Newsbusters

In a House DOGE subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Republicans pressed the bosses of PBS and NPR on the blatant leftist bias of their news shows, and both leaders claimed these networks are unbiased and nonpartisan. No one believes this.

PBS leader Paula Kerger and NPR leader Katherine Maher were supposedly preparing for this, reported The New York Times: “Ms. Kerger said she was preparing for the hearing by reviewing her testimony with legal counsel. Ms. Maher told staff members last month that she was preparing with so-called murder boards, rigorous question-and-answer sessions that aim to expose potential weaknesses.”

These ladies were terrible about specifics. They offered no evidence that they were acquainted with any of the examples of bias they were given by the Republicans. Maher told Rep. Jim Jordan: “I have never seen any political bias.”

When Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) cited our NewsBusters study finding PBS used “far right” or its variants 162 times to just six for “far left” terms, Kerger replied, “I don’t know the study that you’re referring to, and I’d love — I’d be very interested in seeing it and understanding how they came up with those numbers.” Should we believe she never reads studies by conservative critics of her network? It’s possible, since they demonstrate they don’t really think liberal bias is a problem. (It’s more of a privilege.) Or that could be the answer the lawyers told her to use.

The Democrats were ridiculous. Many of them just made effusive remarks about the children’s programming on PBS, or joked about how the conservatives are suspicious of the pinkish tilt of the puppets. 

Rep. Greg Casar inaccurately placed Miss Piggy on Sesame Street. Rep. Ro Khanna pestered witness Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation about how well he knew the show Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and gushed over how it evolved out of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. No Republicans are opposed to the kiddie shows, they’re opposed to the aggressively biased “news” shows and documentaries. 

There was Jasmine Crockett, who had her hair over half of her face bizarrely suggesting that conservatives want to end all opposition media: “the idea that you wanna shut down everybody that is not Fox News is [BS]!” Defunding PBS and NPR isn’t shutting them down. It’s just a spending cut that leftists will probably rush to fill. 

Gonzalez of Heritage summarized the game: “What we have today is a circular, undemocratic relationship. Democrats unanimously vote for more and more money for public media. In exchange, public media heavily tips the scale in their favor. It is a nice arrangement for them, but it must end.”

Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Before Wednesday’s congressional testimony from the heads of PBS and NPR in front of the House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency (DOGE), PBS’s flagship news show News Hour offered up some gaslighting on Tuesday evening in defense of the program’s political objectivity and balance — a laughable proposition to anyone who has watched an episode.

Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: President Trump today voiced his support for defunding America’s public broadcasters. It comes a day before the heads of PBS and NPR testify in front of the House Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The hearing will examine alleged bias in public media, with calls for federal funding cuts growing louder. That funding in part helps support the work of PBS News. We wanted to take a moment to explain exactly how public media is funded and more broadly how we got to this point. William Brangham is back with that.

After a montage of House members Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) accusing PBS and NPR of liberal bias, Brangham purported to take viewers on a deep dive into the history of public media, with two professors as subject experts: Victor Pickard of the University of Pennsylvania and Allison Perlman of the University of California, Irvine.

Brangham emphasized popular PBS children’s programming as well as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, which grew out of the Watergate hearings in Congress and would evolve into today’s more partisan PBS News Hour.

Allison Perlman: In the 1990s, what we see are social conservatives who have anxiety about the political direction of some public television programming joining forces with economic conservatives who think that the transformations in the media landscape that had taken place from 1967 to the present no longer required federal support….

After Brangham acknowledged that “Every Republican administration except Gerald Ford’s has tried to cut public media funding,” he aired a soundbite from Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), arguing “Government doesn’t need to subsidize the media anymore because the world’s changed” and that PBS and NPR are also not fair or balanced.

Brangham stood up for his employers, using both a ridiculous defense of PBS and NPR’s objectivity and a familiar tactic that underplays federal support for the networks.

Brangham: We should note here, independent analyses have found both PBS and NPR to be among the most objective and reliable news sources in America. But back to the question of funding. For 2025, Congress appropriated $535 million to CPB. That’s less than 1/100th of a percent out of the total federal budget. It costs, on average, per American, a little over $1.50 a year….

The segment ended with a graphic of selected poll findings from “A YouGov poll obtained by Axios” (full Axios report from February here) that claimed 

82% of voters, including 72% of Trump voters, said they valued PBS for its children’s programming and educational tools.
 65% of Trump voters think the public broadcaster is either underfunded or adequately funded.
Meanwhile, a Brian Steinberg puff piece on Variety Tuesday about the promotion of News Hour co-anchors Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz to co-managing editors gave more space to push pro-PBS propaganda. Yet neither PBS nor Variety are prepared to call liberals “liberal,” using the euphemism “progressive” instead Meanwhile, conservatives are just plain conservative.

“I don’t think enough people know that our viewership is evenly split among conservatives, independents, progressives,” says Geoff Bennett, one of the co-anchors of the long-running program that was once known as “The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour.”

