www.newsbusters.org
Washington Examiner’s ‘Liberal Media Scream’ With the MRC’s Assessment
Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five).
This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2025.
> For 2023 and 2024, for 2021 and 2022, for 2020. For 2019. For 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for:
> July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.)
Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week.
(For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)
■ New on August 18, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN says Obama, Clinton, and Bush smarter than Trump
See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.
■ August 11: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ August 4, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Washington Post reporter quit over patriotism request
(Washington Examiner post)
The generous buyout offer from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been too hard for a number of top reporters and editors to turn down.
But for one columnist, leaving was coming no matter what. The reason: Bezos wanted “positive things happening in this country” to be covered “unapologetically patriotic.”
For left-wing writer Jonathan Capehart, also a contributor to PBS and MSNBC, that was too much to ask. “There was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine,” he said on the NewsHour.
For PBS, which lost taxpayer support in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act due to perceived anti-Trump bias, that was a tremendous decision by Capehart. Said NewsHour co-host Amna Nawaz, “Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table.”
From Friday’s PBS NewsHour:
AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, before we go, folks will have noticed that we introduced you slightly differently tonight than we usually do. We should point out, after nearly two decades at the Washington Post, you recently made the decision to leave. I just wanted to give you a chance to speak directly to our audience to tell them why.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the direction of the opinion section changed. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, as is his right, decided that he wanted the section to focus on the twin pillars of personal liberties and free markets. And it became clear, as time went along, and especially when he chose a new leader for the section, that there was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine, especially when we were told that we would have to be unapologetically patriotic in talking about the positive things happening in the country.
How can you talk about the positive things happening in the country when the rest of the house is engulfed in flames and the foundation is flooding? I wanted to go some place where my voice would be heard.
NAWAZ: Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Quite an admission that a leading PBS political analyst was so angry about the state of the country ‘engulfed in flames’ under President Trump that he’s opposed to expressing patriotism. But he fits right in on PBS and MSNBC and recognizes that’s ‘where my voice would be heard.’”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
■ July 28, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Connie Chung wants Fox News anchors in ‘ankle monitors’
(Washington Examiner post)
Connie Chung is back, and she’s still mouthing off about the conservative media she hates, making her our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
What’s more, she’s giving advice to CBS, the network that dumped her in 1995 after a controversial interview and recently caved in to President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a manipulated 60 Minutes interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Chung, who held several other media posts, went on CNN to rip the deal by Skydance Media to take over Paramount, the owner of CBS. She also hit media influencers and Fox News as providers of fake news.
Of conservative media outlets, she said, “I think they should be putting ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.”
From Friday’s CNN News Central:
Connie Chung: “I would say that they have to fight the good fight, that they have to protect the legacy of CBS. They cannot allow biased owners, because honestly, I don’t think CBS is necessarily the culprit. What needs to be policed is social media, which have no fact checkers, podcasters, and the like. No one is checking those facts. And the problem is, that is inaccurate information that’s being disseminated
“I think they should be put in ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.”
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “An unpleasant blast from the past. TV network stars like her of the 1980s and ‘90s, who so sanctimoniously saw themselves as paragons of virtue and facts, are what created the marketplace for Fox News and all the other new media outlets which so disturb her by not following the same liberal line as CBS. Yet, decades later, she still doesn’t recognize that.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ July 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CBS reporter blames PTSD on MAGA crowd at Trump shooting
(Washington Examiner post)
A CBS political reporter said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following his coverage of the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
But Scott MacFarlane didn’t blame shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, the noise of Crooks’s rifle going off eight times, or the near-death of Trump. He blamed the crowd of MAGA supporters, whom he envisioned “were going to come kill us.” He said he felt the crowd would blame the media for the shooting and that “we’d be dead” if Trump didn’t survive.
For that, he easily won as our Liberal Media Scream of the week. But he was challenged during an interview on The Chuck ToddCast when Todd offered up his own bizarre reaction to the assassination attempt that killed Trump supporter Corey Comperatore.
Todd said, “I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was — literally the first thing I was going to do after landing [in Milwaukee to cover the GOP convention] on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, ‘I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.'”
Todd went on to say he has long feared Trump supporters.
From The Chuck ToddCast:
SCOTT MACFARLANE: For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America. And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck. This was … I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but because, you could … you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us. If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.
CHUCK TODD: I know … Look, I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was, literally, the first thing I was going to do after landing on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, “I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.”
And I think we … none of us knew what the reaction of that Milwaukee crowd was going to be to this. Right? It turned into euphoria, right? It turned into this messiah, sort of messiah feeling. I think that, you know, that this was divine intervention.
But I share that, that Saturday, and what you just described, being on the ground, was the first thing I thought of was my team down there. I think it was Vaughn Hillyard, if I’m not mistaken.
MACFARLANE: Dasha was there as well.
TODD: And Dasha Burns, right? And, look, let’s be honest. We’ve been fearing this for about a decade. That all of this heightened rhetoric, that what all this crap online, what happened on Jan. 6, those of us that experienced that as well, you’re like, we’re a tinderbox, right? You know what? There’s a fear that this moment is coming. And it’s interesting that you … the fact that we dodged that. You know, you’re right. I mean, it’s, it is … I don’t know what would have happened had the outcome been different.
MACFARLANE: We are all … many of us on press row, as we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after, were quite confident we’d be dead if he didn’t get back up. There was a subset, not everybody, there’s dozens of people in the crowd who started coming for us, saying, “You did this. This is your fault. You caused this. You killed him.”
