of scrutiny on what constitutes a reliable source.”

She went on to detail Wikipedia’s policies further. “There are clear practices in place,” she added, “about if you’re editing on a sensitive topic, such as medical information or a biography of an individual or an upcoming political event or a breaking news story, around what constitutes something that’s reliable enough to go into that.”

In 2018, Maher mirrored these claims in an interview with leftist media outlet Slate’s tech podcast “If Then,” saying Wikipedia’s policies require editors to “[c]ite back to what we call reliable sources.”

She further warned, “It means that people can’t just put out fringe theories based on what their interests are. They have to find citations and information. It has to be peer-reviewed, or published, or have some editorial scrutiny.” 

Maher skewed Wikipedia so much to the left that even Larry Sanger, the self-proclaimed liberal Wikipedia cofounder, spoke out against it. “Wikipedia no longer has an effective neutrality policy,” Sanger wrote in a blog on May 14, 2020.

Sanger called out Wikipedia’s glaring bias against then-President Trump, the pro-life movement and Christianity. For instance, he compared how the online encyclopedia smeared Trump while turning a blind eye to Obama.

“It is time for Wikipedia to come clean and admit that it has abandoned NPOV (i.e., neutrality as a policy),” he warned. “At the very least they should admit that that they have redefined the term in a way that makes it utterly incompatible with its original notion of neutrality, which is the ordinary and common one.”

Maher stepped down as Wikimedia’s head in 2021, leaving behind a massive $140 million endowment to “unlock the world’s knowledge.” However, what she unlocked was a knowledge shaped exclusively by leftist media narratives, all while effectively blacklisting right-leaning media.

Maher came under fire in 2024 after her past social media activity exposed her leftist bias on a series of political issues. Her past tweets “could have come straight from the mouth of an ardent liberal activist,” noted National Review in 2024. 

In one instance, Maher appeared to refer to Trump as a racist. “What is that deranged racist sociopath ranting about today? I truly do not understand,” she wrote in May 2020, according to National Review. In July 2020, Maher self-described as “someone with cis white mobility privilege.” 

In another May post, Maher seemingly condoned looting in the name of social justice: “I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.”

In May 2024, Maher failed to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, which had launched an investigation into NPR’s rampant leftist bias. She provided written testimony instead.

METHODOLOGY: On Jan. 27, 2025, MRC Free Speech America utilized the AllSides media bias chart as a gauge to determine how Wikipedia rates media sources considered “left” and “lean left” in comparison to media sources considered “right” and “lean right.” AllSides listed 32 total media sources as “left” or “lean left” and 29 media sources as “right” or “lean right.” MRC analyzed the 32 left-leaning media sources and 29 right-leaning sources that were rated by AllSides on its media bias chart and compared them to Wikipedia’s “Reliable sources/Perennial sources” page to determine what percentage of media sources deemed “generally reliable” by Wikipedia were right-leaning and what percentage were left-leaning. Media sources that were rated as “center” by AllSides were not included in determining the percentage of right-leaning vs. left-leaning media sources Wikipedia considers to be “generally reliable.” AllSides notes it has a “patent on rating bias and use[s] multiple methodologies,” not a homogenous group or an algorithm. “Our methods are: Blind Bias Surveys of Americans, Editorial Reviews by a multipartisan team of panelists who look for common types of media bias, independent reviews, and third party data.”

On her eponymous Saturday afternoon show, MSNBC host Katie Phang accused “convicted felon” President Donald Trump of “indiscriminately” arresting “black and brown” immigrants and “dehumanizing” them with detention without due process rights while MSNBC contributor Paola Ramos (and daughter of Jorge Ramos) said Trump views deporting (illegal) immigrants as a “new chapter in the war on terror.”

Phang also took at shot at Latinos who voted for Trump, scoffing: “It’s what I say is the ‘find out’ part for those folks that voted for him thinking, ‘It won’t happen to me or my family.'”

Rewinding to the beginning of the segment, she tagged Trump as a “convicted felon” and claimed he was waging a “terror campaign” against illegal aliens before asking where all the additional detainees would be kept: “Convicted felon President Trump’s terror campaign through heightened mass deportation efforts has led to an increase in arrests while deportation flights remain at typical pre-Trump levels. So with more arrests, the federal government has to house those in custody somewhere. But where?”

After a clip of President Trump announcing that up to 30,000 of “the worst criminal illegal aliens” can be held at Guantanamo Bay if there are problems with returning some to their home countries, Phang brought aboard Ramos and accused the President of wanting to “dehumanize” detainees: “The continued dehumanization of migrants is the goal here, right?”

Ramos declared that “that’s exactly right,” and fretted:

 

 

[W]hat scares me, at least, is that history tells us that when, as Americans, we sort of enter this paranoid state that we’re in, we do have a tendency to turn a blind eye on the violations that happen in Guantanamo Bay, you know. We have a tendency to turn a blind eye on the human rights violations, the abuses, and all of the darkness that has happened, there, and that is exactly where we are. So our job is to ensure that we don’t turn a blind eye, you know, that we don’t allow history to repeat itself.

Ramos then argued the images of ICE raids, troops going to the border, and Guantanamo Bay housing illegal immigrants are all meant to illicit feelings of “entering this new chapter in the war on terror” will illegal immigrants on bar with Islamic terrorists.

Phang then accused ICE of being “indiscriminate” in detaining “everybody who’s black and brown” people, and of depriving detainees of due process:

[ICE raids] are indiscriminate in terms of who they’re picking up and who they’re detaining. They’re actually — it’s the reverse of due process, right? It’s “I’m going to take everybody who’s brown and black, and then I’m going to make you prove that you’re a U.S. citizen,” versus ICE saying, “I know you’re not a U.S. citizen, and I’m here to be able to take you.”you.”

