Newsbusters

Chuck Schumer is running scared from his own party.

He can’t even hit the road to promote his new book, “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” for fear of protests.

The Senate minority leader had to postpone his publicity tour on account of what a spokeswoman calls “security concerns.”

Progressive Democrats, furious Schumer passed a Republican spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, are getting up close to show him how angry they are.

They’re demonstrating outside his home in Brooklyn, and wherever he might have gone to hawk his book, protesters were ready to follow.

So, to dodge embarrassment or worse, Schumer beat a retreat.

Such is life at the top of the Democratic Party these days.

Because Schumer couldn’t outmaneuver President Donald Trump in the budget showdown, his own team considers him not just a loser but a traitor.

House Democrats have even begun encouraging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to launch a primary challenge against him.

The 74-year-old senator isn’t up for reelection until 2028, which is too long for Democrats to wait, according to The Nation — the progressive magazine’s Jeet Heer is calling for Schumer to resign immediately, both from leadership and the Senate.
                                    
No wonder CNN’s latest poll shows Democrats with a record-low favorability rating of 29%: The party is at war with itself, and Democratic voters themselves increasingly dislike what they see from their elected officials and leaders like Schumer.

Yet the CNN survey shows only 16% of Democrats think their party is too extreme.

Schumer knows better — that’s why he’s lying low instead of out selling his book.

The issue he wrote his book about shows just how adrift the Democrats are.

Schumer is publishing a warning about antisemitism at the same time he’s embroiled in the party’s infighting over Israel, Palestine, and campus protests that have targeted Jews.

He’s taken a weaker stand against campus antisemitism than the Trump administration has, and he opposes deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian immigrant studying at Columbia University, for his anti-Israel activism.

Yet Schumer outraged progressive opinion again on Sunday, when answers he gave in an interview with The New York Times led critics on the left to accuse him of essentially agreeing with Trump’s decision to withhold $400 million in federal funding from Columbia because of its lackluster record in combating antisemitism.

Late last year, however, a report by the House Education and Workforce Committee — under Republican control, it should be noted — claimed Schumer had told Columbia’s then-president, Minouche Shafik, not to worry about a reckoning over antisemitism if Democrats took control of the Senate.

The university’s “political problems are really only among Republicans,” Schumer was alleged to have said — though a Schumer spokesman denied those were his words and called the report “hearsay.”

Schumer is a shifty politician with an acute problem in this moment: The more he tries to appear moderate, the more progressives in his party identify him not with centrism but with Trump.

Stopping a government shutdown?

That’s Trumpism.

Telling The New York Times when a campus protest “shades over to violence and antisemitism, the colleges had to do something, and a lot of them didn’t do enough”?

That’s Trumpism.

In the eyes of his party’s activists, Schumer isn’t a moderate — he’s a coward, handing Trump victory after victory, when what Democrats need most is the will to resist the president.

Yet to anyone who’s not a Democrat, Schumer’s pretense of moderation is belied by the simple fact he’s a leader of a party that’s nowhere near the center.

And Schumer isn’t alone in his agony.

Other prominent Democrats, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, are finding it just as hard to distance themselves from the left without winding up too close to Trump for the comfort of the Democratic base.

Newsom’s sin has been to have MAGA masterminds like Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on his podcast.

The California governor, still dreaming of higher office, has also “evolved” on the question of allowing transgender participation in women’s sports — that is, he’s come around to a view closer to Trump’s, because that’s where he senses the commonsense center is today.

The Democratic base wants the party to be defined by vehement opposition to the president — while clever and unprincipled Democratic leaders know the smart play is to become more like him.

Last year, Trump defeated the Democrats; this year, he gets to watch them defeat themselves, as protesters who might once have picketed him now turn their ire on Sen. Schumer.

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com.

Between the decision not to endorse Kamala Harris and CEO Jeff Bezos’s move to restrict the opinion page to only columns that support free markets and personal liberties, there has been a heavy amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth among liberals over the fate of the Washington Post and how Bezos has sold out to Donald Trump. Such claims are hysteria, as evidenced by a Wednesday op-ed entitled What is a trans woman, really? That the article was written by PEN America President Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender individual, tells the reader all they need to know about just how Trumpy the Post is, or, more accurately, isn’t.

After spending several paragraphs alluding to various fictional characters who had alter egos or disguises or real people who had alternative names, Boylan appropriated womanhood:

These questions matter to me, as a transgender woman, because the Trump administration’s attacks on us are, in some ways, founded on the supposition that women like me are ‘really’ men. Whenever I hear, for instance, the simplistic edict that there should be ‘no men in women’s sports,’ my first instinct is to agree. Because transgender women are not ‘really’ men. We are women. We may have different histories than other women, but then, every woman has her own history.

Boylan continued by lamenting:

Donald Trump’s election has released a tide of vitriol against transgender people (and women in particular; most of our nemeses seem oblivious to the existence of trans men). The silence of our alleged allies this last month has been stunning to me, and some of our allies have even volunteered to throw us under the bus in hopes of rebranding themselves as mainstream. Does Gavin Newsom — who came out against trans women in sports last week — really think that the MAGA base will embrace him now? Or is it possible that conservatives will see him as ‘really’ a liberal? Hmm, let’s think.