And they’re going to beat us with their hands. I mean, they were going to kill us. And respectfully, the Secret Service had bigger issues than protecting us. When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us, but that’s the thing. I can’t eliminate from my mind’s eye the look on their faces. They … that’s what America is right now. It’s not rational. It’s an irrational thought to think the media shot somebody from atop a building, but the lack of rationality is what connects Jan. 6 to this. It’s … how do we pull out of this as a country is the defining question of our time.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Yes, the near-assassination of President Donald Trump wasn’t the real ‘horror’ of the day. The real ‘horror’ was in how, in the few seconds before Trump triumphantly raised his fists, MacFarlane somehow sensed the crowd would ‘kill’ him and other reporters? Really? If Trump supporters were on the cusp of deadly violence, why are we just hearing about it a year later? And McFarlane really got diagnosed with PTSD? We all know too many journalists are snowflakes, but you’d think MacFarlane would have the self-respect to keep such an embarrassing admission, of his fear of fellow Americans, to himself.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ July 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric labels Trump’s MAGA ‘a s*** show’
(Washington Examiner post)
The disdain the legacy media have for President Donald Trump has reached new levels since Congress approved his “big, beautiful bill.”
Many liberal outlets have resorted to following Democratic talking points and inflated the negative effects, and others have made ridiculous claims that it will kill millions.
And then there is media darling Katie Couric, who just brushed aside the whole Trump administration in one profane and sour characterization, winning this week’s feature as our Liberal Media Scream.
In calling for more media attention to the administration, the one-time Today show host fretted over “this moment in our history” and then hit “The s*** show that is the Trump administration.”
In a joint video podcast with left-wing freelance journalist Liz Plank, Couric said “social media creators … depend on a lot of mainstream outlets” for basic information, so that “underscores the importance of more traditional media … especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.”
Couric, during a podcast cross-posted on Liz Plank’s Airplane Mode Substack podcast and the Next Question with Katie Couric podcast on Substack and YouTube:
“I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media, and I think we need it all, to be honest, especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.”
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Couric demonstrates how ingrained the disdain is for Trump administration policies amongst the legacy media elite. It’s like muscle memory to them. And her blurting out her disgust, for a president who earned the most votes, in such a casual manner in a conversation with a like-minded liberal, shows how she sees it as a commonly-accepted view amongst her peers.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ July 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos blames downpour deaths on Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
The weekend saw some of the most embarrassing efforts by the liberal media to take President Donald Trump down, this time blaming him for the horrific flash flood deaths in Texas.
The early morning flooding that has so far claimed the lives of more than 80, including children at a Christian girls camp, hit with little warning after a downpour dumped some 11 inches of rain that ended up in the Guadalupe River on Friday.
Trump called it a 100-year event on Sunday and is planning to meet with families this Friday.
Even as the search for survivors continued, the media tried to blame Trump and staff cuts at various federal weather agencies. Leading that effort was ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who said on This Week, “There were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service offices in the region.”
Most weather and state local officials have been quick to note that the area often floods and that notices were sent out after midnight. Blame isn’t what most wanted to cast, but the Washington media did anyway — something they didn’t do when Hurricane Helene crashed through the southwest last year, killing 230.
Even the reporter on the scene in Texas, Mireya Villarreal, didn’t take the Trump-hating bait from Stephanopoulos, a one-time top aide to former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary.
From ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re also learning there were significant staffing shortfalls to the National Weather Service offices in the region.
MIREYA VILLARREAL, IN KERRVILLE, TEXAS: As of right now, the local county officials didn’t want to address that just yet. What they are telling us is they expected between 4 and 6 inches of rain. That is what weather experts told them. The National Weather Service as well. They also knew, in remote locations, they might get anywhere from 8 to 10 inches, but this amount of rain in such a short amount of time, it was very difficult to navigate. And when the Department of Homeland Security secretary was here just yesterday, she acknowledged this was an issue. She was going to take these concerns to the White House as well and try and see if there was anything they could do to revamp the system. She says the president is committed to it.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Liberal Democratic activists develop an attack line against the Trump administration, and Stephanopoulos dutifully jumps to repeat it. In this case, in the most distasteful way, trying to score political points at the very moment dozens of parents were desperately searching for their missing children. But with Stephanopoulos, it’s politics ahead of facts as his contention has been undermined by, amongst others, the union representing the NWS meteorologists.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ June 30, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS embraces socialist Mamdani, calls GOP criticism ‘hateful’
(Washington Examiner post)
PBS is doubling down on its leftist bias that has drawn President Donald Trump’s support for defunding the taxpayer-supported service, this time embracing New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani while ripping GOP criticism of the self-declared socialist as “disgusting” and “hateful.”
While some liberal politicians are disowning Mamdani for his extreme positions, the support by Public Broadcasting Service’s News Hour is this week’s featured Liberal Media Scream because it flies in the face of a promise to provide “intelligent, balanced” reporting.
On Friday, News Hour didn’t feature the candidate’s left-wing promises to defund police and provide freebies to residents, but instead condemned the conservative reaction to him.
Said featured liberal commentator Jonathan Capehart, “I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting.”
From Friday’s PBS News Hour:
NEWS HOUR HOST AMNA NAWAZ: I got to ask you both, too, about Tuesday night’s events in New York City, the Democratic mayoral primary contest the entire country was paying attention to when Zohran Mamdani, who was a little-known state assemblyman, went on to beat the former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani’s 33 years old, he’s a self-described Democratic socialist, and his win, we should point out, has really fueled a hateful response from some on the Right. There’s a major MAGA voice named Charlie Kirk, who posted this: ‘24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.’”
Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles actually called for Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, to be denaturalized and deported. Jonathan, what does Mamdani’s win tell us about Democrats and their message, if anything, and what does the response tell us about Republicans and theirs?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the response, I’ll start with the Republican response. It’s shameful, it’s hateful, it’s disgusting. It also tells me that Republicans are deathly afraid of their prospects in the 2026 midterm elections. Especially if they’re going after a guy who just simply won the primary in a municipal election. The other thing folks need to understand, the reputation of New York City is of a liberal bastion, and it’s a city where there’s a six-to-one Democratic registration advantage over Republicans. And yet this city, that has a reputation of being a liberal bastion, elected Rudy Giuliani twice and Mike Bloomberg three times, the first time as a Republican, the next two times as an independent. And so, what I take from Mamdani’s win, above all else, is that he went out there and asked New Yorkers for their votes. He did not do a Rose Garden strategy. He asked people for their votes, and he gave them something to vote for, and that’s the thing Democrats should emulate. Ask people for their votes.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “In pleading for donations in the wake of the effort to end taxpayer funding of PBS, the News Hour website ludicrously claims ‘your gift supports America’s #1 most trusted news source in providing intelligent, balanced and in-depth reporting.’ This coverage of Mamdani is just the latest proof of the hollowness of that promise, a pledge PBS has never made any genuine effort to provide. Where’s the balance in ignoring the elephant in the room of Mamdani’s extremist views while treating conservative reaction to him as the most important event that must be condemned?”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ June 23, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Feckless Margaret Brennan thinks she’s secretary of state
(Washington Examiner post)
If the Sunday performance of CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan were in a Looney Tunes cartoon, Bugs Bunny would have mocked, “da nerve!”
Instead, and much better, Secretary of State Marco Rubio brushed aside her grade school “yes it is, no it’s not” debate over military intelligence and belief that she knows more about it than President Donald Trump’s top national security adviser.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rubio said in an appearance to discuss Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities over the weekend.
After Brennan continued to say she knows more about whether Iran planned to make nuclear weapons or not, Rubio gave his best “da nerve” look and told her, “That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program.”
From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me follow up on a phrase you just used — weaponization ambitions. Are you saying that the United States did not see intelligence that the supreme leader had ordered weaponization?
SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: That’s irrelevant. I see that question being asked in the media all the time. That’s an irrelevant question. They have everything they need to build a weapon.
BRENNAN: No, but that is the key point in U.S. intelligence assessments. You know that.
RUBIO: No, it’s not.
BRENNAN: Yes, it was.
RUBIO: No, it’s not.
BRENNAN: That the political decision had not been made.
RUBIO: No, I know — well, I know that better than you know that. And I know that that’s not the case.
BRENNAN: But I’m asking you whether the order was given.
RUBIO: You don’t know what you’re talking about. And the people who say that — it doesn’t matter if the order was given. They have everything they need to build nuclear weapons. Why would you bury — why would you bury things in a mountain 300 feet under the ground?
BRENNAN: Right.
RUBIO: Why would you bury six … why do they have 60% enriched uranium? You don’t need 60% enriched uranium. The only countries in the world that have uranium at 60% are countries that have nuclear weapons, because they can quickly make it 90. They have all the elements. They have … why are they … why do they have a space program? Is Iran going to go to the moon? No. They’re trying to build an ICBM, so they can one day put a warhead on it.
BRENNAN: No, but that’s a question … that’s a question … that’s a question of intent. And you know, in the intelligence assessment, that it was that Iran wanted to be a threshold state and use this leverage.
RUBIO: How do you know what the intelligence assessment says? How do you know what the intelligence assessment says?
BRENNAN: I’m talking about the public March assessment. And that’s why I was asking you if you know something more from March, if an order was given.
RUBIO: Well, that — but that’s also an inaccurate representation of it. That’s an inaccurate representation of it. That’s not how intelligence is read. That’s not how intelligence is used. Here’s what the whole world knows. Forget about intelligence, what the IAEA knows. They are enriching uranium well beyond anything you need for a civil nuclear program.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Refreshing to see a guest take on the liberal premises forwarded as facts by legacy media hosts. This wasn’t the first time this year that Brennan has been schooled by a Trump administration official. Maybe she should consider being more of a dispassionate interviewer and less of an advocate for the left-wing spin of the day.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
■ June 16, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS sees Trump ‘suspending elections’
(Washington Examiner post)
It’s hard to imagine that PBS could get any more anti-Trump, but after House Republicans voted to endorse President Donald Trump’s bid to defund public broadcasting, all of its “Trump derangement syndrome” sirens have gone off.
For our weekly Liberal Media Scream, we feature its most extreme claim from lefty News Hour commentator Jonathan Capehart that the president is on a power grab that will have him “suspending elections.”
On Friday’s PBS News Hour, Capehart suggested that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to California to protect federal buildings against anti-ICE demonstrators, as well as “rumors” of a pardon for the police officer convicted of the murder of George Floyd, is part of a plan to “create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.”
Tying the Army birthday parade Saturday with the deployment of troops to Los Angeles, Capehart said, “We are at a turning point, I think, this weekend with what we have seen in the run-up to tomorrow’s parade, with what’s happening in Los Angeles. More people’s hair should be on fire, not just because of the National Guard troops in Los Angeles without the — working with or permission from the governor, which is by law what should have been done, but the calling up of Marines, U.S. military, on American streets.”
“That is a line that, to me, anyway, is one that should never have been crossed. And the president putting out this order and putting out this order that isn’t specific to Los Angeles, isn’t specific to any city. It’s so broad. The language is so broad that it’s sort of like you could just tuck it into like a giant L.L. Bean tote bag, and you just pull out: Where do I need to send troops?”
Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour:
I think they’re creating the political conflict because, you know, I interviewed Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison in the run-up to the anniversary, the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
And he brought up on his own the rumor that the president was going to pardon Derek Chauvin. And the attorney general said that the president might do that as a distraction to larger goals. And one of the larger goals that the attorney general mentioned that has always been in the back of my mind is to create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act.
And once the president invokes the Insurrection Act, all sorts of powers are handed to the president, you know, suspending elections, and other things once you open that box, and particularly you open that box with this president and the administration and the yes-people he has around him, there’s no going back. That is among the reasons why I am so concerned about what we’re about to see tomorrow.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Tinfoil hat time. And PBS supporters act befuddled as to why conservatives see PBS as the home of left-wing crazy talk, leading the House last week to approve President Trump’s rescission package to end taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR. Capehart’s wild speculation passes for informed analysis on PBS’s top ‘news’ program.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ June 9, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Pompous Pelley warns America ‘is doomed’
(Washington Examiner post)
Just when we thought CBS’s Scott Pelley couldn’t get any more pompous, he proved us wrong — again.
This time it was in decrying America under President Donald Trump, declaring that only journalism can save the nation, and warning that “If you fall silent, the country is doomed.”
Seeing parallels between Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the 1950s and Trump today, while speaking after CNN showed George Clooney’s play about legendary newsman Edward R. Morrow, Pelley said, “You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done.”
Pelley has used his 60 Minutes perch to air his liberal bias and editorialize against Trump. Murrow played an outsize role in ending McCarthy’s career.
From CNN’s special coverage Saturday night, Good Night, and Good Luck Live: Truth and Power, after the live airing from Broadway of the stage play, Good Night, and Good Luck:
ANDERSON COOPER: Do you still believe in journalism? Do you still believe in the role of journalists?
SCOTT PELLEY: It is the only thing that’s going to save the country. You cannot have democracy without journalism. It can’t be done. The people at home need reliable, consistent information in order to make decisions about their lives and their futures, and the country’s future. So, there is no system of democracy without journalism. We have to figure out how to keep journalism free, independent, accurate, and responsible for what it’s doing.
But journalism is the only profession that is protected by the Constitution of the United States. And there’s a reason for that. James Madison believed that freedom of speech was the right that guaranteed all the other rights in the Bill of Rights. And so it is today.
COOPER: What is your message to people about, who have just watched this, and are worried?
PELLEY: It’s going to take courage, as it often has, to get through this period of American history. Our forebears were called by their times to have courage to move the country forward. And so it is with us today. The most important thing is to have the courage to speak, to not let fear permeate the country so that everyone suddenly becomes silent. If you have the courage to speak, we are saved. If you fall silent, the country is doomed.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Could Pelley be any more pompous? If he, CBS News, and the rest of the legacy media had ever lived up to his promise of providing ‘independent, accurate and responsible’ news, they wouldn’t be held in such disdain by so much of the public who see them as left-wing political players. And that’s a reality he confirmed by advocating everyone get in line and join him in having the ‘courage’ to oppose the policies of the man who earned the most votes in the last election.”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
■ June 2, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos tries to top Pelley with his Trump hate
(Washington Examiner post)
Have you noticed how the liberal Sunday news show hosts have been tripping over themselves to find some, any angle to attack President Donald Trump and his team?
The latest to join the parade is George Stephanopoulos, the ABC big shot and former Bill Clinton spinner-in-chief, who on Sunday tried to one-up the recent string of anti-Trump editorials from Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes.
On ABC’s This Week, Stephanopoulos opened with this: “Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors.”
The attack was par for the course for the Clinton family defender, who was unfazed that the Clinton Foundation profited from foreign governments when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state or that the Biden family enterprise cashed in on Joe Biden’s vice presidency and presidency.
And it followed a pattern of attacking Trump at any cost, a dangerous practice that recently prompted ABC and Stephanopoulos to issue an apology and pay a Trump-related foundation $15 million to scuttle a defamation lawsuit.
For his hypocrisy, Stephanopoulos’s rant is our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
Stephanopoulos on Sunday’s This Week on ABC, with the quoted text displayed on screen:
“Good morning and welcome to This Week. The scale is staggering. President Trump and his family are making hundreds of millions, potentially billions of dollars, as Trump and his administration take official actions that benefit contributors and investors. Just this week, we learned of pardons to tax cheats, including a man whose pardon was granted weeks after his mother attended a million-dollar-a-head fundraiser with the president. The Trump Media and Technology Group raised nearly $2.5 billion from 50 institutional investors whose identities have not been disclosed. The SEC dropped its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency firm Binance days after Binance began listing the cryptocurrency launched by World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm started by Trump’s family.
“This unprecedented money-making by a sitting president and his family summarized by critics like the Atlantic’s David Frum. ‘Nothing like this has been attempted or even imagined in the history of the American presidency,’ he writes. ‘Throw away the history books, discard feeble comparisons to scandals of the past. There is no analogy with any previous action by any past president. The brazenness of the self-enrichment resembles nothing seen in any earlier White House. This is American corruption on the scale of a post-Soviet republic or a post-colonial African dictatorship.’”
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: You’d think someone like Stephanopoulos, who forced Disney/ABC to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential museum for a false statement impugning President Trump, would be more reluctant to display such rank hypocrisy in becoming so overwrought about charges of corruption against Trump. Especially when he showed no similar concern over how the Biden family profited off of lucrative secretive deals fueled by President Biden’s high offices.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ May 27, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Trump ‘dictator’ to bow before
(Washington Examiner post)
As if MSNBC can’t get any more ridiculous, a regular guest proved it could when previewing President Donald Trump‘s solemn Memorial Day events by calling him a dictator whom all must bow before.