She soon added:

When you put them all in Guantanamo, and you put it in an overtaxed system like this government that doesn’t even know what they’re doing with them, you’re putting women, children, men indiscriminately together, in this facility — you don’t let lawyers that don’t get to go there, Paola. You don’t just get on a plane and you’re a lawyer and you’re just there. It’s almost impossible to be able to provide them with any type of due process.

Transcript follows:

MSNBC’s The Katie Phang Show

February 1, 2025

12:29 p.m. Eastern

KATIE PHANG: Convicted felon President Trump’s terror campaign through heightened mass deportation efforts has led to an increase in arrests while deportation flights remain at typical pre-Trump levels. So with more arrests, the federal government has to house those in custody somewhere. But where?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [on 01/29/25]: Today I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay. Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad, we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re going to send them out to Guantanamo.

PHANG: Joining me now is Paola Ramos, MSNBC contributor and the author of Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America. Pao, my friend, necessary conversations. Let’s get straight to it. Guantanamo Bay — a place that you and I know well, having been in Miami and in Florida. Maybe a lot of people don’t know. There’s the military facility, but then they also have a separate detention facility for migrants, and, listen, the military facility — they kept the detainees after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but we’re hearing — and we know — the vice president of the National Immigration Law Center saying, “report upon report on conditions” in those detention facilities “that don’t provide basic health care,” they “shackle women when pregnant,” and they haven’t had “protections for communicable diseases such as Covid.” I mean, Pao, the continued dehumanization of migrants is the goal here, right?

PAOLA RAMOS: That’s exactly right. I think the first thing that comes to mind when you mention Guantanamo — when you mention the report — is “war on terror,” and that is precisely the point. That is what Donald Trump wants us to think about. Look, I think if you take a step back, you know, and you look at all of these images that we have been bombarded with just this week, Katie, you know, you see the ICE raids — you see troops deploying to the border. You see images of military planes carrying migrants and now the image of Guantanamo Bay. The point is precisely to get this country to believe that we are entering this new chapter in the war on terror. 

(….)

12:32 p.m. Eastern

RAMOS: And so the point that we are in right now is for Donald Trump to continue to condition Americans to believe that story and to now believe that the next iteration of that story means to defeat them and to defeat them, meaning the terrorists. So I think what Guantanamo Bay brings up — what scares me, at least, is that history tells us that when, as Americans, we sort of enter this paranoid state that we’re in, we do have a tendency to turn a blind eye on the violations that happen in Guantanamo Bay, you know. We have a tendency to turn a blind eye on the human rights violations, the abuses, and all of the darkness that has happened, there, and that is exactly where we are. So our job is to ensure that we don’t turn a blind eye, you know, that we don’t allow history to repeat itself.

PHANG: You know, Paola, I think what’s so important to underscore here is these ICE raids that are happening right now. They are indiscriminate in terms of who they’re picking up and who they’re detaining. They’re actually — it’s the reverse of due process, right? It’s “I’m going to take everybody who’s brown and black, and then I’m going to make you prove that you’re a U.S. citizen,” versus ICE saying, “I know you’re not a U.S. citizen, and I’m here to be able to take you.” Furthermore, the “illegal” moniker that is being put on migrants has now been completely distorted because folks who had temporary protected status, for example, from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, people like that now have lost that status through the revocation of that that was afforded to them under the Biden administration. And that means that they are now here illegally. When you put them all in Guantanamo, and you put it in an overtaxed system like this government that doesn’t even know what they’re doing with them, you’re putting women, children, men indiscriminately together, in this facility — you don’t let lawyers that don’t get to go there, Paola. You don’t just get on a plane and you’re a lawyer and you’re just there. It’s almost impossible to be able to provide them with any type of due process.

(….)

12:36 p.m. Eastern

PHANG: It’s what I say is the “find out” part for those folks that voted for him thinking, “It won’t happen to me or my family.” 

Popular celebrities predictably got political during Sunday’s 67th Annual Grammy Awards on CBS, including the show host, comedian Trevor Noah ––  who took several veiled swipes at President Donald Trump over his recent flurry of executive orders. Within the first 10 minutes of the show, he made jokes about Trump’s executive orders on tariffs and immigration without mentioning him by name. 

The South African comedian, and former host of The Daily Show, even joked about how he might get deported.

 

 

I don’t know if you know this, but there’s been a few changes in Washington, so I’m going to enjoy tonight because this may be my last time I get to host anything in this country. 

As for his quip on tariffs, he suggested that people wouldn’t be able to afford to buy tickets to Beyonce’s newly announced tour, as he joked that maple syrup is going to go up to $50. 

Singer-songwriter Shakira also got in on the immigration discussion by dedicating her Best Latin Pop album to immigrants living in the U.S., nonchalantly conflating legal immigration and the chaos happening at our southern border. 

“I want to dedicate this award to all my immigrant brothers and sisters in this country,” she said. “You are loved, you are worth it and I will always fight with you.”

As for singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, she took on Trump’s crackdown on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) during her speech:

 

 

 This is not the time to shut down the diversity of voices. We have seen on this stage, talented, hardworking people from different backgrounds with different points of view, and it changes the game. DEI is not a threat: It’s a gift — The more voices, the more powerful the sound.

When destructive forces try to burn us down, we rise from the ashes like a phoenix. And as you see tonight, music is the unstoppable language that connects us all. Let’s keep showing up with compassion, with empathy, what I call soul care. Keep opening the doors, the dreams that the world is ought to be. 

