Newsbusters

Journalists who insist the conservatives don’t believe in facts are greeting the very fictional final season of The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu with the ridiculous rerun spin of “wow, this repressive religious dictatorship is so exactly like Trump’s America.”

Former CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy – Mr. “Facts First” – used his Status newsletter to promote an interview with the series show-runners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang to discuss “a world that, alarmingly, has striking similarities to the fictional Gilead.” What garbage. Darcy set the ideological stage:

With Donald Trump back in office, reproductive rights being stripped away, and democratic norms unraveling, the themes in the series that once felt like far-off storytelling now eerily resemble real-world headlines.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Status, Tuchman and Chang reflected on the show’s prescience, how actual events have shaped the series, and the creative responsibility of telling stories about authoritarianism when democracy feels increasingly fragile.

They often start with the repeal of Roe vs. Wade – but that happened because voters elected President Trump, and he nominated Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn nationwide abortion on demand. That original decision wasn’t any more democratic than its repeal. It was judicial activism, not legislation. But leftists think freedom starts with the freedom to kill the unborn.

DARCY: When you started The Handmaid’s Tale series, did you imagine the final season would air during such a dark political moment—Trump back in office, with significant democratic backsliding taking place in the U.S.?

ERIC TUCHMAN: No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events. The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people’s rights and freedoms are stripped away. But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016.

Or as Tuchman told The Hollywood Reporter, “Many people have called the show a cautionary tale and it seems to me that not enough people were cautioned, and here we are again after a very consequential, shocking election.”

DARCY: Obviously, while there are similarities, the U.S. as it stands now is not Gilead. But do you worry that the country might be on that path? I think one of the chilling aspects of the show is how it shows how democratic backsliding can happen so quickly.

YAHLIN CHANG : It is chilling. It’s also true—democracies backslide and fail all the time. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in an autocracy. In our show, America as we know it was just this exceptional, temporary, extremely fragile experiment. Living in the world of Gilead imaginatively for this many years, I’m actually shocked that American democracy has lasted for so long.

Chang told The Hollywood Reporter that when they try explore get into the mindsets of authoritarians, “It’s about imagining what the worst people would do if given the reins of power,” she says. “You have to imagine if you have no moral compass, if you are completely guided by avarice and selfishness and cowardice and covering your own ass, how would you act and what would you do?”

Earth to Chang: aborting an unborn baby is often guided by “selfishness and cowardice and covering your own ass.” Many believe it shows “no moral compass.” But to the libertine left, every abortion is a triumph of liberty.

As NewsBusters was first to report, on Friday, Navy veteran Zachary Young had filed a lawsuit against The Associated Press for defamation after they falsely described his Afghanistan evacuation efforts as “human smuggling,” a term the AP Stylebook said was reserved for illegal activity. Over the weekend, U.S. News and World Report retracted their republication of the offending AP article, upon Young’s request.

Under a headline that still read “Florida Jury Says CNN Defamed Navy Veteran in Story About Endangered Afghans,” the news organization tried to distance themselves from the AP while explaining what happened in the CNN trial:

U.S. News & World Report has removed the article previously available at this URL that had been published on January 17, 2025, entitled “Florida Jury Says CNN Defamed Navy Veteran in Story About Endangered Afghans.” The article was reported and written by the Associated Press (“AP”). As an AP subscriber, U.S News regularly republishes multiple AP articles on a daily basis.

The AP article reported on Zachary Young’s defamation lawsuit against CNN. The AP article reported that the jury found that a CNN report on Mr. Young had falsely implied he had engaged in illegal conduct. The article further reported that the jury awarded Mr. Young damages of $5 million and that the case then settled.

U.S. News went on to explain to readers that the AP had wrongly accused Young of “criminal activity” in their report:

The AP article described Mr. Young as a “U.S. Navy veteran who helped rescue endangered Afghans”. The AP article also stated that “Young’s business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan.” Mr. Young subsequently contacted U.S. News and objected to the word “smuggle” as accusing him of engaging in criminal activity.

“In republishing the article, U.S. News had no intention to suggest that Mr. Young’s actions were unlawful,” they noted. “Nevertheless, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, U.S. News has removed and retracts the AP article.”

As the preeminent wire service, many new organizations from local to global often rely on the AP to source stories and reporting in areas they don’t have resources. Incidents like this, where the AP’s journalism was highly dubious, hurt their reputation and might cause other outlets to question what they’re looking to republish.

