Former scandal-plagued NPR CEO Vivian Schiller joined CNN News Central guest host Erica Hill on Friday to freak out over President Donald Trump’s Thursday executive order that ceased taxpayer money from going to NPR and PBS. According to Schiller, the move is just another example of Trump “attacking a free press” for reporting on things he does not like.

A worried Hill wrapped up their interview by wondering, “We’re really tight on time, but I’m just curious, your take. I mean, this is whether or not this goes through, right? What it does is it creates a narrative. It creates a narrative, multiple narratives. But the president has long pushed back against NPR, against PBS. What does that do overall in terms of the credibility of these organizations? How harmful is this?”

 

 

Schiller replied that, “I don’t think the government’s, sorry, the White House’s attack, will particularly harm people who have been reliant on NPR or PBS programming for a long time, but this is part of an overall narrative of attacking a free press, an independent free press that reports on things that maybe the president doesn’t like.”

It is impossible to take such comments seriously. For years, the media has attacked the Republican Party for being enthralled with Trumpism, but Republicans they now claim to like also once favored defunding public broadcasting, and they freaked out then too.

Nevertheless, Schiller continued, “I mean, this is one of many examples. You’ve covered them amply on CNN. And I will also say this is not the only way that they’re going after public radio and public television. There’s a whole bunch of other things that they’re doing, too, in trying to fire trustees of CPB and other kinds of cuts and legal attacks”

NPR has had twelve-and-a-half years since Mitt Romney brought up defunding PBS at a debate with Barack Obama, and it has nothing since then to show that they have become less left-wing. If anything, they have become more progressive. Trying to make Trump the main character in this story won’t work.

Here is a transcript for the May 2 show:

CNN News Central

5/2/2025

1:40 PM ET

ERICA HILL: We’re really tight on time, but I’m just curious, your take. I mean, this is whether or not this goes through, right? What it does is it creates a narrative. It creates a narrative, multiple narratives. But the president has long pushed back against NPR, against PBS. What does that do overall in terms of the credibility of these organizations? How harmful is this?

VIVIAN SCHILLER: I don’t think the government’s, sorry, the White House’s attack, will particularly harm people who have been reliant on NPR or PBS programming for a long time, but this is part of an overall narrative of attacking a free press, an independent free press that reports on things that maybe the president doesn’t like.

I mean, this is one of many examples. You’ve covered them amply on CNN. And I will also say this is not the only way that they’re going after public radio and public television. There’s a whole bunch of other things that they’re doing, too, in trying to fire trustees of CPB and other kinds of cuts and legal attacks.

Former Republican congressman-turned-Democrat-endorsing CNN talking head Adam Kinzinger joined former Today co-host and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric on her Next Question podcast to discuss President Donald Trump. During their interview, Kinzinger would lob off Nazi comparisons, bizarre hypotheticals, and long for a version of the pre-Trump good old days that never actually existed.

As he was discussing Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation to a Salvadorian prison, Kinzinger suggested he may not be far behind in terms of people whose rights are at risk, “Each step in and of itself is not enough to be outrage to the point of take to the streets in general and general strike, right? But in cumulation they are, and when you say to somebody, ‘We’re not gonna to due process for this bad person,’ Well, next thing it’s okay, ‘we’re not gonna do due process, because we did it for the bad guys, for the people that are here illegally.  And then, well, there are enemies of the state, and I get it, they’re American citizens, but you know they were Palestinian rallies or whatever. And then next it’s Adam Kinzinger, ‘Well, he’s a RINO, and he went against the president.’”

 

 

What is about media “conservatives,” Trump, and strikes? Still, Kinzinger moved on to the regularly scheduled Nazi comparison, “I don’t want to make comparisons to Nazi Germany, but in this case it’s a good example, which is, if in 1935 they’d have opened concentration camps, the German public would have rebelled. But if you just boil the frog to the point where you open it in and of itself, you get yourself to a point where it’s not outrageous enough.

Later, Kinzinger came up with another example he wished to highlight, “A judge in Wisconsin is arrested, like, some of this stuff is outrageous and we’ve grown numb to it.”

Couric then asked him to elaborate, “Let’s talk about the arrest of that Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan, who was arrested by the FBI on suspicion that she had steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door to evade federal agents. Why is that such an outrage in your view?”

 

 

The alleged crime took place in a courtroom by a public official, but Kinzinger made up some fictional scenario about a private citizen at their private residence, “So, it’s two things. First off, I didn’t know it was illegal to, you know, kind of hide somebody that has not been convicted necessarily by the feds, they wanted to deport him. I don’t know all the details, but is this saying that if you know somebody who’s illegal and they’re at your house and the police come, that it’s illegal to say they’re not there. That’s kind of chilling, to be honest with you, if it’s like that.”