Lady Gaga went after Trump’s gender-related executive orders while accepting the award for best pop duo for her “Die With a Smile” duet with Bruno Mars. 

“I just want to say tonight that trans people are not invisible,” she exclaimed. “Trans people deserve love, the queer community deserves to be lifted up.” 

Of course, no mention from Gaga about the impact of the trans debate on biological women or children. 

A Hollywood awards show wouldn’t be complete without a creepy, satanic-themed performance –– this one brought to the viewers by The Weeknd, who made a surprise return after boycotting the show since 2021. 

The R&B musician from Toronto had previously accused the Grammys of being rigged, which might explain how Beyonce won Best Country Album for “Cowboy Carter” this year. 

And X users did not hold back on their true feelings about her country album win. 

Beyoncé wins the Grammy for best country album of the year. I’m a tone deaf music moron. (Except when it comes to playing the flute, at which I am the best in the world.) But this still seems crazy to me. Country music fans, your reactions? pic.twitter.com/bdyzO5Fjx5
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) February 3, 2025

Beyoncé wins “Best Country Album” at The Grammys🤣🤣 Way to go🤣
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) February 3, 2025

Beyoncé won the Grammy for the best country album.
Even she knows it’s rigged pic.twitter.com/NzncvWTal2
— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) February 3, 2025

I can’t believe Beyonce won Best Country Album. #CowboyCarter was NOT a country album. It’s a pop & hip hop album… Saying boots, spurs & jeans to some acoustic guitar riffs while riding horses, doesn’t make it a country album. They won cuz they kept calling the #GRAMMYs racist pic.twitter.com/lsFKH6scrV
— Andy Signore (@andysignore) February 3, 2025 

Overall, it appears that Hollywood celebrities are back on their soapboxes giving out unsolicited political opinions, and ignoring the will of the American people. 

Nick Arama with our friends at RedState took a blowtorch Sunday to longtime liberal journalist Katie Couric’s hissy fit last week over liberal legacy media outlets losing permanent office space at the Pentagon, noting saner corners of the internet weren’t falling for her “ridiculous hyperventilation.”

In reaction to the Pentagon informing NBC, The New York Times, taxpayer-funded NPR, and Politico they were being booted from their unspoken saved cubbies booted for Breitbart, the New York Post, One America News Network, and far-left HuffPo, Couric said this in an X post: “Wow. This is how news becomes propaganda. It’s begun. Pay attention.” 

Arama hit the nail on the head that it’s not censorship or “propaganda,” but rather “giving other media the chance to use the spaces on a rotational basis, and not just having them used by the favored few.”

Noting the liberal outlets are still allowed to show up and cover the Pentagon like everyone else, Arama explained the real issue isn’t access, but liberal media types losing “their special status,” adding:

But when you see how she manipulates facts just in her reaction to this simple-to-understand story, you know how ridiculous what she says is. Does she really think that people are just going to fall for this spin? Liberal media types are so upset that legacy media is tanking, that no one believes them anymore, and that new media is on the rise. People just aren’t falling for it anymore.

Citing the years-long Russian collusion hubbub, Arama astutely made the point we would at NewsBusters that, along with her decades-long career in bias, one of her worst blemishes (to be charitable) was her 2016 admission that she had doctored an interview with the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) for her anti-Second Amendment documentary, Under the Gun.

To read Arama’s full piece, click here.

On Wednesday’s CNN News Central, CNN’s Kate Bolduan gave Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) an unchallenged forum to complain about the Trump administration’s ICE raids.

Bolduan began by bringing up with her guest the Venezuelan gang member who was just arrested in the Bronx, leading the New York Democrat to soon complain about border czar Tom Homan talking up sending ICE agents into places like schools and churches. 

REP. NYDIA VELAZQUEZ (D-NY): Well, look, we support removing criminals — those who have a — an active warrant to be deported — to be arrested and deported. And this has happened under the Obama administration, it has happened under the Biden administration, and now under this administration. But let me make it clear — 90 percent of immigrants do not have criminal records. Only of the minority that do have criminal record basically are for traffic violations. And in terms of Mr. (Tom) Homan saying that this is about safety and safer communities, let’s be clear. He’s talking about going into schools, hospitals, churches, and other sensitive places.

She further fretted:

VELASQUEZ: These places have been considered safe havens because we don’t want people to avoid seeking critical services. Imagine if we are facing another pandemic, and people are so afraid of going to a hospital seeking health services. This is not the right way to do it. And he is wrong. That is exactly what is happening now. Parents are afraid to send their children to school. People are afraid to go into churches. Doctors are worried about how to protect their patients. And people really are afraid. Terrorizing the community is not public safety.

It was not mentioned that Homan has specifically talked about sending ICE agents into such places to arrest dangerous criminals.

Bolduan followed up by cuing up her Democrat guest to repeat complaints by those who fear being confronted during ICE raids:

BOLDUAN: What are you specifically hearing from your constituents since these operations have begun to play out? We’ve heard from the border czar, Tom Homan, saying that their priority is to first go after criminals — people with a criminal — violent criminal past. We saw that with that picking up of that Venezuelan gang member. Are you seeing — are you hearing from your constituents that others are being caught up in it as well? What are you hearing from constituents specifically?

VELAZQUEZ: Well, they are terrified. I had a meeting in my office in Queens, and people are asking me, you know, what assurances we have about sending the kids to the schools. They are really terrified. So, you see, what Trump and his allies are doing, they may frame their claims around crime, drugs and cartels, but it is clear that their mass deportation agenda will target millions of people who have no criminal records.

