Newsbusters

2023 MRC Bulldog Award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism winner Andrew Kerr penned a blockbuster piece Monday morning in the Washington Free Beacon that revealed far-left Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) lives in $1 million home DeKalb County, Georgia without having every owed a penny thanks “to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he still serves as part-time senior pastor when he’s not representing the state of Georgia in Congress.”

Continuing his reporting on Warnock (which included this doozy in 2022), Kerr wrote the accommodations are far more than a typical, run-of-the-mill parsonage:

The DeKalb County home came equipped with a plethora of luxury accommodations, including a 100-bottle wine fridge, a Bluetooth-enabled stainless steel cooking range, custom crown molding, and a walk-in closet affixed to a “stunning” European bathroom with a remote-controlled privacy curtain. That privacy extends to Google Maps, where the images of the property are blurred from view.

Warnock, who quietly moved into the home in 2023, now lives there rent-free, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Georgia state records show that Warnock listed the home as his primary residence when he registered to vote in November 2023, and real estate records indicate the property is owned by Ebenezer Baptist Church, which, according to public records, snapped it up for $989,000 in October 2022.

Kerr noted the house is “exempt from nearly all of them, even from those that subsidize Atlanta-area schools, libraries, parks, bonds, and local government operations” as it’s a church property. Warnock’s shamelessness extended to his attorney, who didn’t deny he lived there and even boasted it’s his “personal home.”

Unsurprisingly, Kerr said “Warnock himself has not publicly disclosed his new housing arrangement” even as he just two weeks ago told congregants to donate money toward “a $3.5 million church fundraising campaign known as One Ebenezer devoted to, among other things, ‘reducing our mortgage debt’” with a suggestion of “‘at least’ $139 on top of their 10 percent tithe in honor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church’s 139th anniversary.”

Warnock seems to have a penchant for cushy digs as Kerr noted Warnock also has “$1.15 million Capitol Hill townhouse in Washington, D.C.” along with tax documents showing “a church salary of $31,800 in 2023 as well as nearly $461,000 in book royalties”

Unfortunately, Kerr interviewed two government ethics experts and both said this arrangement is likely legal and doesn’t go against Senate ethics rules.

Check out the Kerr’s full report on Warnock and his new digs (including what a former colleague made of all this) here.

In a shocking turn-around, the White House Correspondents’ Association canceled plans to have extremely anti-Trump comedian Amber Ruffin perform at its annual dinner on April 26. President Trump, as well as his press secretary Karoline Leavitt, will not be attending the typically tilted proceedings. 

As Variety reported: 

Ruffin told a podcast backed by The Daily Beast that she would not try to make sure her jokes targeted all sides of the political spectrum as the WHCA had requested, and likened the Trump administration to “kind of a bunch of murderers.” Playing to both sides “makes them feel like human beings,” she said, “cause they’re not.”

Let’s guess no “independent fact-checkers” will throw a flag: Team Trump is not a “bunch of murderers” and they are human beings. Here’s the clips, as Ruffin talked with fellow leftist comedian Samantha Bee and editor Joanna Coles. Bee asked who’s coming from the White House:

RUFFIN: I don’t think the people confirm until quite a bit later. I don’t necessarily — like I’m not 100% interested in being like, “ha, you’re here [Trump people], look at your stupid head, you’re burned.” I care, uh, like, you’re kind of a bunch of murderers. [Laughs] I mean, so like, they [the WHCA] were like. You need to be, you know, equal, and make sure that the that you give it to both sides, and blah blah blah. I was like, ‘there’s no way I’m gonna be freaking doing that, dude, under no circumstances.’”

The WHCA has a long history of hosting liberal attack comedians for their dinners — or in the Obama years, they were liberal adoration comedians. There seemed to be no need for a balance of jokes. One might guess the “murderers” line was worse than the “no way I’m gonna mock both sides” line. 

Then the “they’re not human beings” schtick came a little later. 

RUFFIN: But I do think like there will be a like sense of what the hell are we doing?  

BEE: Yeah!

Like, it’s bonkers that we’re still acting like things are normal. I don’t know, we’re all going on this roller coaster, right? Like you spend 5 minutes like, hey, we’ve had worse, then you turn a corner and you’re like, no, this is as bad as it will ever be, nothing is this bad. Yeah, I’m glad to be on that roller coaster with you guys.

COLES: I mean, did they actually say to you that it needs, you need to go after both sides equally?

RUFFIN: what they said was is that they had been, uh, they had, uh, had people bring it up in the past, how uneven the, uh, comedy was.

COLES: Because usually the comedy is directed at whoever is the president at the time. So even when you went to the Obama White House Correspondents Dinner, which he did attend, there were tons of jokes about him, and he was probably more aligned with the media than any other most recent president.

RUFFIN: Yeah, I think it’s just that burns on Trump hurt badly [?] and and then it trickles down to everyone who is around him. Cause you’re all also guilty. So I think it just they got their feelings hurt, but if they want that false equivalency that the media does. They want that. It feels great. It makes them feel like human beings, but they shouldn’t get to feel that way cause they’re not.

BEE: Some people are more culpable than others. And they get more jokes made about them and the jokes are meaner because they’re doing things that are worse in a lot of ways. That’s how that goes. It can’t be even. It actually can’t

RUFFIN: I don’t see how you could do it.

BEE: It can’t be evenhanded

RUFFIN: Without becoming a part of what’s wrong.

WHCA president Eugene Daniels — who recently signed up to host at severely anti-Trump MSNBC, issued a statement that was a little difficult to believe: 

“The WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year. At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists.”

It was easier to believe Daniels in his original take on the Ruffin booking a few weeks ago: “When I began to think about what entertainer would be a perfect fit for the dinner this year, Amber was immediately at the top of my list.”

It seems that the Senior Associate Editor at Atlantic magazine, Saahil Desai, was not aware of how much he revealed about leftist intolerance of political diversity to the point of seeming absolutely demented when he wrote a story about an experiment he conducted. He decided to drive around the Washington D.C. area for a day in a Tesla Cybertruck in order to see what reactions it would inspire.

The result of his experiment will probably not be pleasing to many Atlantic readers due to the discomfort caused by Desai holding up an inadvertent mirror revealing their toxic attitudes. Oh, and Desai’s praise for the Tesla Cybertruck will probably make them even less happy.

The very first paragraph of Desai’s Saturday article, “My Day Inside America’s Most Hated Car,” paints a very poor picture of the prevalent attitude among his fellow liberals:

On the first Sunday of spring, surrounded by row houses and magnolia trees, I came to a horrifying realization: My mom was right. I had been flipped off at least 17 times, called a “motherfucker” (in both English and Spanish), and a “fucking dork.” A woman in a blue sweater stared at me, sighed, and said, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” All of this because I was driving a Tesla Cybertruck.

It only took until the very next paragraph for Desai’s revelation about liberal attitudes to go from very bad to even worse:

As I idled with the windows down on a street in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, a woman glared at me from her front porch: “Fuck you, and this truck, and Elon,” she yelled. “You drive a Nazi truck.” She slammed her front door shut, and then opened it again. “I hope someone blows your shit up.”

And liberal hate, inspired by the mere sight of a Cybertruck, continued into the third paragraph:

Earlier that day, my first stop was the heart of the resistance: the Dupont Circle farmers’ market. The people there wanted to see the organic asparagus and lion’s-mane mushrooms. What they did not want to see was a stainless-steel, supposedly bulletproof Cybertruck. Every red light created new moments for mockery. “You fucker!” yelled a bicyclist as he pedaled past me on P Street. The diners eating brunch on the sidewalk nearby laughed and cheered. Then came the next stoplight: A woman eating outside at Le Pain Quotidien gave me the middle finger for a solid 20 seconds, all without interrupting her conversation.

