Newsbusters

On the latest edition of NBC’s Meet the Depressed, Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin shut down host Kristen Welker’s pressure over the reduction of the federal workforce. Thus continues the media’s campaign to advocate for fired government workers in a way they’ve never done for any other workers.

Watch as Welker tries to make Mullin squirm on job cuts, only to get fed a mouthful of DOGE:

NBC’s @kwelkernbc pleads to @SenMullin: “Talk to the people in Oklahoma who’ve lost their jobs, who say they are hurting, they don’t know how they’re going to pay their mortgage, they don’t know they’re going to make ends meet. Talk to those people. What’s your message to them?… pic.twitter.com/la5mF0iz7j
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) February 23, 2025

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: What Oklahomans want is to make sure that we riddle –

KRISTEN WELKER: But –

MULLIN: …or we get rid of the waste and fraud inside the federal government. And that’s –

WELKER: But Senator –

MULLIN: …exactly what the president’s done. They’ve already identified billions, billions of dollars of waste and fraud for the taxpayers.

WELKER: But Senator, first of all, there hasn’t – they haven’t provided proof of fraud. But talk to the people in Oklahoma who’ve lost their jobs, who say they are hurting, they don’t know how they’re going to pay their mortgage. They don’t know how they’re going to make ends meet. Talk to those people. What’s your message to them? They say, “Enough of these cuts.”

MULLIN: Well, I – I’m not – I would tell you that the majority of the American people want to make sure that their taxpayers are being used correctly. I don’t want anybody to lose their job. That’s the last thing we want. But at the same time, anytime you’re trying to secure this country, which a national security risk we have right now is our national debt, we have to make changes, and we have to make it quickly. Unfortunately, when we have bureaucrats and politicians that have wastefully spent the American taxpayer dollars, and we don’t have to look any further than USAID to see the wasteful billions of dollars that were spent, cuts had to take place. And every business owner understands this. Every business owner understands that you have to get your house in order before you can advance. That’s exactly what DOGE is doing. Think about this. Every successful –

WELKER: Senator –

MULLIN: …business owner out there and every successful business has hired consultants to come in and take an unbiased look and make changes because sometimes when you’re so close to it, you can’t see what the real changes need to take place. Elon Musk is the United States’ consultant right now. He the – he is literally the – the – the best entrepreneur we’ve had in our lifetime, and he’s doing it for free, and he’s taking an unbiased look –

WELKER: Yeah.

MULLIN: …saying, “These programs make no sense. Let’s save the taxpayer dollars and get our house in order.”

Fired federal employees are drawing the kind of coverage that exceeds the wildest dreams of energy sector employees who encountered a similar fate in 2021, when President Joe Biden signed a series of executive orders severely curtailing domestic energy production. I don’t recall any elected Democrats called to deliver messages to laid off oil workers, or to the families who were crushed by subsequent inflation. 

There will be no “learn to code” admonitions in the media for fired government workers, only glowing victim coverage. 

The broad interview covered such topics as Ukraine, the firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some hysterics over the idea, floated in jest, of President Trump seeking a third term. But the bulk of it was focused on the firings. 

Of note: when Welker tried to take the first pass at victim-shaming Mullin, he addressed the town halls narrative, which appears to be built upon astroturf. Chagrined, Welker took a second pass- which led to the exchange above.

The American people voted for massive change. The news media appear to be most resistant to that change, and you have to wonder why that is.

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

KRISTEN WELKER: And joining me now is Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Senator Mullin, welcome back to Meet the Press.

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: Thanks for having me on, Kristen.

WELKER: Thank you so much for being here. Let’s start with the effort to end the war in Ukraine, that war now about to stretch into its fourth year, incredibly hard to believe. Senator Mullin, do you acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine?

MULLIN: You know, I think what President Trump was meaning – not think, I know what he was meaning – is we gave Zelenskyy multiple warnings that there needed to be a negotiations before the war even started. And President Trump is absolutely correct. If he was in office, this war would have never, ever taken place. What we’re trying to do and what President Trump is trying to do is end the killing. It’s been going on for three years. The Biden administration turned a blind eye to it, and President Trump is the president that can end the war. There, fact – fact and simple.

WELKER: Well, I guess, but I didn’t hear an answer to the question of, “Did Vladimir Putin start the war?” You yourself said when Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, quote, “I strongly condemn the unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine.” So just to be clear, Senator, do you still believe this was an unjustified and unprovoked attack on Ukraine by Russia?

MULLIN: You know, what – what we believe is this war should have never taken place. And what we’re trying to do here is put President Trump in a good position to negotiate the end of the war. It’s the same way that – that Reagan worked with Gorbachev by trying to end the Cold War. Trump is the president that’s going to be able to end the killings that should have never taken place and would have never taken place if he would have been in office instead of Joe Biden. The reason why is because President Trump leads peace through strength. What Biden led through is appeasement. And that doesn’t work on the world stage. And I do believe 100% that we don’t want to attack – back the president or this administration into a corner on saying things that might damage the ability for President Trump to negotiate the – an end to this war. And President Trump is a dealmaker. He will end this war.

WELKER: Well, and of course there’s no way to go back in history and know what may or may not have happened under a different president. But let me ask you this. I want to play some –

MULLIN: Well, I – I don’t – I don’t know if you can – no, I don’t know if you can say that –

WELKER: …of your Senate Republican – Senator –

MULLIN: …because if you look at the – well, if you look at the history of this, just look at the history –

WELKER: Yeah.

MULLIN: …Crimea was invaded underneath Obama. No, he did not invade any of Ukraine when Biden – when Trump was in office. He invaded –

WELKER: Yeah.

MULLIN: Ukraine when Biden went into office. So I think there is a history to say that there’s a pretty good –

WELKER: Yeah.

MULLIN: …99.9% chance it wouldn’t have happened if Trump would have been in office or if Biden would have simply used the same peace through strength –

WELKER: But –

MULLIN: …foreign policy that Trump had.

WELKER: But, Senator, I think the question is, “Can President Trump be critical and tough on Putin right now?” Let me play you some of what your Senate Republican colleagues had to say this week. Take a listen.

ROGER WICKER: Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life if not executed.

JOHN KENNEDY: He’s a gangster with a Blackhawk. I don’t – he makes Jeffrey Dahmer look like Mother Theresa.

THOM TILLIS: This man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.

WELKER: Senator, is it important for the President of the United States, who speaks for all of the country, to be honest and critical of Vladimir Putin?

MULLIN: I think the president’s been very critical of Putin. And I’m not sitting here defending Putin. Putin’s not a good guy. At the same time, that’s up to the Russian people. That’s not up to us to make that decision. What President Trump is trying to do is end the war. And he’s trying to end the war from a – from a peace – place of strength. You don’t end a way from a place of weakness, which is why Biden could never end the war. Trump is going to be able to end the war. He’s gonna – he said he was going to do it when he was on the campaign trail, and he’s kept his promises, and he’s going to continue to deliver on those promises.

