Newsbusters

PolitiFact writers Maria Ramirez Uribe and Amy Sherman teamed up on Friday to give Elon Musk a “pants-on-fire” rating for his claim that former President Joe Biden’s immigration policy was “a giant voter importation scam.” To reach such a conclusion, the duo engaged in plenty of hyperliteralism and bad faith arguments.

Uribe and Sherman cited Musk’s recent CPAC appearance where he declared, “That is why the Biden administration was pushing to get in as many illegals as possible and spend every dollar possible to get as many, because every one of them is a customer. Everyone’s a voter. The whole thing was a giant voter importation scam.”

The idea behind Musk’s claim is old and revolves around the idea that Democrats would be less tolerant of illegal immigration and “comprehensive immigration reform” where such illegal immigrants are granted citizenship if it was likely that they would vote Republican.

The authors first sought to rebut Musk by arguing Biden did not literally import them, “There were historically high levels of illegal immigration during the Biden administration, but there is no evidence that Biden ‘imported’ those people to become voters. Factors such as natural disasters and economic or political turmoil in a persons’ home country lead people to migrate.”

Of course, Musk just meant that Biden was unwilling to do anything about the border in the early days of his administration and instead was incentivizing it.

However, Uribe and Sherman continue, “Additionally, Musk’s statement ignored that the Biden administration removed and deported immigrants in the U.S. illegally, and it stepped up efforts in 2024 as he ran for reelection. (He dropped out in July.)”

Yes, at some point the bad polling became too much for Biden in an election year, but that doesn’t discredit Musk’s point. However, perhaps, the worst part of Uribe and Sherman’s post was when they tried to attack Musk on a point he actually agreed with them on, “Federal law requires U.S. citizenship to vote in national elections, and would-be voters sign a form that attests under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register to vote. The citizenship process takes several years.”

However, they also report, “Musk acknowledged at CPAC that it might take years for immigrants to gain citizenship, but it would be ‘an investment that is guaranteed to pay off.’”

Uribe and Sherman also tried to argue Musk is wrong because the Republican share of the Latino vote was higher in 2024 than in previous election cycles. While that is true, it does not follow that Musk deserves a pants-on-fire rating. Democrats are surely aware that is a problem for them, so PolitiFact should consider the possibility that Democrats’ less dovish stance on the border in recent months is because their perception of the political benefits has changed since the early days of the Biden presidency.

Finally, people ascribe negative motives to politicians all the time. People accuse Musk of attaching himself to Trump to enrich himself and his fellow “oligarchs.” There’s not any more evidence for that than there is of the most literal interpretation of Musk’s Biden claim, but PolitiFact doesn’t give them a pants-on-fire rating.

George Clooney cemented his auteur status with 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck.

The drama recalled journalist Edward R. Murrow’s clash with Sen. Joseph McCarthy during what later became known as the Blacklist era. Clooney co-wrote and co-starred in a film that earned six Oscar nominations, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

 

 

Clooney’s directorial career slumped following the movie’s release. Blame it on duds like Leatherheads (2008), The Monuments Men (2014), Suburbicon (2017) and The Tender Bar (2021).

Now, the actor/director is bringing Good Night, and Good Luck to Broadway. It’s a shrewd business move and, according to the star, a chance to praise the legacy media.

Here’s what Clooney said at a New York press conference tied to the play’s arrival.

It’s a subject matter that is very close to our hearts, which is what [the press] does. Telling the truth and holding truth to power. It’s a play we’re very excited to do.

Most Americans understand the legacy press no longer holds one party accountable for its actions. Reporters ignored President Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline, for example. Journalists also refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal until months after the 2020 presidential election wrapped.

Even then, the coverage proved muted and ineffective. Some truths must be hidden, apparently.

The same, apparently, applies to Clooney.

The actor appeared alongside President Biden last June for a 2024 fundraising rally. The event funneled $30 million into the Commander in Chief’s coffers.

The gala did more than that. It gave Clooney a close-up view of Biden’s cognitive decline. It wasn’t a “cheap fake” attack by his political adversaries.

It was real.

Yet Clooney said nothing for weeks following the fundraiser, keeping the critical truth to himself. Only when Biden’s poll numbers dipped following his disastrous June 27 debate did Clooney open up about the situation.

The actor took to the pages of the New York Times to gently push Biden off the ticket.

I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced …But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

Had that early debate never happened, or Biden’s approval ratings remained competitive, Clooney would have kept that secret to himself.

The truth would remain out of reach for Americans who still trusted the legacy media.

Perhaps he’s not the best person to push the truth-telling element of his own production.

UPDATE: Clooney waxes on about journalism in this nauseating interview from “The Late Show.”

We have had this issue where power, kind of, hates the fourth estate. They hate journalism and my father’s an anchorman and news man and we’ve always believed in the idea of when the other three estates: the judiciary branch and the executive branch, when they all fail you, you need that fourth estate, right.

America badly needed the Fourth Estate when one party covered up their leader’s obvious senility. They stood down instead.

So did Clooney until it became convenient to speak up.

ABC’s Trevor Ault went soft on those who showed up to support alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione on Friday’s edition of World News Tonight. Instead of reacting in horror that such an alleged cold-blooded killer has such support, Ault portrayed his upcoming trial as a “cultural flashpoint.”

Ault began with some footage of Mangione’s supporters, “Tonight, this was the scene outside a New York City courthouse. A crowd of supporters, many angry at the health care system, hoping to catch a glimpse of accused killer Luigi Mangione.”

 

 

He further added, “Their chants heard all the way up on the 15th floor where supporters packed the hallway for Mangione’s first court appearance in months. The case, a cultural flashpoint. The young suspect seeming to garner more sympathy than the man he’s accused of murdering. Some Mangione supporters going so far as to put up billboards ‘Free Luigi, he’s a hero.’ In court today, Mangione wearing a bulletproof vest surrounded by officers, sitting before the judge shackled at the ankle and handcuffed. His attorney arguing images like this will make it difficult for Mangione to get a fair trial.”

While it is true that Mangione has a disturbingly high amount of support among young people, only 17 percent of Americans claim what he did was acceptable. By contrast, 21 percent of Americans admit to supporting Hamas.

Ideally, Ault would have portrayed the protestors as a group of fringe, crazy people. At a minimum, he could have done what NBC’s Stephanie Gosk did on Nightly News when she asked one of the demonstrators, “This is going to be a murder trial. Is that the right venue to make a larger point about health care?”

Here is a transcript for the February 21 show:

ABC World News Tonight

2/21/2025

6:33 PM ET

TREVOR AULT: Tonight, this was the scene outside a New York City courthouse. A crowd of supporters, many angry at the health care system, hoping to catch a glimpse of accused killer Luigi Mangione. 