In any event, the answer is still yes. Regardless, Kinzinger then dreamed up another hypothetical. Instead of the real world example where the guy is an alleged domestic abuser, Kinzinger wondered, “if you have a rape victim, for instance, who’s an illegal immigrant, are they going to go the law enforcement if they know that ICE is camped out right there and ready to deport them.” 

As for the judge, Kinzinger claimed in the pre-Trump GOP, conservatives would have trashed the move as an assault on federalism, “And then the other thing is just look, I’ll say this is as and old school former Republican is, like, we actually used to believe in sovereignty of states. We actually used to believe that states had a certain power that the federal government didn’t. And so the idea that the feds are going to come in and say we’re going to arrest a duly elected, by the way, not appointed, a duly elected judge in Milwaukee is very chilling.”

That’s ridiculous. Nobody ever made the argument that public officials personally helping illegal immigrants escape ICE was blessed by the Tenth Amendment, but this is a bad habit for Kinzinger. He claims his problem with the GOP is that is has been captured by Trumpism, but then he goes on liberal shows and says things that no conservative would ever say, even before Trump decided to get into politics.

Here is a transcript for the May 1 show:

Next Question with Katie Couric

5/1/2025

15 Minutes, 32 Seconds

ADAM KINZINGER: Each step in and of itself is not enough to be outrage to the point of take to the streets in general and general strike, right? But in cumulation they are, and when you say to somebody, “We’re not gonna to due process for this bad person,” Well, next thing it’s okay, “we’re not gonna do due process, because we did it for the bad guys, for the people that are here illegally.  And then, well, there are enemies of the state, and I get it, they’re American citizens, but you know they were Palestinian rallies or whatever. And then next it’s Adam Kinzinger, “Well, he’s a RINO, and he went against the president.”

And the next thing it’s you. That’s how these little steps, each of which is not enough to spark massive outrage, but in accumulation is.

As as they said, you know, and again I don’t want to make comparisons to Nazi Germany, but in this case it’s a good example, which is, if in 1935 they’d have opened concentration camps, the German public would have rebelled. But if you just boil the frog to the point where you open it in and of itself, you get yourself to a point where it’s not outrageous enough.

KATIE COURIC: How frightening is this to you?

KINZINGER: Uh? Pretty frightening.

And look, I’m going to steal this from Charlie Sykes, but I think it’s well said, he said. “I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful.” And that’s how I feel, which is I look back at history, and I know every time we’ve faced, like, dark moments, we’ve come though them. I mean, one took a civil war, but we’ve come through those moments and actually come out stronger. So, I have no reason to believe that the American people have fundamentally—their DNA has changed, that we’re not going to come back out of this stronger. Three-and-a-half years seems like forever when you’re on this side of it, but once it’s past, you look back and it goes by in an instant.

So, I do believe that there is still enough, like, and I mean, by the way, we’re 100 days in and already millions of Americans have taken to the streets in almost every organized town and city in this country. 

Those are good signs, but our defense of democracy is not automatic. And that’s where I’m very concerned, is, you know, we have to step up. A judge in Wisconsin is arrested, like, some of this stuff is outrageous and we’ve grown numb to it.

COURIC: Let’s talk about the arrest of that Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan, who was arrested by the FBI on suspicion that she had steered an undocumented immigrant through a side door to evade federal agents. Why is that such an outrage in your view?

KINZINGER: So, it’s two things. First off, I didn’t know it was illegal to, you know, kind of hide somebody that has not been convicted necessarily by the feds, they wanted to deport him. I don’t know all the details, but is this saying that if you know somebody who’s illegal and they’re at your house and the police come, that it’s illegal to say they’re not there.

That’s kind of chilling, to be honest with you, if it’s like that. But secondarily, simply the fact that ICE in general has always kind of had an unspoken rule, or maybe spoken rule with local jurisdictions, that they won’t enforce there because what you want to do is first off, tell anybody that’s in the country illegally that they can still use the judicial system. Maybe they’re a victim of a crime, right? 

And if ICE is instead camped out, you know, if you have a rape victim, for instance, who’s an illegal immigrant, are they going to go to the law enforcement if they know that ICE is camped out right there and ready to deport them. 

And then the other thing is just look, I’ll say this is an old school former Republican is, like, we actually used to believe in sovereignty of states. We actually used to believe that states had a certain power that the federal government didn’t. And so the idea that the feds are going to come in and say we’re going to arrest a duly elected, by the way, not appointed, a duly elected judge in Milwaukee is very chilling.

Over the next couple of years, the late night comedy shows will become a stomping ground for 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls and on Thursday, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel helped kick start that process by welcoming Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to the show. Together the two would implicitly accuse Republicans of racism by claiming they “know full well” Abraham Lincoln would be a Democrat today and explicitly as Pritzker recalled his 2018 campaign message of “Everything we care about is under siege by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic president of the United States.”

