In an interesting editorial choice, CNN NewsNight host Abby Phillip elected to keep credibly-accused human trafficker, wifebeater and MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego García off the table and away from any meaningful panel discussion. Phillip instead elected to do a brief blurb on Abrego García to close the show. Watch the ending segment of CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, as aired on Monday, August 25th, 2025: INTERESTING EDITORIAL CHOICE: Discussion of the latest on presumed MS-13 gangbanger, human trafficker and wife beater Kilmar Abrego García is left OFF the NewsNight table, held until the very end of the show. pic.twitter.com/OPxLepTNaj — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) August 26, 2025 ABBY PHILLIP: A federal judge says that she'll order officials to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in the United States during new legal deportation proceedings. And tonight, DHS is showing new video of Abrego Garcia in custody. He was detained by immigration officials after turning himself in. And officials say that they want to deport him to Uganda as soon as the end of the week. He's challenging that deportation, and the judge says that she needs some more time to decide whether officials are violating Abrego García’s rights. Now, Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year and was returned to the U.S. in June. He was released from custody in Tennessee on Friday. He faces charges of criminal human smuggling, and his trial is set to be in January. And thank you very much for watching NewsNight. Laura Coates Live starts right now. A cynical news analyst might call this “bias by story selection”, a common practice within the legacy media when it comes to choosing what stories to air. A similar phenomenon occurs quite frequently within the legacy newscasts. For example, last night’s legacy news prioritized advocacy coverage of Abrego García over both the Abbey Gate Gate Gold Star Families’ Oval Office visit, and the latest with regard to the illegal alien truck driver that killed 3 people when he made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike. NewsNight’s rundown consisted of: the latest on Trump’s D.C. crime crackdown and its potential application to Chicago, Trump’s firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook over allegations of mortgage fraud, Chris Christie, the Intel deal, potential layoffs at John Deere, and flag burning. Keeping Abrego García off the table when he has been made into the face of the ongoing immigration enforcement initiative is a deliberate choice. It should be noted that former Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison was among the panel last night, a fact that might almost fly under the radar with the terminally unhinged former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross at the table as well. Reasonable individuals may conclude that the topics were curated so as to avoid putting leftwing panelists in the position of having to defend Biden policy decisions such as flinging the border wide open or catastrophically withdrawing from Afghanistan. Instead, Phillip and company spent the night throwing chaff at Brad Todd and Arthur Aidala. Immigration, via its martyr-designate Abrego García, was only addressed at the end of the night, safely away from the panel- covered under a Thunder-lid instead of in the “Thunderdome”. Once again we are reminded that if it weren’t for double standards, there would be none at all.  

Jailing criminals is an outdated and ineffective way to fight crime, Democrat Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declared Monday at a press event denouncing the possibility of President Donald Trump deploying federal law enforcement to help make the city safe, as he did in the Nation’s Capital. Chicago has “moved past” jailing criminals, Mayor Johnson said, accusing America of having an “addiction” to putting convicted criminals behind bars: “We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence. We’ve already tried that and we ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence. “The addiction on jails and incarceration in this country, we have moved past that. “It is racist; it is immoral; it is unholy – and it is not the way to drive violence down.” “We cannot return to the same failed strategies that got us here in the first place,” the mayor claimed. Chicago needs more money – not more law enforcement – Johnson said: “We need the federal resources to make sure that we’re building more affordable housing, expanding mental and behavioral health care, education – all of these things that could reduce crime and provide real community safety.” Housing, health care and education are “proven solutions” that require ever-increasing sums of federal money, Johnson said: “Under the previous presidential administration, we requested more federal resources to address gun violence in our cities. We continue to make that same call. We have made significant progress on our own. But, there is so much more that we can do, if we had real support from the federal government.” Still, Mayor Johnson’s Biden-backed “proven” solution has left the level of violence in Chicago worse than it was before the COVID 19 pandemic, according to analysis of crime data between 2019 and 2024 by The New York Post, which reports that aggravated assault is up 16%, carjackings are up 60% and gun assaults are up 46%. In 2024, Chicago had the most murders among the nation’s 75 largest cities and a murder rate that was five times than that of New York City. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says arresting violent criminals DOES NOT reduce crime: “It is racist! It is immoral! It is unholy!” ??? pic.twitter.com/cBa0hXliwT — TheBlaze (@theblaze) August 25, 2025  