And this is not good for this community — the immigrant community. And, by the way, this is — they are even arresting American citizens like the Puerto Rican veteran in New Jersey and, then, yesterday, a family in Wisconsin. So this is an attempt to implement a mass deportation with a total disregard of the status of those people that they are arresting.

As if there were a need for Congress to rein in ICE arrests, the CNN host followed up: “I think a key question is, you said that people are looking to you for assurances. What can you and what can other Democrats in Congress, like, what is your plan of action to push back against this if there’s anything you can do?”

After the Democrat congresswoman recounted that she has strategized with a number of organizations about how to inform immigrants of their rights, Bolduan wrapped up the segment.

Transcript follows:

CNN News Central

January 29, 2025

8:33 a.m. Eastern

KATE BOLDUAN: I want to talk about what we know has played out just this week is this high-ranking member of a Venezuelan gang picked up in New York City, arrested in the Bronx, wanted for multiple serious crimes. This is when the new DHS secretary was also on the ground. Look, everyone wants a guy like that off the street. How do you put this in the context of, you know, that is a good thing, right? I mean, what do you see in these operations?

CONGRESSWOMAN NYDIA VELAZQUEZ (D-NY): Well, look, we support removing criminals — those who have a — an active warrant to be deported — to be arrested and deported. And this has happened under the Obama administration, it has happened under the Biden administration, and now under this administration. But let me make it clear — 90 percent of immigrants do not have criminal records. Only of the minority that do have criminal record basically are for traffic violations. And in terms of Mr. (Tom) Homan saying that this is about safety and safer communities, let’s be clear. He’s talking about going into schools, hospitals, churches, and other sensitive places.

These places have been considered safe havens because we don’t want people to avoid seeking critical services. Imagine if we are facing another pandemic, and people are so afraid of going to a hospital seeking health services. This is not the right way to do it. And he is wrong. That is exactly what is happening now. Parents are afraid to send their children to school. People are afraid to go into churches. Doctors are worried about how to protect their patients. And people really are afraid. Terrorizing the community is not public safety.

BOLDUAN: I wanted to ask you, what are you specifically hearing from your constituents since these operations have begun to play out? We’ve heard from the border czar, Tom Homan, saying that their priority is to first go after criminals — people with a criminal — violent criminal past. We saw that with that picking up of that Venezuelan gang member. Are you seeing — are you hearing from your constituents that others are being caught up in it as well? What are you hearing from constituents specifically?

CONGRESSWOMAN VELAZQUEZ: Well, they are terrified. I had a meeting in my office in Queens, and people are asking me, you know, what assurances we have about sending the kids to the schools. They are really terrified. So, you see, what Trump and his allies are doing, they may frame their claims around crime, drugs and cartels, but it is clear that their mass deportation agenda will target millions of people who have no criminal records. And this is not good for this community — the immigrant community. And, by the way, this is — they are even arresting American citizens like the Puerto Rican veteran in New Jersey and, then, yesterday, a family in Wisconsin. So this is an attempt to implement a mass deportation with a total disregard of the status of those people that they are arresting.

BOLDUAN: I think a key question is, you said that people are looking to you for assurances. What can you and what can other Democrats in Congress, like, what is your plan of action to push back against this if there’s anything you can do?

CONGRESSWOMAN VELAZQUEZ: Well, for once, I — today I am holding a roundtable with over 70 organizations from my district to strategize as to how can we provide a sense of security for the people that we represent and provide the type of information that will empower these people to take care of themselves. You know, everyone in this country — who is in this country has constitutional rights. They have the right to go before a judge and state their case. And that is exactly what we intend to do — provide information as to what are the rights that they have and what are the things that they can — the actions that they can take to be safe in their own communities

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman, thank you for your time.

The massive grift at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other such agencies is coming to focus as they each come into contact with the DOGE chainsaw. CBS’s Margaret Brennan fought tooth and nail in defense of these agencies and their funding.

After an exchange on tariffs, Brennan tried to pin Mast down on some examples of wasteful spending at the State Department, and came to regret it (click “expand” to view transcript):

HFAC Chair Brian Mast (R-FL) SCHOOLS Margaret Brennan on wasteful spending in the State Department, after she questioned him about the “purging” of personnel and the need to freeze aid. pic.twitter.com/ajT4OQQ4Ym
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 2, 2025
These are all very important and necessary steps to make sure that we secure America. And we’re going to support that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m sorry. Can I follow up on what you just said there?

BRIAN MAST: Please do.

BRENNAN: You want to authorize purging of State Department personnel? What does that mean exactly?

MAST: Well, if you want to take a look at the State Department, where DEI has been a priority over, let’s say, diplomacy on many accounts, I can give you hundreds of examples of where they were authorizing…

BRENNAN: What proof do you have of that?

MAST: Sure, let’s list them off, half-a-million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal, $50,000 to do, let’s see, a transgender opera in Colombia, $47,000 to do an LGBTQ trans comic book in Peru, $20,000 a pop to do drag shows in Ecuador. Shall I continue with more examples of where DEI was a priority?

BRENNAN: Oh, it certainly seems like there could be a review of things. 

Yes, there could certainly be a review of the many things Brennan was certain Mast wouldn’t be able to name 30 seconds ago. It only took Mast naming 3 in order to get Brennan to tap out. 