Pritzker’s speech that has liberal pundits swooning took place in New Hampshire, which led Kimmel to quip that the only reason a politician visits New Hampshire is because they want to run for president. Eventually, Kimmel asked, “I know this is not an announcement that you would make now, but can I ask you this? Is—what is it, like, three years and eight months too far in advance even to be thinking about something like that?”

 

 

Before he gave the standard politician answer where he declared he does not know his future plans, Pritzker declared, “Listen, I’m governor of the great state of Illinois, the land of Lincoln, I might add. He would be a Democrat if he were alive today.”

Kimmel agreed, “He would, yes. They like claiming him,” which led Pritzker to add, “Yeah, they do. But they’re not anything like him.”

Subtly playing the race card, Kimmel continued, “They know full well which side he would be on. Although, at like 200 years old, he might be watching Fox News.”

Later, Kimmel returned to Pritzker’s speech, “Well, let me ask you about something specific that you said in the speech, and I think this is the thing that got people fired up. You said, ‘It is time to fight everywhere and all at once.’ You called for mass protests. There are mass protests today. What does that mean, fight everywhere and all at once? What should we do?”

Pritzker began by falsely claiming, “I think everybody understands that, at this point, we’ve got an authoritarian in office. He’s essentially tearing apart the things that really matter to working families across the United States, and nobody’s stopping him. Congress is under the control of his party. They’re all paying homage to him at all times. No one’s willing to break with him, even though they’re taking away health care from millions of people across the United States and threatening Social Security.”

 

 

His solution was to simply make more noise:

The only thing, in my view, that we really can do on a national level is let them know about our displeasure because none of those Republicans in Congress, you know, are—they know they’re up for re-election in 2026. And if they don’t know how much resistance there is out there in their own districts, then they’re just going to keep following Donald Trump and doing whatever he wants. So, we’ve got to be out there loud, proud, stand up, speak out, and today, I think you saw that all across the United States. I think it’s appropriate it’s May Day, but it’s mayday, everybody. It is literally. Time to fight.

Kimmel then wondered, “I assume you’ve met the president?”

Pritzker then got more explicit in his allegations of racism:

I was invited to the White House. In fact, when I first got elected, I was governor-elect and he invited all the new governors to the White House. And I have to say, I contemplated whether to go or not… because I’d run an entire campaign where every chance I got—in fact, I started a lot of my speeches by saying, ‘Everything we care about is under siege by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic president of the United States.’ … but I got invited because I was governor-elect and with the other governors-elect. And that’s where I really met him. And oddly, he spent a lot of time, you know—I don’t know, talking to me, seemingly interested in being my friend. It was very odd.

Not nearly as odd as a billionaire governor citing May Day, the day where hard-left, anti-capitalist types frequently resort to violence, including rioting, and highway closures as a good “time to fight.”

Here is a transcript for the May 1-taped show:

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!

5/2/2025

12:23 AM ET

KIMMEL: I know this is not an announcement that you would make now, but can I ask you this? Is — what is it, like, three years and eight months too far in advance even to be thinking about something like that?

PRITZKER: Listen, I’m governor of the great state of Illinois, the land of Lincoln, I might add. He would be a Democrat if he were alive today.

KIMMEL: He would, yes. They like claiming him.

PRITZKER: Yeah, they do. But they’re not anything like him.

KIMMEL: They know full well which side he would be on.

PRITZKER: Exactly.

KIMMEL: Although, at like 200 years old, he might be watching Fox News. 

…

KIMMEL: Well, let me ask you about something specific that you said in the speech, and I think this is the thing that got people fired up. You said, “It is time to fight everywhere and all at once.” You called for mass protests. There are mass protests today.

PRITZKER: Yeah.

KIMMEL: What does that mean, fight everywhere and all at once? What should we do?

PRITZKER: I think everybody understands that, at this point, we’ve got an authoritarian in office. He’s essentially tearing apart the things that really matter to working families across the United States, and nobody’s stopping him. Congress is under the control of his party. They’re all paying homage to him at all times. No one’s willing to break with him, even though they’re taking away health care from millions of people across the United States and threatening Social Security. 

So, I guess, you know, the question is, what can you do in that circumstance? And the only thing, in my view, that we really can do on a national level is let them know about our displeasure because none of those Republicans in Congress, you know, are — you know, they know they’re up for re-election in 2026. And if they don’t know how much resistance there is out there in their own districts, then they’re just going to keep following Donald Trump and doing whatever he wants. 

So, we’ve got to be out there loud, proud, stand up, speak out, and today, I think you saw that all across the United States. I think it’s appropriate it’s May Day, but it’s mayday, everybody. It is literally –

KIMMEL: Yeah, it is.

PRITZKER: Time to fight.

