Newsbusters

In a 10-and-a-half-minute battle early Friday, CNBC’s Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen dueled Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) over the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) work to address our unsustainable national debt and the left’s double standard in having refused to demand any accountability for Joe Biden’s deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin having gone AWOL in late 2023 and early 2024

Kernen has been on a roll as of late. On Wednesday, he sparred with Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) over what’s become known as Signal-gate and Warner laughed at Kernen invoking Afghanistan. And on Thursday, Kernen exploded at Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) for falsely claiming Medicare and Social Security are “efficient.”

Kernen started with Fox News Channel host Bret Baier’s interview Thursday with Elon Musk and other key DOGE members, specifically noting “the overriding thrust of what Mr. Musk and the other members were saying last night was that we are on a course in this country of insolvency in a lot of different areas, including entitlements if we don’t do something and including just overall government spending, the total debt at 36, 37 trillion and as a percentage of GDP by 2050.”

 

 

Asked if there’s “any empathy or understanding” to this, Coons refused with standard fear-mongering about depriving seniors and Americans in poverty of healthcare and denouncing tax cuts.

Kernen pivoted to the burden welfare programs like Medicaid bear vis-à-vis illegal immigrants (click “expand”):

KERNEN: But, Senator, Medicaid — I mean, this is just one story here. I mean, there’s plenty of things to look at with Medicaid. Every one of the — most of the 10 million illegal immigrants that entered during the Biden administration, if they need health care, it’s — it’s Medicaid. Not that you don’t want to give people health care, but it also is — it’s also been expanded. It’s also been expanded for constituents.

COONS; A quarter — a quarter of my constituents in Delaware —

KERNEN: Right.

COONS: — 250,000 of my one million —

KERNEN: It’s been expanded far beyond disabled —

COONS: — constituents depend on Medicaid.

KERNEN: — and — and poor people. It’s been expanded —

COONS: Correct.

KERNEN: — far beyond that.

COONS: It’s providing substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, care —

KERNEN: Chest care lessons after school. It’s — it’s and the 800 billion that you’re talking about is — it’s — you’re not cutting Medicaid itself. You’re cutting the increases that are built in over the next ten years into Medicaid. That’s all — that’s all — that’s — it’s still growing every year, right?

COONS: Look, the priorities of our parties are fundamentally different in terms of where we’d like to reduce spending and where we’d like to invest One of the things that got broad, bipartisan support in the last Congress was investing in chips manufacturing here in the United States. The Chips and Science Act passed with bipartisan margins in both the House and Senate. Trump is determined to cut this program, to claw back investments in chip manufacturing. That both hurts manufacturing and hurts our competition with China.

The conversation turned to the recent government funding battle with Coons having gone against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and thus voted to shut down the government. Coons denied this, scoffing at Kernen’s questions as “inside baseball for folks at home” while maintaining his support for Schumer as the leader of Senate Democrats.

Kernen continued to fire hardballs with a seemingly simple question about who’s the leader of the Democratic Party, but Coons dodged by citing congressional Democratic leaders and new party chair Ken Martin.

Coons tried to claim the state Senate upset for Democrats in Lancaster, Pennsylvania was a canary in the coal mine (which is entirely false) in addition to negative polling about consumer confidence and what he deemed “widespread anger among” Trump voters.

The Delaware senator was hit with a fact-check by Kernen that Trump has seen his highest approval ratings as president (in either term) and the right track/wrong track polling was at its best in over 20 years.

Liberal co-host Becky Quick tried to save Coons by indulging him on tariffs, but that quickly went to the wayside as Kernen brought up the border crisis: “But [Trump] closed the border immediately, which you said you couldn’t do for four years, and you let in 10 million illegal al — a lot of our problems right now stem from a totally — the open southern border.”

Signal-gate came up thanks to Coons after Quick had asked how were Democrats trying to counter what she saw as a business community having doubted they would “get a fair shake at all under a Harris — a Kamala Harris presidency.”

After denying that was the case, he claimed business leaders were “also concerned about this Signal issue where the very top national security leaders were violating sort of the basics about classified information and the lack of truthfulness” and no “accountability.”

 

 

Coons played right into Kernen’s hands, leaving the latter to lower the boom:

You know what did have an adverse consequence was — and you know where I’m going — is Afghanistan. Did you call for Lloyd Austin’s resignation? Not only did we lose 13 service members, we left $70 billion worth of equipment that fell into the hands of the Taliban. A couple of years later, he was out of pocket for two weeks and didn’t tell the White House. Did you ask for him to resign at this point? Are you actually asking for Hegseth and Waltz to resign when you didn’t ask for Lloyd Austin to resign?

“There’s nothing that Lloyd Austin did by getting health care treatment that put our national security at risk,” Coons replied.

Kernen realized Coons was filibustering and suggesting there was an imaginative “statue of limitations” in place there, but heads must figuratively role because of what might have happened in Yemen. Coons even had the gall to blame Trump for collapse of Afghanistan (and thus the deaths of 13 Americans) (click “expand”):

COONS: Well, let’s deal with one at a time, though.

KERNEN: The statute of limitations is over for four years. 

COONS: One at a time.

KERNEN: That’s what Mark Warner —

COONS: The fact that the secretary of defense was getting health care is fundamentally different from the secretary of defense sharing on an unsecure platform —

KERNEN: — it was —

COONS: — attack plans.

KERNEN: — you said it was a success. Afghanistan was not a success.

COONS: I am not saying that the attack on the Houthis was not a success. I am saying that he demonstrably violated a directive that was just shared in the Pentagon about — don’t use Signal for classified information. It is not reliably secure and one of the folks on that group that was in Russia at the time, that that information was being sent.

KERNEN: On a secure line, we now know.

COONS: Look, all of us — all of us use apps like WhatsApp.

KERNEN: Okay, you’re — you’re running out the clock on Afghanistan.

COONS: — and Signal, but have not sent classified information.

KERNEN: You’re running out— you’re running out the clock on — on Afghanistan.