The defamation suit against the AP was filed in Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit in Bay County, the same jurisdiction were a jury had found CNN liable for malicious defamation of Young. He also recently filed a defamation suit against Puck News there as well after they made similar false accusations about the legality of Young’s evacuations, and questioning the validity of the jury’s findings on political grounds.

Daily Caller News Foundation senior investigative reporter Philip Lenczycki published a troubling investigation Monday on Boston Mayor Michelle Wu during her bid for a second term that, during her first successful campaign in 2021, she “received hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fundraiser who is listed by a Chinese intelligence agency as an official.”

“Gary Yu, the founder of Boston International Media Consulting, helped raise over $300,000 for Wu with the help of a Chinese civic association he leads. However, Yu — whose Chinese name is Yu Guoliang — is listed as an official by an agency of a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence and intelligence service called the United Front Work Department (UFWD),” he explained.

Renowned China expert Gordon Chang spoke to Lenczycki and said “[i]t’s time for law enforcement to investigate the CCP’s ties to Gary Yu and Yu’s ties to Mayor Michelle Wu” as her “ultra-leftism makes her the perfect candidate for CCP recruitment and capture.”

Quoting the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Caller showed why Yu isn’t some random person (click “expand”):

Yu has repeatedly met with high-ranking CCP intelligence leaders in China and is listed as an official by two regional branches of a UFWD arm, according to Chinese government announcements, state media reports and records from Chinese civic associations led by Yu.

The UFWD’s operations are a “unique blend of engagement, influence activities, and intelligence operations that the [CCP] uses to shape its political environment, including to influence other countries’ policy toward the [People’s Republic of China] and to gain access to advanced foreign technology,” according to the House Select Committee on the CCP.

(….)

“China’s strategy to influence state and local policymakers is executed, in part, through hundreds of ostensibly ‘civil society’ organizations that are actually affiliated with the CCP’s UFWD,” Michael Lucci, CEO of State Armor, a nonprofit focused on countering the CCP, told the DCNF. “Xi Jinping considers United Front work a critical tool to undermine democracies. It involves influence peddling, intelligence collection, and intellectual property theft, all for the end goal of aligning U.S. subnational governments with China’s foreign policy and exploiting weaknesses they find.”

(….)

Yu also agreed to headhunt U.S. talent for at least half a dozen Chinese regional governments, including the cities of Hangzhou and Guangzhou, according to Chinese government and ACFROC announcements.

To read Lenczycki’s full report, click here.

Journalists aren’t normally the people who tell Democrats they need to be calmer and more pragmatic. They’re often the ones prodding the Democrats to shriek about Trump bringing the end of democracy. It doesn’t matter that the Democrats spent the entire 2024 election cycle pushing “autocracy” as an issue — and then losing in a democracy.

On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Boston Globe senior opinion writer Kimberly Atkins Stohr was one of those leftist agitators, using the tariff turbulence as another opportunity to cry Tyranny: 

WELKER: Yeah, well, and of course the Fed chair did say he believes these tariffs could ultimately raise inflation. Kimberly, do you think Democrats, they have an opening here, but are they using it effectively?

KIMBERLY ATKINS STOHR: I wish more Democrats in a united way would speak the way that Senator Booker did. You have a lot of Democrats — and I understand the desire to talk about policy and to talk about strategy. None of that is happening here. We are seeing, just during the course of this show, things are changing minute by minute as to what is going on. This isn’t a strategy. And it is so dangerous. I mean, I believe Ray Dalio when he says that we could be heading toward a depression. And 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 a 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 mountaintops.

WELKER: Yeah, he said it could be worse than a recession. 

Kimberly Atkins Stohr, of @BostonGlobe: “I wish more Democrats, in a united way, would speak the way Senator Booker did….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… pic.twitter.com/CmVNbFtber
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) April 13, 2025
This Globester is probably still bitter that the voters re-elected Trump, when last September she thumped the tub to take out Trump on the PBS News Hour, talking about the prospect of Republicans being swayed by the Cheneys backing Kamala Harris: “If they don’t like what Trump stands for and what he wants, there’s a way in this election to do something different and try to eliminate him from the political arena entirely.”

In that same September 6 chat, Atkins Stohr endorsed PBS host Geoff Bennett complaining about Trump’s gaffes: “If the Democratic Party had a family talk about the cognitive abilities of Joe Biden, then it’s a long past time that the Republican Party confront the same thing about Donald Trump, because something’s going on there.” Meanwhile, Kamala was “speaking in complete sentences and paragraphs about her vision for the American future.” No gaffes there?