During Monday’s edition of The Lead, CNN host Jake Tapper took issue with a post President Trump made on Truth Social where he called out ABC and NBC for running “97% bad stories” about him. Tapper scoffed at the post and claimed he didn’t believe the number. But Trump’s claim wasn’t too far off. According to a Media Research Center study of Trump’s first 100 days, the broadcast network coverage of Trump was 92 percent negative and 97 percent negative on DOGE. “He posted several times last night about NBC and ABC. In this particular post claiming that NBC News and ABC News give him ‘97 percent bad stories’ – which is, I can't believe that's statistic at all,” Tapper bitterly declared. Trump may have exaggerated the number a bit, but the Media Research Center did crunch the numbers and he wasn’t far off: Just 100 days into President Donald Trump’s second term, the broadcast evening news landscape is even more lopsided than it was eight years ago, when Trump was besieged with relentlessly hostile coverage. So far this year, the new Trump administration has faced a withering 92% negative coverage from ABC, CBS and NBC, whose flagship news programs averaged more than 19.3 million viewers during the first quarter of 2025, making them the most widely-watched news programs in the country. The study also found that the broadcast network coverage of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) received 97 percent negative coverage. “The evening newscasts spent a whopping 310 minutes on ‘DOGE,’ Elon Musk’s tech-savvy approach to reducing government staffing and spending, virtually all of it (97%) negative,” the study’s author Rich Noyes wrote.     Going along with their sourness on DOGE, when looking at their coverage of members of Trump’s administration, Elon Musk received 96 percent negative coverage. Back on CNN, it became clear that Tapper’s mention and dismissal of the negative coverage were meant to be stepping stones so he could pearl clutch about Trump talking about pulling ABC’s and NBC’s broadcast licenses (something he’s threatened before but never carried out): President Trump's anger with the mainstream media is not a new grudge, but does this feel different at all, this kind of threat given the fact that he has Brendan Carr at the FCC, you know, doing a lot of things that Trump is happy about. Not to mention, getting settlements from the parent companies of CBS News and ABC news in recent months, tens of millions of dollars from Paramount and Disney? “You know, you pointed out, this is more of the same. Donald Trump feels that the mainstream media does not characterize or cover him fairly. That, you know, since the '16 campaign, that it's kind of been downhill since then, and, you know, the same with the Republican Party writ large,” argued former Trump campaign advisor David Urban. Tapper also bizarrely suggested Trump was going to invoke one of Congress’s powers to go after those networks. “[I]t's an explicit threat to use the power of the purse, the power of the presidency, to go after anybody who dares criticize him,” he strangely warned. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Lead August 25, 2025 6:19:50 p.m. Eastern (…) JAKE TAPPER: Trump has been busy on Truth Social. He posted several times last night about NBC and ABC. In this particular post claiming that NBC News and ABC News give him “97 percent bad stories” – which is, I can't believe that's statistic at all – and should, quote, “have their licenses revoked by the FCC,” the Federal Communications Commission. So, obviously, David, President Trump's anger with the mainstream media is not a new grudge, but does this feel different at all, this kind of threat given the fact that he has Brendan Carr at the FCC, you know, doing a lot of things that Trump is happy about. Not to mention, getting settlements from the parent companies of CBS News and ABC news in recent months, tens of millions of dollars from Paramount and Disney? DAVID URBAN: Yes. Listen, Jake, I think this is -- you know, you pointed out, this is more of the same. Donald Trump feels that the mainstream media does not characterize or cover him fairly. That, you know, since the '16 campaign, that it's kind of been downhill since then, and, you know, the same with the Republican Party writ large. And so, again, he's going to continue to bang on this theme through '26 through '28. So, when bad stories do show up, he's going to blame it on the media. He's going to blame it on these liberal news outlets. Right? You've seen, you know, MSNBC is no longer MSNBC. It is now MS Now. You know, people are losing faith in those institutions, and I think Donald Trump's just calling that into question even more. TAPPER: But I think, Alyssa, the question here and the thematic question is President Trump, it's not just expressing a grievance, it's -- and it's an explicit threat to use the power of the purse, the power of the presidency, to go after anybody who dares criticize him. We just heard him do that with Wes Moore. We just heard him do it with NBC and CBS. President Trump -- or, I'm sorry, NBC and ABC. President Trump also threatened to reopen investigations into former ally, now critic New Jersey Governor Chris Christie over the bridge gate scandal from when he was governor. He was watching Chris Christie being interviewed on ABC's this week yesterday. (…)

