Newsbusters

NPR recently hosted a debate between two sides. No, it’s not between Democrats and Republicans, but between liberal Democrats and really radical Democrats. On Tuesday’s Morning Edition, the establishment Democrat was old Clinton spinner Paul Begala, and the radical AOC booster was Waleed Shahid.

NPR anchor Leila Fadel began: “We’ve been watching this infighting inside the Democratic Party on how to wield its very, very limited power. In light of Senator Schumer’s move last week, is the party sort of blowing up from within? And how can they unite?”

Shahid turned immediately to denouncing a “corporate coup” by Elon Musk. This is weird, since Trump clearly told voters that Musk would be seeking out government efficiencies, and they voted for it. 

SHAHID: We need – the amount of social movement and activity we need in this country – if there’s truly a constitutional crisis, if there’s a billionaire corporate coup by Elon Musk underway, we need action.

In other countries, when democracy is on the line, the public doesn’t just watch. They flood the streets. They shut down business as usual. They take nonviolent action.They engage in boycotts. That’s not the scale of the action we’re seeing – nothing close to what we saw in 2017, with Trump’s first presidency, with – in 2020, with protests around the murder of George Floyd. If we’re serious about defending democracy, we need to flex the muscle of American civil society.

Deadly riots were “flexing the muscle of civil society”? NPR didn’t “fact check” the radical hot take.

Beqala did not come to Schumer’s defense: “Senator Schumer, I think, should have compromised. He didn’t. He caved. He had something very valuable – Democratic votes to pass the continuing resolution the Republicans wanted – and he traded it for nothing, right?”

Begala brought the happy talk: a Democrat just won a special election in a state Senate race in Iowa (where the Democrats are still in the minority by 34 to 16.) He played up the Wisconsin Supreme Court election coming soon.

Fadel stayed with her just-us-Democrats talk: “I will say we’ve heard a lot of voters express extreme disappointment in Democrats – voters who support Democrats, who might have concerns about the Trump agenda – over their failure to stand up to anything, really. So for both of you, what is your sense of how voters – Democrats – feel about their party?”

Shahid uncorked his next hot take: “I think the Democratic Party’s job is not to defend institutions. It’s to transform them. So institutions aren’t sacred relics handed down from heavens. They’re tools, and tools are only as useful as the work they’re doing.” Then he returned to the “corporate coup” kookery: “The most important thing that we need to do is focus on how we slow down this corporate coup by Elon Musk, how we gum up the works, and how we communicate to the American people.”

The Left claims they “defend democracy,” even as they ignore the fact that Donald Trump was democratically elected. NPR stands on this side, since the anchor says Democrats have shown a “failure to stand up to anything.”

It’s charitable to call the chilly reaction to “Screams Before Silence” a fluke.

The 2024 documentary recalled the rape and torture behind Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary featured first-person accounts of the savagery perpetrated against female victims.

We also saw some of the footage Hamas terrorists recorded during the invasion. It’s a tough but necessary watch.

 

 

The film was roughly an hour long and was immediately made available for free on YouTube last April. Film critics still ignored it. You can count the number of online “Screams Before Silence” reviews on two hands, with only one needed for mainstream outlets like The Wrap.

Near silence. And it just happened again.

A similar film exposing antisemitism hit theaters over the weekend, and most movie critics didn’t give it a look. That “fluke” defense is crumbling.

To be fair, “October 8” has received more attention from the film critic community.

Slightly more.

 

 

Pro-Israel celebrities like Debra Messing and Michael Rapaport join scholars in denouncing the antisemitic wave that crashed over Western culture over the last year-plus. Human rights groups stood down as Jewish students were attacked on college campuses and pro-Hamas rallies flooded major cities.

College campuses coddled pro-Palestinian extremists. Ivy League presidents refused to defend Jewish students against protracted attacks against them.

The media, in turn, too often trumpeted Hamas talking points rather than commit honest journalism. It’s a blistering film everyone should see, and it mostly succeeds in avoiding the political blame game.

Calling out religious bigotry should be a bipartisan affair.

The documentary, released nationwide on March 14, boasts just 8 reviews at RottenTomatoes.com. That’s not enough to produce an official “Tomatometer” rating. The Hollywood Reporter weighed in on the feature, as did The Washington Post.