The gaslighting got really hot when PBS tried not only to pass off liberal MSNBC host and Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart as a “progressive,” but to term Trump-hating David Brooks a “conservative,” as if their regular appearances on the News Hour provide a rough balance of political opinions (in fact, they agree with each other most of the time): “And the show’s regular exchanges between Jonathan Capehart and David Brooks — one progressive and one conservative — are proving popular online….”

On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) held a hearing featuring the CEOs of National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS amid a new push to achieve a decades-old effort to defund the far-left propaganda outlets that annually see hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.

With their federal dollars on the line, NPR’s Katherine Maher and PBS’s Paula Kerger refused to admit to the error of their ways, cartoonishly insisting their outlets deliver “essential,” “fact-based,” “non-partisan,” “trusted,” and “unbiased” reporting.

Committee Democrats rallied to their defense with Chicken Little claims about the lives of rural Americans somehow having no access to vital information, no local news, and a GOP that’s out to engage in “bullshit…to shutdown everybody that is not Fox News.”

Republicans came prepared with the facts about broadband internet, an endless menu of outlets Americans lacked in the past, hard-hitting examples of anti-American propaganda on NPR and PBS, and even NewsBusters research.

Let’s walk through the highlights and lowlights from the nearly two-hour-and-26-minute hearing.

Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) led off with an opening statement many of these themes, starting with the archaic view of the news landscape:

Thus, she explained, “NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy white, urban liberals and progressives who generally looked down on and judge rural America.”

In PBS’s case, she cited two disturbing examples that openly advocated and glorified transgenderism and then how they too falsely claimed Elon Musk did a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day.

Ranking Member Stephen Lynch (D-MA) had other ideas, falsely claiming the GOP held the hearing to distract from Signal-gate and were targeting “the likes of Elmo and Cookie Monster and Arthur the Aardvark.”

Maher’s opening statement was comical from the start:

Along with insisting they’re great stewards of tax dollars, she spoke glowingly of their ethics and respect for all Americans:

As for Kerger, she too struck a weirdly romantic tone, suggesting they’re the one network looking out for the American people:

Our friends from the Heritage Foundation had Mike Gonzalez also on hand to testify, which he credited the work of our own Tim Graham:

Greene kicked off the Q&A by calling Maher on the carpet over her history of divisive, radical comments and that she’s supposed to work for all Americans, not hate half of them:

Maher’s response? She had the gall to claim she’s “a very strong believer in free speech” and believes in “more speech.”

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) picked up on Greene’s two points about NPR being far less valuable than it used to be and that its alleged journalism is disinformation to the point it meddles in elections:

Following a ridiculous bit of chicanery by Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA), Congressman Michael Cloud (R-TX) blasted Maher’s “lack of reverence for truth” and NPR’s failure on major news stories in the last five years:

On this, Maher claimed her past comments about censorship were “really referencing the way that people use truth to refer to belief as opposed to facts, and my encouragement was that we focus on the facts.”

The word “focus” wouldn’t befit whatever this was from Texas Democrats Greg Casar and the new, unofficial face of the party, Jasmine Crockett.

In the latter’s case, she dropped the expletive and, in her newfound rhetoric from the ‘hood, she falsely claimed those wanting to defund NPR and PBS don’t care about “the safety of the American people”:

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) brought the hearing back to reality, asking Maher if NPR is “biased,” to which she laughably said she had “never seen any instance of political bias determining editorial decisions” and that “I do not believe we are politically biased” and instead “a nonpartisan organization.”

Jordan also methodically exposed the racket that is the wider agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB):

After Congresswoman Emily Randall (D-WA) defended NPR and PBS because rural areas like northern Washington state depend on them because they lack high-speed internet, Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN) exposed PBS and the left for still using Sesame Street as a crutch:

He then grilled Maher about her progressive ideology and how one NPR affiliate in New York state railed against God Bless America:

Burchett’s GOP colleague Pat Fallon (TX) was loaded for bear, first drawing these claims out from Maher (and then Kerger to concur https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/1904934481112293587):

Fallon then cited two NewsBusters studies from our Clay Waters on the rancorous bias at PBS on labeling “far-left” vs. “far-right” and then last year comparing the two party conventions:

Moments after Maher admitted to Fallon that NPR journalists “work to be” fair “every day,” Fallon closed with a rousing rant outlining the reason the left defends funding NPR and PBS as well as the only sort of ideological diversity they actually support:

Congressman Brendan Gill’s (R-TX) five minutes were nothing short of a masterclass in asking questions, taking the same approach Fox’s Peter Doocy has perfected in the White House Briefing Room.

In the first half, Gill confronted Maher on a slew of past statements, all of which Maher acted surprised and even denied she said on issues like Marxism, reparations, and white privilege. Thankfully, Gill informed her she did, in fact, say them in tweets:

Part two consisted of content aired and published by NPR, ranging from defending looting to “queer dinosaur enthusiasts” to glorifying obesity to civility being racist:

Speaking of effective questioning, Congressman Brian Jack (R-GA) closed out the Q&A with a series of questions to Maher about how much federal funding makes up NPR’s revenue:

Greene and Lynch wrapped the hearing with closing statements and, in Greene’s case, she dropped the hammer with even more examples of bias, such as PBS claiming in 2010 there are Christian bombings on a daily basis and even video of a drag queen on a show aimed at children from ages three to eight:

To see the relevant transcript from the March 26 hearing, click here.

