Newsbusters

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is on an epic run: making people soil themselves at national parks, getting people eaten by bears, and ruining spring itself. Now, according to CBS News, DOGE will also make you catch Ebola.

Watch as the CBS Evening News stakes this position out:

MAURICE DuBOIS: The African nation of Uganda is in the middle of a deadly Ebola outbreak.

JOHN DICKERSON: The United States was providing on the ground humanitarian assistance until President Trump pulled the plug on USAID.

DuBOIS: The loss of that help raises the risk not only for Uganda, but for the rest of the world, as well, including the U.S. Debora Patta reports from Entebbe.

DEBORA PATTA: As soon as we stepped off the plane in Uganda, we noticed a lack of health screening. 

There seems to be one person possibly monitoring temperatures. It was unclear. 

There should be at least two, but it has been scaled back due to funding cuts. Right in the middle of Uganda’s eighth Ebola outbreak. The first case was reported nine days after President Trump took office.

AID WORKER: So what is Ebola?

PATTA: USAID was leading the emergency response when all of its 37 staff here were fired. We spoke to one of them, a senior USAID official, and voiced over her words to protect her identity. She told us Uganda’s health system has been crippled by the cuts. How does the crippling of the health system in Uganda impact Americans right now?

FORMER USAID WORKER: Someone with Ebola could board a plane and end up in the United States.

PATTA: Is America a little less safe?

FORMER USAID WORKER Absolutely. It makes our ability to detect and respond to disease much weaker, and that makes us less safe.

The State Department has been crystal clear that some form of legitimate soft-power food and medical assistance programs formerly under USAID purview will remain in place. Nonsense like Colombian transgender opera will not. They are not the same, no matter how much the media tries to make you believe they are.

It’s also worth noting that, for all the hubbub about budget cuts, no one is asking what other countries might be doing to assist Uganda. And no one is saying anything about educating the local populace on perhaps reducing some of the behaviors that help spread disease, such as the consumption of bushmeat. 

The entire report is an exercise in rehashed USAID fearmongering, boring and derivative. At the least the “eaten by bears” stuff was original.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Evening News on Thursday, April 10th, 2025:

MAURICE DuBOIS: The African nation of Uganda is in the middle of a deadly Ebola outbreak.

JOHN DICKERSON: The United States was providing on the ground humanitarian assistance until President Trump pulled the plug on USAID.

DuBOIS: The loss of that help raises the risk not only for Uganda, but for the rest of the world, as well, including the U.S. Debora Patta reports from Entebbe.

DEBORA PATTA: As soon as we stepped off the plane in Uganda, we noticed a lack of health screening. 

There seems to be one person possibly monitoring temperatures. It was unclear. 

There should be at least two, but it has been scaled back due to funding cuts. Right in the middle of Uganda’s eighth Ebola outbreak. The first case was reported nine days after President Trump took office.

AID WORKER: So what is Ebola?

PATTA: USAID was leading the emergency response when all of its 37 staff here were fired. We spoke to one of them, a senior USAID official, and voiced over her words to protect her identity. She told us Uganda’s health system has been crippled by the cuts. How does the crippling of the health system in Uganda impact Americans right now?

FORMER USAID WORKER: Someone with Ebola could board a plane and end up in the United States.

PATTA: Is America a little less safe?

FORMER USAID WORKER Absolutely. It makes our ability to detect and respond to disease much weaker, and that makes us less safe.

PATTA: We reported from Liberia during the deadly 2014 West African Ebola epidemic, which claimed more than 11,000 lines and cost the U.S. over $2 billion to contain. But it still spread to America, killing two people. Since then, USAID has been at the forefront of combating the disease. All the doctors we’ve spoken to here tell us they are very worried, that the fight against infectious diseases, including Ebola, could quickly get out of hand without American funding. USAID helped pay the salaries of 35,000 health workers. They’ve all lost their jobs. And this U.S.-funded clinic is already battling shortages where doctors check for the initial symptoms of the virus, fever. In their labs, these $200 test kits can diagnose Ebola in less than an hour. They all come from Salt Lake City. There are only 300 left. Clinic Dr. Kenneth Khobba said they are running out of time.

KENNETH KHOBBA: For these kinds of diseases, you cannot afford even a day of waiting.

DICKERSON: Deb, in 2014 after the outbreak, U.S. policy was to stop Ebola there, before it came to the United States. What’s the status of that now?

PATTA: Well, John, in Uganda it is called a preemptive strike, but the cuts also mean that frontline workers who hunt for new infections have been axed in 146 districts, and without them, there could be undetected cases spreading.

DuBOIS: And Deb, for Americans to wonder, we can’t be the world’s doctors, is anybody else stepping up to fill the void?

PATTA: The World Health Organization has stepped into the gap, Maurice, but for how long? Their funding has also been cut. And as the USAID official told us, this was a good investment. Uganda’s two flights away from the U.S. American doctors are not trained to detect Ebola. Frankly, I’d rather be treated for it here.

DuBOIS: Okay, Deb Patta tonight in Uganda. Thank you.

 

MSNBC seems to have found their latest outlet for their Trump-bashing fixation in the far-fetched conspiracy theory that the president’s recent tariff impositions were all a setup for insider trading beneficial to him and his close associates. On Thursday’s episode of The 11th Hour, host Stephanie Ruhle fleshed out this idea on the spot, based on the flimsiest of evidence, and refused to drop it even when her own panel tried to bring her down to earth a little.