PROTESTORS: Stop denying, people are dying.

AULT: Their chants heard all the way up on the 15th floor where supporters packed the hallway for Mangione’s first court appearance in months. The case, a cultural flashpoint. The young suspect seeming to garner more sympathy than the man he’s accused of murdering. Some Mangione supporters going so far as to put up billboards “Free Luigi, he’s a hero.” 

REPORTER: Luigi, what do you think of the support for you outside?

AULT: In court today, Mangione wearing a bulletproof vest surrounded by officers, sitting before the judge shackled at the ankle and handcuffed. His attorney arguing images like this will make it difficult for Mangione to get a fair trial.

On Friday, the Associated Press (AP) sued three Trump White House officials – Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – alleging they violated the First Amendment (and somehow the Fourth Amendment too) by using their stance on the Gulf of America to deprive the AP of their seemingly God-given right to participate in a small, rotating subset of the press corps (known as the press pool) sent to cover the President at smaller events and ride aboard Air Force One.

The 18-page lawsuit said “[t]he White House has ordered The Associated Press to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access” that began on February 11 when they believe the news media “have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against” and thus “a threat to every American’s freedom.”

All because the Associated Press won’t go along with the renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America (and don’t get us started on what they think about abortion and there being more than two genders).

One can be indifferent to or even agree with the AP’s position (even our friends at Newsmax do), but this lawsuit was dripping with sanctimoniousness.

In establishing itself, try and not role your eyes (click “expand”):

3. The AP is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted news organizations. Since its inception in 1846, the AP, which is a not-for-profit organization, has been known for its accurate, factual, and nonpartisan reporting, including on the President of the United States and the White House. The AP’s journalism reaches four billion people per day via major news outlets around the world, whatever their political orientation, and has received 59 Pulitzer Prizes for its courageous coverage of key moments of world history.

4. The AP has participated in the White House press pool since its creation over a century ago, which has made it possible for the AP to deliver to the public timely and thorough reporting on the President almost everywhere he goes, which is information critical to the public.

5. On February 11, 2025, without prior notice, White House officials informed the AP that it would be barred from entering certain areas in the White House as a member of the press pool unless the AP began referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, following President Trump’s renaming of that body of water in Executive Order 14172. The White House began banning AP journalists from events open to the press pool within hours.

               (….)

7. On February 14, the White House made its ban of the AP indefinite, announcing on X (formerly Twitter) that, because the AP had not complied with its demand to use the name Gulf of America, AP journalists were now indefinitely banned from “access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.” To date, the AP’s reporters and photographers remain banned from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other locations open not only to pool members, but also to a larger group of journalists with White House press credentials.

The suit explained Wiles wrote them a February 18 e-mail that correctly noted the AP Style Guide is the be all, end all for formatting in most of professional journalism and thus carries particular importance if they refuse to comply with such a massive landmark.

“Defendants gave the AP no prior or written notice of, and no formal opportunity to challenge, their arbitrary determination that the AP would indefinitely lose access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited areas as a member of the press pool…Defendants’ actions are impermissibly based on their dislike of the content of the AP’s expression,” it added.

It even cartoonishly asserted their pool access is a “constitutionally protected” right and their inability to be present around-the-clock would threaten the journalism profession’s ability to “free[ly] to report on the Administration without fear of selective, arbitrary denials of access.”

The suit also provided some background on the pool (click “expand”):

20. The White House press pool consists of journalists who regularly report to the public about the President, the White House, and other Executive Branch activity in Washington, DC and globally. The press pool accompanies the President almost everywhere he goes, ensuring that the public is informed of his activity and that the President and his administration are held accountable to the public.

21. Because there often is not enough space in the Oval Office or on Air Force One to
accommodate every journalist who covers the President, a minimum 13-person press pool serves as the eyes and ears of the full press corps, and of the public.

22. In all of its permutations the press pool consists of, at minimum, three wire reporters (one each from the AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg), four photographers (one each from the AP, Reuters, AFP, and The New York Times), three network television journalists, a radio correspondent, and at least one print reporter. Membership in the pool is determined at the sole discretion of the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) and the press corps itself.

(….)

26. The AP has been a member of the White House press pool since the pool’s inception well over a century ago, and as a result, has been able to report to the public first-hand on some of history’s most defining events. In fact, an AP reporter became the first recorded presidential “pooler” in 1881, providing updates to fellow reporters from his post outside the White House sick room of President James A. Garfield after he was shot. AP pool journalists were also in the motorcade in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy, Jr. was assassinated, providing the nation with contemporaneous, fact-based reporting as the story developed, and as conspiracy theories spread. And, AP journalists were in the pool with President George W. Bush when he learned of the September 11 terrorist attacks during an event in Florida, and they accompanied him on Air Force One to secure locations in Louisiana and Nebraska and back to Washington. Pool members like the wire services have the broadest reach and thus the information they report gets to the widest possible audience.

They explained this hubbub started on February 11 with AP’s chief White House correspondent Zeke Miller being informed by Leavitt that they’d be barred from the pool until the AP’s style guided complied, which they refused to do since the body of water surrounding Mexico and five U.S. states had “been known as the Gulf of Mexico for over 400 years.”

No word on why the AP won’t apply that same logic to there being only two genders.

The next part of the suit delved into the attempts by AP’s D.C bureau chief Julie Pace to e-mail and meet with White House officials, including Wiles, and then events they missed out on. Budowich was named as he made public the AP ban on February 14.

Citing “irreparable harm,” the AP warned siding with the White House “would chill the speech of similarly situated reasonable individuals” and deprives Americans of “accurate and nonpartisan reporting on the President and White House to the thousands of global news outlets that republish the AP’s news reports and to billions of readers globally.”

After again saying this violated their free speech rights and (somehow) Americans writ large, the AP demanded a return to the pool as well as “[a]ward to the AP its costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred in this action; and [g]rant such further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.”

New York Times columnist David Brooks is theoretically supposed to be PBS News Hour’s conservative half of its weekly Friday news recap with Washington Post associate editor and MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart. However, he constantly fails to live up to this arrangement, and this Friday was no exception, as he alleged that people all over the world will die because the Trump administration simply wants to “break things.”

Host Geoff Bennett set the table for Brooks by reading part of one of his recent columns, “And you wrote about this your — past week in a column, where you said that it’s ‘the working-class communities that will continue to languish because Trump ignores their main challenges and focuses instead on culture war distractions,’ that people who voted for change want to see that change.”

 

 

Brooks began by trying to contrast the mindset of Trump voters with the Trump administration, “Yes, the people who voted for Trump had a good reason to. Like, high school-educated people die eight years sooner than college-educated people. High school-educated people, their kids, by sixth grade are four grade levels below college-educated people. They’re much more likely to say they’re lonely. They’re much more likely to live in devastated communities without social capital. So, if you had a populist government, they would have policies to address these serious issues.”