In the wake of far-left radical Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) again mocking Republican Governor Greg Abbott (TX) because of his wheelchair, the loony liberal ladies of ABC’s The View did their best to clean up the mess. On Wednesday, the cast tried to argue that Crockett was taken out of context, that it was only a “mistake,” and she only needed to apologize. But according to ABC News co-host Joy Behar, Abbott’s disability deserved to be mocked because he supported President Trump.

At the top of the segment, moderator Whoopi Goldberg parroted Crockett’s ridiculous excuse for calling the wheelchair-bound Governor “Governor Hot Wheels”: “Now, Congresswoman Crockett denies she was mocking Abbott’s disability. She says she was referring to his use of train, planes, and automobiles to transfer migrants around the country.”

Behar immediately jumped in and defended Crockett and scoff at the fact that there was genuine outrage at her. She argued that Abbott’s disability deserved to be mocked because he supported Trump and Trump once mocked a reporter:

BEHAR: Where was the outrage from Abbott when Trump was doing this?

[Cuts to video]

TRUMP: Written by a nice reporter. Now the poor guy, you got to see this guy, “Oh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember.” He’s going like, I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.

[Cuts back to live]

BEHAR: Well, that was about a reporter named Serge Kovaleski that suffers from a condition that restricts joint movement. And he had interviewed Trump many times in the 80s. So, he was basically making fun of the guy’s disability and I didn’t hear the “OUTRAGE” then! [Used air quotes]

“Not that [Crockett]’s right or wrong,” Behar proclaimed, proceeding to further downplay Crockett’s use of “Governor Hot Wheels” to mock Abbott. “I mean, the thing about her, she was looking for a way to say ‘hot mess’ and ‘hot wheels’ and, you know, you should leave that stuff to the comedians,” she said.

 

 

Behar later tried to suggest that the reporting about Crockett mocking Abbott’s disability was just “another lie.” But co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin pointed out that there were several examples of Crockett mocking Abbott’s disability dating back years:

BEHAR: How about sometimes we have a headline about Whoopi and Joy, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh and when you read the article ‘they love each other. They love each other.’ So, that’s another lie.

FARAH GRIFFIN: I should note though, she’d made a joke before about him, hot wheels numerous times.

BEHAR: And what did she say that time?

FARAH GRIFFIN: There was like three or four examples. Referred to him as “Governor Hot Wheels,” said he was ‘rolling up to the White House.’

Our friend Peter Hasson at The Washington Free Beacon, broke a story on Tuesday exposing the fact Crockett was liking Facebook posts calling Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels” dating back to 2021.

Much of the rest of The View cast wanted this scandal to go away as quickly as possible and lamented that Crockett had to go through this. Pretend independent Sara Haines praised Crockett as “a very talented politician” and “a very talented communicator” to whom which “people gravitate towards.”

Haines used it as an opportunity to attack a GOP congresswoman: “This was beneath her, because Marjorie Taylor Greene, we expect that. That’s the only way she can get a headline is by saying crazy stuff and then everyone looks. Representative Crockett is so much better than this.”

It was another example of hypocrisy from Haines. During an interview with Crockett back in February, Haines lauded her guest for insulting Rep. Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) body and looks. “Well Congresswoman, you’ve earned a reputation for calling out certain Republican antics. We all remember the ‘bleach blonde bad built butch body’ moment with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene,” she touted.

Haines herself also once attacked Abbott for his wheelchair. Following the Uvalde School Shooting, Haines went after the Governor for sitting during the press conference. “Many people can’t even peel themselves off the floor in grief in those communities and yet he’s sitting there holding some kind of press conference,” she chided.

 

 

Co-host Sunny Hostin said she “admire[s] Jasmine Crockett” because “she is an effective messenger.” Hostin tried to downplay the comments as a “mistake” and advised Crockett to “own it.” “You have to do that because it gives you a lot more credibility when you do that,” she added.

Hostin also claimed she was only just finding out that Abbott was in a wheelchair, but noted that, as a representative from Texas, Crockett had likely known about it:

I did not know that governor Abbott was a paraplegic. I had no idea that he went around — the people in the audience are also shaking their heads. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know a tree fell on him when he was 26. A lot of his photos are taken from the waist up. But she is the representative from Texas, so she very much so must have known that he is in a wheelchair. And so, I hope that she does the right thing.

For her part, Goldberg suggested that maybe people were misinterpreting what Crockett meant by calling the wheelchair-bound Governor “Governor Hot Wheels”:

You have to be so careful with what you say because your intentions may have been absolutely what you said. But once people hear you say something, it is not about what you said, it’s about what they think your intentions are. So, everybody has got to be really careful.

Goldberg and Hostin teamed up to denounce calls from Republicans to censure Crockett. Seemingly under the impression that the GOP and Congress had to do whatever she personally ordered them to, Goldberg decreed: “[S]he made a mistake, and we’re going to move on. We’re not censuring people. We’re not going to do it. We’re going to say to people, just don’t do it.”

