Newsbusters

ABC’s Good Morning America made a whopping four teases Friday for its exclusive interview with Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of alleged MS-13 member the liberal media’s most-upstanding role model, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. While they were certainly excited and conveyed it’d be a soft one with co-host Michael Strahan at the helm (and it certainly was), it was also awkward as she refused to answer a question about Garcia’s alleged history of domestic violence.

 

 

The interview only last four minutes and eight seconds, starting with Strahan’s fawning welcome: 

STRAHAN: Back with our ABC News exclusive. Joining us now is Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and is at the center of a legal battle playing out in the courts. And Jennifer, we want to thank — thank you for joining us on GMA.

SURA: Oh, thank you for having me.

STRAHAN: Yeah. We really appreciate you joining us. 

He first asked her about a photo posted Thursday night by Maryland Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen of his meeting with Garcia and “what was it like for you to see that photo.”

Sura was incredibly brief: “It was very overwhelming. The most important thing for me, my children, his mom, his brother, siblings was to see him alive and we saw him alive. It was very overwhelming.”

Strahan made clear what side he and ABC News were on, which is illegal immigrants: “Yeah, I think, for all of us, we were all happy to see him alive and what were you told your husband said in that meeting?”

She claimed she couldn’t hear him, so Strahan had to repeat the question.

Things grew even more cagey and coached when she simply quoted from Van Hollen’s tweet: “It was just a message of love.”

Strahan tried to get her to open up with a question about how long they had been together and “what has your life been like with him.” Sura was again very rehearsed: “We’ve been together over seven years. It’s been amazing. He’s a loving husband, amazing father and we were just young parents trying to live the American dream.”

With little to work with, Strahan again opined that Garcia and Sura “were living that [American] dream until March 12.”

The next section concerned his arrest with Sura saying she’s been on “an emotional, emotional roller coaster, honestly,” later adding “ our faith has grown and I keep him in my prayers to bring him back home.”

The only two substantive questions came and went with a poof, starting with asking about MS-13: “And we know that the administration — they’re resisting a court order to bring your husband back to the U.S. They say your husband is a member of the MS-13 gang. Is — is he a member of the MS-13 gang or any other gang?”

“No, he’s not,” Sura said.

Then came the domestic violence question, a truly bizarre reaction, and even more ridiculous response from Strahan:

STRAHAN: And I know this is a sensitive question, but I have to ask it. You did take out a temporary order of protection against your husband in 2021. Were you in fear of your husband?

SURA: My husband is alive. That’s all I can say.

STRAHAN: Okay, then I won’t push you on that apparently. 

Having gotten those pesky informational questions out of the way, the rest was back to the softballs. Notice that Sura mentioned “the unions” and CASA, one of the most radical, pro-illegal immigrant groups out there (click “expand”):

STRAHAN: But how much hope do you have that you will be reunited with your husband? And what keeps you and your family going?

SURA: A lot of hope and this fight still continues for Kilmar and all the other Kilmars out there whose voices haven’t been heard yet. I won’t stop fighting until he returns home, until I know that he’s safe.

STRAHAN: And if you could get your husband a message, what would you like to tell him right now?

SURA: I would tell him that I love him and I’m still keep praying for him until he returns. I will continue fighting, the community, CASA, the unions, Mr. Van Hollen, everyone out here will still continue fighting for him and all the other Kilmars out there.

Having nothing else left for this leftist network to ask (or work with) Strahan thanked her and once more showed the network’s pro-alleged gang member stance: “[W]e hope everything works out well in the way you like for you and your family.”

To see the relevant ABC transcript from April 18, click here.

The White House press room was left speechless on Thursday after Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt invited Maryland angel mom Patty Morin to speak about her daughter Rachel, who was raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant (a story largely ignored by the liberal media until the briefing). But during Friday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish scoffed and chuckled at Morin as she chided the White House for their “use of the victims’ families.”

Before writing off Morin’s story from discussions of illegal immigration, Cornish did play a soundbite of the grieving mother’s reaction to her Democratic Senator, Chris Van Hollen flying to El Salvador to be with an alleged MS-13 gang member instead of meeting with her:

And to have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge or barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured. [Transition] To fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more right than I do? Or my daughter?

But as she was noting that the cases were not directly related, Cornish couldn’t seem to help herself as she openly scoffed and chuckled.