Speaking of “democracy,” Atkins Stohr firmly supporting keeping President Cognitive Decline in the race on PBS on July 5, about two weeks before Biden was forced out: 

We are past the primaries. The voters have already had their say. It would have to be the nominee to make that decision. And it seems that he has. So now Democrats really don’t have a choice. Mark Warner, donors, other people don’t pick the Democratic nominee for president. The people and the process do. And they have already done that.

So I think, at this point, I agree that this is a crucial moment in time and that the threat of democracy that looms with a potential return to the White House of Donald Trump is something that cannot be ignored. I think, the more Democrats continue to fight and quibble and play this game about replacing the president, when there’s no — not even an heir apparent, the weaker they are.

Rare is the instance where you see blue-on-blue crime on the Legacy Media’s Sunday shows, but Politico’s Jonathan Martin gives us that rare outlier, in reaction to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s face-shielding hijinks at The White House. In so doing, Martin hearkened back to another classic own-goal.

Watch as J-Mart uses historical precedent to cook Whitmer, citing then-Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis’ ill-fated tank run during the 1988 presidential campaign:

“This is Dukakis in the tank for the 21st Century”: J-Mart rakes MIGOV Gretchen Whitmer over her ill-fated Oval Office photo pic.twitter.com/mHFyNl0fIp
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 13, 2025

KRISTEN WELKER: Jonathan, was there this extraordinary, speaking of the Democrats moment…

JONATHAN MARTIN: Yes.

WELKER:  …when Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan came to Washington, delivered a speech about tariffs, said she wished there could be a more careful approach, then went to The White House to meet with President Trump. Her team said she was surprised when she was kind of ushered into the Oval Office while he was signing EOs and then this happened, she literally for a moment covered her face. It’s an extraordinary, striking moment that speaks to how complicated it is for Democrats right now to figure out. They want to energize their base and reach out to independents, particularly those who are potentially eyeing a run in 2028.

MARTIN: And in her case, trying to run a state for two more years that voted for Trump. But look. That picture’s instantly iconic. This is Dukakis in the tank for the 21st century, the difference being Dukakis could blame his staff. She has nobody to blame but herself. I think it was maladroit on two levels. First of all, the macropolitics of it, her assumption to a: give the speech she gave talking about working with Trump and then to go to The White House, her party right now views Trump as akin to Erdogan or Orban, foreign autocrats. You don’t cut deals with somebody who’s trying to consolidate power and erode American institutions. That, number one is- I thought, her faulty assumption. Then there’s the micro, and why is she in The White House at all and let herself be brought into the Oval Office? That’s not her staff. That’s her own instincts and her own politics culminating in holding up that file folder. You just don’t do that. That’s an error for the ages.

Admittedly, some of our readers may be unaware of the “Dukakis in the tank” reference. J-Mart was talking about the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, Gov. Dukakis, taking a joyride in a tank in order to look like someone who could be Commander-in-Chief. 

Recall that his opponent, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, served as a Navy pilot during World War II and survived being shot down over the Pacific. As our friend Scott Whitlock noted at the time, ABC was so enraged by the subsequent Bush campaign ad that they fact-checked it on World News Tonight!

It wasn’t that long ago that Whitmer’s name would often pop up at or near the top of the list when discussing Democrat electeds with a shot either in the post-Biden snap primary or in 2028. In that sense, the photo of Whitmer shielding herself with folders the way a toddler might do with a blanky is a remarkable own goal. Even more remarkable: Legacy Media types burying her on-air for it.

 

Rare is the instance where you see blue-on-blue crime on the Legacy Media’s Sunday shows, but Politico’s Jonathan Martin gives us that rare outlier, in reaction to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s face-shielding hijinks at The White House. In so doing, Martin hearkened back to another classic own-goal.

Watch as J-Mart uses historical precedent to cook Whitmer, citing then-Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis’ ill-fated tank run during the 1988 presidential campaign:

“This is Dukakis in the tank for the 21st Century”: J-Mart rakes MIGOV Gretchen Whitmer over her ill-fated Oval Office photo pic.twitter.com/mHFyNl0fIp
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 13, 2025

KRISTEN WELKER: Jonathan, was there this extraordinary, speaking of the Democrats moment…

JONATHAN MARTIN: Yes.

WELKER:  …when Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan came to Washington, delivered a speech about tariffs, said she wished there could be a more careful approach, then went to The White House to meet with President Trump. Her team said she was surprised when she was kind of ushered into the Oval Office while he was signing EOs and then this happened, she literally for a moment covered her face. It’s an extraordinary, striking moment that speaks to how complicated it is for Democrats right now to figure out. They want to energize their base and reach out to independents, particularly those who are potentially eyeing a run in 2028.