Logic has never been a strong suit for the transgender movement and Boylan was no exception, “It is worth observing that many of the people scolding me about God not making mistakes are wearing glasses. Or hearing aids. Or have pacemakers. So far as I know, no one accuses someone wearing glasses or hearing aids of fraudulence, or sees the existence of someone saved by a heart-monitoring implant as an affront to divine intentions.”

Because God never decried medical advancement. While some people may come to view their conditions as God’s plan for their individual life, nobody would ever argue that God’s plan for humanity is bad vision. If it were, He wouldn’t have given us eyes. Boylan isn’t arguing for the gender equivalent of glasses, but rather eye gouging.

Boylan concludes by writing:

The greatest obstacle for us is a lack of imagination.

By which I mean, only a person without imagination could think that Superman is ‘really’ Clark Kent. Only a person without imagination could think that a butterfly is “really” a caterpillar. Or that a trans woman is ‘really’ a man.

Without imagination, it is easy to believe in things that are simple, and superficial, and wrong.

With it, we can begin to understand the lives of those who are different from ourselves — and respond to their struggles with compassion, and kindness and grace.

The human mind constantly battles between logic and imagination. Logic without imagination is a lunatic asylum where conspiracy theorists are convinced of their correctness because people contradicting them is proof that the conspiracy is real, but what Boylan is arguing—imagination without logic—is believing that there is no such thing as truth or that Superman is a real being.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer tried repeatedly to goad former liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer into attacking both his former colleagues and President Donald Trump on Wednesday’s edition of The Situation Room.

After some discussion on Chief Justice John Roberts rebuking Trump’s Truth Social post that called for Judge James Boasberg’s impeachment for his ruling that ordered deportation flights be turned around, Blitzer worried, “The public, as you know, has lost a lot of confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years. Does this Court have enough credibility right now with the American people to push back against the president when necessary?”

 

 

What does that mean? The duo was just discussing Roberts’s statement decrying Trump’s post. Plus, it’s not as if the Court can do anything to appease progressive activists short of ruling like liberals. Nor did Blitzer have this conversation when it was Democrats musing about impeaching judges for rulings they don’t like.

As for Breyer, he gave a long, rambling non-answer:

You don’t want a judge to be looking over his shoulder to public opinion… Professor Freud from my law school, he said no judge, no judge decides a case by looking to the temperature of the day. But every judge, every judge is aware of the climate of the era… You find a couple of cases where the fact that this is the Supreme Court of the United States, and we’re part of the governing institution where you have to be aware of what’s going on in the country, and that might include a political basis… You’re a judge. You decide what you think is correct in the law. Period. But are you aware of what’s going on in the country? Yes, you are.

During a second segment with Breyer, Blitzer asked, “Are we nearing a constitutional crisis right now?”

Breyer responded by dancing around the question, “No one really knows. No one really knows. People have different views on that. And the best thing I think for the judges is you follow the law, you simply follow the law. And that is what they try to do.”

Unsatisfied, Blitzer tried again, “But what if the president of the United States doesn’t want to follow the law, the Constitution, the way it’s written and has other ideas?”

Again, Breyer avoided the question, “I hate to tell you how I’ve been trained. I’ve been trained not to consider difficult hypotheticals. And you consider a case when it’s in front of you. And as long as people are appealing, as long as people use the legal process as it is intended to be used in this document, it says right here ‘judges shall hold their offices during good behavior,’ as long as they follow the traditions of 200 or more years, we won’t have that hypothetical.”

For all the talk about deportation flights, constitutional crises, social media posts, and impeachment, that is where the situation stands. Despite all the media histrionics, the Trump Administration has appealed Boasberg’s ruling, as is standard operation procedure.

Here is a transcript for the March 19 show:

CNN The Situation Room

3/19/2025

10:20 AM ET

WOLF BLITZER: The public, as you know, has lost a lot of confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years. Does this Court have enough credibility right now with the American people to push back against the president when necessary?

STEPHEN BREYER: You don’t want a judge to be looking over his shoulder to public opinion. Suppose that the case involved a criminal case involving a very unpopular person. The judge must be fair, but, but now who put this correctly, the “but,” Professor Freud from my law school, he said no judge, no judge decides a case by looking to the temperature of the day. But every judge, every judge is aware of the climate of the era. Now, what does that mean? Perfect. You don’t know exactly. You know, politics is out. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You find a couple of cases where the fact that this is the Supreme Court of the United States, and we’re part of the governing institution where you have to be aware of what’s going on in the country, and that might include a political basis.

You see, it’s like this. Do you ever read P.G. Wodehouse?

BLITZER: Go ahead.

BREYER: All right. His character gets up. He says, “Bertie got up in the morning. He wasn’t disgruntled, but he wasn’t exactly gruntled either.” You’re a judge. You decide what you think is correct in the law. Period. But are you aware of what’s going on in the country? Yes, you are.

…

BLITZER: Are we nearing a constitutional crisis right now?

BREYER: No one really knows. No one really knows. People have different views on that. And the best thing I think for the judges is you follow the law, you simply follow the law. And that is what they try to do.