The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:

ABC’s The View
March 26, 2025
11:16:09 a.m. Eastern

(…)

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Now, Congresswoman Crockett denies she was mocking Abbott’s disability. She says she was referring to his use of train, planes, and automobiles to transfer migrants around the country. She should not have made the comment at all, but, Joy.

JOY BEHAR: Well, I was just thinking when I saw this about – Where was the outrage from Abbott when Trump was doing this?

[Cuts to video]

DONALD TRUMP: Written by a nice reporter. Now the poor guy, you got to see this guy, “Oh, I don’t know what I said. I don’t remember.” He’s going like, I don’t remember. Maybe that’s what I said.

[Cuts back to live]

BEHAR: Well, that was about a reporter named Serge Kovaleski that suffers from a condition that restricts joint movement. And he had interviewed Trump many times in the 80s. So, he was basically making fun of the guy’s disability and I didn’t hear the “OUTRAGE” then! Not that she’s right or wrong. I mean, the thing about her, she was looking for a way to say hot mess and hot wheels and, you know, you should leave that stuff to the comedians.

SARA HAINES: I think she should just own it because Jasmine Crockett is a very talented politician. Crockett, sorry. Is a very talented communicator, politician, she’s effective, people gravitate towards her.

This was beneath her, because Marjorie Taylor Greene, we expect that. That’s the only way she can get a headline is by saying crazy stuff and then everyone looks. Representative Crockett is so much better than this.

So, I think it would have been really relatable because the rest of that speech, if you watch it, she’s really impassioned. She says, ‘I’m going off script.’ What I love a politician to do, is say, “I said that, I shouldn’t have said that” and then move on because then everyone would move on with her. She’s just too good for this.

(…)

11:18:49 a.m. Eastern

GOLDBERG: You have to be so careful with what you say because your intentions may have been absolutely what you said. But once people hear you say something, it is not about what you said, it’s about what they think your intentions are. So, everybody has got to be really careful. I’m sorry.

BEHAR: How about sometimes we have a headline about Whoopi and Joy, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh and when you read the article ‘they love each other. They love each other.’ So, that’s another lie.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I should note though, she’d made a joke before about him, hot wheels numerous times.

BEHAR: And what did she say that time?

FARAH GRIFFIN: There was like three or four examples. Referred to him as “Governor Hot Wheels,” said he was ‘rolling up to the White House.’ Said — it’s —

SUNNY HOSTIN: I think — I think that.

BEHAR: Not a good idea.

HOSTIN: You just don’t mock people with disabilities.

GOLDBERG: You don’t mock people.

HOSTIN: You don’t mock people. I was just going to say, you don’t mock people at all.

And I admire Jasmine Crockett. I do think she is an effective messenger. I think this was a mistake and I think when you make a mistake you have to own it. You have to do that because it gives you a lot more credibility when you do that.

I did not know that governor Abbott was a paraplegic. I had no idea that he went around — the people in the audience are also shaking their heads. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know a tree fell on him when he was 26. A lot of his photos are taken from the waist up. But she is the representative from Texas, so she very much so must have known that he is in a wheelchair. And so, I hope that she does the right thing — they want to censure her for it.

[Crosstalk]

HOSTIN: That’s not appropriate but it is appropriate for her to apologize.

GOLDBERG: You can’t – If you want me to take everything you say when he talks about different people – You said, ‘No, no, he was just joking.’ Okay, then let’s all do that right now and say, she made a mistake, and we’re going to move on. We’re not censuring people. We’re not going to do it. We’re going to say to people, just don’t do it. Don’t make jokes. As Joy says – what is it?

BEHAR: Leave it to the comedians.

GOLDBERG: That’s right. We’ll be right back.

As expected, Snow White’s remake and its lecturing leading lady’s career blew up like a Hezbollah pager this week. 

It turns out, nobody wants to line up to be yelled at by a princess-turned two-dimensional boss lady whose kingdom of comrades waged a cultural revolution on their childhood classics. 

Will our self-appointed entertainment overlords get a clue when they take a look at their movie’s whopping IMDB rating of 1.3 out of 10 this week? Or when their wallets suddenly feel light after losing millions? 

Of course not.

In a way, the mousy main character syndrome disaster of Snow Woke perfectly encapsulates the outdated and out-of-touch progressives who still believe they have their thumb on our culture. 

The self-congratulating actress, her meager fanbase of adult children and their faceless internet mob have convinced themselves for years that their Marxist agenda places them above everyone as the moral authority. When the rest of the world tunes out, they blame society, of course!

It seems the Left needs to take a sobering look at the Magic Mirror, most of all. 

Tune into this episode of “Woke of the Weak!”

Comedy Central’s Ronny Chieng welcomed Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to the Tuesday taping of The Daily Show for a short two-question interview. Chieng’s first question was simply to ask how Wu became mayor, while the second put the ball on the tee for her to deliver her ode to sanctuary cities. Afterwards, Chieng would heap praise on his guest, telling her she is “the best.”

