As the Trump administration moves to enforce immigration law, HBO’s John Oliver is not happy. On Sunday’s Last Week Tonight, Oliver claimed that the moves are “always cruel” and declared that Border Czar Tom Homan “can truly rot in hell” for his efforts. Meanwhile, on Monday, Oliver joined NBC’s Seth Meyers on Late Night to claim it is “morally terrible” for people to attempt to avoid Trump’s anger.

Oliver introduced a clip of NBC’s Garrett Haake by declaring, “The fact is, what the administration is doing is sometimes targeted, sometimes arbitrary, usually blatantly racist, and always cruel. And sometimes, breathtakingly so.”

 

 

In the clip, Haake reported that, “Tonight the administration is facing criticism from migrant advocates over the removal of two American citizen children of an undocumented woman from Honduras, including her 4-year-old son. A migrant rights group says he was sent to Honduras without his medication for stage 4 cancer.”

Haake was then shown asking Homan, “How is going after families with young kids targeting the worst of the worst?”

That set off a short back and forth on the definition of “prioritize,” with Homan eventually declaring, “When you prioritize something, it doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else. I’ve said from day one, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”

Oliver responded, “Okay, first, Tom Homan can truly rot in hell. Though I’d expect nothing less from a man who clearly answers the question, ‘What would Shrek look like as a white ogre?’” 

He also declared, “While the government insists that woman chose to have her son deported with her, her lawyers insist that was not the case and either way, between the government putting that kid on a plane without his medication and the cuts to research of the NIH, it seems this administration is actively coming out pro-pediatric cancer.”

 

 

On Monday, Meyers wondered, “How do you feel about people who are maybe tapping the brakes or trying to steer clear of his ire?”

Oliver is not a fan, “I think it’s—well, I think it’s morally terrible. But I also think it’s practically a bad decision. I think you feel this way as well. But there’s no point in pre-conceding to him, right? It feels like you have to draw—like, there’s no point in giving the school bully money before he’s asked for it from you.”

He continued, “I think there’s been some real mistakes from Harvard and CBS with this kind of pre-concession, ‘Oh, he’ll understand’ or ‘If we give him this now, he’ll remember later.’ No, he [bleep] won’t. He’ll just keep coming back. So, you may as well fight now. So, yeah. I think I would—we definitely behave like there will be no consequences. And I trust that there won’t be.”

Oliver decided to pass on listing the administration’s demands on Harvard. Probably because if he were to list them, the “school bully” comparison would fall apart.

Here are transcripts for the May 4 and May 5-taped shows:

HBO Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

5/4/2025

11:43 PM ET

JOHN OLIVER: The fact is, what the administration is doing is sometimes targeted, sometimes arbitrary, usually blatantly racist, and always cruel. And sometimes, breathtakingly so.

GARRETT HAAKE: Tonight the administration is facing criticism from migrant advocates over the removal of two American citizen children of an undocumented woman from Honduras, including her 4-year-old son. A migrant rights group says he was sent to Honduras without his medication for stage 4 cancer.

How is going after families with young kids targeting the worst of the worst?

TOM HOMAN: First of all, we said we’re going to prioritize the worst of the worst.

HAAKE: You feel like that’s what you’re doing?

HOMAN: Absolutely. But when you prioritize something, it doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else. I’ve said from day one, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.

OLIVER: Okay, first, Tom Homan can truly rot in hell. Though I’d expect nothing less from a man who clearly answers the question, “What would Shrek look like as a white ogre?” While the government insists that woman chose to have her son deported with her, her lawyers insist that was not the case and either way, between the government putting that kid on a plane without his medication and the cuts to research of the NIH, it seems this administration is actively coming out pro-pediatric cancer.

***

NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers

5/6/2025

1:09 AM ET

SETH MEYERS: How do you feel about people who are maybe tapping the brakes or trying to steer clear of his ire?

OLIVER: I think it’s — well, I think it’s morally terrible. But I also think it’s practically a bad decision. I think you feel this way as well. But there’s no point in pre-conceding to him, right? It feels like you have to draw — like, there’s no point in giving the school bully money before he’s asked for it from you.

MEYERS: Yeah.

OLIVER: I think there’s been some real mistakes from Harvard and CBS with this kind of pre-concession, “Oh, he’ll understand” or “If we give him this now, he’ll remember later.” No, he [bleep] won’t. He’ll just keep coming back. So, you may as well fight now. So, yeah. I think I would — we definitely behave like there will be no consequences. And I trust that there won’t be.

