Newsbusters

On Thursday’s Katy Tur Reports on MSNBC, fill-in host Jose Diaz-Balart gave an unchallenged forum to anti-gun activist Fred Guttenberg to trash President Donald Trump and Republicans after the shooting at Florida State University. Guttenberg became a vocal anti-gun activist after he lost his 14-year-old daughter Jaime in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.

As Guttenberg recalled that he knows several FSU students who were also attending the high school in Parkland back then, he referred back to a clip of President Donald Trump from earlier in the show and showed his disdain for the President’s recent actions to loosen gun control:

Seeing the opening to this news segment with the current occupant of the White House who was also the President when my daughter was killed angers me beyond measure because of what he failed to do back then. It angers me beyond measure that, for the past 30 days, he has been systematically undoing — undoing everything good that we did during the Biden years — the office of gun violence prevention — all of the measures to implement this through the bipartisan Safer Communities Act — bipartisan legislation. All of the executive actions — he has been systematically undoing every single one of them. And so anyone who’s surprised that he will do nothing after today, you shouldn’t be.

Diaz-Balart did not push back on this first jab at Republicans as the MSNBC host merely responded with a rambling question in which he asked his guest what he would say to the families of the victims in this shooting. Guttenberg eventually got back to lambasting Republicans as he complained about efforts in the Florida legislature to loosen gun laws. After insisting that mass shootings are “uniquely American,” he added:

…rather than spending the last few months doing everything possible to take the additional steps to reduce gun violence, here in the Florida legislature, they’ve been taking steps to make gun violence more possible. They want to roll back the law that we passed after Parkland. They tried to roll back the age of 21 that we passed. There are others that want to roll back the red flag laws. It’s the stupidest, most insane behavior, but that’s what’s currently happening in the Florida legislature in Tallahassee where this shooting just happened.

I hope and I pray — yes, I have thoughts and prayers that every Republican who has been behind the effort to do that stands up today and says, “I was wrong,” that “I want to respect gun rights.” Every Republican should say that, but they should also say, “I respect life, and I want to do everything possible to protect those we love from being the victims of the next mass shooting.

Transcript follows:

MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports

April 17, 2025

3:16 p.m. Eastern

FRED GUTTENBERG, FATHER OF PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIM: I know kids who I’ve spoken with this afternoon who were not only in the 1200 building at Parkland but were in that student union today. And so I am — to say I’ve spent the afternoon kind of shaking would be an understatement. Seeing the opening to this news segment with the current occupant of the White House who was also the President when my daughter was killed angers me beyond measure because of what he failed to do back then. It angers me beyond measure that, for the past 30 days, he has been systematically undoing — undoing everything good that we did during the Biden years — the office of gun violence prevention — all of the measures to implement this through the bipartisan Safer Communities Act — bipartisan legislation. All of the executive actions — he has been systematically undoing every single one of them. And so anyone who’s surprised that he will do nothing after today, you shouldn’t be.

JOSE DIAZ-BALART: There is always the, you know, thoughts and comments of people after something like this happens, and, you know, we don’t know, Fred, how many people have — I mean, we’re saying six or so injured. We don’t know how — what kind of injuries they have sustained, but, Fred, how do — talk — as I’ve asked you when we were speaking after Uvalde. And, as you and I have spoken after so many of these tragedies, I ask you to do something that only you and a handful of others unfortunately — it’s a lot of people — but only you can do, which is to speak to the families of, in this case, the one person that has lost their lives. We don’t know who that is, but speak to that family. Speak to those people who, right now, have their children in lockdown or are just terrified of what they witnessed or what they heard. And so — so — so I ask you as I’ve asked you unfortunately so many times, Fred: Speak to them.

(…)

GUTTENBERG: … I can’t believe that we’re doing this again. This is uniquely American — don’t let anybody tell you that it’s not. If people want to fully understand why I get so angry when I talk about this, it’s not because I’m anti-gun. It’s because I hate gun violence, and we can do something about gun violence. We’ve got to stop allowing those who should not have access to weapons to have that easy access to weapons.

You know, Jose, you’re here in Florida. You know as well as I do, rather than spending the last few months doing everything possible to take the additional steps to reduce gun violence, here in the Florida legislature, they’ve been taking steps to make gun violence more possible. They want to roll back the law that we passed after Parkland. They tried to roll back the age of 21 that we passed. There are others that want to roll back the red flag laws. It’s the stupidest, most insane behavior, but that’s what’s currently happening in the Florida legislature in Tallahassee where this shooting just happened.

I hope and I pray — yes, I have thoughts and prayers that every Republican who has been behind the effort to do that stands up today and says, “I was wrong,” that “I want to respect gun rights.” Every Republican should say that, but they should also say, “I respect life, and I want to do everything possible to protect those we love from being the victims of the next mass shooting.

Here on NewsBusters,  Alex Christy had a sharp-eyed focus on a curious moment on a recent episode of Stephen Colbert’s late night CBS show. 

Georgia’s Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock appeared on Colbert’s set, as Democrats often do. Warnock and Colbert’s subject: slavery.