KIMMEL: I assume you’ve met the president?

PRITZKER: I did meet the president, yeah. I was invited to the White House. In fact, when I first got elected, I was governor-elect and he invited all the new governors to the White House. And I have to say, I contemplated whether to go or not, but he’s president of the United States. This is 2018, 2019, rather. Well, late 2018, and I thought about, you know, whether to go because I’d run an entire campaign where every chance I got — in fact, I started a lot of my speeches by saying, “Everything we care about is under siege by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic president of the United States.”

KIMMEL: You meant him, right?

PRITZKER: Yeah. And — yeah, he wasn’t going to invite me to Thanksgiving dinner for sure, but I got invited because I was governor-elect and with the other governors-elect. And that’s where I really met him. And oddly, he spent a lot of time, you know — I don’t know, talking to me, seemingly interested in being my friend. It was very odd.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on April 30 on whether a Catholic school in Oklahoma named for St. Isidore the Farmer can be the first charter school with a religious foundation. It’s the latest case to alarm the media about the so-called “separation of church and state.”

New York Times legal reporter Adam Liptak cited a study finding that since Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court in 2005, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious people and groups over 83 percent of the time, compared with about 50 percent of the time for other courts since 1953. “In most of these cases, the winning religion was a mainstream Christian organization, whereas in the past pro-religion outcomes more frequently favored minority or marginal religious organizations,” two professors concluded.

This underlines how the Left fears “mainstream Christians” are going to ruin public education. On CBS Evening News, Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond was so aggressive about touting a “slippery slope” of allowing Christians to have charter schools, he claimed it would open the door to “Satanic School” and “Wiccan School.”

In reality, many public school teachers today preach the polar opposite of “mainstream Christian” values, but that’s never something that liberal reporters think should be separate from the state. Take a look at the LGBTQ-pushing teachers sporting purple hair featured on “Libs of Tik Tok.” You can put up rainbow flags on the wall, but you can’t put up a cross. You can’t “establish” religion, but you can establish its godless opposite.

A week earlier, when the high court took up Maryland’s Montgomery County removing any parental choice in opting out students during discussions of illustrated children’s books like Pride Puppy and Uncle Bobby’s [Gay] Wedding. Liptak found two professors who argued “The First Amendment does not shield public school students from the mere exposure to ideas that conflict with their personal views, whether secular or religious.”

How does Liptak reconcile these two arguments about public schools? It would seem that introducing Catholic views is a dangerous intrusion, but introducing the LGBTQ advocacy is merely “inclusion.” If a religious parent showed up in the grade-school classroom to add a little balance to the discussion, they wouldn’t welcome that as “the mere exposure of ideas” some find disagreeable.

At least reporters can clearly label the two sides of this debate. On NBC Nightly News, legal reporter Laura Jarrett (daughter of Obama’s White House chief of staff Valerie Jarrett) touted the views of Oklahoma’s Erin Brewer, as just a “mom of two teens.” Brewer argued “For the government to choose a particular religion to force us as taxpayers to fund it or to force us as students to study those tenets, that’s un-American.” Jarrett didn’t tell viewers that Brewer was a losing Democrat candidate for the Oklahoma state senate in 2024.

Brewer, like many liberal journalists, decries the spread of “Christian nationalism” and campaigned against Oklahoma superintendent of schools Ryan Walters, who has touted bringing the Bible back into public schools.

Secular reporters often betray that their minds meld with Ron Reagan Jr. and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “Freedom” is about keeping religion out of the public square, while the opposing view gets untrammeled promotion. “Freedom” also somehow means preventing parents from opting out on the propaganda, and calling that a lesson in “civility and respect.” That’s Orwellian. 

Late on Thursday night, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut taxpayer funds to PBS and NPR through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The text was posted on the Trump team’s “Rapid Response 47” account on X.

It said: “@POTUS just signed an executive order ENDING the taxpayer subsidization of NPR and PBS — which receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

The executive order includes this argument:

Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.

At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.

Since PBS and NPR are funded by all the American people, it should reflect the viewpoints of the people, and instead, after Trump was re-elected, both networks have doubled down in their anti-Trump animus. This was the top of the NPR home page on Thursday morning: 

 

PBS News Hour marked the first 100 days of Trump with White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez quoting federal judges slamming Trump for a “path of perfect lawlessness” and bringing in leftist historian Mark Updegrove to proclaim “Donald Trump campaigned on the notion of making America great again. We have seen him tear down much of what has made America great to this point.”

Earlier this week, the CPB sued Trump over his move to fire three members of its five-person board that were Democrats appointed by President Biden. 

The Trump administration has been working to defund the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which were founded to provide unbiased broadcast news coverage for people inside totalitarian regimes, but now sound more like NPR. You can tell, because liberal media outlets have presented them as journalistic heroes. Federal judges have ruled against some of these efforts, finding that funds were already appropriated by Congress.

