Newsbusters

The “legacy media” network newscasts continue their shameful reporting on the campaign of violence currently unfolding against Tesla, in protest of founder Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration. Today’s stories included the rehashing of a familiar trope. 

First comes the worst: the new and unimproved CBS Evening News, with anchor John Dickerson seemingly having a problem with saying the attacks are directly linked to The Dogefather. Dickerson, instead, hiding behind the weasel word “apparently”. Watch the full brief below:

The CBS Evening News is engaging in serious terror denialism, with anchor John Dickerson saying attacks on Tesla facilities “APPARENTLY” in protest of @elonmusk role in Trump admin pic.twitter.com/uNFxnCtttF
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 25, 2025

CBS EVENING NEWS

3/24/25

6:35 PM

JOHN DICKERSON: John: The FBI has set up a task force to investigate attacks targeting Tesla vehicles. A growing number of Teslas have been vandalized, apparently, to protest the role of Tesla founder Elon Musk in the Trump administration. A number of incendiary devices were found today at a Tesla showroom in Austin, Texas, where the company is headquartered.

Apparently. As if there were some other reason Teslas everywhere are getting shot at and burned down. There wasn’t a companion report on CBS Evening News Plus, so this 19 seconds was absolutely it regarding Tesla.

ABC’s report was marginally better, in that it was a full report versus an itty bitty brief. But it, too, was fatally flawed:

Embed ABC

VILLAREAL: Whit, Musk says several of his DOGE employees have received death threats,with a global day of action set for March 29th. Organizers calling for peaceful protests at Tesla locations this Wednesday across the globe, including this one right here in Austin. The FBI will surely be on high alert. Whit.

ABC’s report closed with what amounts to an advertisement of the next big Tesla protest. It’s almost as if correspondent Mireya Villareal wanted to get that in there as atonement for having to do the report.

Over at NBC, correspondent Liz Kreutz delivers an oldie but goodie:

Can’t have violent mobs protesting and burning stuff down without legacy media calling them “MOSTLY PEACEFUL”: In this case, NBC’s Liz Kreutz RE: Tesla protests pic.twitter.com/ISdKLnMYGu
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 25, 2025

LIZ KREUTZ: Protesters gathered over the weekend at nearly 90 Tesla showrooms, calling on people to sell their Teslas and dump their stock.

PROTESTER: What’s going on in Washington, D.C. Right now is not right.

KREUTZ: While mostly peaceful, some turning confrontational. In Berkley, California, a 33-year-old counterprotester arrested after whipping out a stun gun. And in Palm Beach County, Florida, a Trump supporter charged with assault after driving his car toward protesters, narrowly avoiding them.

And the FBI is now warning the public to exercise vigilance and to look out for any suspicious activity in areas around Tesla dealerships. Lester.

HOLT: Liz Kreutz, thank you.

That’s right, kids: “mostly peaceful” has made its return to our political discourse. Granted, there are differences. The burning of entire cities nearly 5 years ago is somewhat different to the burning of Tesla service centers and privately owned vehicles. 

Then, as now, the media continue to be awful about protests that are inconvenient to a narrative set. In this case, the incendiary and “mostly peaceful” protests threatening to damage vital American industry.

Click “expand” to view full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective newscasts on Monday, March 24th, 2024:

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT

3/24/25

6:37 PM

WHIT JOHNSON: Turning now to the FBI launching a new task force to investigate the growing reports of attacks targeting Tesla dealers and vehicles, at least 48 incidents nationwide, police say multiple incendiary devices were found at a Tesla dealership. ABC’s Mireya Villareal reports from Austin, Texas.

MIREYA VILLAREAL: After dozens of violent incidents like this against Teslas across the country, tonight, the FBI announcing it’s launching a new task force comprised of counterterrorism agents to investigate who’s targeting dealerships, cars and charging stations. Today, law enforcement swarming this Austin dealership not far from Tesla’s headquarters. Police finding and removing several incendiary devices. At that same show room over the weekend, crowds protesting. Officials have not indicated whether today’s discovery is tied to that event. But anger over Musk’s role in The White House, growing coast to coast -from New York City to Boston, Memphis and Colorado Springs. The FBI saying there’s been at least 48 instances in at least nine states since January including arson, gunfire, and graffiti. The FBI now urging Americans to be vigilant around Tesla locations. The president, who’s called the vandals “garbage”, today saying those caught are terrorists who should cut it out. 

DONALD TRUMP: They’re going to suffer very grave consequences. Because they’re really terrorists when you think about it. They’re- very- they’re terrorists at a high level.

VILLAREAL: Whit, Musk says several of his DOGE employees have received death threats,with a global day of action set for March 29th. Organizers calling for peaceful protests at Tesla locations this Wednesday across the globe, including this one right here in Austin. The FBI will surely be on high alert. Whit.

JOHNSON: All right, Mireya. Thank you.

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

3/24/25

6:41 PM

LESTER HOLT: Now to new threats against Tesla. An incendiary device is found at a Texas showroom. It comes as protests grow as part of a “Tesla Takedown” movement. Here’s Liz Kreutz with more.

LIZ KREUTZ: Tonight, the nationwide protests targeting Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk escalating. In Austin, Texas this morning, police finding multiple incendiary devices placed in a Tesla showroom. Nobody was injured, but the incident just the latest attack on Tesla which has become a political flash point by those frustrated with Musk’s role in the federal government and DOGE spending cuts. During a cabinet meeting today, Musk saying DOGE employees are facing daily death threats.

ELON MUSK: A lot of them are just kids, you know, just trying to help out. And they’re very talented- they could get jobs for millions of dollars a year. Instead, they come here and earn peanuts and get death threats.

Tonight, FBI Director Kash Patel calling attacks on Tesla cars, showrooms, and charging stations “domestic terrorism”, and launching a new task force to investigate and find the perpetrators. This as a doxxing website resurfaced, publishing some contact information for Tesla owners. Protesters gathered over the weekend at nearly 90 Tesla showrooms, calling on people to sell their Teslas and dump their stock.

PROTESTER: What’s going on in Washington, D.C. Right now is not right.

KREUTZ: While mostly peaceful, some turning confrontational. In Berkley, California, a 33-year-old counterprotester arrested after whipping out a stun gun. And in Palm Beach County, Florida, a Trump supporter charged with assault after driving his car toward protesters, narrowly avoiding them.

And the FBI is now warning the public to exercise vigilance and to look out for any suspicious activity in areas around Tesla dealerships. Lester.

HOLT: Liz Kreutz, thank you.

 

Rooting for bad things to happen to your adversaries isn’t unusual. But when Rush Limbaugh said “I hope he fails” about incoming President Obama in 2009, leftists like talk show host Stephanie Miller suggested he should be executed for treason.

Now, people are talking about vandalism against Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicles and dealerships, and crowds cheer and laugh as the Tesla stock price sinks. The double standard is obvious, with the Left switching from Obama is like God to Trump (or Musk) is like Satan.