“Well,” Ruhle began on the subject: 

[L]et’s talk about the other thing that Donald Trump… did, for Wall Street this morning…. [H]e puts out a tweet this morning, that says… ‘Buy the market. Stocks are cheap- DJT.’… What happens two, three hours later? He makes the pause announcement, and the market rallies 3,000 points. I’m not accusing anyone of insider trading-

But she went right on to insinuate just that:

But on any Earth that I have lived on, before now, that would warrant some sort of investigation by the SEC, of who knew what when, in the administration, who bought what when? 

Ruhle’s only ostensible evidence of wrongdoing was that Trump’s post had preceded the developments on Wall Street, and just a little common sense would have shown that, if the president was actually involved in insider trading, dropping oblique hints on social media would have been a pretty clumsy way to go about it. 

 

 

Even Ruhle’s panel, made up of guests generally quite hostile to Trump, tried to make her see that it wasn’t that simple. Dan Nathan of CNBC, while asserting that “it seems very likely that that… kind of happened,” did remind her:

A lot of us think that it’s Wall Street traders that are going out there and buying stock… It’s these algorithms that are doing it, right? And it doesn’t take a whole heck of a lot… to… move markets, once you have a material change to the mood that was existing… So… I’m thinking- there might have been people trading off that. There’s a lot of leaks in administrations like that. But at the end of the day… this was coiled spring… [T]he sentiment was so bad and all, it didn’t take a whole heck of a lot to get things going to the upside.

Ruhle was not about to just abandon her theory, though, and persisted:

Could that have been their dry run? Could that have been their test case to say, ‘Well, if we do a pause, what does it do to the market?’ And there we are this morning, in absolute disaster mode, and they say, ‘Oh, we can pull that rabbit out of our hat. We know what the market will do.’

Financial Times contributing editor Brendan Greely had a more nuanced perspective:

But they can’t, because nobody will believe them the next time. You can’t keep jacking tariffs up, if people know that you have a pain point, where you’re going to drop them back down. It won’t work again, not the way it did this time. 

Ruhle made no attempt to answer the challenges to her new excuse to attack the administration, and vaguely concluded that “This thing is going to remain complicated.”

To view the full transcript, click “expand” to read:

MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
11:32 PM
04/09/2025

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: TRUMP HITS PAUSE ON TARIFFS FOR 90 DAYS]

STEPHANIE RUHLE: Well, let’s talk about the other thing that Donald Trump- I don’t know- I’m going to say- did, for Wall Street this morning. On Twitter- he puts out a tweet this morning, that says, ‘Buy’- you know- ‘Buy the market. Stocks are cheap- DJT.’

PHILIP BUMP, THE WASHINGTON POST: That was a good time.

RUHLE: Right? What happens two, three hours later? He makes the pause announcement, and the market rallies 3,000 points. 

I’m not accusing anyone of insider trading-

BUMP: Right-

RUHLE: -But on any Earth that I have lived on, before now, that would warrant some sort of investigation by the SEC, of who knew what when, in the administration, who bought what when? 

Given who’s in this administration, given who’s running the SEC, it’s unlikely to happen, but come on now-

DAN NATHAN, CNBC: Wait, wait. The SEC that was put under control of the White House? I mean- like- this is- you know- the grift has gone on and on. We saw it- you know-

RUHLE: But Dan, this one’s a crazy one.

NATHAN: Well, it is. I mean- but- you know- like- 

Listen, I- I just bumped into a guy at dinner, okay? And he’s a prominent hedge fund manager, and the guy has been on the street for decades, and he’s been very successful, and he doesn’t want to speak out. He- I mean-  there is fear of retribution-

RUHLE: Of course there is.

NATHAN: -Among these folks. And that’s why we’re all being really careful. And if you say, ‘No, you’ one more time, I’m going to give you a wedgie. All right? 

Like- so- you know- you know- my point is- is like- there’s a lot of that out there. So- you know- We’re not going to make those sorts of accusations against folks. And it seems very likely that that- you know- kind of happened, but it- 

One thing is really important, you know- A lot of us think that it’s Wall Street traders that are going out there and buying stock and-

RUHLE: No.

NATHAN Buying calls. It’s these algorithms that are doing it, right? And it doesn’t take. A whole heck of a lot- you know- to- kind of- move markets, once you have a- a material change to the mood that was existing, and- real news, or- so- 

So- you know- I’m thinking- there might have been people trading off that. There’s a lot of leaks in administrations like that. But at the end of the day- you know- this was coiled spring, as you think about the market- the sentiment was so bad, and, all- It didn’t take a whole heck of a lot to get things going to the upside.

RUHLE: Now-

BUMP: We saw that, with that Bessent situation couple of days ago-

NATHAN: Yeah. Yep.

BUMP: -when it was like- the rumor that there was going to be a pause and this- market shot up and back-

RUHLE: Okay, but did you ever start to wonder- hold on a second-

BUMP: Sure.

RUHLE: So, this- supposedly- you know- fake tweet goes out two days ago, that says, ‘Oh, we’re going to have a 90 day pause.’ And then, quickly, the White House says, ‘No, no, no, that’s not true.’ 