Alex reported: 

Later, Colbert continued with the idea that disagreeing with liberals on economics makes one a bad Christian, “The Bible often talks about caring for the elderly, for the poor. Those who have the least power, the least of my brothers. And why do you think a nation that so frequently wants to describe itself as a Christian nation or one having Judeo-Christian values wants to shirk that collective responsibility to our brothers and sisters?”

Warnock went straight to Jim Crow and slavery comparisons, “Well, you know, that has a long history, and it’s frustrating in this moment, but we’ve seen this before. There were a whole lot of Christians who were on the wrong side of the slavery question, the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation question, but as I read the scripture, there are more than 2,000 verses in the Bible that tell you how to treat the poor.”

Hmmmm.  What, pray tell, did Colbert skip over when his guest said all of that?  As the saying goes, let’s go to the record. That would be the record that precisely answers Warnock’s pondering about the “whole lot of Christians who were on the wrong side of the slavery question, the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation question…” 

What were both Warnock and his host Colbert interestingly silent about as they discussed “a whole lot of Christians who were on the wrong side of the slavery question, the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation question”?

Neither Warnock nor Colbert mentioned who, exactly, were on the wrong side of the slavery question and the wrong side of the Jim Crow segregation. One can suspect that the reason that question was ignored by both is because the overwhelming support in the day for both slavery and then segregation came from – Democrats. 

The two were, for example, silent on the number of Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. There were 6 from 1840-1860.

They were silent on the number of Democratic presidents who owned slaves. There were 7 from 1800-1861.

Warnock’s mention of “the Jim Crow segregation question” ignored the number of Democratic Party platforms that either supported segregation outright or were silent on the subject. There were 20, from 1868-1948.

And oh yes. There was not a word from either that it was their political party that opposed passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery.

One could go on. But the real problem here is that this small moment in the ongoing river of American late night TV culture illustrated exactly the game that is played by the lefties who run and host late night TV.

Republicans are castigated in one form or another, with complete silence on the role the Left has, as in this case, played in the seriously real history of slavery and segregation.

One cannot imagine, were this topic to emerge on an edition of Greg Gutfeld’s Fox show, that the role of the Democrats in providing the serious political support for both slavery and segregation would go unmentioned.

All of the above is, admittedly, a very small moment in the history of the Left’s management of late night television shows. 

It is a passing blink, a tiny snapshot of how the Left plays the culture game. Indeed, were it not for Alex Christy role in zeroing in on it for NewsBusters, the moment would be long gone already. Swallowed in the ocean of anti-conservative television moments already long forgotten beyond whatever role of preserved – but never watched – video exists closeted in some forgotten network vault somewhere.

In other words? As the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Happy Passover and Happy Easter.

Imagine thinking you’re on the right side of history by forcing young girls to change in front of men.

A California school board sat smugly as a brave 17 year old girl broke down in tears, begging them to stop forcing males into her locker room. 

A brave 17-year-old girl breaks down in tears telling her CA school board about a male athlete watching girls change in the locker room.
Hear her cry. Hear her story.
California is failing our daughters. Girls deserve better. This is why we fight. pic.twitter.com/Gykmn1q8yx
— Sophia Lorey (@SophiaSLorey) April 17, 2025

Celeste Diest, a high school junior girl’s track athlete at the Lucia Mar Unified School District took the podium during their meeting, Wednesday, recounting her “beyond traumatizing” experience.

“I went into the women’s locker room to change for track practice where I saw, at the end of my row, a biological male watching not only myself, but the other young women undress,” she described, as she began to choke up and cry. 

Diest emphasized that the man pretending to be a woman is not even changing when he’s staring at the girls in her locker room. Instead, he’s “in his track clothes, dressed and ready to go to practice at the beginning of the day.” 

“Adults like yourself make me and my peers feel like our own comfort was invalid, even though our privacy was and still is completely violated,” she cried to the stone faced board. 

The girl was quickly interrupted by the board’s soulless president, Colleen Martin

“Okay, please wrap it up,” she callously interjected.

Diest sniffled a few times, and continued her harrowing last words. 

“I just want to ask ‘what about us?’ We can not sit around and allow our rights to be given up to cater to an individual that is a man, who watches women undress and is stripping away female opportunity that once was fought for us. Sadly we have to try and regain our rights back. I hope you put effort into the restoration of our school safety,” she finished. 

The room gave her a roaring applause, before Martin quickly hushed them up.

Looks like California will be the next state to have a Title IX lawsuit on their hands.

Jim Acosta may no longer be ranting and raving about President Trump on CNN, but he does still have what every former media personality seems to have nowadays: a Substack and a podcast. On Friday, he welcomed former MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews to the show to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler and his immigration policies to the Holocaust.

Acosta began, “And I have to ask you some newsy questions before we spend the entire time together reminiscing.”

 

 

After Matthews cut him off, “I got a nasty one for you,” Acosta continued, “Okay, well good, I’m just wondering, I mean, what—”

Matthews asked and answered his own question, “What did Hitler do? What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed.”