WELKER: Let me zoom out and ask you big picture. Do you think the United States should stay in NATO, Senator?

MULLIN: You know, if it’s in our interest, I absolutely do. But right now, NATO has not always been playing in – in our best interest. And when it’s not in Americans’ best interest anymore, then we should relook at things. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting different results. We see NATO, and we see U.N. sometimes weaponizing against the United States, and we’re the biggest funder of it. And if it’s not in the taxpayers’ best interest, if it’s not in Americans’ foreign policy best interest, then we need to look at a – look at a different approach.

WELKER: The United States has historically determined that it is in the United States’ best security interest.

MULLIN: Historically.

WELKER: President Zelenskyy himself has said he believes that Russian troops are amassing potentially in Belarus, could be potentially eyeing the possibility of going into other NATO nations. Can European members and NATO count on the United States and President Trump to help defend them if they are attacked by Russia, Senator?

MULLIN: Well, I – I don’t – first of all, I don’t believe for a second that Russia is going to advance a war in any other country right now. It’d be extremely dangerous, and he will call President Trump’s hand. President Trump does not just simply say idle words. He delivers it. We saw what happened in Syria. Keep in mind, in Syria, he told Russia to stay out of it in 2017. They went ahead and helped Assad, and they delivered chemical weapons on their own people. What did President Trump do? Within 30 minutes, he – they kicked Russia out of the airspace and completely destroyed their airfield that they were operating underneath. Russia and Putin fears President Trump.

KRISTEN WELKER: Senator, let me ask you about the breaking news that happened late Friday night, when President Trump fired Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown, who President himself – President Trump himself picked five years ago to lead the Air Force. I want to play you some of what Democratic Congressman James Clyburn had to say in reaction. Take a look.

LAURA COATES: Is that why you think the president has let him go? Because he’s Black?

CLYBURN: That’s what I think. When they say DEI, we know what it means. As I heard somebody say earlier today, they are substituting these acronyms for the N-word. So why would you apply the term “woke” to General Brown? What does that mean?

WELKER: Senator Mullin, what is your reaction to Congressman Clyburn? Do you think that CQ Brown was fired because he’s Black?

MULLIN: Unfortunately, Congressman Clyburn, he constantly pulls the race card out. This has nothing to do with this. We’re a civilian force, and the president gets to choose his closest advisors. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is his closest advisors. Obviously he said very positive things about General Brown, even when he was dismissing him. But the president has a right to pick people around him that he wants to – that he trusts. And at some point, he chose to go a different direction. This had zero, absolutely zero to do with race. Keep in mind, the reason why he was promoted the first time was because President Trump did that in his – in his last administration. So it’s dangerous every time the left wants to pull out the race card. It’s dangerous and reckless and ridiculous.

WELKER: All right. Let’s turn now to these steep government cuts that we’re seeing. They’re starting to be felt across the country. Here are some recent headlines in your home state of Oklahoma. Quote, “Federal layoffs felt across Indigenous communities in Oklahoma.” “Oklahoma University president says the National Institutes of Health funding cut would severely impact university research.” “Thousands of Oklahoma veterans and caregivers struggle amid cuts to VA.” This comes as there have been town halls all across the country, including in Oklahoma, protesting these cuts. What is your message to the people of Oklahoma who say they are being hurt by these cuts by President Trump and Elon Musk?

MULLIN: Well, let’s – let’s go back and talk about their protest. The chair of the DNC, Ken Martin, openly admitted on MSNBC just yesterday that they were manufacturing these protests. They were bussing in armies to manufacture these protests.

WELKER: But what about the headlines in your state –

MULLIN: Now let’s talk about the cuts. The American people –

WELKER: Hold on. Senator. What about the headlines in your state?

MULLIN: Well, I’ll get to that. I’ll get to that. Let’s – I will get to that. Let’s talk about the NIH. The funding has been abused all across universities. We have Ivy League, from Harvard to – to – to Yale, that’s using 68%, 69% of NIH funding for monies other than research, meaning overhead. You have the University of Oklahoma that 55% of the dollars that are going in to – for research are being used for overhead funding. That – those dollars should be around 15-25% tops to be used for overhead instead of NIH actual research and development. There has to be a reset. It has been abused. And what the president’s saying is that that number can be anywhere from 15-25%, but it should be a max. If you start looking at –

WELKER: But –

MULLIN: …donors that donate to the university, they immediately put in 15-25% tops on their donation can be used for that. So if you want to start talking about actual cuts, what Oklahomans want is to make sure that we riddle –

KRISTEN WELKER: But –

MULLIN: …or we get rid of the waste and fraud inside the federal government. And that’s –

WELKER: But Senator –

MULLIN: …exactly what the president’s done. They’ve already identified billions, billions of dollars of waste and fraud for the taxpayers.

WELKER: But Senator, first of all, there hasn’t – they haven’t provided proof of fraud. But talk to the people in Oklahoma who’ve lost their jobs, who say they are hurting, they don’t know how they’re going to pay their mortgage. They don’t know how they’re going to make ends meet. Talk to those people. What’s your message to them? They say, “Enough of these cuts.”

MULLIN: Well, I – I’m not – I would tell you that the majority of the American people want to make sure that their taxpayers are being used correctly. I don’t want anybody to lose their job. That’s the last thing we want. But at the same time, anytime you’re trying to secure this country, which a national security risk we have right now is our national debt, we have to make changes, and we have to make it quickly. Unfortunately, when we have bureaucrats and politicians that have wastefully spent the American taxpayer dollars, and we don’t have to look any further than USAID to see the wasteful billions of dollars that were spent, cuts had to take place. And every business owner understands this. Every business owner understands that you have to get your house in order before you can advance. That’s exactly what DOGE is doing. Think about this. Every successful –

WELKER: Senator –

MULLIN: …business owner out there and every successful business has hired consultants to come in and take an unbiased look and make changes because sometimes when you’re so close to it, you can’t see what the real changes need to take place. Elon Musk is the United States’ consultant right now. He the – he is literally the – the – the best entrepreneur we’ve had in our lifetime, and he’s doing it for free, and he’s taking an unbiased look –

WELKER: Yeah.

MULLIN: …saying, “These programs make no sense. Let’s save the taxpayer dollars and get our house in order.”

WELKER: Senator, very quickly before I let you go, the national debt is $36 trillion. DOGE is only dealing right now with the federal workers, which is only 8% of federal spending, a small fraction of the federal budget. So how do DOGE’s layoffs actually deal with the debt problem?

MULLIN: Take care of your pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves. Every business owner knows that. Within only four short weeks, we’ve already identified over $55 billion of waste and fraud. We’re only four weeks into a four-year administration. That is taking care of the pennies and going to get to the dollars. We will get our house back in order.

WELKER: All right, Senator, very quickly because I am almost out of time. President Trump again this week joked about running for a third term. Would you support changing the Constitution to allow Donald Trump to seek a third term in office?