On Saturday morning, CNN weekend host Michael Smerconish called out The Daily Show (and its whooping audience) for enjoying the attacks on Tesla. On Saturday evening came CNN’s news-based “comedy” show called Have I Got News for You. Host Roy Wood Jr. played a clip of CNN host Kaitlan Collins underlining that Musk is donating to GOP members of Congress who back impeaching the activist judges who are overruling Trump’s moves. They don’t have the 67 votes in the Senate to remove any Democrat judge. But this is the state of CNN comedians:

AMBER RUFFIN: “When do we riot? When do we — ” (Cheering and Applause)

MICHAEL IAN BLACK: “Here’s what I’ve been doing: I’ve been going around to random Tesla dealers and just lighting cars on fire.” (Laughter)

The joke was it’s something you shouldn’t say you did, like a public confession. But imagine laughing at Planned Parenthood clinics closing, and then making jokes about rioting or burning down an abortion clinic. We can guess CNN would think that was not just unfunny, but dangerously extremist. 

Over at NPR, Bobby Allyn, a reporter specializing in social media and now especially on Musk, did a sympathetic piece on environmental activist Valerie Costa, who received negative tweets and threats for pushing what they call the Tesla Takedown. Musk called her out and suggested she favored violence. Allyn wrote: “There have been a spate of arrests linked to violence against Tesla facilities. Authorities have not said any of the acts were coordinated. Musk’s posts on X, Costa said, not only amplified false theories about who is behind the protests, but also conflated peaceful protests with the violent acts. That is deeply alarming, she said.”

NPR and other liberal media outlets would not acknowledge anyone inside or outside the Capitol engaged in a “peaceful protest” on January 6, but when the target is associated with Trump and firing federal bureaucrats, the entire attitude changes. 

At least NPR (in a separate story) and the AP sought out “experts on domestic extremism” to assess whether the attacks on Tesla qualified as domestic terrorism. This was clearly vandalism and violence meant to intimidate people out of buying or keeping a Tesla, so the T-word fits. 

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

 

Former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy suggested Sunday on his newsletter site Status American democracy was teetering and a descent into authoritarianism was afoot. Even though his unhinged outlook on life appears permanent, this new reason was legacy media outlets having refused to join the Associated Press in using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Gulf of America (and instead vague uses of “the gulf”) to avoid the Trump White House’s ire.

The headline and subhead will have you cackling or rolling your eyes (or both): “Gulf of Fear; When news anchors tiptoe around the name Gulf of Mexico, it’s not just semantics—it’s a glimpse at how the press starts to flinch under political pressure.”

The miserable liberal tool started off on an incendiary note, comparing President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America to communist China in that they consider Taiwan as “a province” and such an actual Orwellian policing of language is obviously “not about semantic,” but “wielding influence and asserting dominance.”

Darcy went right for the miserable wine mom vote in Northern Virginia with a doomsday scenario: “In the United States, that kind of top-down dictation might feel like a distant threat” since there’s “free speech safeguarded by the First Amendment.”

This was where the Gulf of America comparison came into full view as Darcy declared the ocean splashdown from space of NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore in a SpaceX capsule “demonstrated” legacy TV networks are “far less adversarial and far more compliant than the breathless promos these networks air hyping themselves as fearless truth-tellers.”

There we go again with the comical audience out there who believe the liberal media are actually subservient and pro-Trump.

His research of broadcast and cable coverage “revealed an alarming reality: not one of the outlets could muster up the courage to simply refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Instead,” he grimly shared, “television news organizations tied themselves in knots, performing linguistic gymnastics to stay out of Donald Trump’s crosshairs, while also tiptoeing around audiences who would have surely been incensed to see them bend the knee and call it the ‘Gulf of America.’”

He cited examples, ranging from “the Gulf” to “off the coast of Florida” to “the Florida Gulf coast.” The former conservative-turned-ardent progressive seemed particular miffed at CNN’s Jake Tapper for having used “Gulf of America” and “Gulf of Mexico” and then NBC’s Tom Costello for using Gulf of Mexico before flipping to simply “the Gulf.”

Darcy whined this was all “an act of submission” to dictator Trump and anything but “a fairly harmless concession” because “Trump made it clear that he will punish news organizations that do not fall in line on the matter when he banned The Associated Press…for refusing to bend the knee.”

He lectured his fellow lefties this was worth raising hell publicly over because, otherwise, it’s an open question what they’ll do when the President vis-à-vis Greenland and Panama.

It sure seemed like he wanted this otherwise unifying event and marvel of modern science to be some sort of last stand for the liberal media: “When the battle is over what words are permitted to be used, cute linguistic gymnastics amount to a surrender. Words are the front lines of truth, and once they’re ceded, it becomes far easier for strongmen like Trump to shape reality.”

This real-life Chicken Little closed by deeming last Tuesday a “significant” and “uncomfortable…crack in the Fourth Estate’s foundation” and willingness to accept “authoritarianism…through softened language and adjusted maps.”

In essence, Darcy suggested America has made way for the country to join history’s list of dangerous, evil regimes to grow, as evidenced by….whether you say “Gulf of Mexico” or “Gulf of America.”

Elie Mystal, the man dubbed Mad Scientist Fat Albert in 2019 by the great Varad Mehta, joined MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday by plug his new book Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America with one of them a comically predictable antidote to fixing our republic: axing all voter registration laws.

“[W]e could eliminate all voter registration laws. See, when Democrats get in charge, we try to protect voting rights. We don’t make voting easier. Now, I’m all for voter eligibility requirements. I might — we might disagree about what those requirements should be, but, you know, I’m going to say that like there should be an age limit to vote,” he explained to co-host Mika Brzezinski.

 

 

He then added we only have laws to begin with because….racism:

So, we’re going to agree that there should be voter eligibility requirements. But once you’re eligible. Why do you have to pre-register? Why — why is that even a thing? It wasn’t a thing in this country at the Founding. We didn’t have voter pre-registration in 1787. We didn’t have voter pre-registration in 1821. We only started having voter registration, generally speaking, after the Civil War. Why do you think that is? It’s because a bunch of freed African slaves were migrating up north, and all of a sudden New York was like, we need some registration up in here, right?

In fairness, he also suggested xenophobia was afoot because it harmed European immigrants around the same time.

“[W]e don’t have to protect voting rights. We have to expand voting rights so that the 90 million people that sat on the couch and sat out this last election between democracy and fascism…they have a little bit of an easier time to get up off the couch,” he continued.

Rewinding to the beginning of the interview, co-host Mika Brzezinski made sure to tell him live “I think it’s fair to point out that you’re not saying don’t follow the law,” to which he insisted “I’m not saying don’t follow the law” since “I’m black and I — and I know that that doesn’t always work out very well for us.”

Mystal led into his voter registration issue by saying it was time “somebody on my side of the aisle has to start writing Project 2029” and a “positive agenda for the Democratic Party” and not “another Orange Man Bad book” or enabling the posture of the party to remain “in a fetal position” or “defensive posture.”

The Nation correspondent also delivered a side of sneering at black Republicans: 

One of the things that you know in our community is that when you talk to nonvoters, I’m not talking about talking about black Republicans. You can get Byron Donalds up here and he’ll tell you whatever you want to hear. When you talk to people in our community that are not voting, what they will tell you is that it doesn’t seem like it matters. Nothing changes no matter who no matter who gets elected…If we elected better leaders, more focused leaders, leaders committed to our communities, these are the laws that would change and would improve your life tomorrow.