DC under Trump = Pyongyang on the Potomac! That was the absurd analogy that CNN This Morning host Audie Cornish tried to make on Tuesday's show. Reacting to the news that there have been no murders in the capital for 12 days running under Trump's crime-fighting moves there, Cornish said as she held up the New York Post:  "Actually, there's probably no murders in North Korea, too." Comparing America during the Trump administration to the Hermit Kingdom, perhaps the world's most insular, repressive regime, is an outrageous slur. In fairness, perhaps we misread Audie's intentions. After all, she is an NPR alum, where for 10 years she co-hosted All Things Considered. Could it be that to Cornish, analogizing Trump's America to North Korea was the ultimate compliment? Cornish and CNN senior politics writer Zach Wolf also had great fun in reaction to Trump's statement that, whereas he dislikes dictators and is not a dictator, "A lot of people are saying, maybe we'd like a dictator." Snarked Cornish: "No word yet on which Americans actually want a dictator."  Wolf suggested that "the law-and-order crowd" might like the idea of a dictator. No one can accuse the Democrats of being part of the "law-and-order crowd." Democrats are the people who have abolished cash bail, decriminalized some crimes, declined to prosecute others, and, in their "sanctuary cities," refused to cooperate with federal law enforcement in apprehending illegal immigrants. Wondered Audie, "Those [the law-and-order crowd] are the people he was referring to? I'm going to look for that in your reporting: people who said, I want a dictator." Replied Wolf: "Yeah, we're looking for them. Email me if you want a dictator. I'd love to talk to you." You know who really dug one of the world's worst dictators, Fidel Castro? Liberals like Bernie Sanders, Karen Bass, Jesse Jackson, Harry Belafonte, Colin Kaepernick, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone, among others. Maybe Wolf should chat with some of them. Don't forget CNN founder Ted Turner!  Note: The show played a clip of Democrat Illinois Governor and presumed 2028 presidential hopeful JB Pritzker condemning Trump's possible plans to send troops to Chicago to beef up law enforcement there: "Find a family who's enjoying today, sitting on their front porch, and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator." The problem, guv, is that too many Chicago neighborhoods are already war zones. People can't enjoy sitting on their porches for fear of violence. As former Republican aide Ashley Davis mentioned, just this past weekend in Chicago, there were six murders, 27 people injured by gunfire, and $130,000 in merchandise stolen when a group of brazen burglars stormed a Nordstrom store.  Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 8/26/25 6:04 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: It's not enough to have more than 2,000 National Guard troops in D.C. The president just signed an executive order creating specialized units of Guard troops charged with quelling civil disturbances. The order comes as he threatens to send troops into Chicago, and Democratic leaders across the country accuse him of making authoritarian moves.  DONALD TRUMP: And they say, we don't need them. Freedom, freedom. He's a dictator. He's a dictator. A lot of people are saying, maybe we'd like a dictator. I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and I'm a smart person.  And when I see what's happening to our cities, and then you send in troops, instead of being praised, they're saying, you're trying to take over the republic. These people are sick.  CORNISH: No word yet on which Americans actually want a dictator.  . . .  The people who perceive cities as fundamentally crime-ridden at all times in all decades think this is a good thing. So here's an example. The New York Post. "O Safe Can You D.C." No murders in the capital since the Trump takeover. Ashley, there's probably no murders in North Korea, too. But I don't want to be presumptuous. . . .  But here's the Governor of Illinois in response.  JB PRITZKER: Find a family who's enjoying today, sitting on their front porch and ask if they want their neighborhoods turned into a war zone by a wannabe dictator?  . . .  ZACHARY WOLF: Well, he said he'll do Chicago first. You know, we'll do New York. We'll do Los Angeles. These are places. These are the cities he would like to other for, you know, a lot of the voters that support him.  And then, I think it's interesting, you know, the "I'm not a dictator." It almost strikes me as the "I do not beat my wife" kind of an answer to a question. He clearly doesn't want to be seen as a dictator.  But I also think that, you know, there's the law-and-order crowd might not be that opposed to -- CORNISH: Those are the people he was referring to? I'm going to look for that in your reporting: people who said, I want a dictator.  WOLF: Yeah, we are, we're looking for them. Email me if you want a dictator. I'd love to talk to you. 