MULLIN: First of all, he joked. And so I think we need to take that as a joke, not being literal.

WELKER: Some of his allies say they are deadly serious, Senator. Would you support that?

MULLIN: No. I’m not – I’m not changing the Constitution, first of all, unless – unless the American people chose to do that. I will say, just as what you said in the beginning: It was a joke, and people need to take it as a joke. The president is a very interesting guy that you can find extreme humor in when you sit down to visit with him. At the same time, he can be deadly serious. That’s why I call him my friend.

WELKER: Senator Mullin, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. Hope you’ll come back again soon. Thank you.

 

On Sunday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Weekend, co-host Alicia Menendez said that NBC News had obtained a copy of the email sent out to federal employees at Elon Musk’s behest requiring them to list five things that they had accomplished in the last week.

If the show’s panelists had to list five things they had recently accomplished, one thing they couldn’t mention was actually having read that email.

Because if they had, they wouldn’t have fretted, as two of them did, that in responding to the email, “classified information” or secrets would be divulged. 

That’s because, as you’ see, the email instructed recipients in bold letters, “do not send any classified information.”

So there was no risk of classified information being divulged. Unless the federal employees–described as “heroes” by a panelist–are incompetent or subversive.

A pervasive theme in the liberal media has been to condemn the Trump administration’s cruelty in firing federal workers. But guess who else fires people? NBC News, MSNBC’s parent company. Last month, NBC News announced that it was laying off 40 staffers.

And just today, as our Tim Graham has noted, news broke that MSNBC itself has fired Joy Reid.

And guess who are the beneficiaries of Reid’s defenestration? Yup: the hosts of The Weekend! Menendez, Symone Sanders, and Michael Steele reportedly will be moving from the relative obscurity of their weekend-morning slot to occupy the higher profile 7 pm weekday timeslot that used to be Reid’s.

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
The Weekend
2/23/25
8:00 am ET

ALICIA MENENDEZ: New overnight, Elon Musk demands federal employees justify their work or resign. The bizarre new email that’s unnerving government agencies. 

. . . 

SYMONE SANDERS: Executing that Project 2025 strategy with Donald Trump’s approval, Elon Musk wants federal workers to sing for their supper. 

Last night, federal received an email asking them to summarize their work from last week. Yes, this is what happened. The unelected billionaire, he actually posted on his social media site, quote, Failure to respond will be taken as a 

. . .

MICHAEL STEELE: This nonsensical email from Elon Musk acting like we’re in kindergarten. Tell us what you did last week. 

. . . 

MENENDEZ: Let’s talk about those emails that were sent from the Office of Personnel Management. They were shared with NBC News. They asked employees to send approximately five bullet points listing what accomplished this week, ccing their managers. They set a deadline of Monday at 11.59 p.m. Eastern. Notably, FBI Director Kash Patel instructed employees to pause any response to the email. State Department employees were told to do the same.

Because, you know, you wouldn’t want FBI secrets and State Department secrets in emails that then could be widely circulated. Will their incompetence be their undoing? 

. . . 

HEATH MAYO: It’s disgusting, quite frankly. It’s indignant. It’s insulting. And, you know, federal workers, you know, I don’t know how they’re going to really step through this, honestly. I feel for them. I don’t know how you respond to an email like that. And certainly, to your point, the threat to classified information leaking out, I mean, you basically would have to just say, one, you know, redacted, two, redacted. I mean, you’d have to redact everything you’re working on for some of these people. So it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. 

. . . 

COREY BRETTSCHNEIDER: When you add all these assaults up, it really is an attempted coup. It’s not a violent coup, of course. But there are different kinds of coups. Political scientists talk about auto coups. And what an auto coup is, is when the President of the United States or a person in power tries to seize and rearrange the law so that it only serves that person. So it only serves Trump. 

And that’s what’s going on here, this attempted auto coup. How do you prevent it? You need those who are charged, the more than two million people in the executive branch, to carry out the law, to refuse to go along with illegal orders and an attempt to really destroy the system of American government, not just what Trump calls the bureaucracy. 
 

CBS Senior Political Correspondent Robert Costs is doing his level best to preserve the media’s hysterical denunciations of a “constitutional crisis” where there is none. This contrasts with a very recent past constitutional crisis that the media bit their collective tongues on.

Watch as CBS Sunday Morning teases their report on President Donald Trump’s exercise of presidential power by suggesting it is some new arrogation of power and potential constitutional crisis:

The lead of @CBSSunday: Robert @CostaReports on President Trump creating “a Constitutional crisis.” pic.twitter.com/YxloSaKZcI
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) February 23, 2025

JANE PAULEY: Good morning. I’m Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. It’s been a dizzying 34 days since President Donald Trump took office. In that time The White House has issued a blizzard of executive orders, some of which have been blocked at least temporarily by court actions across the country. Which raises the question in our federal system of checks and balances: what would happen if a president simply ignores the voice of the judicial branch? We’ve asked our Robert Costa to explore the implications of testing the limits of presidential power. 

ROBERT COSTA: Many American presidents have faced reckonings over their power, including President Trump. But where are the lines drawn? 

What is a constitutional crisis?

JEFFREY ROSEN: A constitutional crisis is if the president refuses to carry out authoritative opinion of the Supreme Court. It’s never happened before in American history.

Is it often the case that a story gets blown up at its tease? Because presidents have defied the Supreme Court as recently as President Joe Biden, who bragged about disregarding the Court on his various student loan payoff schemes:

File this one away for the next time the media howl about DOGE and the sanctity of court rulings pic.twitter.com/nr1YdywJag
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 11, 2025

JOE BIDEN: Look. Early in my term I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt. Tens of millions of people in debt were literally about to be canceled. Their debts. But my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me. I announced we’re going to pursue alternative paths for student debt relief as- for as many borrowers as possible.      

Biden ignored an opinion of the Supreme court of The United States, but this somehow didn’t trigger any media caterwauling about a constitutional crisis, or any other such “inquiries”. Conveniently, both Biden shoe-polisher Bob Costa and Democrat apparat Jeffrey Rosen, cited here as a “nonpartisan”, both ignore Biden’s contempt for the Supreme Court.

This report leaves viewers to infer that Donald Trump’s exercise of presidential power is a constitutional crisis unto itself. Watch these spaces as the term gets stretched out. Soon enough, Supreme Court ratification of Trump’s executive orders will be spun as a constitutional crisis: 

SCOTUS ruling to uphold Trump policies has been officially added to “constitutional crisis” canon pic.twitter.com/IeHAgw1Cvh
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 17, 2025
Increasingly, it seems that the constitutional crisis is little more than the left being in crisis over Trump wielding the constitutional powers. CBS could’ve saved themselves some heartburn by just listening to Jan Crawford.

Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Sunday Morning on February 23rd, 2025:

JANE PAULEY: With judges across the country pushing back against some of the Trump administration’s flurry of executive orders, there are those who ask: What would happen if The White House defies the courts and simply moves ahead with its plans? We’ve asked our Robert Costa to make some inquiries.