In comments condemning more than half of the voters who support Trump, Dean Obeidallah, host of The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM, told the MSNBC audience, “This really is a push and pull between two competing visions of America. One that we believe in is freedom, the United States of America with due process, and their vision, which is an autocracy, and that really — what we’re dealing with, or easier than that, a dictatorship. They want Trump as the dictator of the United States, and we all have to bow down to him.”
Obeidallah’s rant won this week’s Mainstream Media Scream, but it was a close call, with hard-left CBS 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley and his liberal colleague, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan, in full Trump derangement syndrome.
Pelley made headlines for his over-the-top Trump hate commencement at Wake Forest, and Brennan for her uneducated attack on the House Republican “big, beautiful bill.”
Dean Obeidallah, during the noon hour on Saturday of Velshi on MSNBC:
I think the fact that it’s Memorial Day weekend gives us a moment to pause. People made the ultimate sacrifice. They did it for something that you mentioned in your — in your monologue there. And that word is “freedom.”
And I’m writing an article right now. I was looking back at the very first speech in the modern day Memorial Day, which was Rep. James Garfield before he was president, 1868 Arlington, to Joe Biden’s. I looked at all different presidential speeches and the one word that came up in all those speeches: “freedom.”
And that’s what people — that’s what makes us Americans. And Donald Trump is going after everything, freedom of speech, in ways we’ve never seen. I mean, a judge just ruled on Friday protecting the law firms, saying you’re going after dissent, going after universities. I had professor Steven Levitsky on my show, co-author of How Democracies Die, saying every autocrat goes after universities because they are independent centers of dissent. People think he’s going after media outlets. He’s going after Democrats. They’re arresting judges. The mayor of Newark, they dropped the charges. They had no case. Then a Democratic member of Congress, they opened up investigations into ActBlue because it’s a platform to help Democrats raise money. Now, an investigation into Media Matters, Angelo Carusone’s, the FTC is beginning an investigation. This is a reenvisioning of what America is about.
And I think you summed it up so well. This really is a push and pull between two competing visions of America. One that we believe in is freedom. The United States of America with due process, and their vision, which is an autocracy, and that really — what we’re dealing with, or easier than that, a dictatorship. They want Trump as the dictator of the United States, and we all have to bow down to him.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “There’s no holiday weekend break on MSNBC from the anti-Trump hostility, not even for a solemn occasion which Obeidallah used as a hook to launch his rant against Trump as anti-freedom of speech. Quite ironic given the support by so many on MSNBC for canceling and silencing conservative voices who dared question woke edicts.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ May 19, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric calls news objectivity ‘old fashioned’
(Washington Examiner post)
She was once the queen of TV news, and as the co-host of NBC’s Today show and anchor of CBS Evening News, Katie Couric struggled with basic news objectivity.
And now we know why: She doesn’t believe there is such a thing. “I think there’s no such thing as true objectivity,” she said on her “Next Question” podcast last week.
What’s more, the 68-year-old newswoman apparently thinks it’s just something old people “75 and up” mutter about while watching evening news.
That, and her slam on conservatives for calling out bias in liberal media “fact-checking,” make Couric our Liberal Media Scream of the Week.
Couric, to her guests, the three brothers who created the liberal MeidasTouch podcast, on Thursday’s edition of her “Next Question with Katie Couric” podcast posted to YouTube:
“I’m curious, because I’ve struggled with this as someone who you grew up watching, I’m sure, and started in very traditional mainstream media. Now, pointing out the facts and what is really happening is automatically interpreted as being biased, right?“
“And, and of course, I think there’s no such thing as true objectivity, but having said that, you know, I really struggle with that. And many people say, ‘Listen, the rules have changed.’ It’s OK to say you support trans people. It’s OK that you say I am 100% for reproductive rights, you know, all these things that honestly, personally, I hold dear, but professionally, I’ve never really, I’ve been trained to not share that.“
“So I’m curious if you think sort of old-fashioned, semi-objective — knowing that pure objectivity is impossible — that kind of journalism still has a place in the culture, or is it simply, you know, the 75 and up people who are watching the network evening newscasts?”
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Couric demonstrated why legacy media figures have refused to address their obvious and overwhelming hostility to conservatives for decades and President Trump in recent years: They are condescending elitists who presume their liberal view of the world reflect ‘the facts’ and so, anyone who questions that presentation of ‘the facts,’ are knowingly making a baseless charge of bias and thus can be dismissed as ignorant cranks.”
Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.
■ May 12, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC prays Pope Leo XIV will ‘counter’ Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
Reporters have rarely been fans of faith in politics, and often decry the Republican Party’s cozy relationship with religious Americans, such as evangelical Christians.
But give them a pope willing to criticize President Donald Trump, well, that’s a different story. Now that Pope Leo XIV has replaced Trump critic Pope Francis, there is an eagerness to find out if the Chicago native will also challenge Trump on key matters, including immigration.
ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz, our pick for the Liberal Media Scream of the week, led that prayer group last week.
Raddatz used her hosting duties in Rome for This Week as a platform to ask her guests how Leo will challenge the president.
“Will he be a counterbalance for what’s happening in American politics right now in President Trump?” she asked the archbishop of Chicago.
Later, she told Father James Martin, an ABC News papal contributor, that “Pope Francis indirectly rebuked President Trump’s policies, especially on immigration” and Leo, “before he was pope, he retweeted some things about immigration and saying, you know, retweeting that he supported the Dreamers, things like that. Do you think that will be an incredibly strong message for him?”
Raddatz also asked ABC News reporter Terry Moran, “Do you think he will serve, in some ways, as a counter to President Trump [on immigration policies]?”