The Trump administration opened the largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the country to continue its efforts to resolve the illegal immigration crisis.Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) announced over the weekend that “Lone Star Lockup,” a detention center in Fort Bliss, Texas, is officially “open for business.”“It is the largest ICE detention center in U.S. history,” Abbott wrote in a post on social media. “Everything is bigger in Texas.”'Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.'Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) responded to Abbott’s post, writing, “When we asked folks earlier this month what this massive new detention center should be named, the Lone Star Lockup and Texas Hold’em were the top two names suggested! And now we know, the Lone Star Lockup is operational!”The Lone Star Lockup is a 1,000-bed facility, though federal officials plan to expand the center to 5,000 beds by 2027. The center includes medical treatment areas, legal access areas, and recreational space.RELATED: Exclusive: ICE sweep targets 'worst of the worst' pedophiles and violent criminals Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty ImagesIt is expected to hold foreign nationals who are currently in removal proceedings or have final removal orders. ICE hopes the new facility will “streamline and expedite removal processes, which is one of the Trump administration’s priorities.”Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) stated that the new facility will ease overcrowding at other locations and serve as a processing center. “Fort Bliss is an amazing military facility,” Gonzales said. “Everything thrown their way, they’ve handled. We should be supporting this, not attacking it.”RELATED: 'Deeply unserious': DHS hits back at Democrats denied entry at detention facility Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty ImagesDepartment of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Time, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we are working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people’s mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens.”“ICE is indeed pursuing all available options to expand bedspace capacity. This process does include partnering with states and local government and housing detainees at certain military bases, including Fort Bliss,” she added.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

New book chronicles roadside oddities, unique graves, haunts, cryptids, and out-of-this-world encounters through stunning photography and storytelling. Award-winning author, television host, and podcaster Jeff Belanger teams up with photographer Frank Grace to produce a riveting guide to northeastern oddities. NEWBURYPORT, MA, AUGUST 26, 2025 — Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC today announced the publication of Wicked Strange: Your Guide to Ghosts, Monsters, Oddities, and Urban Legends from New England, the latest book by best-selling author Jeff Belanger and award-winning photographer Frank Grace.  Wicked Strange is the ultimate northeast travel guide taking readers on a journey to the strange and frequently unseen world that is often right under their noses. “Wicked Strange is the culmination of more than a decade of collecting weird tales for my PBS television series New England Legends, and my weekly podcast of the same name,” said Belanger. “Frank Grace and I had been publishing the annual Haunted New England wall calendar since 2014, so this book was the next logical step in our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time.” Covering haunted places, swamps, forests, and lakes where mysterious creatures have been spotted, areas where unusual events have happened, eccentric locals, and roadside oddities, noted expert of the strange Jeff Belanger is your guide to all that’s local and weird. All six New England states are equally represented in this guide of the bizarre. Highlights include: Mark Twain’s haunted mansion in Hartford, Connecticut; The Westford Knight in Westford, Massachusetts; Beer Bottle Church in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire; the Vampire in Cumberland, Rhode Island; the Sweetest Cemetery in Waterbury, Vermont; and the Specter Moose of Lobster Lake in Piccataquis, Maine. “Legends have always run deep in New England—thankfully, Jeff Belanger is here to uncover them and bring them to life. Partnered with the stunning photography of Frank Grace, this collection of mysteries, secrets, and folklore from America’s birthplace is as illuminating as it is fascinating.” –Josh Gates, explorer, host of Discovery’s Expedition Unknown. Wicked Strange is now available as a full-color paperback and e-book. About Jeff Belanger Jeff Belanger (jeffbelanger.com) is an author, adventurer, journalist, and one of the most visible explorers of the unexplained. Some his best-selling books include The Fright Before Christmas, Weird Massachusetts, and The World’s Most Haunted Places. He is also the Emmy-nominated host, writer, and producer of the New England Legends series on PBS and the weekly New England Legends podcast that’s garnered more than 6 million downloads. He’s been a guest on hundreds of television and radio networks and programs, including History, Travel Channel, Biography Channel, PBS, CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, BBC, and Coast to Coast AM. Jeff lives near Boston, Massachusetts. About Frank Grace Frank Grace (trigphotography.com) turns renowned, infamous, and peculiar landmarks into stylized, yet creepy, works of art. He has been photographing weird and wonderful New England since 2010. He’s been a finalist for Ron Howard’s Project Imagination in 2010 and 2011, and his work has been shown in galleries in both New England and New York. His photography has appeared in many books, magazines including Playboy, and other publications. He loves all things ghostly and strange. Since 2014, he’s published the annual Haunted New England wall calendar with Jeff Belanger. About Red Wheel/Weiser Red Wheel/Weiser is an independent publisher specializing in “Books to Live By.” The company’s books serve to expand the mind, heal the body, and nurture the spirit. Imprints include: Weiser Books, the premier publisher of occult and esoterica since 1957, and New Page Books, offering well-researched books on Alternative History, Paranormal, UFOs, Ancient Mysteries, and Unexplained Phenomena.

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