“So, just to be clear, she was not raped or murdered by Kilmar Abrego Garcia. So, two completely different crimes [scoff and chuckle] different times,” she argued. “And Garcia does not actually have a criminal record.”

 

 

Looking to former Washington Senate candidate Tiffany Smiley (R), Cornish took issue with Morin’s story even being shared in this moment, suggesting that she was being “use[d]” by the White House. “And also, Tiffany, I want to hear from you about the use of the victims’ families in this way, at the forefront. What do you make of having her out there in the response?” she asked.

But as Smiley was explaining how this was all about the White House’s response to illegal immigration, Cornish interrupted to question if Morin’s story should be included:

SMILEY: Well, I think it’s important to hear Patty and Rachel’s story. I mean, let’s not —

CORNISH: But in this story?!

SMILEY: I mean, so — so, I think this all goes back to the majority of Americans voted for President Trump, because there was an open Southern border where illegals were coming in and making our communities unsafe, killing American citizens with no plan in sight. And no — no — you know, people were feeling less and less safe with every waking day.

“And President Trump came in on a commitment — promises made and promises kept — that he was going to secure the border, deport illegals, deport criminals who do not belong in this country,” Smiley noted.

Cornish also took issue with Smiley talking about Garcia’s alleged criminal history, teaming up with former Obama official Nayyera Haq to push back (Click “expand”):

SMILEY: So, I think it’s just making this stark contrast that, you know, this Maryland man, he is a part of MS-13. There is intelligence reports that show that he was involved in human trafficking. He’s a wife beater. There are records that his wife —

HAQ: None of that has actually been proven or shown in court. And that’s part of the problem, is there’s no due process.

[Crosstalk]

CORNISH: I know. I do want — I’m glad you’re introducing this. I also don’t want to get sued, so I’ll say the government has not released any documented information around intelligence reports, specifically. And right now, the documents they did release this week did not show he had a criminal record.

SMILEY: I think it is an interesting — from a messaging —

CORNISH: Yes, I just want to say, “Fact.”

“This is the conversation that I hear all the time, right? You’re either for criminals, against victims; or you are for this bullying government that is just completely pillaging due process,” Cornish huffed, gesturing to her political guests.

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

CNN This Morning
April 18, 2025
6:04:43 a.m. Eastern

(…)

AUDIE CORNISH: I want to play a sound bite, however, from Patty Morin. She’s the mother of Rachel Morin, who was — who was raped and murdered by an undocumented immigrant back in 2023. And here’s how she reacted to Hollen’s trip.

[Cuts to video]

PATTY MORIN (mother of Rachel Morin): And to have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge or barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured. [Transition] To fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen. Why does that person have more right than I do? Or my daughter?

[Cuts back to live]

CORNISH: So, just to be clear, she was not raped or murdered by Kilmar Abrego Garcia. So, two completely different crimes [scoffs and chuckles] different times. And Garcia does not actually have a criminal record.

But, Sara, I want to talk to you about messaging. And also, Tiffany, I want to hear from you about the use of the victims’ families in this way, at the forefront. What do you make of having her out there in the response?

TIFFANY SMILEY (R, Washington Senate candidate): Well, I think it’s important to hear Patty and Rachel’s story. I mean, let’s not —

CORNISH: But in this story?!

SMILEY: I mean, so — so, I think this all goes back to the majority of Americans voted for President Trump, because there was an open Southern border where illegals were coming in and making our communities unsafe, killing American citizens with no plan in sight. And no — no — you know, people were feeling less and less safe with every waking day.

And President Trump came in on a commitment — promises made and promises kept — that he was going to secure the border, deport illegals, deport criminals who do not belong in this country.

So, I think it’s just making this stark contrast that, you know, this Maryland man, he is a part of MS-13. There is intelligence reports that show that he was involved in human trafficking. He’s a wife beater. There are records that his wife —

NAYYERA HAQ (former Obama White House official): None of that has actually been proven or shown in court. And that’s part of the problem, is there’s no due process.

[Crosstalk]

CORNISH: I know. I do want — I’m glad you’re introducing this. I also don’t want to get sued, so I’ll say the government has not released any documented information around intelligence reports, specifically. And right now, the documents they did release this week did not show he had a criminal record.

SMILEY: I think it is an interesting — from a messaging —

CORNISH: Yes, I just want to say, “Fact.”