COONS: It was a mistake for. Donald Trump to negotiate with the Taliban an agreement —

KERNEN: So, this was Donald Trump’s fault?

COONS: — for winding down the Afghanistan war.

KERNEN: Afghanistan was Donald Trump’s fault?

COONS: If you’d let me finish my sentence, I will actually come to your direction.

KERNEN: No, that’s what I’m — you did say that. You did say that.

COONS: It was a mistake to negotiate an end to that war that put Biden in a box. The execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan was badly handled, and the loss of those 13 Marines was a tragedy.

KERNEN: Should you have asked for Lloyd Austin’s resignation from that, or —

COONS: I don’t know whether Lloyd Austin is the person who should have been held accountable for it, but there should have been accountability.

Kernen tried another example with General Mark Milley’s conversations with the communists in China after January 6, 2021: “When General Milley said he would tell China if we were ever going to launch an attack — on China…[Y]ou don’t have a problem with him giving them a heads up and telling the Chinese leaders, you’ll hear from me if anything’s planned?”

Coons argued he was “mischaracterizing that exchange” and then was saved by Quick agreeing Kernen lobbed “a whataboutism.”

With Coons being a rare progressive familiar with Christian theology, Kernen invoked an analogy Christ stated as recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: “The point is that you’re going to complain about a splinter in one eye and ignore a two by four in the other eye.” 

Things came to a fiery conclusion as Kernen introduced one more character to the mix with Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s handling of the border, exposing Coons for demanding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz resign while saying no one in his mentor Ole Joe’s regime should have faced the music (click “expand”):

COONS: I don’t think — Joe, the career of any military officer would not survive —

KERNEN: Do you think —

COONS: — what just happened —

KERNEN: — about this — what about —

COONS: — and it shows a blindness to concerns about informational and operational —

KERNEN: — how about Mayorkas? You let him stay for four years as 10 million people came across the border. Should you have asked for his resignation?

COONS: — look, what you’re trying to change the subject from — 

KERNEN: Oh!

COONS: — is what just happened in the Trump administration —

KERNEN: Okay?

COONS: — that is a willful and demonstrable lack of accountability for violating basic —

KERNEN: You think they should go?

COONS: — requirements for confidentiality.

KERNEN: You think they should — are you calling for either Waltz or Hegseth to resign?

COONS: Yes.

KERNEN: You’re calling for both of them to resign.

COONS: I have.

KERNEN: But not Lloyd Austin?

COONS: Lloyd Austin is not the secretary of Defense.

KERNEN: You didn’t back then.

To see the relevant CNBC transcript from March 28, click here.

This week, all hell broke loose in the media when Jeffrey Goldberg, left-leaning editor of The Atlantic, revealed that he had been accidentally included in a group chat with the top members of the Trump national security team. According to a Signal thread revealed by Goldberg, he was invited in by national security adviser Michael Waltz; other participants included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller and a multitude of other cabinet officials. The thread included an open consideration about whether and how to strike the terrorist Houthis in Yemen; it also culminated in announcements of imminent and then ongoing military action against the Houthis. 

National security conversations should not include members of the press, of course. And presumably one of two things occurred: Either Waltz and his team meant to include the U.S. Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer (JG), and instead included Jeffrey Goldberg (JG); or someone changed one of the numbers in Waltz’s phone such that a national security official’s name appeared atop Goldberg’s number. This is, of course, a serious mistake. It is not, however, a scandal of major magnitude.

There are two reasons for that.

First, this was obviously a mistake. It was not a purposeful leak of intelligence information to our enemies. And Hegseth has claimed that it did not include names, targets, locations, unites, routes, sources, methods or other classified information. This would mean that no criminal activity occurred.

Second, procedure-based scandals have gone the way of the dodo bird. When James Comey refused to prosecute Hillary Clinton in 2016 on the basis that she had not intended to disseminate classified information — and that her negligent handling of classified information did not constitute lawbreaking — he essentially wiped out all similar potential scandals in the future. When the Department of Justice doubled down on that approach with regard to President Joe Biden’s classified documents violations, that perspective was reinforced. That’s why when the DOJ targeted President Trump over classified documents violations, the right correctly responded with outrage.

This scandal is procedural in nature. It doesn’t match up to the ire unleashed by some of the Trump administration’s loudest critics. One cannot help but guffaw while listening to Susan Rice — who presided over the Russian invasion of Crimea as Obama’s national security adviser, and then served in the Biden administration as he presided over the collapse of Afghanistan — label the Signal chat “the biggest national security debacle that any professional can remember.” Unless they have short-term memory loss, those professionals would presumably rule any of the Obama and Biden-era foreign policy disasters far greater national security debacles.

And herein lies the rub. One could quite properly gasp at the inclusion of a journalist in sensitive internal deliberations. But the Trump administration’s deliberations, in material ways, were serious and cogent. Hegseth’s justification for the strike on the Houthis was spot on: “This not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered.” So was Waltz’s: “Whether we pull the plug or not today European navies do not have the capability to defend against the types of sophisticated, antiship, cruise missiles, and drones the Houthis are now using. So whether it’s now or several weeks from now, it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes.”

In the end, this is what Americans will care about: Is the Trump administration steadfastly pursuing American security? Caterwauling about breaches of national security on procedural grounds, coming from precisely the same people who have materially destroyed American national security, simply won’t play. Which is why Trump is right to ignore the critics and soldier on.

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein’s quest to get his fellow liberals to ditch their love for bureaucratic red tape took him to Comedy Central’s The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart on Thursday, where he presented Stewart with the Biden Administration’s Byzantine 14-point plan on how to improve rural broadband service. After several minutes and multiple F-bombs, all Stewart could do was declare, “I’m speechless.”

Stewart’s descent into finding out that Build Back Better wasn’t that good at building anything began as Klein informed him of the first four steps, “We have to issue the notice funding opportunity within 180 days, that’s step one. Step Two, which all 56 state [and territorial] applicants completed, is states who want to participate must submit a letter of intent. After they do that, they can submit a request for up to $5 million in planning grants. Then the NTIA, step four, has to review and approve an award. Again, planning grants, not broadband grants, planning grants.