The other reviews hail from smaller, independent sources.

What about The New York Times? The Wrap? Deadline? Variety? Indiewire? USA Today? CNN?

Nothing.

Now, compare that to the reception “No Other Land” received. The unabashedly pro-Palestinian film earned Best Documentary honors at this month’s Oscars ceremony.

 

 

The film boasts a perfect 100 percent score from 94 professional critics at RottenTomatoes.com.

Another pro-Palestinian film, “From Ground Zero,” also generated sizable support from the film critic community. That one boasts a 98 percent “fresh” rating from the 48 critics who weighed in on the film.

“October 8” director Wendy Sachs told this reporter most Hollywood stars are afraid to publicly defend Jews against antisemitism. Doing so might harm their careers, Sachs suggested.

That’s a sorry state of affairs.

What excuse do critics have for ignoring films that expose antisemitism?

Columbia University accepted the Trump Administration’s list of demands meant to clean up its anti-Semitism problem on Friday, but NBC correspondent Antonia Hylton warned on Nightly News that Trump’s eminently reasonable demands could be viewed as “extortion.”

Host Lester Holt introduced Hylton by claiming the anti-Semitism is merely alleged, “There’s news out of Columbia University tonight. The school has conceded to demands by the Trump administration over alleged anti-Semitism on campus. At stake $400 million in federal funding. Antonia Hylton is at the campus, Antonia what has Columbia agreed to?”

 

 

Columbia’s own task force found that Jewish students have faced increased violence and harassment since October 7. It also found that the school’s DEI apparatus didn’t care for diversity, equity, or inclusion when its Jewish students were being victimized because the far-left view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict holds that “white Jewish people” are the oppressors of “all brown people.”

As it was, Hylton began, “Lester, tonight Columbia relented to all of the demands after facing the Trump administration’s deadline today and threat to pull $400 million. Much of it critical science and medical funding if the university did not comply.”

She continued, “The demands include a campus mask ban, empowering campus police officers with new powers, and appointing a new administrator to oversee the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies Department. In a statement Columbia’s president said the way that the school has been portrayed has been ‘hard to reckon with,’ adding that ‘I have every faith in our ability to overcome the greatest of challenges.’”

All three of those terms are perfectly reasonable, but Hylton still warned that “Some Columbia professors tell NBC News, though, that they see the move as a form of extortion, warning they may be the first but not the last school to face these demands. No word yet from the White House, though, Lester.”

If Trump applies that list of demands to other schools, that would be a good thing. Schools should be more forceful in dealing with illegal demonstrations and make sure their classes have actual educational value and are not just indoctrination seminars.

Here is a transcript for the March 21 show:

NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt

3/21/2025

7:09 PM ET

LESTER HOLT: There’s news out of Columbia University tonight. The school has conceded to demands by the Trump administration over alleged anti-Semitism on campus. At stake $400 million in federal funding. Antonia Hylton is at the campus, Antonia what has Columbia agreed to?

ANTONIA HYLTON: Lester, tonight Columbia relented to all of the demands after facing the Trump administration’s deadline today and threat to pull $400 million. Much of it critical science and medical funding if the university did not comply.

The demands include a campus mask ban, empowering campus police officers with new powers, and appointing a new administrator to oversee the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies Department. In a statement Columbia’s president said the way that the school has been portrayed has been “hard to reckon with,” adding that “I have every faith in our ability to overcome the greatest of challenges.”

Some Columbia professors tell NBC News, though, that they see the move as a form of extortion, warning they may be the first but not the last school to face these demands. No word yet from the White House, though, Lester. 

The weekly gathering of Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart and New York Times columnist David Brooks on PBS News Hour was extra animated this Friday as the duo decried DOGE’s “cruelty,” claimed “democracy is teetering,” and labeled President Trump an “extortionist.”

Host Amna Nawaz asked Brooks about Elon Musk’s Friday visit to the Pentagon, “What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?”

 

 

Brooks immediately began trashing Musk’s efforts, “To me, it’s revelatory. You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world. Like, that’s the essence of what it is. The second thing it is, it’s cruelty and ruthlessness.”

