During a wide-ranging interview on ABC’s This Week, Sen, Tom Cotton (R-AR) took a blowtorch to the antisemitic protesters on college campuses, brutally mocked them as establishing “little Gazas”, and schooled host Jon Karl when he tried to twist mockery of the encampments into mockery of Gaza itself. Watch the exchange, as aired on ABC This Week on Sunday, May 5th, 2024: TOM COTTON: They're spray painting buildings with vile, antisemitic hate. (Biden) said, well, we shouldn't have antisemitism or hate speech in the abstract, or Islamophobia. Where are the encampments, Jon, on campuses spreading Islamophobia? Why is Joe Biden so equivocal? Why does he have to draw moral equivalence between thousands of students who are setting up Little Gazas all across America…  JON KARL: Can I…can I ask you… COTTON: …engaging in hate speech- engaging in hate speech against Jews, assaulting Jews, disobeying the law, and some fictional encampment that’s spreading Islamophobia? KARL: Can I ask you, you just three or four times now just used the phrase “little Gazas”. What do you mean by that? COTTON: Well, they call themselves the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. They’re little. They’re little Gazas. KARL: I mean, are you…? It seems like you're mocking the situation in Gaza. This is a place that the World F--- COTTON: A lot of these people do -- these people do deserve to be mocked. KARL: No, no, no. Gaza. I'm talking about, you know, Gaza, you know… COTTON: With… No. On college campuses. KARL: We had the World Food Program has just now said that there is an outright famine in parts of Gaza. Tens of thousands of people have died. You're using this phrase “little Gazas” -- COTTON: Which is 100% the fault of Hamas. Just like every civilian casualty in Gaza is 100% the fault of Hamas. Yet Joe Biden for seven months has leaned on Israel, has pressured Benjamin Netanyahu, has told him to stand down when they get attacked by Iran, has said they can't go into the last holdout where Hamas has its final terrorist battalions. But no. These students on campuses? They deserve our contempt. They also deserve our mockery. I mean, they're out there in their N95 masks in the open air. With their gluten allergies, demanding that Uber Eats get delivered to them. They should not have been allowed to fester on campus for two weeks when these liberal administrators and liberal politicians refuse to send in the police to clear them out the very first day they set up their tents.  As soon as Cotton began mocking the protesters living within their “little Gazas”, one could see Jon Karl’s brow begin to furrow. One imagines a similar strained expression over at The New York Times, as staff got wind of Cotton’s op-ed calling for a military response to the violent protests raging throughout America’s cities. When Karl finally found his angle, the asinine suggestion that Cotton’s mockery of the protester tent cities was a mockery of Gaza itself, it got quickly shot down with even more mockery, forcing Karl to move off the subject and on to speculation over the 2024 Republican presidential ticket. The interview covered such subjects as funding for Ukraine, the campus protests, the 2024 presidential campaign and January 6th. On each of these issues, Karl’s hysterics were quickly and promptly shut down. There was ample opportunity here to have a broad-ranging discussion of multiple issues. Instead and surprising no one, Jon Karl chose to perform Regime Media.

During an otherwise fawning interview on CBS for 60 Minutes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was sharply questioned for his refusal to be overtly critical of Israel over their conduct of the war against Hamas in the aftermath of the medieval and horrific attack of October 7th. Watch this exchange, in which CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell pokes Jeffries time and again, as aired on 60 Minutes on Sunday, May 5th, 2024: NORAH O’DONNELL: But isn't it also true that, while retaliating and going after Hamas terrorists, that Israel has been indiscriminate in its bombing? HAKEEM JEFFRIES: I would not say that they've been indiscriminate. I do think what we'd like to see moving forward is the execution of the new phases of this conflict with surgical precision. O’DONNELL: You could still be a strong supporter of Israel and Americans' defense of Israel and be critical of their approach about how they wage this war in Gaza. JEFFRIES: That's correct. O’DONNELL: But you seem reluctant to criticize Israel at all? JEFFRIES: I'm dealing with the facts on the ground. O’DONNELL: The facts are, according to the U.N.- half of Gaza's 2.2 million people are on the verge of famine. Has Israel done enough to get food and aid into Gaza? JEFFRIES: Israel clearly needs to do more, as they have recently acknowledged through their actions, to surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The other thing that I think is important… O’DONNELL: Only after they killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen. JEFFRIES: Correct. And that was horrific, including one American. Now, in terms of the loss of innocent Palestinian life in this tough theater of war, that is deeply disturbing, tragic, and should be painful for anyone who has a shred of humanity in their body. In this exchange, O’Donnell sounded more like a Biden White House official trying to get Jeffries to fall in line than like a journalist on 60 Minutes. We often use the term “Regime Media”, but here the media acted as part of the regime. Zero daylight between them both, which put Jeffries on the defensive and exposed him, even, as a leader seemingly out of step with the anti-Israel forces within the highest echelons of his own party. O’Donnell even attempted to use Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s floor speech calling for the removal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an appeal to authority with which to get Jeffries to criticize Israel. Jeffries refused the bait. The interview was otherwise intended to be a fawn job- a mechanism with which to cast Jeffries in a most favorable light ahead of the 2024 election. Topics ranged from basic biography- fitting for an introductory interview- to immigration and abortion, the defense of which he equates to the defense of Democracy itself.  