SMILEY: From a messaging standpoint, it’s fascinating that Democrats are really going to bat for this illegal immigrant, which we do know he is. And that he —

HAQ (interrupting): He’s here legally. He had legal status here in the United States!

SMILEY: This senator is —

HAQ: If we’re going to have the messaging conversation, let’s at least make sure it’s grounded in the facts of individuals, because this is about people and human lives.

CORNISH: All right. Hold on, you guys. Let me bring in Sara for a minute.

SMILEY: Can I just say something real quick?

CORNISH: Hold on one second. This will be very fast. This is the conversation that I hear all the time, right? You’re either for criminals, against victims; or you are for this bullying government that is just completely pillaging due process –

(…)

At MSNBC, old habits die hard. On Thursday’s installment of The Last Word, former Mueller Probe prosecutor turned MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann raised the prospect of impeachment for President Trump’s attempts to defund Harvard.

Referencing a Truth Social post where Trump threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, host Lawrence O’Donnell told Weissmann that, “There is now an active question of did Donald Trump violate the law with that social media posting.”

 

 

Weissmann immediately argued Trump was extorting the university, “This is, in my view, a sort of extortion racket through various means, whether it’s saying we’re going to go after international students, whether we’re going to try and revoke your IRS status, and through an illegal means, whether we’re going to just pull all of your funding for your medical school, and we’re doing that in violation of the First Amendment. So, I mean, there’s—when you’re sort of asking, has the law been broken? My first response was, well, many.”

He then recalled, “There are just so many ways to look at this. I am so reminded of the first impeachment, which was an illegal means of withholding Congressionally mandated funding from Ukraine in order to get them to open a fraudulent investigation, so that they could, so that Donald Trump could say there was a criminal investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden. So many pieces of it were improper and or illegal. And that is exactly how Harvard is going to be portraying this, but they really are a victim of an extortion.”

Any school receiving federal funding is subject to federal civil rights law, but Weissmann then turned into a mind reader in order to claim Trump doesn’t actually care about that, “The reason, the purported reason, is because of Donald Trump’s supposed hatred of anti-Semitism, and I don’t notice his saying a word about the attack on Josh Shapiro and his family on Passover. That is just one example of the lying, that purported reason for attacking Harvard.”

From a legal perspective, Trump’s personal motivations really don’t matter. Either Harvard has violated federal law or it hasn’t. According to the administration, it has, and so if the private school doesn’t want to comply with federal demands, it can survive on its own.

Here is a transcript for the April 17 show:

MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell

4/17/2025

10:34 PM ET

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: There is now an active question of did Donald Trump violate the law with that social media posting.

ANDREW WEISSMANN: This is, in my view, a sort of extortion racket through various means, whether it’s saying we’re going to go after international students, whether we’re going to try and revoke your IRS status, and through an illegal means, whether we’re going to just pull all of your funding for your medical school, and we’re doing that in violation of the First Amendment. So, I mean, there’s— when you’re sort of asking, has the law been broken? 

My first response was, well, many. There are just so many ways to look at this. I am so reminded of the first impeachment, which was an illegal means of withholding Congressionally mandated funding from Ukraine in order to get them to open a fraudulent investigation, so that they could, so that Donald Trump could say there was a criminal investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden. 

So many pieces of it were improper and or illegal. And that is exactly how Harvard is going to be portraying this, but they really are a victim of an extortion. And the reason, the purported reason, is because of Donald Trump’s supposed hatred of anti-Semitism, and I don’t notice his saying a word about the attack on Josh Shapiro and his family on Passover. That is just one example of the lying, that purported reason for attacking Harvard.

Of all the news outlets you wouldn’t expect to be supplying vital information indicating that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a gang member, the notoriously lefty BBC has to be near the top of the list.

And yet . . . 

On today’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough went on a rumbling, bumbling, stumbling defense of Abrego Garcia–check the video beginning at 35 seconds for Scarborough doing his best bumbling Biden impression.

But Scarborough ended by emphatically exclaiming: “This whole idea that he’s a gang member: no he’s not! It was never proved.”

Scarborough also stressed that Abrego Garcia had not been convicted of a crime in the US. But no one denies that he was an illegal alien. Add to that his apparent gang connection, and he was ripe for deportation. Adios, amigo!

