CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip returned to form on Monday night. By “form”, we mean that Ratings King Scott Jennings uttered a plain truth and rendered nearly the entire panel to an incoherent, stuttering mess.  Consider this exchange with CNN International anchor Richard Quest (click “expand” to view transcript): "They're going to remember that the United States is the dominant nation in this hemisphere, and now we have a president": @ScottJenningsKY reduces the panel to banging the table and squeaking incoherently on the issue of tariffs pic.twitter.com/8GBeErfjW6 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 4, 2025 RICHARD QUEST: Okay, so we got this new this and new that and the sort.  SCOTT JENNINGS: Yes.  QUEST: But was it worth pissing off and offending Canada, which is one of your closest allies? Was it worth all the angst, the drama, the- the raw emotion when you could have had it with a negotiation? BAKARI SELLERS: Can I also chime in? I mean, is that a direct question? JENNINGS: Yeah, no it is. ABBY PHILLIP:  He's addressing it, let Scott answer. QUEST: It is a direct question! JENNINGS: Richard. SELLERS: I'm sorry. JENNINGS: Richard. So you're- you're you seem to be extraordinarily worked up about what amounted to 12 hours of conversations between our governments… QUEST: Ohhhhhhhh JENNIGS: …and the net result of it was everybody who didn't want tariffs should be- like you, should be happy. Everybody who wants less immigration should be happy, and everybody who wants less. We should all be saying it's a win-win! (CROSSTALK) CATHERINE RAMPELL: We are back to the status quo! (SIGHHHHHHHHHHH) QUEST: This is going to come back to bite in a way. First of all, Colombia. Second of all, Mexico, third of all Canada. Then you've got the European Union. All these allies are going to remember that they were bullied at the edge of a…. JENNINGS: No. They're going to remember that the United States is the dominant nation in this hemisphere. QUEST: OOOOOOHHHHH! That makes you feel really good, doesn’t it? RAMPELL: They’re going to remember that Trump just (CROSSTALK) QUEST (BANGING TABLE): That! Makes! You! Feel! Really! Good!  JENNINGS: And we have a president. And now we have a president. The entire segment on tariffs was chirpy, and can be reduced to: libs mad. There is the overall frustration that President Donald Trump extracted immediate concessions from Canada and Mexico, he did previously from Panama and Colombia. There is a sense of helplessness in the media at the speed with which the Trump administration is moving forward. Powerless to stop it, the media bleat- as did Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell at Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) as she described the real, tangible, and palpable harm that was done to public safety in New York City as a result of Joe Biden’s open border: Listen closely, and you'll hear WaPo's Catherine Rampell glibly dismissing legitimate concerns over public safety in New York as a result of the last 4 years Biden's broken border, chirping: "I live here. I feel safe" pic.twitter.com/AIlnMycNYi — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 4, 2025 NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS: The way that we have seen gang members taking over our streets… ABY PHILLIP: I get it. MALLIOTAKIS: …the way we have seen crimes committed, stabbings, murders… PHILLIP: I get it. MALLIOTAKIS: …police officers being assaulted. PHILLIP: And- and nobody is saying- MALLIOTAKIS: But the thing is, is that Joe Biden created that crisis with his policies. PHILLIP: And nobody is- no, no. Nobody is denying that. We’re just talking about the numbers… CATHERINE RAMPELL: I am. I live here. I feel safe. Whether on the border, or on DOGE vis USAID, the left have been reduced to the defiant utterings of a six-year-old- as exemplified by Rampell’s squeaky protestations here. Back to Jennings and the panel on tariffs. Quest was echoing both the sentiments of the dying post-World War II order, and continued American dominance while potentially unwinding that order. The mere suggestion that America might place her interests above those of other countries threw Quest into a sputtering tizzy, further inflamed by Jennings’ assertion that America once again has a president. A functioning, coherent president who is now dominant on the world stage.  This is a point that Jennings made to Bakari Sellers while discussing DOGE and the shuttering of the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID)- the idea that America once again has a coherent president. Also take note of host Abby Phillip’s defense of the doxxing of the DOGE employees assigned to USAID (click “expand”): Find someone to defend you the way CNN's Abby Phillip defends the doxxing of DOGE employees at USAID: pic.twitter.com/KcgkvtJ7x5 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 4, 2025 ABBY PHILLIP: That lends to an important question. Why is it, Scott, that Elon Musk claims that it is a crime to tweet out the names of the six individuals who I, I have to assume are government employees? Maybe they're not- who are going around and carrying out his orders and telling people, for example, to not come into work at an entire federal agency, who are going into the Treasury asking for access to a sensitive payment system. How is it a crime to know who those people are? SCOTT JENNINGS: I don't know if it's a crime or not. I think it's certainly untoward to try to out… PHILLIP: Why? JENNINGS: …because you're trying to sic an angry mob on people who are showing up to try to- to try to… PHILLIP: Wait, wait,wait. First of all, this… JENNINGS: To try to act on behalf of the President of the United States. PHILLIP: This is- first of all, this is his platform, okay? If his own platform is an angry mob, that's one thing. But he also does this all the time. And these are people who are doing things that affect Americans. They're working in the government, so I don’t see why it would be a secret. JENNINGS: Well, they’re doing things- they're doing things that affect the bureaucracy, which is why you see all the rage today. And I'm. PHILLIP: You don’t think that this stuff affects Americans, Scott? JENNINGS: I mean, yeah, probably in a positive way. And I'm glad to see Democrats are coming around to the idea that the unelected people who might be involved in the running of our country are important, because you seemed to have no interest in that for the last four years under the last administration. Here's the bottom line. The American people… BAKARI SELLERS: I don’t know what that means. JENNINGS:  …the American people, you know, what that means is that you had a president who was not functional, and you know it. Here's- here's what we're talking about… SELLERS: Oh, we’re talking about Joe Biden. Okay. I’m sorry. JENNINGS: Here is…here is…here is… PHILLIP: So, actually- by that same token, I mean, if you're concerned about the people around Joe Biden running the government, why aren't you concerned about the people around Donald Trump running the government? JENNINGS: Because I don't have any concern that this president is functional. He's a functional president, and Musk is an agent of the president. PHILLIP: I mean- but seriously, why are you not concerned that Elon Musk is, according to a lot of reports, someone that no one around the president wants to even cross because he's so powerful and he has leverage over this president because he spent $250 million to get him elected. JENNINGS: Look, the president was elected. He runs the government. Elon Musk is an agent of the executive branch at the direction of the president. And as the president said today, he's not doing anything that he doesn't have permission to do. And I will just remind you all, one of the things he was elected to do is to shake up Washington, stop doing business as usual, and rein in an out-of-control bureaucracy that, as the Congresswoman (Malliotakis) correctly pointed out, is spending money in ways that was never intended. That Phillip should even ask why this is a problem after the violence of the last few years staggers the imagination. The shootings of Steve Scalise, the threats against Supreme Court Justices (one of whom was almost murdered in his home), and the near-assassination of President Donald Trump collectively bear witness to the unhinged lunacy of her premise. Jennings handles this, as he often does, with class and grace.  The meltdown is only beginning.  