I don’t know, is there any credence to- Could that have been their dry run? Could that have been their test case to say, ‘Well, if we do a pause, what does it do to the market?’ And there we are this morning, in absolute disaster mode, and they say, ‘Oh, we can pull that rabbit out of our hat. We know what the market will do.’

BRENDAN GREELEY, FINANCIAL TIMES: But they can’t, because nobody will believe them the next time. You- you can’t keep jacking tariffs up, if people know that you have a pain point, where you’re going to drop them back down. It won’t work again, not the way it did this time. 

ALLAN SMITH, NBC: So, the thing is- I think that- there’s many people on Wall Street who never thought these tariffs would actually be imposed.

RUHLE: Correct.

SMITH: -And the market would have gone down significantly further, if there was a lot more buying that this was really going to happen. Right? 

Like- the markets took a terrible dive. But it would have been a lot worse, if a lot of people on Wall Street had thought, ‘You know, actually, this is seriously going to happen.’ 

And right up until today, there were a ton of people who, clearly, based on how trading was going, were still thinking, ‘This isn’t actually going to happen.’ Even after- today was the day when they were getting imposed- even after that point, ‘Nope-’

RUHLE: Well, guess what-

SMITH: So they could be pulled back.

RUHLE: They’re still there for quite a few countries. We didn’t even get to talk about China- and I’m not saying China is a friend- but this thing is going to remain complicated. 

 

 

Along with claiming President Trump engaged Wednesday in insider trading, ABC’s The View featured more insanity on Thursday with moderator/longtime co-host Whoopi Goldberg openly encouraging Americans to give more in taxes to the government to make up for slashed spending and then claiming the First Amendment has ceased to exist.

Goldberg first made her comical declaration about giving extra tax revenue to the government in relation to Trump’s 90-day pause in most tariffs:

“This is us. This — because we all thought, oh, they’re talking about somebody else. No, they’ve been talking about us the whole time and when I say us, it’s all of us,” she added.

No word on whether Whoopi considered encouraging viewers to, say, donate to your local food bank, homeless shelter, or religious organization.

To end the next block, faux conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin stole a few moments to denounce Trump’s Wednesday executive order going after former officials Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, saying “Chris Krebs is a personal friend of mine” and “would strong encourage someone around the President to talk him into walking this back.”

“Krebs is being penalized because he said the 2020 election was safe and fair while overseeing our cybersecurity infrastructure. He worked for Donald Trump. He put in reforms that allowed Donald Trump to safely be re-elected in 2024 when he won and this, to me, is just not what people elected him to do. He is a good public servant. He’s not somebody who goes out of his way to antagonize Donald Trump,” she added.

“Not somebody who goes out of his way to antagonize Donald Trump”? Would she be putting herself as someone whom this wouldn’t apply to?

Fellow pearl-clutcher and co-host Sunny Hostin interjected to the applause of the far-left seals in the audience: “And, by the way, everyone, dissent is not unlawful. Dissent is not unlawful! Dissent is not unlawful!”

Goldberg then interjected with her act of apocalyptic hyperbole: “[Y]ou know, I don’t — I don’t understand when — when the First Amendment disappeared[.]”

 

 

To more applause from the mindless mob, Goldberg used this as a rallying cry: “[A]nd this is also on us. Every time we don’t say, ‘hey, you can’t do that,’ they do more. You’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to make your voices heard. We’ve got to do this. It’s up to us.”

To see the relevant ABC transcript from April 10, click “expand.”

ABC’s The View
April 10, 2025
11:09 a.m. Eastern

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, you know, a 90-day pause doesn’t mean anything to anyone, because people are, as you say, struggling with everything.

ANA NAVARRO: Right.

GOLDBERG: They’re living on a day-to-day basis. Now, you know what we’re fighting against, but I also believe that it’s very important to remind people that now is the time for each and every one of us to suck it up and make sure that we know what we need to take care of. If you’re in an area where the school district is — is losing, then you got to pay a little more taxes and you got to help the schools out. If you’re finding that your libraries are falling apart, you have to give more. This is where we come in. We cannot depend on them. This is us. This — because we all thought, oh, they’re talking about somebody else. No, they’ve been talking about us the whole time and when I say us, it’s all of us.

(….)

11:24 a.m. Eastern

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Really quickly, I want to mention the Miles Teller — Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs. Chris Krebs is a personal friend of mine. I would strong encourage someone around the President to talk him into walking this back.

SARA HAINES: You’re talking about the executive orders of — coming after — yeah.

GRIFFIN: Krebs — Krebs is being penalized because he said the 2020 election was safe and fair while overseeing our cybersecurity infrastructure.

SUNNY HOSTIN: Yeah.

GRIFFIN: He worked for Donald Trump. He put in reforms that allowed Donald Trump to safely be re-elected in 2024 when he won and this, to me, is just not what people elected him to do. He is a good public servant. He’s not somebody who goes out of his way to antagonize Donald Trump and I just think it’s — it’s incredible.

GOLDBER: I don’t —

HOSTIN: And, by the way, everyone, dissent is not unlawful.

GRIFFIN: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: — well, I just don’t understand —

HOSTIN: Dissent is not unlawful. [APPLAUSE]

NAVARRO: It’s American.

GOLDBERG: — you know, I don’t — I don’t understand when — when the First Amendment disappeared —

HOSTIN: Yeah.