Doubling down, Brooks continued, “And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump. People here, we don’t like what you believe, and we’re just getting rid of you. And so that cruelty is kind of naked. And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration. These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn. The DOGE people went to Harvard. They went to Stanford. They worked at McKinsey. These are not populists. These are elitists.”

Brooks further assessed, “These are conservative micro-elites who’ve been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites. And that’s what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.”

Nawaz then moved to other topics, “We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.”

Turning to Capehart, she asked, “And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they’re going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don’t lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?”

Nawaz failed to mention the Paul Weiss situation was about a federal contractor’s DEI policies while the Columbia one revolved around the schools response, or lack thereof, to anti-Semitism on campus.

Capehart began, “It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I will focus on Perkins — I’m sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.”

 

 

Reaching desperately to find some way to claim a contractor’s HR policies are a threat to democracy, Capehart concluded:

And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard. When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary’s ability to stop a president like Trump? And that’s what’s so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.

Brooks tried to have it both ways, “Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. There’s — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.”

While Brooks acknowledged that Trump’s Columbia demands were reasonable and should have been done years ago, he still lamented, “On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that. Here’s my next demand. Here’s my next demand.”

 

 

Finally, he claimed, “And so I think it’s time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say, no more deals. We are standing up, because there will be a time — and, again, I don’t think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, ‘No, no more deals.’”

Elected leaders holding a bunch of unelected, far-left college professors and administrators accountable is not a threat to democracy; it is democracy.

Sign the petition to help us defund ruthlessly tactical PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.

Here is a transcript for the March 21 show:

PBS News Hour

3/21/2025

7:36 PM ET

AMNA NAWAZ: And a lot of that anger at town halls has been directed at Elon Musk, but, David, as Jonathan mentioned, we’re 60 days into this presidency. What has this revealed to you, both the meeting today and also what we have seen so far about the role and the influence of Musk in this presidency?

DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, I did not have DOGE being the center of the Trump administration before January 20, but it certainly has become the center.

And, to me, it’s revelatory. You get the richest guy in the world cutting off food for the starving children around the world. Like, that’s the essence of what it is. The second thing it is, it’s cruelty and ruthlessness. I have had so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with people inside federal agencies when the DOGE boys comes to town.

And they are naked in their cruelty that this agency disagrees with Donald Trump. People here, we don’t like what you believe, and we’re just getting rid of you. And so that cruelty is kind of naked. And, to me, it symbolizes something that is at the epitome of this administration. These DOGE people, Elon Musk, he went to Penn. The DOGE people went to Harvard. They went to Stanford. They worked at McKinsey.

These are not populists. These are elitists. These are conservative micro-elites who’ve been in elite universities who play in the elite circles and they want to take it out on their fellow elites. And that’s what this administration has become about, a battle between elites, not somebody representing the working class for problems that are real.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: And this is why people are angry, exactly to that point.

NAWAZ: Let me ask you too, about a couple of the earlier conversations we had on the show, because this is a big deal. We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school.

And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they’re going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don’t lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?

CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I will focus on Perkins — I’m sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.

And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to the folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard.

When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary’s ability to stop a president like Trump? And that’s what’s so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.

NAWAZ: David?

BROOKS: Yes, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. There’s — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want.

And so that’s what we’re seeing here. Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss. And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I’m hurting my institution. But if I lose $400 million, I’m also hurting my institution. These are real choices that people have to make. And I understand that.

In the case of Columbia, I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control. And if they were publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you have got a problem. And they created this problem.

So I understand why, I got to save my university. I got to save $400 million.

On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off, because he will say, oh, I take that. Here’s my next demand. Here’s my next demand. And if you look at the history of Zelenskyy, Macron, people — all the people who’ve tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they will all end up losing in the end.

And so I think it’s time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say, no more deals. We are standing up, because there will be a time — and, again, I don’t think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, “No, no more deals.”

In a recent email, DC PBS station WETA sent an email to donors still squeezing good will out of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” We’re told “public media belongs to you,” and PBS believes, like Mister Rogers, in sharing “the good that we know is in one another.”

Anyone who watches PBS or listens to NPR knows this isn’t true. “Public” broadcasting isn’t for all of us. It’s a liberal sandbox, taking our money and smearing us with it.