Acosta helped Matthews double down, “And so when you see what’s happening right now with this El Salvadoran Gulag, I mean, this CECOT Gulag he’s basically taking a page out of that playbook, you think.”

Imagining himself as a reporter, Matthews did, in fact, double down, “Well, it gets them out of the country, and he gets this president of El Salvador to say—Now, if I were at CNN or MSNBC and I was in that Oval Office, I would have asked two questions. This is not original.”

Matthews continued, “First question to the president of Salvador. ‘If President Trump asked you to send this guy, [Kilmar Abrego] Garcia, back to the United States, would you do it?’ Then I’d go to president, then I’d go to Trump. ‘Next question. Mr. President Trump, will you ask him to send them back?’

Acosta naturally agreed, “No, and there’s a component here that is deeply disturbing because it seems to be all about inflicting cruelty. It’s all about making an example out of this person and saying, ‘We’re going to be cruel to this guy, and so you better not come here or we’re going to be cruel to you too.’”

Of course, the people Trump is deporting are illegal immigrants. Even if one supports bringing Garcia back on the grounds he shouldn’t be sent to prison without due process, he is still an illegal immigrant who could just as easily be re-deported to another country like any other illegal immigrant. That’s not exactly mass murder on an industrial scale.

Here is transcript for the April 18 show:

The Jim Acosta Show

4/18/2025

6 Minutes, 33 Seconds

JIM ACOSTA: But the other, you know, one thing that every taxi driver will talk about these days is Donald Trump. And I have to ask you some newsy questions before we spend the entire time together reminiscing.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: I got a nasty one for you.

ACOSTA: Okay, well good, I’m just wondering, I mean, what—”

MATTHEWS: What did Hitler do? What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: Where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed.

ACOSTA: And so when you see what’s happening right now with this El Salvadoran Gulag, I mean, this CECOT Gulag he’s basically taking a page out of that playbook, you think.

MATTHEWS: Well, it gets them out of the country and he gets this president of El Salvador to say—Now, if I were at CNN or MSNBC and I was in that Oval Office, I would have asked two questions. This is not original.

First question to the president of Salvador. “If President Trump asked you to send this guy, Garcia, back to the United States, would you do it?”

Then I’d go to president, then I’d go to Trump. Next question. “Mr. President Trump, will you ask him to send them back?”

ACOSTA: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: I don’t want to, of course it’s up to him to do it, if he doesn’t get facilitated by Trump, if he’s it’s not asked to do it, but Trump never said anything.

ACOSTA: No, and there’s a component here that is deeply disturbing because it seems to be all about inflicting cruelty. It’s all about making an example out of this person and saying, “We’re going to be cruel to this guy, and so you better not come here or we’re going to be cruel to you too.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio just declared war on the Biden administration’s censorship regime.

Over the past half-decade, bodies like Global Engagement Center (GEC), crafted by our own governing ruling class, nearly destroyed America’s long free speech history. The enemies of speech had new lingo to justify their authoritarian impulse. It was “disinformation,” allegedly pushed by nefarious foreign governments, that was the No. 1 threat to “our democracy.” To protect “our democracy,” this “disinformation” had to be identified and stamped out.

That matters to Hollywood dwellers as much as the rest of us. 

The former talk a good fight about free speech but stayed quiet as GEC and others clamped down on free expression. Remember The Twitter Files?

 

 

Why? Could it be that conservatives and free thinkers alike felt the GEC’s sting while they got virtually a free pass?

Quick, come up with another reason that makes sense.

Now, stars are either censoring their own work or finding their voices silenced by fellow progressives. This time, it’s all tied to President Donald Trump. The Commander in Chief, they fear, might punish them for speaking up.

Consider:

“The White Lotus” star Carrie Coon said the show toyed with giving her character a nonbinary child but backed off those plans. Why?

Trump.

“The season was written before the election. And considering the way the Trump administration has weaponized the cultural war against transgender people even more since then, when the time came to cut the episode down, [writer/director] Mike [White] felt that the scene was so small and the topic so big that it wasn’t the right way to engage in that conversation,” Coon continued.

The President had no say on the matter. The show’s creator made the call.

Far-left actor Seth Rogen gave a speech where he said President Trump had “destroyed” science in record time. (Maybe he meant to say Dr. Anthony Fauci?)

“It’s amazing that others in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science…It’s amazing how much good science you can destroy with $320 million and RFK Jr., very fast.”

Variety pressed the Breakthrough Prizes committee behind the gala for an explanation. The response seemed less than credible.

 

Seth Rogen made an onstage jab at President Trump during the science-honoring Breakthrough Prizes on April 5. The comment has since been edited out of the organization’s “full” upload of the ceremony:
“It’s amazing that others in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the… pic.twitter.com/6Tum3yzyg9
— Variety (@Variety) April 16, 2025
 

Writer/director Chris Columbus also has self-censorship top of mind in the Trump era. He told The San Francisco Chronicle that he wishes he could remove a small but memorable moment from his 1992 comedy smash, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” 

The sequence finds young Kevin bumping into a certain real estate mogul. The cameo tested well at the time, but Columbus has regretted it ever since.