Instead, Brooks alleged:

The Trump administration is not leading with that. They really don’t have plans for any of this. And when you look at who’s in the administration, it’s obvious why. The president and Elon Musk are University of Pennsylvania graduates who are billionaires. Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Yale. J.D. Vance went to Yale. Stephen Miller went to Duke. These are the highly educated right-wingers. And I have been around these — all these people all my life. I used to be one. And there are two types. There are, one, people who believe in conservative governance.

And then there’s the other type. They’re just anti-left. They don’t have a positive vision for conservative governance. They want to tear down the institutions that they believe the left controls.

Dialing up the rhetoric, Brooks continued, “He goes after USAID. He goes after the Forest Service. He goes after the Department of Education. And so it’s all tearing down institutions that they believe the left controls. And the problem with that is that the pain is born by the woman in Namibia who’s going to die of AIDS, the kid in Ohio who’s going to die of cancer because NIH, medical research has been gutted. And so it’s — F. Scott Fitzgerald put it well. Rich people are careless. They break things. And I think that’s what’s happening here.

Brooks chose to immediately go for the most sympathetic examples, but what do the Department of Education or USAID’s funding of Serbian DEI initiatives have to do with cancer research?

Here is a transcript for the February 21 show:

PBS News Hour

2/21/2025

7:44 PM ET

GEOFF BENNETT: And you wrote about this your — past week in a column, where you said that it’s “the working-class communities that will continue to languish because Trump ignores their main challenges and focuses instead on culture war distractions,” that people who voted for change want to see that change.

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, the people who voted for Trump had a good reason to. Like, high school-educated people die eight years sooner than college-educated people. High school-educated people, their kids, by sixth grade are four grade levels below college-educated people. They’re much more likely to say they’re lonely. They’re much more likely to live in devastated communities without social capital.

So, if you had a populist government, they would have policies to address these serious issues. The Trump administration is not leading with that. They really don’t have plans for any of this. And when you look at who’s in the administration, it’s obvious why. The president and Elon Musk are University of Pennsylvania graduates who are billionaires.

Pete Hegseth went to Princeton and Yale. J.D. Vance went to Yale. Stephen Miller went to Duke. These are the highly educated right-wingers. And I have been around these — all these people all my life. I used to be one. And there are two types. There are, one, people who believe in conservative governance.

And then there’s the other type. They’re just anti-left. They don’t have a positive vision for conservative governance. They want to tear down the institutions that they believe the left controls. And so that’s what they’re doing. That’s what Bush — that’s what Trump goes after.

He goes after USAID. He goes after the Forest Service. He goes after the Department of Education. And so it’s all tearing down institutions that they believe the left controls.

And the problem with that is that the pain is born by the woman in Namibia who’s going to die of AIDS, the kid in Ohio who’s going to die of cancer because NIH, medical research has been gutted. And so it’s — F. Scott Fitzgerald put it well. Rich people are careless. They break things. And I think that’s what’s happening here.

All that was missing was Joe railing against “gr-e-e-e-d.”

With MSNBC on the Comcast chopping block, if things don’t work out for Joe Scarborough, he might consider a new career as a comedic impressionist. 

Close your eyes and listen to the video clip. If you didn’t know better, you might have thought it was Bernie Sanders ranting about “millionaires and billionaires.”

But no, that was Scarborough on today’s Morning Joe. Self-styled “small-government conservative” Scarborough first condemned the Trump administration’s plans to reduce the number of IRS agents! 

Adopting the liberal lexicon, Scarborough complained that “working-class” people can’t afford lawyers to take care of the problems with the IRS, unlike “millionaires and billionaires.”

A bit later, Scarborough condemned proposed tax cuts for “billionaires and millionaires. This is not about protecting Medicare or Medicaid of Social Security. This is about protecting tax cuts for billionaires.”

Sanders-Scarborough ’28: Vote Democrat Socialist!

Just as Bernie Sanders has three homes, Nantucket Joe Scarborough is a multi-millionaire. Mr. and Mrs. Scarborough each have an estimated MSNBC salary of $8 million a year and each has an estimated net worth of $20 million or more.

Before Scarborough goes off on his next class-warfare rant, here’s a quick tax tutorial for him:

In a recent year, the bottom half of taxpayers faced an average income tax rate of 3.7 percent.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an average income tax rate of 26.1 percent—seven times the rate faced by the bottom half of taxpayers.
The top 1 percent paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. 
Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/21/25
6:18 am ET

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Maybe politicians want to paint the IRS as the bad guys because they audited Donald Trump too much, Donald Trump would say. 

At the end of the day, it is working Americans trying to get their refund. It’s middle-class Americans trying to get their refunds. They can’t afford the lawyers or, or, or whatever millionaires and billionaires can afford to take care of their problems with the IRS. 

It’s going to be working-class and middle-class taxpayers who are going to be impacted by this. 

. . . 

Our interest on the debt is larger than any of these things that they’re talking about cutting right now. And what are they doing at the same time he says we have to make choices? They are about to pass the biggest tax cuts ever for billionaires and for millionaires. 

That’s the choice they’ve made. This is not about protecting Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security. This is about protecting tax cuts for billionaires. 

Elon Musk wielded a chainsaw at CPAC, striking a pose next to Argentina’s president Javier Milei. The networks loved to show it, but deprived it of its Argentinian context. They’ve never wanted to tell the story of Javier Milei, or what has happened to Argentina since he was elected and took a metaphorical chainsaw to the bureaucracy there.

The networks really hate Elon Musk for trying to reduce government in any way. Journalists in America are deeply in love with bureaucracy. They’re very defensive when you say Deep State. The Deep state are their friends and their sources, the wise men and women with the Ivy League degrees spreading the money around for the left here and abroad.

“Public” broadcasters are incredibly anti-Musk, since they are dreading the DOGE wagon pulling up to PBS and NPR. On the PBS News Hour, correspondent William Brangham offered a nasty hit piece, with colleagues who are “increasingly concerned about Musk’s mental health and drug use,” citing Ketamine for depression. 

Brangham implied that his rightward moments are concerning, like “labeling Democrats the party of division and hate. And he shared extremist, hard-right views on X, endorsing the so-called Great Replacement Theory that argues Democrats want open borders to replace white voters.”

Ten years ago, the liberal media were doing stories like this “During his visit to the Bay Area, President Barack Obama spent a night on the town Friday, raising money and enjoying dinner in Presidio Heights with Tesla CEO Elon Musk.” That was before Anakin Musk joined the Dark Side.