The White House was expected to send a request to Congress this week that they rescind forward funding for the CPB, which has been given $535 million a year to provide a taxpayer-funded TV and radio equivalent to MSNBC.

The order demands an end of their taxpayer funding not just through CPB, but through :all executive departments and agencies,” since public broadcasting entities have received grants through the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other federal sources.

Tonight’s CBS Evening News gave viewers something beyond the normal network fare: garden-variety Malthusianism couched in equal parts brave self-determination and concern for others. And it was quite disconcerting to view.

Watch as our interview subjects host a party for their fellow childless, and weep for the future:

FRIEND: Was it financial, was it not finding the right — the right-the body style…

BATTISTE: When Tiana’s friends began having kids, she started organizing occasional get-togethers for others who want to be child-free.

FRIEND: Just seems like every time you turn on the news, something bad is happening. Just not the world I would want to raise a kid in.

FRIEND: Can’t control climate change. I think everything else is fixable. But that, I’m not so sure.

Far from striding into the future, these people seem to want to avoid it- a sort of bizarre Peter Pan-ism. These people have been spooked by network news to such a degree that they refuse to even consider the idea of having a baby.

The juxtaposition between the featured Florida couple and the Ghosts of Childlessness Future, if you will, also looked bleak. And also, incredibly selfish.

A small amount of credit is due for mentioning that the birth rate has plummeted in the United States. It has, due to a large number of factors. This is true for most of the West. The remedy is for governments to encourage, rather than discourage, increased childbirth. And to develop pro-family policies. Even if the media seem to want to go in the opposite direction.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on the CBS Evening News on Thursday, May 1st, 2025:

MAURICE DuBOIS: As the oldest of the Baby Boomers, including President Trump, turn 80 next year, and the youngest become eligible for Social Security, he is pushing for a second baby boom, With the U.S. birth rate declining, Mr. Trump is considering incentives for having kids, including a $5,000 bonus. But for many young couples, there is no amount of money. Nikki Battiste has tonight’s “Eye on America” from just west of Mar-a-Lago. 

TIANNA MORALES: You everything that I…

NIKKI BATTISTE: Tianna and PJ Morales said their I do’s seven years ago.

PJ MORALES: I’m super excited to take the next step in our life.

BATTISTE: As newlyweds,s they traveled the war world and before too long, they say, family would ask if they plan to have children. But the Florida couple says they are not having kids. Not now, not ever. 

When you have told people you are child free, what have their reactions been?

PJ: Why?

TIANNA: Yeah, I’ll get typically a blank stare or, “Oh, really?”

BATTISTE: Like pity?

TIANNA: Yeah, pity. Like, “You don’t want a mini you running around?”

BATTISTE: Tiana, now 37, says when she was younger she assumed she would be a mom but after spending her early 20s as a nanny caring for four kids at once, that assumption change.

TIANNA:It just dawned on me as this what I want to do every single day peered.

BATTISTE: The U.S. fertility rate has plummeted in the last two decades and now sits near record lows according to CDC data released last week. Some young adults say high costs are holding them back. Others fear climate change or are putting their careers first. But many say they simply don’t want kids.

AMY BLACKSTONE: We are raised to believe that it is our destiny to become parents.

BATTISTE: Amy Blackstone and her husband, Lance, decided years ago to be a family of just two. Blackstone, a University of Maine sociology professor, has published a number of studies on those who call themselves child-free by choice.

BLACKSTONE: A child-free person will say “I valued my relationship with my partner so much that I didn’t want another party changing that relationship.” A parent will say “the imagined relationship with a child is so important to me that I want that relationship.”

FRIEND: Was it financial, was it not finding the right — the right-the body style…

BATTISTE: When Tiana’s friends began having kids, she started organizing occasional get-togethers for others who want to be child-free.

FRIEND: It just seems like every time you turn on the news, something bad is happening. And it’s just not the world I would want to raise a kid in.

FRIEND: Can’t control climate change. I think everything else is fixable. But that, I’m not so sure.

BATTISTE: On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you on your decision?

TIANNA: I’d say a 9.5.

BATTISTE: What’s that half point?

TIANNA: I grew up in a big family and holidays were always surrounded by a large family. It’s fun. And so, as I age, what will holidays look like? Will they be just as fun? I don’t know.

BATTISTE: A choice, theirs and only theirs, made with careful thought. For “Eye on America,” I’m Nikki Battiste in West Palm Beach, Florida.

DuBOIS: A study found that over five years, the share of childless adults under 50 who don’t plan to have kids rose ten points, to 47%. And about that $5,000 baby bonus: estimates of the cost of raising a child out to the age of 18 are in the hundreds of thousands.