Chieng praised Wu’s recent Congressional testimony, “But right now, it feels like everyone, you know, politicians, everyone hates politicians now more than ever. Recently, you got, I guess you got—you testified in Congress about sanctuary cities, which is one issue in many things, and you defended yourself well.”

 

 

He then wondered, “What do you say to the people who, in your constituency who might feel like, ‘Hey, why are we doing this? What is the big deal with this sanctuary city thing? If people are illegally in the country, shouldn’t we arrest them and get rid of them? What is the big deal?’”

Wu responded by painting a picture of a dystopian, crime-ridden hellscape that would befall Boston if it weren’t a sanctuary city and immigration law were to be enforced, “Yeah, again, we are the safest city because we are safe for everyone. In a community where over a quarter of your residents come from—were born in another country, if people are afraid to drop their kids off at school or call 911 when they need help, or share information when they actually have information to report about a crime that happened, that makes everyone less safe, whether or not you are an immigrant, whether or not you are here in this country, six generations or just arrived.”

 She also tried to claim that the city’s economic, health and education systems would collapse:

 So, we’re really focused on being that home for everyone, and it has worked. And so all of the buzz around, you know, whether these kinds of cities that are more welcoming for immigrants are more dangerous, it is about a false narrative that immigrants are somehow more likely to commit crimes or cause harm and that is just simply not true. We know that in our city, where our immigrant communities are entrepreneurs, are holding up the best hospitals in the country, the universities, and jobs that we all rely on, and in order to make sure that we can keep that progress going, everyone has to feel part of it. That is a legacy of Boston and that’s the legacy I am really proud to be able to carry on today and every day.  

Considering all the non-sanctuary cities that haven’t devolved into chaos, that seems like a stretch. However, Chieng simply ended, “Okay, so Mayor Wu, you’re the best. Thank you for representing all Asians. Thank you for making the city of Boston great. Appreciate all you do, I know it is a very thankless task. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, everybody.”

 After that praise, “very thankless” also doesn’t seem accurate.

Here is a transcript for the March 25 show:

Comedy Central The Daily Show

3/25/2024

11:27 PM ET

RONNY CHIENG: But right now, it feels like everyone, you know, politicians, everyone hates politicians now more than ever. Recently, you got, I guess you got — you testified in Congress about sanctuary cities, which is one issue in many things, and you defended yourself well. What do you say to the people who, in your constituency who might feel like, “Hey, why are we doing this? What is the big deal with this sanctuary city thing? If people are illegally in the country, shouldn’t we arrest them and get rid of them? What is the big deal?”

MICHELLE WU: Yeah, again, we are the safest city because we are safe for everyone. In a community where over a quarter of your residents come from — were born in another country, if people are afraid to drop their kids off at school or call 911 when they need help, or share information when they actually have information to report about a crime that happened, that makes everyone less safe, whether or not you are an immigrant, whether or not you are here in this country, six generations or just arrived.

So, we’re really focused on being that home for everyone, and it has worked. And so all of the buzz around, you know, whether these kinds of cities that are more welcoming for immigrants are more dangerous, it is about a false narrative that immigrants are somehow more likely to commit crimes or cause harm and that is just simply not true. We know that in our city, where our immigrant communities are entrepreneurs, are holding up the best hospitals in the country, the universities, and jobs that we all rely on, and in order to make sure that we can keep that progress going, everyone has to feel part of it. That is a legacy of Boston and that’s the legacy I am really proud to be able to carry on today and every day.

CHIENG: Okay, so Mayor Wu, you’re the best. Thank you for representing all Asians. Thank you for making the city of Boston great. Appreciate all you do, I know it is a very thankless task. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, everybody.

Before journalist Jeffrey Goldberg’s revelation that he’d been privy to a national security text thread discussing war plans by the Trump White House, the Atlantic’s editor in chief hosted another busy episode of public television’s Washington Week with The Atlantic, where Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and Atlantic writer Michael Scherer helped him hype the “constitutional crisis” (the phrase appears 16 times in the show’s transcript) of Trump supposedly defying the U.S. judicial system, perhaps eventually the Supreme Court.

Host Jeffrey Goldberg: The Trump Administration’s confrontation with the judicial branch raises new fears of a possible constitutional crisis….People throw around the term constitutional crisis all the time, and I include myself in the category of people here, but what does it actually mean? Would it be a constitutional crisis if the president defies a federal judge’s order on the detention of immigrants? Are we already in such a crisis?….

David Ignatius of the Washington Post said it was coming.

David Ignatius: So, my definition would be constitutional crisis is when the president defies the Supreme Court. We’re heading in that direction. The president is responding to sharp pushback from the chief justice by pushing back himself. Right wing Twitter is talking about a judicial coup. This is, increasingly, I think, a dangerous moment….

Goldberg got worried about a Trump statement on judges.

Goldberg: Just to illustrate something you’re talking about, I want you to all listen to the president sounding a bit ominous on the subject of judges he doesn’t like.

Donald Trump, U.S. President: We have very bad judges, and these are judges that shouldn’t be allowed. I think they — I think, at a certain point, you have to start looking at what do you do when you have a rogue judge.