After some more observations of unhinged leftist hate, Desai wrote something that could earn him eternal enmity from the very same liberals he was describing. He PRAISED the performance of the Cybertruck:

Over and over again, as pedestrians and drivers alike glared at me, I had to remind myself: It’s just a car. And it’s kind of a cool one, too. It can apparently outrace a Porsche 911, while simultaneously towing a Porsche 911. Or it can power a house for up to three days. My day in the Cybertruck wasn’t extremely hard-core, but the eight onboard cameras made city driving more bearable than I was expecting. Regardless of what you do with it, the car is emissions-free. “The underlying technology of the Cybertruck is amazing,” Loren McDonald, an EV analyst at the firm Paren, told me. And the exterior undersells just how ridiculous it is. Just before I returned the car on Monday morning, I took an impromptu Zoom meeting from the giant in-car touchscreen. It has a single windshield wiper that is so long—more than five feet—that Musk has compared it to a “katana.”

Attention Elon Musk! Your Cybertruck has just received a GLOWING REVIEW from the pages of Atlantic magazine. Perhaps you can quote Atlantic’s senior associate Saahil Desai in your Cybertruck advertising material. And considering the source of the review, we know that Mr. Desai had to be over the top impressed by the Cybertruck despite all the deranged leftist hate directed towards it.

In a report devoted to complaining about President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting the imposition of woke ideology at the Smithsonian, Univision made a huge and puzzling omission: the fledgling National Museum of the American Latino.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t have an absurd soundbite for you, though. Here’s D.C. correspondent Edwin Pitti bemoaning the fact that Trump wants to remove men, “trans women” as they are called here, from the Smithsonian American Women’s Museum.

EDWIN PITTI: The president wants museums to be aligned with his government. For example, in the case of the American Women’s History Museum, Trump does not want them to recognize transgender women. 

As I’ve often said with regards to Spanish-language news media: if your business model depends on a continuously broken border, your enterprise will align with politicians that can deliver that and you will eventually fall in line on everything else. This is how Univision ends up championing not just a broken border but abortion, gun confiscation, euthanasia, and now the Smithsonian’s inclusion of exhibits featuring “trans women” (or, to be more precise, MEN) in a women’s museum. 

What is left out of these reports is often substantial- more so than what actually makes it in. Like in freshman year art class, when you get taught to look at the empty spaces. In this case, from the executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”:

The forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women’s sports. 

The report is also critical of what Trump wants to change at the National Museum of African American history. Again, from the executive order:

The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.” 

These omissions strongly suggest that Pitti didn’t read the executive order prior to running with the story, instead going off of some activist’s one-pager. That reasonable theory gains credence when also considering that at no point does the executive order make reference to “progressive left ideology”. Throughout the EO we have references to ideology as “improper”, “improper partisan”, “corrosive”, and “divisive race-centered”, but none as “progressive left.” Either Pitti didn’t read the order or he thinks his viewers are morons. Or both.

Missing from the report is the monstrosity derisively known as the “National Latinx Museum”, an absurdity intended to radicalize Hispanics and permanently alienate them from Mainstream America.

None of that makes it into the report, intended to inflame and aggrieve but not actually inform. 

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on Noticiero Univision on Friday, March 28th, 2025:

ILIA CALDERON: For more than 175 years, Smithsonian museums have documented American history in all its nuance, but now they are in the government’s crosshairs. Edwin Pitti tells us why.

EDWIN PITTI: “Restoring Truth and Sanity in American History.” That’s the name of the executive order President Trump signed to purge the Smithsonian museums of a culture he says is divisive and anti-American.

JUAN ELIEL GARCIA: No one can deny that the United States lived a very dark time when we were allowing and living with slaves. But we also have to recognize that this history is from the past.

PITTI: The order asks Vice President JD Vance to eliminate from the 21 museums and 14 study centers an ideology that the White House calls “progressive left.”

MARIBEL BALBIN: History is history. You can’t erase history. The fact that those things are not happening in the horrible way that they were happening at that time does not mean that they do not, do not have to be studied.

PITTI: The president wants museums to be aligned with his government. For example, in the case of the American Women’s History Museum, Trump does not want them to recognize transgender women. And in the museum that tells the harsh history of African Americans, not to use narratives that divide the country. A very close source who holds a high position here at the National Museum of African American History tells me that what President Trump criticizes them for is something they published on their website, but he also tells me that they are not obligated to implement the changes that The White House wants, and it is for two reasons. The first is that many of the Smithsonian’s employees do not work for the federal government, and also that much of its funding comes from private donations.

SULMA ACEVEDO: No, I believe that museums should be preserved because that is the history of humanity at any time, so that should be preserved. No matter what. 

CONSTANZA ZAMBRANO: Those who do not know their history will not be able to live correctly for the future.

PITTI: The order says the Interior Secretary must repair federal property, parks and monuments, including statues of Confederate generals that had been removed. In Washington, D.C: Edwin Pitti. Univision.

CALDERON: With all its nuances, but it is the history of this country.

 

Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Weekend featured a clip from a town hall in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. In November, Trump and Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz carried the district handily: by 16 and 18 points, respectively.

Yet the crowd overwhelmingly and raucously cheered the suggestion that the congresswoman should demand Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation, given the Signal chat that mistakenly included a journalist.  

Co-host Symone Sanders claimed the cheering people were district “constituents,” and co-host Michael Steele took it a step further, saying they were Republicans. The show provided no evidence to support either statement. Did MSNBC make any effort to confirm the residence or registration of the crowd members?

Hypocrisy-proof Steele concluded the segment by saying:

“This sets up additional narratives, I think, for voters as well as journalists to dig a little bit deeper and find out a little bit more.”

Amen, Michael!

Why don’t you “dig a little deeper” and report back what percentage of the crowd were, as you and Sanders claimed, Republican constituents of the 5th district? Was this an authentic grassroots outpouring? Cause we’re getting a whiff of astroturf!

Here’s the transcript.MSNBC
The Weekend
3/30/25
8:00 am EDT

SYMONE SANDERS: Donald Trump’s Signal debacle is taking hold beyond the beltway. Everyday Americans are demanding action from Republican members of Congress, even as the president dismisses their concerns. 

At a fiery town hall on Friday, voters urged Indiana Congresswoman Victoria Spartz to demand the resignations of cabinet officials who discussed sensitive military movements on the unsecured messaging app Signal. 

TOWNHALL AUDIENCE MEMBER: Won’t you demand the resignation of Pete Hegseth? [The overwhelming majority of the crowd goes wild, cheering the suggestion.]

SANDERS: I mean, Indiana’s 5th Congressional District is not a bastion of a Democratic stronghold, if you will. Very red place. 

Despite that spirited response from her constituents, though, Spartz said she would not call for resignations over the administration’s recklessness. That falls right in line with what Trump just exclusively told our NBC News colleague Kristen Welker. Quote, I don’t fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts. 

What is the fake news and what is the witch hunt? 

MICHAEL STEELE: [Laughs] Well, they’re all the same. Look, we’re in the childish game portion of all of this where, you know, Trump gets out and whines and stamps his feet and pouts and stomps and stamps, you know. And Republicans, you know, they wind up doing the same thing and looking very silly. 

But the audience, that room of Republican voters in a red district have a different understanding of what they’re seeing and witnessing from this administration, and they don’t like it. 