Moran took the bait, saying Leo “will be a voice for the teachings of Jesus, which in many ways, many Catholics believe are not consistent with some of the president’s policies.”
From ABC’s This Week on Sunday:
MARTHA RADDATZ, TO CARDINAL BLASE CUPICH, ARCHBISHOP OF CHICAGO: Pope Francis cared so much about the poor and migrants. Pope Leo does as well. In some ways, will he be a counterbalance for what’s happening in American politics right now in President Trump?
…..
RADDATZ, TO FATHER JAMES MARTIN: Pope Francis indirectly rebuked President Trump’s policies, especially on immigration. And Pope Leo, before he was pope, he retweeted some things about immigration and saying, you know, retweeting that he supported the Dreamers, things like that. Do you think that will be an incredibly strong message for him? I mean, he has been, he does have the “odor of sheep,” as you say?
…..RADDATZ: And Terry [Moran] and Liz [Nagy], do you think he will serve, in some ways, as a counter to President Trump on those policies?
TERRY MORAN: Reluctantly, right? They are the two most famous Americans in the world right now. And arguably, Pope Leo might be even more famous than President Trump, and whether the pope wants it or not, because I think he wants to preach the Gospel and do the good work of the church. They have different approaches naturally in some ways, and I think that is going to come out.
He will be a voice for the teachings of Jesus, which, in many ways, many Catholics believe are not consistent with some of the president’s policies. That will happen. I don’t think he’s going to go look for a fight, but it will happen.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Raddatz couldn’t resist injecting her American politics into papal coverage, trying to transform the new pope into a force for resistance to President Trump. She was so obsessed with her agenda that she prodded three guests, at different points in the show, to endorse her premise, finally getting some guarded agreement from the third, a fellow ABC News journalist.”
Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.
■ May 5, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Pompous’ media on public TV’s dole rip Trump cuts
(Washington Examiner post)
There is nothing more self-serving than media figures on public TV’s payroll ripping President Donald Trump’s call to end taxpayer funding of National Public Radio and television’s Public Broadcasting System.
But that is exactly what happened over the weekend, making it our Liberal Media Scream of the week.
First there was NPR President Katherine Maher telling Face the Nation that it’s Trump’s fault if coverage comes off too liberal. “NPR people report straight down the line,” she said. “We’ve been making requests of the Trump administration to have their officials on air. We would like to see more people accept those invitations. It’s hard for us to be able to say we can speak for everyone when folks won’t join us.”
Documentary filmmaker and PBS producer Ken Burns got his punches in while appearing Friday on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360. “I think PBS is part of the pursuit of happiness machine,” he said, adding, “This is who we are. It puts the ‘us’ in the U.S.”
And leave it to PBS News Hour regular Jonathan Capehart to prove true Trump’s complaints about bias on the network when he said, “There is only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and it is the free press. It is the press.”
Jonathan Capehart on Friday’s PBS News Hour:
I think what the president is doing, it is a fundamental attack on our Constitution, on the foundation of this country. People need to understand and remember, there is only one profession that is protected in the Constitution, and it is the free press. It is the press.
And why? Because the founders understood that the survival of a democracy depends on an informed citizenry. And the citizenry can only be informed by a press that can report and do — report on affairs of the republic free and unfettered.
And whether they are, come from the left or from the right, the government should not interfere with that reporting. And so, when you have a president of the United States who is making it his mission to attack the free press, we should all be concerned, whether we are at PBS or whether we are at MSNBC, because he’s focused on us too.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Could Capehart be any more pompous? He and others, who claim PBS and NPR are neutral news providers serving a grandiose noble purpose the nation cannot survive without, are dissembling. Anyone who watches or listens to PBS and/or NPR knows their far-left skew and that Capehart etc. are just upset Trump has dared to try to take away their taxpayer subsidies.”
Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
■ April 28: No Liberal Media Scream this week
■ April 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Chris Matthews returns more unhinged than ever
(Washington Examiner post)
As if we need more Trump-hating media, an old favorite of the Liberal Media Scream team has returned to the Trump derangement syndrome stage to add his voice to those challenging President Donald Trump.
After about five years on the sidelines, former Hardball host Chris Matthews is reviving his show on Substack.
He proved that he’s lost a step or two in his debut Monday and during a promotion on Jim Acosta’s Substack last Friday.
Weeks after others tried to portray Trump as America’s homegrown Adolf Hitler, Matthews rolled out the tired analogy again, this time suggesting that the president will round up his critics and ship them to death camps.
“I got a nasty one for you,” he told Acosta. “What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed them.”
Then, on his channel on Monday, Matthews opened with another Hitler reference. He said, “I want to ask you about something I said last week: that the fact that Trump is willing to say American citizens should be allowed to be sent overseas for punishment does something that rhymes very much with what happened in the Holocaust. That Germany was able to take people in France, Jewish people, and deport them to the east, and even the word deport was similar. So why would Trump personally say I’m going to take regular American citizens and deport them? It sounds like he wants to be seen as an autocrat.”
From Jim Acosta’s video show Friday for Substack:
JIM ACOSTA: One thing that every taxi driver will talk about these days is Donald Trump. And I have to ask you some newsy questions before we spend the entire time together reminiscing.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I got a nasty one for you.
ACOSTA: Okay, well, good, I’m just wondering, I mean—”
MATTHEWS: What did Hitler do? What did Hitler do in the Holocaust? He took people from Germany to other countries.
ACOSTA: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: Where there was no German law. There was not even a pretense of German law. They took them to Poland or Hungary or wherever, and they killed them.