Three other topics were covered (albeit two briefly). One was an unsurprising pick: “I have a whole chapter about felony murder. I have a whole chapter about stand your ground. These are two of the most racist laws that we have on our books that lead to the over-incarceration of people in our community.”

His third concerned the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1921, arguing such a law would be no good since, in his telling of history, it has Nazi roots. Also, take note of how he described the arrest of pro-Hamas Columbia University grad Mahmoud Khalil as an “abduction” (click “expand”):

So, I go really hard on immigration. People who are following the tragedy and the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil have — have recently become aware that the 1921 Immigration and Nationality Act allows Marco Rubio to pull people’s green cards by fiat, just because he says so. Well, in this book, I talk about how the 1921 immigration nationality act is one of the worst laws in the country. That was made based on the testimony and science of a Nazi eugenicist and when I say a Nazi eugenicist, I mean he’s an American eugenicist that did so well, the Nazis was like, bring them over here. We’re going to give them a medal at the University of Heidelberg in 1935. But in 1921, he helped Congress write the Immigration and Nationality Act, which remains one of the most racist laws in our country. That is something that we could change tomorrow that would not only free people like Mahmoud Khalil, but completely reform and reimagine our immigration process.

To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from March 24, click here.

On Friday night, ABC, CBS, and NBC celebrated a story from Thursday by their friends at The New York Times alleging the Department of Defense was set to grant Elon Musk a top-secret briefing on hypothetical war plans against China as part of his Friday meeting at the Pentagon, but was changed due to The Times raising concerns about his business work with Tesla in China. Of course, that’s not what happened and came despite vehement pushback from Trump officials.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell tore The Times a new one on Friday’s Fox & Friends, declaring the allegations “completely false,” “egregious,” and “fake” based on “five anonymous sources.”

“The New York Times should retract this story…I’ve on [bilateral] calls with the Secretary. I see how hard he’s working to implement the President’s agenda and achieve piece through strength. This type of garbage from The New York Times undermines that process and undermines our mission. It shouldn’t happen at all,” he added, holding up a printout of the article.

Along with Hegseth also offering on-camera remarks, President Trump tore into the newspaper on Friday:

None of that mattered to the liberal broadcast networks. ABC chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce beamed in an tease for World News Tonight:

Elon Musk visits the Pentagon, meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid a New York Times report Musk was to receive a top secret briefing on China. President Trump calling it fake news as he awards a much-needed contract to Boeing. What the White House says is behind the new fighter jet’s name. 

Bruce later said in the segment that Trump “den[ied] reports the world’s richest man was scheduled to meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a briefing on the Pentagon’s potential China war plan” and that he “doesn’t want Musk briefed on war plans about China.”

 

 

Chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, using her Deep State sources, confirmed The Times’s spin (click “expand”):

RADDATZ: Tonight, two U.S. officials confirming that a scheduled Pentagon meeting between Elon Musk and the joint chiefs was changed this morning after a bombshell report in The New York Times saying Musk’s visit would include a top secret briefing on potential war plans with China, which would be an extraordinary expansion beyond the tech billionaire’s DOGE responsibilities, especially given his business connections to China. Instead, Musk’s Pentagon visit turned into an office meeting with Defense Secretary Hegseth, which came after a furious post from Musk denying the top secret meeting was ever in play: “I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to [New York Times]. They will be found.” President Trump denying a top secret meeting as well, saying he wouldn’t want to show war plans to anyone.

TRUMP: I don’t want to show it to anybody. You know, you’re talking about a potential war with China.

RADDATZ: Trump also addressing the potential conflict of interest such a briefing would pose for Musk.

TRUMP: I don’t want to show that to anybody, but certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. He’s a great patriot. He’s taken — he’s paying a big price for helping us cut costs.

Raddatz gave more kudos to The Times, boasting they were “not backing down on their report.”

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt was similarly buoyed: “Now to Elon Musk’s visit to the Pentagon on the heels of a report that he would be shown war plans for a potential conflict with China. President Trump calling the story false saying musk was there to find ways to cut costs.”

 

 

Senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake at least admitted Musk has a security clearance (which wasn’t surprising, given the extensive government work carried out by his company SpaceX) (click “expand”):

HAAKE: Top Trump ally Elon Musk, from the President’s Department of Government efficiency, visiting the Pentagon today. The New York Times reported Musk was to be briefed “on the U.S. military plan for any war that might break out with China,” according to “two U.S. officials.” President Trump slamming the story as false when he was asked about the war plans:

TRUMP: I don’t want to show it to anybody. You know, you’re talking about a potential war with China. [SCREEN WIPE] I don’t want to show it to anyway, but certainly you wouldn’t show it to a businessman who is helping us so much. [SCREEN WIPE] Elon has businesses in China and he would be susceptible perhaps to that. But it was such a fake story.

HEGSETH: We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about DOGE, to talk about efficiencies. [SCREEN WIPE] There was no Chinese plans. There was no secret plans.

HAAKE: Two defense officials said Musk, who has a security clearance, was expected to receive an unclassified briefing on China. Musk’s business interesting include this massive Tesla giga factory in Shanghai, which produces nearly one million cars per year.

TRUMP: He’s there for DOGE, not there for China. And, if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room.

The CBS Evening News still covered it, but punted it to its “round-up” portion, leaving only 15 seconds for co-anchor Maurice DuBois to declare: “And Elon Musk was at the Pentagon today meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The President and Hegseth denied news reports that Musk was to receive a briefing on secret battle plans for a potential war with China.”

To see the relevant March 21 transcripts, click here (for ABC) and here (for NBC).

Our friends at Twitchy had a hilarious piece early Monday from Warren Squire that tore the San Diego-area ABC affiliate KGTV a new one (pun intended) for lamenting how layer upon layer of razor wire added to President Trump’s border wall between the U.S. and Mexico could lead to serious injuries for anyone who would try to enter the country illegally.

“They lament there is ‘spiraling wire enveloped in spikes that can easily cut into your skin’ on the border wall. Oh, no! Not a deterrent,” Squire joked as a lead-in to an X post of the segment:

“If that upsets some ‘journalists’ toiling away in San Diego so be it,” he later said.

But wait, there was more! ABC report going onto explain that, between the razor wire and “750 Marines and Army personnel sent to the San Diego border in January,” daily crossings by illegal immigrants in the sector have plunged from 1,400 a year ago to roughly 30.

Since it is what our great friends over there do, Squire picked out a few of the comments to the above tweet, with one noticing they shared the detail about increased razor wire “like it’s a bad thing.”

To see Squire’s full story, click here.

Is “Abundance” Creflo Dollar’s latest book? A follow-up to his volume on The Holy Spirit, Your Financial Advisor?

Nope. The author isn’t the televangelist, preaching a prosperity gospel. The writers are two libs: New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson of The Atlantic.  

The duo offers a simultaneous critique and path forward for Dems coming off their 2024 defeat. The notion is that over-regulation by liberal administrations has stifled growth and wealth, and that by reducing regulatory barriers, there’d be “abundance” ahead for all.