I’ve been documenting the injustice of forcing conservatives to subsidize leftist propaganda on PBS and NPR. Next Wednesday, the House DOGE subcommittee will hold a hearing and the leaders of PBS and NPR will be there to testify.

When we meet with staffers and members of Congress, we tell them about 36 years of evidence. We have a prop — a six-foot metal tower loaded with paper, representing all our articles documenting the outrageous tilt. Let’s hope the weight or the magnitude of this evidence makes it harder for these networks to claim they’re fair and balanced. We add new evidence almost every day.

In our latest mini-study, we found the NPR talk show “Fresh Air” has lavished hours on liberal media brands so far in 2025: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other anti-Trump outfits. No conservatives need apply. We found the same thing when we looked at PBS’s Washington Week with The Atlantic. There’s never room for Fox News or the Washington Times or the Washington Examiner. Only one team gets to play.

The guest list also tilts at the PBS News Hour. On Wednesday’s show, co-host Geoff Bennett conducted a 13-minute interview with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and it was challenging – from the Left. Bennett asked, “Why not be as tactically ruthless as Republicans have shown themselves to be?” John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, hasn’t been interviewed on PBS this year.

Enjoy your weekend with the podcast below, or listen wherever you find your podcasts.

 

2021: Filibusters are evil and a hinderance to progress.

2025: Filibusters are a great way to stop the GOP agenda.

Both those sentiments sums up the wildly varying attitude of New York magazine columnist Ed Kilgore. Although he hated Senate filibusters in 2021 he now loves them as a way to slow down or halt Trump’s legislative program. To get an idea of just how much Kilgore hated filibusters when the Democrats held the Senate, let us look look at his February 6, 2021 article, “What the Filibuster Has Cost America.”

There’s no way to add up all the costs associated with the filibuster over the decades, and it’s obviously harder to assess the bad legislation the dilatory tactic and its theoretical availability has prevented from enactment. Had Republicans been able to repeal Obamacare in 2017 via a straightforward piece of legislation rather than jumping through the hoops required by reconciliation, they might have succeeded.

But all in all, the filibuster has been used to halt progress more often that it has been useful to facilitate it or defend it from attacks. And it remains incontestable that limited reforms — such as restrictions on the measures subject to the filibuster, or a return to the days when “talking filibusters” were required — are available short of its outright abolition which could preserve minority rights in the Senate without thwarting majority rule. Filibuster reform should remain at the top of every progressive legislative agenda. Those center-left or center-right politicians who always find excuses to oppose reform need to be regularly asked: How much damage to America and Americans are you willing to accept to maintain this terrible tradition?

And now flash forward four years to March 20, 2025 and the very same Ed Kilgore, because the Republicans now control the Senate and White House, has a very very different attitude towards the filibuster as you can see in “All Is Not Lost for Democrats in 2025.”

Keep up the filibuster threat

Republicans were able to enact their spending bill because Senate Democrats (or at least ten of them) decided not to filibuster it to death at the expense of triggering a government shutdown. This sheathing of the filibuster sword was significant because the spending bill was the one clearly identifiable major point of leverage for Democrats, at least until late September (when that spending bill expires). Why? Because most of Trump’s agenda will be advanced through a giant budget-reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered and can pass both Houses on a strict party-line vote.

…Potentially, a lot of Trump’s agenda items that don’t involve spending or revenues could be ruled out of a reconciliation bill by the Senate parliamentarian (who referees these things) and would thus have to pass through the regular legislative process, which includes the Senate filibuster. Reasserting their willingness to use this weapon where they can is important for Democrats.

Voila! All it takes for Ed Kilgore to completely change his attitude towards the filibuster is a change in the composition of the Senate.

Ever since Audie Cornish took over from Kasie Hunt as host of CNN This Morning, we’ve been noting the paucity of Republicans on her panels. 

As we observed on the day of Cornish’s debut:

“Cornish’s predecessor, Hunt, was no conservative. Even so, her panels almost always included a traditional Republican in the person of either Brad Todd or Matt Gorman.”

In contrast, Cornish’s panels have almost entirely consisted of voices from the left.