BLITZER: But what if the president of the United States doesn’t want to follow the law, the Constitution, the way it’s written and has other ideas?

BREYER: I hate to tell you how I’ve been trained. I’ve been trained not to consider difficult hypotheticals. And you consider a case when it’s in front of you. And as long as people are appealing, as long as people use the legal process as it is intended to be used in this document, it says right here ‘judges shall hold their offices during good behavior,’ as long as they follow the traditions of 200 or more years, we won’t have that hypothetical. 

A damning new poll shows that Americans are all but through with the Democratic Party, a sentiment that runs right in line with a pre-2024 election survey showing that free speech was a top concern among U.S. adults in determining who to vote for.

Conducted by CNN, the March poll revealed that “the Democratic Party’s favorability rating stands at just 29%” among Americans. This is a “record low in CNN’s polling dating back to 1992 and a drop of 20 points since January 2021,” the outlet noted.

Political commentators have debated whether former Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in November signified a decay of the Democratic Party and its ability to deliver results to the American public. But this CNN poll has erased any remaining doubt and it’s worth asking why this happened.

[Story Continues on MRC Free Speech America] 

For those that haven’t seen the clips floating out on social media, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) still made time Tuesday for CBS Mornings despite having largely cancelled the rest of the book tour for his publication on anti-Semitism due to alleged security concerns, but the real reason was clear in this 12-minute-plus CBS sit-down as the three co-hosts voiced the left’s anger over his caving to Republicans over last week’s continuing resolution.

So, while it may have felt like a grilling, it was actually a public lament and airing of grievances from a place of concern for their ideology — progressivism — and strategizing about how to mount a comeback to power.

Before diving in, co-host Tony Dokoupil first acknowledged he’s probably “looking out your window when [you] woke up this morning” with “protesters out there” and had “a difficult couple of days.”

Dokoupil — who might have almost lost his job for defending Israel and denouncing anti-Semitism — started off with a question about the end of the Gaza ceasefire and then let co-host Nate Burleson begin the public kvetching, wondering why he didn’t “push back and fight” the White House and GOP-controlled Congress.

 

 

Hilariously, take notice of how both Schumer and co-host/former Democratic donor Gayle King argued the Democrats would have been blamed in the court of public opinion for the shutdown (click “expand”):

BURLESON: Now, last week, you and nine other Democrats helped avert a government shutdown by voting for a Republican written bill, which many Democrats have been angered by, and we’ve seen it described as a Civil War, as a train wreck. Many Democrats believe, you know, if you have a government shutdown, that will force President Trump and Republicans to the negotiating table. Why not use your vote to push back and fight?

SCHUMER: Because the idea that they would go to the negotiating table is absolutely — is they don’t do it. This is a new group. This is not the old group. Let me explain. I knew when I took this vote there would be a lot of protests, but I felt I had to do it for the future, not only of the Democratic Party, but the country, because here’s — as bad as that CR bill was, and it was bad, a shutdown is 10 times worse. Let me give you what happened —

GAYLE KING: And it would have been blamed on the Democrats.

SCHUMER: — and you’re right, Gayle.

KING: But you had been saying —

SCHUMER: But can I just explain why —

KING: — but you had been saying you were not going to vote — that you — I think people were upset with you, and people are very upset with you because you had led people to believe that, no, I’m going to vote against it.

SCHUMER: Okay. Well, let me explain why —

KING: Yeah.

SCHUMER: — why first the shutdown is terrible. People ought to know that. The Executive Branch, in this case, Musk, DOGE and this horrible guy, Vought, who have no concern for working people, would have had sole power to determine what opens and what closes. They determine what is essential. You can’t go to court. So, on day two, get rid of SNAP and food for hungry kids. It’s not essential. Day four, get rid of mass transit aid. Let New York City do it, not essential. Cut back on Medicaid and health care. Within two weeks, everyone would have been howling. Furthermore, it’s even worse. It has no off ramp. 

Shortly after, Schumer received zero pushback and a “yes, yes” from King as he hurled invective at Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought: “Guess who determines when we leave the shutdown? The Republicans and just not — let’s not forget how bad they are. This guy, Vought, probably the most evil man. He’s the guy who came up with that Project 2025. He has a whole playbook of what to shut down.”

Let that be another lesson about how the left’s lectures about the need for civility are empty statements.

King pointed out the obvious, suggesting he “should…have let people know your thinking ahead of time because really people thought” he would fight.

Schumer tacitly admitted his plan failed because House Republicans held together on the original bill. For good measure, he made sure to tell viewers without pushback that a shutdown would have “put the government in the sole hands of the evil, nasty, nihilistic people like Musk and Vought and Trump.”

Dokoupil shifted gears to “the Venezuelan deportations,” giving Schumer a chance to try and redeem himself for the liberal base. At one point, when Schumer said “democracy is over” if Trump and Republicans get their way in “get[ting] rid of rule of law,” Dokoupil wondered “how do Democrats” fight that (click “expand”):

 

 

DOKOUPIL: Senator, the leader in question, that is actually what people are debating right now. There are people in your party who don’t want you to be a leader in the party anymore, and it’s a question of, what is this moment and what does it require? I want to ask a question about that moment involving the Venezuelan deportations and the court hearings around it. Put the charges or lack of evidence or whatever against —

SCHUMER: Yeah.