During his jittery rant, Scarborough stressed that a court had granted “protection status” to Abrego Garcia. But Scarborough never mentioned the basis of that order.

As per the BBC:

“Mr Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say that he was granted the status based on his ‘well-founded’ fear of persecution by Barrio-18, the main rival gang of MS-13.”

Ask yourself—better yet, ask Joe Scarborough—why would Abrego Garcia have a “well-founded fear of persecution by the main rival gang of MS-13” unless he had a real connection to that gang?

Scarborough couldn’t answer that question—or even dare ask it.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
4/18/25
6:05 am EDT

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, you know, the thing is, the Trump administration has a lot of issues where there are people who are unambiguously gang members, people who unambiguously committed crimes, people who unambiguously would be so-called sort of poster child for these, what they’re trying to prove here. 

Instead, they have a man here who was sent to prison.  A man who the evidence that, that sent him to prison, eh, where he was in the United States, supposedly a gang member. It ended up being from a detective who was suspended. That, that, it was, got the clothes that he was wearing. It was also, again, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, the conflict between the hearsay, uh, eh, uh, evidence. Uh, eh, eh, even at the court. 

Again, this is the most important thing. In 2019 [slaps hands] the court let him go! Never charged for a crime! The court released him, and gave him a special protected status. It’s rarely given in America! 

And the protection status says you are allowed to stay in America. You are not — the U.S. government is not allowed to send you back to El Salvador. Now that is just clear-cut. And it was in 2019. It wasn’t in 2023 during the Biden administration. It was 2019 during the Trump administration. And the Trump administration let the ruling stand! They did not appeal it because they knew that Garcia was standing on firm legal grounds. 

So Garcia stays in America. He reports to his immigration officer annually. He becomes a member of a union. He, he, he, he, he’s a worker. He’s a father.

Again, and, and you have the court saying: U.S. government, you cannot deport him. And again, the Trump administration in 2019 went along with it. Let it stand! Didn’t appeal it. 

So this whole idea that, oh, he’s a gang member, we all know he’s a gang member. No he’s not. It was never proved. 

ABC’s Good Morning America co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos scored the exclusive sit-down with Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro to air on Friday’s show about the arson attack at the governor’s mansion by an alleged suspect who harbored hatred toward Shapiro over the war in Gaza. In other words, anti-Semitism.

Of course, Stephanopoulos couldn’t have left it there and instead repeatedly pushed Shapiro to make this a case of both sides, including a pot shot at Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Dan Meuser.

After speaking with the governor and Pennsylvania First Lady Lori Shapiro and examining the catastrophic damage, Stephanopoulos first asked a simple question if this “was…a hate crime,” but the governor wouldn’t entertain because, as he would later note, it’s not helpful for the legal process for the victim to be making demands of prosecutors.

 

 

“But what does your gut tell you? I mean, this man was talking about Gaza, talking about Palestine, talking about his hatred for you,” Stephanopoulos wondered.

Shapiro refused to engage on what certainly seems like an attack on him for being Jewish, merely saying this was what happens “when you’re — you’re in these positions of power” and “there are people out there that want to do you harm,” so he “tr[ies] not to be captive to the fear[.]”

This went into more editorializing from Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say you don’t want to be captive to it, but this is something we’re seeing. This was a dramatic and scary example of it, but we’re seeing this kind of rise in threats and attacks all across the country. Homeland Security has been worrying about it for years.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. It’s real I mean, this is sadly a real part of our society today. And it needs to be universally condemned, George. I don’t care if it’s coming from the left, from the right. I don’t care if it’s coming from someone who you voted for or someone who you didn’t vote for. Someone on your team or someone on the other team. I think every single leader has a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and condemn this kind of violence.

Following a question about this clear failure of security by the Pennsylvania State Police, the ABC host wondered whether Trump had reached out. Shapiro replied he hadn’t, but he did hear from FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Stephanopoulos tried again on enhanced charges for the suspect: “Attorney General Bondi has not yet said this was an act of domestic terrorism. Do you believe it was?”

Shapiro again demurred, leaving the still unofficial Democratic Party hand frustrated and Shapiro to deliver the acknowledgment of wanting to at least partially stay out of the legal process: “Why don’t you want to address that question? Because we even saw Senator Schumer today sent a letter to the attorney general saying he believes this should be labeled and investigated as a hate crime.”