“I can’t cut it,” the San Francisco resident told the Chronicle in a recent interview. “If I cut it, I’ll probably be sent out of the country. I’ll be considered sort of not fit to live in the United States, so I’ll have to go back to Italy or something….”

“But it’s there. It’s become an albatross for me. I just wish it was gone.”

A successful Hollywood director fears what others think about a seven-second sequence from one of his most successful projects.

Censorship isn’t all bad, right?

Need more?

The White House Correspondents’ Association, part of the corrupt Legacy Media, recently hired and then fired far-Left comic Amber Ruffin from hosting its annual D.C. gala. The announcement didn’t mention Ruffin’s name – a classy move, no?

Ruffin planned to go scorched Earth on Trump that night. Apparently, the biased body thought that might be a bad look.

Maybe withholding key information from news consumers is an even worse look.

The president didn’t attend the previous four WHCA dinners during his first term. He recently announced he’s skipping this month’s gala, too.

President Trump had nothing to do with that cancellation or the others.

None of this is new.

Major studios routinely censored films over the past decade to appease Chinese censors. Stars like Tina Fey voluntarily removed episodes of “30 Rock” from circulation due to alleged “blackface” moments.

Now, the excuse to censor is a fear of Trumpian retaliations. Yet we saw nothing of the kind during the president’s first term.

And he had plenty of excuses to do just that.

 

 

Remember how many stars called him a Nazi, Adolf Hitler, or both? What about celebrities wishing for his death or staging it in music videos or theatrical productions?

“The Late Show” spent years calling Trump a Russian asset before we collectively learned it was a Deep State talking point, nothing more.

Late-night hosts have picked up the anti-Trump cudgel over the past few months, alongside the far-Left “Saturday Night Live.” Why don’t they fear blowback from the Commander in Chief? 

In the Left’s meek defense, Trump has occasionally lashed out at his Hollywood critics. He warned that “SNL,” for example, should be taken off the air for its extreme bias.

He never followed through.

A president should never, ever suggest such a threat. It’s one of Trump’s most alarming flaws.

So what explains the new wave of self-censorship? Here’s a theory – projection.

The modern Left loves censorship. Progressives shout down conservatives on college campuses. Democratic lawmakers savaged Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi when he testified before them.

Sites like TheWrap and Rolling Stone had no qualms with Cancel Culture during the madness of the past few years.

They’re projecting what they might do if they had President Trump’s power and mandate. 

New York Post columnist Douglas Murray joined HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday to promote his new book about Israel, but later, during the Overtime segment, Maher couldn’t help but also ask about his native Britain’s supreme court ruling that the definition of a woman is based off of biology and not self-identification. From there, Murray would go on to calmly dismantle Maher’s desire for a “sensible center” on the issue.

Murray said of the court’s ruling that it was a victory for everybody, but “particularly women who’ve been defamed and lied about and bullied and chased and much more for years, they were right. And I just think, apart from being a statement of the obvious, isn’t it amazing that the best legal minds in Britain spent years having to work out the first thing we knew as a species?”

 

 

Maher then sought to reassure people that he wasn’t a conservative on the issue, “But just to be clear, we’re not saying there’s not such a thing as trans, right? We’re not saying there’s no such thing as someone who is quote unquote ‘born in the wrong body.’”

Murray calmly held firm, “I don’t think people get born in the wrong body, no.”

A startled Maher reassured people that, “Oh, I do.”

He continued, “Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a default setting for humans. Like, we should acknowledge that it’s not just every time there’s a baby, “Oh, who knows what the fuck it is.” That’s crazy, but there are variations: homosexuality and then, you know, but it’s how we handle that.”

Maher further argued, “I mean, and I think we would agree that, you know, children, and this is where we’re, this is where America is now an outlier country. We’re the only country that went for—and I guess Trump was reversing it, but certainly under Biden. Who went fully toward that, like, we don’t care what age, kids can self-diagnose themselves. I mean, that to me was going way too far. On this again, nobody just comes back to the sensible center.”

Throughout, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith was voicing her agreement with Maher, and she now declared,  “Yeah, I mean, to me, the sensible center is that, like, you respect people, you trust parents, you let parents figure out what to do with their kids, and you don’t need a bunch of politicians in Washington—”

Maher countered, “That is not the Democratic position, at least here in California.”

After Smith claimed it is her position, a hopeful Maher resumed, “Good. Good. That’s, I think, that’s where the Democratic Party should—that is not the position that we’ve had here in California, which is like, don’t tell the parents what the kids are doing at school. That’s a whole— and that you really alienate voters. Parents are voters. When you’re not a parent yet. You know, it’s like, ‘Oh, voting, whatever,’ you know.”

Murray then returned to point out the problem with this fallacious appeal to the center is that it is factually incorrect. With a possible allusion to the January 24 episode of Real Time where Maher claimed there are more than two sexes, Murray proclaimed, “Sex is not a spectrum. I mean, there’s male and female, there are some people with very unusual conditions who deserve absolute sympathy and support, but that does not mean that we’re a hermaphroditic species. We’re just not.”