GOLDBERG:— and this is also on us. Every time we don’t say, ‘hey, you can’t do that,’ they do more.

HOSTIN: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: You’ve got to speak up. You’ve got to make your voices heard. We’ve got to do this. [APPLAUSE]

HOSTIN: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: It’s up to us.

Instead of seeing the 90-day pause on tariffs for most of the world and the rallying stock market as a sign of trade negotiations going well, ABC News co-host Sunny Hostin used her platform on Thursday’s edition of The View to accuse President Trump of “certainly” being “guilty of insider trading.” Her evidence? A social media post vaguely touting the market.

“I got to tell you, I think what’s fascinating to me is that the corruption is just completely out in the open at this point,” Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, proclaimed.

According to Hostin, Trump’s post on Truth Social, which didn’t give information on what stocks to buy/when/other information needing for trading, was evidence of Trump committing a federal offence:

You know, because these kind of actions where Trump tweeted out before this little pause, he said, ‘this is a great time to buy.’ And that’s really a whistle to those billionaires that can — or people that have money that can buy low and then the stock market, prices go up. That’s generally called insider trading and that would ordinarily trigger an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hostin lamented that Trump wouldn’t be prosecuted for it. “We know now that that’s not probably going to happen because all of these government agencies have been, you know, destroyed and dismantled,” she asserted, effectively creating the narrative as to why nothing would happen to Trump, rather than the fact that he didn’t commit a crime.

“But someone with knowledge of an economic policy change, that would cause the markets to shoot back up right before posting about how great a time it is to buy right before the policy change happened, would certainly be guilty of insider trading, in my view,” she continued.

Bizarrely under the impression that courts and judges do the investigating of crimes, moderator Whoopi Goldberg hoped someone would take up Hostin’s argument: “Let’s see if somebody brings it to a court and says, ‘hey, what about this?’”

 

 

It’s rather ironic that Hostin was baselessly accusing someone else of a crime they didn’t commit when, back in January, she accused American Transit, the insurance company going after her husband for insurance fraud, of defamation.

In quotes to Entertainment Weekly, Hostin claimed that by suing her husband and accusing him of insurance fraud the company, “used my celebrity status to start a disgusting media smear campaign against my husband.”

“We have put American Transit on notice and will file a five-million-dollar counter lawsuit for their defamatory claims, an amount that is likely to increase as the reputational damage that American Transit has intentionally caused is difficult to quantify at this time,” she told the magazine. Hostin also wanted them to “withdraw these false allegations” and “a public apology.”

What you smell there is rank hypocrisy.

On Thursday, Hostin’s co-hosts didn’t agree that Trump’s post amounted to insider trading. “I don’t know that I assign that much strategy to it to be honest because people who lost money, the wealthiest among us, even if they bought the dip they still have less money today than they did before he sparked the trade war,” argued faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin.

“He definitely did not plan this,” pretend independent Sara Haines pushed back on Hostin. “I’m going to second Alyssa in there was no strategy here. What happened was he was trying to go hard and one by one he lost everyone!”

Fake Republican Ana Navarro suggested that if it was planned, than Trump was a “sadist”:

Look, you know, if they’re saying that this was all strategic then he is a sadist because what kind of government leader puts his people through this kind of distress and sadness and anxiety for a week just for giggles.

“His supporters always say that he plays fourth-dimensional chess. I think he should be in a padded room playing with his own drool,” Navarro declared.

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

ABC’s The View
April 10, 2024
11:04:19 a.m. Eastern

(…)

SUNNY HOSTIN: I got to tell you, I think what’s fascinating to me is that the corruption is just completely out in the open at this point, you know, because these kind of actions where Trump tweeted out before this little pause, he said, ‘this is a great time to buy.’ And that’s really a whistle to those billionaires that can — or people that have money that can buy low and then the stock market, prices go up.

That’s generally called insider trading and that would ordinarily trigger an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. We know now that that’s not probably going to happen because all of these government agencies have been, you know, destroyed and dismantled.

But someone with knowledge of an economic policy change, that would cause the markets to shoot back up right before posting about how great a time it is to buy right before the policy change happened, would certainly be guilty of insider trading, in my view.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Let’s see if somebody brings it to a court and says, hey, what about this?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I don’t know that I assign that much strategy to it to be honest because people who lost money, the wealthiest among us, even if they bought the dip they still have less money today than they did before he sparked the trade war.

HOSTIN: But they gained 70 percent more. They gained 70 percent back, rather.

[Crosstalk]

FARAH GRIFFIN: It’s still a deficit on before the trade war even began, which is I think why some of his loudest supporters, Elon Musk, Bill Ackman were basically begging for this 90-day pause

HOSTIN: They want their money back!

(…)

11:06:50 a.m. Eastern

SARA HAINES: He definitely did not plan this. I’m going to second Alyssa in there was no strategy here. What happened was he was trying to go hard and one by one he lost everyone!

(…)

11:07:45 a.m. Eastern

ANA NAVARRO: Look, you know, if they’re saying that this was all strategic then he is a sadist because what kind of government leader puts his people through this kind of distress and sadness and anxiety for a week just for giggles. I don’t think – His supporters always say that he plays fourth-dimensional chess. I think he should be in a padded room playing with his own drool.

(…)

National Public Radio’s Fresh Air interview program, hosted by Terry Gross, brought on journalist Chris Whipple Tuesday to talk about his new book on former President Biden and how Biden’s handlers concealed his mental decline from the public — and themselves? And what role if any did NPR play?