 

 

The interview footage ended with Stephanopoulos invoking the 2018 mass shooting on a Pittsburgh synagogue (which the liberal media blamed President Trump for) and Meuser’s comments noting Shapiro’s own white-hot rhetoric that included saying Republicans wanted people to go hungry.

With Shapiro refusing to call out this anti-Semitic nut for what he is, Stephanopoulo had no other reason to invoke Meuser other than to allow Shapiro to score partisan points against someone he may face next year (click “expand”):

STEPHANOPOULOS: Part of that job is to combat the kind of conditions we’re seeing that create the opportunity for situations like this. Pennsylvania is no stranger to this. We saw the attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018. How do you combat this kind of hate?

SHAPIRO: By speaking and acting with moral clarity. Let me explain. Immediately following the assassination attempt on the former President, now President, in Butler, Pennsylvania. I condemned that in the strongest of terms. I spoke to the victims. I went to Butler. When the assassin who killed the U.S. healthcare CEO was caught in Altoona, Pennsylvania, I immediately went there and condemned that kind of violent in clear terms. I think it’s also important when you’re not dealing with a traumatic event in Butler and Altoona or here in Harrisburg, to be leading every day in a way that, like, brings people together and doesn’t just continually divide us.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I know you know this, but you have a Republican congressman of Pennsylvania comes out and says it’s your rhetoric about President Trump — he didn’t quite say it’s partly to blame but he cited it as something that people have to get under control.

SHAPIRO: Again, I think leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and that particular congressman failed yet again.

To see the relevant transcript from April 18, click here.

Where is X-owner Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot getting its information from? MRC researchers found a disturbing connection to multiple anti-free speech organizations with previous connections to the left’s vast censorship cartel.

On her podcast Tuesday, podcast host Liz Wheeler said she woke up to see a post from the X AI Grok claiming she is part of a “small group of ‘superspreaders’” of “fake news.” In addition to Wheeler, Grok named Christian actor Kevin Sorbo and Trump administration Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for sharing “misleading content on topics like vaccines and elections.” In response, Wheeler called for Musk to investigate “who wrote the code for Grok on this because it sounds like you’ve got a censorship industrial complex mole.” 

[Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 

As the Trump Administration seeks to dismantle DEI initiatives, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart welcomed New York Times best-selling author and former president of the progressive think tank Demos, Heather McGhee, to The Weekly Show podcast on Thursday to help him make sense of it. During a discussion on Trump’s “shakedown” of elite law firms, McGhee would argue that it is easy for her to call Trump a dictator not only because of the history of racism in the U.S., but because Jim Crow-like systems still exist today.

Stewart asked, “What was the shakedown, Heather? Is it—because I still don’t quite understand what he was threatening or why. I know he was gonna say, ‘Oh, I’ll strip your security or I’ll make it harder for you to get clients.’ But the why of it is—what is he saying they’ve done?”

 

 

McGhee answered that, “He’s saying that one or more of their partners, there’s a few things, basically they’ve defied him, right? So one or more of their partners or people who work there at some point was part of the litigation against him, right? So you have people who were US attorneys who were part of litigation against him.”

A still confused Stewart wondered, “Is he suggesting that that is an illegal act that they undertook?”

McGhee alleged the answer is yes, “Absolutely, because he’s the law,” to which a worried Stewart added, “You just get that just that did not go well with my spine right there.”

Urging Stewart to get with the program, McGhee argued that it is clear Trump is a dictator, “Jon, Jon, you got to know what time it is. Can I just say something about why it’s, like, easy for me to say that and accept it, and it’s kind of harder, I think, for many people in this country to wrap their minds around what time it is right now?”

As Stewart yielded the floor, McGhee continued, “So we’ve always been taught, I think, that there’s such a thing as autocrats and dictators, and we go to war against them, right? Those are in foreign countries that don’t believe in democracy like we do. But black people in America lived under autocracy for most of our history. Black people in the Deep South in many places live under a version of today, right?”

McGhee’s definition of this allegedly modern Jim Crow was quite underwhelming, “And so a world where there is a law that is the effective law that is used and enforced through violence, the threat of violence, being willing to take resources away from a community.”

What does that mean? Is McGhee arguing law enforcement should use flowers and rainbows? Is she claiming budget cuts are violence?