Stewart then clarified that so far these are grants for “just planning,” which Klein affirmed.

Klein’s report that step five includes a “five-year action plan,” led Stewart to simply lament, “Oh my god.”

 

 

Step six, according to Klein, is ‘Then the FCC must publish the broadband data maps before NTIA allocates funds, so this one is a little funny at least. So, these maps, right? This is supposed to show you where you don’t have enough broadband, but it then says in parentheses, “and states needed opportunity to challenge map for accuracy.’”  

Klein continued, “So, then the NTIA, step seven, has to use the FCC maps to make allocation decisions.”

Only halfway through the process, Stewart observed, “If you were to design a machine that would—it’s almost as though they have designed it to make sure that people in rural areas never—by the time this is around, Musk will already have the chips in our brains. We won’t even need it.”

Klein argued that “is literally happening, by the way, by the time this could have gotten off the ground, Musk is taking it over for Starlink.”

Things really got comical when Klein reached step eight, “is states must submit an initial proposal, an initial proposal, to the NTIA. Then—”

A confused Stewart then interrupted, “Is that the result of their $5 million planning fund?” A similarly confused Klein guessed, “I assume so, then what was the five-year plan?” Stewart raged, “And what the fuck did they apply for? What was their NOFA? God.”

After more mutual confusion on the difference between the planning fund and the five-year plan, Stewart raged further, “Forget NOFA. MOFO, these are motherfuckers. These—this is crazy.”

A distraught Klein moved on, “Step nine, NTIA must review and approve each state’s, again, initial proposal. By my read, we have had at least two initial proposals here, but that’s a different issue. Step ten: states must publish their own map and allow internal challenges to their own map. So, the government has published a map, they have invited the states to challenge the map, then states have submitted initial proposals and then they have to publish their own map and allow challenges.”

Stewart wondered, “Wait, who’s challenging it within the state?”

An exasperated Klein told him it could be “organized interest groups, environmental groups, like, I don’t know specifically, but literally anybody.”

Klein continued, “The NTIA must review and improve the challenge results and the final map. So the NTIA has put forward a map, the states have challenged that map, then the states put forward their maps, had other challenges and now the NTIA must review and approve the challenges to the state map.”

Stewart joked that “My hair was dark when we started this process. I was a young, healthy man. I had the bone density of a stainless steel—”

However, Stewart’s torment was not yet done. “Step 12: States must run a competitive subgranting process,” Klein informed him next.

Dejected, Stewart exclaimed, “Oh, my fucking God. At step 12. After all this has been done?”

Klein then wrapped up the process, “Yeah, none of that could’ve happened along the way either. We’ve now lost 17 applicants, so now 30 or 56 have completed step 12. Step 13: States must submit a final proposal because all the proposals weren’t enough to NTIA. Now that goes to three of 56…. Step 14: The NTIA must review and approve the state’s final proposal. And that is three of the 56 jurisdictions and states are there.

A stupefied Stewart could only muster, “I’m speechless.”

Stewart appeared to learn something from the discussion; hopefully he’ll remember the next time he is on The Daily Show about to do a monologue about deregulation.

Here is a transcript for the March 27 show:

Comedy Central The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

3/27/2025

22 Minutes 7 Seconds

EZRA KLEIN: We have to issue the notice funding opportunity within 180 days, that’s step one.

Step Two, which all 56 state applicants completed, is states who want to participate must submit a letter of intent. After they do that, they can submit a request for up to $5 million in planning grants. Then the NTIA, step four has to review and approve an award. Again, planning grants, not broadband grants, planning grants.

…

Step three: “They can request up to $5 million in planning grants.

JON STEWART: Just planning.

KLEIN: Just planning. Step four: the requests are reviewed, approved and awarded by the NTIA.

…

States must submit a five-year action plan.

STEWART: Oh my, god.

…

KLEIN: Then the FCC must publish the broadband data maps before NTIA allocates funds, so this one is a little funny at least. So, these maps, right? This is supposed to show you where you don’t have enough broadband, but it then says in parentheses “and states needed opportunity to challenge map for accuracy.”  

So, having done the NOFA, the letters of intent, the request for planning grants, then the review approval, and awarding of the planning grants, then the five-year action plans, in between that the federal government has to put forward a map saying where it thinks we need rural broadband subsidies.

And then, of course, the states need an opportunity to challenge the map for accuracy and you can imagine this doesn’t all happen in a day.

So, then the NTIA, step 7, has to use the FCC maps to make allocation decisions. Then having already done their letter of intent, their requests It’s hard even to talk about this, man.

STEWART: Ezra, I just want to say, if you were going to design the machine that would keep people from getting broadband—

KLEIN: Yes.

STEWART: If you were to design a machine that would—it’s almost as though they have designed it to make sure that people in rural areas never—by the time this is around, Musk will already have the chips in our brains. We won’t even need it.

KLEIN: Well that is literally happening, by the way, by the time this could have gotten off the ground, Musk is taking it over for Starlink. Okay, step seven, is NTIA must use the FCC maps that were already challenged for allocation decisions then having submitted all this, I think this one is actually quite amazing—

STEWART: Yeah

KLEIN: — having submitted their five year plans and letters of intent, step eight is states must submit an initial proposal, an initial proposal, to the NTIA. Then—

STEWART: Is that the result of their $5 million planning fund?

KLEIN: I assume so, then what was the five-year plan?

STEWART: And what the fuck did they apply for? What was their NOFA? God.

KLEIN: Like if the five-year action plan isn’t the initial proposal then what’s the five-year action plan?

STEWART: Forget NOFA. MOFO, these are motherfuckers. These—this is crazy.

KLEIN: Step nine, NTIA must review and approve each state’s, again, initial proposal. By my read, we have had at least two initial proposals here, but that’s a different issue.

STEWART: Oh my god.

KLEIN: Step ten: states must publish their own map and allow internal challenges to their own map. So, the government has published a map, they have invited the states to challenge the map, then states have submitted initial proposals and then they have to publish their own map and allow challenges.