Appearing on Monday’s Morning Joe, MSNBC contributor and frequent guest Anand Giridharadas obnoxiously compared Israel’s war against Hamas to the Nazi mass murder of European Jews during a discussion of the thousands of Gaza civilians who have died since the war began.

After frequent guest Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations incorrectly claimed that Gaza is “the most crowded parcel of earth on Earth” — even though there are almost 90 cities that are more densely populated — host Joe Scarborough went to Giridharadas and teed him up: “Anand, the suffering that’s been going on in Gaza for some time has just been just absolutely dreadful, but it keeps going from bad to worse.”

Although the push for a Jewish state in the region predated the Holocaust, Giridharadas began by linking Israel’s creation to the murder of six million Jews and invoked the “never again” vow that came after no one acted to stop Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution”:

And I think it is obviously, first and foremost, a story of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but it is also, hearing that report, if you step back, it’s the tragedy of the story of Israel. You know, this is a country that was born out of trauma and the most barbaric treatment of a people — one of the most barbaric treatments of a people in human history and a country born out of the ideals to protect and create a homeland and have that never happen again, and it had some great things in its constitution that said to be the opposite of what happened to Jewish people in other places.

He then argued that Jews are hurting Palestinian Arabs because they were hurt by Nazi Germany:

And so many of my Jewish friends look at these pictures, and they are so anguished that something that was born out of that hurt and pain and trauma could go in this way, You know, as we all know, trauma can — if you heal yourself, if you heal a people, it can go in a direction of saying, “Never again,” actually “never again.” “The trauma that happened to me will never happen again.” And we — there is that political tradition in Israel, but that tradition has been buried by this government — this movement in Israel that comes from the other human story — that “If I was hurt, I will hurt.”

He summed up: “This is the ‘hurt people hurt people’ version of the state of Israel. Is it so profoundly sad that ‘never again’ has become instead, ‘I will hurt others.'”

Transcript follows:

MSNBC’s Morning Joe

May 5, 2025

6:38 a.m. Eastern

RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: This was already, before any of this, the most crowded parcel of earth on Earth — two million people were packed into Gaza. Now, we’re looking at two million people packed into a slice of Gaza. It’s also possible that the Israelis are very interested in the Trump idea of forcing Palestinians out of Gaza. … My point is, simply, this is awful, but I don’t think this is the end of it.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Anand, the suffering that’s been going on in Gaza for some time has just been just absolutely dreadful, but it keeps going from bad to worse.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And I think it is obviously, first and foremost, a story of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but it is also, hearing that report, if you step back, it’s the tragedy of the story of Israel. You know, this is a country that was born out of trauma and the most barbaric treatment of a people — one of the most barbaric treatments of a people in human history and a country born out of the ideals to protect and create a homeland and have that never happen again, and it had some great things in its constitution that said to be the opposite of what happened to Jewish people in other places.

And so many of my Jewish friends look at these pictures, and they are so anguished that something that was born out of that hurt and pain and trauma could go in this way, You know, as we all know, trauma can — if you heal yourself, if you heal a people, it can go in a direction of saying, “Never again,” actually “never again.” “The trauma that happened to me will never happen again.” And we — there is that political tradition in Israel, but that tradition has been buried by this government — this movement in Israel that comes from the other human story — that “If I was hurt, I will hurt.” This is the “hurt people hurt people” version of the state of Israel. Is it so profoundly sad that “never again” has become instead, “I will hurt others.”

With the Second Trump Administration in full swing, dissent appears to make a comeback. Whistleblowing is once again back in fashion and whistleblowers are sainted public servants again, as opposed to pariahs during the Biden years. This much is clear from watching legal correspondent Laura Jarrett’s interview with former DHS Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, of “Anonymous” fame.

Watch the full interview, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Monday, May 5th, 2025 (click “expand” to view transcript):

LESTER HOLT: Now to our NBC News exclusive as a senior official in the first Trump Administration, Miles Taylor, published an anonymous op-ed criticizing the president. Now President Trump has signed a memo ordering a probe into Taylor. Laura Jarrett spoke with him.

MILES TAYLOR: People need to know how real it is to be blacklisted by the president.

LAURA JARRETT: For a brief moment, Miles Taylor was anonymous.

TAYLOR: I got into government to serve my country…

JARRETT: Now, he’s anything but. The former Homeland Security official who once detailed his observations inside the first Trump Administration in an anonymous op-ed now accused of leaking classified information and treason in a presidential memorandum.

JARRETT: Did you ever knowingly disseminate classified information?

TAYLOR: I know I’ve never broken the law. I know that I’ve assiduously upheld my national security obligations. You can’t threaten Americans to not exercise their First Amendment rights because they’re fearful the President of the United States will prosecute them.