Over the course of Biden’s single term, NPR treated the matter of Biden’s mounting mental decrepitude gingerly, often balancing things out for its liberal listenership by including trolling concern for Donald Trump’s own mental acuity (an accusation you don’t hear anymore considering Trump’s vigorous whirlwind of activity).

After Robert Hur’s February 2024 special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents said Biden came off as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” there were a few relatively thorough stories, but also some ridiculously fawning ones in defense of Biden’s mental aptitude. In one, NPR political analyst Ron Elving promised “any kind of dissing of old folks is a risky strategy and likely to backfire.”

Naturally, Gross never brought up the mainstream media’s shameful cover-up of Biden’s decline, or questioned the passive coverage of her own outlet, National Public Radio.

TERRY GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I am Terry Gross. Democrats are still asking questions like, why didn’t Joe Biden end his reelection campaign sooner? Why did he even run for reelection, knowing that he would have been 82 when he started his second term and 86 when it ended? Why didn’t his staff tell him he wasn’t up to the job? How did Kamala Harris lose to Trump after Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election and was convicted of 34 felonies?

My guest, Chris Whipple, explores these questions from different perspectives in his new book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, And The Odds In The Wildest Campaign In History. Whipple’s previous book was about the first two years of the Biden presidency…. Biden’s chief of staff during the first two years of his presidency, Ron Klain, was a major source for the new book about the 2024 election….

(Whipple’s previous flattering book on President Biden, The Fight Of His Life, garnered the author an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition in January 2023, after classified documents were found in the then-president’s personal residence. Whipple insisted Biden’s scandal was “not even remotely comparable to Trump’s shameless” classified document scandal, and that Biden’s handling of documents didn’t even rise to the “scandal” level, but was merely a “kerfuffle.”)

On Tuesday, Whipple insisted Biden’s inner circle “were operating in a kind of fog of delusion and denial” about Biden, not actively concealing his mental decline to carry him over the second-term finish line. Then he obliquely raised the media angle.

WHIPPLE: Well, you know, I had my own reasons for wondering if the Biden White House staff was hiding the president because when I was writing my book on the first two years of the administration, I asked for an interview with the president. I was told I could email questions and I would get written answers in reply. You know, clearly, they were uncomfortable even then with the prospect of the president having an interview in real time with a reporter.

Sounds like a great story for an NPR reporter, or any reporter, to have broken before Biden withdrew from the 2024 campaign.

Whipple defended his source, Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain.

GROSS: ….[Klain] saw up close what Biden’s condition was. So how do you explain that?

WHIPPLE: ….I am convinced that Joe Biden’s inner circle was convinced that Joe Biden was capable of governing, and they believed that he could do it for another four years.”

In his previous book, Whipple fawned over Biden’s “parsing the details of a complex multination prisoner swap” and concluded “you can’t dismiss the fact — it’s an inconvenient fact for people who say it was a cover-up — that Biden was capable.”

For almost a decade, the media has spilled plenty of ink trying to convince us that Donald Trump is a uniquely dangerous threat to press freedom. However, now that Joe Biden is out of office, former anchor of NBC’s Today and CBS Evening News and current podcaster Katie Couric and TUncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History author Chris Whipple can safely say that it was actually the Biden White House that was “Nixonian” in its contempt for the press.

Couric recalled on Thursday’s episode that she told Biden that she wanted to interview him, and he agreed, “So then I approached his press people. They then told me to call, and I got the runaround like there was no tomorrow. I got relegated to some guy who did—was in charge of digital interviews because it was for online and a podcast, and I asked, I wrote, [senior advisor to the president for communications] Anita Dunn personally, and I was very much stonewalled.”

 

 

She then wondered, “And now reading your book, and obviously with the benefit of hindsight, I see why. And you write that he never did interviews with the New York Times or the Washington Post. Didn’t he hold fewer press conferences than any president in history?”

Whipple affirmed, “Yeah, I believe that’s correct,” before Couric wondered, “So do you think the White House Press Corps and the media writ large should have been making more noise about this?”

One of the reasons why Couric is now a podcaster is because she enjoys the ability to “be an activist”—not that she let her previous jobs affect that—so it is hard to believe that she would have been banging the pots and pans on the Biden White House’s treatment of the press if it hadn’t boomeranged on them.

As for Whipple, he agreed, “Well, first of all, you used the perfect word “stonewalled” when describing the Biden White House vis-a-vis the media. I really found it to be Nixonian in its—contempt is not too strong a word for the press, the White House Press Corps. If you dared to suggest that Biden’s age was an issue, they went after you. If you dared to write an op-ed that suggested that everything wasn’t perfect, they would, they would close you down.”

Whipple also pointed a finger at Dunn, “I think it came from Anita Dunn. I think this war her. I mean, I think she was a much more powerful figure in the Biden White House than we realized at the time. So, I would, my guess, Katie, I mean my hunch is that Biden would have done that sit-down with you, and that Dunn and the communications team shut that down in a heartbeat and said, ‘no, you know, you will not be doing that.’ But that’s the way this White House operated.”

Right now there is a lot of discourse around the situation involving the Trump White House, the Associated Press, and the Gulf of America/Mexico, which is a relatively silly controversy when compared to the president’s mental faculties. Trump also loves talking to the media and never gets credit for it. Perhaps the media should take a deep breath and gain some perspective.