Further on, the conversation turns to the not-long-for-this-world USAID. Brennan frets its “demolition” while Mast details the degree to which the agency is a big grift (click “expand” to view transcript):

Margaret Brennan frets the “demolition” of USAID, while HFAC Chair @RepBrianMast detains the “grift” at the agencies: “The Trump administration comes in or representatives like myself that do oversight. The agencies will literally not tell us what they are writing grants for,… pic.twitter.com/8G54ep4OBK
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 2, 2025

BRENNAN: Well, I think every single administration authorizes reviews, could increase efficiencies. There are plenty of people who propose bringing it more under the authority of the State Department. Madeleine Albright tried to do that. That’s not a new MAGA idea. I think the question here, though, is about how you do it. Do you still believe that in the law signed in the 1960s that Congress has to sign off on any changes to USAID? Or do you think President Trump can just make all of this happen through executive order?

MAST: So, all of those examples that you just gave of those historical figures, the difference is now the job is going to get done. It’s going to be 99.99 percent of cents on the dollar actually go towards what it’s intended, instead of people around the Beltway.

BRENNAN: OK, so you’re talking about – you’re talking about…

MAST: That’s what’s going to happen. That’s the change.

BRENNAN: … efficiencies in aids versus restructuring. So let me ask you about that. Well, like I said…

MAST: Well, that requires restructuring, 100 percent. You can’t create that efficiency just by wishing it into existence.

BRENNAN: Sure.

MAST: You have to restructure where the failures are and put the right things in place.

BRENNAN: Of course. But what we’re hearing from many of these aid organizations and officials is that, can you restructure after you finish the review and not freeze funding now, immediately? I spoke to former USAID global health head Atul Gawande yesterday. He told me this isn’t a pause in foreign aid. It is a demolition of USAID. As he put it, you can’t pause a flight in midair. That’s what’s happening.

MAST: Let’s…

BRENNAN: This immediate freeze in funding is stopping agencies in the field from being able to do the work they do.

MAST: Let’s say why that is so important. And let’s talk about the real facts on the ground. The Trump administration comes in or representatives like myself that do oversight. The agencies will literally not tell us what they are writing grants for, literally, or they will lie about it, or they will tell the new political appointees under the Trump administration, I’m just not going to tell you that. Those are real things that have happened. So the way that you make them come and answer for where they are actually sending dollars is to say, we’re freezing that. We’re putting it on hold. You need to come to us and explain what it is you’re doing, why you’re doing it and where it’s actually saving life. And guess what?

BRENNAN: But…

MAST: When they don’t come explain something, that also begs the question, why were they doing it in the first place?

BRENNAN: But the way these things work is, the contractors have to front the cash, then go to the U.S. government for reimbursement. So when you put in an immediate freeze, that means drugs don’t get delivered. That means they don’t get distributed. That means bomb disposal units don’t get to go out there in places like Cambodia and remove ordnance or provide help to people who receive it. That’s the pushback from aid organizations, who are saying they’re going to have to carry out layoffs in the thousands in the coming week. Does that concern you at all?

MAST: They will have an opportunity. It doesn’t concern me because of the grift that has been going on to the American taxpayer, the American worker.

That’s what needs to be answered for. And so you look at this. Let’s use PEPFAR as an example. You were talking about drugs going to individuals. There was a release of that hold that was put – that was authorized. But it shouldn’t be the case that the American people fund HIV and AIDS drugs for 20 million people across Africa, where many of these countries are working very directly with our adversaries like China. That is an example of them taking us for granted. We need to be asking the question, should they be weaning off of this? Should we be paying it for these very expensive HIV and AIDS drugs?

BRENNAN: Yes.

MAST: Should the American worker be footing the bill for that? Those are real questions.

BRENNAN: Yes, real questions, but, in the meantime, people need their drugs while you ask those questions. 

In Brennan’s view, let the grift ride while Congress reviews. Mast was having none of this, and made the case for the agency to either cease or be brought under control of the Department of State.

After their exchange on funding the Deep State, Brennan and Mast get into it over oversight of the FAA in the wake of the horrendous crash at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., with Brennan attempting to cast Mast as a class traitor over his opposition to the primacy of DEI as a hiring criteria at the FAA (click “expand” to view transcript):

CBS’s Margaret Brennan attempted to class-traitor shame @RepBrianMast into denouncing questions over the primacy of DEI in hiring decisions at the FAA and other agencies, and got SHUT DOWN: pic.twitter.com/1LKE85sM6Z
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 2, 2025

BRENNAN: I want to ask you, as I was saying, about another committee you sit on, Transportation Committee. The FAA hiring policy for air traffic controllers, including under the first Trump administration, offered equal opportunity to those with targeted disabilities, including, as the president read, hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, severe intellectual debility – disability. Excuse me. The president singled this out, this policy, as a contributor possibly to the crash. Do you agree with the diversity policy, or do you agree with the president? I know you lost two limbs serving this country in Afghanistan. Do you hear those words and take offense to them or…

MAST: No, no offense. Let’s unpack it. Number one, I will use myself as an example, right? There are things that I am suited to do, no doubt. But flying an aircraft, to stick with the subject at hand, would not be one of them. I could fly a personal – a personal aircraft.

BRENNAN: This is air traffic controllers.

MAST: But to put me in charge of traffic or 150 lives, that would not be the right case for me personally, given my physical disabilities and foot pedals on an aircraft. To go to the diversity side of it and the actual crash, yes, there were very real errors that took place both in the air traffic control tower and with the helicopter pilots, it seems. But, more systemically, is there a big hiring problem across all federal agencies, to include the FAA, where they made the priority diversity and inclusion…

BRENNAN: Yes.

MAST: … instead of excellence and performance? Yes, that’s the case. They made the priority appearance and lifestyle and not the big deal.

BRENNAN: Congressman, thank you for your time today. 