But on this first full day of Spring, could Cornish be turning over a new leaf? On today’s panel, there appeared a certified conservative in the person of Rob Bluey, President and Executive Editor of The Daily Signal, with roots at the Heritage Foundation, and where Ben Shapiro is an editor emeritus and contributor.

At NewsBusters, we’re proud to count Rob as a former reporter at our sister publication, CNSNews.com where Rob broke the story of Dan Rather’s fake typewriter font in the phony Bush Texas Air National Guard draft-evasion story in 2004, using typography experts. (The memos were more compatible with Microsoft Word.)

The panel’s first topic was the controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s planned visit to the Pentagon. Just a courtesy visit, or, as the New York Times claims, will he be briefed on potential war plans against China? 

Cornish and the panel focused on the importance of “transparency,” and Bluey agreed that transparency is important, particularly given President Trump’s pledge to have the most transparent administration ever.

But if transparency is important to CNN, what of the utter opaqueness of the Biden White House, aided and abetted by the liberal media, in attempting to hide Biden’s incapacity for office?

Cornish also slanted her presentation of what members of Congress are facing when they hold town halls back home. As she put it:

“People are showing up angry and frustrated at events for lawmakers from both parties. Democrats facing blowback for not standing up to Republicans. Republicans hearing frustrations for things like Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts.”

LOL: So Republicans are getting grief over DOGE. But Democrats are hearing complaints that they’re not being tough enough against Republicans! Apparently, no one is complaining to Dems about the arson attacks on Tesla facilities! The only town hall clips Cornish played were of angry attendees berating Republicans.

Bluey’s most forceful line was on the issue of a federal judge’s order that flights deporting members of a violent illegal alien gang be returned to the US:

“This is a national security issue, and this judge is out of bounds trying to stop these flights from leaving. The flights were already out of the United States, so in that particular case, he didn’t have the authority to do so anyway.”

Note: Kristen Soltis Anderson has appeared on two of Cornish’s panels. She is a Republican who, in the past, focused on cultivating the youth vote. But in more recent times, she co-founded a non-partisan firm offering polling and related services. Anderson has never rocked the boat in her CNN This Morning appearances.

Here’s the transcript.

CNN This Morning
3/21/25
6:04 am EDT

AUDIE CORNISH: Elon Musk heading to the Defense Department. He’ll be at the Pentagon. This is raising questions about what exactly the world’s richest man is going to do once he gets there. 

The Pentagon tells CNN that Musk will be there at the invitation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and that he’s just visiting. New reporting from the New York Times suggests Musk will actually be briefed on the U.S. military’s top secret plan for any war which might break out with China. They actually cite two anonymous U.S. officials in the story. 

President Trump denies this reporting. In a post on Truth Social, he calls it, quote, completely untrue. 

The news of Musk’s visit, though, comes as angry town hall attendees continue to question why he’s playing such a large role in the federal government at all. 

ANGRY TOWN HALL ATTENDEE: Have you looked at Musk’s DOGE, whatever, website? You are a lawyer. Where is this fraud? 

REP. HARRIET HAGEMAN [R-WY]: This is the fraud. Spending is the fraud. As an example. 

ATTENDEE: [Screaming] But that’s your job, not Musk’s job. That’s your job. Not Musk’s!

HAGEMAN: That’s what we need. That’s what we need. 

CORNISH: Joining me now to talk about this, Margaret Talev, senior contributor at Axios, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, and Rob Bluey, President and Executive Editor at The Daily Signal. 

ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Regardless of who’s meeting when and where, it would just be good to know what’s actually happening. And I think that, that lack of transparency. 

CORNISH: Would that be enough? I’m hearing from both of them a threat of transparency. When you don’t have it, it becomes a problem. People fill the gap. And in this case, Musk has billions of dollars of federal contracts with the Defense Department in the area of surveillance and reconnaissance. So it’s like, him being there is actually not such a stretch. His conflicts of interest, though, as you said, we don’t know. 

ROB BLUEY: Transparency is great. And remember, Donald Trump has said he’s the iimost transparent president that we’ve had. 