Here is a transcript for the April 10 show: 

Next Question with Katie Couric

4/10/2025

20 Minutes, 3 Seconds

KATIE COURIC: So then I approached his press people. They then told me to call and I got the runaround like there was no tomorrow. I got relegated to some guy who did— was in charge of digital interviews because it was for online and a podcast, and I asked, I wrote, Anita Dunn personally, and I was very much stonewalled. And now reading your book, and obviously with the benefit of hindsight, I see why. And you write that he never did interviews with the New York Times or the Washington Post. Didn’t he hold fewer press conferences than any president in history?

CHRIS WHIPPLE: Yeah, I believe that’s correct.

COURIC: So do you think the White House Press Corps and the media writ large should have been making more noise about this?

WHIPPLE: Well, first of all, you used the perfect word “stonewalled” when describing the Biden White House vis-a-vis the media. I really found it to be Nixonian in its— contempt is not too strong a word for the press, the White House Press Corps. If you dared to suggest that Biden’s age was an issue, they went after you. If you dared to write an op-ed that suggested that everything wasn’t perfect, they would, they would close you down. And I think it came from Anita Dunn. I think this war her. I mean, I think she was a much more powerful figure in the Biden White House than we realized at the time. So, I would, my guess, Katie, I mean my hunch is that Biden would have done that sit-down with you, and that Dunn and the communications team shut that down in a heartbeat and said, “no, you know, you will not be doing that.” But that’s the way this White House operated.

As a child I frequently visited relatives in southern Indiana. A great uncle tried to keep me from exploring his cellar (as they were called then) by telling me the boogeyman was down there and would “get you” if I descended the stairs. It worked.

Boogeymen are nothing new. They have existed in the form of politicians going back to the founding of the country. See how Thomas Jefferson and John Adams described each other. One politician says if his opponent is elected, or his party gains a majority, the country will be destroyed. The other says the same about the other person and party. That has worked well, especially for Democrats, who for decades have won votes from scared seniors by falsely claiming Republicans want to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The latest boogeyman is Elon Musk. Within my short memory, Musk was hailed as a hero for developing Tesla which was going to save the planet. If you wanted to send a virtue signal, you bought one. Now, if you want to send a virtue signal, you get rid of one, or other virtue signalers will vandalize, even destroy the cars and attack Tesla dealerships.

This is about the Establishment holding onto power and their misspent money, nothing else. Some Democrats, who have no policies other than opposition to President Trump, are trying to recover a level of respectability by agreeing there is waste in government, but they want Congress, not Musk and his DOGE team to cut it. This is known as allowing the people who created the problem to provide the solution, which is not likely to happen.

People who choose to serve their country in the military or in public service when they could be making more money in the private sector were once admired and held up as worthy of emulation. John F. Kennedy encouraged that spirit in his 1961 Inaugural Address: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

Musk and DOGE are exposing what many Democrats and some Republicans have done to waste our money over decades. “The era of big government is over,” declared President Bill Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union address. It wasn’t. While Clinton cut 377,000 federal jobs, Presidents Obama and Biden added to the government employment rolls. The federal government is the largest employer in the United States.

On March 27, Musk and some of his DOGE associates were interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News. Everyone should watch that interview. If you are not outraged by what you hear, you are part of the problem. Here is just one of many examples of the waste and fraud they have uncovered.

Musk: “(fraudsters) steal people’s Social Security … they call in (and) claim to be a retiree, and they convince the Social Security person on the phone to change where the money’s flowing. … This is happening all day every day, and then somebody doesn’t receive their Social Security. It’s because of all the fraud loopholes in the Social Security system.”

Baier: “How do you reassure people that what you all are doing is not going to affect their benefits?”

Musk: “No. In fact, what we’re doing will help their benefits. Legitimate people as a result of the work of DOGE will receive more Social Security, not less. I want to emphasize that. As a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money.”

There are numerous other examples of misspending. Look them up and don’t take what Democrats and much of the media are saying as the truth. It isn’t.

Many members of Congress may give lip service to cutting such misspending, but the question is: will they do anything about it? Those TV ads that try selling us stocks and injury lawyers contain very small print that says: “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” With Congress, it seems like it is. They are the boogeymen (and women) in all of this.

File this one under “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.”

The liberal media has been leading the charge against the Trump tariffs. So what happens when Trump heeds the warning signs and pulls back? Does the MSM applaud his statesmanship, his courage in changing course given changed circumstances? 

C’mon—of course not. This is the liberal media, after all.

Thus, on today’s Morning Joe, Axios co-founder Jim VandeHei, purporting to explain Trump’s change of direction, declared:

“Make no mistake: he panicked.”

For Trump, there’s no winning with the liberal media. 

Trump adapts his policy to changing realities: “He panicked!”

And if Trump hadn’t changed course? “Trump ignores reality—determined to drive the world economy off a cliff!”

Note: VandeHei’s subsequent words debunked his claim that Trump panicked. The Axios CEO went on to say that Trump “saw that  [serious economic troubles were in the offing] and he hit pause.” 

Pausing doesn’t automatically mean panic. Unless your only interest is constantly going on the negative. 