It’s the type of ham-handed question we heard Jorge Ramos ask all too many times: “How do YOU, as a Latino, support Donald Trump?” “How do YOU, as a woman, support someone who said he’d grab women by their privates?” It is the class-traitor attack that seeks to delegitimize the target of the question. Mast handled the question with grace and aplomb, leaving Brennan to tap out and end the interview. 

Another week, another shellacking for Brennan on Faces of the Nation.

Click “expand” to view the transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, February 2nd, 2025:

MARGARET BRENNAN: And we’re joined now by Florida Republican Congressman Brian Mast, who is the chairman of the (House) Foreign Affairs Committee, which has oversight over the State Department and its programs. He joins us from Fort Pierce, Florida. Good morning to you.

BRIAN MAST: Good morning.

BRENNAN: I want to start first on the tariffs that were announced overnight by President Trump. You know there’s a free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada. President Trump negotiated it during his first term. The tariffs may violate that deal. If he’s invoking tariffs on a national security basis, can you explain the threat posed by Canada?

MAST: Yeah, and he was – President Trump, that is to say, was very specific in his executive order, outlined that it’s specifically related to fentanyl. It’s specifically related to human trafficking. And there’s a trust, but verify situation that has to go on here.

BRENNAN: Through Canada?

MAST: Through Canada as well, absolutely. Fentanyl through Canada, human trafficking through Canada, also with China in that mix for fentanyl as well. That was specifically outlined in it. And until that comes to an end, this is what’s going to be on the table. And bear in mind as well that USMCA reauthorization is coming up in the coming-up months and years.

BRENNAN: So you don’t believe that this violates the trade agreement, the treaty?

MAST: The violation has been to the United States of America. It’s been to our sovereignty. It’s been to our people. We’ve been taken for granted.

BRENNAN: Right, but Congress votes on these things. So…

MAST: And I will make sure certainly, as the Foreign Affairs chairman, that we give every single authority as we go through State Department reauthorization, to make sure that this moves forward, as well as purging of people throughout the State Department, other agencies, where we’re freezing aid. These are all very important and necessary steps to make sure that we secure America. And we’re going to support that.

BRENNAN: I’m sorry. Can I follow up on what you just said there?

MAST: Please do.

BRENNAN: You want to authorize purging of State Department personnel? What does that mean exactly?

MAST: Well, if you want to take a look at the State Department, where DEI has been a priority over, let’s say, diplomacy on many accounts, I can give you hundreds of examples of where they were authorizing…

BRENNAN: What proof do you have of that?

MAST: Sure, let’s list them off, half-a-million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal, $50,000 to do, let’s see, a transgender opera in Colombia, $47,000 to do an LGBTQ trans comic book in Peru, $20,000 a pop to do drag shows in Ecuador. Shall I continue with more examples of where DEI was a priority?

BRENNAN: Oh, it certainly seems like there could be a review of things. Foreign aid, as you know, is less than 1 percent of the entire federal budget. So we’re talking small amounts of money by comparison. But when…

MAST: We’re still talking about tens and tens of billions of dollars. And if you want to go to somebody else, on the other side of the aisle, Samantha Power, she had a worthy goal, although it was a stupid goal. She said she was hoping to get the amount of foreign aid, U.S. aid dollars that go to actual aid up to 30 cents on the dollar from 10 cents on the dollar. That’s a major problem that we have this agency that that’s all that goes abroad…

BRENNAN: I think you’re talking about…

MAST: … when it should be the American worker’s dollar.

BRENNAN: I think now you’re talking about the USAID, the aid agency…

MAST: Yes.

BRENNAN: … which is a – separate from the State Department currently and has about $40 billion worth…

MAST: Which is likely going to be rolled more closely under Secretary Rubio.

BRENNAN: Tell – yes, tell me about that, because that’s where I was going. Has the Trump administration informed you of plans to dismantle or significantly shrink this agency?

MAST: This is something that I’m working on very specifically, in conjunction with Secretary Rubio, to make sure that there’s the appropriate command-and-control of these agencies, where, again, to make that same point, right now, maybe 10 to 30 cents…

BRENNAN: They already report to the Secretary of State.

MAST: But 10 to 30 cents on the dollar is what actually goes to aid. So there’s not the right amount of command-and- control that’s going on with the way that it’s set up currently. And let’s make another point on this as well.

BRENNAN: Congress – Congress authorizes and earmarks funding.

MAST: Most of these dollars – most of these dollars that go out of USAID, 70-plus percent don’t come from U.S. growers, U.S. farmers, U.S. ranchers, or go through U.S. ports. And that’s another big problem for America.

BRENNAN: So – I’m sorry. If Congress already authorizes and earmarks the funding, just to be very clear, you’re not endorsing getting rid of USAID as a separate department, which already reports to the Secretary of State, are you?

MAST: I would be absolutely for, if that’s the path we go down, removing USAID as a separate department and having it fall under one of the other parts of United States Department of State, because of its failure. I just went over the numbers twice with you in the amount of aid that actually makes it into the hands. I mean, you could you could almost say – this is a little bit hyperbole – but there’s probably more dollars that go towards state dinners around the D.C. Beltway than what actually goes into rice and beans abroad. That’s the state of what’s going on with USAID. And Samantha Power said no less herself.

BRENNAN: Well, I think every single administration authorizes reviews, could increase efficiencies. There are plenty of people who propose bringing it more under the authority of the State Department. Madeleine Albright tried to do that. That’s not a new MAGA idea. I think the question here, though, is about how you do it. Do you still believe that in the law signed in the 1960s that Congress has to sign off on any changes to USAID? Or do you think President Trump can just make all of this happen through executive order?

