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Former NPR CEO: Ceasing Taxpayer Support Is ‘Attacking a Free Press’

Filed Under: INVESTIGATIONS, Newsbusters

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

Here is a transcript for the May 2 show:

CNN News Central

5/2/2025

1:40 PM ET

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

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

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

Report: Rabid Trump Hater Greg Popovich to Step Down from San Antonio Spurs Head Coaching Position

Filed Under: Gateway Pundit, INVESTIGATIONS

According to reports, Greg Popovich will step down as Head Coach of the San Antonio Spurs after 29 years and transition to a full-time role as the team’s president of basketball.

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported the news on Friday morning.

Popovich’s successful coaching career, where he led his team to five NBA championships, has often been overshadowed by his rapid, anger-fueled Trump Derangement Syndrome and woke leftist rants.

In October of 2024, Popovich transformed an NBA press conference into a tirade against Donald Trump.

“So he’s pathetic. He’s small. He’s a whiner,” said Popovich.

He has made a habit of railing against white people and the United States, including a diatribe against Christopher Columbus filled with dramatic pauses and righteous white liberal indignation.

“I am a little confused about our city….and why it’s Indigenous People’s Day/Columbus Day….Columbus Day…Columbus? I mean, he initiated a new world genocide….that’s what he did.”

In 2017, The Gateway Pundit reported Popovich was triggered by President Trump after he called for a boycott of the NFL because of their national anthem protests; he blamed racism, naturally.

Coach Woke also took aim at the Second Amendment, where he used a pregame press conference in 2023 to slam lawmakers and call for stricter gun control. He even asked reporters whether any of them were carrying a gun before suggesting the Second Amendment is a “myth.” 

The post Report: Rabid Trump Hater Greg Popovich to Step Down from San Antonio Spurs Head Coaching Position appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Kinzinger Warns Trump May Come For Him, Defends Judge Who Allegedly Hid Illegal Alien

Filed Under: INVESTIGATIONS, Newsbusters

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

Here is a transcript for the May 1 show:

Next Question with Katie Couric

5/1/2025

15 Minutes, 32 Seconds

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

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

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

KATIE COURIC: How frightening is this to you?

KINZINGER: Uh? Pretty frightening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Public Broadcasting Exec Resists Trump Order To Defund NPR: ‘Wholly Independent of the Federal Government’

Filed Under: INVESTIGATIONS, Washington Free Beacon

After President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to end federal funding for NPR and PBS, the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which disburses the funding to those broadcasters, claimed the corporation is exempt from the president’s oversight.

“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority,” CEO Patricia Harrison said Friday morning in a statement, according to the New York Times. “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.”

Harrison did not note that the president picks the nine members of the CPB’s board of directors or that Congress controls federal funding to the corporation.

Trump’s executive order instructs the CPB to cut off all direct federal funding for NPR and PBS to the “maximum extent allowed by law” and “decline to provide future funding.” The order also demands that CPB officials take steps to “minimize or eliminate” any indirect funding to the broadcasters.

NPR and PBS—America’s two biggest public broadcasters—have long faced public scrutiny over left-wing political bias in their coverage, even as the networks have received federal funding for decades. In the 2025 fiscal year alone, NPR and PBS received around $535 million from the federal government.

During a March congressional hearing, NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who has called Trump a “deranged racist sociopath,” acknowledged that the outlet delivered poor coverage of two politically charged stories: the Hunter Biden laptop and the origins of COVID-19.

NPR was “mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner,” Maher said at the hearing. She also acknowledged that “the new CIA evidence” about the Wuhan lab leak “is worthy of coverage.”

In response to Trump’s Thursday order, NPR said that eliminating CPB funding “would have a devastating impact on American communities” that rely on public radio for news, emergency alerts, and public safety information, according to the Times.

PBS has also condemned the order. “The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” PBS CEO Paula Kerger said Friday morning.

The post Public Broadcasting Exec Resists Trump Order To Defund NPR: ‘Wholly Independent of the Federal Government’ appeared first on .