 

 

Stewart tried to make some sense of the comments, “Right. Economic damage,” leading McGhee to elaborate, “Exactly. That’s what has been done to black America. That’s Jim Crow America, right?”

McGhee continued:

So, we’re not as shocked that this would happen in America, right? And I think it’s really important for everyone in this country to know what time it is, right? To learn from the resistance and defiance movements all around the world, but also the movements that end the Jim Crow autocracy in the United States. To learn how to be vigilant, to not be surprised, to know that there’s strength in numbers, to know that if you give an inch, when you don’t have to, they will take everything, and to know what their vision is, the kind of world that they would like to see.

She would go on to claim that Trump’s battles with law firms that have government contracts over their DEI policies are all part of a master and sinister plan, “Of course, strategically, if I want to be a dictator, first, destroy the lawyers and bring them to your side. Second, capture the media. Third, disrupt the universities… When the judges who are in the same class as these big law firm partners are looking around and seeing the people who usually come, you know, and go to trial in front of them yielding without even putting up a fight, that influences the judiciary. So, this is all about a sectoral approach to bring the entire society under heel.

Meanwhile, The Weekly Show was not the only Paramount comedy-adjacent property to dive into Jim Crow analogies. The following day, The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert and Sen. Raphael Warnock would do the same.

Here is a transcript for the April 17 show:

Comedy Central The Weekly Show

4/17/2025

27 minutes, 57 seconds

JON STEWART: What was the shakedown, Heather? Is it—because I still don’t quite understand what he was threatening or why. I know he was gonna say, “Oh, I’ll strip your security or I’ll make it harder for you to get clients.” But the why of it is—what is he saying they’ve done?

HEATHER MCGHEE: Very good point. He’s saying that one or more of their partners, there’s a few things, basically they’ve defied him, right? So one or more of their partners or people who work there at some point was part of the litigation against him, right? So you have people who were US attorneys who were part of litigation against him. 

STEWART: And is he suggesting that that is an illegal act that they undertook? 

MCGHEE: Absolutely, because he’s the law. 

STEWART: You just get that just that did not go well with my spine right there.

MCGHEE: Jon, Jon, you got to know what time it is. Can I just say something about why it’s, like, easy for me to say that and accept it, and it’s kind of harder, I think, for many people in this country—

STEWART: Yes.

MCGHEE: — to wrap their minds around what time it is right now? 

STEWART: Please.

MCGHEE: So we’ve always been taught, I think, that there’s such a thing as autocrats and dictators, and we go to war against them, right? Those are in foreign countries that don’t believe in democracy like we do. But black people in America lived under autocracy for most of our history. Black people in the Deep South in many places live under a version of today, right?

And so a world where there is a law that is the effective law that is used and enforced through violence, the threat of violence, being willing to take resources away from a community.

STEWART: Right. Economic damage.

MCGHEE: Exactly. That’s what has been done to black America. That’s Jim Crow America, right?

STEWART: Right.

MCGHEE: And so, we’re not as shocked that this would happen in America, right? And I think it’s really important for everyone in this country to know what time it is, right? To learn from the resistance and defiance movements all around the world, but also the movements that end the Jim Crow autocracy in the United States.

To learn how to be vigilant, to not be surprised, to know that there’s strength in numbers, to know that if you give an inch, when you don’t have to, they will take everything, and to know what their vision is, the kind of world that they would like to see.

And it is a world where a law firm that has been around for 120 years has represented conservatives, corporations, you know, civil rights lawyers, you know, the whole thing can be brought to heel for essentially you know, A, having a DEI program, that’s a diversity program, that is in the executive orders usually.

STEWART: Right.

MCGHEE: But as I said, it’s not doing much. It’s not like it’s been taken over by communist, trans black people—

STEWART: Right.

MCGHEE: —because these law firms are still mostly white men at the top, right? As I said, just a few percent of black lawyers are partners at these big law firms. But most importantly, for violating the law, which is do not cross Trump. And then of course, strategically, if I want to be a dictator, first, destroy the lawyers—

STEWART: Right.

MCGHEE: and bring them to your side. Second, capture the media. Third, disrupt the universities.

STEWART: Yeah, because who’s going to be there to file the lawsuits, right? 

MCGHEE: Right. Exactly. So you need, and to intimidate the judiciary as well, right? When the judges who are in the same class as these big law firm partners are looking around and seeing the people who usually come, you know, and go to trial in front of them yielding without even putting up a fight, that influences the judiciary. So, this is all about a sectoral approach to bring the entire society under heel.