ALICIA MENENDEZ: It’s interesting to me, too. I mean, the decision to talk about it at the town hall, obviously it came from the fact that voters brought it up, but the NRCC has issued guidance saying, don’t touch this thing, stay on message. And and while she was not willing to call for his resignation, she also did not carry the water on the idea that this is this is trivial or unimportant. 

SANDERS: Yes. Because people can again, the administration is asking you to ignore what you can see with your own eyes.

STEELE: Right.

SANDERS: And to ignore what what you believe in your own understanding. They’re asking you to defy logic. And I think people should push back. 

STEELE: And they are. And that’s the best part of this. 

And I think as this next week unfolds, this sets up additional narratives, I think, for voters as well as journalists to dig a little bit deeper and find out a little bit more. 

A Brennan-less Face the Nation means that there is a reduced potential for fireworks á la “I don’t care, Margaret”. But this doesn’t mean that Democrat talking points won’t get free reign, as demonstrated by substitute host Major Garrett’s interview of United Auto Workers Union president Shawn Fain.

Watch as Garrett sets Fain up to bash President Donald Trump’s executive order curtailing or ending the unionization of federal employees:

Hosting @FaceTheNation, @MajorCBS cues up a left-wing guest to agree with a left wing attack on a Trump policy: “Regards an effort by the Trump administration, through the President, to stop or certainly dramatically slow collective bargaining for federal workers. Randy Erwin,… pic.twitter.com/1RG1Vu1NoR
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) March 30, 2025

MAJOR GARRETT: I’ll get back to the tariffs and autos in a second. But since you brought up this executive order, it regards an effort by the Trump administration, through the President, to stop- or certainly dramatically slow collective bargaining for federal workers. Randy Ervin [sic], who is currently the president of the National Federation of the Federal Employees, called it “the biggest assault on collective bargaining” he has ever seen. Do you agree with those sentiments?

SHAWN FAIN: Exactly. I mean, spot on. Look, I remember when I was 12 years old when Reagan busted the PATCO workers, you know that was a massive issue back then and we’ve heard a lot of people talk about the labor–

GARRETT: The air traffic controllers union, yes–

FAIN:  Yes, yes. And you know that- that, you know, labor should have done more then. Look, this is 100 times worse than PATCO ever dreamed of being.

The interview opened with discussion of the impact of tariffs on the domestic auto industry. Fain came out in support of these in principle, but lamented the idea that the jobs growth might come in states with right-to-work laws.

This led to the histrionic exchange with Fain comparing Trump’s executive order to President Ronald Reagan’s firing of the striking air traffic controllers in 1980. Garrett then prompted Fain to comment on whether auto tariffs were an acceptable tradeoff to the rest of the parade of horribles that might be enacted by Trump, tiptoeing right to the edge of that language:

GARRETT: So for those listening to you, Shawn, do you want them to conclude, well, if we get the tariffs and there are a few more auto jobs, it’s worth all the other terrible- or maybe terrible- that’s too strong a word, but all the other things you just talked about: Medicaid, free speech, collective bargaining, is that a deal that’s worth them taking?

FAIN: Not at all. Let me be clear about this, you know, because I think this is being misconstrued here, there’s been no change in where we stand politically as a union, and where, you know, what our stance is. Look, we’ve been very clear since day one of my administration. You know, we have expectations. Endorsements are earned, but at the end of the day, like we’re not, we know we’re not partisan to any one- any one party here.

This exchange requires viewers to suspend all disbelief, and pretend they didn’t see Fain acting like the Temu Hulk Hogan at the 2024 Democratic National Convention- where he quoted Nelly (“it’s getting hot in heeerrrrre”) took off his jacket mid-speech to reveal a “Trump is a Scab” t-shirt. Fain’s claims of nonpartisanship are a joke, eclipse only by Garrett’s absence of interest in challenging or pushing back on a liberal delivering liberal talking points.

Brennan’s weekend off meant no fireworks at Face the Nation, but there was still plenty of cringe and pro-liberal solicitude.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, March 30th, 2025:

MAJOR GARRETT: We go now to the president of the United Auto Workers Union, Shawn Fain. Shawn, it’s great to have you with us. I appreciate the time. Let’s start very simply on the question of tariffs on autos and auto parts. Fundamentally, and quite simply, why do you believe those are helpful for your membership?

FAIN: Thanks for having me. Look, all you have to do is look at the history of the United States, especially in auto manufacturing in the last 30 years, with the inception of NAFTA and unfair trade laws. We’ve seen over 90,000 manufacturing facilities leave the United States. We’ve seen- in the Big Three alone, in the last 20 plus years, 65 plants have closed. You know- And so look, tariffs aren’t the total solution. Tariffs are a tool in the toolbox to get these companies to do the right thing, and- and the intent behind it is to bring jobs back here. And, you know, invest in the American workers. The American working class people have been left behind for decades, and they’re sick of it. You know, it’s a massive struggle. People are struggling just to get- to survive right now, to get by. And so, you know- you know- you know, there’s two parts to the tariffs though. I mean, the tariffs are a motivator. We have to fix the broken trade laws. And the other thing to me is, you know, these can’t just be just, you know, as with the Biden administration, when they did the stuff for battery work and EV work, we had to come in and say, no, these can’t just be union jobs or- or jobs. They got to be good paying union jobs that set standards. So the big part of this that gets left out a lot of times is, if they’re going to bring jobs back here, you know, they need to be life sustaining jobs where people can make a good wage, a living wage, have adequate health care and have a retirement security and not have to work seven days a week or multiple jobs, just a scrape to get by, paycheck to paycheck. 

GARRETT: Do you have assurances from the Trump administration as you dialogue with it about those things you just laid out, not just jobs, but a substantial wage, healthcare and the like?

FAIN: I mean that- I mean that is the conversation we’re having naturally. I mean, we, you know, that’s- that’s the part of this. I mean, look, I’ll be honest with you, it’s- every time we speak, we talk about bringing jobs back, about bringing the manufacturing base back in this country, you know. But you know, it doesn’t do any good if they’re going to locate them in places and they’re not going to have the opportunity to have a union, you know. And so naturally, we have concerns. We have great concerns after- after what happened last night. You know, with the stroke of a marker, you know, Trump eliminated bargaining- or eliminated contracts for 700,000 federal workers. You know, we have- we have concerns with what’s going on with our higher education sector that we represent. We have members who are being detained, you know, their right to free speech being violated. We have workers at the National Institute of Health that provide vital research, and that- that is for the betterment of the people. So, you know, we have big concerns with that. So naturally, yes, every time we talk about trade, talk about tariffs, it’s an integral part of that, these have to be good paying union jobs. 

GARRETT: I’ll get back to the tariffs and autos in a second. But since you brought up this executive order, it regards an effort by the Trump administration, through the President, to stop- or certainly dramatically slow collective bargaining for federal workers. Randy Ervin [sic], who is currently the president of the National Federation of the Federal Employees, called it “the biggest assault on collective bargaining” he has ever seen. Do you agree with those sentiments?

FAIN: Exactly. I mean, spot on. Look, I remember when I was 12 years old when Reagan busted the PATCO workers, you know that was a massive issue back then and we’ve heard a lot of people talk about the labor–

GARRETT: The air traffic controllers union, yes–

FAIN:  Yes, yes. And you know that- that, you know, labor should have done more then. Look, this is 100 times worse than PATCO ever dreamed of being. When you’re talking, you know, 700,000 people, their contracts just being taken away. And so, you know, as I said, you know, free speech is under attack. Unions are under attack. You look at the changes to the NLRB, you look at the situation at the Department of Labor, Department of Education, you know, Veterans Affairs. I mean, why are all these things under attack? Medicare, Social Security. It’s because, you know, billionaires want more tax cuts for themselves, and that we- it’s been proven time and again that’s not what works for America. That’s not good for the American people. The working class people in America, they want their fair share. They’re not asking to be rich. They just want a decent standard of living. And again, that goes back to what we call our four core issues. You know, living wages, adequate health care, retirement security and having some quality of life other than just everything revolving around work. 