The Three Decade Story of Social Media in a Nutshell and What is the Best X Alternative

Filed Under: Gateway Pundit, INVESTIGATIONS

The birth of social media was arguably in 2002 when Friendster was launched. A year later, MySpace arrived and every Gen X’er, including me, and many Millennials jumped on board. Facebook came in 2004 and has been ever-present for over 20 years. And how about YouTube? Started in November 2005 and sold just 11 months later to Google for $1.6B! I know that today it’s worth a lot more. Current estimates put a value of $500B on YouTube. But making over a billion dollars in 11 months sounds like good money to me!

A year later in 2006 Twitter appeared and then Instagram in 2010. With Instagram we also see a big markup. Eighteen months late, it was bought by Facebook for $1B. At the time, Instagram was a 13-person start-up. It is now a global leader in social media. Could it have succeeded without the Mark Zuckerberg magic? We will never know.

Jump forward to 2025. Twitter has now become X after Elon Musk bought it in 2022 for $44B. And only last month xAI, valued at $80 billion in the deal, bought X for $30 billion. This brings the whole issue of AI and data and privacy into the equation but I want to look at who the other players are in the social market first.

The competitors to X are Instagram, Facebook, GETTR, Truth Social, Parler, Minds and Gab. But with censorship running rampant during the Covid tyranny, a number of platforms promoted themselves as free speech activists. This removes Instagram and Facebook (both owned by Mark Zuckerberg who has now suddenly converted to being a free speech activist … but only for US users). So let’s look at the main free speech players in chronological order.

Minds was the first of a raft of free speech-oriented social media platforms launched in 2015. Minds has been described as more privacy-focused than its competitors and is open source. Some high-profile figures promoted Minds at its 2020 NYC “MINDS: Festival of Ideas”. But Minds remains a niche player that has never really proved a mainstream alternative to the big players. Most recent usage figures from Similar Web are 470,000 visits per month.

Gab launched in August 2016 and then had a full public launch 9 months later. Gab has actively been building and supporting its own server infrastructure. This is a smart move to protect from being shut down but it has meant slower growth. In 2020, Gab migrated to itsr own in-house servers. Gab has suffered from its minimal moderation which has meant it is unable to have an app on Apple or Google app stores. Most recent usage figures from Similar Web are 4.7M visits per month.

Parler was launched in August 2018, billing itself as an unbiased and free speech alternative to larger social media platforms. Conservatives quickly praised Parler for offering a free speech alternative to Twitter and Facebook. Parler’s user base grew massively in 2020 and became the most well known Twitter alternative platform but, after it was accused of coordinating Jan 6, it was removed from the Apple store and Google play store.

And soon after, on January 10th, Amazon Web Services cancelled its hosting and it went offline. It restarted a month later after moving its domain hosting to Epik and a year later was back on Google and Apple app stores. Near the end of 2022, Kanye West agreed to buy Parler but it fell through.

At the time, George Farmer was the CEO. George is the husband of Candace Owens and his father was Treasurer of the UK’s Conservative Party, and life peer in the House of Lords. In April 2023, Parler was acquired by Starboard and was temporarily shut down prior to a relaunch. Eight months later it was sold to another group and relaunched in February 2024. Most recent usage figures from Similar Web are 275,000 visits per month.

Next up is GETTR which was launched on 4th July 2021 by President Donald Trump’s former senior advisor Jason Miller. While Gettr explicitly identifies itself as supporting free speech and opposing censorship, the site moderates user content to at least some extent. It has been available as an app from Apple and Google from the very beginning. Most recent usage figures from Similar Web are 1.4M visits per month.

And the newest kid on the block is Truth Social launched by President Trump in October 2021. President Trump had been banned from Twitter/X in January 2021 and, in true Trump fashion, he started his own social media company. Within a year it was available to download as an app from Apple and Google app stores. Most recent usage figures from Similar Web are 30M visits per month.

So, what is the conclusion to understanding this avalanche of social media options?

Gab sometimes feels overwhelmed with anti-Jewish posts. and only US users can sign up to its paid pro option.

Minds seems to lack traction despite being around for a decade.

Parler has been launched for the 3rd time and so the jury is still out on its future success.

Truth has a large user base but has restrictions on streaming and other capabilities.