MARTIN: And in her case, trying to run a state for two more years that voted for Trump. But look. That picture’s instantly iconic. This is Dukakis in the tank for the 21st century, the difference being Dukakis could blame his staff. She has nobody to blame but herself. I think it was maladroit on two levels. First of all, the macropolitics of it, her assumption to a: give the speech she gave talking about working with Trump and then to go to The White House, her party right now views Trump as akin to Erdogan or Orban, foreign autocrats. You don’t cut deals with somebody who’s trying to consolidate power and erode American institutions. That, number one is- I thought, her faulty assumption. Then there’s the micro, and why is she in The White House at all and let herself be brought into the Oval Office? That’s not her staff. That’s her own instincts and her own politics culminating in holding up that file folder. You just don’t do that. That’s an error for the ages.

Admittedly, some of our readers may be unaware of the “Dukakis in the tank” reference. J-Mart was talking about the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, Gov. Dukakis, taking a joyride in a tank in order to look like someone who could be Commander-in-Chief. 

Recall that his opponent, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, served as a Navy pilot during World War II and survived being shot down over the Pacific. As our friend Scott Whitlock noted at the time, ABC was so enraged by the subsequent Bush campaign ad that they fact-checked it on World News Tonight!

It wasn’t that long ago that Whitmer’s name would often pop up at or near the top of the list when discussing Democrat electeds with a shot either in the post-Biden snap primary or in 2028. In that sense, the photo of Whitmer shielding herself with folders the way a toddler might do with a blanky is a remarkable own goal. Even more remarkable: Legacy Media types burying her on-air for it.

 

Elite Acela journalist Jon Karl showed his true colors during an exchange with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over the reshoring of American industry. In response to Lutnick’s remarks on the national security component of the tariffs levied against China, Karl questioned whether America would go back to being “a nation of cobblers.”  

Watch as Karl gratuitously slights the American worker:

Elite Acela propagandist Jon Karl of ABC shows his disdain for the American working class by asking Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick whether the reindustrialization of America will result in “a nation of cobblers”. pic.twitter.com/oACcp4DVZQ
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 13, 2025

JON KARL: The president also said there’s going to be a transition cost, transition problems. I mean we are going to see higher prices in America. It’s not like you can open a factory tomorrow to build iPhones or to – to make sneakers, shoes. I mean we – we – we buy a lot of shoes in this country, 99 percent of them are made elsewhere. I mean do you – are we going to become a nation of cobblers again? I mean what – this is going to mean higher prices, isn’t it?

Ironically, this comes some time after Karl tried to bait Lutnick into responding to this quote from Vice President JD Vance:

We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It’s not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.

Lutnick refused to take the bait, deferring any direct response to Vance while defending the substance of his remarks, framed as expressive of the need to reshore American industry. But you see the double standard at work here: on the one hand, Karl rends his garments over the “peasants” remark, wielding it as an attempted gotcha against Lutnick. Karl then turns around and swipes the entire manufacturing sector as “cobblers”.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a cobbler which is, quite frankly, a dying art. The comment stands as an indictment of Karl and of the broader Acela media, which have no understanding or knowledge of America, its people, and its working class.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, April 13th, 2025:

JON KARL: I’m joined now by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. Secretary Lutnick, thank you for being with us this morning. I really appreciate your time. So, let’s start with that news. The –

HOWARD LUTNICK: It’s my pleasure.

KARL: Let’s start with that news late Friday that this exemption on electronics, smartphones, laptop computers and the like. What’s the thinking? Why the exemption?

LUTNICK: Well, if you remember, over the past couple of months President Trump has called out pharmaceuticals and semiconductors and autos. He called them sector tariffs. And those are not available for negotiation. They are just going to be part of making sure we reshore the core national security items that need to be made in this country. We need to make medicine in this country. We learned it during Covid. We need to make it in this country. We need to make semiconductors. Because if we don’t own semiconductors here, remember, all – virtually all semiconductors are made now in Taiwan and they’re finished in China. It’s important that we reshore them. And so the president is going to come out with his policies on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. They’re going to be outside the reciprocal tariffs. And he was just making sure everyone understood that all of these products are outside the reciprocal tariffs and they are going to have their own separate way of being considered.

KARL: But – but – but, wait a minute, I’m – I’m asking you about the exemption, not about – I mean the – the notice that went out Friday night saying that electronics, a wide range of electronics, including smartphones, including components used to make microchips, that these are now exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. Why that move?