At NPR, David Folkenflik has a new article out titled “These far-right media figures are getting center stage under Trump.” The star of this piece is Lara Logan, the former 60 Minutes star, who has been sort of banished from Fox and Newsmax. This is what NPR lives to do, to publish fearmongering articles about the escapades of the so-called Far Right. Now could David Folkenflik answer this: What would NPR see as the far-left fringe?

NPR itself has promoted the book In Defense of Looting, touted as “excellent” a book arguing that race riots against police should be called “rebellions,” praised the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline as “hugely timely” as time runs out on “ecological disasters like climate change.”

So when people think NPR is that place for civility on the radio, they would be wrong. They can devote their resources to getting behind looting, rioting, and blowing up pipelines.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana spoke on the Senate floor with his typical verve: “As far as I’m concerned, this gravy train – this gravy train with biscuit wheels called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – is the perfect example of a project the American people no longer need and should not fund.” The senator rightly said that “public” stations should be the most objective outlets in the land, since all Americans fund them. Instead, they land firmly on the left on a daily basis. 

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

CNN being found liable for malicious defamation might have put the fear of God into MSNBC. In a filing obtained by NewsBusters, NBCUniversal and plaintiff Dr. Mahendra Amin had entered into settlement negotiations on Thursday. Although, they’re still working on the language.

“The parties have agreed to and signed a term sheet to settle this lawsuit,” the Joint Notice of Settlement to the Court read. “The parties have agreed that, upon completion of the settlement agreement, the parties will stipulate to the dismissal of this lawsuit with prejudice[.]”

Adding: “The parties are diligently working to finalize the language of the settlement agreement. The parties expect to effectuate the settlement within the next several weeks. The parties attest that they will continue to work diligently and will keep the Court abreast of developments.”

In a reply filing, Judge Lisa Godbey Wood cancelled the upcoming trial:

In light of the parties’ Joint Notice of Settlement, the Court CANCELS the jury trial scheduled for April 22, 2025. The parties are ORDERED to file either a stipulation of dismissal or a status report informing the Court of their settlement progress on or before April 18, 2025. This case remains STAYED.

So far, there was no word on the settlement amount. As has been typical in such settlements, it likely won’t be made public.

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC was staring down the barrel of a $30 million defamation trial after they allegedly spread lies about a Georgia doctor they labeled “the uterus collector,” accusing him of performing medically unnecessary hysterectomies for ICE.

There was also evidence that the hosts who ran with the report had their own reservations behind the scenes. Chris Hayes said the quiet part out loud in a message stating that, “the reason it went viral” was because it “conjured the worst kind of like Third Reich, . . .  sort of . . . Jim Crow, Mississippi Hospital history.”

This settlement was the latest in a wave of cases and legal actions attempting to hold the liberal media to account for their dangerous reporting.

President Trump still has an ongoing case against CBS News for their “deceitful” 60 Minutes report, with rumors swirling that network president Shari Redstone was pushing for a settlement.

PBS News anchors and reporters have brought the soft soap for sob-story interviews for people losing their jobs thanks to Trump executive orders and Musk-driven budget cuts, without any ideological labels attached to their designated victims (see: transgender Navy Pilot Emily Shilling). Yet the rare conservative who appears on the News Hour is almost guaranteed to get smacked with at least on warning label (see: former Trump official Chad Wolf).

So no surprise that it was a barn-burner of an “On Democracy” interview that aired Thursday evening between co-anchor Amna Nawaz and Daily Wire host and conservative activist Michael Knowles, with Nawaz coming loaded for bear to berate Knowles. No soft soap here. She was especially ruthless and unreasonable in challenging something Knowles said about transgenderism at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering from two years ago.

Amna Nawaz: During its first month, the Trump administration has brought dramatic proposals and unprecedented changes to the government, including a sweeping effort to remake the executive branch. Our new series “On Democracy” is taking a step back to look at big questions about laws, institutions, and norms that have shaped America and the challenges they face today. Conservative commentator Michael Knowles is the host of “The Michael Knowles Show” on The Daily Wire, and he joins us now….

After a few information gathering questions (“Are they seeing what they voted for?…What does it mean to be a conservative today?”), Nawaz’s hostility to her guest began to boil up.

Nawaz: What about this idea of checks and balances in a democratic system? This is where we hear a lot of concern from people who track democracy here, because the other two branches of government seem to have been weakened under President Trump. He’s usurped constitutional congressional authority, right…

Knowles: Has he? I don’t think he has.

Nawaz: … by blocking funds that were appropriated by Congress. He’s essentially said that they don’t have to comply by judicial rulings that they disagree with. I mean, how is that a democracy?

She soon returned to the subject:

Nawaz: …does it worry you if he’s ignoring judicial rulings?

Knowles: As you just say, we have a system of checks and balances. We do not have a system, or at least we should not have a system of judicial supremacy. The judiciary is a co-equal branch of government with the legislature and with the executive branch.

Nawaz: So, the executive has the right to ignore a judicial ruling?

Ask Joe Biden, who bragged that not even the Supreme Court could stop him from ordering debt relief for college students

The sparks really flew when Nawaz addressed comments from Knowles’ appearance at CPAC in 2023 (and which she also misinterpreted at the time):  “…transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

Nawaz: You mentioned you think there was a lot of progressive overreach that helped propel President Trump back into the White House. And specific to that, you have called transgenderism, in particular, one of those issues that you think moved people and moved the needle. You have also said previously that it should be eradicated from public life entirely. And when you were asked about that, you said that you were calling for an end to the ideology, not for an end to the people.

Knowles: Yes.

Nawaz: If you have changed your view at all, please let me know. But I will confess, I don’t know what the difference is when articulated like that. So could you explain it?

Knowles returned serve with a good analogy (Click “Expand”).

Knowles: Sure. If I say that I want to eradicate poverty, I’m not saying that I want to eradicate all the poor people. Quite the opposite. I would like to help the poor people by eradicating poverty. And so when I made my comments at CPAC a couple years ago, I have now repeated it so many times, I think I have it memorized. I said, for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology, at every level….

Nawaz: I will say, as a — you’re saying that it’s reality. This it is a belief system that you hold. I mean, transgenderism is something that has been acknowledged by medical professionals. There’s an entire body…

Knowles: And rejected by medical professionals.

Nawaz: By a few.

Knowles: Dr. Paul McHugh, who pioneered the …

Nawaz: There’s an entire body of scientific and medical knowledge that backs this up. And that’s what gender-affirming care has all been based on in recent years.

Knowles: Not really. Not really.

Nawaz: I will just ask you this, though. We’re talking about 1 percent of the U.S. adult population here.

Knowles: Thirty percent of Gen Z self-identifies as LGBT.

Nawaz: Because more people, experts believe, are comfortable coming out and sharing the identity.

Knowles: Or because it’s a social contagion.