So I mean, I think that if he’s going to live up to that moniker, he needs to obviously demonstrate the fact that he’s allowing his cabinet secretaries and others to speak about what Musk is doing specifically. I do think that that will go a long way in easing some of the concerns. 

. . . 

CORNISH: With lawmakers out on recess, the arguments which usually play out in the halls of Congress, are now spilling out into town halls nationwide. People are showing up angry and frustrated at events for lawmakers from both parties. Democrats facing blowback for not standing up to Republicans. Republicans hearing frustrations for things like Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts. 

. . . 

Is there such thing as a good ruling, if it’s against Trump? 

BLUEY: Well, Karoline Leavitt spoke about this. And obviously, I think one of the things that the White House would like to see, we’ve talked about this in the past, is clarity on these nationwide injunctions or universal injunctions.  And I think that’s ultimately, Audie, where I hope we get clarity from the Supreme Court. We’ve had a number of federal district judges. I think there have been, what, over 120 lawsuits or rulings issued against the Trump administration in one way or another. And these are big questions that we need answers to. 

CORNISH: Although a lot of immigration attorneys say, look, there were legal ways to do some of this stuff, right? Like, just because you don’t choose that path doesn’t mean it has to be this way. 

BLUEY: Sure. And I think what you’ll hear the administration say, and this is their defense in this particular case, is that this is a national security issue, and this judge is out of bounds trying to stop these flights from leaving. 

And by the way, the flights were already out of the United States, so in that particular case, he didn’t have the authority to do so anyway. 

The United States Postal Service has been running at a loss of billions of dollars for years. In 2024 alone, that deficit was a whopping $9.5 billion. 

Since it’s run by our federal government, wouldn’t it be the reasonable solution for them to investigate where all their money went?

Not according to the Left, who is so fixated on Elon Musk, they’re enraged that the Postmaster General is working with his Department of Government Efficiency to reduce waste. They marched outside the postal service’s branch in Washington D.C., Thursday, chanting “SAVE USPS!”

But when I asked the crowd how they could save the service , they really couldn’t answer. Some blamed the Right for the post office’s failures, while others claimed losing billions was justified and that taxpayers should just foot the bill.   

It appears most of the demonstrators really just wanted to express their derangement syndrome over President Donald Trump. 

 

Ahead of his pompous closing commentary implicitly blaming President Trump and Elon Musk for ruining springtime, CBS Evening News Plus anchor John Dickerson created a new entry in the liberal media’s ever-expanding slate of reasons why Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Trump administration’s wider push to shrink the size of government is bad: funding for public health studies.

As per the logic of Dickerson and Kasier Family Foundation (KFF) News editor/CBS News medical contributor Dr. Celine Gounder, the moves to shrink money doled out by National Institutes of Health (NIH) will cripple America’s ability to find cures for everything from Alzheimer’s to HIV/AIDS to even cancer.

 

 

“The Trump administration has targeted hundreds of medical research grants funded through the National Institutes of Health for reductions or outright elimination. It’s already having a ripple effect with research universities announcing staff cuts or stopping research on disease prevention and treatment altogether,” Dickerson ominously began.

Asked “how much medical research are we losing with these cuts,” Gounder said it’s “billions of dollars” as “the NIH budget is $48.6 billion a year at least currently and based on what we’ve already seen announced with more to come, we’re talking about billions of dollars in cuts, so this is significant.”

Gounder — who was part of the Biden transition team — cut to the chase and predicated areas that will struggle: “We’ve seen any number of areas being affected. So it could be HIV, it could be Alzheimer’s disease, autism, cardiovascular disease, cancer. So this is really not sparing any particular area of research.”

Dickerson had her move next to explain which schools were hardest hit. Notice how Gounder alluded to the defunding at Columbia, but didn’t state the why having to do with the rampant anti-Semitism inside the New York City school:

Three of the hardest hit across the country so far include Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Penn, but this is really hitting institutions across the country in blue states, in red states, both. No one is spared from these cuts. At Columbia in particular, they are looking at $400 million in cuts. There’s been some negotiations. We’ll see what Columbia decides to do. And there’s many who are concerned about academic freedoms, free speech rights, etc., but some of what we’re looking at, at Columbia in particular are cuts to their Alzheimer’s disease program, which is one of the strongest in the country in that area. Cuts to their cancer center, as well as cuts to their HIV program and again, Columbia is one of the top institutions in all three of those areas.