LUTNICK: Well, remember, those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs which are coming. So, you’re going to see this week there will be a register in the federal registry. There will be a notice put out. That is different types of work. So, we’re going to do that. We did that in autos. The president is going to do it for pharmaceuticals. I think he’s going to do it for semiconductors. So, all those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special focus-type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored. We need to have semiconductors, we need to have chips, and we need to have flat panels. We need to have these things made in America. We can’t be reliant on Southeast Asia for all of the things that operate for us. So, what he’s doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So, these are coming soon. You shouldn’t think this is really outside of it. Really think of it as being included in the semiconductor space. Much like pharmaceuticals —

KARL: Okay, so —

LUTNICK: — they require special attention, and the president is on it.

KARL: So — so you’re saying that the big tariffs on things like smartphones and laptops, iPhones — all those iPhones built in China — that those tariffs are temporarily off, but they’re going to be coming right back on in another form in a month or so? Or what — what are you saying?

LUTNICK: Correct, that — that’s right. That’s right. Semiconductors and pharmaceuticals will have a tariff model in order to encourage them to reshore, to be built in America. We need our medicines, and we need semiconductors and our electronics to be built in America. We can’t be beholden and rely upon foreign countries for fundamental things that we need. We can’t be relying on China for fundamental things that we need. Our medicines and our semiconductors need to be built in America. Donald Trump is on it. He’s calling that out. So, you should understand these are included in the semiconductor tariffs that are coming and the pharmaceuticals are coming. Those two areas are coming in the next month or two. So, this is not like a permanent sort of exemption. He’s just clarifying that these are not available to be negotiated away by countries. These are things that are national security, that we need to be made in America.

KARL: The president’s made it clear he wants negotiations with China. Have you had any conversations with your Chinese counterpart? Has there been anything between you and the Chinese?

LUTNICK: I think we’ve had soft — the way I would say it is, is soft entrees, you know, through intermediaries and those kind of comments. But we all expect that the president of the United States and President Xi of China will work this out. I am completely confident as is he that this will be worked out in a positive, thoughtful and effective way for the United States of America. I mean, Donald Trump has the ball. I want him to have it. He’s the right person with it. He knows how to play this game. He knows how to deal with President Xi. This is the right person for the right role, and I am confident this is going to work out with China. Yes, is it in a tough spot now? Of course, it is. But that’ll — you’ll see. The — all of that energy will sort of decline, and we’ll end up in a perfectly reasonable place with China. I’m confident of that.

KARL: But — but can I ask you? The president’s called President Xi a friend. He said the Chinese are proud people. Can you explain to me what the vice president was saying not long ago when he referred to the Chinese people as peasants? Let me — let me play the sound, so you can hear it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE: We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It’s not a recipe for low prices, and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Did the vice president go off message there? I mean, he’s calling the Chinese peasants. This is something that we heard the — that the Chinese say was ignorant and disrespectful. I mean, I haven’t heard Donald Trump talk that way about the Chinese.

LUTNICK: No, I’m just going to step back and really just leave the vice president to let him defend himself. He knows what he meant and we all know what he meant, which is that, you know, the Chinese have basically attacked America and ripped us off by — by undercutting our businesses by — the government of China assists their businesses to undercut our businesses, drive them out of business, and take that manufacturing over to China. It’s happened in pharmaceuticals. It’s happened in so many industries, we feel it, steel and aluminum, so many. So, the idea is if the government of China is behind their businesses — imagine if the government of America, the United States of America was backing your business, I mean, you’d be a killer in the world. So that’s what the Chinese have been doing. And finally, Donald Trump is standing up to it saying, look, in order to make it fair for American businesses, we have to put a tariff on China to level the playing field, to take their government out of being a competitor. We need to have medicines built in America. We need to have those products here in America because we need them. We can’t have a war and be asking China to send over penicillin. It just — it’s not reasonable. We can’t rely on other countries for semiconductors. We can’t rely on other countries for steel and aluminum. These are national security issues, and Donald Trump is going to make sure they’re reshored, we have the capacity to do it. If you’ve seen, you know, an auto plant these days, these are beautiful plants. You know, these new modern plants are amazing and the jobs they create for our American workers are amazing jobs. And that’s what Donald Trump is focused on — bringing those jobs and those factories back to America and employing American workers. He’s on it and he’s going to bring them back.

KARL: The president also said there’s going to be a transition cost, transition problems. I mean we are going to see higher prices in America. It’s not like you can open a factory tomorrow to build iPhones or to – to make sneakers, shoes. I mean we – we – we buy a lot of shoes in this country, 99 percent of them are made elsewhere. I mean do you – are we going to become a nation of cobblers again? I mean what – this is going to mean higher prices, isn’t it?