Wednesday night sounded like “Protect My Public Media” night on NPR and PBS. The News Hour tooted its own horn as some kind of nonpartisan bargain for taxpayers. NPR’s All Things Considered put on their CEO Katherine Maher for what was basically a seven-minute pledge drive for federal funding. 

Notice PBS and NPR have never managed to display fairness and balance when it comes to their own subsidies. Conservative critics are never taken seriously. Maher managed to say something as ridiculous as her claim in her congressional testimony on March 26 that she’s never found political bias on NPR. Now she says there’s no hatred for anyone on the calm airwaves of public broadcasting: 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, anchor: Just to put the question to you quite bluntly, to quote the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia congresswoman who was running the subcommittee hearing where I know you were just summoned to testify last month, she said, “look, you can hate us on your own dime.” To which you say, what.

KATHERINE MAHER: We don’t hate anyone in public media. We report on the news, and we encourage that we are reaching out to people from all different backgrounds, political persuasions, belief sets. And we want to be able to hear the voices of the American public reflected on public media in the same way.

Fact check: False! NPR rolled out the red carpet a week ago for an artist who spewed she was a “counterterrorist” to people opposing wokeness in government-funded museums.

In February, NPR White House reporter Asma Khalid railed against Elon Musk on PBS, saying “the world’s richest man really sort of take a hatchet that will essentially take people who are already in the depths of poverty and, you know, increase starvation rates or increase hunger rates.”

In that same week, NPR “domestic extremism correspondent” Odette Yousef found leftist experts to compare Americans opposing transgender ideology to the Nazis in the 1930s.

Authors who hate the Republican Party are granted unopposed hours on the NPR chat show Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Gross has celebrated New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters and his book Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted, as well as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank and his book The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party. There’s Robert Draper, who wrote Weapons of Mass Delusion: When the Republican Party Lost Its Mind. There’s Tim Miller, who authored Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell.

They couldn’t possibly talk to Mark Levin about The Democratic Party Hates America.

Early on, Kelly weakly recounted a White House statement titled “The NPR, PBS Grift Has Ripped Us Off for Too Long.” It contained many examples of left-wing tilt. (Four studies or articles from NewsBusters were linked.) But Kelly wouldn’t provide any specifics for Maher to rebut. She just asked her to say she “stands by” NPR’s product.

MARY LOUISE KELLY: I wanna note – we have asked, the newsroom has asked the White House to comment on what their goal is here, with pulling back funding, they have not responded. They have posted on the White House website a list of NPR and PBS stories that it says represent biased content and quote, “radical woke propaganda disguised as news.” This includes stories dealing with LGBTQ issues, with coverage of race, coverage of politics. Understanding, Katherine, that many of the examples on this list date from before your tenure, does NPR stand by its journalism?

KATHERINE MAHER: Absolutely. 

This formulation by journalists, that facts stated by the Trump team was “what it says,” as if you can’t possibly confirm it. This is especially prevalent when accusing the federal establishment of a leftist bias. They pretend the allegation is hard to believe. But they’re the ones who are unbelievable. 

POLL: What was the worst media take of the week? (Vote below)

 

 

1. Don Lemon: “Hatred and Bigotry” Is What Makes the “MAGA Wheel Spin”

“There’s a reason that there’s so much hate going around. There’s a reason that there’s so much anti-Semitism and so much racism going around….You can place it at the feet of one person [Donald Trump] who didn’t start this but certainly exacerbates it and foments hate and bigotry…. The racism. The bigotry. The anti-Semitism. The transphobia. The homophobia. It certainly does happen on one side more than the other….That’s the thing that makes the MAGA wheel spin. That’s the motor. That’s the axle. Is hatred and bigotry.”— Former CNN anchor Don Lemon discussing arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion as aired on his podcast The Don Lemon Show, April 14.

 

2. Women Love CEO Killer Because a “Morally Good Man” is “Hard to Find”

“So you’re going to see women, especially that feel like, ‘Oh, my god, right. Like, here’s this man [CEO killer Luigi Menagione] who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart. He’s a person that seems this like this morally good man,’ which is hard to find.”— Former Washington Post columnist/New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz to correspondent Donie O’Sullivan on CNN’s Whole Story with Anderson Cooper, April 13.