JARRETT: The 38-year-old says he’s now receiving a barrage of threats.

TAYLOR: My wife has to read online about people saying that they’ll put me in front of a firing squad. We were told by security experts to go update our last will and testament.

JARRETT: The president denies he’s seeking revenge by directing investigations of his critics.

DONALD TRUMP: No, I just look at people, and I’m not directing anybody.

JARRETT: Do you believe that you are being investigated by the federal government?

TAYLOR: I have seen indications that they are out there rummaging through my past. (VIDEO SWIPE) What I worry about is that they will try to use this tactic, this bludgeon of the bully pulpit of the presidency to go shut people up.

JARRETT: Taylor’s hired Abbe Lowell, who has represented everyone from Hunter by Biden to President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

ABBE LOWELL: For the head of the Executive Branch to order, literally order a criminal investigation, is unprecedented. 

JARRETT: When asked if a criminal investigation is underway, DoJ and Homeland Security declined to comment, but Lowell said he isn’t waiting for an indictment.

LOWELL: I’m asking all those judges, who are the guardrails of protecting the rights of citizens, to be on the lookout for requests that come to get information against Miles or others.

JARRETT: Is what’s happening now something that you know is unique to Miles Taylor?

LOWELL: I don’t think it stops with Miles, but I think Miles is a good case of the system works.

JARRETT: Laura Jarrett, NBC News.

You’ll recall, as Taylor outlined in his book, that he was part of the internal “Resistance” to Trump, working to undermine the administration from within the apparatus of The White House. “Anonymous” was part of that effort.

The interview was clearly constructed so as to elicit sympathy for Taylor, presenting him as an endangered whistleblower, as opposed to an attention-seeking opportunist that may have divulged classified information. Taylor’s non-answer to that direct question speaks for itself. 

I’m old enough to remember when the two IRS whistleblowers that blew the lid off of efforts to protect the Biden family were punished and maligned for their work. The “legacy media” didn’t have the time to cover that. Things are (D)ifferent when it comes to covering whistleblowers, now that Trump is back in office. 

Particularly unsavory here is the presence of Abbe Lowell, who targeted and sued the IRS whistleblowers on behalf of his client, Hunter Biden. Now he pretends, for NBC’s cameras, to believe that whistleblowers above reproach and that weaponization of government is a bad thing.

The whole thing was built and framed so as to manipulate viewers into feeling sympathy for Taylor. Again, it’s (D)ifferent that way.

By the way, Hunter Biden just dropped the suit against the IRS whistleblowers.

President Trump marked the 100-day point of his second term by granting interviews to hostile leftist media outlets. On Sunday, President Trump tangled with NBC’s Kristen Welker, after he had verbal combat with ABC’s Terry Moran and Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.

Four years ago, President Biden granted no interviews, not to hostile networks like Fox and not to his friends in the liberal media. They didn’t care. Once again, Trump is punished for granting broad access to hostile journalists.

On Meet the Press, Kristen Welker began with aggression on the tariff issue. As Trump repeated his lines about girls possibly having too many dolls, Welker made the economy sound terrible: “When you say they could have three dolls instead of 30 dolls, are you saying…Americans see empty store shelves?”

CNN’s Republican analyst Brad Todd argued Trump “has given more interviews in the past five months than Joe Biden gave in four years.” CNN anchor Audie Cornish shot back: “Yeah, well, the thing about giving interviews is then people scrutinize the answers, which is where we are now.”

But can’t we also scrutinize the questions? 

One really easy way to know that TV journalists are Democrats is how they rush to defense of PBS and NPR and use all the same arguments that Democrats have made in congressional hearings and social media. They willfully ignore the incessant bias of “public” broadcasting and deflect back to kiddie shows like Sesame Street, as if that’s anything like the political smears in their “news,” comparing Trump to Hitler.

NPR CEO Katherine Maher lied that NPR has no bias, “our people report straight down the line.” This is completely at odds with reality, when NPR reporters have been filing stories about how Trump is an authoritarian. She bizarrely added “we’ve had a whole host of conservative voices on air,” which is what they say when one or two are brought on. She even claimed they’d have more, but the Trump folks “won’t join us.” You suggest they’re budding fascists, and then you act surprised they skip the hostility. 

We at MRC would gladly accept an interview request to address the bias of the media, especially in “public” broadcasting. 