A huffy, aggrieved Nawaz tried to warp Knowles’ reasonable point into something ridiculous, and his sharp responses seemed to frustrate her. Note: This confrontational approach never transpires when PBS is interviewing a liberal.

Nawaz: You believe transgender people make other people transgender? Is that what you’re saying?

Knowles: This is also backed up in the medical literature. There was a study in 2018 that showed that school children who are socializing with people who identify as transgender are much more likely to identify as transgender themselves.

Nawaz: Michael, you realize this is the same argument people made about gay people, right?

Knowles: Well, I’m talking about the whole LGBT ideology. So I suppose, in some ways, I’m making that argument myself.

Nawaz: You don’t believe that gay people exist?

Knowles: Say it again?

Amna Nawaz: You don’t believe gay people exist?

Knowles: Well, I think people have same-sex attractions and all of that. But I suppose the question I would have to ask is…

Nawaz: But that is — no, no, in answer to my question, do you believe that gay people exist?

Knowles: I think some people are attracted to members of the same-sex, yes.

Nawaz: Those would be gay people, correct?

Knowles: Well, I don’t think that one’s sexual desires necessarily define one’s identity.

This angry, anti-conservative interview was brought to you in part by Cunard.

A transcript is available, click “Expand.”

PBS News Hour

2/20/25

7:35:08 p.m. (ET)

Amna Nawaz: During its first month, the Trump administration has brought dramatic proposals and unprecedented changes to the government, including a sweeping effort to remake the executive branch.

Our new series On Democracy is taking a step back to look at big questions about laws, institutions, and norms that have shaped America and the challenges they face today.

Conservative commentator Michael Knowles is the host of “The Michael Knowles Show” on The Daily Wire, and he joins us now. Welcome to the “News Hour.” Thanks for being here.

Michael Knowles, Host, “The Michael Knowles Show”: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here.

Amna Nawaz: So you’re in town to attend CPAC, right, the largest conservative gathering in America.

What are you hearing from people attending there, from people in your audience as well about this first month of the Trump presidency? Are people — are they seeing what they voted for?

Michael Knowles: Very much so.

This year it feels different even than it did in 2016-2017. And I think it’s because, this time, Trump won the popular vote. And I think it’s because of this new voter coalition, bringing over a lot of voters who previously had long voted for Democrats.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael Knowles: It feels as though the realm of public discourse and the political imagination has really opened up.

Amna Nawaz: When you look at the conservative part of the party, conservative movement, if you will, I mean, beyond Donald Trump, who’s a rallying figure for everyone, what is it right now that sort of — what’s the tie that binds? What does it mean to be a conservative today?

Michael Knowles: You know, if you get 100 conservatives into a room, you will get 100 different answers of what it means to be a conservative.

The only way that you can get Kennedy Democrats and one in five Black male voters and 46 percent of Hispanics and even 40 percent of women under the age of 30…

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael Knowles: … to come over and vote for Trump, to even just join a coalition altogether, is to appeal to something that is deeper than political ideology.

And I think that’s what Trump has done.

Amna Nawaz: What is that? What’s he appealing to?

Michael Knowles: When President Trump comes out and he says, look, we’re going to take care of Americans first, we’re going to enforce the law, kick out the gangsters, classify the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which allows us to take them on more directly, this is basic stuff that you don’t need to be some bow-tie-wearing conservative to agree with.

This — that cuts across party lines.

Amna Nawaz: So, low immigration is one of the binding factors?

Michael Knowles: Well, just reducing — it’s nothing against the immigrants.

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael Knowles: It just that we have the highest foreign-born percentage of the population ever, and Americans of all races, all geographies, all backgrounds seem to think it’s time to assimilate people and to reduce that.

Or you notice, on the LGBT issues, which were a big issue in November…

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Michael Knowles: … I think a lot of people, no animus, no desire to offend or exclude anybody, but they think this ideology has gone a bit too far.

Amna Nawaz: I want to ask you about President Trump’s first month in office and some of the behavior we have seen from him.

He did recently quote Napoleon, which raised some eyebrows, right? He said, “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” He compared himself to a monarch, saying, “Long live the king.”

Does that worry you, that kind of language? I mean, do you want to see a king-like president?

Michael Knowles: It doesn’t worry me at all.

 

To make a comparison with Napoleon, I think there’s a little wink and a nod here from Trump. He makes plenty of jokes. But the broader political point…

Amna Nawaz: But this is a joke or this is serious?

Michael Knowles: Well, I think he uses winsome and whimsical language.

But this line from Napoleon, which is a rearticulation of Cicero and John Locke, two very important thinkers for the American founders and framers, this just gets to a basic point about the country, which is that, in times of great national crisis and distress, extraordinary measures can be taken.

You saw this with Abraham Lincoln. You saw this with Franklin Roosevelt. You have seen this with plenty of American presidents, George Washington, for that matter.

Amna Nawaz: Extraordinary measures meaning a stronger executive?

Michael Knowles: Well, an executive that wields power in a just and effective way.

Amna Nawaz: What about this idea of checks and balances in a democratic system? This is where we hear a lot of concern from people who track democracy here, because the other two branches of government seem to have been weakened under President Trump.

He’s usurped constitutional congressional authority, right…

Michael Knowles: Has he? I don’t think he has.

Amna Nawaz: … by blocking funds that were appropriated by Congress. He’s essentially said that they don’t have to comply by judicial rulings that they disagree with.

I mean, how is that a democracy?

Michael Knowles: Oh, well, first of all, the majority of Americans voted for Trump. So that would seem to be in itself a good expression of democracy.

Amna Nawaz: Well, most people voted for him, but he didn’t win a majority. I take your point

Michael Knowles: He — most voters. He won the majority of voters.

And — but then, when we’re talking about something like executive funding, the president has a large prerogative to control that kind of funding. Some people are suggesting that Trump’s cleanup of the executive branch is unprecedented. That is simply not true.

This is a more-than-100-year-old precedent. Woodrow Wilson established by executive action the Bureau of Efficiency. It’s almost the same name as Elon Musk’s DOGE.

Amna Nawaz: Well, to bring it back to 2025, I mean, there are rulings that say he needs to unblock some of the funds that he’s frozen, and that the administration has not complied.

Does it worry you if he’s ignoring judicial rulings?

Michael Knowles: Well, we — as you just say, we have a system of checks and balances. We do not have a system, or at least we should not have a system of judicial supremacy.

The judiciary is a co-equal branch of government with the legislature and with the executive branch.

Amna Nawaz: So, the executive has the right to ignore a judicial ruling?

Michael Knowles: The executive has the right to fight judicial rulings when they are overstepping.