 

3. Democrats Should be “Shouting from the Mountain Tops” About Trump “Autocracy”

“I know Democrats get a lot of heat from Republicans about being too alarmist and talk about democracy being in peril too much. If we are in the position like we were in the 1930s, do you think talking about that too much is a problem? A collapsed economy is an open door to autocracy and that is what Democrats should be shouting from the mountain tops.”— Boston Globe opinion editor Kimberly Atkins Stohr on NBC’s Meet the Press, April 13.

 

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Funded by James P. Jimirro

On Thursday, two of America’s leading voices for the religious left—CBS’s Stephen Colbert and Sen. Raphael Warnock—joined forces on The Late Show to prepare for Easter by attacking Republicans as un-Christian with some casual Jim Crow and slavery analogies.

Colbert asked, “I’m going to ask you a simple question that people doubt sometimes. What is the value of hope?”

 

 

While Warnock did answer the question, he used it as an opportunity to dunk on Republicans, “Oh, hope is everything, and when you lose hope, you stop fighting, and there are those right now, I mean we can talk about the cuts and all of these things that I’m happy to talk about that. I think they are trying to push a rather immoral budget through the Congress right now where you rob from the poor in order to give to the rich, but the other—”

Colbert interrupted to add, “The famous saying goes: Show me your budget, and I’ll show you where the value is.”

The guy whose church gave him a nearly $1 million tax-free luxury home, continued, “Yes, it’s Robin Hood in reverse, and I think a budget is not just a fiscal document, it’s a moral document, but the other thing that’s happening in our country right now is that there are those who are trying to weaponize despair. They’re flooding the zone, and they are hoping you won’t fight, and you need to prove them wrong. I still believe that the power in this country really does rest with the people and not the people in power.”

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.”

The pastor whose church will evict you if you miss your rent payment by so much as a day because you accidently had a typo in your payment information or owe as little as $28.55, rolled on:

I’m a Matthew 25 Christian. Jesus said, ‘I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was sick. I was in prison, and you visited me,’ and someone said to the master ‘When were you hungry? When were you sick? When were you in prison?’ And he said, ‘Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you’ve also done it also unto me.’ And so what I try to do in my preaching and in my work in the Senate is center the most marginalized members of the human family, center the least of these. Give ordinary people a chance.

Warnock may not practice what he preaches, but he does allow Colbert’s liberal audience to feel good about themselves, and for Colbert himself, that is what matters most.

Here is a transcript for the April 17-taped show:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

4/18/2025

12:07 AM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: What’s the value, I’m going to ask you a simple question—

RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Sure.

COLBERT: — that people doubt sometimes. What is the value of hope?

WARNOCK: Oh, hope is everything, and when you lose hope, you stop fighting, and there are those right now, I mean we can talk about the cuts and all of these things that I’m happy to talk about that. I think they are trying to push a rather immoral budget through the Congress right now where you rob from the poor in order to give to the rich, but the other—

COLBERT: The famous saying goes: Show me your budget, and I’ll show you where the value is.

WARNOCK: Yes, it’s Robin Hood in reverse, and I think a budget is not just a fiscal document, it’s a moral document, but the other thing that’s happening in our country right now is that there are those who are trying to weaponize despair. 

They’re flooding the zone, and they are hoping you won’t fight, and you need to prove them wrong. I still believe that the power in this country really does rest with the people and not the people in power. 

And if a kid who grew up in public housing, number 11 of 12 children, first college graduate in his family can become a United States senator, anything is still possible in America.

…

COLBERT: The Bible often talks about caring for the elderly, for the poor. Those who have the least power, the least of my brothers. 

WARNOCK: That’s right.

COLBERT: 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: 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. I’m a Matthew 25 Christian. Jesus said, “I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was sick. I was in prison, and you visited me,” and someone said to the master “When were you hungry? When were you sick? When were you in prison?” And he said, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these, you’ve also done it also unto me.”

And so what I try to do in my preaching and in my work in the Senate is center the most marginalized members of the human family, center the least of these. Give ordinary people a chance.

Not only is that the right thing to do, as it turns out, very often the right thing to do is the smart thing to do, too. I think our economy will be a whole lot better off if we give tax cuts to ordinary people, middle-class people, working-class people rather than billionaires.