Maher tried to defend himself, “No, but not, no, not the whole species. But this goes back, I mean, like, I mean, I don’t want to use the term ‘chicks with dicks,’ but I could. I mean. This goes back to, like, Ancient Rome and, like, there was always people who were, like, not—”

Murray is correct. Yes, intersex people exist, but what Maher can’t seem to shake is that an extremely rare exception to the rule is just that: an exception.  And saying that you have a feeling that you were born in the wrong body is quite a different argument than the fact that you are.

Here is a transcript for the April 18 show:

HBO Real Time with Bill Maher Overtime

4/18/2025

54 seconds

DOUGLAS MURRAY: All the, particularly women who’ve been defamed and lied about and bullied and chased and much more for years, they were right. And I just think, apart from being a statement of the obvious, isn’t it amazing that the best legal minds in Britain spent years having to work out the first thing we knew as a species?

BILL MAHER: But just to be clear, we’re not saying there’s not such a thing as trans, right? We’re not saying there’s no such thing as someone who is quote unquote “born in the wrong body.”

MURRAY: I don’t think people get born in the wrong body, no.

MAHER: Oh, I do.

TINA SMITH: I do.

MAHER: Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a default setting for humans.

SMITH: Yeah.

MAHER: Like, we should acknowledge that it’s not just every time there’s a baby, “Oh, who knows what the fuck it is.” That’s crazy, but there are variations—

SMITH: There are variations.

MAHER:—homosexuality and then, you know, but it’s how we handle that—

SMITH: That’s right. It’s a continuum.

MAHER: You know, I mean, and I think we would agree that, you know, children, and this is where we’re, this is where America is now an outlier country. We’re the only country that went for—and I guess Trump was reversing it, but certainly under Biden. Who went fully toward that, like, we don’t care what age, kids can self-diagnose themselves. I mean, that that to me was going way too far on this again. Nobody just comes back to the sensible center.

SMITH: Yeah, I mean, to me, the sensible center is that, like, you respect people, you trust parents, you let parents figure out what to do with their kids, and you don’t need a bunch of politicians in Washington—

MAHER: That is not the Democratic position, at least here in California.

SMITH: Well, that’s my position.

MAHER: Good. Good. That’s, I think, that’s where the Democratic Party should—that is not the position that we’ve had here in California, which is like, don’t tell the parents what the kids are doing at school. That’s a whole— and that you really alienate voters. Parents are voters. When you’re not a parent yet. You know, it’s like, “Oh, voting, whatever,” you know.

MURRAY: Sex is not a spectrum. I mean, there’s male and female, there are some people with very unusual conditions who deserve absolute sympathy and support, but that does not mean that we’re a hermaphroditic species. We’re just not.

MAHER: No, but not, no, not the whole species. But this goes back, I mean, like, I mean, I don’t want to use the term “chicks with dicks,” but I could.

MATT WELCH: You did.

MAHER: I mean. This goes back to, like, Ancient Rome and, like, there was always people who were, like, not—

WELCH: It’s not hard to get to toleration and acceptance without rewriting biology, right?

MAHER: Right. Right.

WELCH: It’s a norm—that’s your normal center.

If there were still any questions that PBS is a liberal network in need of defunding, Friday’s News Hour removed any remaining doubts. In a wild segment, host William Brangham preferred the words of the “nonpartisan” League of Women Voters over an anti-Trump law professor who stated the country is not in a constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, New York Times columnist and supposed conservative David Brooks promoted his recent article where he essentially quoted The Communist Manifesto and urged, among other things, Americans to go on strike to protest Trump.

Brangham wondered what Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart thought of the whole thing, “Jonathan, what do you think about that? I mean, we had Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck on the show. He says, we’re not quite there yet, because the Trump administration has not yet formally blown through, overtly ignored a direct court order yet.”

 

 

At the same time, “we also heard from the League of Women Voters, the nonpartisan organization, who this week — I’d like to read you this quote. They said — quote — ‘It has now been 87 days since the start of the Trump administration. From the flagrant disregard for congressional authority and governmental checks and balances, to defying Supreme Court orders to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home, one thing is abundantly clear. Our country is in a constitutional crisis.’”

The joke that the media views politics as a battle between the right-wingers and the non-partisans was clearly seen in Brangham’s framing, which was one Capehart agreed with, “I am glad you read that, because I was shaking, I was nodding in agreement with the League of Women Voters.”

Capehart added, “So, I know there are these formal definitions of what a constitutional crisis is, but from where I sit in my Schoolhouse Rock! knowledge of how our government is supposed to work we are in one. We have a president of the United States who on a daily basis blows past the guardrails, pushes as far as he can get to test the system.”

Later, Brangham recalled to Brooks, “Well, you offered a prescription, David, in your column in the New York Times for this moment that we are in. And you called for a civic uprising.”