LUTNICK: I mean have you seen – I – I don’t necessarily think so. I think the idea is that we can manufacture here in America. As I said, there’s a – I saw Panasonic, you know the battery company, right, the Japanese company, they built an amazing factory in Kansas, which they’re opening now. They put it in the ground when Donald Trump was the president, and just finishing now. Four thousand new jobs built from what – they made deals with the community colleges nearby and all the – the local community and the local university. They trained people for this. Four thousand high-tech jobs in Kansas. That is what’s coming back to America. You’re going to see that production, that – that kind of high-tech factories going to produce things here at very reasonable prices.

KARL: So –

LUTNICK: So, I think this is going to work out. Plus, our farmers are going to finally have access to the world’s markets.

KARL: I’ve never –

LUTNICK: You know, our farmers have never had the opportunity to sell corn in India. So, what’s going to happen is –

KARL: I’m afraid we –

LUTNICK: As they sell more and more products, prices will come down.

KARL: I mean, Mr. Secretary –

LUTNICK: More volume – it’s lower prices. You’re going to see lower prices in America on lots of different products.

KARL: Mr. – Mr. Secretary, I mean right now we’re seeing them effectively being locked out of a very large market, especially people like soybean farmers in China. But let me ask you about the constitutionality of these tariffs. As you know, the Constitution, right there in Article 1, Section 8, makes it very clear, “the Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” Congress has the power to impose tariffs, not the president. And the president has cited this 1977 emergency law that doesn’t mention tariffs. This is a law about sanctions, about seizing foreign assets. So, how concerned are you, and are you prepared to defend this in court? As you know, there’s already at least one court challenge to the constitutionality of these tariffs.

LUTNICK: The president knows the law. The president’s general counsels know the law. They understand this, that Congress has passed laws that gave the president the ability to protect our national security. We need to make medicine in America. If you don’t think that’s national security, you’re not thinking it through. We need to make semiconductors in America. We need steel and aluminum in America. We need to manufacture in America. If we just run gigantic trade deficits and sell our soul to the rest of the world, eventually we are going to be the worker for the rest of the world. We’re going to be the thinker for the rest of the world, but they’re going to manufacture. And if some day they say, gee, we’re not sending it to you, we’ll be nothing. So, I think the president has national security in mind, and he’s here to protect America. We need to reshore these things. And we all know it.

KARL: Sir – sir, we’re –

LUTNICK: It is vital for us to reshore it, and we know it.

KARL: Mr. Secretary, we’re – we’re – we’re really out of time, but a very quick question, how concerned are you about what’s happening to the U.S. dollar? We have seen the dollar at its – at its – you know, having its worst week in three years. There are concerns about a weakening dollar because of – because of all of this uncertainty. How concerned are you about that?

LUTNICK: I – I am not – I am not concerned about it. We are focused on our tariff policy. We are focused – we have so many countries coming in to negotiate with us.

KARL: OK.

LUTNICK: The president has given us the ability, let’s go get these great deals done. And we’re on it. And the president is on it. And we’re really, really focused on delivering the best thing for the American people.

KARL: All right, Secretary Howard Lutnick, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate your time.

 

The left-wingers at NBC’s Saturday Night Live can’t seem to start their shows without an anti-Trump skit, and this time, it started out with a Jesus Christ vs. the money-changers theme….until their Fake Trump James Austin Johnson showed up to unload a pile of comedy bits about how terrible the economy is going. 

“It’s me, your favorite president, Donald Jesus Trump, comparing myself to the Son of God once again,” he said. “Many people are calling me the Messiah,” he says. Because of the mess-I-ah made out of the economy.”

He then compared fluctuating stock prices to the resurrection: “It’s true, the stock market did a Jesus. It died, then on the third day it was risen. And then on a fourth day, it died again, possibly never to return. Just like Jesus.”

The Jesus bits kept coming. “Jesus Christ is a name we’ve been saying a lot lately,” Fake Trump joked. “We look in our 401(k) and say, ‘Jesus Christ, where did it all go?’” And then: “We love Easter. We love bunny. We love hunting for eggs, just like everyone’s doing in the grocery store right now. Because they cost a trillion billion dollars,”

Then came mocking the conservative Christians as secretly gay.

“But we love Easter. It’s the day where the most homophobic people try to dress as gay as possible. ‘Darling, have you seen my bonnet? Daddy looks lovely in his pink seersucker.’ We are looking forward to Easter Mass, definitely. Easter Mass is always packed, right? It’s sad. Some people only go to church on Christmas and Easter. Not me. I don’t go on those days either. But I love to pray. I pray a lot. I pray so much, they call me predator!”