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
4/10/25
6:05 am EDT

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jim VandeHei, the president, getting ready for Masters weekend by employing that famous golfing term, the yips—is what you say about somebody standing over a putt that doesn’t know how to get it in the hole—but said that things were getting a little yippy. 

That included also, of course, the bond markets, where a real concern, this one Scott Bessent and others went to the president saying this could go sideways very quickly. 

JIM VANDEHEI: Yeah, I mean, make no mistake, he panicked. It’s probably the first time we’ve seen him blink in such a public way. 

He was under a lot of pressure from GOP senators, a lot of CEOs, a lot of investors, Elon Musk, people calling him saying, listen, look, not just the bond market, look at the regular market, look at the bond market, look at the dollar. That a real economic collapse was in the offing. And he saw that and he hit pause. 

And then you had his entire team come out and say, no, this was like part of the art of the deal. And I don’t think anyone’s buying that. Certainly, a lot of people internally aren’t buying it. They underestimated the effect it would have on the markets. 

And now, yes, the market’s surged, but if you talk to CEOs, there’s still so much unpredictability. You basically replaced the largest, maybe the largest trade war of generations with another, maybe the second largest trade war, which is us versus China. Which might be a bigger deal, and it’s now escalated, which still creates a hell of a lot of uncertainty for CEOs. 

. . . 

WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, and the stock markets did come roaring back yesterday, John, but not yet even to the point where they were just eight days ago when all this started. 

With some of the roadblocks to the prosecution of the second failed would-be assassin of President Donald Trump removed, the shocking details of his plot are revealed. And for some strange reason, NBC News has still not aired any of the shocking details on their television offerings.

Here is ABC’s full report on the findings, as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Tuesday, April 8th, 2025:

DAVID MUIR: We also have new reporting tonight on the alleged assassination attempt of then-candidate Donald Trump. What the president at the president’s Florida golf course on that day allegedly tried to get his hands on before that day, including anti-aircraft weapons. Here’s Pierre Thomas.

PIERRE THOMAS: Tonight, months after his dramatic arrest, federal prosecutors releasing disturbing new details which they claim show Ryan Routh’s apparent obsession with assassinating President Trump. Before he allegedly stalked Trump on his Florida golf course, prosecutors say Routh, a fierce supporter of Ukraine, who had visited the war-torn country multiple times, reached out to an associate there. His request: “send me an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) or Stinger surface-to-air missile. Prosecutors claim Routh desperately wanted to blow up then-candidate Trump’s plane writing: “I need equipment so that Trump cannot get elected.” 

DONALD TRUMP: Take a look at what happened… (GUNFIRE)

THOMAS: The second assassination attempt coming just two months after Trump was nearly killed in Pennsylvania. Authorities in Florida say Routh waited for 12 hours in a sniper’s nest just off Trump’s golf course. A Secret Service agent positioned one hole ahead of the president spotting the barrel of an assault rifle in the bushes, engaging the suspect before he could take a shot at Trump. And now, the FBI says Routh could have had an even more powerful weapon, after he first tried to buy a .50 caliber rifle, capable of piercing body armor and slicing through car doors. Routh has pleaded not guilty, but the FBI says they have footage of him conducting surveillance and placing him at the scene just before the alleged attempt. David.

MUIR: All right. Pierre Thomas in Washington tonight. Pierre, thank you.

Neither CBS Evening News nor CBS Evening News Plus aired anything on Routh, but CBS News Mornings did run a very early brief the following morning:

MICHAEL GEORGE: Newsweek reports Justice Department officials claim a thwarted Trump assassin tried to buy a rocket launcher from Ukraine. Prosecutors say Ryan Wesley Routh used an encrypted messaging app to chat with someone he believed to be a Ukrainian contact with access to military-grade weapons. The 58-year-old is facing multiple federal charges after he was allegedly spotted pointing a rifle through the fence of Trump’s golf club in Florida last September. Routh has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Granted, some of this is previously known information was repurposed by ABC as dramatic filler. We knew about Routh’s stakeout position, and that he had previously cased the property out. And Routh’s Ukraine obsessions were also a matter of public record. But details on the attempts to purchase an RPG and .50 caliber rifle are intriguing. 

ABC said nothing on the matter, while CBS said Routh was in contact with “someone he believed to be a Ukrainian contact with access to military-grade weapons.” That language is at the very least suggestive of a sting operation. If this is the case, how was Routh still allowed to get so close to Trump? Who knew, and when did they know it? 

These details and their subsequent coverage are worth watching. Or, in NBC’s case, worth airing.

 

Every once in a while, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel will do a man-on-the-street interview type of segment where he sends someone out to demonstrate how dumb Donald Trump supporters supposedly are in an attempt to discredit one of Trump’s positions. However, Wednesday’s attempt at this unwittingly backfired on Kimmel, who was blissfully unaware that one conspiracy theory floated by one of the interviewees was popularized by an anti-Trump CNN analyst who insisted on redoing the 2016 election.

Kimmel introduced the package, “Since he got back, the president has used his fat little Sharpie to sign over 100 executive orders. He signed a bunch of them today. One of the most notable of the executive orders was his order to disband the Department of Education. Now, we already know how his critics feel about that. But what do the folks who voted for Trump think about it? To find out, we went all the way to Florida, to the Gulf of America, to ask some of Trump’s bigliest fans what they think about the Department of Education.”