After Brangham asked how that would come about, Brooks replied:

Yeah, the core argument is that Trump is really about amassing power. And anything that might potentially restrain his power, he will destroy. And that includes the court systems and anything part of that livens humanity. It includes the universities, the scientific community, the truth, the media. And so far, we have responded to all these things, NATO, in separate lanes. We think the Fed is different than NATO, which is different from the universities. But my point is, this is all one thing. And if institutions and even sectors try to respond to this individually, they’re doomed. Even Harvard, with $52 billion in this endowment, you can’t do it alone.

 

 

Brooks was especially fixated on the Harvard case, “That was a crucial turning point because it changed the minds of everybody in every university I have talked to since then. They said… A lot of them [universities] beforehand were like, ‘Well, Columbia made a deal, maybe that’s right for us.’ Once Harvard came out, I talked to a couple of university presidents who said, ‘Oh, this is where we need to be,’ because the Trump administration made it impossible for Harvard not to say no.”

Getting back to the idea of a general uprising, Brooks claimed, “The point I tried to make is, all these different sectors have to get together and inform one big civic movement. And it can’t be political. It’s not Democrats versus Republicans. It’s not left versus right. It’s institutions versus the destruction of our institutions of civilization.”

Brooks then got examples of what he would like to see, “And if you look down through history, there have been social movements, these kinds of civic uprising that have succeeded. They have banded together across sectors. They have a clear, simple message that appeals to a lot of different people. They use things like lawsuits, protests, boycotts, all sorts of things, strikes, anything they can do.”

In his column, Brooks concluded with a bit of Marx, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.”

While Brooks may have an overinflated view of how many people throughout the country agree with him, the workers of PBS have definitely united in their quest against Donald Trump.

Sign the petition to help us defund another MSNBC in PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.

Here is a transcript for the April 18 show:

PBS News Hour

4/18/2025

7:34 PM ET

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jonathan, what do you think about that? I mean, we had Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck on the show. He says, we’re not quite there yet, because the Trump administration has not yet formally blown through, overtly ignored a direct court order yet.

But we also heard from the League of Women Voters, the nonpartisan organization, who this week — I’d like to read you this quote. They said — quote — “It has now been 87 days since the start of the Trump administration. From the flagrant disregard for congressional authority and governmental checks and balances, to defying Supreme Court orders to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home, one thing is abundantly clear. Our country is in a constitutional crisis.”

Where do you come down on that?

CAPEHART: I am glad you read that, because I was shaking, I was nodding in agreement with the League of Women Voters.

How can you say that the president hasn’t defied court orders? You have got Judge Boasberg, who is threatening to — says yesterday that there’s probable cause to charge the government or lawyers arguing on behalf of the government with criminal contempt.

Why? Because the president of the United States and his administration ignored his order to not deport those folks to El Salvador. So, I know there are these formal definitions of what a constitutional crisis is, but from where I sit in my Schoolhouse Rock! knowledge of how our government is supposed to work we are in one. We have a president of the United States who on a daily basis blows past the guardrails, pushes as far as he can get to test the system.

And what has heartened me this week is hearing from Judge Boasberg and the judge who ruled yesterday in that beautiful seven-page opinion, where they are not just saying, this isn’t the right thing to do. They are pushing back just as aggressively from their respective federal benches. And I think we will be better for it.

…

BRANGHAM: Well, you offered a prescription, David, in your column in the New York Times for this moment that we are in. And you called for a civic uprising.

You said in this column, I want to read a bit of this, saying that the attacks that we have seen on institutions — quote — “are not separate battles. This is a simple effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump’s acquisition of power.”

So how would that civic uprising form?

DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, the core argument is that Trump is really about amassing power. And anything that might potentially restrain his power, he will destroy.

And that includes the court systems and anything part of that livens humanity. It includes the universities, the scientific community, the truth, the media. And so far, we have responded to all these things, NATO, in separate lanes. We think the Fed is different than NATO, which is different from the universities.

But my point is, this is all one thing. And if institutions and even sectors try to respond to this individually, they’re doomed. Even Harvard, with $52 billion in this endowment, you can’t do it alone.

BRANGHAM: Though that was a signal moment.

BROOKS: That was a crucial turning point because it changed the minds of everybody in every university I have talked to since then. They said—

BRANGHAM: Oh, really?

BROOKS: Yeah. So—

BRANGHAM: Post-Harvard, they’ve all said—

BROOKS: Right. A lot of them beforehand were like, “Well, Columbia made a deal, maybe that’s right for us.” Once Harvard came out, I talked to a couple of university presidents who said, “Oh, this is where we need to be,” because the Trump administration made it impossible for Harvard not to say no.

And that’s what we’re dealing with here. And so the point I tried to make is, all these different sectors have to get together and inform one big civic movement. And it can’t be political. It’s not Democrats versus Republicans. It’s not left versus right. It’s institutions versus the destruction of our institutions of civilization.

And if you look down through history, there have been social movements, these kinds of civic uprising that have succeeded. They have banded together across sectors. They have a clear, simple message that appeals to a lot of different people. They use things like lawsuits, protests, boycotts, all sorts of things, strikes, anything they can do.