GARRETT: So for those listening to you, Shawn, do you want them to conclude, well, if we get the tariffs and there are a few more auto jobs, it’s worth all the other terrible- or maybe terrible- that’s too strong a word, but all the other things you just talked about: Medicaid, free speech, collective bargaining, is that a deal that’s worth them taking?

FAIN: Not at all. Let me be clear about this, you know, because I think this is being misconstrued here, there’s been no change in where we stand politically as a union, and where, you know, what our stance is. Look, we’ve been very clear since day one of my administration. You know, we have expectations. Endorsements are earned, but at the end of the day, like we’re not, we know we’re not partisan to any one- any one party here. We expect, no matter what party someone comes from, to stand up for what we believe in. So just because we find common ground on tariffs or on trade doesn’t mean that everything else goes out the window. It’s despicable what happened last night. It’s despicable some of the other things that are going on. Like I said, some of our members have been detained. You know, their jobs are being threatened, and it’s unacceptable. So no, there is no trade off here, you know. So we- we continue to do what we do, and we have integrity. When we can- when we can work with a politician on an issue, and we get traction, we’re going to work with them, but where we can’t, we’re going to be just as vocal. 

GARRETT: Understood. Let’s get back to the tariffs and the auto industry. Peter Navarro, a top adviser to the president on trade, says currently, automobile manufacturing plants are at about 60% capacity. He argues that there’s lots of untapped capacity, meaning jobs could be created relatively easy, and you didn’t have to need- you wouldn’t need to spend two or three or maybe five years building new factories. Is that your understanding? Is that your belief?

FAIN: It’s- he’s spot on. Look, we have a situation right now in Warren, Michigan where 2,000 workers were laid off this past year. They- they built the Ram truck there for years under Stellantis, and Stellantis made a decision to shift that production to Mexico. They could shift that work back in- in very short order and be producing Ram trucks right back there and put those people back to work. I was just at Volkswagen this week, you know, talking with workers down there that are trying to get their first contract, and the company announced a reduction of a shift. Meanwhile, you know, Volkswagen is the biggest violator of all. They- 75% of their production for the North American market is made in Mexico, so they can shift product there overnight. There’s excess capacity. You know, we- people forget this lesson in World War II. The way that we- we formed the Arsenal of Democracy that won the war was, they took the excess capacity of all the automotive manufacturing plants in the country, and produced tanks and planes and bombs and engines and all those things. And it’s no different right now. We have excess capacity. They could bring work back in very short order. And yes, they’re- in a situation where they need to build a new plant, yeah, that’s going to take a couple years, but- but there is plenty of opportunity for these companies to do the right thing and bring work back here overnight, just as quick as they shifted out of here. 

GARRETT: And Shawn, for people who are listening to you, how do tariffs make that happen? How do- what is the relationship between a 20 or 25% tariff and getting that capacity back up to where you’d like it to see- you’d like to see it?

FAIN: Well, because, like everything, the companies abuse the process. I mean, they- you know, they- they- they’re in the pursuit of driving a race to the bottom. I mean, the tariffs are- you know, there was a major promise when NAFTA- and we go back to when NAFTA happened in 1992, the big debate, and- and Ross Perot talked about the giant sucking sound, that our manufacturing base was going to disappear. He was spot on, you know. And- and we saw what happened in the- in the ensuing 30 years. We see 90,000 plants leave. You know, like I said, we’ve seen 65 plants in the Big Three close. Look, right now, as we speak, in- in- in Wisconsin, we have a Deere plant threatening to be closed, and their work being- being threatened to go to Mexico. We have a heavy truck plant in- at Volvo, and Mack Truck in Pennsylvania being threatened to be taken to Mexico. There is plenty of opportunity, and that’s the reality that- that we’ve seen here in America. So, tariffs are a tool in the toolbox. They’re not the end all solution. We have to fix the broken trade system. But- but the way tariffs work, I mean, it’s a motivator, because there’s going to be a penalty for everything the companies ship in here, and I’ve had companies tell us, point blank, that they’re going to have to bring product back here if those tariffs are implemented. 

GARRETT: You mentioned NAFTA. Of course, NAFTA has been replaced by USMCA. And I well remember, and you might remember this, Shawn, January 2020, President Trump in the Rose Garden said the following: “USMCA is the largest, fairest, most balanced modern trade agreement ever achieved. It will add another 1.2% to our GDP, create countless new American jobs.” Again, I’m quoting, “It will make our blue collar boom.” Is USMCA a part of this problem, negotiated by President Trump?

FAIN: Well, yes. I mean, USMCA, I mean, obviously there were changes made, there were- there were some improvements, but it didn’t go far enough. There were still a lot of loopholes in it. And, you know, we- as a result of the- of the renegotiated NAFTA, you know, we still saw an increase in the deficit we have, especially with Mexico. But at the end of the day it’s up for renegotiation next year. So nothing stops them from- from getting to work, you know, and we’re right here. We’re here every day. We’ve been very open with them about, we want to work with them. We want to find ways to fix the USMCA and- and fix the atrocities of NAFTA that the working class in this country have suffered and the communities in this country have suffered for decades. 

GARRETT: Shawn, the market research firm Cox Automotive, for this year, is projecting 700,000 fewer cars will be produced and sold, because of consumer anxiety over sticky inflation, meaning persistent inflation, and nervousness about cost impacts of tariffs. If 700,000 cars, or trucks, fewer, are being made and sold, how does that help your workforce?

FAIN: Well, it doesn’t. But, you know, we need to be- we need to take a hard look at this, because those same- the same economists that are saying this now are the same ones in 1992 that said, overnight, when NAFTA was created, there would be 400,000 jobs created in America in the first year. We know what happened there. They got it wrong. And the interesting part to me- all this crying about the effects of- of tariffs, I find it interesting, because to me, this is just Wall Street. Now that Wall Street’s upset about it, it’s an issue. Where was Wall Street when- when all these manufacturing facilities have been leaving the country in the last 30 years? You know, interestingly enough, you know, automotive companies in the last three years, 2019- 2019 to 2023, they jacked up the price of vehicles 35% to 40% over that time frame. Not because of anything that happened, not because wages went up. It was just flat out price gouging to consumer and corporate greed. Where was the outcry then? They don’t have to raise the price of vehicles a penny with these tariffs. It’s a decision that the companies are making, and that lays straight in the hands of the- of the companies.

GARRETT: The White House also says when it comes to the auto industry, currently, we are essentially an assembly auto industry, we don’t make drive trains. We don’t make the things within the car that have the most material value and the most worker involvement. A, is that true? And B, how does that change?

FAIN: Well, it’s somewhat true. There’s been a huge shift in the last several decades, thanks to the unfair trade laws, where a lot of the, you know, the parts, the supply chain, the parts and the engines and transmissions have been sourced. But we still do produce those things. I can tell you where I come from, at Kokomo, Indiana. We still make the transmissions. We make engine blocks. We still produce engines here in Michigan, in the Big Three. So we still do some of that work. I mean, we’ve brought, you know, some of the battery work in thanks to the Biden administration and their plans with the IRA. I mean, so, you know, we’re working on a lot of that work, you know. So that is powertrain type work, so the drive trains, things like that. But yes, a lot of that work was sourced, was casualties of NAFTA and broken trade laws.

GARRETT: And when you think about the future of the auto industry for the next two or three years, does it survive without tariffs?