STEWART: Wait, who’s challenging it within the state?

KLEIN: Well, you know, organized interest groups, environmental groups—

STEWART: Oh my god.

KLEIN: Like, I don’t know specifically, but literally anybody.

…

Step 11: the NTIA must review and improve the challenge results and the final map. So the NTIA has put forward a map, the states have challenged that map, then the states put forward their maps, had other challenges and now the NTIA must review and approve the challenges to the state map.

Okay, at this point it’s 47 of 56, so we’ve just lost nine of the applicants.

STEWART: My hair was dark when we started this process. I was a young, healthy man. I had the bone density of a stainless steel—

…

KLEIN: Step 12: States must run a competitive subgranting process.

STEWART: Oh, my fucking God. At step 12. After all this has been done?

KLEIN: Yeah, none of that could’ve happened along the way either. We’ve now lost 17 applicants, so now 30 or 56 have completed step 12. Step 13: States must submit a final proposal because all the proposals weren’t enough to NTIA. Now that goes to three of 56.

…

Step 14: the NTIA must review and approve the state’s final proposal. And that is three of the 56 jurisdictions and states are there.

…

STEWART: I’m speechless.

Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) keeps doing newsworthy things, despite receiving basically no attention from the corporate TV news media. Despite Crockett’s busy week of calling for violence against Republican Senator Ted Cruz (TX), referring to wheelchair-bound Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) as “Governor Hot Wheels,” and allegedly assaulting a reporter, the Congresswoman has not been the subject of even a single report on any of the broadcast networks’ (ABC, CBS and NBC) flagship morning or evening news shows.

MRC analysts looked at all coverage on the big three broadcast networks’ major morning (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today) and evening (ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News) news shows from Monday, March 24 through the morning of Friday, March 28. Across those 27 shows, Crockett’s multiple scandals did not receive even a single report.

On March 26, Crockett allegedly assault independent reporter Charles Downs, attempting to snatch his phone camera away from him in a video shown here. Downs has since said he filed a police report about the incident.

One might assume that these networks, which purport to employ journalists, might be the slightest bit interested in a member of the press being roughed up by a member of Congress. But despite that, the broadcast networks have not even indicated that they are aware the incident took place, let alone running a news segment about it.

And as NewsBusters’s Curtis Houck reported earlier this week, Crockett’s threatening remarks about Cruz also went unreported. That trend held throughout the rest of the week, and the story has not yet been discussed on any of the three networks.

The “Governor Hot Wheels” incident was the only of the three scandals that the networks even came close to covering.

On Wednesday, CBS Mornings ran an “Eye Opener” — basically a teaser — that mentioned her comments about Abbott, even including the now-infamous clip of her using the pejorative, “Governor Hot Wheels.” Despite the teaser, no such segment aired. Outside of the Eye Opener, CBS has not mentioned Crockett since then.

On ABC, the only time Crockett was brought up all week was on The View, during a segment in which co-host Sunny Houston suggested that perhaps Crockett had just made a “mistake”: “I did not know that Governor Abbott was a paraplegic, I had no idea.”

Just for the sake of thoroughness, it should be mentioned that NBC’s streaming service did touch on the “Hot Wheels” story in two separate reports: one in the 7:00 p.m. ET hour on Wednesday, and one during the 12:00 p.m. ET hour the following day. These reports demonstrate that NBC was perfectly aware of Crockett’s comments, but deliberately chose not to discuss them on any of their flagship news shows.

Just two weeks ago, a CNN poll asked respondents about which Democratic leader “best reflects the core values of the Democratic party.” On that question, Rep. Crockett tied with President Obama for fifth place.

Considering Crockett’s relative prominence, at least among Democratic poll respondents, it’s particularly alarming that ABC, CBS, and NBC have abdicated any responsibility for keeping Americans informed about her recent torrent of scandalous behavior.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert tried to have it both ways on Thursday’s taping of The Late Show. On one hand he mocked Republicans for wanting to defund PBS out of concerns its documentaries were sexualizing children because what child watches PBS? On the other hand, he defended PBS against calls to defund it by citing all the children’s programming it does. Later in the show, Colbert would welcome Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and press him from the left on his recent decision not to shut down the government and argue that October 7 was not the start of a dangerous uptick in anti-Semitism.

Colbert began by introducing a clip of subcommittee chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene by declaring she “kicked things off with a weird rant about grooming kids.”

 

 

In the clip, Greene proclaimed, “This is not the only example of them sexualizing and grooming children. They’ve been doing it for over the last decade. In 2015, PBS produced Frontline put out a documentary Growing up Trans.”

Missing the point, Colbert reacted, “Ma’am, I think the better question might be: Why are your kids watching Frontline? ‘All right, kiddos. One more episode of ‘South Korea’s truth commission’ but then it’s right to bed.’ ‘Awwwww, mom. But we wanted to watch ‘Amanpour and Company.’”

The actual point is that PBS is just taxpayer-subsidized MSNBC, but Colbert then tried to defend the network by highlighting its children’s shows, “Defunding PBS is part of Project 2025, which is why they also heard from Project 2025 author Mike Gonzalez, who, it turns out, hasn’t even heard Daniel Tiger’s catchphrase.”

After a video of an exchange between Gonzalez and Rep. Ro Khanna, Colbert continued, “They want to cancel PBS, and they don’t even know what shows are on it! Daniel Tiger teaches kids coping skills. Rocket teaches phonics. Alma teaches emotional intelligence, and the show Martha Speaks teaches kids that, if you feed a dog alphabet soup, the letters will go into its brain, and then the dog will know how to speak English. Which coincidentally is also how Marjorie Taylor Greene learned to talk.”

Colbert then went to bat for PBS, “Here’s the thing. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting only accounts for roughly one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget, meaning the average cost per American is $1.60 per year. That’s nothing! And in exchange, we’ve gotten five beautiful seasons of All Creatures Great and Small.”