And, in this case, the notion that the judiciary can by fiat undermine the president’s legitimate authority to control the executive branch, to me, is crazy. I mean, even when you think about some of that executive authority, how much of that authority was usurped, certainly not by Trump, but even by recent presidents, many of whom were Democrats?

And how much of that authority was delegated by the Congress to the executive branch? One might argue that that was not a good idea, that Congress should do more lawmaking and not give it away to bureaucrats. But the Congress certainly has done that.

And so I don’t know. To argue that Trump is an authoritarian because he is trying to reduce the size and scope of the executive branch in the federal government, to me, is crazy.

Amna Nawaz: You mentioned you think there was a lot of progressive overreach that helped propel President Trump back into the White House

And specific to that, you have called transgenderism, in particular, one of those issues that you think moved people and moved the needle. You have also said previously that it should be eradicated from public life entirely. And when you were asked about that, you said that you were calling for an end to the ideology, not for an end to the people.

Michael Knowles: Yes

Amna Nawaz: If you have changed your view at all, please let me know. So could you explain it?

Michael Knowles: Sure.

If I say that I want to eradicate poverty, I’m not saying that I want to eradicate all the poor people. Quite the opposite. I would like to help the poor people by eradicating poverty. And so when I made my comments at CPAC a couple years ago, I have now repeated it so many times, I think I haven’t memorized.

I said, for the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely, the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.

And the reason for this, the reason why I would say, in particular for those who have fallen prey to the ideology, that we ought to do that, is because men can’t really become women. That’s not how human nature works. I have a great deal of sympathy for people who are confused about their sex. But I don’t think it helps people to lie to them.

So, just as a matter of public life, I think we need to respect reality.

Amna Nawaz: I will say, as a — you’re saying that it’s reality. This it is a belief system that you hold. I mean, transgenderism is something that has been acknowledged by medical professionals. There’s an entire body…

Michael Knowles: And rejected by medical professionals.

Amna Nawaz: By a few.

Michael Knowles: Dr. Paul McHugh, who pioneered the …

Amna Nawaz: There’s an entire body of scientific and medical knowledge that backs this up. And that’s what gender-affirming care has all been based on in recent years.

Michael Knowles: Not really. Not really.

Amna Nawaz: I will just ask you this, though. We’re talking about 1 percent of the U.S. adult population here.

Michael Knowles: Thirty percent of Gen Z self-identifies as LGBT.

Amna Nawaz: Because more people, experts believe, are comfortable coming out and sharing the identity.

Michael Knowles: Or because it’s a social contagion.

Amna Nawaz: You believe transgender people make other people transgender? Is that what you’re saying?

Michael Knowles: This is also backed up in the medical literature. There was a study in 2018 that showed that school children who are socializing with people who identify as transgender are much more likely to identify as transgender themselves

Amna Nawaz: Michael, you realize this is the same argument people made about gay people, right?

Michael Knowles: Well, I’m talking about the whole LGBT ideology. So I suppose, in some ways, I’m making that argument myself.

Amna Nawaz: You don’t believe that gay people exist?

Michael Knowles: Say it again.

Amna Nawaz: You don’t believe gay people exist?

Michael Knowles: Well, I think people have same-sex attractions and all of that.

But I suppose the question I would have to ask is…

Amna Nawaz: But that is — no, no, in answer to my question, do you believe that gay people exist?

Michael Knowles: I think some people are attracted to members of the same-sex, yes.

Amna Nawaz: Those would be gay people, correct?

Michael Knowles: Well, I don’t think that one’s sexual desires necessarily define one’s identity.

Amna Nawaz: Without getting into a semantic back-and-forth about it, in clarifying what you have said, when you use words like eradicate — I’m just asking about in terms of the language here.

Michael Knowles: Yes, yes.

Amna Nawaz: When you use words like eradicate…

Michael Knowles: Well, you know what the word eradicate means.

Amna Nawaz: … do you worry that puts a target on people’s backs?

Michael Knowles: Certainly not. In fact the only targets that I have had on my own back are when I question these kinds of ideologies that have been so terrible for people.

The only times I have ever been attacked in public — in one case, someone who’s in federal prison for trying to blow me up at a speech in Pittsburgh — is because I dared to question the trans ideology. People are being introduced to this ideology at younger and younger ages.

It can lead to horrific outcomes, especially for younger people put on puberty blockers, which often cannot be reversed. It leads to castration, bone problems, and early death. These are not the sort of things that we should wish for people if we wish for their own good.

And so what it really comes down to is whether or not a man can become a woman or a man can secretly be a woman if he appears to be a man. And my contention is, that just isn’t how human nature works.

Amna Nawaz: I’m just going to clarify. You did say it’s your contention. I would encourage people to go check out the research and studies on their own.

I do want to ask you about this political moment we’re in now, though, because when you look at our democratic system, there is undoubtedly an ascendant conservative movement right now. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the party tends to push out anyone who disagrees with President Trump.

Mitch McConnell seems to be the latest example now, right, only really speaking out against President Trump when he says that he’s not running for reelection.

Does it worry you about the future of the party that the coalition doesn’t seem to hold without Donald Trump?

Michael Knowles: Trump is the unifying figure right now. There’s no question about it.

Now, what’s unusual about it is to say that people are kicked out of the party when they disagree with Trump makes it sound like the party is shrinking. But what we saw in 2024 is, actually, the party is growing. It’s just taking in new people. And it’s losing some of the figures who have been members in the past, like Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger, or those kinds of figures.

Amna Nawaz: People who disagreed with President Trump, right?

Michael Knowles: Correct. Yes, yes.

That means that there’s a new coalition that has formed. Trump is the singular figure. He is a magnetic personality. He is an American original, and I think he’s a genius-level politician.

Amna Nawaz: So does the coalition hold without him?

Michael Knowles: That remains to be seen.

I don’t think there’s really going any going back to Bushism. And if anyone can pick up the standard of Trumpism afterwards, we will have to wait and see. But the Republican Party is a different and stronger thing now because of Donald Trump.

Amna Nawaz: Michael Knowles, host of “The Michael Knowles Show” on The Daily Wire, thank you for being here. Appreciate your time.

Michael Knowles: Thank you for having me.

Former NBC and MSNBC political referee (self-described) Chuck Todd resurfaced on The Bulwark’s podcast with his former MSNBC colleague Sam Stein, on Wednesday. Together, they reminisced about covering the White House and lamented the “collective weakness” of the current press pool in not standing up for the Associated Press during their feud with the Trump administration over not using “Gulf of America” in their style guide.

But despite noting that most outlets where not overtly coming to the AP’s aid, the duo held particular contempt for Fox News.