GETTR seems to have stood the test of time. It is available on the app stores (unlike Gab). It has great live streaming capabilities (unlike Truth Social) and has never gone down or changed hands (unlike Parler). And of course GETTR has one of the most well-known MAGA advocates ever, Stephen K Bannon. WarRoom streams on GETTR and SKB uses GETTR exclusively so if you want to follow the MAGA architect then GETTR is the place to be.

The post The Three Decade Story of Social Media in a Nutshell and What is the Best X Alternative appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

TikTok Sent Europeans’ Personal Data to China, Hiding Transfers From Users, EU Regulators Say

Filed Under: INVESTIGATIONS, Washington Free Beacon

TikTok must pay a €530 million ($600 million) fine after Irish regulators said Friday that the Chinese-owned video-sharing app illegally sent European users’ data to China.

TikTok, whose EU headquarters is in Ireland, violated the 27-nation bloc’s data protection rules by transferring personal data of European users to China without proper safeguards, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced following a four-year investigation. The regulators also found that between 2020 and 2022, TikTok failed to disclose to users that Chinese staffers could access user data, Politico reported.

The fine comes as TikTok has long faced scrutiny over its alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. President Donald Trump has voiced national security concerns, though he has extended the deadline until June 19 for TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. If TikTok still does not divest, it will face a total ban in the United States.

While TikTok has for years denied storing European or American user data on servers in China, the platform admitted in April that it had in fact stored “limited [European] user data” in the Communist country. The Irish regulators said they are taking the revelation “very seriously” and are weighing “what further regulatory action may be warranted,” according to Politico.

The penalty includes €485 million for the unlawful data transfers and €45 million for a lack of transparency, making it the third-largest fine under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, Politico reported. TikTok has six months to bring its data handling into compliance or suspend all transfers to China, the regulators said.

“TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of [European] users, remotely accessed by staff in China, was afforded a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the EU,” DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement.

TikTok said it strongly contests the Irish commission’s findings and plans to appeal.

The post TikTok Sent Europeans’ Personal Data to China, Hiding Transfers From Users, EU Regulators Say appeared first on .

No, Trump Did Not Just Bring Back Segregation to Schools

Filed Under: Gateway Pundit, INVESTIGATIONS

An integrated classroom at Anacostia High School, Washington, D.C., in 1957. Photo by Warren K. Leffler, courtesy of the U.S. Library of Congress (Digital ID: ppmsca.03095).

Once again, the mainstream media is distorting the facts. Following the Justice Department’s recent dismissal of a decades-old desegregation case in Louisiana, critics rushed to frame the action as a rollback of civil rights or, worse, a return to racial segregation in schools. But the facts do not support this narrative.

In 1966, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to desegregate schools in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The resulting federal consent decree mandated the dismantling of the district’s racially segregated school system.

By 1975, the court found the district had achieved integration. However, the case remained open for decades due to administrative oversight, including the death of the presiding judge, and no formal court action was ever taken to close it.

In April 2025, as part of a broader review of dormant cases, the DOJ under the Trump administration formally moved to dismiss the order.

According to a joint filing with Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, there had been “zero action by the court, the parties or any third-party” in nearly 50 years.

The DOJ’s official press release, titled “Justice Department Dismisses Half Century Old Louisiana Consent Decree,” stated: “No longer will the Plaquemines Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon.

For the school district, remaining under the outdated court order meant compiling and submitting annual data to the DOJ on hiring practices, student discipline, and demographics. It imposed a bureaucratic burden on a small district with fewer than 4,000 students.

Local officials described the process as time-consuming and unnecessary, diverting limited staff and resources from more pressing educational needs.

For the DOJ, maintaining the inactive case consumed time and attention that could be better directed toward active civil rights enforcement.

Despite these facts, critics quickly claimed the dismissal would lead to “resegregation.”

Civil rights groups and commentators cited research suggesting that school districts released from federal oversight often become less racially diverse over time.

But this interpretation stretches the meaning of “segregation” beyond its legal and constitutional definition. And the fact that a school becomes less diverse does not meet the definition of segregated.

To be clear, there is no law, under Trump or any other administration, that allows public schools in the United States to reinstate racial segregation.