There’s only one little problem. The lefties hate anything pro-growth or pro-wealth. You might as well ask a vegan to go on an all-ribeye diet. Try convincing those folks that the path forward is to make life easier for . . . the oligarchs!

On Monday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish played skeptic from the get-go, joking to Ashley Allison: “Look at your face, the resignation about abundance discourse.” CNN.com writer Stephen Collinson proclaimed it was no way to combat Trumpism: 

COLLINSON: This is an intellectual exercise. The Democrats really looking for an intellectual exercise? Everything we’re seeing is emotional. 

CORNISH: Please cut to Ashley’s face. 

COLLINSON: No, it’s emotional, not intellectual. 

CORNISH: I know, and that’s a good point, because when I think of, uh, who has the crowds right now, it’s Bernie Sanders, AOC, actually drawing physical people, actual people, uh, not, uh, Substack readers. 

Substack readers aren’t “actual people”? That’s a weird flex, like Cornish saying her old fans at NPR aren’t “actual people.”

 

Allison, an aide on the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign, claimed: “The thing that Donald Trump is so good at, is telling people There is only a certain amount of abundance. That’s why you have to deport all these immigrants.” Cornish chimed in: “It’s a zero sum game.”

In fact, Trump is implementing the kind of change that Klein-Thompson recommend. A key goal of the DOGE initiative is not just to reduce the size and cost of government, but to reduce its regulatory overload on the economy, thereby helping all Americans.

Never-Trumper CNN analyst Jonah Goldberg didn’t want to insult Klein and Thompson — although he called their approach “very utopian” — but he cited two new books by Yoni Appelbaum and Marc Dunkelman that he felt were better vessels for this argument. “The Dunkelman and Appelbaum books are much more aimed at the simple fact that starting at the local level, but also at the national level, the progressives have screwed things up by gunking up the works with all sorts of red tape that makes it impossible to get things done.” 

CNN liberals don’t see over-regulation as their problem. They believe an all-wise government can and must tightly regulate the economy, to prevent those greedy, unscrupulous capitalists from exploiting workers and ruining the environment. If we ease regulations, who will benefit? Those diabolical developers and their ilk! The very ones who need to be kept on a tight leash! Therefore, it’s an illusion to imagine that letting the capitalist class make more money will benefit the proletariat!

Collinson repeated his line that Democrats should try to beat Trump with personality: “What you most often see is parties change direction when you have a personality that leads the party in a certain direction, which is what happened with Trump.”

Here’s the transcript.

CNN This Morning 
3/24/25
6:37 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: I want to turn to domestic politics, because here Democrats are still struggling to find a new strategy. 

There’s a new book people are talking about called Abundance that argues that Democrats need to focus less on red tape, more on results. 

And I want to bring it to the group chat because it has been all over the — Look at your face, the resignation about abundance discourse. 

Who can explain abundance? Ashley, can you? Oh, not you? Okay. Who can actually explain Abundance 101? 

STEPHEN COLLINSON: It seems to be what it is all about. is this idea that Democrats have created so many regulations, they’re stifling growth. 

CORNISH: Your environmental reviews, your worker protections, your DEI. Yeah.

COLLINSON: Zoning stuff for building new homes, et cetera. They’re making it more difficult for people to afford homes. And this seems to be some attempt, and there’s some other attempts too, to, like, shift the party a little bit towards the center, a bit like the DLC, the Democratic Leadership Council in the early 1990s. 

The question I have is, you know, this is an intellectual exercise. The Democrats really looking for an intellectual exercise? Everything we’re seeing is emotional. 

CORNISH: Please cut to Ashley’s face. 

COLLINSON: No, it’s emotional, not intellectual. 

CORNISH: I know, and that’s a good point, because when I think of, uh, who has the crowds right now, it’s Bernie Sanders, AOC, actually drawing physical people, actual people, uh, not, uh, Substack readers. 

. . . 

ASHLEY ALLISON: The thing that Donald Trump is so good at, is telling people There is only a certain amount of abundance. That’s why you have to deport all these immigrants. 

CORNISH: It’s a zero sum game. 

ALLISON: Right. So I just, I’m not, I’m not, I’m going to take a different approach. 

CORNISH: Jonah, have you had thoughts on this? 

JONAH GOLDBERG: So Yoni Appelbaum of The Atlantic has a fantastic book called Stuck, which gets at a lot of this. Marc Dunkelman, professor at Brown, has a book called Why Nothing Works, which also gets at this. 

I think those are better books and better arguments than the abundance argument. 

CORNISH: Which is from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. 

GOLDGERG: Which, I’m not trying to denigrate too much the Klein book, but my point is that the abundance argument is very utopian and it’s very much aimed at really hardcore ideological progressives and say, hey, there’s a better way. That’s a useful argument to have. 

The Dunkelman and Appelbaum books are much more aimed at the simple fact that starting at the local level, but also at the national level, the progressives have screwed things up by gunking up the works with all sorts of red tape that makes it impossible to get things done. 

. . . 

COLLINSON: I don’t really think that a lot of these reviews and examinations after elections end up really contributing an awful lot. There was the Republican review after 2012. 

CORNISH: That’s still in a drawer somewhere. 

GOLDBERG: The party went the opposite way of the autopsy, and Trump won. 

COLLINSON: And I think parties go where their supporters want to go. And what you most often see is parties change direction when you have a personality that leads the party in a certain direction, which is what happened with Trump. 

CBS loves to pose as the opponents of propaganda and misinformation, but when it comes to their own long history of making propaganda, they can only glorify themselves. On Sunday’s 60 Minutes, they aired a 13-minute puff piece on Democrat activist and actor George Clooney, now making a Broadway play out of his CBS-mythologizing movie Good Night and Good Luck. 

CBS interviewer Jon Wertheim made a disclosure early in this puff piece about his work with Clooney and his partner Grant Heslov: “Full disclosure, the three of us collaborated on an unrelated sports documentary out later this year.”

The truth gets mangled early on in this segment. Wertheim explained about Sen. Joseph McCarthy: “At the height of the Red Scare, the Wisconsin senator led a crusade to weed out supposed communist infiltration of the U.S. government.”

Supposed? We’re not in the 1950s any more. Anyone who’s read the Venona papers knows the Soviet Union infiltrated the U.S. government, including Alger Hiss, who the Clooney types pretended was innocent for decades. This is the myth that CBS and Clooney are still promoting, that they were on the “right side of history” as they were gaslighting and getting it wrong about Soviet espionage.

Then, inevitably, they have to somehow put Donald Trump into the villainous Joe McCarthy role of battling the heroic leftist crusaders of the press. No one asked a question about whether the press should be fair, or balanced, or objective. The movie and the play get to make wild caricatures out of history — Clooney Toons — and the segment lets Clooney constantly pose as The Man Who Loves Truth during “chilling times” for the media: 

CBS’s @60Minutes uses George Clooney’s Edward Murrow v Joseph McCarthy play to discredit Trump’s lawsuit. @jon_wertheim: “Clooney…wasted no time addressing what he sees as the parallels to today.”
Clooney: “When the other three states fail, when the judiciary and executive and… pic.twitter.com/DnokteKudx
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) March 24, 2025
Clooney lectured his fellow Democrats on the set:  “When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the Fourth Estate has to succeed,” Clooney said. “ABC has just settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration. And CBS News is in the process … We’re seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations — to make journalists smaller.”