On Tuesday, White House Correspondents' Association President Eugene Daniels of Politico announced that Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Amber Ruffin will be this year’s featured comedian at the organization’s annual dinner. Daniels wrote, “Her perspective will fit right in with the dinner’s tradition of honoring the freedom of the press while roasting the most powerful people on all sides of the aisle and the journalists who cover them. This dinner is about centering the importance of a functioning democracy and Amber is the type of entertainer who understands both the significance of that mission as well as the mechanics of power in this country.”   That might be the funniest thing to come from this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner, and the actual dinner isn’t until April 26. Ruffin, who also once hosted a late night show on Peacock and is currently part of CNN’s Have I Got News For You, does not roast “all sides.” Recently, Ruffin tried to smear Sen. Deb Fischer’s husband Bruce as a racist for not shaking then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s hand at his wife’s recent swearing-in while omitting that he had the Bible in one hand and a cane in the other.     During the recent campaign, she responded to JD Vance by proudly declaring herself to be “a childless sociopath. I am an ageless sociopath with unlimited free time and disposable income.” In February 2023, she dishonestly attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, “Which means in Florida, today it's January 59th. Hey, but really if you live in Florida and you want to read more about Black History Month, too bad.”  After the 2022 midterms, she was stunned the Georgia Senate election between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker would need to go to a runoff, “For the first time, I was like maybe there is voter fraud because there is no way someone would want to give this man an ounce of power. If you put this man in charge of Georgia, he's only going to get it pregnant, take it to another state, and get it an abortion.” Far from “roasting” “all sides,” she went Gaga for Maxwell Frost, “Then I found out that 25-year-old Maxwell Frost got elected to Congress, and I was like, ‘Go ahead, Gen Z, what-what?’ And he was like, ‘No one says what-what anymore.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, dang, children.’”  When Roe v. Wade fell a solemn Ruffin told Late Night, “We are devastated and disappointed in our country right now. We're joke writers, but we didn't want to come out here tonight and tell jokes or do goofy bits, that didn't feel right.” Does that sound like someone who goes after both sides?