Yet, in contrast with Goldberg’s “ominous” phrasing now, Washington Week at the time didn’t even mention comments made on March 4, 2020 by Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer when he spoke at a rally in front of the Court building against abortion restrictions and made violent-sounding threats against two conservative Supreme Court justices, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.” The show was silent on the matter the following week as well.

None of these people cried “constitutional crisis” when President Biden bragged he’d skip over SCOTUS on student-loan forgiveness. “The Supreme Court blocked it,” Biden said, “but that didn’t stop me.”

Goldberg was working up to a hypothetical Trump defiance as a “constitutional crisis,” and Ignatius filled in the required anti-Trump panic in dramatic fashion.

Ignatius: That’s a moment that we dread to imagine what authority in the end would the Supreme Court have to enforce its ruling against the president. And in the end, I think we would have a constitutional crisis. We would have the people, I hope, enraged at the defiance. I mean, you know, that’s a direct assault on the Constitution. Every official of the United States government swears an oath to the Constitution. They need to be reminded of that. Every member of Congress surely understands that an attack on the Supreme Court of the United States goes to the very heart of what our country is, what the founders imagine. You take a look at the Constitution, it couldn’t be clearer, you know? It just enumerates the powers of each branch. Article 3, talking about the powers of the judiciary couldn’t be clearer. And that’s what Trump is going at….

For good measure, The Atlantic’s Scherer compared Trump to ref-working, chair-hurling Indiana University college basketball coach Bobby Knight.

Scherer: There’s another way of interpreting what the president’s doing right now, which is he went to the Justice Department last week and told a story about Bobby Knight, the basketball coach, and how great he was at working the refs. It’s clearly in his mind….And he’s doing a Bobby Knight. He’s throwing the chair, you know, into the middle of the basketball court.

Michael LaRosa was Jill Biden’s press secretary for the first 18 months of Biden’s presidency, and in recent weeks he’s loosened his lips about how Team Joe mistreated a pliant press corps.

In an interview with Cenk Uygur on “The Young Turks” show, LaRosa admitted: “They did bully a lot of journalists, and I think they would tell you that now. They wouldn’t have told you at the time.”

LaRosa didn’t want to say the reporters were “co-conspirators,” but it’s impossible to see all of their obsequious cooperation with Team Biden and think that word is inappropriate.

Uygur asked how they bullied the press, and LaRosa said Joe’s handlers insisted they had to pre-approve the quotes used in stories. That’s helping shape the story, not something an “independent journalist” would accept.

LaRosa added “you saw them get caught trying to script questions to radio reporters” last summer. They didn’t just “try.” The radio hosts the Bidenites selected were happy to use the pre-scripted questions. LaRosa added: “It was very reminiscent to me of being on the campaign in 2020, where these young press staffers in these states like New Hampshire, or Iowa, or Nevada, they were sort of like dog trained to make the questions conditional for interviews.” Questions had to be submitted for approval.

On “Doctor” Jill Biden’s team, LaRosa said, he told staffers it was “unethical” to require questions before granting access, but they replied it’s what Team Joe (or “the boys team”) required. “These young kids are really taught to make that a part of their sort of pre-pre-screening for interviews.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing to me that no one in the press complained about it,” mused Uygur. The press corps was stuffed with pushovers, from the same leftist press outlets who screamed hostile, un-screened questions at Trump and called it “strengthening democracy.” 

Uygur wondered: “Did the press ever push back? We couldn’t see the press pushing back at all, until the debate [fiasco].” This underlined how much the press is a megaphone for Democrats, and when the Donkey Party breaks down into two sides, the press will then present both sides.

LaRosa thought maybe the local reporters would be less intimidated by a national campaign. “Like why didn’t any of these reporters even in New Hampshire, and some of these small town papers or local news, like why didn’t anybody ever say anything [about the pre-screening]? I thought it was so weird at the time.”

LaRosa said Team Biden were “operating out of a bunker every day,” and he never understood it because “there was so much good will that he had with the media” who couldn’t stand Trump. He said the Bidenites were suspicious of all journalists. Or…let’s guess they were scared about whatever might tumble unscripted out of Biden’s mouth.

Then came another interesting theme, with LaRosa saying Donald Trump manipulates the media coverage by energetically granting so much access that he becomes the primary source, that he’s “good copy.” Biden’s team made their leader sound tightly scripted and designed to avoid making any waves, so nothing sounded authentic. 

The national media elitists were never independent enough to stand up for its own prerogatives with Biden or with Kamala Harris. These cowardly pols could avoid interviews as aggressively as they desired, and there was no pushback from their supposed foes.

So we roll our eyes when journalists promote themselves as reliable professionals who are essential to a functioning government. They aren’t the ones who will be “holding government accountable” when it’s the government they all picked on Election Day. 