On PBS, the Friday night News Hour duo freaked out over President Trump’s executive order to defund public TV and radio. Jonathan Capehart bizarrely called it a “fundamental attack on our Constitution,” equating PBS and the First Amendment. Liberal journalists equate themselves with Democracy and with Free Speech, even as they supported Biden keeping opponents off the ballot and backed censorship of troublesome conservative viewpoints on social media. It’s both democracy and freedom of speech when people attack the media. It sounds authoritarian to suggest the media can never be criticized. 

David Brooks was more embarrassing:  “If you think that PBS is biased, compared to who? Name one news organization in America — and I shouldn’t be defending us, I get paid by PBS. But I’m going to do it! Who’s more straight down the line than we are? Is it MSNBC? Is it Fox? Is it CNN?”

PBS is like taxpayer-funded MSNBC. Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it is our solemn duty to inform you that CBS’s John Dickerson is at it again, delivering yet another pretentious editorial bloviation with which to close out CBS Evening News Plus. This Time, Dickerson was spurred to righteous action by President Donald Trump’s viral pope meme.

Watch the editorial in its entirety, as aired on CBS Evening News Plus on Monday, May 5th, 2025:

JOHN DICKERSON: Donald Trump does not suffer from Catholic guilt. An AI-generated image appeared on his personal and White House account showing him dressed as the pope. But he demonstrated no sign of shame or self-reproach or anxiety. He called it a joke. Catholic leaders didn’t much laugh, said Bishop Thomas Papraki of Illinois. President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the papacy. For those applying to be pope or imagining themselves as one, the goal of the job is imitato Christi: the imitation of Christ. Not the clothes but the calling. Not image, but substance. His example of obedience calls believers to rise to something higher. The Catholic church’s liturgy Sunday, prepared long in advance, offered commentary on the tension between sacred and secular authority. Around the world churches read a line from the Book of Acts: we must obey God rather than man. The calling: humility, service, fidelity to something greater than self isn’t confined to the church or its faithful. It applies to anyone granted authority, whether by divine will or the will of the voters. When the moment came for the president to uphold his duties to the Constitution, the man who enjoyed imagining himself in the garments of commitment declined to practice commitment. Asked whether he would abide by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling affirming due process for all persons, written in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which he’d sworn an oath to, he said “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.” Catholics who pick and choose which teachings to follow are called cafeteria Catholics. This is a cafeteria Constitution. The reverence performed, but the obligations are left behind in the line. That’s tonight’s CBS Evening News Plus. Thank you for joining us. I’m John Dickerson. Good night.

This isn’t the first time that Dickerson finds inspiration in the papacy before taking shots at Trump. It wasn’t that long ago that he blasted American electoral politics while at Rome, covering the death of Pope Francis. His was the only politically-angled coverage of the death of Francis. Those heathens at NBC and ABC played it straight.

Comes now Dickerson who, compelled by piety to link Trump’s papal goof to his dominant NBC interview, delivers a secular homily on Trump’s “cafeteria constitutionalism”. Dickerson strikes the perfect blend of church lady outrage but ultimately misses the mark.

We didn’t see such indignant editorials when god-king Barack Obama went after communities of faith- as described in the IRS scandal, or his administration’s various efforts to compel pro-life individuals and organizations to violate the free exercise of their faith by purchasing health insurance that paid for abortions or provided abortifacient medications. Likewise, there was no editorial when “devout Catholic” Joe Biden went after adherents to the Latin Mass or stood idly by as House Democrats passed abortion-on-demand until the moment of birth.

Dickerson restrained his pieties. No editorials came forth and there was no hectoring about obedience to God. It is only Trump’s goof that demands condemnation. The aforementioned things do not. Those are (D)ifferent, you see.

 

It’s that time of year again when the liberal media pats themselves on the back and gives themselves awards for being biased hacks in various categories, A.K.A. The Pulitzer Prizes. During Monday’s announcement of the winners, administrator Marjorie Miller droned on in monotone as she put the press’s right to free speech above that of critics. She decried who had negative things to say about the press, suggesting it was un-American and an infringement on their free speech.

“These are particularly difficult times for the media and publishers in the United States,” Miller proclaimed.

Convinced that the media had a greater right to free speech than those who would level legitimate criticism against them, Miller bemoaned the “legal harassment” and “attacks on their work and legitimacy.” Ultimately proclaiming that using your free speech against the media was un-American:

Atop years of severe financial pressures and layoffs, amid the dangers of covering wars and natural disasters, journalists and writers now face additional threats in the form of legal harassment, the banning of books, and attacks on their work and legitimacy.

These efforts are meant to silence criticism. To edit or rewrite history. They’re an attempt to erode the First Amendment of our Constitution. Which guarantees a free press and free speech.