DOKOUPIL: — these men aside for now, and let’s just talk about the interaction of the Trump administration and the court.

SCHUMER: Yes.

DOKOUPIL: They seem to take the position that this court doesn’t have jurisdiction over them, and you have Tom Homan saying he doesn’t care what the judge thinks. What did Democrats do —

SCHUMER: Okay.

DOKOUPIL: — even when the Trump administration defies a federal judge?

SCHUMER: Well, first of all, we have to have rule of law. People say, well, that’s not me. If we get rid of rule of law, the 248 year tradition in America, this democracy is over. Okay? So it’s vital to stop it.

DOKOUPIL: How? How do Democrats do that?

SCHUMER: There are two courts. There are two courts. One is the court of public opinion and the public has to make — if this happens, they have to make their voices known to Democrats, Republicans, everyone, in the strongest terms, because it’s ending our democracy. Now, first we — but we also have the courts, and so far, the lower courts have done a good job. We hope the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court will do the same job. When the lower courts — and I’m very proud that we put in all of those judges last year, many of whom are making these decisions — when the lower courts thus far have said to the Trump administration, you must stop, in most cases, they have.

DOKOUPIL: But if they don’t, that’s now my question.

KING: But the Trump administration is saying they are not going to pay attention to the courts.

SCHUMER: If they don’t —

KING: Yeah.

SCHUMER: And we go to the Supreme Court and it is defied, democracy is at real risk, and there will have to be — there will have to be extra — extraordinary action taken.

KING: Tony, touched on it, Senator —

SCHUMER: And that is by the people, by everybody.

King stepped in and channeled the anger from her fellow lefties: “But there are people in your own party they are saying, look, it’s time for you to go. They no longer trust your leadership. They want somebody else in there. What do you say about that? In your own party saying, he has to go.”

As an angered Schumer defended his record, King fretted “people don’t have faith in the Democrats” with Dokoupil added it’s “half of the Americans.”

 

 

The last few minutes were about anti-Semitism with little mentioned about the rampant anti-Semitism on the left and on college campuses, aside from a brief nod to the former by Schumer himself. However, Charlottesville and Trump were prominently mentioned (click “expand”):

KING: [Y]ou said you never thought you’d have to write this book, but you never thought antisemitism would be as bad as it is. You said, for many non-Jewish people, it’s alarming, but it’s not a real problem and not a priority and to that, you say?

SCHUMER: Yeah, Jewish people, we carry 5,000 years of history on our back. Conor Cruise O’Brien, the great Irish poet, said antisemitism is a light sleeper. When things get bad, often, almost in too many societies, it turns on the Jews. You know, I was brought up between 1950, I was born in 1950, for the first 50 years, the Jewish people, we call it the Golden Medina. Jews did great in America. Like everybody else, we were advancing up the ladder. There was very little antisemitism because the pall of the Holocaust hung over America, and people realized what could happen, but starting in 2000 with 9/11, a little worse in the financial crisis, where a lot of them accused Jewish financiers. But it got much worse in 2017, so that for the first time, Jewish Americans say, maybe it could happen here like it happened everywhere else. So I wrote this book —

KING: Yeah, that’s chilling, yes. That’s —

SCHUMER: — I wrote this book aimed at five audiences, and then I will add a sixth. First, my generation, so that we see — they see we’re not alone. My experience is often their experience.

KING: Mmhmm.

SCHUMER: Second to my generation’s children, they know what’s going on, but they didn’t know the struggles of Israel, the history of antisemitism. You know, they know our holidays. There’s a joke about the three words that describe every Jewish holiday. They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat. So they know that.

KING: Yes.

SCHUMER: But third is, it’s aimed at non-Jewish people who say, you know, it’s bad, but why are they so sensitive? You read this book, you’ll see it.

KING: Right.

SCHUMER: Finally, I’m aiming it at my left — my people on the left, my friends on the left, I’ve always been a progressive, but we’ve seen — we’ve always seen antisemitism on the right. You saw those people at 9/11 — I mean, at January 6 wearing shirts that’s more than six million, but now a lot of it has trickled over to the left, and that’s bad, too, and finally, I hope every student in every college — every school, makes this advisory or required reading. You know who else should read it? Donald Trump.

DOKOUPIL: I’m sure your publicist —

SCHUMER: He has shown — let me just say this. He’d do a lot to read it, because Donald Trump —

DOKOUPIL: — Senator —

SCHUMER: — let me just finish this quick point, Donald Trump has shown that he regards Jews as transactional. Oh, they’re good for votes. They’re good for money. He has no understanding of the Jewish people, and it leads him to do bad things, sitting down with that antisemite, Fuentes; when Charlottesville occurred, saying both sides are to blame, cutting off funds —

KING: Fine people on both sides.

DOKOUPIL: Senator —

SCHUMER: — cutting off funds to our synagogues that need protection from antisemitism.