ACOSTA: And so when you see what’s happening right now with this Salvadoran gulag, I mean, this CECOT gulag, he’s basically taking a page out of that playbook, you think?
MATTHEWS: Well, it gets them out of the country.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Just when you thought it was safe to go to Substack, they give shows to Jim Acosta and Chris Matthews. As if there weren’t enough Trump-hating journalists with a platform. In this case, Matthews has taken TDS to a whole new level. There are rational arguments one could cite for disagreeing with sending illegal alien criminals to a foreign prison, but to equate that policy with a mass-murdering dictator who implemented genocide against a whole religion is inane.”
Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
■ April 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Media eat their own and rip Bill Maher for dining with Trump
(Washington Examiner post)
It’s hard to believe that our weekly Liberal Media Scream has been documenting the Washington press corps’ Trump Derangement Syndrome for about nine years and that we can find some new hypocrisy every single Monday to highlight.
But thanks to the eagle eye of our partner Brent Baker, the vice president of the Media Research Center, we have one of the first examples of the liberal media trying to keep wandering members of the tribe in line.
It happened Friday night after HBO talk show host and political comic Bill Maher described his recent dinner in the White House with President Donald Trump. Maher said it was a successful effort to break bread instead of just hurling insults at each other.
But some in the media weren’t happy that the two met.
Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin, on Maher’s show, accused his host of falling into Trump’s “trap.” He scolded, “For him, this was a PR stunt, and in his view, you were a prop in that PR stunt.”
From Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
JOSH ROGIN, WASHINGTON POST: Counterpoint? You know, Bill, I think you’re right in saying that people make too much of this. OK, it’s not the Yalta Summit, you’re not Churchill, Kid Rock is not Stalin, Trump, sure as s***, isn’t FDR, OK? So yes, I believe too much has been made about this, but I think you’ve fallen into the trap. I think I represent 99% of the internet when I say this, is that you have played the game of proximity is principle, and what people are worried about — it’s not your motivation, we believe you, we love you, everybody loves Bill, right?
So, I’m not questioning your motivation, I’m questioning Trump’s, OK? And if we can say that you went there in good faith, but maybe, just maybe he wasn’t there in good faith. I mean, you sold him on the Iran deal, and he took it in — I mean, give me a break, OK? So, the idea here is that your motivation is sound, but what’s the impact? And I think a lot of people out there, fans of yours, people who love you, people who are fans of you, like me, been fans of yours my whole life.
BILL MAHER: You don’t have to patronize me, dude —
ROGIN: OK. Fair enough.
MAHER: I don’t know you, I never met you, not everybody has to like it.
ROGIN: I’m just saying that this comes from a place of love. All I’m saying —
MAHER: That’s what we said, there are people who didn’t want it to happen at all, you sound like one of them. It’s OK.
ROGIN: No, no.
MAHER: Did you hear what I said?
ROGIN: Yeah.
MAHER: What is the alternative to not talking? Just sitting at your lunch table and don’t talk to anybody?
ROGIN: I’ve talked to him, I’ve interviewed Trump. Piers has interviewed Trump.
MAHER: This was not an interview. This was not an interview.
ROGIN: I agree with the principle of engagement. I’m just saying from his perspective, you have to understand, that people who out there know, all Americans know, that for him, this was a PR stunt, and in his view, you were a prop in that PR stunt.
MAHER: The fact that you began your little rant with the internet — that tells me everything. You take your cues from the internet. Good luck! The internet is a cesspool that just wants to fight.
ROGIN: I support what you’re trying to do. I’m just saying the expectation that Donald Trump is going to be changed by something —
MAHER: I said in the piece I did not think that was going to happen. I love the people on either side who ignore the parts they don’t like. I just did it. It wasn’t like it was three weeks ago. Watch it again, maybe you’ll find something new in it.
ROGIN: It’s not a judgment, but it’s a little bit of a judgment.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Josh Rogin displayed the reflexive attitude common in the Washington press corps that anyone who does anything which might ‘normalize’ President Donald Trump must be discredited. Bill Maher did a great job, however, of discrediting Rogin’s weak arguments.”
Rating: FOUR out of five screams.
■ April 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN cheers X-rated comic dumped by press corps
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream puts the spotlight on CNN and its hosting of a left-wing comic so biased and X-rated that she was dumped from performing at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
CNN’s new show, Have I Got News For You, put the spotlight on one of its “captains,” Amber Ruffin, who reiterated the hatred of President Donald Trump that got her kicked out of the dinner.
After her firing came up on the show, Ruffin added to her reasons why she hates the president and his team, claiming that they are “disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador.”
She said, “I lost the gig because I was out here talking s***.”
From Saturday’s airing of Have I Got News For You on CNN:
HOST ROY WOOD JR: Amber offended the White House, as well as members of the White House Correspondents Association. Amber, following the tradition of Craig from Friday, was fired on her day off as she was uninvited from the White House Correspondents dinner when she said that she intended to make fun of the current administration. Amber, do you think you lost the gig because you said too early what you were going to do about going in on Republicans?
AMBER RUFFIN: I mean, oh, my god, I could f***ing talk for the next three hours. But what I choose to say is it’s like I lost the gig because I was out here talking s***, and I think it’s a good thing that I lost the gig because I was going to show up there and act all the way out. Also, like, also, it’s not anyone’s fault because when I was hired, we were like, oh yeah, and we’ll give it to everybody. And I was like, beh. Then they started f***ing disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador. They rolled back f***ing civil rights. So I was like, if I make this equal, then I’m also a piece of s***. I can’t f***ing do that.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Ruffin demonstrated why she is totally inappropriate to provide comedic commentary about the political scene. She’s filled with vitriol and hate toward the man who the nation chose as its president. But she found her audience on CNN where she was cheered and applauded for her crude invective. A sad commentary on the state of CNN.”