“What you’ll see in our journalism finalists and winners is courageous reporting and impactful storytelling from unbowed newsrooms,” she boasted.

First off, the “legal harassment” she’s talking about included the legitimate defamation claims made by private citizens like Navy veteran Zachary Young, who won his case with a jury finding CNN liable for malicious defamation, and Dr. Mahendra Amin who settled his defamation case with MSNBC back in February after they erroneously claimed he was collecting uteruses from illegal immigrant women.

 

 

It was not “legal harassment” for Dr. Brian Morley to sue John Oliver for defamation after Oliver and his production team allegedly deceptively edited Morley’s words and lied about the context of his sworn testimony in order to enrage the public about Iowa’s Medicaid system.

Those cases were not “legal harassment” as Miller huffed, but rather attempts by private citizens to hold the media accountable for their terrible and harmful reporting, done out an unearned sense of superiority and righteousness.

As for the winners of the prizes, where’s some of the recipients who won for advancing liberal causes and hate mongering:

The “Public Service” prize when to ProPublica for “urgent reporting…about pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care for fear of violating vague ‘life of the mother’ exceptions in states with strict abortion laws.”
The New Yorker’s Mosab Abu Toha earned the “Commentary” prize “for essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel.”
Former Washington Post editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes, was gifted the “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary” prize “for delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years.”
The collective staff of The Wall Street Journal garnered the “National Reporting” prize, “for chronicling political and personal shifts of the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, including his turn to conservative politics, his use of legal and illegal drugs and his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
This is the Media Research Center gives out our Bulldog awards to journalists who actually deserve prizes for their work.

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

The Pulitzer Prizes
May 5, 2025
3:01:24 p.m. Eastern

(…)

MARJORIE MILLER: These are particularly difficult times for the media and publishers in the United States. Atop years of severe financial pressures and layoffs, amid the dangers of covering wars and natural disasters, journalists and writers now face additional threats in the form of legal harassment, the banning of books, and attacks on their work and legitimacy.

These efforts are meant to silence criticism. To edit or rewrite history. They’re an attempt to erode the First Amendment of our Constitution. Which guarantees a free press and free speech.

Despite all of this, and partly because of it, today is a day for celebration. What you’ll see in our journalism finalists and winners is courageous reporting and impactful storytelling from unbowed newsrooms.

(…)

On Monday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe sent out co-host and Atlantic writer Jonathan Lemire to squirm and awkwardly reject comments made without evidence on Friday by MSNBC and NBC News law enforcement analyst Frank Figliuzzi that FBI Director Kash Patel was spending “been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building.”

Lemire bizarrely pivoted to this in the fourth hour even after co-host Mika Brzezinski had done a tease for the next segment ahead of a commercial break: “And now let’s circle back to a segment from Friday’s show. Frank Figliuzzi was on that morning during this hour, discussing the work of administration officials. At the end of that segment, Figliuzzi said that FBI director Kash Patel has reportedly been more visible at nightclubs than at his office at FBI headquarters.”

 

 

“This was a misstatement,” he conceded, adding “we have not verified that claim.”

Rewinding to Friday, Lemire himself was culpable with this heavy-handed cue to Figliuzzi:

So, Frank, let’s turn to FBI Director Kash Patel, who has sort of taken a surprisingly backseat role, at least to this point in the first 102 or three days, wherever we are right now, what do you make of that? That he’s just been a little less visible than I think a lot of people Trump observers expected he would be.

The former Deep State operative then declared “reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building and there are reports that daily briefings to him have been changed from every day to maybe twice weekly” and thus “both a blessing and a curse” for the FBI.

“[W]ithout any experience level, things could be bad. If he’s not plugged in, things could be bad, but he’s allowing agents to run things. So, we don’t know where this is going. But the one word that keeps coming back at me from inside that building is chaos. People don’t know what’s happening from day-to-day,” he concluded.

Lemire did nothing to rebut it. Instead, he gave it credence by citing “reporting, I believe, from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, that Patel spent a lot of his time at his home in Las Vegas” and thus “working remotely[.]”

One could wonder if this was MSNBC’s way of being sued into oblivion like CNN was.

Also during the Friday segment, Figliuzzi threw a brief fit over the FBI reassigning agents who knelt with the Black Lives Matter mobs in 2020. By doing so, he argued, the FBI was showing such de-escalating tactics are “a sign of weakness.”

“They don’t like de-escalation. They like confrontation,” he claimed without evidence.

Figliuzzi’s entire career on MSNBC and NBC have been filled with whoppers. Following the second Trump assassination attempt, he called for a mass gun grab and, after the first, he speculated without evidence anti-Trump protesters were now targets of revenge attacks.