Dickerson went full doomsday: “[T]his is the cutting-edge future of medicine when we’re talking about these kinds of studies, right? I mean, this is where America had such a lead in the world.”

Gounder explained that’s been the case since World War II when the Roosevelt and then Truman official Vannevar Bush “came out with this report saying, we need to put all this money into medical research, other kinds of scientific research, because that is going to be the engine for our economy and it worked tremendously well…and we are dismantling that infrastructure now.”

Ignoring the hundreds of billions in university endowments, the pair wondered how universities will be able to make payroll without tax dollars (click “expand”):

DICKERSON: How much do these institutions rely on this money, these grants?

GOUNDER: Yeah, NIH funding is really the backbone, financial backbone, to academic medical research centers and other institutions across the country. Without it, we would not have what we have today in terms of the biomedical research we’ve produced. We’re looking at 40 to 60 percent of major academic medical centers relying on — excuse me, 40 to 60 percent of their budgets is coming from NIH funding. So, you know, this is a huge, they’re highly dependent and that also makes them very vulnerable.

DICKERSON: Do they have a backup plan?

GOUNDER: That’s a great question. You know, there is the other percentage, you know, the other 40 to 60 percent of funding that comes from a combination of philanthropy, private sponsors, pharmaceutical companies. I know a lot of people are concerned about pharmaceutical company involvement in research and how that can lead to conflicts of interest. Look, we can’t have it both ways. If you want researchers to really be free to do the kinds of research they want to do, to have that independence and freedom of thought and creativity and be able to take risks, the NIH is what allows you to do that.

Gounder closed with what she viewed as drawbacks as corporate and private donations to scientific research: “Very often philanthropy has their own agenda. So it might be, I had a family member who had this disease, so I want to put money into that. It’s not necessarily spread out in a way that has any relationship to what people in the public are really suffering from.”

Goodness of one’s heart? Questionable ethics. But our hard-earned tax dollars doled out by bureaucrats? Just peachy!

To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 20, click here.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz tweeted his support of the move to defund PBS on Friday over a Thursday News Hour segment that saw the network platform Houthi terrorist and self-styled Foreign Minister Jamal Amer. While none of correspondent Nick Schifrin’s questions were bad, he didn’t provide any pushback either.

Schfrin’s interview was supplemented with slow and solemn B-roll, and he started by recalling that, “In the Red Sea once again, the U.S. Navy is at war. For six days, the U.S. has launched dozens of strikes and sorties attacking Houthi targets in Yemen, including for the first time Houthi leadership.”

 

Insane taxpayer-funded PBS is allowing a terrorist Houthi leader a global platform as they attack our service members! UnAmerican & unacceptable.
DEFUND! https://t.co/yo9CitYQrB
— Mike Waltz (@MikeWaltz47) March 21, 2025
 

Through an interpreter, Amer declared, “At the end of the day, we are at war with America. And, of course, there will be casualties. But these casualties do not include senior leadership.”

 

 

Schfrin the narrator, then introduced his interviewee, “Jamal Amer is the Houthi foreign minister. We spoke to him from the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa.”

Amer added, “Civilians in Sanaa were bombed because the capital was targeted.”

Schifrin’s pushback came during his voiceovers, not his questions, “Houthi authorities say the strikes have wounded or killed dozens, including children. The U.S. denies any civilian casualties and instead blames the Houthis for bringing it on themselves. Beginning in November 2023, Houthi rebels targeted, seized commercial vessels, and kidnapped and killed foreign sailors. The Houthis claimed to target ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Gaza, but their targets were much wider. During the Gaza ceasefire, they paused their attacks on ships. But when Israel blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Houthis vowed to respond.”

Schifrin later told the audience, “The U.S. and U.N. say Iran provides the Houthis parts for its advanced missiles, as well as funding, training and intelligence, something the Houthis in Iran deny,” before asking Amer, “Has Iran asked you to restrain your response to the U.S. strikes?”

Amer then portrayed his colleagues as Yemen’s legitimate government, “Iran doesn’t direct Yemen. Yemen is a sovereign state, and we do not accept directives from anyone.”