The monologue wrapped up with one last Easter punchline: “In the holiest of seasons, Easter, let us remember the lesson Mr. Jesus taught… we must never mix religion with commerce. You can read all about this in my Trump Bible. Now made in America, so it costs $1,300. And it falls apart even faster.”

The hits kept coming. They did a skit about the “Check-to-Check Business News Channel” suggesting the prices of everything is ridiculously unaffordable. Does this skit feel about three years too late? 

Then they aired a pre-recorded satire of the HBO hit The White Lotus, but it was The White POTUS — “an American Horror Story” —  which mocked not only Trump, but about half the Trump cabinet.

Pop star Lizzo sang a song in a shirt that read “TARIFFIED.”

Then came the fake-news “Weekend Update,” which began with this message: 

COLIN JOST: President Trump tried to rescue the economy from the disastrous policies of whoever was president last week. On Wednesday, Trump announced he was pausing most tariffs for 90 days. Now, 90 days may not seem like a long time, but remember, Trump has only been president for 82 days. And it already feels like a goddamn decade!

A few anti-Trump jokes later, cast member Bowen Yang played a Chinese bureaucrat mocking America as that unserious country that’s sending Katy Perry into space (don’t forget CBS morning host Gayle King!) That’s a Jeff Bezos project, not a NASA thing. Then America was compared to Red China: 

Trump-bashing srsly heavy on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ No ‘fact checkers’ will get involved when Bowen Yang’s Chinese bureaucrat on Weekend Update says:
“Now that everyone in America is losing all their money and rights, it’s kind of like we’re both Communist Twins!” pic.twitter.com/JWi3pnZfnC
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) April 13, 2025

NPR routinely demonstrates wokeness with an anti-Israel bias. Saturday’s All Things Considered story by youth-politics reporter Elena Moore from the frontlines of the Israel-Hamas campus wars. She lamented how students are afraid of expressing pro-Hamas sympathies on progressive college campuses: “For some students who protested war in Gaza, fear and silence is a new campus reality.”

This, after NPR either ignoring or “both-siding” threats to Jewish students from those same now-suddenly terrified “pro-Palestinian” campus activists, since Hamas attacked Israeli civilians in October 2023.

Moore focused on the pseudonymous “Sam.” NPR loves playing up how dystopian America is right now by granting anonymity to all kinds of radicals. If you named “Sam,” one might be able to find her chanting pro-Hamas slogans or pro-Hamas signs about ending Israel or cheering October 7. Moore isn’t focusing on how much free speech there is in Gaza — where anti-Hamas protesters can end up dead. 

Last spring, Cornell University was home to a student encampment, where dozens slept in tents on the quad to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. The demonstration lasted more than two weeks.

“It’s actually one of my most beautiful memories in Ithaca,” said a Ph.D. candidate at the school currently studying on a visa. She asked to be identified by the nickname Sam due to concerns over how she could be treated by immigration authorities if targeted for deportation.

….

It was part of a wave of demonstrations at schools around the country calling on universities to divest from Israel — protests that students have defended as largely peaceful [We all know what “largely peaceful” often means in the media], much of that same activism is now under increased scrutiny as part of a policy that the Trump administration says is aimed at eliminating antisemitism, particularly on American campuses.

The effort has led to the targeting of non-citizen students over their past pro-Palestinian activism, resulting in students losing visas and several high-profile arrests. These incidents have created a climate of uncertainty at many colleges and universities, leaving some students feeling increasingly silenced and fearful.

The foreign-student left is silent on campus these days? More evidence needed. NPR took Sam’s word that her “movement” doesn’t discriminate against Jewish students, “But watching Trump’s actions has made her worried for her safety.”

Even when NPR belatedly addressed anti-semitic incidents on campus, it was under a subhead sympathizing with the pro-Hamas faction: ‘So many students are just terrified.’

Since Hamas’s attack, legitimate fears felt by Jewish students have been downplayed by an NPR eager to whitewash pro-Hamas lefty protesters, who have sometimes committed harassment, threats, and even physical violence against Jewish students, even though their supposed beef was with the nation of Israel, now individual Jews.

During last year’s surge of campus protests, there were reports of antisemitic incidents that left some Jewish students feeling unsafe, including at Columbia University, as reported by the Columbia Spectator….

(Franklin Foer has graphic details in The Atlantic.)

But soon came the inevitable turn in the story, backing off the anti-semitism accusations, downplaying the incidents and quoting Kenneth Stern of Bard College, supposedly “a supporter of Israel,” who certainly has a lot of sympathy for those who chant on campus for Israel’s destruction.