ROGER MUDD: Despite his powers as chief executive, his future is really in the hands of the other two branches of government. The courts and the Congress.

ROBERT COSTA: More than a half century ago, as the Watergate saga unfolded, President Richard Nixon had a standoff with the Justice Department and the courts.

DAN RATHER: In breathtaking succession tonight, the following historic events occurred. The President of the United States demanded that the Attorney General fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The Attorney General refused, and resigned.

COSTA: The tensions brought a certain phrase to the fore of the American conversation.

JOHN CHANCELLOR: The country in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. 

COSTA: Now that term, constitutional crisis, is back.

JULIAN CASTRO: We’re headed towards a constitutional crisis.

ELISSA SLOTKIN: We’re fast barreling towards a constitutional crisis.

COSTA: Many Democrats are sounding the alarm about President Donald Trump’s use of executive power.

SEAN CASTEN: The actions that Musk and his I.T. goons have taken, they’re illegal.

COSTA: And some fear that Trump, who has shattered norms and who worked relentlessly to try to overturn the 2020 election, cannot be counted on to follow the courts.

MIKE JOHNSON: I have been asked so many times, aren’t you uncomfortable with this? No. I’m not.

COSTA: Most Republicans are shrugging off talk of a crisis. In fact, many are cheering as Trump overhauls the Justice Department and FBI, works with Elon Musk to fire thousands of federal employees, and signs piles of executive orders.

DONALD TRUMP: Oohhh, that’s a big one.

COSTA: Making sense of this moment is tricky, but looking to history can be a good place to start.

JEFFREY ROSEN: You cannot talk about the Constitution enough…

COSTA: Jeffrey Rosen runs the nonpartisan National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. 

What is a constitutional crisis?

JEFFREY ROSEN: If the president refuses to carry out an authoritative opinion of the Supreme Court. It’s never happened before in American history. Andrew Jackson threatened to ignore the Court but he didn’t. No president has ever defied the Court. So far, President Trump hasn’t, either.

COSTA: The Supreme Court has never been defied?

ROSEN: You haven’t had an authoritative order a president has refused to carry out.

COSTA: These days, Trump’s attorneys are busy appealing lower court decisions that have tried to rein him in. Those cases could soon reach the Supreme Court. 

Do you see President Trump deliberately testing the bounds of executive power?

GILLIAN METZGER: I think he is.

COSTA: Gillian Metzger, a constitutional law professor at New York’s Columbia University, is keeping watch. She worked at the Justice Department in the Biden administration, and clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

As you see it, where are the guardrails around President Trump and his use of power?

METZGER: There are some guardrails. There is the courts.

COSTA: Are they holding?

METZGER: So far the courts are holding. This is early days. I mean, we’ve had a whole lot of legal action.

COSTA: Hard to keep track of everything.

METZGER: It’s very hard to keep track of everything. But we have a lot of interventions early on by courts. There is only so much the courts ultimately can do. If you have an administration that is intent on violating the law, it’s going to take- not just the courts, it’s going to take Congress, it’s going to take the states, it’s going to take the people standing up and making it clear they are not going to stand for that for our constitutional order to be preserved.

COSTA: For the time being, the Republican-controlled Congress is doing little, if anything, to contest Trump. Democrats have expressed outrage. Most Republicans range from muted to thrilled.

TRUMP: Number one trending.

COSTA: Trump has also unsettled his critics by leaning into the idea that he has immense power, even posting a fake magazine cover where he donned a crown. On social media, he has quoted this line from a film about the French emperor Napoleon.

ROD STEIGER (AS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE): He who saves a nation violates no law.

COSTA: What does it say to you when a president puts that out there?

METZGER: Truthfully, I really don’t know what to make of some of the stuff on social media from Trump or from Musk or others. It seems to be aiming for some kind of shock value.

COSTA: Don McGahn, who was White House counsel in Trump’s first term, says he sees a president who is generating headlines, not a crisis. 

Do you believe he is testing the bounds of executive power or not?

DON McGAHN: I think he can make that argument. He certainly is doing it in a way that is very open, very transparent, very in your face. Doesn’t seem to be a lot of secret memos telling people what to do. It seems that he is certainly doing it wide open in a way that lets people see. I think he certainly is pushing the envelope and doing it in a way where I think he has much more solid legal authority to do so than I think a lot of people realize.

COSTA: What’s your message to Americans who are feeling whiplash with everything that’s happening?

McGAHN: Calm down. That’s my message. Calm down. It’s a process. It’s a lot of paper. It’s a lot of executive orders. It’s a lot of hype. There is a process in place. People are going to go to court. Courts will sort it out. Congress can help sort it out. We will see what comes out in the end. But this is how our system works.

COSTA: This crossroads on presidential power has been years in the making, with conservatives long calling for an empowered executive.

McGAHN: And you do have courts now which have a very heavy Trump stamp on them.

COSTA: Don McGahn was a key attorney behind Trump’s nominations to the high Court, which last year ruled presidents have broad immunity. 

What is the significance of the presidential immunity ruling when it comes to president Trump today?

McGAHN: Well, I think it reflects what really already been the law. Now, there are some scholars and law professors that disagree with that. But I think, really, the president gets to be president and when he makes decisions within his constitutional or statutory authority, that’s it.

COSTA: But what if the courts tell Trump to hold up, and he doesn’t?

McGAHN: If the president starts ignoring court orders, that gets into some odd situations. Hasn’t done that. He says he’s not going to do that.

COSTA: Do you believe him?

McGAHN: I do.

COSTA: In a statement, The White House said President Trump is following the constitution to a “T.” In the end, for Jeffrey Rosen, history and the Constitution remain the guidebooks for our turbulent times, especially as this president is on the brink of making history of his own. 

Where does President Trump fit in the context of presidential power?

ROSEN: President Trump is asserting a robust form of presidential power that’s as strong as any president in history. It’s called the unitary executive theory, and the basic idea is that Congress can’t constrain the president’s power. Now, the Supreme Court hasn’t weighed in on the extent of this unitary executive theory. But if the Court agrees with President Trump as it could, then he will in fact wage executive power more robust than any president in history.

 

On Jose Diaz-Balart Reports on Friday morning, the MSNBC host and Telemundo anchor did his part to undermine President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts by having on a leftist activist who got to make unchallenged claims that the Trump administration was being “racist” in its deportation policies.

George Escobar from the group CASA (for “Central American Solidarity”) even took out of context a quote by Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem calling some Venezuelans “dirtbags” when she was clearly specifying violent criminals.

After a report about the Trump administration ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Haitian immigrants in the U.S., Diaz Balart moved to the issue of TPS being ended for Venezuelans as he set up the next segment: “Meanwhile, to new lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for nearly 600,000 Venezuelans, leaving them vulnerable to deportation later this year.”