Later, a frustrated Colbert explained to Schumer that he wasn’t buying his argument that shutting down the government would have been worse from a liberal perspective than fighting Republicans on the continuing resolution, “I can understand what you’re saying. I would understand it more if it’d been what people call a clean CR, meaning let’s just continue things the status quo. But it wasn’t that.”

After going through a list of cuts, he wondered, “So, why can’t they just do this again in September when the next CR has to be passed?”

 

 

Schumer never did answer the question, “Here’s what we think can happen by September. We are going after Trump in every way. We are going after him on so many things. He’s destroying—he’s trying to destroy even Social Security by shutting down the offices, cutting back the phone lines. It’s been sacred in America, Stephen, to have Social Security. We love it. He’s trying to cut it.”

That shifted the conversation to Social Security, but later the duo approached the subject for Schumer’s book: the rise in anti-Semitism. Schumer observed how anti-Semitism and related conspiracy theories have been around forever, “But, still anti-Semitism was—the pot was not boiling until October 7th.” 

Colbert tried to argue, “We were shocked into our consciousness on this in Charlottesville before that, in 2017. I would push that back about seven years.”

Schumer replied by pointing out that anti-Semitism did not spread across the country after Charlottesville like it did after October 7, “Okay, it was. But after the 7th, it got seriously worse. People who were yarmulkes were punched. They’d throw rocks through the windows of a Jewish bakery. Nothing to do with Israel. The Jewish bakery. The Brooklyn Museum is near my house, you know, I’m a proud Brooklynite, as you know, and the president was Jewish but had nothing to do with Israel, they smeared her house with red paint.”

 It is only when they perceive Democrats as weak-kneed that the late night comedians really challenge their Democratic guests.

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

Here is a transcript for the March 27-taped show:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

3/28/2025

1:20 AM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: If anyone does indeed get fertilized, they might have a harder time finding something for their kids to watch, because yesterday, the House’s new government efficiency subcommittee grilled the CEOs of NPR and PBS. Marjorie Taylor Greene kicked things off with a weird rant about grooming kids.

MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: This is not the only example of them sexualizing and grooming children. They’ve been doing it for over the last decade. In 2015, PBS produced Frontline put out a documentary Growing up Trans.

 COLBERT: Ma’am, I think the better question might be: Why are your kids watching Frontline? “All right, kiddos. One more episode of ‘South Korea’s truth commission’ but then it’s right to bed.” “Awwwww, mom. But we wanted to watch ‘Amanpour and Company.’

 Defunding PBS is part of Project 2025, which is why they also heard from Project 2025 author Mike Gonzalez, who, it turns out, hasn’t even heard Daniel Tiger’s catchphrase.

RO KHANNA What does “Ugga mugga” mean to you?

MIKE GONZALEZ: Nothing.

KHANNA: You’ve never heard the expression “Ugga mugga”?

GONZALEZ: I don’t think so, no.

KHANNA: It’s a— have you ever watched a Daniel Tiger show or know any families who watch a Daniel Tiger show?

GONZALEZ: I don’t think so.

COLBERT: They want to cancel PBS, and they don’t even know what shows are on it! Daniel Tiger teaches kids coping skills. Rocket teaches phonics. Alma teaches emotional intelligence, and the show Martha Speaks teaches kids that, if you feed a dog alphabet soup, the letters will go into its brain, and then the dog will know how to speak English. Which coincidentally is also how Marjorie Taylor Greene learned to talk. 

Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting only accounts for roughly one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget, meaning the average cost per American is $1.60 per year. That’s nothing! And in exchange, we’ve gotten five beautiful seasons of All Creatures Great and Small. I had no idea you could stick your arm that far up a cow!

I learned something! But this money does actually matter for PBS and NPR. NPR gets around 10 percent of their funds from the government, and PBS gets around 16 percent. Sixteen percent is a serious chunk. If PBS loses that, they’re going to have to rely even more on the Chubb Group. The Chubbs group: Hard times call for a firm chubb.

…

COLBERT: I can understand what you’re saying. I would understand it more if it’d been what people call a clean CR, meaning let’s just continue things the status quo. But it wasn’t that. It was, there were no additional FEMA funds, $1.4 billion in cuts in FEMA construction, $185 million cuts in defense nuclear nonproliferation programs, $280 million cuts in scientific research—

SCHUMER: Oh yeah.

COLBERT: — $40 million cuts in programs to help children and families, $30 million in cuts from farmers’ assistance. The bill doesn’t give any specific funding directive so it’s Possible Trump could take this money and create slush funds—

SCHUMER: Yup.

COLBERT: — and, am I correct, a billion dollars from D.C.’s budget could be taken out?

SCHUMER: Yeah, although that was restored.

COLBERT: That was restored, okay, good. So, why can’t they just do this again in September when the next CR has to be passed?

SCHUMER: Here’s what we think can happen by September. We are going after Trump in every way. We are going after him on so many things. He’s destroying — he’s trying to destroy even Social Security by shutting down the offices, cutting back the phone lines. It’s been sacred in America, Stephen, to have Social Security. We love it. He’s trying to cut it.

…

SCHUMER: But, still anti-Semitism was — the pot was not boiling until October 7th.

COLBERT: We were shocked into our consciousness on this in Charlottesville before that, in 2017. I would push that back about seven years.

SCHUMER: Okay, it was. But after the 7th, it got seriously worse. People who were yarmulkes were punched. They’d throw rocks through the windows of a Jewish bakery. Nothing to do with Israel. The Jewish bakery. The Brooklyn Museum is near my house, you know, I’m a proud Brooklynite, as you know, and the president was Jewish but had nothing to do with Israel, they smeared her house with red paint. So, I felt, I’m the highest ranking Jewish elected official in America ever and now also. And I felt I had to speak out so I gave speeches on the floor of the Senate about it. But I felt I had to write this book because it is a warning. It shows the history, and I think if every American read this book or many Americans read this book, the danger of anti-Semitism would decline.

After a brief investigation, there was an arrest made in the firebombing of a Las Vegas Tesla service center. The evening network newscasts provided this arrest with coverage that could most charitably be described as “mixed”.