On CNN This Morning, Jonathan Kott, a DC lobbyist and former aide to senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), predicted that Trump supporters will give him six to eight months, but then "turn quickly" on him when the improvements in their lives he promised don't materialize. That's soothing speculation for CNN's base, but Kott's powers of prognostication have a questionable track record. Less than two months before the 2024 election, here's what Kott, in a Fox News appearance, predicted: "I think voters are still getting to know Kamala Harris. And she's introducing herself. And the more she does, the more they like her, and the more her poll numbers come up. I'd be worried if I was Donald Trump."  Contrary to Kott's conjecture, the more voters got to know Kamala, the less they liked her. And when it turned out she was for "they/them," and Trump was for you, it was game, set, and match. Kott's no Nostradamus. If couldn't see just a few weeks into the future, don't bet the rent on his ability to see six to eight months ahead to a day when Trump fans will supposedly "turn quickly" against him! As the song says, he sounds like the King of Wishful Thinking. Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 2/5/25 6:09 am ET KASIE HUNT: Jonathan Cott, you worked for Joe Manchin for many years, right? Interesting, you know, cuts his own figure, but also represented a state that really exemplifies the way our politics has changed, right, in the last 30 years, where it went from voting consistently for Democrats for years and years, and then ultimately became essentially the Trumpiest state in the union.  What of what Donald Trump has been doing here is kind of resonating, not with MAGA and the far right of the party that's very online and very politically engaged, but with regular people who are unhappy with their economic prospects and their lives.  I mean, what's he doing that's good, and what is he doing that is politically risky for him?  JONATHAN KOTT: All of it right now is good because they love action. And Donald Trump is very good at making voters and people believe he's doing something.  The executive orders he's signing, 90% of them mean absolutely nothing. They don't do anything. But he's showing them that he's doing something. And that's where Democrats faulted in the last four years. So people in West Virginia see the action, and they love it.  I think what's gonna happen is, when they start realizing their prices aren't going down, the government programs that a state like West Virginia relies on desperately are going away, you're gonna see a turn from him. And they're gonna say, wait, you promised us all of these things, and now we're just getting this. And I would point out, not only tariffs were promised as a threat. Donald Trump told us they would lead us to this new gilded age of an economic boom. If they're so good, why aren't we implementing them? Why are we accepting that these sort of concessions that mean nothing and were already happening are good for the American economy? We were told throughout, tariff was the best word in the English language. Which is what he told his voters. And a lot of them believed if Donald Trump got in there, he was going to impose tariffs.  And there was going to be all this money flowing into our bank accounts. They're going to wait for that to happen. They'll give him six, eight months. But they'll turn quickly. 

Two controversies have just flipped the art world on its head: The “Mona Lisa” is apparently leaving the Louvre in Paris, France, and a long-lost van Gogh painting has experts at odds. Pat Gray and the “Unleashed” team unpack the reports. The Louvre — once “the most famous, most exclusive art museum in the world” — has apparently become “a run-down dump,” says Pat. “Paint is peeling off the walls; the temperature control system isn’t working … which can ruin the art.” France’s President Emmanuel Macron has announced that renovations are under way, with a special space being created for da Vinci’s masterpiece. However, Francesca Caruso, the regional assessor for culture of Italy’s Lombardy region, has since suggested that the painting be returned to its original home in Italy. “Leonardo represents Italian genius. Milan would be an ideal location to display the work,” she wrote, noting that the Winter Olympics, which Milan will host, is just a year away and is sure to elevate tourism. On the other hand, a French king — Francis I — purchased the “Mona Lisa” in 1519. It has been hanging in France’s Louvre for over 200 years. Regardless of who ends up with one of the art world's greatest treasures, it’s likely that this tug-of-war wouldn’t be happening if France were a thriving nation — that is, it did not open its borders and implement socialism. “You open the door to socialist policies, you put your country in a position to pay for everything, you don't have a big enough tax base for this utopia, so … you have to import cheap labor from third-world countries, and here they come from North Africa and the Middle East, and what do you got? You got an entire continent that's been overrun,” says Keith Malinak. The second controversy that’s shaking up the art world involves a long-lost van Gogh painting that was purchased for $50 in 2016 at a garage sale in Minnesota. It took expert analysts at the New York-based LMI group years and $30,000 to verify its authenticity, but their recently released 450-page report has declared that it is indeed a product of the Dutch Post-Impressionist master. Titled “Elimar” after an inscription on the front of the canvas, the work is believed by the art data science firm to belong to Saint-Rémy, now called Clinique van Gogh — a collection of paintings van Gogh made during his year-long stint at Saint-Paul sanitarium, during which he was a self-admitted patient. However, the Van Gogh Museum, the ultimate authority on van Gogh paintings, has denied the attribution to the Post-Impressionist painter, deeming the LMI group’s report insufficient. The painting is “thought to be worth over $15 million” and will soon be up for auction, says Pat, calling the entire ordeal “bizarre.” To hear more on these two art controversies, watch the clip above. Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

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President Donald Trump directly ordered the Justice Department to fire more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on the criminal cases against him, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

An anonymous group of FBI agents and employees on Tuesday took the unusual step of suing the Justice Department, in a bid to prevent President Donald Trump and his allies from publicly disseminating a list of names of all the bureau's employees who worked on Jan. 6 criminal cases.