Near the top of their conversation, Todd equated what President Trump was doing to “testing the electric fence” like the Velociraptors in the original Jurassic Park movie. He went on to lament that the media wasn’t giving Trump a proper jolt, calling it a “moment of collective weakness”:

It’s been a, I think it’s an interesting challenge, if you will, that the press corps is having at this moment of collective weakness. Let’s not pretend it’s not, right? This is a moment of collective weakness. Right now this is sort of at least the press corps’ ability to perhaps persuade the public of its righteousness, if you will.

Addressing what he seemed to think was the silliness of the fight, Todd, a Florida native, argued that no one in Florida says anything further that just “gulf.” “I have lived in and out of Florida, my, you know, my whole life. Um, never does anybody say Gulf of Mexico side, Atlantic Ocean side. It is Gulf side, Atlantic side,” he explained.

Despite that, Todd argued that it was a hill worth dying on. “And, you know, I’ve vacillated on this, and I’ve come down on the side of it is because the next hill is gonna be bigger, right? It is, it is, this is not going to be a one-off, the one-time test. This is the first of many…”

Todd did admit that he has his own issues with the AP Style guide, particularly when it came to their default “negative” language against pro-lifers. He even recalled how he’d get in trouble with NBC Standards & Practices over it (Click “expand’):

They don’t always follow AP style guide – You know, I have a, you know, I, I have my own issues with AP Style Guides at times when it comes to, for instance, how you refer to abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion rights supporters. You know, I have always, I came from The Hotline and we decided we should refer to each side by their preferred moniker, so we would go with pro-choice and pro-life.

I was so programmed to do it that I often said that on the air. I’d get lectured by standards at NBC and I’d continue to say it on the air because I understood, you know – You know, there were some on the, on the pro-life side, anti-abortion rights side who would, who would argue, you know, the description is automatically negative. “You’re portraying us in a negative light.” Right? It’s when you’re, when the word “anti” is before [a word.]

“I’ve been disappointed in the inability of the rest of the White House press corps to sort of stand up to this moment,” Todd added. “I understand that everybody has a boss. It’s my understanding that there are lots of journalists in that room that would like to be taking more of a stand than their bosses want them to.”

 

 

Todd seemed to float an idea for the AP to force the hand of other outlets to come to their aid by refusing to cover the pool’s expenses:

And here’s the irony, you know, covering the president is very expensive. Being in the pool, you know, the government doesn’t pay for the press corps to be in the pool. The Associated Press pays for that. And if you take that away, good luck finding other news organizations that are gonna be willing to spend that kind of money, even their preferred news org, you know. Unless I guess, you know, maybe some wealthy person will just sort of underwrite The Daily Caller or whatever, right, that to, to whatever, whatever manufactured replacement or The Daily Wire or whatever it is.

Stein eventually pivoted to recalling the Obama administration’s effort to force Fox News out of the press pool. “The backstory is the Obama White House was furious with Fox News. If I’m remembering correctly, it was mostly with Glenn Beck … And they, and they refused to let Fox News in the pool again…And what happened next was you guys, the TV people flipped,” he recounted.

“The TV networks said, ‘No,’” Todd added. “And, and I always, we always fought it and I always fought access pressure from the Obama White House because I viewed it as slippery slope.”

Much like CNN’s Jake Tapper did in 2022, Stein and Todd ignored how Fox had come to CNN’s aid when they were in a legal conflict with the Trump White House over Jim Acosta’s credentials and access. “Fox was the beneficiary of collective action back in 2009, as we discussed, and obviously it’s a different entity now. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed that they’re not standing up for the AP because I never expect them to stand up for the AP,” Stein huffed.

For his part, Todd bemoaned, “I’ve handed my credibility to a handful of journalists over there who’ve never reciprocated,” as he took thinly veiled swings at Special Report anchor Bret Baier:

[C]ertainly we’ve seen the evolution of one of their larger news personalities go from trying really hard to follow in Britt Hume’s footsteps and suddenly looks more like Sean Hannity every day. And it’s a shame, you know, cause I thought – Cause he really cared about those that reputation. And I think really actually cared about being a journalist first and wanting to sort of walk that line, understood what his audience was, and instead now just wants to have tee time with the president. I hope he enjoys it.

Earlier in the podcast, Todd opined about “the irony” of how Fox News was better under Roger Ailes and respected their journalists more:

I would also argue that the irony is that – and I, and this is just deep irony is that Fox News when it was run by Roger Ailes, allowed journalists to be journalists at Fox. The current version of Fox News – I think Jennifer Griffin tries to practice journalism. I think, you know, I think Chad Pergram. I think there’s still journalists that work – I always say Fox is not a journalistic organization. There are journalists that there are people that practice journalism that happen to work at Fox. Right?

“But it is not a journalistic enterprise at all,” he said. “This is not how Fox is run now. It is just run as an amplification message machine.”

And MSNBC wasn’t, Chuck?

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

The Bulwark

SAM STEIN: Chuck, let’s start broad picture. What’s your, what’s your sense of what’s happening here?

CHUCK TODD: Well, I feel like this is the Trump White House and Donald Trump testing the electric fence, right? I’ve always thought the best metaphor to Donald Trump is that first Jurassic Park where they all go, ‘oh my God, they don’t ever test the fence in the same place,’ right? Like, you know, the dinosaurs have a brain, um, the Velociraptors know what they’re doing.

STEIN: Right.

TODD: So, this is no doubt this is testing the fence, right? And this is what makes, I think. It’s been a, I think it’s an interesting challenge, if you will, that the press corps is having at this moment of collective weakness. Let’s not pretend it’s not, right? This is a moment of collective weakness. Right now this is sort of at least the press corps’ ability to perhaps persuade the public of its righteousness, if you will.

And you know, I had this conversation with Chris Cillizza a few days ago where he we were debating, is this a mountain, is this a molehill, right? And you can sit here and say, oh jeez, what you, you know – I spent a lot of time in Pensacola, which is a Gulf – which is on the Gulf Coast. You know what, nobody in Pensacola calls the Gulf. Uh, anything after – they don’t say anything after the word “gulf.”

STEIN: It’s “the gulf.”

TODD: Hey, it’s the Gulf.

STEIN: THE Gulf.

TODD: Nobody, I have lived in this. I have lived in and out of Florida, my, you know, my whole life. Um, never does anybody say Gulf of Mexico side, Atlantic Ocean side. It is Gulf side Atlantic side.

STEIN: I guess we should pause for a second because for the uninitiated, the issue here is that the Associated Press has decided that it is going to continue to refer to the Gulf as the Gulf of Mexico. Despite a Trump executive order rebranding it as the Gulf of America. Since then, Trump and the White House have said you can’t come into the pool, which is essentially a group of journalists that cover, uh, that are tasked with covering the president as he moves around day in day out, and then they’ve escalated, so you can’t come on Air Force One. They can’t come into the Oval Office, um, and that’s where we stand.