FAIN: Like I said, I think tariffs are a tool in the toolbox. I think they’re a initial motivator, but ultimately, we have to fix the broken trade laws in this country and any trade laws we have-  let’s be clear about this. It has to have a social policy, and it’s got to have a decent standard of living. It’s got to have adequate health care for everyone. It’s got to have retirement security for people when they’re too old to work and too young to die, and it’s got to have some quality of life initiatives into it, where people don’t have to work around the clock and their life has to revolve around- around work. So, you know, there’s a lot of things we have to fix to make it work. You know, and I want to make this clear. Mexican workers, they’re not the enemy. They’ve been exploited for decades. You know, another promise of NAFTA was that it was going to raise the standard for everybody. The realization of that is the wages in America and the wages in Mexico were cut in half over the- over the last 30 years as a result of NAFTA. So it’s driving a race to the bottom, and that’s not going to work for anybody. 

GARRETT: Shawn, your membership makes you powerful, so you associate with presidents. From your perspective, what’s more valuable to your membership, a president who walks a picket line or imposes tariffs?

FAIN: I mean, it’s- it’s- it’s both. I mean, a president- ultimately, it’s a president that supports organized labor and supports good working conditions and good safe jobs and good union contracts, and so that’s the big concern right now. I mean, you know, while we applaud the shift with tariffs here under this administration, again, it’s deplorable what happened last night with the stroke of a marker, you know, stripping away bargaining- stripping away contractual rights for hundreds of thousands of union workers, attacking the free speech of union workers. So, you know, and we can’t stand for that. So like I said–

(CROSSTALK)

GARRETT: And how about changes at the National Labor Relations Board? 

FAIN: –we do take this issue by issue. 

GARRETT: How about changes at the National Labor Relations Board? 

FAIN: I’m sorry? 

GARRETT: How about changes at the National Labor Relations Board? Which would have to be there–

FAIN: Yeah exactly 

GARRETT: –to safeguard the kind of things you want protected.

(END CROSSTALK)

FAIN: Yes, no. Every- everything, like I said. I mean, that’s like, I’ve been very clear about this. Look, as I said, when we find something we agree with someone on that we can work with them on, we’re going to work with them. But, but again, the list is very long, of things we don’t agree on. I mean, all these attacks on Department of Labor, Department of Education, you know, the NLRB, you know, naturally with, you know, the cuts with the federal workers, the cuts with our- our higher ed workers, the attacks on our higher education workers on these college campuses, on their free speech, you know, again, on the National Institute of Health workers, those things are unacceptable. And yes, we- look, we’re organizing right now, and these companies hire union busters. They break the law every day. Volkswagen’s breaking the law as we speak. There’s got to be mechanisms in place to hold them accountable. And when you weaken all those things, or you eliminate those things, obviously that’s not going to be good. 

GARRETT: Shawn, last question, our recent polling shows a five percent shift, five percent more Americans than in February fear a coming recession within the next year. Does your membership?

FAIN: I mean, I think a lot of people are cautious right now. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of uncertainty with what’s going on. I mean, you know, when you are stripping bargaining rights and you’re, you know, threatening to fire, you know, workers all over the country and fire federal workers, things like that. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of concern. 

GARRETT: FAIN, United Auto Workers President, thank you very, very much.

FAIN:  Thank you for having us. 

GARRETT: And we’ll be back in just a moment.

 

The late, great Andrew Breitbart forcefully and repeatedly made the case that “politics is downstream from culture.” CBS’s extended whine session over the Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Breitbart was ultimately right.

Watch as former CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell sits stolidly while the former artistic director of the National Symphony Orchestra decries the “authoritarian instinct” compelling the Kennedy Center takeover (click “expand” to view transcript):

CBS’s @NorahODonnell takes on Trump at @KenCen. Ben Folds: “There is an instinct, an authoritarian instinct, that is true in all authoritarian times in history. Take control of the culture. Take control of the arts. Early on.”
O’Donnell on @CBSSunday: “What’s the hardest part… pic.twitter.com/tj1wUksCkd
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) March 30, 2025

NORAH O’DONNELL: Musician Ben Folds is among those who resigned after serving as the artistic advisor of the National Symphony Orchestra, part of the Kennedy Center.

BEN FOLDS: Let’s say I get in, uh, an artist that has different views than the president. Do they feel safe being themselves? Do they feel safe saying what they believe? They’re not political shows, but this is, you can express what you’d like to.

O’DONNELL: And you think that’s no longer the case?

FOLDS: Well, I suspect it’s no longer the case. There is an instinct, an authoritarian instinct, that is true in all authoritarian times in history. Take control of the culture. Take control of the arts. Early on.

O’DONNELL: We reached out to The White House and Kennedy Center for this story. No one responded to our request for interviews. 

What’s the hardest part about all this?

DEBORAH RUTTER: I think the sting is the disregard for expertise and experience. And we were working towards something extraordinary.

O’DONNELL: Now, Deborah Rutter says she hopes the institution’s founding message isn’t forgotten.

RUTTER: I often go back to Eisenhower’s words, and then Kennedy’s words, to think about, who are we? What do we do? We believe that all of Americans should be seen and should feel welcome at the Kennedy Center.

The most galling quote of the interview, undoubtedly, is that “authoritarianism” crack. The takeover of each of our institutions by the radical left concluded with the takeover of culture that championed the destructive rise of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States. What we are seeing now is the beginning of a course correction that seeks to bring culture back in line with our politics. Whining about “authoritarianism” is little more than lefty elites’ displaced mourning at the fact that their “authoritarians” are no longer in charge.

Case in point: the report mentions Hamilton producers refusing to perform at the Kennedy Center subsequent to Trump’s takeover. Not mentioned: the Hamilton cast berating then-Vice President Elect Mike Pence in New York. Their whining about politics is hypocritical.

O’Donnell’s platforming of this nonsense might play among the D.C. chattering classes and in Georgetown cocktail parties, but falls flat among the the rest of America that is sick and tired of having their noses rubbed in entertainment featuring elites’ fetish of the day.

If only Andrew were here to see this.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Sunday Morning on March 30th, 2025:

JANE PAULEY: This morning, Norah O’Donnell takes a closer look at those sweeping changes afoot for a storied Washington institution. 

DONALD TRUMP: So do you want a little picture like this?

NORAH O’DONNELL: President Trump is taking center stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

TRUMP: We make a lot of changes, including the seats, the decor. Pretty much everything. Needs a lot of work.

O’DONNELL: He’s directing many of those changes as the new chairman of the board. Out are all of President Joe Biden’s appointees, replaced with Trump allies.

TRUMP: It is a very big part of the fabric of Washington, D.C. And we’re going to make our capital great again, just like we’re going to make our country great again.

O’DONNELL: The Trump White House says an overhaul is needed because the marquee arts center is, quote, “woke and broke.” 

Is the Kennedy Center broke?

DEBORAH RUTTER: The Kennedy Center has the most complicated financial model, and that is true of every nonprofit arts organization. We did a lot of really great things that I really love…

O’DONNELL: Last month, Deborah Rutter was fired as president of the Kennedy Center after serving for more than a decade. The institution has a budget of $268 million, with 43 million from the federal government. In 2023, it had a $6 million surplus. Is the Kennedy Center supposed to be a money making, profitable enterprise?

RUTTER: Right. We’re a non profit organization. The answer is no. It’s not intended to make money.

O’DONNELL: Its budget comes mostly from donations. Billionaire businessman and former chairman David Rubenstein has given more than $100 million. He, too, was fired last month.