Wertheim didn’t even say the name Kamala Harris as he briefly summarized: Trump sued “making the unfounded allegation that CBS engaged in election interference.”

Unfounded? CBS sliced and diced its Harris interview to make her look better. CBS always engages in election interference. There’s no movie or Broadway play about Dan Rather using phony documents to try and ruin President George W. Bush on 60 Minutes II in 2004. 

Clooney added: “Governments don’t like the freedom of the press. They never have. And that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you’re on. They don’t like the press.” 

In Clooney’s mythology, the press has to be on the Left, or it’s not honest, and is succumbing to corporate interference. The Left has to wage war on its enemies, and call it journalism: 

WERTHEIM: What does this play tell us about the media’s ability or willingness to withstand this kind of pressure?

CLOONEY: It’s a fight that is for the ages. It will continue. You see it happening at the L.A. Times. You see it happening at The Washington Post, for God’s sake.

CLOONEY, in the play: You guaranteed that Corporate would have no influence over news content.

CLOONEY: Journalism and telling truth to power has to be waged like war is waged. It doesn’t just happen accidentally. You know, it takes people saying we’re going to do these stories, and you’re going to have to come after us. And that’s the way it is.

CBS never wages war on the Democrats. In this segment, Wertheim lets Clooney the Truth-Teller claim he just had to come out in favor of Biden stepping down last July — after the debate debacle, weeks after Clooney witnessed feeble Biden up close at a fundraiser.

But 60 Minutes recorded several softball interviews with President Biden, and we can be certain they carefully edited them to make him look good — just as they did for Kamala. Just as they did for Obama. Just as they did for Clinton. Just as they did for Carter. This is why we call them “Syrupy Minutes.”

Over at NBC’s Meet the Depressed, host Kristen Welker is doing her level best to continue to frame the Trump administration’s resistance to runaway judicial encroachment on the executive as a “constitutional crisis”. This, during her interview with Senate Minority Leader CHuck Schumer (D-NY).

Watch as Welker opens her interview with the “constitutional crisis” line of questioning, and Schumer obliges, expressly citing “defying court orders” as a reason why “democracy is at risk”:

WATCH: NBC’s Kristen Welker opens her interview with Chuck Schumer by rekindling the “constitutional crisis” narrative pic.twitter.com/wb9ymlduLG
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 24, 2025

KRISTEN WELKER: Senator Schumer, welcome back to Meet the Press.

CHUCK SCHUMER: Good morning, Kristen. Glad to be back.

WELKER: Well, it’s wonderful to have you. We are going to talk about your book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” in just a moment. I do want to start with some news topics, this back and forth between President Trump and the judiciary. This week, the president called to impeach a judge who ruled against him on deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, as you know. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts released a rare statement, rebuking the idea of using impeachment to settle judicial disagreements. Some constitutional scholars and fellow Democrats, Leader Schumer, say this is a constitutional crisis. Do you agree? Is the United States in a constitutional crisis?

SCHUMER: Yes, I do, Kristen. And democracy is at risk. Look, Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man. He thinks he should be king. He thinks he should do whatever he wants, regardless of the law, and he thinks judges should just listen to him. Now we have to fight that back in every single way. And we actually have had over 100 cases in the courts where we’ve had a very good record of success. So Donald Trump, infuriated by that success, said judges should be impeached. Let me tell – Donald Trump and the American people, Democrats in the Senate will not impeach judges. Full stop.

WELKER: President Trump said he would not defy a court order. Do you agree – do you believe him?

SCHUMER: I don’t trust him. We have to watch him like a hawk. Defying court orders is why our democracy is at risk and we’ll have to do everything to fight back in that regard.

Schumer’s response to Welker’s question and subsequent lack of followup reveals the true extent of the “constitutional crisis”. Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and with it, the ability to wield Article II power over the Executive Branch. Therefore the Democrats and their media are in crisis.

The record will reflect that there wasn’t a peep from Schumer (or the media, for that matter) as President Joe Biden bragged about circumventing the courts in service of student loan cancellation. Likewise, the media spent the better part of last year echoing the left’s attempts to intimidate the Supreme Court via ethics complaints. That wasn’t a constitutional crisis, either.

And you know what else wasn’t considered a “constitutional crisis” by our illustrious media? Chuck Schumer’s violent threats against Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh over how they might rule on abortion- threats that almost became very real when a madman flew across the country to do God knows what to Justice Kavanaugh and his family.

At no time during any of this were the words “constitutional crisis” even uttered. To do so now, on the basis of an imagined defiance of court rulings is utterly contemptible, and further factual basis for the public’s ongoing distrust in the media.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025:

KRISTEN WELKER: Senator Schumer, welcome back to Meet the Press.

CHUCK SCHUMER: Good morning, Kristen. Glad to be back.

WELKER: Well, it’s wonderful to have you. We are going to talk about your book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” in just a moment. I do want to start with some news topics, this back and forth between President Trump and the judiciary. This week, the president called to impeach a judge who ruled against him on deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, as you know. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts released a rare statement, rebuking the idea of using impeachment to settle judicial disagreements. Some constitutional scholars and fellow Democrats, Leader Schumer, say this is a constitutional crisis. Do you agree? Is the United States in a constitutional crisis?

SCHUMER: Yes, I do, Kristen. And democracy is at risk. Look, Donald Trump is a lawless, angry man. He thinks he should be king. He thinks he should do whatever he wants, regardless of the law, and he thinks judges should just listen to him. Now we have to fight that back in every single way. And we actually have had over 100 cases in the courts where we’ve had a very good record of success. So Donald Trump, infuriated by that success, said judges should be impeached. Let me tell – Donald Trump and the American people, Democrats in the Senate will not impeach judges. Full stop.

WELKER: President Trump said he would not defy a court order. Do you agree – do you believe him?

SCHUMER: I don’t trust him. We have to watch him like a hawk. Defying court orders is why our democracy is at risk and we’ll have to do everything to fight back in that regard.

WELKER: You know, I’m curious to know what that looks like, because in a recent interview, you said “Democrats will have to take extraordinary action if President Trump defies the courts.” Leader Schumer, can you be specific with me? What exactly is extraordinary action?

SCHUMER: Look, this is an extraordinary moment. It does require extraordinary action. If he defies the Supreme Court, then we are in uncharted territory that we haven’t been in for a very long time, and our entire democracy, this whole beautiful enterprise of democracy that we’ve had for over 240 years, is at risk. And look, I believe that if Donald Trump should defy the courts, public – the public will rise up. We will ri – Democrats will fight it in every single way. And I believe, you know, autocrats only succeed, Kristen, if the public lets them. But if the public is so, so angry and takes action, and certainly we Democrats will, it will trigger a mass movement from one end of the country to the other, something that we haven’t seen in a very long time.