 

PBS doesn’t allow a debate about funding for PBS on the airwaves of PBS. Instead, you only get the pro-PBS side. On Tuesday’s News Hour, co-host Amna Nawaz tossed softballs at PBS CEO Paula Kerger about how wonderful they are and how defunding them is an existential threat for some PBS stations. Their overwhelming bias was not challenged. 

What is your sense of the effort to rescind those funds? Is it a done deal at this point?…

I know you’re meeting with lawmakers, speaking to them to make the case. What is the argument you’re laying out to them and what are you hearing in response?…

We should note there’s been Republicans who have long sought to cut funding for public media. So is there something different about this effort this time around?

On the last question there, Kerger claimed PBS has always had “bipartisan support,” and “for many of our stations…this would be an existential crisis,” something that couldn’t be fixed if Democrats restored the funding when they regained power.

 

This is the closest Nawaz came to liberal bias, but she pitched it as conservatives don’t like certain issues — and NOT how those issues are tremendously tilted:

There’s also a couple of arguments we have heard from the administration as they look to cut those funds. They argue that, by covering issues like race in America and gender issues, that public media is broadly engaging in what they call cultural indoctrination.

They also cite, among other things, the former NPR editor Uri Berliner’s accusations that he said his network pushed progressive viewpoints. That was at NPR, which is not PBS, to be clear. But do you worry about that? And what’s your response to that accusation?

Like a politician, Kerger claimed “I think we work very hard, and I’m proud of this broadcast of its focus on bringing the most important stories forward.” And then she said news was just 10 percent of what PBS does — the objectionable 10 percent! — and pivoted as usual to kiddie shows like Sesame Street and the defunct Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, that PBS is somehow crucial to pre-kindergarten education: “We’re parents’ first partners. We’re deeply involved in providing content for classrooms.”

Nawaz finished with a polling question, that a Pew poll found 43 percent favor continued funding, 24 percent favor defunding, and 33 percent are unsure. “So that means about 57 percent of Americans are either not sure or don’t want to see federal funds continue for public media. What does that say to you?”

Kerger referred to internal PBS polling, claiming bizarrely that 65 percent of Trump voters love PBS. Wouldn’t it be something to see those polling questions, and who they sampled? 

Days after its sister newscast NBC Nightly News bemoaned tariffs hitting Chinese slave labor-linked shopping apps Temu and Shein, NBC’s Today sent Beijing-based correspondent Janis Mackey Frayer to gallivant around Vietnam for the communist regime’s propaganda parade marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, a shameful scar on the country that’d be repeated in 2021 with Afghanistan.

The networks have done this in the past, but there was no mention of the millions dead at the hands communist dictator Ho Chi Minh — either in camps, executions, or while at sea trying to flee — after the U.S. evacuated remaining forces and personnel when the North Vietnamese army crashed through the gates of the South Vietnamese presidential palace on April 30, 1975.

 

 

Instead, it was mostly hunky dory. Co-host Craig Melvin had the first of two teases: “Coming up on a very busy Wednesday morning, we’re going to look back on the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War some 50 years later. A live report from Ho Chi Minh City just ahead.”

Co-host Savannah Guthrie had the other, saying in-between a soundbite from a 1975 news report: “Plus, 50 years later, we look back at the fall of Saigon…The historic milestone marking the end of the Vietnam War, and we are there live.”

Later, Melvin tossed to Frayer like this was something to celebrate: “Meanwhile this morning, Vietnam is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of the war and they’re celebrating with a military parade and a focus on a peaceful future. The fall of Saigon marked the end of a Vietnam that was divided between the Communist north and U.S.-allied south.”

Frayer kept the triumphant mood going:

It was here on April 30, 1975 that North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops rolled into this city as the last Americans were being air-lifted out and the Vietnam war came to an end. 50 years after the fall of Saigon, a victory parade where spectators waited overnight to witness history. Every year, Liberation Day — as it’s called here — is marked with celebration and this is their biggest yet to commemorate not only the communists’ victory in Vietnam, but America’s defeat. The events included helicopters and jets over the palace where, 50 years ago, a tank smashing the gate ended the war that killed millions of Vietnamese and 50,000 U.S. troops. For the U.S., the fighting came down to a last desperate airlift from the U.S. Embassy here.

She then met with a South Vietnamese Army veteran who doubled as a U.S. interpreter, saying he “wasn’t able to escape” after the war and “now blind.” No word on why he’s blind or what his life was like in the 50 years since!

The only thing we did learn? That he requested Frayer and the NBC crew bring him a can of Coca-Cola because he had not had one in 40 years.

Once she admitted the country is “still changing” since “most of the country’s population born after the fighting stopped,” Frayer saved the only negative comments for….the United States of America:

FRAYER: After serving here in the 1970s, reconciliation lured U.S. veteran Matthew Keenan to come back. He volunteers at a center for victims of Agent Orange, a chemical sprayed by U.S. forces here that he believes caused his own cancer.