The most comprehensive coverage came via NBC Nightly News. Below is that report in its entirety:

https://www.mrctv.org/node/593224

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

3/27/25

6:43 PM

LESTER HOLT: There was an arrest today connected to an arson attack on Tesla cars in Las Vegas earlier this month. Liz Kreutz has more.

LIZ KREUTZ: Tonight, authorities announcing the arrest of a 36-year-old man who they say is responsible for using Molotov cocktails to torch several Teslas at a Las Vegas service center.

KEVIN MCMAHILL: The suspect’s name is Paul Kim.

KREUTZ: According to officials, Kim is facing both state and federal charges including arson, unlawful possession of an explosive, and discharging a firearm into a vehicle.

MCMAHILL: Our searches revealed numerous items of interest to include multiple rifles, a shotgun, as well as a black backpack with pink paint, face masks…

KREUTZ: Police say when Kim arrived at the Tesla service center last week, he began shooting into the surveillance cameras before spray painting “resist” across the front door and setting multiple cars on fire. Authorities say they are looking into social media to determine a motive.

MCMAHILL: A preliminary assessment of the suspect’s social media activity indicates some very loose but self-proclaimed ties to the Communist Party USA social media group, as well as social media groups called Revolutionary Communist International, Hidden Palestine, Palestine Action…

KREUTZ: The arrest coming amid a rise in violence and vandalism of Tesla dealers and cars nationwide. Earlier this week, a 33-year-old man in Texas was arrested for allegedly ramming a mini four-wheeler into multiple Teslas around the city of Texarkana, just one day after incendiary devices were found around a Tesla showroom in Austin. And with more protests planned at Tesla this weekend, Tesla sales in Europe have dropped by at least 40%, according to an industry trade group. Tesla’s U.S. quarterly earnings are expected next week, the company has not commented. Lester.

HOLT: Okay, Liz. Thank you.

In less than two minutes, NBC managed to disclose the alleged bomber’s charges, a breakdown of the bombing incident, and the evidence seized during the arrest. Correspondent Liz Kreutz also lists some of the weapons seized during the arrest. NBC even let the camera roll as local law enforcement went through the alleged bomber’s associations with radical communist and anti-Israel groups. 

ABC’s coverage was much more brief, buried towards the end of the newscast:

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT

3/27/25

6:52 PM

WHIT JOHNSON: An arrest in that fiery attack on a Las Vegas Tesla dealership. 36-year-old Paul Kim facing charges, including arson and discharging a firearm into a vehicle. Video from earlier this month showing flames and explosions. Police raiding Kim’s home, saying they found firearms and a gun belt. They do not believe anyone else was involved, but they are trying to determine whether Kim is part of an organized group targeting Tesla.

There was no mention of Kim’s affiliations, plans, or anything related to the attack. ABC’s minuscule highlight reel, though, was more generous than CBS, which did not cover this story, either on CBS Evening News or CBS Evening News Plus. 

All-around coverage of this arrest was spotty at best, with two glaring omissions: First, at no point do you hear the words “terrorist” or “terrorism”. Second, there is no real discussion of motive.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

Hard-left hysteric and Yale professor Jason Stanley is fleeing to Canada and tax-funded television is on it. Amanpour & Co. trumpeted that night’s guest, Yale professor Jason Stanley, absconding the US in the subject line of the show’s promotional email: “EXCLUSIVE: ‘How Fascism Works’ Author Jason Stanley Plans to Leave the U.S.”

Host Christiane Amanpour: Trump’s America has started to challenge and redefine academic freedom, and our next guest is sounding the alarm. Yale professor Jason Stanley is the author of Erasing History — How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future….How new teaching guidelines are stoking a culture of fear and why he is taking drastic measures as a result.

Interviewer Michel Martin, who is also an NPR morning host, sympathetically drew out Stanley’s crazed interpretation of Trump’s educational policy, which he terms “educational authoritarianism.”

Jason Stanley: That means that he is creating a culture of fear in universities, they already have done this in states like Florida creating culture of fear in K- 12 education. But authoritarianism requires a culture of fear. It requires a feeling like the state is always looking over your shoulder, feeling like there are vague rules that you can be punished for and your fellow citizens have been empowered to report you….

Martin: What sparked your latest piece for The Guardian was this Dear Colleague letter that the Department of Education issued, the Office of Civil Rights issued on February 14th, it was a letter to American educational institutions and it essentially reinterpreted federal civil rights law. Let me read a little bit, it says that “educational institutions have indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon systemic and structural racism and advanced discriminatory policies and practices and proponents of these discriminatory practices and attempt to further justify them, particularly during the last four years, under the banner of diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race consciousness into everyday training, programming and discipline.”…

Stanley: [Department of Education head] Linda McMahon’s final mission statement of the Department of Education, she mentions patriotic education as the goal here to impose on K-12 and universities. The problem here is that the United States is founded and built upon systematic racism and inclusion. It’s part of our founding documents that we wanted to take more indigenous land. So slavery, the United States is built on slavery, there is no factual argument about that….

Martin’s follow-ups were the mildest possible challenges.

Martin: ….conservatives would say that progressives or non-conservatives, whatever you want to say, are just mad because they are offering an alternative ideology. That they’re just replacing one ideology with another. I think that their argument is that elections have consequences and they get to do that. What do you say to that?

Stanley: There’s no such thing, in a democracy, the state cannot impose a required patriotic ideology….

When Martin brought up Columbia University being punished by the Trump administration for fostering an atmosphere of anti-Semitism against Jewish students and admitted “the reality of it is, there are a lot of Jewish students at Columbia that did feel threatened and demeaned by these demonstrations,” Stanley changed the subject to the supposed threatening environment for Arabs at Columbia. His hostile interpretation of the Trump administration trying to protect Jewish students on campus was truly warped.

Stanley: What are the most toxic anti-Semitic tropes? Jews control the institutions. This is absolutely reinforcing this. Any young American is going to think, remember what happened when they took down the world’s greatest university system on behalf of Jewish safety? This will go down in history books. The history of this era will say that Jewish people were the sledgehammer for fascism….