The CBS Evening News continues to perform immigration advocacy disguised as journalism, with reporting on the illegal aliens deported to El Salvador’s CECOT prison that is best described as victim porn, and is normally seen on Univision and Telemundo. This advocacy is undergirded by some major omissions 

As part of her reporting, CBS’s Lilia Luciano went to Washington, DC and interviewed Border Czar Tom Homan. Here is how that went (click “expand” to view transcript):

LILIA LUCIANO: The Trump administration says the men deported were all members of a criminal gang called Tren de Aragua, known as TdA. But we reported last week on a similar case where a Venezuelan migrant with no known criminal record also landed in the CECOT prison. We came to The White House to talk to the border czar Tom Homan to better understand why the government says that these men are all terrorists.

TOM HOMAN: I’ve been told by the highest levels of ICE, the men and women of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who built that manifest, who went into these files, spent hundreds and hundreds of hours investigating each and each and every one of these people, that they are in fact -everyone of them- a member of TdA.

LUCIANO: How do you know they are all members? Have you seen that evidence?

HOMAN: I have not delved on every file. Again, I’m trusting the men and women who do this for a living.

LUCIANO: Is it possible that the administration made a mistake by sending 238 men, saying that they are TdA members? Ensuring they are all TdA members without seeing what the evidence is?

HOMAN: I’m not worried- I’m not worried about mistakes at all. But I can tell you this. Not every gang member has a criminal record…

Criticism of the CECOT program is underpinned on the idea of a lack of a criminal record for the defendant aliens, and on whether or not they belong to vicious transnational gang El Tren de Aragua (TdA). And this is what Luciano focuses on when she’s in front of Homan.

Likewise, Luciano establishes these straw men when she interviews the partner of one of the deportees. The criteria being narrowed down to criminal records in the U.S. or membership specifically in TdA. But that is not what DHS is going by when making deportation decisions.

A recent Miami Herald article contains some of the background omitted by Luciano in order to craft the victim porn shown to American viewers for the purpose of shaming them into accepting a broken border:

A small team of Venezuelans and former U.S. officials with deep connections to police and intelligence in the South American country has been providing information to the Trump administration about the number and identities of members of Tren de Aragua and other Venezuelan gangs headed to or already in the United States.

The group, which has been meeting with high-ranking members of the administration, made a presentation to President Donald Trump’s team before he was inaugurated on Jan. 20, detailing links between the feared Tren de Aragua gang and the Nicolás Maduro regime, and provided official documents obtained from Venezuelan police agencies identifying 1,800 gang members believed to have been sent into the United States, three sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald.

…

The administration has also obtained data from law enforcement agencies from Latin American nations where Tren de Aragua members set up criminal operations before attempting to extend their reach into the United States. The gang’s presence has been blamed for a spike of violent crimes in those countries. In the presentation to the Trump administration, the group claimed that Venezuelan intelligence services had provided logistics and money to hundreds of members of Tren de Aragua to enter the U.S.

The article details that the individuals illegally in the United States could be TdA or part of an affiliate gang. Furthermore, that intelligence personnel didn’t just look at Venezuelan criminal records, but those of countries where TdA has a footprint: Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru among others. So when a journalist says “but they don’t have a record in the US or in Venezuela”, you now know it is spin.

Be sure to read the non-paywalled article, which goes on to explain that TdA were sent over by dictator Nicolás Maduro in order to run sabotage operations in the United States, among other heinous acts. Acts which could very well be covered under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for purposes of deportations. 

This is not at all what you see on the Acela Media. Here’s hoping they can curtail their impulse to produce victim porn, and emerge renewed with a focus on reporting every aspect of a story, no matter how uncomfortable the truth may be.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBC Evening News on Tuesday, March 25th, 2025:

MAURICE DuBOIS: We have an update now on a story we’ve been following closely, the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without due process.

JOHN DICKERSON: The Trump administration insists they are criminals and gang members but as we have reported, there is reason to believe some are not.

DuBOIS: Lilia Luciano talked to another wife who insists her husband is no criminal, and no gang member, and then Lilia spoke to the president’s border czar.

LILIA LUCIANO: By now you’ve seen the videos from El Salvador. More than 200 Venezuelan men deported from the U.S. and dropped into one of the world’s most dangerous prisons, known as CECOT. 

LUCIANO, IN SPANISH: You recognized him.

NAISA, IN SPANISH: Yes.

LUCIANO: You recognized him. 

One of the faces in the crowd is Naisa’s partner, she says. 

LUCIANO: How did you feel when you saw the prison? 

NAISA, IN SPANISH: A lot of fear, dread.

LUCIANO: It was terrifying to see the videos.

LUCIANO: She’s nine months pregnant, past her due date.

NAISA, IN SPANISH: He won’t be present… 

LUCIANO: He’s not going to be there when his child is born.

LUCIANO: Her partner is Henry Albornoz. The 29-year-old crossed the southern border more than a year ago. He’s been working as a mechanic in Texas and was detained in January during a routine check-in with federal agents. According to his attorney, Albornoz has no criminal record here or in Venezuela. 

He has never been a gang member?

NAISA, IN SPANISH: No. He’s never had any involvement in that… 

LUCIANO: He was never involved in any criminal activity. [

NAISA, IN SPANISH: He’s a very hardworking person, very family oriented, responsible, family first above all else…

LUCIANO: He was a good man, responsible. He was family first above all things, hardworking.