MATTHEW KEENAN: They cannot explain why they have a problem they can’t explain about toxic chemicals. I can, and I do that for them.

Only towards the end did Frayer arrive at a more apt view: “While old wounds still linger, today Vietnam and Americans here are no longer enemies. The war pushing further into history.”

Back live, she gushed that “[t]here were several U.S. veterans who were are the parade today, as well as journalists who covered the war back in the day and there were U.S. diplomats spotted on this stage” despite the Trump administration’s ask they not go.

Whether it was the AP falsely claiming Ho Chi Minh was inspired by Thomas Jefferson in leading Vietnam (with an iron fist), taxpayer-funded NPR touting a Time magazine war correspondent being a communist spy, the broadcast networks fawning over Barack Obama’s 2016 visit, or the endless lionizing of the era’s (liberal) legacy journalists (like here and here), the liberal media will always have a soft spot for the war that tore America apart.

To see the relevant NBC transcript from April 30, click here.

On Tuesday afternoon, CNN climate correspondent Bill Weir declared that the Donald Trump administration is in an “all-out assault on science,” and compared global warming to a burning theater that the administration is forcing people to stay inside. His assessment came during a segment about the administration firing researchers who were working on a regular report on the climate. 

At the top of the 3:00 p.m. hour of CNN News Central, co-host Boris Sanchez teased: “And also, scientists agree that climate change is a threat, but the government under President Trump may soon know far less about it. This is after the White House dismisses all the researchers working on a key new report.”

About 3:33 p.m., Sanchez returned to the story and informed viewers of the firing of scientists in charge of putting together the National Climate Assessment report, which is due every five years. Weir noted that a law was passed in 2000 requiring that the report be done, and then recalled:

In 2018, it was a really blunt assessment and with a prediction that 10 percent of the global economy could disappear by the end of the century as a result of an overheating Earth — too much fossil fuel pollution. The Trump administration then buried it. They released it on Black Friday — the shopping day after Thanksgiving.

After noting that there was a report released in 2023, he added:

…this next one, which is supposed to come out in 2028, was just killed in the cradle. Like, they’re working on it right now, and it is a law that they have to deliver something. So the fear is that they’re just going to deliver pseudoscience and ideology — the kind of stuff we’re seeing in all these environmental and climate-related press releases — executive orders coming out of the White House right now. But this is yet another blow, Boris, in the first 100 days of just an all-out assault on science across every agency. Anything with a hint of climate change attached to it or even ground-level pollution

Which side of this debate — which the Left refuses to acknowledge as a debate — has been delivering “pseudoscience and ideology”? Way back in 1992, CNN ran a scare special called The People Bomb saying the world was overpopulated, and they wouldn’t allow any air time to scientists who disagreed with their doom-saying (and anti-humanitarian) viewpoint.

As he concluded his analysis, Weir took a hyperbolic shot at the Trump administration:

So, right now, everybody is hurting on the front of this story, and it remains to be seen what becomes of this assessment, the people working on it. If they can do one, do they release it to the public? Who knows? But, once again, really hiding the science, telling people essentially to stay seated in a burning theater and removing the exit signs as well.

Wrapping up, Sanchez echoed him: “Staying seated in a burning theater — what a way to put it. Bill Weir, thanks so much for the reporting. Appreciate it.”

Transcript follows:

CNN News Central

April 29, 2024

3:00 p.m. Eastern

BORIS SANCHEZ:  And also, scientists agree that climate change is a threat, but the government under President Trump may soon know far less about it. This is after the White House dismisses all the researchers working on a key new report.

(…)

3:33 p.m.

SANCHEZ: President Trump marked the end of his 100 days — his first 100 days of his second term by firing hundreds of people in charge of a critical report on how climate change is affecting the country. CNN obtained an email sent last night confirming the dismissal of scientists and authors tasked with putting together the National Climate Assessment. Scientists say the report is a valuable resource for officials dealing with extreme weather events at the regional, state and local levels. Let’s get more from CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir. So, Bill, what is the goal here by eliminating these scientists?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bill, it’s to eliminate the science that is the underpinning of many lawsuits — that could be a main sort of motive. We saw that in the Project 2025 sort of layout there. But, just to set some perspective here, in 2000, Congress passed a law that, every few years, the best Earth scientists in the country — about 400 of them — would put together a comprehensive assessment that would inform local governments, states, even private industries, about what’s happening when the — to the country — water supplies, energy supplies, to farms and fisheries — every aspects of the economy, and let them know, just no holds barred, so we could better prepare.