WELKER: All right. Well, I do want to move to some of the discussions on Capitol Hill. Because of your decision, Leader Schumer last week, to clear the way to pass a Republican funding bill and avoid a government shutdown, you have faced calls from outside groups, even members of your own party, to step aside as minority leader. When asked about your future at a town hall, Senator Michael Bennet said, quote, “It’s important for people to know when it’s time to go.” Leader Schumer, are you feeling pressure to step down?

SCHUMER: Look, I’m not stepping down. And let me just say this, Kristen. I knew when I cast my vote against the C – against the government shutdown that it would be – that there would be a lot of controversy. And there was. But let me tell you and your audience why I did it, why I felt it was so important. The CR was certainly bad, you know, the continuing resolution. But a shutdown would be 15 or 20 times worse. Under a shutdown, the Executive Branch has sole power to determine what is, quote, “essential.” And they can determine without any court supervision. The courts have ruled it’s solely up to the executive what to shut down. With Musk, and DOGE, and Trump, and this guy Vought, V-O-G-H-T (SIC) I think is how you spell his name, as the head OMB, they would eviscerate the federal government. On day two, they could say, “Oh, SNAP? Feeding hungry children? Not essential.” On day four, “Mass transit? All transit? Aid to the states? Not essential. We’re cutting it.” On day six, “Medicaid? We’ll cut that by 20%, 30%, 50%, 80%. We’ll go after Social Security. We’ll go after the veterans.” Their goal is to just eviscerate the federal government so they can give more taxes, and their tax cuts, to the billion – to their billionaire class over there. And so it would devastating. And here’s what makes – one more thing. Here’s what makes it worse. There’s no off-ramp. Who determines how long the shutdown would last? Only those evil people at the top of the Executive Branch in the Trump administration. And one senator, Republican, told a Democratic senator, a colleague of mine, and this guy is close, this Republican senator is close to the DOGE Musk people. They would keep the government shut down for six months, nine months, a year, until everyone was furloughed and gone and quit. And there’d be no way to stop it. So I thought that would be so devastating to the republic and anger so many people, that we actually went forward with the shutdown, which would have even worse consequences than the CR. It was a vote of principle, you know? Sometimes when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve. And I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was. People disagree.

WELKER: To that point – yeah. To that point, I mean, some Democrats are saying they want leadership to show more fight in this moment. They think that’s what’s required. You were, of course, instrumental in urging President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race when he himself wasn’t convinced. I’ve had conversations with Democrats, Leader Schumer, who say this moment feels very similar. Are you making the same mistake that President Biden did?

SCHUMER: No, absolutely not. I did this out of conviction. And, look, in my caucus, we have a disagreement as to, you know, some people voted one way, some people voted the other. But we’ve all agreed to respect each other because each side saw why the other side felt so strongly about it. And our caucus is united in fighting Donald Trump every step of the way. Our goal, our plan, which we’re united on, is to make Donald Trump the quickest lame duck in modern history by showing how bad his policies are. He represents the oligarchs, as I said. He’s hurting average people in every way. And we are – through oversight hearings, we’re exposing what he’s doing, through the courts, which I mentioned, we’ve had some real success in, through legislation, and through organizing in all the districts throughout the country so that I believe, that when — because the Republicans are already nervous. You know, a lot of them said, “Don’t hold town hall meetings.” I believe by 2026 the Republicans in the House and Senate will feel like they’re rats on a sinking ship because we have so gone after Trump and all the horrible things he’s doing. And they will know it, see it, hate it, and act on it.

WELKER: Let me ask you about something Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday about your decision. She said, quote, “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. And I think that’s what happened the other day.” Do you acknowledge that Democrats didn’t get anything in this fight, Leader Schumer?

SCHUMER: Well, what we got, at the end of the day, is avoiding the horror of a shutdown. There was no leverage point that we could’ve — we could’ve asked for things, they just would’ve said no. And because they control — let’s not forget, they control the House and Senate. They could force a vote, yes or no on the CR, without any additions. Patty Murray tried very hard to get them to add things and they said no. And, because of the rules of the Senate, they could force a vote, yes or no. It was a difficult vote. We talked about it in caucus a lot. And I voted because I thought, you know when you — I say to people, “When you’re on that political mountain, the higher up you climb, the more fiercely the winds blow.” And the only way you stop being blown off the mountain is your internal gyroscope. My internal gyroscope said, “Regardless, regardless of the fact that some people would not like it, which I knew, that I had to do the right thing for the country and for our party.”

WELKER: Just very quickly, Leader Schumer, because I want to get to your book, I want to play a moment of you —

SCHUMER: Yes. Yes, I’d like that.

WELKER: – a protest from last month, other Democrats protesting Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. Take a look.

SCHUMER: I am going to stand with you in this fight. And we will win.

MAXINE WATERS: We will win.

SCHUMER: We will win. We will win. We will win.

WELKER: Leader Schumer, what do you say to members of your own party who feel like that type of resistance is not meeting the enormity of this moment, this political fight that’s required?

SCHUMER: Well, I said, you know, that was one day and one line. And – but we are fighting in every way, in the courts, in oversight, in legislation, in organizing. And we’re united. Hakeem and I are united. Our caucuses are united in moving forward on that way. And I think, if we fight, fight, fight, fight, as I said, we can make Donald Trump the quickest lame duck in recent history. His Republican colleagues will want to abandon him, and we’ll do very, very well in the 2026 election.

WELKER: All right. Let’s talk about your book, again, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” Leader Schumer, I read it. You talk about the rise of antisemitism here in the United States and globally, particularly after October 7th. I thought it was very notable that you talk about the fact that, on a very personal level, you have received antisemitic attacks, including online. You even talk about the concern that you have that your grandson could one day find that hateful content. Do you ever personally feel afraid for you and your family, Leader Schumer?

SCHUMER: Well, I don’t feel afraid for myself. You know, I’m from Brooklyn. Grew up in a tough neighborhood. What can I tell you? But I just worry about the effect, because once antisemitism is not rebutted, history has shown, 5,000 years of history, that it can metastasize into something even worse. It hasn’t done that yet here, although there’s – there have been many terrible things. Directly antisemitic things, a Jewish bakery, a stone is thrown through its window because, quote, “It’s a Zionist bakery.” The leader of the Brooklyn Museum, who is Jewish, lives near my house, her home I believe was smeared in red paint simply because she was Jewish. She had nothing to do with Israel. And I wrote this book – can I explain a minute why I wrote this book?

WELKER: Please.