MAST: So, all of those examples that you just gave of those historical figures, the difference is now the job is going to get done. It’s going to be 99.99 percent of cents on the dollar actually go towards what it’s intended, instead of people around the Beltway.

BRENNAN: OK, so you’re talking about – you’re talking about…

MAST: That’s what’s going to happen. That’s the change.

BRENNAN: … efficiencies in aids versus restructuring. So let me ask you about that. Well, like I said…

MAST: Well, that requires restructuring, 100 percent. You can’t create that efficiency just by wishing it into existence.

BRENNAN: Sure.

MAST: You have to restructure where the failures are and put the right things in place.

BRENNAN: Of course. But what we’re hearing from many of these aid organizations and officials is that, can you restructure after you finish the review and not freeze funding now, immediately? I spoke to former USAID global health head Atul Gawande yesterday. He told me this isn’t a pause in foreign aid. It is a demolition of USAID. As he put it, you can’t pause a flight in midair. That’s what’s happening.

MAST: Let’s…

BRENNAN: This immediate freeze in funding is stopping agencies in the field from being able to do the work they do.

MAST: Let’s say why that is so important. And let’s talk about the real facts on the ground. The Trump administration comes in or representatives like myself that do oversight. The agencies will literally not tell us what they are writing grants for, literally, or they will lie about it, or they will tell the new political appointees under the Trump administration, I’m just not going to tell you that. Those are real things that have happened. So the way that you make them come and answer for where they are actually sending dollars is to say, we’re freezing that. We’re putting it on hold. You need to come to us and explain what it is you’re doing, why you’re doing it and where it’s actually saving life. And guess what?

BRENNAN: But…

MAST: When they don’t come explain something, that also begs the question, why were they doing it in the first place?

BRENNAN: But the way these things work is, the contractors have to front the cash, then go to the U.S. government for reimbursement. So when you put in an immediate freeze, that means drugs don’t get delivered. That means they don’t get distributed. That means bomb disposal units don’t get to go out there in places like Cambodia and remove ordnance or provide help to people who receive it. That’s the pushback from aid organizations, who are saying they’re going to have to carry out layoffs in the thousands in the coming week. Does that concern you at all?

MAST: They will have an opportunity. It doesn’t concern me because of the grift that has been going on to the American taxpayer, the American worker.

That’s what needs to be answered for. And so you look at this. Let’s use PEPFAR as an example. You were talking about drugs going to individuals. There was a release of that hold that was put – that was authorized. But it shouldn’t be the case that the American people fund HIV and AIDS drugs for 20 million people across Africa, where many of these countries are working very directly with our adversaries like China. That is an example of them taking us for granted. We need to be asking the question, should they be weaning off of this? Should we be paying it for these very expensive HIV and AIDS drugs?

BRENNAN: Yes.

MAST: Should the American worker be footing the bill for that? Those are real questions.

BRENNAN: Yes, real questions, but, in the meantime, people need their drugs while you ask those questions. So that’s where the disagreement is with the aid organizations. But let me ask you about air traffic controllers and what’s happening here at home.

MAST: Not with all the leaders of other countries, though. I believe I saw the leader of Kenya as one step up and say, hey, this is an example where we need to step up for ourselves and show how we can take care of ourselves. And I believe that was the president there.

BRENNAN: I want to ask you, as I was saying, about another committee you sit on, Transportation Committee. The FAA hiring policy for air traffic controllers, including under the first Trump administration, offered equal opportunity to those with targeted disabilities, including, as the president read, hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, severe intellectual debility – disability. Excuse me. The president singled this out, this policy, as a contributor possibly to the crash. Do you agree with the diversity policy, or do you agree with the president? I know you lost two limbs serving this country in Afghanistan. Do you hear those words and take offense to them or…

MAST: No, no offense. Let’s unpack it. Number one, I will use myself as an example, right? There are things that I am suited to do, no doubt. But flying an aircraft, to stick with the subject at hand, would not be one of them. I could fly a personal – a personal aircraft.

BRENNAN: This is air traffic controllers.

MAST: But to put me in charge of traffic or 150 lives, that would not be the right case for me personally, given my physical disabilities and foot pedals on an aircraft. To go to the diversity side of it and the actual crash, yes, there were very real errors that took place both in the air traffic control tower and with the helicopter pilots, it seems. But, more systemically, is there a big hiring problem across all federal agencies, to include the FAA, where they made the priority diversity and inclusion…

BRENNAN: Yes.

MAST: … instead of excellence and performance? Yes, that’s the case. They made the priority appearance and lifestyle and not the big deal.

BRENNAN: Congressman, thank you for your time today. We will be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.

 

On Sunday’s edition of The Weekend on MSNBC, weeknight host Chris Hayes questioned Trump’s machismo for imposing higher tariffs on Canada and Mexico than on China. He’s tougher on allies than on adversaries, because that’s easier, less risky.

He even claimed Trump has been “extremely generous to adversaries” like Russia and China. 

HAYES: He likes the conflict, he likes to project strength, but he’s sort of a coward fundamentally. And the stakes of actual conflict and fights with adversaries is much higher. And so this is a way of kind of, a little bit of bullying, and cake and eat it too, where he can, like, play tough against Justin Trudeau, which is a very different thing than playing tough against Xi.

Co-host Symone Sanders analogized it to Trump’s treatment of Gavin Newsom. While blasting Newsom in public, Trump, according to Sanders, is very polite to him in person. Sanders put on a soft voice, supposedly imitating Trump: “Hey, how are you doing? Good to see you.”
That’s when Steele stepped in:

“And he says it like that [puts on effeminate voice]: “Hey, how are you doing? [laughs].  It’s kind of a little Mike Tyson voice.”