RUTTER: To have us both leaving at the same time does cause me some worry because of the sense of understanding of structure, decision making, how we go about interpretating(sic) our mission, um, all of those kinds of things.

JOHN F. KENNEDY: Art knows no national boundaries.

O’DONNELL: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was founded in 1971 as a national cultural center and memorial to president John F. Kennedy. Its annual honors ceremony, which airs on CBS, features the best in music, theater and dance. But now conservatives charge it’s too liberal, highlighting three drag events last year. Was it a mistake to host drag shows?

RUTTER: I don’t think so. I believe that everybody in America has the opportunity to be seen, and to be seen at your national cultural center. The shows that he’s referring to are three of the 2,000 performances that take place at the Kennedy Center.

O’DONNELL: What do you think the focus on those three shows was about?

RUTTER: I cannot actually imagine. Drag has been around for centuries. Shakespeare performed in drag. The original Shakespeare.

O’DONNELL: President Trump boycotted the Kennedy Center honors during his first term, after criticism from honorees like Norman Lear. So what does the new chairman have planned now? In audio obtained by Sunday Morning, he suggests a new host.

TRUMP: A king of ratings. Right. Whether we like it or not, the king of ratings. So if I was the host of the honors, and we’ll go slightly more conservative, if you don’t mind, with some of the people.

O’DONNELL: What kind of people does President Trump want to honor?

PAOLO ZAMPOLI: They were mentioning a list of people. I remember the name of Pavarotti, I remember the name of Andrea Bocelli. They wanted to do about- something about Elvis Presley.

O’DONNELL: Paolo Zampoli, longtime friend of the president, has been on the board since 2020. 

What kind of ideas do you have to make the Kennedy Center better?

ZAMPOLI: Well, we’re, uh, in the Potomac River. We could have a little marina where in the weekend, boats can come there. Nice cafes. Nice location where they can spend the weekend there and make it like a destination. Other things that I suggested is to branch franchises around the world.

O’DONNELL: Another idea? Sending art to the International Space Station.

ZAMPOLI: My idea was to have, um, not Michelangelo, not Picasso, but, you know, living contemporary artists to create this very small piece of art. One can be displayed inside the ISS, one can be thrown in low orbit, that can circulate in the orbit and one can be auctioned, on the ground of the Kennedy Center because they need to raise money.

O’DONNELL: There are some artists who feel like they won’t be welcome at the Kennedy Center. Artists who are gay or lesbian, LGBTQ.

ZAMPOLI: I don’t think, uh, the president have anything against these kind of people. I don’t understand what this distinct inclusion or this woke- this- the Kennedy Center is acceptable for everybody and has to represent the agenda of America.

O’DONNELL: Not everyone agrees. One thing you won’t see is the musical Hamilton. Producers canceled shows after President Trump became chairman.

TRUMP: I never liked Hamilton very much and, uh, I never liked it.

O’DONNELL: There have been several other high profile cancellations and resignations. The vice president was even booed at a recent performance. 

You were a part of the Kennedy Center leadership during the first Trump administration.

BEN FOLDS: That’s right.

O’DONNELL: And was there any involvement in politics then?

FOLDS: Never saw anything like this, no. This is new, and it was quite sudden.

O’DONNELL: Musician Ben Folds is among those who resigned after serving as the artistic advisor of the National Symphony Orchestra, part of the Kennedy Center.

FOLDS: Let’s say I get in, uh, an artist that has different views than the president. Do they feel safe being themselves? Do they feel safe saying what they believe? They’re not political shows, but this is, you can express what you’d like to.

O’DONNELL: And you think that’s no longer the case?

FOLDS: Well, I suspect it’s no longer the case. There is an instinct, an authoritarian instinct, that is true in all authoritarian times in history. Take control of the culture. Take control of the arts. Early on.

O’DONNELL: We reached out to The White House and Kennedy Center for this story. No one responded to our request for interviews. 

What’s the hardest part about all this?

RUTTER: I think the sting is the disregard for expertise and experience. And we were working towards something extraordinary.

O’DONNELL: Now, Deborah Rutter says she hopes the institution’s founding message isn’t forgotten.

RUTTER: I often go back to Eisenhower’s words, and then Kennedy’s words, to think about, who are we? What do we do? We believe that all of Americans should be seen and should feel welcome at the Kennedy Center.

 

In their eagerness to play up the recent Signal chat affair for all they possibly could, CNN News Central made what just might have been the worst available choice on Capitol Hill to pontificate on national security. On Friday, they invited Rep. Eric Swalwell (D- CA), to do so, ignoring the fact that he himself had been the subject of a humiliating national security scandal, and also revealed a hypocritical double standard regarding the use of Signal specifically for sensitive communications.

After the two indulged in some stock accusations of Trump treating the world like a “Risk board,” John Berman then raised the subject of the Signal group chat affair, which for the previous few days had been almost all the liberal media had wanted to talk about. He asked Swalwell, “As you look to the future- and you serve on all kinds of committees that deal with the military, and in the past, in intelligence- what do you think the impact will be from this going forward?”

Swalwell had indeed served on the House Intelligence Committee, but the elephant in the room that Berman completely ignored was that while on that committee Swalwell himself had been responsible for a high-profile national security breach, when it turned out that he was dating a woman named Fang Fang who was exposed as a spy for Communist China.

Nevertheless, as though Swalwell was well-qualified to get high and mighty about national security, Berman let him vent about the current matter:

[E]very member of Congress- at least on our side- should ask every intelligence official and every military official when they appear under oath before Congress, ‘are you using signal chat?’… This was a military strike with no security awareness as to who was in the chat. And by the way, John, the American people are not going to be gaslit about this. They know that anyone else… if they had done this, they’d be gone. They’d lose access to any classified information. They’d never be able to work in the government again. And that’s why Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz should no longer be in the government, and it’s just a complete lack of accountability that Donald Trump is showing by keeping them.

 

 

True to form for CNN, Berman seemed completely oblivious to the irony of someone like Swalwell feeling entitled to run his mouth about “lack of accountability,” but, in fact, the reference to gaslighting in this very context was rich for CNN as well.

In the defamation case of Zachary Young v. CNN, which CNN had lost earlier that year, CNN’s own reporter Katie Bo Lillis had testified that she herself used the Signal app, with a one-week deletion timer installed, as a security precaution. This illustrated the point that, at very least, the use of apps such as Signal was not itself an extreme or unusual thing for persons responsible for sensitive information.

The network’s chief national security correspondent, Alex Marquardt also used Signal to communicate. It was a point which also came up during the trial.

CNN had suffered a spectacular defeat in that case as the world looked on, but that had seemingly done nothing to boost their self-awareness. 

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

CNN News Central
03/28/2025
9:10: AM

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: VP VANCE, SECOND LADY USHA VANCE ON CONTROVERSIAL TRIP TO GREENLAND]

JOHN BERMAN: With us now is Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us. 

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D- CA.): Yeah.

BERMAN: And just one quick question on Greenland. One other thing that happened since when this trip was originally announced, when it was just the second lady, and now-

SWALWELL: Yeah-

BERMAN: -Is the whole Signal scandal. 

SWALWELL: Yep.

BERMAN: And I wonder if the vice president’s decision to go, if you think that was somehow affected by that?

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: VP VANCE LEADS TRIP TO GREENLAND AMID SIGNAL CHAT FALLOUT]

SWALWELL: Why is J.D. Vance in Greenland?  Greenlanders don’t want J.D. Vance in Greenland, and Americans don’t want him there. 

I mean, he should go to Greensboro, or Green Bay, and go to a supermarket and see what is really- you know- crunching and hurting everyday Americans right now. 