SCHUMER: I felt I had to do something. I gave speeches on the floor about antisemitism, but I had to do more. And here’s why. We Jews, Jewish people in America, had what we call the “Golden Medina,” the golden age from 1950 to 2000. First, all of America was advancing. My family, from poor, into the middle class, and so many others of every different ethnicity. But antisemitism actually just receded dramatically because the shadow of the Holocaust and the horrors of the Holocaust were hanging over America like a curtain. So Jews who wouldn’t be allowed to live in certain neighborhoods were allowed. So Jews were admitted to different firms and professions, which they were discriminated against in. And it was a great time. In 2000, it began to change. Whenever there’s trouble, it begins to change. We had 9/11. You had all those conspiracy theories that the Jews knew about it and evacuated the towers. 2008, the financial crisis, the international Jewish conspiracy did it. But it really just jumped up dramatically and horribly after October six – 7th. So I’m writing this book actually, I felt impelled to do it at five – for five audi – aimed at five audiences. One’s my generation. Why are we going through this? And I wanted to show that me, I’m the highest elected Jewish – highest Jewish elected official in America, is feeling the same kind of worry that they are. Second, to their children. Their children are basically, the Jewish people’s children, are pro-Israel, pro-Jewish, but they don’t know the history of how Israel struggled, how the Jewish people struggled. Third, I’m aiming it at Christians of good will. They understand antisemitism is bad, but they sometimes say to themselves, “Hey, why are they making such a fuss over this?” Well, we have 5,000 years of history on our backs. And, as I said, it can metastasize. Third, I aimed it at both the hard right, and we’ve seen how viciously antisemitic they could be, but also at the hard left. I felt, as a progressive, I could talk to them about how some of their anti-Israel activity — I might disagree with it, but they’re certainly entitled to do it, and it is not antisemitic, has been sliding over into direct antisemitism. And fifth, Kristen, I would like all of America to read this. So I hope it will be reading in colleges and in high schools to learn, teach people the history. You know, of people under I think it is 25, 20% because the Holocaust was a fake. And another 50% don’t even know about. I believe the best antidote to anti, antisemitism is education. And that’s what this book does. And I think it does it in a sort of non-professorial, friendly — not friendly, but you know, engaging way.

WELKER: Well, it does. And, look, you are the highest ranking Jewish elected official ever in the United States. Leader Schumer –

SCHUMER: Yes.

WELKER: – do you think you will see a Jewish president in your lifetime?

SCHUMER: I think that’s possible. I do. America in general, you know is, we’re a beautiful people. You – glass ceilings are broken every day. So I hope — we’ve seen an African American president. I hope one day we see a woman president. Would be nice to have a Jewish president too.

WELKER: All right. The book is “Antisemitism in America: A Warning.” Leader Schumer, thank you so much. It’s an important read. Thank you for being here today. We really appreciate it.

SCHUMER: Thank you for having me.

 

Sycophancy only gets you so far, as proven by Senator Bernie Sanders’ interview with ABC’s Jon Karl for This Week. Despite squeeing all over him and New York socialist firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to tease the interview, Bernie still threatened to end it over a question implying support for a primary against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

First, the squeeing part:

“Bernie is back!” @JonKarl champions @SenSanders: “83-year-old independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds, even bigger than he did as a presidential candidate.” Denver rally attendee: “Feeling the burn.” Karl: “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/RVlcFYR5wm
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) March 23, 2025
JON KARL: Bernie is back.

Bernie SANDERS: Hey, Mr. Trump, people fought and died to create a democratic society. You’re not going to take it away from us.

KARL: 83-year-old Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds even bigger than he did as a presidential candidate.

SAM GAO: Feeling the Bern?

KARL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

KARL: For the past month, Sanders has taken his fight against President Donald Trump on the road. He’s billing it the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

SANDERS: We will not allow America to become an oligarchy.

KARL: In Denver, the anti-Trump sentiment was strong.

EILEEN MCCARRON: Oh, I think it’s a disaster. And he — he talks about he has a mandate — he never had a mandate.

KARL: But so was the frustration with Democrats.

How’s the Democratic Party doing, challenging this?

PATRICK LARZIK: They got to be a little tougher.

SUSAN BAKER: Quit being a bunch of doormats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like we’re left stranded when everything feels like it is crumbling.

Both Karl’s triumphant proclamation that “BERNIE’S BACK” and the mindless assent to the rally attendee’s “feel the Bern” betray a wee bit too much enthusiasm for anything resembling positive activity on the left side of the aisle- or, in this case, the far left. To Karl, the Bernie rally clearly seemed like a bright spot amid all the “Democrats in Disarray” doom and gloom.

The actual interview with Sanders was more of what we’ve seen over the last decade: his rantings about billionaires and oligarchs, the current Democrat malaise, things that the Biden administration got wrong, and then Karl touched a third rail. Watch as Sanders blows out on Karl, circling back to “Democrats in disarray” and implicitly asking Sanders whether he’d endorse AOC in a Senate primary against Chuck Schumer:  

WATCH: Bernie Sanders cuts his ABC interview short when (implicitly) asked about AOC challenging Chuck Schumer for the Senate
JON KARL: Would you like to see her join you in the Senate?
BERNIE SANDERS: I – right now we have, as I said, just a whole lot of people in the… pic.twitter.com/uueRfKwYAj
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) March 23, 2025
As Politico’s Rachel Bade would point out during the subsequent panel segment, Sanders is part of Schumer’s leadership team, so the very question put him in a weird spot. 

Will the Bernie Sanders movement emerge from the current chaos to lead the Democrats going forward? It’s too early to tell but as Karl demonstrates, the media are willing to grab on to anything resembling a life raft these days.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned interview as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, March 23rd, 2025:

ABC THIS WEEK

3/23/25

9:29 AM

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I want you to look at every level of office around you and support Democrats who actually fight, because those are the ones that can win against Republicans.

BERNIE SANDERS: I would not be telling you the truth if I didn’t tell you that within the Democratic Party, there are billionaires who have undue influence. Democrats have turned their backs on the working class of this country.

JON KARL: That was Senator Bernie Sanders Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drawing more than 30,000 supporters in Denver on Friday. I was there and spoke with Senator Sanders after the rally about whether the Democratic Party can do anything to slow President Trump’s agenda.

CROWD: Bernie, Bernie.

KARL: Bernie is back.

SANDERS: Hey, Mr. Trump, people fought and died to create a democratic society. You’re not going to take it away from us.

KARL: 83-year-old Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing crowds even bigger than he did as a presidential candidate.

SAM GAO: Feeling the Bern?

KARL: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

KARL: For the past month, Sanders has taken his fight against President Donald Trump on the road. He’s billing it the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour.

SANDERS: We will not allow America to become an oligarchy.

KARL: In Denver, the anti-Trump sentiment was strong.

EILEEN MCCARRON: Oh, I think it’s a disaster. And he — he talks about he has a mandate — he never had a mandate.

KARL: But so was the frustration with Democrats.

How’s the Democratic Party doing, challenging this?

PATRICK LARZIK: They got to be a little tougher.

SUSAN BAKER: Quit being a bunch of doormats.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels like we’re left stranded when everything feels like it is crumbling.

KARL: Tour’s western swing, Sanders was joined by New York Congresswoman AlexandriaOcasio-Cortez.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: He has handed the keys of the federal government to Elon Musk, and is selling off our country for parts to the richest people on the planet.

KARL: More than 30,000 showed up for their joint appearance in Denver.

SANDERS: Look, as you know, when you run for president, you do a lot of rallies.

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: And we have done a lot of big rallies. 32,000 people here is by far the largest rally I have ever done, and nobody’s running for office. That tells you something.

KARL: So, what are you trying to accomplish with this tour?