But, basically, if you’re head of a law firm or a university, any of these institutions, you’re dealing with administrations, it’s just about raw power. So the question you have to ask yourself is, how do we amass power so they’re not dividing us, so we’re dividing them? And that is a mass uprising.

And the one turning point, if you look even at the civil rights movement, when you do a nonviolent protest and the people on the other side attack you with violence, that tends to weaken them. And then suddenly you’re dividing them, some, obviously.

And so this is the kind of way we have to think, that it’s time not just to think, well, maybe he will look at the other guy. It’s time we’re all involved, we’re all in this together, and we’re going to amass power together.

The networks demonstrated biases by their choice of anecdotes. They completely skip murders by illegal aliens, like the newly convicted killer of Rachel Morin. Instead, they’ve gone all in to advocate for illegal alien Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, despite his gang connections and domestic-violence accusations. Geoffrey Dickens and Bill D’Agostino discuss their studies on the TV coverage. 

Geoff found from April 1 through the morning of April 15, ABC, CBS, NBC spent a total of 64 minutes, 57 seconds on the “Maryland man” controversy, but they gave zero seconds to the trial of an illegal alien who killed Rachel Morin. This week, the networks kept pumping out the “Maryland man” stories, and Rachel Morin’s mother appearing in the White House briefing room drew nothing from ABC and CBS, and 12 seconds on NBC.

Earlier, Bill found from April 1 to April 6, CNN and MSNBC have referred to Kilmar Abrego-Garcia as a “Maryland man” or “Maryland father” a whopping 120 times, while identifying him as an illegal alien only seven times. Meanwhile, MSNBC alone aired eleven objectively false assertions that Garcia was actually a legal resident. In 72 stories on Abrego-Garcia, CNN did the “Maryland” thing 51 times, and MSNBC 69 times.

We also discuss Bill’s study on how the networks were incessantly negative on coverage of Trump’s economic policy, hyping the “Trump tariff meltdown” and barely noticing good reports on employment and inflation, and the question of whether Donald Trump is right that CNN hates America. 

Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

So much for the stereotype of Canadians being polite, calm people.

On Thursday, following a debate in Montreal between Canadian party leaders in the upcoming parliamentary election, one of the reporters went stark raving mad to the extent that he went on an extended rant for over 5 minutes in the press room following the debate. Stuart Benson of the Hill Times couldn’t control his outrage that one of the few independent news outlets in Canada, Rebel News, was allowed to ask questions of the party leaders.

Here is the extended bizarre rage rant by Benson against Rebel News that lasted over five minutes.

 

It’s pandemonium in the media centre as a Hill Times reporter has a wild temper tantrum at the independent media. This is WILD! pic.twitter.com/2Tpw9xn5EU
— Alex Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) April 17, 2025
As any observer can see, it was Benson who went completely unhinged which caused Rebel News CEO Ezra Levant to label him as “Tantrum Boy.” Yet, it was Benson who on Friday falsely blamed Levant, not himself, for the post-debate media scrum to be cancelled.

The commission continued to take heat as its decision to allow Rebel News and other right-wing activists additional slots in the media availability bubbled over into the second night, with the independent body ultimately cancelling the post-debate media scrums.

In addition to Benson falsely insinuating that Rebel News, not his own unhinged meltdown, was the cause of the post-debate media scrum, the Toronto Star went far over the line into outright misinformation on that situation as you can see in their Friday headline and story by Dylan Robertson, “Debates chief cancels post-debate Q&A after Rebel News clashes with reporters.”

The head of the Leaders’ Debates Commission cancelled a planned question-and-answer session between journalists and party leaders scheduled to take place after Thursday’s English-language debate, following heated exchanges between reporters and representatives of the right-wing media group Rebel News.

Notice there are apparently objective “reporters” vs. the “right-wing media group.” Unfortunately for Mr. Robertson’s outright misinformation attempt which completely avoids any mention of the key role of Stuart Benson’s unprovoked and unhinged extended outburst, the video exists to serve as a fact check on what really happened in the press room.

PS: Benson also objected on Twitter, on his “third party advertiser” argument: 

Leaders Debate Commission just told CBC’s David Cochrane that it was unaware that Rebel News founder Ezra Levant—accredited at the debate alongside four of his employees—is also the owner of ForCanada, a third party advertiser registered with Elections Canada…..… pic.twitter.com/gEcEG2icix
— Stuart Benson (@LeftHandStu) April 17, 2025

On Friday, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC had full segments on their flagship morning news shows heralding Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen for flying down to El Salvador and meeting with alleged MS-13 gang member and former illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whom the liberal media are acting as though he’s an early frontrunner for the 2025 Time Person of the Year.

ABC’s Good Morning America had an interview later in the show with Garcia’s wife (which was weird), so they made sure to set the table. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos began: “We’re going to get the latest now on the showdown over the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he presses for the prisoner’s release and an appeals court weighs in.”

 

 

“Maryland man”? Check. “Wrongfully deported”? Check.