This is just so insulting to the rest of the world. And we’re losing alliances the way we treat other countries like some Risk- you know- game board. 

And I’ve met in the last couple of weeks with Canadians, with members of the European Parliament, and they’re telling me, it may take generations and- in our lifetime, we may not see the damage undone that this kind of nonsense is doing to us in the world.

BERMAN: I do want to talk about Signal and the group chat and the continued fallout from that. As you look to the future- and you serve on all kinds of committees that deal with the military, and in the past, in intelligence- what do you think the impact will be from this going forward?

SWALWELL: Well, I want to know, are they going to continue to use this type of chat environment for future operations? No one has answered that. 

And every member of Congress- at least on our side- should ask every intelligence official and every military official when they appear under oath before Congress, ‘are you using signal chat?’ 

And by the way, DOGE- these guys are obsessed with deleting jobs. Maybe there’s one job they should create- someone to monitor who’s in the group chat.

BERMAN: You know, it’s interesting, when the Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi, was on TV last night, and [sic.] she actually said that she thinks Signal is secure and that maybe there will be chats- she didn’t specify chats dealing with military attacks- but there would be government-related chats that take place on it going forward.

SWALWELL: That’s fine. There’s a lot of- you know- different apps that you can use to make us efficient. This was a military strike with no security awareness as to who was in the chat. 

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: AG PAM BONDI DOWNPLAYS SIGNAL CHAT ON YEMEN STRIKES]

And by the way, John, the American people are not going to be gaslit about this. They know that anyone else in the military, anyone else in the intelligence community- if they had done this, they’d be gone. They’d lose access to any classified information. They’d never be able to work in the government again. 

And that’s why Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz should no longer be in the government, and it’s just a complete lack of accountability that Donald Trump is showing by keeping them.

BERMAN: Roger Wicker, the Senate chair of the Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, the minority ranking member there, have written a letter, asking for an inspector general report at the Pentagon into this-

SWALWELL: Going nowhere-

BERMAN: -Is that enough?

SWALWELL: It will go absolutely nowhere. And Republicans will do nothing.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: AG SUGGESTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WILL WIN CASES BEFORE SUPREME COURT]

They’re just going to shrink, hide under the bed, just like they always do. 

And by the way, inspectors general were completely fired by Donald Trump. So these are his people, who will investigate him. 

So it’s going to really be on Democrats in Congress to hold them accountable as much as possible, people like Democracy Forward and Mark Elias in the courts, who are pressing- you know- to get as much information about this- hold on tight, keep democracy alive until the midterms, win in the midterms, and cut our hell in half. That’s the plan for the next year-and-a-half.

During his online “Overtime” segment, Maher read a viewer question based on this week’s House DOGE hearing with the CEOs of NPR and PBS questioning their political tilt. The viewer asked: “Should the government continue to send taxpayer dollars to public broadcasting? ”

Maher confused defunding PBS with dismantling PBS: “The Republicans have wanted to get rid of PBS for as long as I can remember. This crowd will probably do it.”

Maher suggested it’s time to defund these networks. This underlines why Maher, with his occasional libertarian hot takes, hasn’t been favored with an NPR promotional platform on the talk show Fresh Air since 2008. 

On #RTOvertime Friday night, @BillMaher: “My namesake, Katherine Maher, was head of NPR, and she said, ‘we’re completely unbiased.’ Give me a break, lady. I mean, they’re crazy far left.” @DefundPBSNPR pic.twitter.com/nlDCj4QHrl
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) March 30, 2025
 

Maher said: “My namesake, Katherine Maher, was head of NPR, and she said ‘we’re completely unbiased.’ Give me a break, lady! I mean, they’re crazy far-left.”

He also said America  is “past the age” where the government funds TV and radio networks. 

“Why do we need to subsidize,” he wondered. “We’re so polarized. These outlets became popular at a time when Republicans and Democrats didn’t hate each other and weren’t at each other’s throats and didn’t think each other was an existential threat. In that world, you can’t have places like this, I think, anymore. They have to be private.”

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

If PBS felt any concern about the hit its reputation for balance took at Wednesday’s devastating DOGE hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday’s PBS News Hour didn’t show it.

On the day after its CEO Paula Kerger testified to Congress that they were fair and balanced, PBS turned to the leftist group Media Matters for America. The News Hour has never invited the Media Research Center for an interview about the state of the media since the MRC was founded in 1987.

How leftist is PBS? In the face of overwhelming evidence of its leftist political agenda, PBS shamelessly turned to another discredited leftist organization as it claims to be unbiased.

After Donald Trump won a second turn, this show created a series titled “On Democracy,” as if Trump’s election wasn’t very democratic. This latest episode suggested the Heritage Foundation’s manual of recommendations Project 2025 was a threat to democracy.

Why? Heritage scholar Mike Gonzalez, who testified in the DOGE hearing, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on why PBS and NPR should be defunded. PBS associates itself with democracy. 

This segment began: 

GEOFF BENNETT: Time now for our series “On Democracy,” where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function what led to this moment in American history, and where the country goes next. Our primary focus tonight is Project 2025, the conservative policy project authored by former Trump administration officials, which became a flash point [for Democrats] during the presidential campaign. Angelo Carusone has studied that 900-page document. He’s president of Media Matters, a progressive nonprofit focused on researching and analyzing news media, including disinformation and online ecosystems….

Bennett toadied to his left-wing guest even more so than usual.

You have emerged as an expert on Project 2025, this road map that then-candidate Trump during the campaign repeatedly disavowed. Now the architect of Project 2025 was just quoted as saying the way that Trump has implemented it has exceeded his wildest dreams. When you look at the way President Trump has expanded his executive authority, he’s dismantled federal agencies, he’s purged the federal work force, how much is Project 2025 guiding this work?

After prodding Carusone with “How should those opposed to what he’s doing, how should they fight back?” Bennett repeated the assumption from the latest Media Matters study — of the political tilt of the top podcasts — that pro-Trump voices have a huge advantage in the current media ecosystem.

BENNETT: And the right and Trump-friendly voices have an advantage here, because the other part of your work is looking at their saturation in the media ecosystem. Tell me about that.

Is this talk of the “media ecosystem” at large a convenient way to change the subject from the undeniable liberal bias of network news, cable news, and public broadcasting specifically, especially after the DOGE hearing?

Carusone claimed, “When you add it all up, the right and right-leaning and right adjacent programming accounts for 82 percent of the major online shows. That’s podcasts. That’s streaming channels. That’s narrative dominance.” Bennett nodded along to the figures, and just facilitated like he was hosting an infomercial: “And that includes podcasts that aren’t overtly political like sports and comedy podcasts, for instance.”

After Carusone’s claim that “72 percent of explicitly non-political programming contained not only political content, but right-leaning political content,” Bennett replied: “It’s quite an asymmetry. I mean, is there any way that Democrats could account for that in a way that is authentic?”

Later on, Bennett saw the supposed right-dominated media (a notion that conveniently pretends MSNBC, CNN, PBS, NPR, and the three major news networks don’t exist) as a threat to democracy.

BENNETT: And that speaks to the broader implications about what it means for our democracy.

CARUSONE: That’s right. And so unless there’s a real concerted effort around that asymmetry, the problem is not only going to not get better. It’s only going to get worse, because let’s keep in mind that when we talk about all the tech oligarchs and the tech giants rolling back their policies, cozying up to Trump, it’s not just that the leaders are doing that. It actually affects the rules of their algorithms, what their systems are doing. That imbalance is only going to speed up because the very systems that support them are actually privileging right-wing lies and right-wing misinformation.