Asked by Martin why Columbia was going along with the Trump diktats, Stanley called some Columbia employees “traitors to their own institutions” and that “Columbia is completely bending to an authoritarian regime,” before dropping his bombshell: “I’m seeing this everywhere and it is one reason that I am probably leaving the United States for Toronto.”

Martin: Really? I was going to ask, what are your thoughts about your own course here? So you feel strongly enough about this that you’re going to leave the country?

Stanley elaborated that “I’m leaving because the political climate for the universities and political climate for freedom looks grim in this country. We face a fascist regime.” He also talked of “mass incarceration” and “violent policing” in America as a concern given his two black sons.

Host Amanpour wrapped up Stanley’s insane segment with gush and self-importantly including journalists like herself as among the potential victims of Trump’s fascism: “And what a robust defense, and especially the notion that for all of our professions, an attack on one is an attack on all.”

Tuesday night in his newsletter Status, former conservative reporter-turned-caustic progressive Oliver Darcy was in need of a fainting couch, some pearls to clutch, or a safe space over a supposed sign of the apocalypse in The Washington Post slowly backing away from its dumb slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

To be clear, the Jeff Bezos-owned paper told him it won’t be retired anytime soon. But because it’s not in your face, The Post’s supposed embrace of Donald Trump’s perceived authoritarianism is illustrated in the paper having “quietly removed the slogan…its mobile app” and at the top of articles.

Darcy wrote in his article “Democracy Dies in the Light” that “Bezos and the business community have taken an entirely different tact” in “openly” working “to woo” President Trump just years after they took “a more adversarial approach in dealing with him” and openly “signaled the stakes of the moment.”

“The removal of the slogan from the opening sequence occurred over the last few weeks when the app received an update. ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ also no longer appears at the top of the mobile homepage, though it remains visible on the desktop version of the website and in print editions of the newspaper,” he explained.

So, what slogans have they started deploying instead? Well, the perpetual skunk at the garden party lamented “Switch on” and “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”

The latter is already, unsurprisingly, not “terribly popular among staffers.” A Darcy source from inside The Post illustrated the far-left papers hatred for over 70 million Americans: “It’s kind of hard to tell stories for all of America when a massive portion of the country doesn’t even work based on the same set of facts.”

Keep that in mind when reading The Post that’s what many of them think of anyone who believes in news that informs and unifies.

Just like he did with the “Gulf of America” hubbub and the lack of boycotts by the White House press corps in support of the Associated Press, Darcy suggested this meaningless tweak was a harbinger for the direction of the country and that the newspaper — at least in the eyes of Bezos — might not be a hate movement against conservatives:

To the average observer, the moves might be subtle enough to miss. But to the trained eye of those who currently work and have worked at The Post, the changes are glaring. After all, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” wasn’t just a catchphrase, it was something of a rallying cry for the newsroom. Now, amid fear of democratic backsliding in the U.S., The Post appears to be no longer as enamored by it—just as Bezos looks to curry favor with Trump. And given that Bezos once asserted that the slogan should always appear alongside The Post’s logo, the fact that they no longer do in some spots is noteworthy.

Bezos, quite evidently, does not wish The Post to be seen as a #Resistance publication. Instead, as signaled by the newspaper’s new mission statement, he wants the outlet to appeal to “all of Am erica.” In other words, he wants The Post to be a newspaper that Trump supporters also find credible and might consider subscribing to. Sanding down some of the old branding associated with the #Resistance era might help in those efforts.

Bezos closed as though he’s as mob boss, lecturing Bezos that while he “may want…unifying news organizations broadly trusted by most of the country,” the country and “a lot of the world” want the opposite because “[s]hared reality is a relic of the past.”

Staunchly racist co-host of ABC’s The View, Sunny Hostin was at it again on Wednesday and Thursday as she was doing her part to compound the controversy surrounding a Signal group chat utilized by members of President Trump’s cabinet. On back-to-back days, she made racially tinged attacks on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth while simultaneously praising former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and boasting about his race. She would eventually suggest Hegseth was the mediocre DEI hire.

Let’s quickly put things into context. A month ago, while complaining about being called out as a “race baiter,” Hostin lashed out at white people for supposedly having easy lives: “It’s been about white mediocre men that are given opportunities…You have to be average if you’re white; if you are black, you must – your average must be excellent in order to compete.”

Fast forward to Wednesday of this week, and Hostin was again up in arms over Hegseth replacing Austin. Of course, she made it about race:

[T]he other thing that I would note is that Pete Hegseth. What sort of example is he leading as the secretary of defense? Is he leading for — no example. And who did he replace? He replaced a four-star general from the United States Army, Lloyd Austin, an African American who was relieved of his duties.

Now, Pete Hegseth was a Fox News host but he was also a former captain in the Army National Guard. He served in the military, but he lacks senior military experience or any national security experience.

“So, when you replace excellence by mediocrity, that is what you get,” she proclaimed, echoing her racist rhetoric about white people being “mediocre.”

Hostin then equated Hegseth’s hiring in terms of DEI, arguing that Austin’s was better:

So, when they want to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, giving people advantages that don’t deserve advantages, what we really need to do is reframe that. It’s giving people advantages because of their excellence when they haven’t had the opportunities before.

 

 

Her whining seemed to betray her ignorance to the fact that defense secretaries often don’t stick around with new presidents. Former President Biden didn’t keep President Trump’s Mark Esper around. Or perhaps she was just trying to gaslight the viewers into thinking Trump’s hiring of a new secretary was racially motivated.

“You know, the thing is we all knew that Hegseth was unqualified for this job and he replaced a four-star general with over 40 years of experience, Lloyd Austin,” Hostin continued to rant on Thursday. “And this would not have happened and did not happen on Lloyd Austin’s watch.”

This was misinformation from Hostin to obfuscate the communication scandal involving Austin. In 2023, Austin disappeared for several days and no one knew his whereabouts, not even Biden. It turned out that Austin had been hospitalized as he underwent a medical procedure to fight a cancer, which also was not disclosed to the proper figures.