On a constructive note, Dokoupil had Schumer close by explaining that one could criticize the Israeli government’s decision-making (like any other government), but “it goes over the line and you call someone an effing Zionist or effing Jew,” “the guy who went on the subway car and said, all Zionists, get out of the subway car,” the head of the Brooklyn Museum having their house “scarred in red paint,” or when people chant “from the rive to the sea.”

To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 18, click here.

On Monday, PBS News Hour followed NPR’s Fresh Air in promoting New York Times reporter David Enrich’s anti-Trump book Murder The Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful. Right-wingers from President Trump to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are cartooned as “truth murderers.”

Enrich’s book is about the Supreme Court precedent in New York Times vs. Sullivan, which is not about “truth,” but about setting a very high standard in defamation cases against public figures: you have to prove “actual malice,” not merely false reporting.

This was the online headline at PBS: 

‘Murder the Truth’ examines growing effort to silence journalists and curtail free speech

Ha! Notice how it echoes the online headline at NPR: 

‘Murder the Truth’ describes a campaign to silence journalists and curb free speech

PBS interviewer William Brangham turned right to Trump: “This is an incredibly well-timed book. I mean, President Trump, obviously, you started it before you knew he would be president, but he has long said that the press protections in this country are far too strict and should be changed.” Brangham also underlined Enrich tilts against conservatives: “Your book details a lot of this campaign, principally from right-wing organizations and donors and law firms. Tell us who the characters are here. Who’s pushing against this?” This list of characters included Justice Thomas, who PBS and NPR slimed in 1991 with still-unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment. 

Enrich warned that even the right-wingers don’t win, their growing skepticism of the Sullivan precedent is impairing the media: 

ENRICH: [Y]ou’re seeing judges all over the country at the state, in some cases federal level, who are voicing support for this endeavor. And, in doing so, they’re causing legal actions that normally would get thrown out of court at a pretty early stage, they last a lot longer. And they are very expensive and time-consuming, not just for journalists and news outlets, but for normal people who maybe circulate a petition about a real estate developer in their town or have a post something on social media that gets them in trouble.

And so it’s already causing a really severe chilling effect on the ability of everyone from a normal citizen to someone with a Substack newsletter or podcast to journalists at major news outlets being able to really properly scrutinize and hold powerful people to account.

The notion that anti-Trump journalism is severely chilled right now is a laugh-out-loud argument. 

Just like NPR, PBS didn’t raise lawsuits against conservative-leaning news outlets, like Fox vs. Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion wasn’t “murdering the truth,” since the plaintiff was a conservative media outlet — which inside the “public” broadcasting bubble translates as “not real news media.” Democracy and press freedom = liberals.

They also avoided Zachary Young’s successful defamation suit against CNN, since he was not a public figure.  At least NPR mentioned Trump’s suit against ABC over George Stephanopoulos falsely saying Trump was “found liable for rape,” but PBS didn’t mention any recent defamation case at all. It was too busy pushing “severe chilling effect” to notice.

Comedian Bill Burr stopped by NBC on Tuesday to sit down with The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon and go on a rant against billionaires who have supported President Trump, but mostly Elon Musk, calling them “horrible, heartless people.”

A wound-up Burr began by declaring, “Well, it’s a positive time, Jimmy.” After a nervous Fallon sarcastically agreed, “Yeah, it really is,” Burr continued, “Billionaires are not happy having a billion dollars.”

 

 

He then wondered, “Why does Elon Musk dress like he just got out of a Hot Topic? I am so sick of that guy trying to rewrite his origin story, like he was Matthew McConaughey pulling into the high school.”

According to Burr, Musk’s true origin story was, “You were a [bleep] nerd. Nobody banged you. And now you have hair plugs in your laminated face.”

Burr kept rolling, “Everybody is afraid of these nerds. I don’t get it. My whole life, feminists were focusing on frat boys and guys with their hats on backwards, and they left the nerds alone. And now look at ’em. They got people wearing adult diapers driving 18-wheelers trying to get crocs to the, I don’t know, the box store on time. They’re horrible, heartless people.”

Ending with a demand, Burr continued, “And if for some reason, if you say that, you’re like a communist and then we’re in bed with the Russians. I don’t get any of it. None of it makes sense. And then they try to politicize everything you say, and it’s just like, ‘I don’t know, shouldn’t you pay your workers?’”

People who praise Luigi Mangione should probably refrain from calling other people horrible.

Here is a transcript for the March 18-taped show:

NBC The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

3/19/2025

12:21 AM ET

BILL BURR: Well, it’s a positive time, Jimmy.

JIMMY FALLON: Yeah, it really is.

BURR: Billionaires are not happy having a billion dollars. Why does Elon Musk dress like he just — Alright, thank you.

FALLON: Oh, my god.

BURR: Why does Elon Musk dress like he just got out of a Hot Topic? I am so sick of that guy trying to rewrite his origin story, like he was Matthew McConaughey pulling into the high school. It’s like, you were a [bleep] nerd. Nobody banged you. And now you have hair plugs in your laminated face.

No, and everybody — everybody is afraid of these nerds. I don’t get it. My whole life, feminists were focusing on frat boys and guys with their hats on backwards, and they left the nerds alone. And now look at ’em.