He began by asking Escobar why he is suing over the program. After defending the program, Escobar moved to accusing the Trump administration of racism for moving to end it:

…and it’s clearly why they’re doing it, right? They’re doing it — they’re signaling the racist and ethnic animus in the media, right? They’re calling Venezuelans “dirtbags.” They’re calling — they’re saying immigrants poison the blood of this country. So it’s clear that is the major motivating factor behind these decisions. It’s not a policy decision.

It’s not based on real conditions on the ground. It’s based on political theater. And really we’re suing to make sure that the U.S. commits to their — fulfills their commitment — in this case, for Venezuela — that had already extended that benefit for another 18 months. And we’re suing because this is wrong, and this is contrary to the U.S. Constitution, and obviously there’s racial animus and bias behind these decisions.

Diaz-Balart didn’t question Escobar on the claims of racism, or his group backing a Maryland bill to “protect residents’ data from law enforcement intrusions amid heightened immigration enforcement” under Trump.

So, George, just trying to get — focus in on what exactly legally you are basing it on because the decision to reverse TPS is an executive decision, right? As it is an executive decision to grant TPS. And we can, of course, talk about, you know, how TPS has been used for decades in the United States by the executive. What legally are you challenging?

Escobar repeated his claims of racism and specifically singled out a quote by Noem about some immigrants who had committed crimes:

And, number two, we are suing because the — it’s obvious that the intention here was racist. And they’ve signaled that in the media — they’ve signaled that in their agenda — they’ve signaled that in every — every press clipping you can find of the Trump administration. And Secretary (Kristi) Noem herself — she went on national television really recently, right, and called Venezuelans “dirtbags.” Two days later, they withdraw these designations.

This is like the media suggesting when Trump referred to MS-13 gang members as “animals,” that he meant immigrants in general. Noem was referring to an immigrant accused of a violent crime who had just been arrested by ICE. In a message sent out on X, she related: “Enforcement operation in NYC. Criminal alien with kidnapping, assault & burglary charges is now in custody. … Dirtbags like this will continue to be removed from our streets.”

Diaz-Balart did not correct his guest as he simply wrapped up the segment.

Transcript follows:

MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart Reports

February 21, 2025

11:28 a.m. Eastern

JOSE DIAZ BALART: Meanwhile, to new lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s decision to end TPS for nearly 600,000 Venezuelans, leaving them vulnerable to deportation later this year. Joining us now, George Escobar, the chief of programs and services at CASA, one of the organizations behind one of the lawsuits. CASA receives about 10 percent of their funding, by the way, by the federal government. George, why is CASA suing the Trump administration on this?

GEORGE ESCOBAR, CASA: Thank you so much for having us, Jose. I mean, look, and your reporting made it clear, right? It — the Trump administration has clearly signaled that they’re going to strip as many protections from lawful abiding immigrants in this country as possible, right? Venezuela is just the first shoe to drop. They’re the first country that has a TPS designation to be dropped, right? We have to remember who these folks are. These folks went through a background screening. These folks volunteered their information to USCIS — to the Department of Homeland Security — because they were confident that this program existed, and they were confident that the government would be true to their word, and they would protect them from deportation and grant them a work permit.

So now we’re seeing the Trump administration reverse all these decisions, and it’s clearly why they’re doing it, right? They’re doing it — they’re signaling the racist and ethnic animus in the media, right? They’re calling Venezuelans “dirtbags.” They’re calling — they’re saying immigrants poison the blood of this country. So it’s clear that is the major motivating factor behind these decisions. It’s not a policy decision. It’s not based on real conditions on the ground. It’s based on political theater. And really we’re suing to make sure that the U.S. commits to their — fulfills their commitment — in this case, for Venezuela — that had already extended that benefit for another 18 months. And we’re suing because this is wrong, and this is contrary to the U.S. Constitution, and obviously there’s racial animus and bias behind these decisions.

DIAZ-BALART: So — so, George, just trying to get — focus in on what exactly legally you are basing it on because the decision to reverse TPS is an executive decision, right? As it is an executive decision to grant TPS. And we can, of course, talk about, you know, how TPS has been used for decades in the United States by the executive. What legally are you challenging?

ESCOBAR: The TPS historically is a humanitarian relief measure, right? It provides an immigration benefit — which is a work permit for a specific amount of time because conditions in that particular country are so devastating that that country cannot receive those immigrants at that time, right? So what the basis of our lawsuit is that this decision wasn’t based on any administrative review of country conditions. It wasn’t based on any real world analysis of what is going on in that particular country — in this case, Venezuela.

And, number two, we are suing because the — it’s obvious that the intention here was racist. And they’ve signaled that in the media — they’ve signaled that in their agenda — they’ve signaled that in every — every press clipping you can find of the Trump administration. And Secretary (Kristi) Noem herself — she went on national television really recently, right, and called Venezuelans “dirtbags.” Two days later, they withdraw these designations. So that’s the basis — that’s the legal basis of the — of the lawsuit in itself. Those two grounds.

DIAZ-BALART: George Escobar, thank you very much for being with us. Really appreciate your time.

The nightly freakout is over. After almost five years, Joy Reid’s second MSNBC show The Reidout has been canceled. New MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is making moves, and it’s also expected that Alex Wagner’s show will not return after Rachel Maddow occupied her old timeslot for the first 100 days of Trump.

The final ranty Reidout will be sometime this week. Reid’s show will be replaced with a weeknight version of The Weekend, hosted by Symone Sanders-Townsend, Alicia “Gold Bars” Menendez, and Michael Steele. 

Variety reports Kutler helped create that show for early Saturday and Sunday mornings. In its first year on air, the program has seen audience for its time slot improve noticeably. 

MSNBC is projected to shed approximately 10.5% of its subscribers between the end of 2023 and the end of 2025, according to estimates from Kagan, a market-research firm. Kutler wants to create a separate “news” division for when it separates from NBC News.

The New York Times adds that a front-runner for the Maddow slot is former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, a favorite of the MSNBC brass. MSNBC is also considering on-air host positions for Eugene Daniels of Politico and Melissa Murray, a professor at the New York University School of Law. The network hasn’t yet announced a replacement show for Andrea Mitchell Reports. 

At MSNBC, Reid first hosted The Reid Report on weekday afternoons in 2014 and 2015, but it was canceled. In 2016, they created AM Joy with ran until they created The Reidout in 2020.

Jerusalem Bureau Chief Patrick Kingsley displayed the crazed priorities at the New York Times in a Saturday front-page “news analysis” (editorial).

The curious headline was “Family’s Fate Pierces Israel, Fraying Truce,” referring to the murdered young Bibas children displayed in coffins as props by the bloodthirsty Hamas savages, to the cheers of hundreds of Palestinians.

Kingsley could only fret about what Israel’s (wholly justified) rage might do to harm the anti-Israel international community’s precious “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas, in a war started by Hamas. It’s like the old joke where you express concern that the worst consequence of 9/11 was the Islamophobia.