As you’ll see in the screencap, Sanders, Alicia Menendez, and Hayes were amused by Steele’s mocking. How do you think they would have reacted if a conservative had similarly mocked a liberal’s voice? 

I’ve never heard Trump employ such a voice. But apparently there is something wrong with that in Steele’s mind. Questioning manhood in the same sentence as Mike Tyson. Next time Steele runs into Tyson, perhaps he’d like to mock him to his face about his “little” voice. 

MSNBC
The Weekend
2/2/25
8:10 am ET

MICHAEL STEELE: Chris, what do you think the siren call is for Trump relative, because you touched on it, relative to these three players: Mexico, Canada, and China. 

My, my assessment is, yeah, he projects he hates China. You know, he, everything is, you know, China bad, China bad. Yet, they’re not penalized to here the way our allies are, our friends to the north and the south, you know?

Instead of, you know, let’s negotiate a border deal with Mexico and Canada if you’re concerned about fentanyl and drugs coming. Oh, by the way, Donald Trump, the largest purveyor of fentanyl coming into the country are United States citizens, not Mexicans. So, just so you know. 

What do you think that siren call is for him relative to China? What is he hearing that actually weakens him when it comes to China? A lot of bloviating, not much agitation with respect to things like tariffs. 

CHRIS HAYES: So here is a consistent thing that he’s done. He, I think he likes the attention that conflict draws. He likes conflict with allies as opposed to actual adversaries. He is routinely and consistently picking fights, tougher on getting into conflicts with allies and sort of, you know, extremely generous to adversaries. 

I mean, look at the way he talks about, look at the way he talks about Russia, obviously, the fact that China’s getting off relatively cost-free here compared to allies. But look at the way he talks about NATO, the way he talks about Canada, the way he talks about Mexico. 

Like, what it is for him is, he likes the conflict, he likes to project strength, but he’s sort of a coward fundamentally. And the stakes of actual conflict and fights with adversaries is much higher. And so this is a way of kind of, a little bit of bullying, and cake and eat it too, where he can, like, play tough against Justin Trudeau, which is a very different thing than playing tough against Xi.

SYMONE SANDERS: I just know it’s what he did with, um, it’s what he does with Gavin Newsom —

STEELE: Yeah, exactly.

SANDERS: — or any Democrat he says he doesn’t like. He’s all talk, and then he gets on the talk, and he’s like, “hey, how you doing? Looks great. Good to see you.”

STEELE: And he says it like that. [Adopts effeminate voice] “Hey, how you doing?” He’s got that little Mike Tyson voice. 

A taxpayer-funded sob story about federal workers being cruelly required to return to work at (gasp!) the office every single day aired earlier this week on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition show, headlined “Trump wants federal workers back the office, meaning longer days and added expenses.” But the single example offered wasn’t exactly the stuff of a nightmare commute.

Host A Martinez introduced the brief story.

A Martinez: Federal agencies have submitted plans for their workers to return to the office full time for the first time since the pandemic, as directed by President Trump. That means thousands of government workers will likely descend on Washington each day. Scott Maucione from member station WYPR reports from Baltimore.

Maryland public radio reporter Maucione presumably went out looking for sympathetic stories, but the thin gruel of anecdotes he returned with wasn’t exactly reminiscent of the Trail of Tears (Twenty minutes in the car!). Maucione actually had to grant dubious anonymity to this hard-put female bureaucrat for his radio report.

Scott Maucione: It takes Lane 20 minutes to drive to the train station in Baltimore.

Lane: The train ride is anywhere from about 40 minutes to an hour. I wake up at 4:10 in the morning and I get to work bright and early between about 6:00 and 6:15.

Maucione: Lane’s a Federal employee and works in-person two days a week, a common setup for some Federal workers. NPR is only using her middle name because she fears speaking out about the new telework policies may jeopardize her job. Lane says she works those two in-person days back-to-back, finishing up at the office around 3:00 p.m. and getting back home around 5:00.

Lane: You know, I’m so exhausted at the end of the day. By that third morning when I’m, you know, waking up and teleworking, I am just so brain dead. It’s actually hard to focus that next day. I cannot imagine trying to get in the car and go in a third day.

Not exactly an inspiring work ethic there. Maucione makes it sound like a trial for federal workers to actually go into work every day, though even in the post-COVID age of telecommuting, millions of private sector Americans have no choice.

Maucione: Lane, like many of the more than 300,000 Federal employees in the surrounding DC area, may have to find a way to make it into the office five days a week, depending on how agencies implement a new executive memo from the Trump administration….

He continued nonsensically:

Maucione: The Trump administration’s memo claims that telework has degraded government services and made it difficult to supervise workers. However, Federal agencies have had telework policies and agreements with employees for 15 years. The Office of Personnel Management has produced numerous studies that show Federal teleworking improves morale, retention and stress.

But what about the key metric of productivity? “Public” broadcasting inevitably sides with bureaucrats and not the people that pay for them. 

This story, irrationally sympathetic to federal workers and dismissive of taxpayer concerns, is reminiscent of the many one-sided media stories of the plight of federal workers during government shutdowns, often instigated by Republican attempts to slow the growth of federal program spending.

Here’s a deathless example from 1995: “On December 22  — just six days after the start of the second shutdown — ABC’s Jack Smith lamented on World News Tonight: “The shutdown now has a human face. Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa both work for the government. Both have been furloughed. They can’t afford a Christmas tree.”