Student protesters adamantly dispute allegations that last year’s demonstrations were discriminatory towards Jewish students. And while extremism researchers have clocked surges in anti-Jewish sentiment nationwide in recent years, they have also cautioned against broadly characterizing the campus protests as antisemitic.

Watching the administration’s arrests of Öztürk and Khalil has raised alarm bells, including from Kenneth Stern, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College and drafted a commonly used definition of antisemitism. In a recent interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, Stern, a supporter of Israel, said Trump’s actions represent a “weaponizing” of antisemitism.

Of course, Stern likened the deportations of non-American citizens to “McCarthyism.”

It’s a sentiment felt by students on campus who support the pro-Palestinian movement.

The audio transcript of the story defaulted to defending the pro-Palestinian side and conjured up the usual “chilling effect.”

: ….They say the administration’s actions are an attack on free speech that’s had a chilling effect for some on campus.

Many college campuses function as one enormous “chilling effect” when it comes to conservative views. But that’s also true of the “news room” at NPR.

It’s rare when you can acknowledge a conservative viewpoint was given a full airing on taxpayer-funded National Public Radio.

But on Friday, the New York Times podcast The Daily — which airs across the country on NPR — offered a platform to Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo, under the headline “The Conservative Activist Pushing Trump to Attack U.S. Colleges.” Rufo effectively made the case that when universities accept federal funding, they should accept it comes with conditions.

It’s definitely worth a listen.

This was offered as a balance to Wednesday’s episode with Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber. It was titled “The University President Willing to Fight Trump.” It’s the usual labeling double standard: “Conservative Activist” vs. “University President.”

The Times comfortably chatted with Eisgruber about his warning in The Atlantic about Team Trump taking money away from woke universities: “The greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned.”

Eisgruber acknowledged that conservatives should feel free to speak their mind on campus, but “There are political divisions about things like climate and vaccines right now. And there is no obligation on the part of the universities to reflect what is the political division of opinion on those subjects or about, say, capitalism and investing.”

Host Michael Barbaro cited research on the dramatic tilt at universities: “The data point that I found worth mentioning here is that the ratio of liberal to conservative faculty has reached, according to this research report, 8 to 1 in political science, 17 to 1 in history, 44 to 1 in sociology, 48 to 1 in English, and 108 to 0 in communications and interdisciplinary studies, which you note includes race and gender studies.”

Rufo said this extreme imbalance came to a head in the George Floyd riots of 2020. “All of a sudden, those ideas and that structure, that language, those symbols, those narratives, those arguments, they escaped the laboratory of academia and were then imposed throughout society via all of the surrounding institutions. And so it was in your kids’ school curriculum. It was in your work’s HR training. It was in your television news program.” Wokeness broke out.

Barbaro suggested that was all real passion: “I just want to pause here to ask, in your mind, was there anything about that was organic, and just a natural outpouring of grief and frustration over what had happened to George Floyd, and about the history of racism in the United States that lay behind that?”

Rufo said “Of course. I mean, cancer is organic.” The passion was real: “You have what I think are some honest emotions at the heart of these protests. But none of these elite, left-wing initiatives come close to even identifying or offering even a plausible remedy for those problems.”

Barbaro presented Eisgruber’s argument about “academic freedom,” “His belief that academics, academic researchers, administrators at the university, they should not have terms dictated to them by the government.” Rufo rebutted:

RUFO: Princeton has decided to take hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, but that taxpayer money comes with basic terms and conditions, basic rights and responsibilities. And so the federal government is well within its right to say, we’re not going to keep cutting you a blank check unless you meet certain basic standards and requirements that are necessary for the good stewardship of these public dollars.

And so Princeton had a choice many years ago to accept government money with the inevitable reciprocal responsibilities or to refuse government money and to maintain its academic independence and its academic freedom. Hillsdale College, where I’m a distinguished fellow, decided to reject public funding so that it could maintain its institutional independence. Princeton is at liberty to make the same choice, to refuse taxpayer money, and then to not have to negotiate with the taxpayers through the democratically-elected administration, to come to a mutually beneficial and mutually agreeable terms.

PS: Some MSNBC hosts couldn’t handle this show: 

FTM Rachel Maddow is sputtering. First, it’s quite the slip that he uses “affirmative action” as an insult, even though he supports it. Second, the idea that I’ve benefited from race-based favoritism is absurd. I’m very good at what I do—and I have the scalps to prove it. pic.twitter.com/5VArStYlT5
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) April 12, 2025