Kingsley sounded almost regretful that the two Israeli children murdered by Hamas, one a four-year-old and the other an infant, are still being remembered in Israel.

For 16 months, the smiling faces of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, had been slowly receding into the background of Israeli life as their photographs — posted on walls and bus stops soon after the family’s abduction to Gaza in October 2023 — began to fade, tear and peel.

On Friday, the Bibases’ lives and disturbing deaths were swept back to the forefront of Israel’s collective consciousness in such a startling and unsettling way that it set off fresh alarm about the long-term fate of the fragile cease-fire in Gaza….

Even as Kingsley quoted the Israeli military that the two boys had been killed by terrorists “with their bare hands,” he felt the need to both-sides the atrocity.

For Palestinians, the devastation wrought by Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 raids — a reaction that, among other consequences, razed Palestinian burial grounds and killed thousands of children including some younger than Kfir Bibas — has long overshadowed Hamas’s terrorist attacks at the start of the war.

But Israelis remain deeply traumatized by the October assault, and the return of the Bibas boys, coupled with the uncertainty about their mother’s whereabouts and the disrespectful way that Hamas paraded their coffins on Thursday, revived the torment.

“Disrespectful” is certainly one way to describe the obscenity of the scene.

Kingsley, who worked for seven years at the socialist British newspaper The Guardian, implied Israel was overreacting with talk of vengeance, and stood up for the Palestinian people, who are apparently judged on different scales that the rest of humanity (only 40% now support the mass murder of October 7).

Responding to the military’s announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel returned to the language of vengeance that defined his speeches in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack.

“May God avenge their blood,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a recorded speech to the nation on Friday morning. “And we will also have our vengeance.”

The seething tenor of Mr. Netanyahu’s response was maintained across much of the Israeli political spectrum. Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister, said in a broadcast interview that the Bibases’ treatment showed how “the majority of Gazans want to murder all of the Israelis.” (Polling last fall suggested that less than 40 percent of Gazan Palestinians supported the Oct. 7 attack, down from more than 70 percent early last year.)

There’s always an excuse for Palestinian terrorism in the wokeness.

This combination of vulnerability and vengeance was compounded by the overnight news that, according to the Israeli security services, terrorists had detonated bombs on several buses across central Israel. The vehicles were empty at the time. Commentators said that the attacks were possibly a response to ongoing Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank, which have displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

Kingley, whose antipathy toward Netanyahu has a long pedigree, ended his editorial lamenting the “ceasefire” peaceniks were on the backfoot against the ruthless “far-right.”

“If it’s up to Netanyahu and his far-right coalition associates, then next week — following the ending of the hostage deal’s first stage with the return of four more bodies of hostages — the road for renewing the war in Gaza will be set,” wrote Amos Harel, a commentator on military affairs for Haaretz, a left-leaning newspaper. “This time, they promise, without restraints.”

WAMU-FM, the NPR station airing news all day in D.C., has openly sided with the federal bureaucracy and against the Trump team’s effort to reform government. On Friday morning, their aired a story for four and a half minutes during Morning Edition that was devoted only to frustrated staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development. The “evil” Trump side wasn’t allowed to speak.

It was a Tuesday night, and Amy Uccello was planning her return to work as a contractor at the United States Agency for International Development, better known as USAID, where she supported programs promoting adolescent health in countries around the world. She was at the end of her maternity leave. [Photo from WAMU]

But then a letter arrived by email: she was terminated.

“No severance, no cause, no reason,” she said. “I had three days to use medical insurance for myself and my newborn daughter.”

Every one in the story was touted as the most selfless public servant: 

“We are people who put others first. We are worried about the children who won’t get much needed food, the sick people who won’t get their vaccines or be able to access a clinic,” said Catherine, a contractor who is focused on supporting democracy and governance and countering violent extremism.

They are “now haunted by the work they know is going undone.” Babies will die! 

“If we put U.S. foreign aid back into working order, we would save 500 children a day,” said Uccello. “That means that there are 21 babies an hour who are going to die from HIV infection, from malnourishment, from infectious disease like malaria. That means in my daughter’s two hour nap, we could have saved 42 children.”

Trump and Musk are evil men inflicting “torture.”

Uccello remembers her last time in the building plainly: fellow contractors crying and hugging; piles of laptops everywhere; empty picture frames on the walls, stripped of images of the recipients of U.S. aid.

That was “psychological torture” for those remaining behind, in Uccello’s mind, a signal “that what they had done meant nothing, who they had helped, who they had served, meant nothing.”

“It’s evil,” she said.

If that’s not dramatic enough, try the Apocalypse. 

“The only way to describe it is as the apocalypse,” said Taylor Williamson, a furloughed contractor who worked on health systems in East Africa. “Do you decide to curl up and take off with your backpack and go do something else? Do you find a commune and try to rebuild? Those are sort of the two options from The Walking Dead, and that’s where we are right now. We’re in an episode of The Walking Dead.”

Shortly before Trump’s inauguration, WAMU held a prime time one-hour call-in special on “The Future of the Federal Workforce” with government employee union leaders to lament everything that was coming. 

It’s only natural: Government radio is going to rally around the government employees and their unions. It will always tilt to the Left. 

On Saturday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Weekend, former CIA Director and current MSNBC analyst John Brennan claimed it was “absurd” to suggest that President Trump fired C.Q. Brown, who Biden had appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because he had a woke agenda.

Absurd? Really? After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Brown put out a video in which he focused on his own trials and tribulations as an African-American, and concluded by saying that he wanted “to lead and listen to necessary conversations on racism, diversity, and inclusion.”

In 2022, Brown co-signed a Memorandum that began by stating that “diversity and inclusion are an essential part of our society and key to the success of any organization. As such, it is imperative that the composition of our Military Services better reflect our Nation’s highly talented, diverse, and eligible population.”

The Memorandum laid out quotas explicitly reducing the percentage of whites in the Air Force, and ordering the Memorandum’s recipients to “develop a diversity and inclusion plan aimed at achieving these goals no later than 30 September 2022.”

And then there was this article: “Biden’s pick to lead Joint Chiefs of Staff led DEI efforts at Air Force,” which included this [emphasis added]:

“Brown has been a major backer of the DEI efforts at the Air Force, which has joined other branches in embracing the DEI agenda. The Air Force launched a Diversity and Inclusion Task Force in September 2020, and Brown said in the fall of 2020 that DEI was a key point of recruiting and a factor in promotions. “‘I hire for diversity, because they all bring a different perspective, which makes my decisions that much better, because I hear different sides of the argument.'” 

There was one ambiguous but potentially very troubling statement made by co-host Michael Steele. After co-host Symone Sanders mentioned that Hamas had finally turned over the body of Shiri Bibas, whose two children Hamas had murdered, after initially delivering to Israel a body that was not Shiri, Steele said:

“In light of this news, and the ongoing release of hostages, some of the hiccups that occurred last week, the disruption that we see here domestically at home and now starting to play out overseas with our European allies.”