They got people wearing adult diapers driving 18-wheelers trying to get crocs to the, I don’t know, the box store on time. They’re horrible, heartless people. And if for some reason, if you say that, you’re like a communist and then we’re in bed with the Russians. I don’t get any of it. None of it makes sense. And then they try to politicize everything you say, and it’s just like, “I don’t know, shouldn’t you pay your workers?” Yeah! Don’t you remember that? 

In the moral battle between President Donald Trump and the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, the media have chosen a side. The foreign gangsters are less morally questionable than the president.

The Trump administration sent a plane stuffed with alleged Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, which is apparently more of a crime than whatever the gangsters did in America.

There are legal issues here. An Obama-appointed federal judge tried to order Trump not to send the plane. The administration didn’t release their names or their offenses, so some may not be gangsters. The flight can be debated. But in today’s media, the first objective is to present Trump as a malignant actor. The tone of his coverage should be all-negative, all the time. There’s nothing resembling an “achievement” on immigration.

On CBS Mornings Plus, co-host Adriana Diaz weirdly touted an upcoming segment to explain what “the Trump administration’s move to deport hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants using a law from 1798 could mean for you today.” It sounded like Whoopi Goldberg claiming on The View that any of us could be deported for being on the wrong side of Trump.

Then came this false labeling. Diaz opened a segment this way: “Joining us now to break it all down is Katherine Yon Ebright, a lawyer with the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice. Her work focuses specifically on wartime powers and the constitutional separation of powers.”

To be blunt, this is a lie. This leftist group may be tax-exempt, but it’s not nonpartisan. Take a look at the Open Secrets website for campaign contributions by employees of the Brennan Center for Justice. It lists hundreds of contributions — but only to liberal PACs and to Democrats, including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for President. Four Brennan Center staffers donated to Kamala’s presidential campaign last year.

You can also tell this is a Democrat episode on CBS when Diaz compared Trump’s flight of gangsters and their legal justification under a 1798 law to “the internment of 31,000 non-citizens of Japanese, German, and Italian descent after the bombings of Pearl Harbor.” CBS mentioned Ronald Reagan apologized for it as a regrettable episode of “racial prejudice,’ but they didn’t mention the president at that time was their Democrat hero Franklin Roosevelt.

“Nonpartisan” Ebright played the same game: “[T]he internment of 31,000 non-citizens without due process and based principally on their ancestry was a shameful moment in American history. And so reviving the Alien Enemies Act to target new ethnic groups today is, frankly, un-American and it shows that we haven’t learned from the mistakes of our past.”

So FDR was “un-American”? It’s weird when the Left calls things “un-American,” since they generally hate nationalism and patriotism in all its forms. Any border enforcement against illegal aliens (even violent criminals) is “targeting ethnic groups,” as if it’s just like FDR interning actual American citizens.

The only balancing note was co-host Tony Dokoupil acknowledging these gangsters committed some crimes in America. He noted officials said the gangsters trade immigration paperwork and hide their gang affiliation: “So within the law, what can this government do to take care of the very real threat of violence without trampling on the civil liberties that you’re concerned about?”

The Left touts the “civil liberties” of illegal immigrants as if they were uniformly sympathetic Trump victims. When some of these people commit violent crimes – and the raped and/or murdered people lose their civil liberties — networks like CBS ignore or downplay them, because that would feel like positive coverage for Trump, and that cannot be allowed.  

You can tell which news stories best advance the left’s narrative, by the similarities in how they are covered among the networks. There is a sameness and fluidity to the stories, which often touch the same points. On inconvenient, counternarrative stories you often get disjointed coverage- mixed at best and often reluctant. Case in point, coverage of the rash of violent attacks against Tesla vehicles and service centers.

Coverage was mixed across the networks. The most thorough report, shown below in its entirety, comes via the NBC Nightly News (click “expand” to view transcript).

LESTER HOLT: Fiery scenes in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Missouri overnight as Tesla vehicles were set on fire. It appears to be the latest in a string of vandalism attacks against the company. Here’s NBC’s Liz Kreutz.

LIZ KREUTZ: Tonight, authorities investigating what they are calling a targeted attack on a Tesla repair center in Las Vegas.This dramatic video showing multiple cars in flames. According to authorities, the suspected arson occurred early this morning. When police arrived, they found five vehicles set on fire or damaged, and the word “resist” spray-painted on the front of the business.

LAW ENFORCEMENT SPOKESPERSON: We believe the suspect approached the business wearing all black clothing, and he used what appeared to be molotov cocktails and a firearm to conduct his attack.

KREUTZ: Just hours before in Kansas City, two Tesla Cybertrucks set ablaze at a dealership there. Tonight the FBI stepping in to help local police investigate both incidents.

SPENCER EVANS: To those who might think that something like this is justifiable or potentially even admirable, we want to let you know it’s a federal crime. We will come after you.

KREUTZ: While authorities say the identities of the suspects and the motivation behind the attacks are still unknown, it comes amid at least 16 reports of vandalism to Tesla vehicles and dealerships across the country, as people nationwide protest Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his prominent role in the Trump administration.