Austin was also in charge of the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. No one was fired or forced to resign despite the fact that 13 service members were killed in a suicide attack at Abbey Gate.

But the hypocrisy of her own arguments wasn’t enough to dissuade Hostin from calling for Trump’s Cabinet members to be fired; it seemed to be the point as she laughably boasted about disgraced former Secret Service boss Kimberly Cheatle resigning after the first assassination attempt on Trump:

But what I will say is to your question initially, Whoopi, these people need to be fired. They need to be held accountable. I remember when following the July 13th rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when there was an assassination attempt on the President’s life, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said ‘the buck stops with me’ and she resigned. She resigned. She didn’t put it on anyone else.

The comparison was ridiculous because Cheatle didn’t resign out of some sense of honor and responsibility. She was forced to resign because politicians on both sides of the isle were calling for it amid her terrible excuses (like blaming the slope of a roof) and combative/unsatisfactory answers in a hearing.

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

ABC’s The View
March 26, 2025
11:07:20 a.m. Eastern

(…)

SUNNY HOSTIN: [T]he other thing that I would note is that Pete Hegseth. What sort of example is he leading as the secretary of defense? Is he leading for — no example. And who did he replace? He replaced a four-star general from the United States Army, Lloyd Austin.

[Applause]

An African American, who was relieved of his duties. Now, Pete Hegseth was a Fox News host but he was also a former captain in the Army National Guard. He served in the military, but he lacks senior military experience or any national security experience.

JOY BEHAR: What about his time on Fox News, though? You’re forgetting he was a Fox News anchor.

HOSTIN: Fox News host!

So, my point is Lloyd Austin served in the military for 41 years. We’re talking about command at the corps, division, battalion, brigade levels, according to the Defense Department. So, when you replace excellence by mediocrity, that is what you get.

[Applause]

So, when they want to talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, giving people advantages that don’t deserve advantages, what we really need to do is reframe that. It’s giving people advantages because of their excellence when they haven’t had the opportunities before.

(…)

March 27, 2025
11:05:53 a.m. Eastern

HOSTIN: You know, the thing is we all knew that Hegseth was unqualified for this job and he replaced a four-star general with over 40 years of experience, Lloyd Austin. And this would not have happened and did not happen on Lloyd Austin’s watch.

But what I will say is to your question initially, Whoopi, these people need to be fired. They need to be held accountable. I remember when following the July 13th rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when there was an assassination attempt on the President’s life, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said ‘the buck stops with me’ and she resigned. She resigned. She didn’t put it on anyone else.

Pete Hegseth is the person that is responsible. Yeah. He’s the person — secretary of defense, he is responsible for everything. It was his decision to use that group chat to type out this highly sensitive information.

BEHAR: But how come Trump didn’t know about this group chat? He’s the commander-in-chief.

SARA HAINES: Do you really believe that he doesn’t know? He also doesn’t know he lost an election.

BEHAR: Well, he says he didn’t know. That’s true [points to Haines].

[Laughter]

HAINES: I don’t know that I’m following that completely.

(…)

As an NPR alum, a former All Things Considered co-host, you might well have expected Audie Cornish to forcefully defend continued federal funding for NPR/PBS.

So it came as a surprise—bordering on outright shock—to hear Cornish on today’s CNN This Morning, which she hosts, make the case for letting federal funding lapse.

Cornish’s unanticipated comments came during a conversation with Democrat Peter Welch, the junior senator from Vermont, in the wake of yesterday’s hearing before the House DOGE subcommittee on NPR/PBS funding.

Cornish wasted no time in putting it to Welch: “Why shouldn’t NPR and PBS stand up on their own?”

When Welch replied that the two organizations “largely do” stand on their own, Cornish countered:

“If it’s just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else? At a certain point, don’t you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding?”

Sounds like Cornish might have been speaking as something of a Democrat strategist. Why not give up a measly 1% of overall funding, and in doing so, take the perennial issue away from the Republicans? Something akin, perhaps, to how Dobbs’ overturning of Roe v. Wade diminished the abortion issue for the pro-life cause.

Welch finished by unwittingly making the case for defunding. He boasted:

“You see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR.”

Guess what else Vermont led the nation in? The percentage of people voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election!

No wonder the Ben & Jerry crowd poured its money into NPR/PBS: two outfits whose reporting was slanted in favor of Ms. Passage of Time, and against Orange Man Bad!
 
Here’s the transcript.

CNN This Morning
3/27/25
6:53 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: I have one more brief question. I used to work at NPR. You were at Vermont, which has a huge Vermont public radio presence for like rural communities there. But that was a hearing yesterday. The questioning of their funding was happening at the same time as people were talking to law enforcement leaders on the Hill. 

You also have legislation that would help local news organizations get funding grants to stand up on their own. Why shouldn’t NPR and PBS stand up on their own? 

PETER WELCH: Well, they largely do. I mean, in Vermont, we have —

CORNISH: But if it’s just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else? 

WELCH: Well, first of all, in that question of local news, NPR in Vermont, it’s not this monolith of NPR everywhere. We have our local affiliates. And in Vermont, it literally is the voice that kind of unifies Vermont because they have terrific local news. 

And you see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR. 

So you may be a farmer, you have it on in your barn, you may be an office worker and you can have it on in your office, but it does provide an underlying glue that helps hold Vermont as a community together despite having very rural and very urban areas in the state. 

CORNISH: Yeah. I wanted to ask you the question because at a certain point, don’t you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding? 

WELCH: Well, sure. But here’s the issue that I think is so important, local news. And this debate in Congress is about managing the news. People who don’t like what they may be hearing on a particular station. So NPR, PBS becomes a, a, a symbol.

But in fact, shouldn’t our goal be to have strong local news across the country? In my view, NPR and PBS assist in that. 

So I’m a supporter, and I actually think the biggest problem, one of the big problems we have is that local news has become so weakened because of what has happened on the internet and the whole advertising model that has been essential to the well-being of local press has been destroyed.