 

 

Throughout the rest of the interview, the duo would discuss the Houthi’s antagonism towards Yemen’s actual government, Saudi Arabia, the U.N., and the World Food Program. While PBS interviews literal terrorists and enemies of the United States, a November 2022-February 2023 NewsBusters study found they interview one conservative for roughly every four liberals and a June-November 2024 study found that PBS uses variations of “far-right” 27 times more often than “far-left.”

Sign the petition to help us defund ruthlessly tactical PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.

Here is a transcript for the March 20 show:

PBS News Hour

3/20/2025

7:40 PM ET

NICK SCHIFRIN: In the Red Sea once again, the U.S. Navy is at war. For six days, the U.S. has launched dozens of strikes and sorties attacking Houthi targets in Yemen, including for the first time Houthi leadership.

JAMAL AMER (VIA INTERPRETER): At the end of the day, we are at war with America. And, of course, there will be casualties. But these casualties do not include senior leadership.

SCHIFRIN: Jamal Amer is the Houthi foreign minister. We spoke to him from the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

AMER: Civilians in Sanaa were bombed because the capital was targeted.

 

SCHIFRIN: Houthi authorities say the strikes have wounded or killed dozens, including children. The U.S. denies any civilian casualties and instead blames the Houthis for bringing it on themselves. Beginning in November 2023, Houthi rebels targeted, seized commercial vessels, and kidnapped and killed foreign sailors. The Houthis claimed to target ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Gaza, but their targets were much wider. During the Gaza ceasefire, they paused their attacks on ships. But when Israel blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Houthis vowed to respond. And, last Saturday, President Trump ordered the new strikes that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Fox News will continue until the Houthis stop.

PETE HEGSETH: This will continue until you say, we’re done shooting at ships, we’re done shooting at assets.

SCHIFRIN: Will you stop your targeting of Navy ships and commercial ships?

JAMAL AMER (VIA INTERPRETER): When the siege on Gaza ends, the tension in the Red Sea will end. Therefore, when Gaza receives aid and Israel implements the agreement, everything will end.

…

SCHIFRIN: The U.S. and U.N. say Iran provides the Houthis parts for its advanced missiles, as well as funding, training and intelligence, something the Houthis in Iran deny.

Has Iran asked you to restrain your response to the U.S. strikes?

AMER: Iran doesn’t direct Yemen. Yemen is a sovereign state, and we do not accept directives from anyone.

SCHIFRIN: Iran has had its strategic air defense removed by Israel. Hezbollah has had its leaders killed and its political influence in Lebanon diminished. And Hamas itself has had its leaders killed and its military capacity severely diminished.

Do you acknowledge that the so-called Axis of Resistance is at its weakest point in years?

AMER: We are not entirely dependent on our allies. We merely help our allies. So this is a Yemeni decision, allies or not.

SCHIFRIN: The Houthis run a de facto government that oversees most of Yemen’s population. Their critics say they govern not for the people, but for themselves, and collect taxes to wage war, despite claims they want peace.

You bombed government ports. You have refused to recognize the U.N.-backed government. Until you take that step of recognition, how can anyone take seriously your claim that you want peace?

AMER: The so-called legitimate government is a byproduct of Saudi Arabia, of course. So we have never spoken to them. There’s always been dialogue and discussion with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

SCHIFRIN: But over the last year, the Houthis have arrested dozens of U.N. workers. One World Food Program employee died in Houthi custody.

Why do you keep detaining U.N. staff? Many of these people have spent their lives trying to help others, doing humanitarian work.

AMER: Only 23 of the 2,000 Yemeni employees working with international organizations were detained. Therefore, we confirm that our government will work on strengthening relations with the United Nations.

SCHIFRIN: But the U.S. military says the Houthis seized food from a World Food Program storage depot in Saada. Why are you doing this when that food is designed for the Yemeni people?

AMER: The food that belongs to the civilians is only taken when there were attacks on Sanaa and the warehouse was threatened. So we took the food and distributed it to people in need.

SCHIFRIN: And they are in need. Yemen is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and now faces a new round of violence that the U.S. hopes can succeed where previous efforts failed to silence the Houthis.