Rating: FIVE out of five screams
■ March 31, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Trump has made Bob Woodward deranged
(Washington Examiner post)
President Donald Trump has done it. In just two short months, he has not only turned the liberal Washington Post into a TDS cesspool but made its most celebrated reporter nearly certifiable.
How else can we explain Bob Woodward’s latest unhinged rant against Trump in which he claims that the billionaire businessman has a goal of ruining the economy?
“Well, his end goal is it looks like he wants to destroy the economy,” said the 82-year-old reporter and author on a Washington Post podcast.
For that, he wins this week’s Liberal Media Scream with five out of five screams.
From the Post Reports podcast interview, recorded at Woodward’s home by Washington Post “national politics/democracy reporter” Colby Itkowitz, which was posted Friday night on YouTube:
BOB WOODWARD: All these executive orders. I mean, he is, stood his ground and said this is what I’m going to do. I am shrinking. He and Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, his sidekick, are cutting the government, and look at what we are seeing. I mean, in some cases it’s done, as people have said with the chain saw, and we know from our personal lives or businesses that when you have to cut, that’s a really tricky undertaking, and you need to very carefully spell out what you’re gonna do and do it very slowly and be very certain that the impact is that they’re not secondary events that you trigger with — and look at what’s going on now. I think it’s one of the most dangerous times this country has ever faced.
COLBY ITKOWITZ: What do you think Trump’s end goal is in all of this in the sledge-hammering the government tariff, putting tariffs on our allies like Canada, like what is the, what is his big end goal as president?
WOODWARD: Well, his end goal is it looks like he wants to destroy the economy and that is a very dangerous undertaking. I mean, he states the motive is very positive, but look at what people are going through — having very negative impact.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “It’s one thing to contend that President Trump’s tariff policies are misguided and will harm the economy, but to charge that ‘he wants to destroy the economy’ is an attitude which reflects a particularly nefarious view of Trump. Does Woodward really think Trump is so awful that he has set out to intentionally ‘destroy’ the economy? That’s what he said and it fits with his very far-left perspective that reducing the size of government makes this ‘one of the most dangerous times this country has ever faced.’”
Rating: FIVE out of five screams.
■ March 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: All TDS on PBS as centrist calls Trump an ‘extortionist’
(Washington Examiner post)
This week’s Liberal Media Scream provides the latest fodder for conservatives calling for an end to taxpayer support of public TV because of its anti-Right bias and disdain for President Donald Trump.
In focus is the nightly PBS News Hour program that regularly features guests critical of Trump.
For our example, it wasn’t the liberal on the show rapping Trump but the resident centrist, New York Times columnist David Brooks, who called the president an “extortionist” and “bully” for using his powers to get countries, companies, and people to do what he wants.
“People call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. There’s — a transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want,” said Brooks.
At issue was an earlier move by the White House to withdraw the security clearance of the Paul Weiss legal firm, which is close to Democrats. The firm agreed to do $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes favored by the White House to win back the clearance.
From Friday’s PBS News Hour:
HOST AMNA NAWAZ: We saw President Trump going after institutions, including Big Law, right, including universities, as you mentioned, where many of these guys went to school. And this week, we saw two big institutions take steps to comply with the demands of the Trump administration. We saw Paul Weiss agree to a settlement, essentially, that says they’re going to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services. Columbia University agreed to a list of demands so they don’t lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Jonathan, what does this moment, these steps from these institutions say to you?
JONATHAN CAPEHART: It says to me that our democracy is teetering. And I’ll focus on Perkins — I’m sorry — on Paul Weiss and the legal sphere. We have seen a complete capitulation by the legislative branch, the Republican majority, to what the president wants to do in the executive. And all our hopes for the maintenance of our democracy now rests with the judiciary.
And in the olden days, before Trump, you would rely on these white shoe law firms like Paul Weiss to provide pro bono help to folks who are suing for redress, who want the courts to step in when Congress or the president goes overboard. When a Paul Weiss decides to pull back, when other big law firms like that decide to pull back, what does that mean in terms of the judiciary’s ability to stop a president like Trump? And that’s what’s so concerning to me about this piece of the capitulation.
NAWAZ: David?
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, people call Trump a transactional politician, but he’s an extortionist. That’s actually a difference. A transaction is, we do a deal. Extortion is, I bully you until you give me what I want. And so that’s what we’re seeing here. Now, I put myself in the shoes of, say, the president of Columbia, the head of Paul Weiss. And I think, well, if I compromise with Trump, I’m hurting my institution. But if I lose $400 million, I’m also hurting my institution. These are real choices that people have to make. And I understand that.
In the case of Columbia [University], I personally think the Trump requests or demands, whatever it is, are kind of reasonable, and Columbia should have done all this stuff five or 10 years ago. They really did get ideologically out of control. And if they’re publicly funded, partially publicly funded, then you’ve got a problem. And they created this problem. So I understand why. I got to save my university. I got to save $400 million.
On the other hand, caving into an extortionist rarely pays off because he will say, ‘Oh, I take that. Here’s my next demand, here’s my next demand.’ And if you look at the history of Zelensky, Macron, people — all the people who’ve tried to cozy up to the extortionists, they all end up losing in the end.
And so I think it’s time for the universities as a body — and we saw this with the Princeton president — to say no more deals. We are standing up because there will be a time — and, again, I don’t think this is quite the time to sort of beat down the Trump administration. There will be a time where everybody has to hold together and stand up and say, no, no more deals.
Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained ou
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