Like she did day after day with the Biden regime, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce gushed it was “remarkable” to see “Kilmar Abrego Garcia seated across from Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, the first images of the wrongfully deported Maryland man since we last saw him, head shaved and shackled, held in that notorious prison in El Salvador.”

“Van Hollen traveling to El Salvador demanding to meet with Abrego Garcia as the Trump administration argues they have no intention of bringing him home,” she added.

Once she ran through tweets from Van Hollen and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, she touted the federal courts siding with Garcia, thus framing his well-being as though our country’s rule of law will rise or fall based on what happens (click “expand”):

BRUCE: The White House insists that Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal convictions, is a violent gang member, deporting him to El Salvador despite a 2019 court order that he not be sent back to his native country because he might face danger there, a mistake the administration previously acknowledged. A federal appeals panel yesterday ripping into the administration, writing: “The government is asserting a right to stash away resents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.” In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release, but the President, who is paying El Salvador $6 million to keep him and others, says it’s up to that country to send him back. Pressed on whether he’ll take action to force Abrego Garcia’s return, the President punting.

TRUMP: I’m gonna respond to that by saying you’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I’ve heard many things about him. And we’ll have to find out what the truth is.

BRUCE: The judges saying that whether or not Abrego Garcia is a gang member is not the issue at hand. “The government asserts he is a terrorist and member of MS-13,” they write. “Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” And while the senator did pass along a message to Abrego Garcia’s wife Jennifer, she still has not spoken with him directly. In a statement to ABC News she says, we still have many question, hopes and fears, adding the family will continue fighting for his safe return.

Shifting to NBC’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie said Van Hollen was “meeting in El Salvador with Maryland man whose mistaken deportation has taken center stage in that battle.”

Senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake gushed that “Garcia’s wife said overnight that her prayers have been answered now that she knows her husband is still alive, but he’s also still not coming back to Maryland.”

 

 

Acknowledging “the White House is embracing the political contrast created by this visit and those photos,” Haake called Van Hollen’s visit “proof of life” for Garcia

“El Salvador’s president mocking the meeting with his own post, writing sarcastically that Garcia has, ‘miraculously risen from ‘death camps’ & ‘torture,’ now sipping margaritas’ with the Democratic lawmaker…The White House, citing local Maryland police reports, claims Abrego Garcia was a member of the violent MS-13 gang, which his family denies. He has no criminal convictions in either country,” he added.

A few minutes after Haake said the White House wasn’t backing down, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker provided some analysis and curiously brought up Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) insistence the party focus more on the economy instead of this (click “expand”):

GUTHRIE: Let’s talk about immigration. I mean, there is obviously back and forth over this particular man in Maryland, and the white house has come out strong trying to say, you know, this is somebody who doesn’t belong in this country for whatever reason. There is a larger issue. It’s a constitutional issue. It’s this showdown between the federal courts and between the White House. And — and where do we see that ending if the Justice Department — or if — if the white House is not going to listen to court orders?

WELKER: Well, Savannah, that’s the big question. Will the White House listen to court orders? If not, will this go all the way to the Supreme Court? And what then if the White House doesn’t comply with the Supreme Court? I interviewed Chuck Schumer a couple weeks ago who said that you would start to see people rise up and protest. We will have to see how it unravels. But, look, in conversations with administration officials, they see Abrego Garcia’s case as a politically potent one for them. President Trump has consistently gotten high marks for his handling on the border, on immigration. And this incident really allows his administration to take attention from what they don’t want to be talking about right now, tariffs, the economy with a lot of uncertainty about what will happen next in the President’s trade war. What’s also notable is that we’ve seen Democrats really divided, Savannah, in terms of how they responded to this moment. While you have some Democrats like Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen leaning heavily into this case, others like California Governor Gavin Newsome are calling this matter the “distraction of the day.” They [sic] think the party should be more focused on the economy, which as you know, which as we always discuss, is the top issue for voters.

CBS Mornings spent the least amount of time on Abrego Garcia at 91 seconds, but it still made sure to commiserate over him.

 

 

Co-host Tony Dokoupil tossed to CBS’s one-time January 6 correspondent Scott MacFarlane:

We’re going to turn now to the deportation case of the man mistakenly sent to an El Salvador prison. Last night, Maryland Senator Chris van Hollen was able to meet with that man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who’s been there in El Salvador for about four weeks now. The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, has ordered the Trump administration to take steps to bring Abrego Garcia back to America, but the White House says it’s out of their hands. 

MacFarlane boasted “Van Hollen flew to El Salvador early Wednesday with the main goal of seeing Abrego Garcia in person” and “had been denied on multiple attempts” before finally being granted a sit-down featuring “Abrego Garcia in street clothes and a Kansas City Chiefs hat, not prison clothes.”

After quoting from a statement with his wife’s name on it, reaction from Bukele, and the White House blasting Van Hollen and Democrats as the party of illegal immigrants, he ended by insisting “Abrego Garcia’s legal team strongly denies any ties to MS-13” (despite the facts put out by the White House).

To see the relevant transcripts from April 18, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).