Throughout the whole segment, 13 people would be interviewed, but only two of them were explicitly shown claiming they supported axing the Department of Education. Still, the staffer Kimmel sent to Florida asked such questions as “Can you name the first president of the U.S.?”

 

 

After someone said Abraham Lincoln, another was asked, “What do the initials LBJ stand for?” When one woman got the correct answer, the interviewer followed up by asking, “What does the B stand for?”

The woman then answered, “Nothing. Just B,” which is incorrect, but how many people watching Jimmy Kimmel Live! at that moment knew the answer was “Baines.”

There were other cringeworthy moments, such as people not knowing who the U.S. fought in the Civil War or when the War of 1812 was, but eventually the interviewer came to “Do you know who shot Hitler?”

A man replied, “Nobody knows who shot Hitler. It’s like—he may have killed himself. It’s kind of a mystery. I had a teacher tell me that he—he’s still alive, this is what he told me a couple years ago, he’s still alive, and he took a U-boat.”

The questioner followed up, “A teacher in school? Who do you think that teacher voted for?” To which the man answered, “Trump, probably.”

From 2015 to 2020, the History Channel had a show called Hunting Hitler, where ex-CIA operative Robert Baer considered the possibility that Hitler was among the high-ranking Nazi officials who managed to get out of Germany and escape to Argentina and the idea that he shot himself was just a cover story. Baer is now an intelligence and security analyst for CNN who insisted that the 2016 election be redone.

The idea that Hitler made it to Argentina on a U-boat is just proof that conspiracy theories are not unique to one side. If Kimmel were to go to one of those anti-Trump protests or ask liberal beachgoers similar questions, eventually he could get enough dumb answers to have a TV segment, but Kimmel won’t do that, because that wouldn’t fit the narrative he is seeking to build.

 Here is a transcript for the April 9 show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

4/9/2025

JIMMY KIMMEL: Since he got back, the president has used his fat little Sharpie to sign over 100 executive orders. He signed a bunch of them today. One of the most notable of the executive orders was his order to disband the Department of Education. Now, we already know how his critics feel about that. But what do the folks who voted for Trump think about it? To find out, we went all the way to Florida, to the Gulf of America, to ask some of Trump’s bigliest fans what they think about the Department of Education.

INTERVIEWER: One thing that Trump wants to get rid of is the Department of Education. Do you support that?

MAN 1: Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: Have you heard about Trump wanting to close the Department of Education?

MAN 2: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And what do you think about that?

MAN 2: I think it’s right. Put it back to the states.

INTERVIEWER: What do you think about his stance on the Department of Education? He wants to get rid of it.

MAN 3: You know, I’d love to be more educated on it, to give you a well-endowed answer.

INTERVIEWER: I want to do a fun, like, school quiz.

WOMAN 1: Sure.

INTERVIEWER: Can you name the first president of the U.S.?

WOMAN 1: The very first president? Was that Abraham Lincoln?

INTERVIEWER: What do the initials LBJ stand for?

MAN 4: LBJ?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

MAN 4: LeBron James?

WOMAN 2: Lyndon B. Johnson.

INTERVIEWER: What does the B stand for?

WOMAN 2: Nothing. Just B.

INTERVIEWER: Who wrote the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin?

MAN 5: Um — does anybody here know the answer — do you know the answer to that question?

INTERVIEWER: How many times has the U.S. fought in a World War?

WOMAN 3: Only World War II, so just one.

INTERVIEWER: When was the War of 1812?

WOMAN 4: Of 1812?

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

WOMAN 4: Is that the Civil War?

INTERVIEWER: Who did the U.S. fight in the Civil War?

WOMAN 2: I don’t know.

INTERVIEWER: Who did the U.S. fight in the Civil War?

WOMAN 5: U.S. Civil War was — was it Mexico and –

INTERVIEWER: What happened on D-Day?

MAN 4: Kill all the aliens.

INTERVIEWER: Marie Antoinette famously said let them eat –

WOMAN 6: Let them eat — was she, people, was she like a cannibal?

INTERVIEWER: Do you know who shot Hitler?

MAN 6: Nobody knows who shot Hitler. It’s like— he may have killed himself. It’s kind of a mystery. I had a teacher tell me that he — he’s still alive, this is what he told me a couple years ago, he’s still alive, and he took a U-boat.

INTERVIEWER: A teacher in school? Who do you think that teacher voted for?

MAN 6: Trump, probably.

INTERVIEWER: Can you spell restaurant?

WOMAN 6: Yeah. R-E-S-T-R-U-A-R—wait. Restur—

MAN 6: R-E-S-T-U-R-A-N-T.

MAN 7: R-E-S-T-R-A-U-N-T. Restaurant. I think I forgot an E.

INTERVIEWER: How many sides does the Pentagon building have?

MAN 2: It should be ten.

INTERVIEWER: What are the first three digits of pi?

WOMAN 1: A, B, and C?

INTERVIEWER: What are the first three digits of pi?

WOMAN 5: I can see it, hold on. I cannot think of it. It’s been a minute.

INTERVIEWER: How do you spell pi?

WOMAN 5: As far as, as like, blueberry? P-Y-E.

INTERVIEWER: Elon Musk, he has 14 kids. He gives seven of his kids up for adoption. One to Angelina Jolie and two to science. Why does he have so many kids?

MAN 6: That’s a lot. I don’t know.