PROTESTER: We are out here because we are defending democracy.

KREUTZ: President Trump sending a warning to those who vandalize Tesla property:

DONALD TRUMP: If you do it to Tesla, and you do it to any company, we are going to catch you and you are going to go through hell.

KREUTZ: Tesla’s stock seeing a sharp drop, down more than 40% this year. Tonight, Musk reposting the video from Las Vegas, calling the incident “terrorism.”

And Lester, here in Vegas authorities have blocked off the street as they continue the investigation. They’re working to figure out who owns these vehicles. Because it is a repair shop, it is likely that many are owned by people, individuals, and not the company. Lester.

HOLT: All right. Liz Kreutz tonight, thank you.

NBC covered everything. The attacks in size and scope, the likely motivation behind the same, and a broad scope of incidents across multiple cities. There was no ambiguity in how NBC covered the Tesla attacks. Even if correspondent Liz Kreutz was uncomfortable pulling the trigger on the term “terrorism”, only using the word when citing Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was made clear to viewers that this was the likely motivation behind the attacks. 

While imperfect and shunted off the A-block, NBC at least delivered a full report. In contrast, CBS and ABC did their level best to avoid reporting on the matter, relegating the story to tiny briefs devoid of most or all context.  

Here’s a transcript of CBS’s 24-second brief:

MAURICE DuBOIS: Police in Las Vegas are searching for whoever targeted a Tesla repair shop. At least five vehicles were shot at or set on fire. A growing number of Teslas have been vandalized nationwide, apparently, to protest Elon Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration. Tesla stock fell more than 5% today. Forbes says Tesla’s now been replaced by SpaceX as Musk’s most valuable company.

On the one hand, there is a mention of a potential political motive behind the attacks- the basis for a terror charge. But anchor Maurice DuBois also threw in a non-related mention of Tesla’s stock price.

But the worst clearly was ABC’s report- which did not get into a motive at all. 

DAVID MUIR: Tonight, the FBI and ATF are investigating possible arson attacks targeting Teslas and Cybertrucks in multiple states. Police say five Teslas were damaged in a targeted attack at a Tesla collision center- these pictures from Las Vegas. A suspect seen in surveillance throwing Molotov cocktails at two Teslas and firing a gun into several others. Federal authorities also investigating likely arson- this is Kansas City, Missouri right here, two Cybertrucks set on fire at a Tesla dealership. 

David Muir avoided any mention of Elon Musk or his role within the administration, or DOGE or anything else as a potential motive. The lack of mention or hint at terrorism is tantamount to apologia for domestic terrorism. 

Because terror attacks against Elon Musk are counternarrative, the media had no hymnal from which to sing in unison. Left to their own devices, coverage was spotty. Reasonable people may infer that coverage would be (D)ifferent if the partisan affiliations were inverted.

In his Sunday night appearance on the Club Random with Bill Maher podcast, former CNN host Don Lemon made free with his opinions on a wide variety of subjects, but one which caught the attention of many viewers was his take on fellow black Americans who supported President Trump. In a spectacle of arrogance and presumption, Lemon declared that he did not believe it was possible to be a rational black MAGA Republican, a position he stuck to despite even Maher pushing back with the suggestion that life was not that simple.

Lemon raised the subject of the integrity and motives of Trump’s black supporters, saying:

When I see a black MAGA person who is carrying Donald Trump’s water and they know that he’s lying, it is the shortest line to the front. Because… if you become a black MAGA person, it’s like, Whoa, let’s book this person. Let’s put him on television(…)

“So you don’t think you can be a sincere black MAGA person?” Maher asked.

“I don’t think that you can,” Lemon replied. “I don’t think you can be rational MAGA—be black and be a rational MAGA person(…)”

Maher pointed out to him that actual black MAGA people would probably “find that very insulting,” to which Lemon simply responded “Well, I mean, the truth is often insulting.”

After Maher drew attention to the fact that in the last election 20 percent of black men had voted for Trump, Lemon brushed them off as “uninformed.” 

“Like you’re informed about everything?” Maher snapped, “Like you don’t think anything you have is skewed?” 

 

 

While making it clear that he himself shared many of Lemon’s negative views on Trump, Maher asked Lemon if he had ever actually talked to any black people who disagreed, saying of his own recent meeting with Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida:

I like Byron, I just can’t live in this country where I hate half the people who, yes, think fundamentally differently about a lot of things… it does happen in human nature and you just have to be able to go, okay, we just, we have different upbringings, different influences in our life, different, I don’t know, metabolism… we’re just different and we come to different conclusions.

Lemon conceded that black people could legitimately be Republicans, citing Frederick Douglas in the 19th century and himself at an earlier age, but still stuck to his guns on black MAGA people, saying:

I don’t hate MAGA… But I understand that MAGA is based on: That you were not born in this country. MAGA is based on: Mexicans are rapists… MAGA is based on: Donald Trump— they don’t believe that he- that he was found guilty in a court of law… it’s problematic and it’s based on lies and racism.

“And that doesn’t mean I hate those people. I actually kind of feel sorry for them,” he concluded. 