SANDERS: I’m trying to make it clear to the people throughout the world and throughout our own country, that the American people are not going to sit idly by and allow Trump to establish an oligarchic form of government, where Musk and other billionaires are running our government. And we’re not going to sit back and allow him to form an authoritarian form of society, undermining the Constitution, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and undoing what the — you know, what the founding fathers of this country did in the 1790s, separation of powers, making sure that no one person had an extraordinary amount of power, and that is precisely what Trump is trying to do. He wants it all. Doesn’t want Congress, he doesn’t want the media, he doesn’t want the judiciary. He wants all of the power; we cannot allow him to have that.

KARL: Well, I hear you telling people out there, fight back. What do you mean, though? How do these people — how do they fight back?

SANDERS: Well, that’s the question. We’re working on it right now. But I think simply, first of all, coming here and showing the world that Americans are not going to sit back and take what Trump is doing is a good step forward. But obviously, what we need to do is what neither political party is capable of doing right now, and that is develop a strong grassroots movement prepared to run candidates, prepared to stand up and question candidates, demand responsibility from their elected officials to stand with working families and not just the 1 percent.

KARL: I’ve been covering you for a long, long time. I’ve heard you railing against millionaires and billionaires for a long time.

SANDERS: Hey, guess what?

KARL: Is it different?

SANDERS: Turns out a few other people are catching on to that, right?

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: I have been talking for many years about this country moving toward an oligarchy. And I think anybody who is not dumb, deaf or blind, is seeing precisely what is happening. Trump’s inaugural, right behind him, three wealthiest guys in America. You know, Lincoln talked about a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Remember? Well, we got a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. That’s what we have.

KARL: So we’re about 60 days into the Trump era, the second Trump era. How would you grade the Democratic Party’s response?

SANDERS: Well, I would take us back even two years before that, before Trump was elected, in saying that it saddens me that when the Democrats had control of the Senate, they did virtually nothing for working people. I have to say that. I’m a member of the Democratic Caucus as an Independent, so I’m not going to lie to you and tell you otherwise.

KARL: Yeah.

SANDERS: And since then, do I think the Democrats have been effective in rallying the American people, in stopping Trump’s movement toward oligarchy and authoritarianism? No, I don’t.

KARL: Is there anything that you think Trump has done right?

SANDERS: Yeah. I mean, I think cracking down on fentanyl, making sure our borders are stronger. Look, nobody thinks illegal immigration is appropriate, and I happen to think we need comprehensive immigration reform, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for people to be coming across the border illegally. So, we’ve got to work now on comprehensive immigration reform. The idea that Trump has, I don’t know what his latest numbers are.

He wants to deport 20 million people who are in this country who are undocumented. Well, you do that, you destroy the entire country. Because, I got news for you, Trump’s billionaire friends are not going to pick the crops in California that feed us. They’re not going to work in meat packing houses. That’s what undocumented people are doing.

So, we need a variety of programs, guest worker programs, but mostly comprehensive immigration reform.

KARL: But you know illegal immigration, it exploded under Biden. And it had been high for times under Trump as well. But it exploded under Biden. And nothing was really done until his last year in office when he was –

SANDERS: Yes, should have done much better. No argument.

KARL: So, realistically, Republicans control the House. They control the White House. They control the Senate. So what, realistically, can be done?

SANDERS: Well, for major pieces of legislation, you still need 60 votes in the Senate. And let’s be clear, and we – we have picked many of the spots that I’ve gone to in Wisconsin, in Iowa, in Michigan, have – we – we chose them carefully.

KAR: Yes.

SANDERS: And those are because they have Republican congressmen who won by small margins. Right now I don’t know what the number is. I think if two or three Republicans out of 200 and whatever it is, 18 or whatever they got, choose not to support giving tax breaks to billionaires and cutting Medicaid and education, we can defeat this big supplemental bill, “the beautiful bill” that Trump wants to see passed.

So, right now, what we’re trying to do is put pressure on those Congressional districts, demand that Republican congresspeople sit down and talk to their constituents and explain why they think it’s a good idea to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1 percent and cut veterans programs, cut Medicaid, cut Social Security, cut education.

KARL: You said that the passage of this bill, the continuing resolution, was a, “absolute failure of Democratic leadership.” Who are you talking about?

SANDERS: Well, Schumer is the leader of the party, and it should not have happened, period. No question about it.

But, you know, when we talk about Democratic leadership, we’re talking about the Democratic Party in general, you know. So I – look, there’s been nobody more critical of Chuck Schumer than I have been. And not just on this thing. But the bottom line is not just Chuck Schumer. It’s not just Chuck Schumer. It is – you’ve got a Democratic Party in general that is dominated by billionaires, just as the Republican Party is, that is – operates under the leadership of a bunch of inside the beltway consultants, very well paid, who are way out of touch with the 32,000 people who are here today.

KARL (voice over): Ocasio-Cortez’s criticism of Schumer has been harsher, fueling speculation she’ll challenge him in the Democratic primary when he is up for re-election in three years. For his part, Sanders doesn’t want to talk about whether or not Schumer should remain the Democratic leader in the Senate. And he got irritated when I asked him about the possibility of AOC running, abruptly getting up to end the interview.

KARL: OK, you’re out there with the AOC today.

SANDERS: Yes.

KARL: Do you see her as a future of the progressive –

SANDERS: We have one of the untold stories –

KARL: Yes.

SANDERS: Of what’s going on in current American politics, is that in the House of Representatives, you have dozens and dozens of strong, smart, disciplined, hard-working young people in the Progressive Caucus.

And, you know, way back when, when I first came to the Congress in the House, I helped form the Progressive Caucus. We had five people in it at that time. Now they have close to 100. So, you got a whole lot of good people. Alexandria is extraordinary. I am so impressed by her work in Congress and her – just, she inspires young people all over the country.

KARL: Would you like to see her join you in the Senate?

SANDERS: I – right now we have, as I said, just a whole lot of people in the Congress. OK, Jonathan, thanks.

KARL: Wait, I got one more – I got one more. This is an important –

SANDERS: No, I asked you –

KARL: OK.

SANDERS: No, you want to do nonsense. Do nonsense.

KARL: No.

SANDERS: I don’t want to talk about inside the beltway stuff. I got 32,000 people –

KARL: I was just asking you about AOC because she was out there with you.

SANDERS: Well, you know, fine, but I don’t want to talk about this – what was the last question?

KARL: I was just going to ask you one more question about you. I mean, that’s all. I was – it was literally your last –

SANDERS: All right, what – what is your question?

KARL: Well, I mean, it’s easier if you’re sitting.

I mean, I want to ask you about your future. This is the biggest crowd. You said – you ran for president twice. This is the biggest crowd you’ve ever seen. Are we going to see you run again? What’s your, what’s your future?

SANDERS: No, right now I’m very proud that the people of the state of Vermont sent me back to the Senate with 63 percent of the vote.

KARL: Yes.

SANDERS: Right now I’m Vermont’s senator. That’s what I do. And I’m very happy to do it. I am 83 years of age. So – and I’m tired.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: All right, our thanks to Senator Sanders for taking the time to talk to us and for letting us get that last question in.