In 2018, it was a really blunt assessment and with a prediction that 10 percent of the global economy could disappear by the end of the century as a result of an overheating Earth — too much fossil fuel pollution. The Trump administration then buried it. They released it on Black Friday — the shopping day after Thanksgiving. I still remember this — I was in Paradise, California, covering that epic wildfire there, and nobody really paid attention. In 2023, under Biden, a new one came out, but this next one, which is supposed to come out in 2028, was just killed in the cradle.

Like, they’re working on it right now, and it is a law that they have to deliver something. So the fear is that they’re just going to deliver pseudoscience and ideology — the kind of stuff we’re seeing in all these environmental and climate-related press releases — executive orders coming out of the White House right now. But this is yet another blow, Boris, in the first 100 days of just an all-out assault on science across every agency. Anything with a hint of climate change attached to it or even ground-level pollution — PFAs, plastics, these sorts of things.

Lee Zeldin just announced they’re going to tackle microplastics, these sorts — but with no real policy plan in place. Meanwhile, laying off the best and brightest scientists really in the world at a time is creating, as you can imagine, incredible angst in this space right now. But, at the same time,  the price of oil is about 50 bucks a barrel, which is a huge money loser for all the oil executives that Donald Trump promised to help with deregulation. So, right now, everybody is hurting on the front of this story, and it remains to be seen what becomes of this assessment, the people working on it. If they can do one, do they release it to the public? Who knows? But, once again, really hiding the science, telling people essentially to stay seated in a burning theater and removing the exit signs as well.

SANCHEZ: Staying seated in a burning theater — what a way to put it. Bill Weir, thanks so much for the reporting. Appreciate it.

President Donald Trump’s approval declined after he announced broad tariffs not just on China but on trading partners who, in his opinion, take advantage of America with their tariffs on American goods. But how quickly those rooting for Trump’s failure forget the mood of the country during the Biden administration.

In September 2024, NBC News wrote: “Two in 3 voters say the country is on the ‘wrong track’ as voters weigh whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump would be better able to change that less than two months from Election Day.” Not exactly a tough act to follow.

Critics call Trump 2.0 an “imperial” presidency careening toward a “constitutional crisis,” meaning Trump intends to ignore lower court rulings that thwart his agenda. Yet most sat silently when one of the Democrat stars, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.,) demanded that President Joe Biden ignore a 2023 lower court ruling to ban the so-called abortion pill. AOC called the ruling a “mockery of our democracy and a mockery of our law.”

When the Supreme Court ruled the Biden student debt forgiveness program unconstitutional, Biden insisted the ruling left him undeterred. He said, “The Supreme Court tried to block me from relieving student debt. But they didn’t stop me.”

Trump has secured the southern border and is fulfilling his promise to deport the estimated 15 million illegal aliens — prioritizing violent criminals — intentionally admitted into the country by Biden. Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently fretted: “I worry for people of color all over this country. … And that makes me — that frightens me. It keeps me up at night.”

Michelle Obama must not have gotten much sleep during her husband’s administration, when even Democrats derisively referred to President Barack Obama as “deporter-in-chief.” In January 2024, PolitiFact wrote: “Under Trump, from fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2020, the Department of Homeland Security recorded 2 million deportations … During Obama’s first term, fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2012, there were 3.2 million deportations (removals and returns).”

Suddenly, Democrats are pro-“insurrection.” Democrat Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently called for “mass protests” against Trump: “It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now.”

“Fight everywhere and all at once”? The governor will no doubt claim he means “fight” peacefully. But when Trump, on Jan. 6, 2021, urged his supporters to “fight like hell,” his critics described this as the equivalent of ordering his supporters to set the country on fire. Never mind Trump also said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Suddenly, “mocking” one’s disability isn’t such a bad thing after all. An August 2016 Bloomberg poll of likely voters found what most bothered them about then-candidate Trump was that he supposedly “mocked” a disabled reporter, something Trump has denied doing. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Trump supporter, has since 1984 been paralyzed from the waist down. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) in March, at a California Human Rights campaign event, elicited laughter when she said: “Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now. And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot a– mess.” Crickets from most Democrats.

Polls show a majority of Americans support Trump’s border wall and a plurality support his goal of mass deportation. Democrats therefore find themselves thrashing about to decide on an effective anti-Trump attack strategy. What’s their message? Waste, fraud and abuse are to be protected? Illegal alien MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the equivalent of a political prisoner? Teslas are bad — so much for climate change?

Democrats continue to claim that only the very rich stand to benefit from extending the Trump tax cuts. Biden in his first major speech since leaving office repeated the nonsense that Trump wants to “cut and gut” social security. So, there’s that.

If Trump is proven right on his tariff strategy and our trading partners cut deals that eventually turbocharge the economy, what’s left for the Democrats? Apart from mass suicide, there’s always the Trump’s a “racist/fascist/Nazi” card. It’s better than nothing.