So yes, back to Pensacola, they call it the Gulf.

TODD: So, the point is, I don’t know anybody in America that refers to the Gulf outside of just one word, the Gulf. So, we could – I understand if the average person who isn’t sort of, you know, a longtime journalist or sitting there going, is this, is this the, is this a hill worth dying on?

STEIN: Right.

TODD: Right. And, you know, I’ve vacillated on this, and I’ve come down on the side of it is because the next hill is gonna be bigger, right? It is, it is, this is not going to be a one-off, the one-time test. This is the first of many, and this is about essentially, you know, trying to bring, you know, the essentially the language of journalism, you know, when, when NBC Standards makes decisions, they look to the AP style guide first.

They don’t always follow AP style guide – You know, I have a, you know, I, I have my own issues with AP Style Guides at times when it comes to, for instance, how you refer to abortion rights supporters and anti-abortion rights supporters. You know, I have always, I came from The Hotline and we decided we should refer to each side by their preferred moniker, so we would go with pro-choice and pro-life.

I was so programmed to do it that I often said that on the air. I’d get lectured by standards at NBC and I’d continue to say it on the air because I understood, you know – You know, there were some on the, on the pro-life side, anti-abortion rights side who would, who would argue, you know, the description is automatically negative. “You’re portraying us in a negative light.” Right? It’s when you’re, when the word “anti” is before –

STEIN: But the issue here is it’s not they’re taking the choice away from the outlet and giving it to the comms team.

TODD: There’s no doubt and that’s – But my point is, is that AP has – it is more than just, you know, the leading wire service arguably in the world, you know, Reuters might have a, you know, Reuters is the other sort of –

STEIN: They would make a claim to the international one, but yeah, go ahead.

TODD: No doubt, but those are the two. And so, this is about Trump wanting to control language police too a little bit or certainly that, you know, the Trump communications shop on that front. So, this is a test of wealth.

I’ve been – I’ve been disappointed in the inability of the rest of the White House press corps to sort of stand up to this moment. I understand that everybody has a boss. It’s my understanding that there are lots of journalists in that room that would like to be taking more of a stand than their bosses want them to, which I think is, is, you know, this is a reminder, you know, we’ve already seen all the capitulations of the various corporate entities that that own news organizations that we’ve been watching. And it’s extending to this sort of lack of a showdown.

And here’s the irony, you know, covering the president is very expensive. Being in the pool, you know, the government doesn’t pay for the press corps to be in the pool. The Associated Press pays for that. And if you take that away, good luck finding other news organizations that are gonna be willing to spend that kind of money, even their preferred news org, you know. Unless I guess, you know, maybe some wealthy person will just sort of underwrite The Daily Caller or whatever, right, that to, to whatever, whatever manufactured replacement or The Daily Wire or whatever it is.

STEIN: Sure.

TODD: But it’s extraordinarily expensive and I’ll tell you what Donald Trump would miss: if there was no longer a press pool that was traveling with him.

(…)

STEIN: And now we get to what you were talking about, which is what is recourse here. And I’m reminded of something actually quite similar that happened when you and I are both at the White House in 2009.

The backstory is the Obama White House was furious with Fox News. If I’m remembering correctly, it was mostly with Glenn Beck, for –

TODD: At the time it was a Glenn Beck issue.

STEIN: Conspiratorial chalkboard musings. And they, and they refused to let Fox News in the pool again, and they were – a specific event was, um. I think it had to do with a –

TODD: It was Treasury event.

STEIN: A Treasury event about –

TODD: I want to say a round robin – It was probably a round robin interview.

STEIN: It was, it was about the auto bailout because it involved Feinberg and um, they just said, you’re not – Fox is not gonna cover it. And what happened next was you guys, the TV people flipped.

TODD: The TV networks said, “No.” Right, we said, No.”

(…)

TODD: And, and I always, we always fought it and I always fought access pressure from the Obama White House because I viewed it as slippery slope.

STEIN: Yeah, of course.

TODD: The minute you let one White House do something, the next one would use it as precedent to prevent it from happening in the next one.

STEIN: Did you guys now, refresh my memory, did you guys say we will not cover the next held event?

TODD: We didn’t say we — I, I can’t remember what our threat was, but we’re just like, you just, the pool goes away. Like we’re, we’re not going to participate in this event.

(…)

TODD: I would also argue that the irony is that – and I, and this is just deep irony is that Fox News when it was run by Roger Ailes, allowed journalists to be journalists at Fox. The current version of Fox News – I think Jennifer Griffin tries to practice journalism. I think, you know, I think Chad Pergram. I think there’s still journalists that work – I always say Fox is not a journalistic organization. There are journalists that there are people that practice journalism that happen to work at Fox. Right? But it is not a journalistic enterprise at all.

Ironically, Roger Ailes knew he couldn’t have credibility at night if he didn’t have real journalism. I mean, you know, Brett Hume, at the end of the day, is a journalist first, and he always had, and he fought really hard and, and you – By the way, you see glimmers of it, right, which is why they limit Brit. I feel like Brit Hume’s airtime keeps shrinking all the time over there because he’s – he will stubbornly speak truth to power and inconvenient times for the Fox audience.

But the point was Roger knew he had to have credible journalists in the daytime in order for the folks at night to get credibility. This is not how Fox is run now. It is just run as an amplification message machine. It is not. There are, like I said, there are still a few legacy people over there that practice journalism as best they can under the circumstances with which they have to work, but it is a totally different animal today than it was.

(…)

STEIN: Fox was the beneficiary of collective action back in 2009, as we discussed, and obviously it’s a different entity now. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed that they’re not standing up for the AP because I never expect them to stand up for the AP. But I’m wondering if you’re disappointed, having stood up for Fox yourself.

TODD: I’ve given up on – There’s – Look, I don’t wanna – I don’t want to name call, but I’ve given up. I’ve, I’ve handed my credibility to a handful of journalists over there who’ve never reciprocated. When times were tough – When times were tough for them, I went out of my way to defend a couple of them. When times were tough, you know, an unfair criticism or character assassination that was taking place.

And you know, these people don’t stand, you know, they’re just, you know, there – there’s, there’s certainly we’ve seen the evolution of one of their larger news personalities go from trying really hard to follow in Britt Hume’s footsteps and suddenly looks more like Sean Hannity every day.

STEIN: Right.

TODD: And it’s a shame, you know, cause I thought – Cause he really cared about those that reputation. And I think really actually cared about being a journalist first and wanting to sort of walk that line, understood what his audience was, and instead now just wants to have tee time with the president. I hope he enjoys it.

STEIN: Chuck, thank you so much. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. We’re gonna get you back to talk college football when the season comes, maybe.

TODD: I’d love that, man.