In April 2023, he called for Fox News to face “financial pain” for not supporting gun control. This came a month after the Nashville Christian school shooting when he blamed the attack — which was carried out by a transgender ex-student — on “monsters” with an “enthusiasm” for gun.

But the biggest Figliuzzi howlers have to be multiple instances when he deemed conservative parents at school board meetings to be domestic terrorists, said conservatives are a bigger threat to America than al-Qaeda, and saw a nod by President Trump to neo-Nazis in raising flags from half-staff on August 8, 2019 in memory of the shooting victims in Dayton and El Paso.

To see the relevant MSNBC transcripts from May 2 and 5, click “expand.”

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
May 2, 2025
9:37 a.m. Eastern

KATTY KAY: Frank, can we just talk about another story from the FBI this week and that we that several agents who had been previously commended for defusing a Black Lives Matter protest by taking a knee were reassigned this week. Tell us about them.

FRANK FIGLIUZZI: Yeah, indeed. So, we’re talking about an incident that happened four to five years ago following the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protest, where agents were assigned in something they don’t typically do, which is to protect monuments in Washington, D.C. during protests. They claimed that they took a knee to de-escalate what could have been a violent confrontation with protesters, showing some solidarity there and now, years later, it’s apparent that the top of the FBI doesn’t like what they did. They don’t like de-escalation. They like confrontation. They see it as a sign of weakness — what those agents did. By the way, the Agents Association back then gave them a commendation for de-escalating that incident. So, we’re in a new world now where there’s retribution for de-escalating something and I want to remind people the FBI is the primary civil rights organization to — to enforce civil rights, like excessive use of force by the police. So, when the FBI is supposed to confront protesters who are protesting excessive use of force. There’s an issue there. The FBI needs to reach out to that community.

JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Frank, let’s turn to FBI Director Kash Patel, who has sort of taken a surprisingly backseat role, at least to this point in the first 102 or three days, wherever we are right now, what do you make of that? That he’s just been a little less visible than I think a lot of people Trump observers expected he would be.

FIGLIUZZI: Yeah. Well, reportedly, he’s been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover Building and there are reports that daily briefings to him have been changed from every day to maybe twice weekly. So, this is both a blessing and a curse because if you if he’s really trying to run things without his experience — without any experience level, things could be bad. If he’s not plugged in, things could be bad, but he’s allowing agents to run things. So, we don’t know where this is going. But the one word that keeps coming back at me from inside that building is chaos. People don’t know what’s happening from day-to-day. 

LEMIRE: There’s also been reporting, I believe, from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, that Patel spent a lot of his time at his home in Las Vegas. He’s been sort of working remotely for at least part of the week.

(….)

May 5, 2025
9:31 a.m. Eastern

JONATHAN LEMIRE: And now let’s circle back to a segment from Friday’s show. Frank Figliuzzi was on that morning during this hour, discussing the work of administration officials. At the end of that segment, Figliuzzi said that FBI director Kash Patel has reportedly been more visible at nightclubs than at his office at FBI headquarters. This was a misstatement. We have not verified that claim.

We’ve got a brand new, fun interactive series for the new year called Worst Media Take of the Week, where you — our loyal NewsBusters visitors and MRC supporters — get to vote on which leftist journalist or celebrity had the worst media take of the week.  

Much appreciation to all who voted last week via NewsBusters and the MRC’s various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and X.com).  

The results of the Worst Media Take of the Week are in and the winner is…

Chuck Todd!

The former moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press won with a whopping 65 percent of the vote. Todd ran away from the competition with his absurd take that the leftist media didn’t cover-up Joe Biden’s decline, as he deemed it a “manufactured right wing premise.” 

PBS contributor and New York Times columnist David Brooks finished in second place with 27 percent of the vote. White House Correspondents’ Association President and MSNBC correspondent Eugene Daniels finished third with 8 percent. 

The following is a montage of all the nominees: 

 

 

WINNER (65 percent of the vote)

 

Chuck Todd: Media Didn’t Cover for Biden, That’s a “Manufactured Right Wing Premise”

“This is not a media failure. This was a failure of the Democratic Party. And I just sort of, sort of the virtue signaling that some people have done to try to say that the media missed this story [Joe Biden’s decline]. They didn’t miss this story….I just refuse to accept this, this stupid premise because it’s a right-wing manufactured, right-wing premise in order to, to stain in the media.”— Former NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd on Chris Cillizza’s Substack podcast, April 28.