Could Steele conceivably have been dismissing as “hiccups” not only Hamas’s initial failure to turn over Shiri’s body, but the grotesque atrocity of Hamas arranging a celebration in which the caskets of her murdered children were paraded past crowds of cheering Gazans?

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
The Weekend
2/22/25
8:01 am ET

SYMONE SANDERS: Trump also fired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown Jr. late last night. He was our nation’s highest-ranking military officer. 

Joining us now is former CIA Director and MSNBC Senior national security and intelligence analyst John Brennan. 

I will just note on the Israeli hostage release, the body of Shiri Bibas was handed over, and again, the release of six more hostages is underway. 

. . . 

MICHAEL STEELE: Director Brennan, you know, in light of this news, and the ongoing release of hostages, some of the hiccups that occurred last week, the disruption that we see here domestically at home and now starting to play out overseas with our European allies. 

You have the firing of C.Q. Brown as the Chairman of our Joint Chiefs. Noting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called Brown on Friday evening to inform him he was being fired, according to a Defense official. 

During a November interview, Hegseth said that if confirmed, he would immediately fire Brown, arguing that the general had pushed a woke agenda. To replace Brown, he’s looking to nominate Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Raisin’ Caine, who Hegseth notes is someone who embodies the war fighter ethos, and exactly the leader we need to meet in the moment. 

What does this look like from your perspective, given the onslaught against agencies in our government now touching Department of Defense? European allies looking at this, what do they see? And what should we expect from someone like Lieutenant General Kaine in this new role? 

JOHN BRENNAN: I think a lot of folks look at this as a very haphazard period of time for the U.S. government, in terms of Donald Trump is dismantling a lot of the institutions of the executive branch. He’s dismantling the leadership that has existed, basically saying that anybody who was working before in the government is somebody who is not going to be on my team unless they demonstrate full fealty. 

And so I think our allies and partners around the globe are just watching, quite frankly, in horror at what’s happening here in this country. 

And so C.Q. Brown is a very accomplished individual who really rose through the ranks. and really has a storied career in many respects. And to say that he is being removed because of a woke agenda within the Department of Defense I think is just absurd. 

Back in 2006, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, CNN reporter Susan Roesgen reveled in a leftist protester wearing a George W. Bush mask, complete with a colored-in Hitler-esque mustache and red horns attached to the forehead. Roesgen deemed him a Bush “look-alike.” 

Some mudslinging never changes. On Friday morning, CNN host Sara Sidner rewarded an anti-Trump protester who was arrested in California by giving him a forum to compare President Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Sidner set up the segment by recalling: “All right, a California city council meeting has sparked a national conversation after a former NFL player was arrested during an attempted protest over the implementation of a plaque at the Huntington Beach Central Library — a plaque that spelled out ‘MAGA.'”

Then came a clip of Chris Kluwe, formerly of the Minnesota Vikings, at a podium speaking to the Huntington Beach city council and equating MAGA with racism: “MAGA stands for re-segregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. (editing jump) MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy… (editing jump) I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.”

After a clip of Kluwe approaching the council members and then being held down and arrested by police, Sidner brought him aboard as a guest. She began by suggesting that his complaints are a “small thing,” leading him to complain about alleged book bans, and the CNN host sympathetically followed up:

SIDNER: I am very familiar with Huntington Beach. It is known for being a politically deep red spot in a mostly blue southern California, and they have had some policies that really raised some eyebrows, including the banning of books. You talked about the direct parallels that you see from the darkest times — or at least one of the darkest times — in world history, and you believe that we’re on that path again. What is that path do you believe?

The liberal activist then made hyperbolic Nazi comparisons as he responded:

I believe we’re on the path that Nazi Germany went down under Hitler. And I say that as a political science and history major — as someone who has studied history — and the parallels are there very clear. This administration is trying to erase trans people — this administration is trying to put obedience over duty to the country. This administration is trying to thrust our country into turmoil in order to reap power for themselves.

And I think, regardless of political affiliation, all of us, as Americans, should be able to agree, “No kings, no tyrants — not now, not ever.” I cannot express how disgusting it was to see an official White House account put out a picture of an American President with a crown on his head. That goes against everything this country was founded upon.

After Sidner followed up by asking him to respond to the fact that Trump did, in fact, win the popular vote in the past election, she did not correct her liberal guest when he incorrectly claimed that Hitler was elected:

KLUWE: I say to them that Hitler was elected, too, and there were a lot of very good Germans who believed that Hitler was going to have their best interests in mind. And I think there are a lot of good Americans that think that Trump has their best interests in mind, but I am very confident that what this administration already shown that Trump does not have their best interests in mind. And I would like for those Americans to not live after all the bodies have dropped and be filled with regret because they failed to do the right thing when it was time to do the right thing.

In fact, Hitler was never elected to the German government. He lost the presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg 53 to 37 percent in 1932, and, after the Nazi party later won 37 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections, Hitler was appointed chancellor by the president who later resigned and left Hitler as the government’s leader.

The segment concluded with Sidner and Kluwe discussing whether he will continue to protest at city council meetings.

Transcript follows:

CNN News Central

February 21, 2025

9:50 a.m. Eastern

SARA SIDNER: All right, a California city council meeting has sparked a national conversation after a former NFL player was arrested during an attempted protest over the implementation of a plaque at the Huntington Beach Central Library — a plaque that spelled out “MAGA.”

CHRIS KLUWE, PROTESTER SPEAKING AT CITY COUNCIL MEETING: MAGA stands for re-segregation and racism. MAGA stands for censorship and book bans. (editing jump) MAGA is profoundly corrupt, unmistakably anti-democracy… (editing jump) I will now engage in the time-honored American tradition of peaceful civil disobedience.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Get the heck — get out.

SIDNER: With me now is the man you see in the video, former punter for the Minnesota Vikings, Chris Kluwe. Thank you so much for being here this morning, Chris. Um, look, the city council voting to put a plaque that they said was to honor the library’s 50-year history that says, “magical, alluring, galvanizing, adventurous,” which, of course, each capital letter of each word spelled out “MAGA.” Seems to some like a small thing in the scheme of things. Why did you find it so important to protest this so fervently?

KLUWE: Because what’s happening in Huntington Beach with our city council is a microcosm of what’s happening with the country as a whole. This city council — they do not care about their community. They’ve consistently shown that they don’t care about community feedback. They’re only in it to get more power for themselves and to push themselves higher into Trump’s orbit. They welcome this national attention because for them it’s a way to increase their own personal power. And, as a resident of this city — as someone who loves books and loves reading, it is just beyond the pale what they’re trying to do to this library because the plaque is only the latest in a series of events. They’ve tried to ban books at the library, they’ve tried to privatize the library, and it’s become very, very clear they do not care what the community wants — they only care about themselves.