Apparently, Lemon felt qualified to dismiss anyone who happened to resemble him racially but disagreed with him politically, as somehow insincere or irrational. He did not, seemingly, see that as at all patronizing, presumptuous, or offensive. 

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

Club Random with Bill Maher
03/16/2025
9:59 PM

(…)

DON LEMON: I think when people do that, it’s the shortest line to the front of either promotion- in whatever sense it is- it could be promoting a product, it could be promoting themselves, and you’re doing something that is out of the box to get attention just for the sake of getting attention, or just for the sake of- for the sake of pure ambition, where it’s the same thing that I- 

When I see- not all black Republicans, but I see a black MAGA person who is carrying Donald Trump’s water and they know that he’s lying, it is the shortest line to the front. 

Because, if you’re black and you’re, whatever- any old- you’re just in line with a bunch of other Democrats that are doing the same thing that you’re doing. But if you become a black MAGA person, it’s like, Whoa, let’s book this person. Let’s put him on television. Let’s promote-

BILL MAHER: So you don’t think you can be a sincere black MAGA person?

LEMON: Uh- no- I, I just said, I- I don’t think that- I just said I- think there can be sincere Republicans-

MAHER: But you can’t be a sincere black Republican?

LEMON: I don’t think that you can- I don’t think that you can be a rational MAGA- be black and be a rational MAGA person. I think you can be black and be a Republican.

MAHER: I think they would find that very insulting. 

LEMON: Well, I mean, the truth is often insulting.

MAHER: That’s true, too. 

LEMON: Yeah. 

MAHER: But I- Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. Because, there are cases to be made, that they’re making. 

I don’t- I never would go all the way to Donald Trump, because he does not concede elections, that’s my biggest issue with him. So, like, the Republican types who think, ‘Oh, someday Bill Maher’s gonna-’, no. No, no, Bill Maher’s always gonna be where Bill Maher has always been. I- if you change enough, yeah, you- but you- you’re going in the wrong direction- 

But, you know, I think 20 percent of black men voted for Trump. So they’re-

LEMON: Well, I think that’s OK that 20 percent of black men voted for Trump-

MAHER: Can’t they just think differently? Can’t people just have different-

LEMON: Be uninformed?

MAHER: It’s not- it’s not just- Like you’re informed about everything? 

LEMON: No, but I don’t think you’re-

MAHER: Like you don’t think anything you have is skewed?

LEMON: I don’t think you’re hearing me. I said that I believe that black people can be Republicans. Remember, there were lots of Republicans- Frederick Douglas- 

MAHER: It was different in his era.

LEMON: It was different in the- I was a Republican, by the way, but- I started as a Republican. 

MAHER: Is that right?

LEMON: Yes. But- so I think that a lot of what MAGA does is irrational, and it’s often based in lies, and it’s not factual. It’s people that- you said you don’t like people who are- who deny elections, who deny insurrections, or whatever. 

MAHER: Right, yeah.

LEMON: So that’s the MAGA party. That is the MAGA party. I’m not saying that’s Re- all Republicans. 

MAHER: No, look-

LEMON: So for a person of color- a black person to, you know, lend their-  to believe, you know, in that when it is based in irrationality and a lot of it is based in racism. For me, I have lots of questions about that. I don’t question black Republicans, I understand them.
 

MAHER: I’m going to let- I mean, do you talk to people like that? 

Like I had Byron Donalds on my show, maybe 2 weeks ago. I got to my office today and there was a lovely pin, that he had sent me. It had his name on it, an American eagle, and- you know- I like Byron. 

I’m- I’m just- you know- I just can’t- live in this country where I hate half the people who, yes, think fundamentally differently about a lot of things. I’ve said this here before. We have to be able to get to this point where you can say to somebody who you agree with A, B, C, D. But E?  Whoa, how could they believe in E if we both believe in A, B, C, and D? 

And it is a conundrum, but it does happen in human nature and you just have to be able to go, OK, we just, we have different upbringings, different influences in our life, different, I don’t know, metabolism, different, just, we’re just different and we come to different conclusions.

LEMON: I understand that, Bill.

MAHER: And you can’t be so-

LEMON: But it doesn’t mean-  because I am- because I can see what is happening and I live in reality, it doesn’t mean that I hate anyone. I don’t hate anyone. I don’t hate Donald Trump. I don’t hate MAGA.

MAHER: Right.

LEMON: Right? But I understand that MAGA is based on: That you were not born in this country. MAGA is based on: Mexicans are rapists. MAGA is based on: that Donald Trump did not inspire an election [sic]. MAGA is based on: Donald Trump didn’t try to overturn an election. MAGA is based on: Donald Trump- they don’t believe that he- that he was found guilty in a court of law- 

MAHER: Right, I know all these things.

LEMON: -So they’re built- it’s built on lies. 

So that’s- that’s why I question that, to understand and to be able to see through that. 

It doesn’t mean that you hate people. It just means that you’re being rational and logical. As I said, I think there are black Republicans. I was one. I think that’s all fine, but I think that Maga is- I think it’s- you know- it’s problematic and it’s based on lies and racism.

MAHER: [Laughs]

LEMON: And that doesn’t mean I hate those people. I actually kind of feel sorry for them.