 

SECOND PLACE (27 percent of the vote)

 

Judge Who Allegedly Helped An Illegal Immigrant Escape is “Heroic” 

“On the issue of immigration, there are a lot of people who are appalled by what the administration is doing. And there will be times for civil disobedience….Let’s say she [Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan] did escort this guy out the door. If federal enforcement agencies come to your courtroom and you help a guy escape, that is two things. One, it strikes me as maybe something illegal, but it also strikes me as something heroic.”— New York Times columnist/PBS contributor David Brooks on PBS’s News Hour, April 29.

 

THIRD PLACE (8 percent of the vote)

 

Overly Defensive Eugene Daniels: “We Care Deeply About Accuracy”

“We [journalists] care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public’s trust. What we are not is the opposition. What we are not is the enemy of the people. And what we are not is the enemy of the state.”— White House Correspondents’ Association President and MSNBC correspondent Eugene Daniels at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, April 26.

 

Thanks again to all who participated! 

 

Funded by James P. Jimirro

CBS News’s 60 Minutes continued to play with fire amid their rumored lawsuit settlement negotiations with President Trump. During their Sunday episode, purported journalist Scott Pelley lionized lawyer Marc Elias’s work against Trump and Republicans nationwide. He’s the same Democratic Party hustler who sourced the Russia Collusion Hoax and tried to steal a House election in Iowa after it was certified.

“It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice,” proclaimed pompous “journalist” Scott Pelley despite speaking with nearly half a dozen different people.

Pelley pouted about a series of recent executive orders signed by Trump designed to cripple the radical left’s ability to engage in what has been coined as “lawfare.” “Many firms and attorneys have been targeted, among them Marc Elias, a longtime opponent of Trump who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes,” he touted.

“Elias, and others, are warning that Trump’s assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law itself. Elias says that for him, it began with the president’s personal grudge,” Pelley said, going on to hype Elias’s history of getting involved with elections: “Marc Elias first crossed Trump in 2016. He was the top lawyer for the Clinton campaign. Then, in 2020, when Trump and allies challenged the election results, Elias fought in court and won. Trump calls him a ‘thug.’”

 

 

When it came to the fact that Elias was the source of the Russia Collusion Hoax, Pelley downplayed it:

What Trump means by “a hoax” were allegations in 2016 of shady dealings with Russia by Trump and his campaign. He’s right that the FBI could not corroborate what was described as rumor. At least one allegation was promoted to the media by Clinton campaign representatives when Marc Elias was general counsel.

Pelley also omitted that Elias was one of the driving forces behind Democratic Party efforts in 2021 to steal a House seat in Iowa rightfully won by Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a result that was certified by the Iowa legislature. They ultimately failed to steal it.

Pelley also had the nerve to whine about Trump calling Elise “grossly unethical”:

In this memo, six weeks ago, Trump says Elias is an example of “grossly unethical misconduct.” The president directs the attorney general to seek sanctions against any lawyer, anywhere, for “unreasonable, and vexatious” litigation against the government. “Unreasonable,” apparently, in the eye of the president.

While ignoring Elias’s efforts to undo free and fair elections, Pelley promoted the party hitman’s claims that he was “fighting for democracy in court” and putting himself at risk:

ELIAS: Donald Trump hates me because I fight hard, and I fight for free and fair elections. I insist on fighting for democracy in court, fighting for voting rights in court, and insist on telling the truth about what the outcome of the 2020 election was.

PELLEY: Are there risks in doing the work that you’re doing?

ELIAS: I’d be an idiot not to be worried. The question though is what do you do? Right? Do you just cower in the corner? Do you just try to disappear? Do you just leave democracy to fend for itself? Or do you stand tall and do the best you can every day to represent your clients and try to preserve the rule of law?

He was certainly fighting for Democrats in court.

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

CBS’s 60 Minutes
May 4, 2025
7:05:18 p.m. Eastern

SCOTT PELLEY: It was nearly impossible to get anyone on camera for this story because of the fear now running through our system of justice.

In recent weeks, President Trump has signed orders against several law firms — orders with the power to destroy them. That matters because lawsuits have been a check on the president’s power. Many firms and attorneys have been targeted, among them Marc Elias, a longtime opponent of Trump who is the only lawyer the president has named who was willing to appear on 60 Minutes.

Elias, and others, are warning that Trump’s assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law itself. Elias says that for him, it began with the president’s personal grudge.

[Cuts to video]

MARC ELIAS: Donald Trump hates me because I fight hard, and I fight for free and fair elections. I insist on fighting for democracy in court, fighting for voting rights in court, and insist on telling the truth about what the outcome of the 2020 election was.

PELLEY: Are there risks in doing the work that you’re doing?