Segregation in public education was struck down in 1954 by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education and remains unconstitutional today.

Any attempt by a school district to segregate students by race would be swiftly challenged and overturned in court.

So, what does “resegregation” really mean in these criticisms? It does not refer to a return to legally mandated racial separation. Rather, it describes de facto racial imbalance, schools becoming predominantly one race not by law or policy, but due to residential patterns, school zoning, and economic factors.

If a mostly Black neighborhood feeds into a local school, that school may have a majority-Black student body, but that is not segregation under the law.

Some academic studies have found that districts released from federal desegregation orders sometimes see reduced racial diversity. But correlation does not equal causation.

These shifts often result from the end of court-ordered policies—such as busing, racial quotas, or transfer schemes—meant to artificially balance school demographics to match national racial ratios.

Without these mandates, schools tend to reflect the natural racial and economic makeup of their local neighborhoods. Ending a dormant desegregation order does not cause segregation; it simply acknowledges that the district is no longer violating the Constitution.

More than 130 school districts across the South remain under similar DOJ desegregation orders. The Trump administration has signaled interest in reviewing more of these long-dormant cases.

In sum, the DOJ’s action in Louisiana was a routine legal closure of a resolved case. It does not change the law, repeal civil rights protections, or allow racial discrimination in education. Misrepresenting legal housekeeping as racial backsliding only sows distrust and distracts from the real work of improving educational outcomes.

The post No, Trump Did Not Just Bring Back Segregation to Schools appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

‘Keanu, you owe me’: UFC coach claims Keanu Reeves stole his technique for ‘John Wick’ fight scene

Filed Under: INVESTIGATIONS, The Blaze

A beloved UFC trainer and coach accused actor Keanu Reeves of taking some of his unique techniques and using them in a movie.

Firas Zahabi is a legendary coach who runs the Tristar Gym in Montreal, Canada. Outside of owning the gym, Zahabi is most known for training former welterweight champion and all-time UFC great Georges St-Pierre.

During a podcast, Zahabi recalled teaching a student before finding out his name is Keanu. Upon learning that the student was Lebanese just like him, Zahabi wondered why someone of his ethnic background would have that name. Zahabi said the student informed him that actor Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, and his parents were fans.

This jokingly shocked Zahabi, who said that Reeves “years ago, he stole one of my moves.”

Zahabi joked that he could not believe that a fellow Lebanese person would bite his style without crediting him. Zahabi said, in particular, that a scene from “John Wick: Chapter 2” used a jujitsu move he called the “web guard,” where one counters an opponent by jumping in the air and pulling them to the ground.

“It was a great move, it’s called the web guard. I used to call it the web guard. I used to rush people punching and kicking and then whenever they would grab a hold of me, if they grabbed me with an underhook, I would jump web guard. If I grab them with an underhook, I could also do it, so it didn’t matter to me, which is what I loved. As soon as we tied up, I could get the fight to the ground.”

Firas Zahabi (left) and former UFC champion Georges St-Pierre in 2018. Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Zahabi showed a scene from the movie, known as the museum fight scene, and juxtaposed it with footage of his own technique in the gym.

“I put this move out of circulation,” Zahabi went on. “But then a man by the name of Keanu Reeves, the man actually dared to rip me off.”

‘When the white man steals from me, I’m not so upset. I expect it! But a fellow Lebanese?’

While most of his comments appeared to be in jest, Zahabi still fully went down the path of claiming Reeves, and assumedly his fight choreographer for the film, Chad Stahelski, had stolen his technique without crediting him.

He also made jokes that were sure to offend some.

“Now, I’m used to the white man stealing from me, but if he’s a fellow Lebanese, that’s the problem. Now that I know he’s a fellow Lebanese, I must insist that I collect from him. When the white man steals from me, I’m not so upset. I expect it! But a fellow Lebanese? This cannot go unpunished. He jumps web guard in the movie. Long story short, Keanu, you owe me massari.”

While Reeves was born in Lebanon, his parents are English and Hawaiian, which may change Zahabi’s feelings on the matter.

Stahelski reportedly started MMA in the early 1990s, however, while Zahabi did not start his martial arts journey allegedly until 1998.

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