SIDNER: I am very familiar with Huntington Beach. It is known for being a politically deep red spot in a mostly blue southern California, and they have had some policies that really raised some eyebrows, including the banning of books. You talked about the direct parallels that you see from the darkest times — or at least one of the darkest times — in world history, and you believe that we’re on that path again. What is that path do you believe?

KLUWE: I believe we’re on the path that Nazi Germany went down under Hitler. And I say that as a political science and history major — as someone who has studied history — and the parallels are there very clear. This administration is trying to erase trans people — this administration is trying to put obedience over duty to the country. This administration is trying to thrust our country into turmoil in order to reap power for themselves. And I think, regardless of political affiliation, all of us, as Americans, should be able to agree, “No kings, no tyrants — not now, not ever.” I cannot express how disgusting it was to see an official White House account put out a picture of an American President with a crown on his head. That goes against everything this country was founded upon.

SIDNER: That’s also after Donald Trump posted, “Long live the king,” after stopping a policy here in New York. Look, there is this issue: The American public did vote for Donald Trump after all the things he said about being their retribution and about taking revenge — about clearing out the federal government’s so called “deep state,” as he puts it, and the mass deportations. What do you say to Americans who say, “Yup, we voted for him — we did it in large numbers — he won the popular vote for the first time as well, knowing all these things”?

KLUWE: I say to them that Hitler was elected, too, and there were a lot of very good Germans who believed that Hitler was going to have their best interests in mind. And I think there are a lot of good Americans that think that Trump has their best interests in mind, but I am very confident that what this administration already shown that Trump does not have their best interests in mind. And I would like for those Americans to not live after all the bodies have dropped and be filled with regret because they failed to do the right thing when it was time to do the right thing.

SIDNER: Are you planning to continue doing these kinds of protests there at Huntington Beach and perhaps beyond?

KLUWE: I plan to keep showing up to the city council meetings unless they ban me. I don’t know if that will be the case or not because our next city council meeting is about a week and a half from now. So we’ll see what happens there. I definitely plan on speaking out on the issue because, as an American citizen, I care about my country. I want my country to be a place where everyone can have the same advantages that I had, and I have to use my privilege to make that the case.

SIDNER: Chris Kluwe, thank you so much for coming on this morning. I really appreciate you waking up bright and early because I know it’s early there in California. Appreciate it.

The President of the United States looked his chief budget cutter in the eye, saying:

You’re a victim of sabotage by the press. They’re trying to bring you down because of what you’ve helped us accomplish.

As if to erase any doubt that his budget guy was unwanted by the President because of all the negative media attention that had been directed his way, spilling over on to the President himself, the President reassured that “I want you to stay on. I need your help.”

No.

This was not a recent back and forth between President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk. This was back in the early 1980’s, as President Ronald Reagan was making a point of standing up for his Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), young and brilliant former Michigan Congressman David Stockman.

And the tale of the media, Reagan and Dave Stockman has much to pass on to today’s spiritual heir of Stockman — Elon Musk.

Stockman was a precursor of Musk. a man who became a media target for daring to carry out Reagan’s agenda. Reagan had made a campaign promise to reduce the size of government and cut government spending. Now, in the beginning of what would be his first term, Reagan was determined to carry out that promise, and he had chosen Stockman to do the job. (As a young aide to a Pennsylvania Congressman who served on the House Budget Committee at the time, I recall the story for sure.)

 Leaving Congress to take the job, Dave Stockman as OMB Director was a force of nature. He was in the headlines daily. Sometimes, it seemed, almost hourly. 

And then.

So pursued by the media was Stockman that he made a serious media mistake – trusting a left-wing media outlet. Specifically that would be The Atlantic magazine, where he had given an extensive interview on his trials and tribulations as the President’s chief Budget guy. 

On the day of his 35th birthday the wonder boy/ruthless budget cutter, as he had been repeatedly depicted in the media, received a call from a White House colleague. “Have you heard about tonight’s news?” He was asked. 

No, was the answer. Stockman had incautiously made the mistake of giving a background (so he thought) and extensive interview about his time as OMB Director. Now it was being published. Stockman recalled the moment this way in his memoirs:

Lesley Stahl of CBS would inform the nation that in the upcoming issue of The Atlantic Monthly, William Greider, national news editor of The Washington Post, had quoted me as saying that the (Reagan) tax cut had been a trojan horse to disguise a giveaway to the rich. 

….Within hours the White House press corps had managed to transform Greider’s article from a thoughtful (only slightly erroneous) analysis of the honest failure of a radical attempt to transform U.S. economic and fiscal policy into a tale about a budget director who had never believed in his own revolution from the beginning.

It was wrong — and it was devastating.

Stockman went on that “level-headed journalists” such as conservatives “George Will and William Buckley” would soon write up their own analysis of the article, going on to say….

…the White House press room is not a place of calm and orderly reflection. Soon I was the Judas of the Cabinet Room, the man who willfully deceived the President and who had now shed his disguise so as to complete the betrayal.

Eventually Stockman became such a repeated target of the liberal media that there was not much choice left other than to resign. Stockman turned on Reagan and on “Reaganomics.” (In 2024, he wrote a book called Trump’s War on Capitalism, with a foreword by…Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)

This bit of Reagan history with Stockman is worth recalling in the wake of the Trump-Musk recent interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity. The New York Post wrote up the story of the Hannity interview, headlining:

Trump, Musk accuse media, pundits of ‘trying to drive us apart’ in preview of Sean Hannity interview

The Post story reports:  

President Trump and billionaire DOGE chief Elon Musk accused the media and pundits on Friday of trying to create tension between them in an effort to drive them apart.

“’hey want a divorce. They want you two to start hating each other,’ Fox News host Sean Hannity told Trump and Musk in a clip from a lengthier interview that will air next week.

Trump, 78, agreed with the Fox News host and revealed that Musk had already warned him about the media’s effort to sow discord.

….’Actually, Elon called me and said, ‘You know, they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said, ‘absolutely,’” Trump told the Fox News host.

In short? As the ancient wisdom goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

It has been 44 years since young David Stockman left his congressional seat to become President Ronald Reagan’s wunderkind Budget cutter in chief. And here the nation finds itself again, as if nothing at all has changed.

Sitting in the Oval Office is, like Reagan, a President elected resoundingly on a platform of reforming the federal government and cutting the massive waste of government spending. At his side is a younger man who, like Stockman, has a reputation as a wunderkind budget cutter. A seriously smart genius who can help the President fulfill his campaign promise to both cut spending and reform the Goliath/behemoth that is the federal government of the United States.

And as President Trump and Elon Musk go about their task, there is the liberal media of today zeroing in on them, doing their best to, as Trump and Musk say, “drive us apart.”

Shades of the 1980’s Reagan and Stockman era. Imagine that.

In fact, Trump and Musk are more than well aware of what the media is trying to do with them, as evidenced by their remarks on the subject to Sean Hannity. Good for them.

And the best advice for the two? America has been here before. The media will try to ruin everything you want to do. Stick together and buckle in.