ELIAS: I’d be an idiot not to be worried. The question though is what do you do? Right? Do you just cower in the corner? Do you just try to disappear? Do you just leave democracy to fend for itself? Or do you stand tall and do the best you can every day to represent your clients and try to preserve the rule of law?

PELLEY: Marc Elias first crossed Trump in 2016. He was the top lawyer for the Clinton campaign. Then, in 2020, when Trump and allies challenged the election results, Elias fought in court and won. Trump calls him a “thug.”

ELIAS: Donald Trump is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with the American political system. And so, when Donald Trump says that I am unethical or that I am undermining his vision of America, I say, “Boy, I must be doin’ something right.”

PELLEY: Elias was top of mind for Trump this past March, both he and another lawyer who had once investigated the president.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP (March 14, 2025, Department of Justice remarks): With the help of radicals like Marc Elias, Mark Pomerantz. And these are people that nobody’s ever seen anything like it. So many others, but these are people that are bad people, really bad people. They tried to turn America into a corrupt, communist and Third World country. But in the end, the thugs failed, and the truth won.

(…)

7:16:51 p.m. Eastern

TRUMP (March 21, 2025, in the Oval Office): Those law firms did bad things, bad things. They went after me for years, Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax, all a hoax.

PELLEY: What Trump means by “a hoax” were allegations in 2016 of shady dealings with Russia by Trump and his campaign. He’s right that the FBI could not corroborate what was described as rumor. At least one allegation was promote[d] to the media by Clinton campaign representatives when Marc Elias was general counsel.

In this memo, six weeks ago, Trump says Elias is an example of “grossly unethical misconduct.” The president directs the attorney general to seek sanctions against any lawyer, anywhere, for “unreasonable, and vexatious” litigation against the government. “Unreasonable,” apparently, in the eye of the president.

Are we reaching a point where a person will go to a law firm with a case that is opposed to the president of the United States and the law firm will think, “Do we really wanna take this case?”

ELIAS: We’re already there. They are deciding not to take on certain kinds of clients that might upset the administration or not taking on certain kinds of causes that might put them in the crosshairs of the administration.

(…)

Monday morning’s Politico Playbook dished a hilarious exclusive that former longtime Capitol Hill reporter Hanna Trudo — who had been until earlier this spring The Hill’s senior political correspondent — “is exploring a campaign for Congress as a Democrat in New Hampshire’s 1st District” after a career that also featured stops at the Daily Beast and Politico.

National politics correspondent Adam Wren contributed the scoop to The Swamp’s ultimate must-read newsletter (which now comes out multiple times a day versus just the AM).

He said she would be running in one of New Hampshire’s two House seats as the First District will be open with four-term Congressman Chris Pappas giving the open Senate seat a go. Speaking to Wren, Trudo described herself as “a fourth-generation Granite Stater … who grew up working-class.”

In a truly comical, mask-dropping moment, Trudo said she’s “a journalist who’s tired of writing the same story about how Democrats keep losing to Republicans and failing us.”

Define “us,” Hanna? You mean “Democrats?” How helpful to admit your profession largely exists to help the left succeed and ensure the right fails.”

Wren had only two other quotes from her about being “used to disrupting the status quo in D.C.” and “know how to beat the odds” since she’s “lived it” and “covered it.”

She also spoke to friends at NBCNews.com, saying she hasn’t “poll tested my pitch” but nonetheless confidence in “simply writing with the same fire I’ve spit for the past decade: Democrats must be better.”

NBC pulled this quote from her campaign memo that read like Oliver Darcy or Brian Stelter were running for Congress. At this point, they should:

Under Donald Trump’s off-brand of authoritarian politics, we are no longer free. Our First Amendment freedoms are being cruelly ripped away by Trump, Elon Musk and other obscenely rich, unelected tech lackeys who have contempt for us

Given how unsavory most D.C. journalists are, there’s no doubt her opposition file will be as thick as a copy of War and Peace.

If she were to win, she’d be representing the Granite State alongside Maggie Goodlander, who just so happened to claim she was moving back there even though she’s the wife of Biden sycophant and Swamp creature Jake Sullivan.

Our friends had some fun with this on X. First, Varad Mehta said what many were thinking: “Do journos understand this only reinforces the negative stereotypes about them as Team Blue partisans?”

Minnesota GOP executive director Andrew Wagner chimed in as well: “Journos now dropping the pretense and just running as Democrats. Perfect. Who could have predicted?”

The great Steve Guest was also sarcastically floored:

    TWEET: https://x.com/SteveGuest/status/1919371700640067657