LUCIANO: The Trump administration says the men deported were all members of a criminal gang called Tren de Aragua, known as TdA. But we reported last week on a similar case where a Venezuelan migrant with no known criminal record also landed in the CECOT prison. We came to The White House to talk to the border czar Tom Homan to better understand why the government says that these men are all terrorists.

TOM HOMAN: I’ve been told by the highest levels of ICE, the men and women of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who built that manifest, who went into these files, spent hundreds and hundreds of hours investigating each and each and every one of these people, that they are in fact -everyone of them- a member of TdA.

LUCIANO: How do you know they are all members? Have you seen that evidence?

HOMAN: I have not delved on every file. Again, I’m trusting the men and women who do this for a living.

LUCIANO: Is it possible that the administration made a mistake by sending 238 men, saying that they are TdA members? Ensuring they are all TdA members without seeing what the evidence is?

HOMAN: I’m not worried- I’m not worried about mistakes at all. But I can tell you this. Not every gang member has a criminal record…

DuBOIS: And Lilia Luciano joins us now from Washington. Lilia, we have been wondering from the very beginning here: for those with no criminal record, what’s the recourse? How do they get out of this situation?

LUCIANO: Maurice, that is a great question. I’ve asked the government of El Salvador and they said you have to ask the U.S. government. That is why I wanted to sit with Tom Homan. He referred me to the courts, said that’s going to be figured out in courts. I asked, can they be brought back to get that due process? He said it’s up to the DoJ, but the Department of Justice is refusing to answer any questions about the deportees to the very courts. 

DICKERSON: Lilia Luciano for us in Washington. Lilia, thank you.

 

Tonight’s NBC Nightly News reporting on the Senate hearing to confirm business executive Frank Bisignano as head of the Social Security Administration had a familiar sound to it. If you listen closely enough, you’ll hear the kind of fearmongering that was a staple of a bygone era.

Watch the report in its entirety, as aired on NBC Nightly News on Tuesday, March 25th, 2025 (click “expand” to view transcript):

LESTER HOLT: On Capitol Hill, the Senate held a confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee to lead the Social Security Administration. The agency is facing deep cuts and many Americans are worried that could impact their benefits. Here’s Ryan nobles.

RYAN NOBLES: Denise Perishak is a 70-year-old retired nurse from Pennsylvania who relies every day on her check from Social Security.

DENISE PERISHAK: It’s just something that we always counted on.

NOBLES: She’s one of millions of Americans who paid into the system and now worries about the impact of potential changes from President Trump and Elon Musk.

PERISHAK: Just looking at being able to provide three basic meals for each oth- for ourselves because if Social Security were eliminated, I mean, it’s just — I can’t even think about how terrible that would be.

NOBLES: Musk has openly attacked Social Security.

ELON MUSK: Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.

NOBLES: Enter Frank Bisignano, the former CEO of the financial services company Fiserv, tapped by Trump to run the program. Today promising no one’s benefits would be impacted, despite planned staffing cuts and office closures.

ELIZABETH WARREN: Are you willing to commit right now that you will put enough people back to work so they can do the job of delivering the benefits that Americans earned?

FRANK BISIGNANO: I will —

WARREN: Yes or no.

BISIGNANO: I will commit to have the right staffing to get the job done.

NOBLES: Congressional Republicans are on a mission to cut as much as $2 trillion in federal spending, a task that won’t be easy without impacting programs like Social Security. Some expressing their fears at fiery town halls across America. Republicans insist they plan to focus on potential waste, fraud, and abuse, and hope to automate some services.

RON JOHNSON: I don’t think there’s a business in the private sector that‘s probably operating with the antiquated type of IT system that government agencies have. Why can’t we upgrade those?

NOBLES: But for seniors like Denise, abrupt tech-savvy changes could be a huge challenge.

PERISHAK: Social Security and Medicare should be — that should never be on the chopping block at all.

NOBLES: And there are reports of the agency’s website crashing, and long waits for help on the phone. A 2024 survey revealed that 72% of Americans worry Social Security could run out of funding in their lifetime. Lester.

HOLT: All right. Ryan, thank you.

If you listen closely enough, you’ll get taken back to the late ‘aughts and early teens, when Democrat messaging centered around scaring seniors into believing that evil Republicans were out to gut Social Security. One widely mocked ad featured a Paul Ryan lookalike wheeling an elderly woman to a cliff and throwing her right off.

This is, basically, the tone of Ryan Nobles’ item on Bisignano’s confirmation hearing. Nobles found a willing senior to play the role of frightened grandma as he advocated on behalf of the program, casting President Donald Trump and Tesla/SpaceX founder Elon Musk as the proverbial Paul Ryans holding Grandma’s wheelchair at the cliff’s edge.

In order to be credible, this report relies both on a willing suspension of disbelief and on a major omission: President Trump’s own commitment to preserve Social Security and Medicare. None of this gets mentioned at any point in the report. Instead, Nobles interchanges efficiency cuts with cuts to the program itself. Deceptive stuff intent on scaring seniors into voting Democrat. The Resistance Media is in high gear.