PBS conveniently skipped over the past speech-silencing effect of those “tech oligarchs” and their policies, which are being rolled back under Trump: Under pressure from both the Biden administration and its own leftist employees, social media platforms spent years squelching conservative speech online, from COVID rules to BLM to transgender issues. 

Oddly, while Bennett brought up “disinformation” at the start, and Carusone wound up by mentioning “right-wing misinformation,” the actual Media Matters study mentions neither word.

This segment was brought to you in part by Raymond James.

A transcript is available, click “Expand.”

PBS News Hour

3/27/25

7:38:33 p.m. (ET)

Geoff Bennett: Time now for our series On Democracy, where we hear a range of perspectives on how government should function, what led to this moment in American history, and where the country goes next. Our primary focus tonight is Project 2025, the conservative policy project authored by former Trump administration officials, which became a flash point during the presidential campaign. Angelo Carusone has studied that 900-page document. He’s president of Media Matters, a progressive nonprofit focused on researching and analyzing news media, including disinformation and online ecosystems. I spoke with him days ago. Angelo Carusone, welcome to the “News Hour.”

Angelo Carusone, President, Media Matters for America: Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett: You have emerged as an expert on Project 2025, this road map that then-candidate Trump during the campaign repeatedly disavowed. Now the architect of Project 2025 was just quoted as saying the way that Trump has implemented it has exceeded his wildest dreams. When you look at the way President Trump has expanded his executive authority, he’s dismantled federal agencies, he’s purged the federal work force, how much is Project 2025 guiding this work?

Angelo Carusone: What Project 2025 provided was sort of the core story here, which was to — who’s the bad guy? And that was the deep state. And they basically said, essentially, most of the federal government, most of the federal workers were part of this deep state, a conspiracy to sort of prevent Donald Trump or anybody else from implementing major changes and then — and sort of a conservative agenda. And then the second thing it did was not only provide who the bad guy was, but then who’s the good guy. And, in this case, the good guy is not just Donald Trump. It’s a unitary executive. So that is it. Obviously, there’s a lot of policy that Project 2025 has sort of provided the framework for, but essentially it was a story. And it was a story of who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy? And, to that extent, that story is playing out exactly according to plan. The only major difference is the timeline. It’s just moving along a lot faster. We’re basically in sort of like the fifth or sixth month of Project 2025, according to the book, even though we’re only in the second month of the administration.

Geoff Bennett: So where does this head next then?

Angelo Carusone: Well, one is that we’re barely through — even through the layoffs and the terminations. We have only gotten rid of about 70-or-so-thousand federal workers. Project 2025 calls for somewhere around 300,000 to about a million federal workers to be removed. So where does it go? More layoffs, more terminations. The second thing, and this is the big one, is to sort of set up a collision between the executive branch and the judicial branch. One of the big parts of Project 2025 was to make it very clear that the president and the executive has ultimate authority. And that means that you start with Congress. And Congress has largely abdicated itself to the administration. So that was sort of their first target, but politics basically said, we’re not even going to try to fight this out. We’re not even going to defend our sort of co-equal status. So now where it goes next is sort of a showdown with the federal — with the courts.

Geoff Bennett: If the strategy is all laid out and President Trump, you can argue about what he’s done. You can’t argue that he hasn’t been entirely transparent about it.

Angelo Carusone: Yes.

Geoff Bennett: How should those opposed to what he’s doing, how should they fight back?

Angelo Carusone: I think the thing that’s really important here is that we are not fighting a standard political battle. Project 2025 is really unpopular. Nobody actually really likes the policies there except a very small extreme few, but they don’t see how those policies are actually affecting them. There has to be a bigger story here. And that starts with connecting the dots to the administration’s actions and the harms that people are experiencing. That’s a political issue, but that is that’s as much of a media issue as well. And then, broadly, not this, consensus around not this. And if we are not able to win the hearts and minds, Project 2025, whatever it becomes called, will be the new norm.

Geoff Bennett: And the right and Trump-friendly voices have an advantage here, because the other part of your work is looking at their saturation in the media ecosystem. Tell me about that.

Angelo Carusone: I think the biggest challenge right now that we’re grappling with, and there are lots, but they all sort of play out in one arena, and that is an information landscape. And the real battle from my perspective is in the information war. And the right just has an enormous advantage there. They have had some advantages along the way. There’s always been a little bit of an imbalance. Talk radio and FOX News in the ’90s and early 2000s, they had dominance. They had a lot of listeners, but there were other things that counterbalanced them. So they weren’t dominant in the entire information landscape. They just spoke to a very consolidated few. That’s just not the case anymore. So we just did this really big study that looked on online voices and sort of the largest programs, sort of political and non-political, adjacent left, left adjacent, right, right adjacent. When you add it all up, the right and right-leaning and right adjacent programming accounts for 82 percent of the major online shows. That’s podcasts. That’s streaming channels. That’s just — that’s narrative dominance. That — yes.

Geoff Bennett: And that includes podcasts that aren’t overtly political like sports and comedy podcasts, for instance.

Angelo Carusone: Yes, that was the part that was the most to me surprising and yet disturbing about the study, is that of the 400-plus shows that we looked at, 100 or so of them were non-political, sports, culture. But when you actually looked at an analysis of the program, you listened to them, you coded them, we found that 72 percent of them, 72 percent of explicitly non-political programming contained not only political content, but right-leaning political content. They just branded it or framed it as something different. And that’s where this really becomes key is, is that is the lens through which people see the world. And so when all of that programming is sort of tilting the scales in favor of the right, the story that the majority of Americans are getting day-to-day is right leaning.

And I see no better illustration of that gap than if you look at in particular what’s happening with young people. Young people are accelerating and moving to the right faster than any other demographic. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they just happen to consume online media more than any other demographic does. That’s their primary source and yet they themselves are moving at a faster and faster clip to the right because that landscape is so heavily dominated and saturated by the right.

Geoff Bennett: It’s quite an asymmetry. I mean, is there any way that Democrats could account for that in a way that is authentic?

Angelo Carusone: I mean, that is the key issue here, right, is that they — that they’re playing with a very old playbook, that when they — they think that the issue here is about messaging and message discipline, and say, well, if we all just go out there and say the same thing at the same time, that will get our message out. That model worked 20 years ago. That doesn’t work now. In fact, it feeds into the opposite. They are feeding into the story that’s being told about them, which is that they’re puppets, that they’re inauthentic, that they don’t have anything original to say. So what does that mean in practice? Stop worrying about paid media. Ads are not going to be the solution here. Investing in storytellers — the people online that do this work day-to-day, they’re artists in a way. They’re storytellers. They’re creators. They just need the resources to continue to do what they’re doing. That will help balance out the scales. The second is to stop being so afraid. The right has an advantage. That asymmetry doesn’t just give them the ability to project a story. It also gives their leaders comfort and confidence. If I know that I could go out there and face-plant, and I have a massive ecosystem that is going to be like sandpaper to smooth out all the edges, and not only make that face-plant look like the greatest acrobatic feat ever, but somehow turn it into a reward system for me, I have a lot more comfort. I have a lot more confidence.

Geoff Bennett: And that speaks to the broader implications about what it means for our democracy.

Angelo Carusone: That’s right. And so unless there’s a real concerted effort around that asymmetry, the problem is not only going to not get better. It’s only going to get worse, because let’s keep in mind that when we talk about all the tech oligarchs and the tech giants rolling back their policies, cozying up to Trump, it’s not just that the leaders are doing that. It actually affects the rules of their algorithms, what their systems are doing. That imbalance is only going to speed up because the very systems that support them are actually privileging right-wing lies and right-wing misinformation.

Geoff Bennett: Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, thanks for being here.

Angelo Carusone: Thanks for having me.