WATCH: House Dem Leader Hakeem Jeffries equates abortion to DEMOCRACY itself pic.twitter.com/V98w3PRUo5 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 6, 2024 The interview closes with a brutal exchange on the economy, in which Jeffries dismisses voter perceptions of the economy being better under former President Donald Trump, and admits that Democrats have not made that case to the American voter. "Well, that's just not the case", says Hakeem Jeffries when confronted with 2/3 of voters believing the economy was better under Trump. Brutal exchange on the economy to close his interview with Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes pic.twitter.com/dIb0eQ1j75 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) May 6, 2024 Jeffries received infinitesimal to no pushback on these points as he struggled to make them, which tells you everything you need to know about how the Regime Media will cover this election. Buckle up.

New details have emerged in a congressional investigation into the Biden administration censorship enterprise that has curtailed free speech on a level unprecedented in American history. A new House Judiciary Committee report uncovered more of the Biden administration’s collusion with Facebook, YouTube and Amazon to silence constitutionally protected speech. The administration in some cases threatened these companies, pushing them to censor content or change their moderation guidelines, specifically with regards to fighting “vaccine hesitancy” during the COVID-19 pandemic.  “By the end of 2021, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon changed their content moderation policies in ways that were directly responsive to criticism from the Biden Administration,” wrote the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Weaponization Committee in a May 1 press release. “While the Biden White House's pressure campaign largely succeeded, its effects were devastating. By suppressing free speech and intentionally distorting public debate in the modern town square, ideas and policies were no longer fairly tested and debated on their merits.” Here are some highlights of the bombshell report: Facebook In February 2021, Facebook began coordinating with the Biden White House to censor disfavored opinions relating to COVID-19. According to an internal email from Facebook, these topics included the theory that COVID-19 was a man-made virus; that the virus leaked from a lab in China; and other “false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general.” In an email to Mark Zuckerberg, a Facebook employee revealed that Facebook's censorship of these opinions was prompted by pressure from the Biden administration. “In February 2021, in response to continued public pressure and tense conversations with the new administration, we started removing the five Covid claims that had been repeatedly debunked by 3PFCs and the eight claims that we had identified … before COVID as widely debunked vaccine misinformation,” the email said, according to the House Judiciary Committee. Zuckerberg concluded that Facebook had made the wrong decision to “compromise our standards due to pressure from an administration.”  However, officials like Rob Flaherty, Digital Director of the White House, and Andy Slavitt, a senior White House coronavirus advisor, were not content with this level of censorship. They even wanted memes and other humorous content about the vaccines to be censored.  On April 18, 2021, Slavitt was particularly incensed by a meme that was featured in Facebook’s data set shared with the White House team and demanded its removal. According to Nick Clegg, head of Meta’s Global Affairs, Slavitt “‘was outraged – not too strong a word to describe his reaction – that [Facebook] did not remove’ a particular post—a Leonardo DiCaprio meme— ‘which was third most highly ranked post in the data set [Facebook] sent to him.’”  On April 14, 2021, Facebook held a meeting with the White House to discuss the effectiveness of Facebook’s censorship.  During the meeting, Flaherty even floated the idea that Facebook could “change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT, WSJ, any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, other polarizing people.”  The administration also specifically targeted American journalists who were skeptical about the safety of the vaccines, such as Tucker Carlson.  Flaherty emailed Facebook demanding why a video of Carlson questioning vaccine safety was still widely visible on the platform and questioned its commitment to “reduction” of harmful content. Flaherty wrote, “This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like – if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with tucker [sic] Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then . . . I’m not sure it’s reduction!”       According to other emails, the administration not only pressured Facebook to target wrongful opinions but also demanded the censorship of true information on vaccine-related injuries, which caused some consternation on the part of Facebook employees. On July 21, 2021, a Facebook employee sent a memo to Clegg in which they expressed that employees faced pressure from administration officials to ramp up censorship more than they would like.  “There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” the memo said. “There are some policy mitigations that could get the two parties closer, but Content Policy does not recommend pursuing them.” Included in this “delta” of content was true, documented information or personal experiences discussing harmful vaccine side effects. The memo read, “The Surgeon General wants us to remove true information about side effects if the user does not provide complete information about whether the side effect is rare and treatable.”  Also included were opinions that concluded that the adverse effects of the vaccines were worse than the benefits as well as “humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe.”   Ultimately, the unyielding pressure of the Biden administration resulted in Facebook changing its moderation policies. An internal email sent on Aug. 2, 2021, expressed that Facebook was making the changes because of the Biden administration. The email said, “Leadership asked Misinfo Policy and a couple of teams on Product Policy to brainstorm some additional policy levers we can pull to be more aggressive against Covid and vaccine misinformation. This is stemming from the continued criticism of our approach from the US administration.”    Youtube The Biden administration also actively worked with YouTube to censor similar content with notably less pushback from the video-hosting platform. In fact, Biden officials disturbingly referenced YouTube as a gold standard for censorship. According to Clegg, during the April 18 meeting with Facebook, Slavitt expressed that he had attended a “misinfo” meeting with Flaherty and that “the consensus was that FB [Facebook] is a ‘disinformation factory’, and that YT [YouTube] has made significant advances to remove content leading to vaccine hesitancy whilst we [Facebook] have lagged behind.” On April 21, 2021, YouTube and the White House held another meeting. After the meeting, Flaherty emailed YouTube, requesting more information on “borderline content,” that is, content that didn’t violate YouTube’s policies. Flaherty expressed that the White House wanted “to be sure that you have a handle on vaccine hesitancy generally and are working toward making the problem better.” He also implied that this concern was shared by Biden himself. Flaherty said, “This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the WH, so we’d like to continue a good-faith dialogue about what’s going on under the hood here.” On July 20, 2021, Flaherty emailed the YouTube public policy team a tweet from a CNN fact checker Daniel Dale that showed his algorithm was presenting him with “anti-vaccine content.” One video was from a Senate hearing featuring Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and the other was a debate on vaccines between attorney (now presidential candidate) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and legal scholar Alan Dershowitz. Flaherty then appeared to get confrontational with YouTube and implied they were not upholding their end of the bargain. “We had a pretty extensive back and forth about the degree to which you all are recommending anti-vaccination content,” Flaherty said. “You were pretty emphatic that you are not. This seems to indicate that you are. What is going on here?” On Aug. 23, 2021, Flaherty pushed YouTube to act as a propaganda arm for the Biden White House to “push” the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine.  Flaherty’s email said, “We’d appreciate a push here, given the fact that this is an oft-cited blocker for many people.” In September 2021, YouTube worked with the White House to change its policies to remove content that questioned vaccines.  According to the House Judiciary Committee’s report, YouTube has continued to work with the Biden White House to censor other subjects, including “Russian disinformation,” climate change and even abortion. Amazon The Biden administration also worked with Amazon to demote or remove “anti-vaccine” books on its website. In response to “feeling pressure from the White House,” Amazon started tagging anti-vaccine books with the same labels designated for “extremist” content. As previously reported by MRC, Amazon held a meeting on March 9, 2021, with Biden officials to determine if “‘the Admin is asking us to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?’”    On the same day, Amazon unveiled a new “‘AntiVax’ [Do Not Promote]” tag to be applied to all vaccine skeptic books. On March 12, 2024, an internal email announced the online retailer was going to hold another meeting to “take a closer look at books related to vaccine misinformation and debat[e] additional steps Amazon might want to take to reduce the visibility of these titles.” Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Psalm 23:4 reads, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." And that verse has never rung more true than this past Sunday when, during a church service in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a man pulled a gun on the pastor mid-sermon and pulled the trigger. In what can only be a sign of the Lord’s protection, the gun miraculously jammed, saving the pastor's life. The gunman, Bernard Polite, entered Jesus’ Dwelling Place Church on Sunday morning during Pastor Glenn Germany’s weekly address. Polite walked to the altar, pulled out his gun and aimed it directly at Germany.  “I was like, this is not happening,” Germany recalled, according to CBSNews. But when Polite pulled the trigger, no shot was fired thanks to his jammed gun. “Only God stopped and jammed this gun,” Germany said. Miracle! A pastor survives shooting attempt after handgun jams and doesn’t fire.pic.twitter.com/YIKwSliq3h — MRCTV (@mrctv) May 6, 2024 The whole incident was caught on video, which showed church Deacon Clarence McCallister leaping up and tackling Polite to the ground while Pastor Germany worked to get the gun out of Polite’s hands. Germany called McCallister a “hero” and said they were able to keep Polite “subdued until police arrived” to take him into custody. Related: Tennessee Bill Allows Teachers to Possess Concealed Handguns in Class The pastor also indicated that what brought him to tears the most was that his 14-year-old daughter was sitting in the pews while this whole situation played out.  “I still had to be strong, because I had to be strong for her, but I couldn't take it, and just seeing her, that's the part that's hard for me to digest," he said. Germany, in speaking with police, noted that Polite “was just dealing with spirits” and he “came in and wanted to shoot somebody.” Germany confessed that he believed Polite was suffering with a form of mental illness and noted that he had “voices in his mind,” CBS News wrote. Germany, being the man of faith that he is, said he has already forgiven Polite after the gunman apologized to him.  The pastor hopes to use the story to stress that mental illness is real and to point to the ultimate protector: God. Follow us on Twitter/X: How Columbia University Would Advertise If They Were Honest Don't worry; this ad is satire, even if everything we said here is true. pic.twitter.com/dpqScHiODl — MRCTV (@mrctv) May 1, 2024

You might think of a presidential election as a choice among candidates. Not to historian and occasional Biden speechwriter Jon Meacham. He will brook no dissent. There is no choice. You MUST vote for Joe Biden! On today's Morning Joe, Meacham told to Biden phone buddy and informal adviser Joe Scarborough the election prospects are "thrilling and terrifying. It's thrilling because it's up to all of us.... What's terrifying is that it's up to us, and it's up to the voters in the swing states." Meacham doesn't really trust the people, and that's why he's going to keep telling you the "stakes" are too high, you can't vote Republican: "I think it's going to be impossible for people to vote in the fall and not understand what's at stake." He knows many voters aren't spending this whole year in a fetal position for the survival of democracy, but gosh, voting for Biden is really, really important! "What I would say to anyone who says, 'Yeah but. Yeah, Trump is awful but, whatever," is there is no but. It's got to be, "Yeah, Trump is that, and, I'm going to vote against him." There is no but? It's "got to be" a vote against Trump, i.e., for Biden?  And the liberal media accuses MAGA of disrespecting democracy? Win or lose, Trump is sure to get tens of millions of votes. But Meacham doesn't even try to understand what motivates people who say, "yeah, but" -- not to mention the millions who outright like Trump and everything he is and stands for.  Such is the arrogance and condescension of the liberal media.  Question: When it was disclosed that Meacham was an occasional Biden speechwriter, MSNBC announced that "per network policy," he would no longer be employed as a paid contributor.  So what about Joe Scarborough? As mentioned, it's been disclosed that not only is Scarborough a frequent Biden phone buddy, but also serves as an informal adviser, offering his "take" on issues of the day.  What's the MSNBC "network policy" that permits Scarborough to continue in his multi-million-dollar MSNBC gig? Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 5/6/24 6:37 am EDT JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jon Meacham, there is simply, we won't even ask. And we stopped asking some time ago for historical parallels. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: There just simply aren't. SCARBOROUGH: There are no historical parallels in this country. But, my gosh, as you said before, what is at stake is so massive this fall. I'm curious your thoughts when you see this testimony, and the Time magazine article. The continued threats of an authoritarian regime coming directly from Donald Trump . . . And so, I'm just curious about your take on where we are right now. JON MEACHAM: I think, my answer is, at once, to me, thrilling and terrifying. It's thrilling because it's up to all of us. It's up to the voters in the seven or eight states. It's up to those of us who have strong feelings about the continuance of the constitution order, to make this case. And that's great, right? That's we the people. What's terrifying is that it's up to us, and it's up to the voters in the swing states. And it's up to those of us who have to make the case to people around the country.  If -- there's no mystery here, right? It's going to be -- I think it's going to be impossible for people to vote in the fall and not understand what's at stake. And if, and maybe that's part of what those of us who, you know, want to make this case have to keep doing, is making sure we say it. And it may seem repetitive to the political-industrial class, but that doesn't matter. I think as Ed would say, you know, there are normal people who are better adjusted than we are and don't worry about this all the time. But it's really, really important. And I don't think, again. What I would say to anyone who says, "Yeah but. Yeah, Trump is awful but, whatever," is there is no but. It's got to be, "Yeah, Trump is that, IIand, I'm going to vote against him.

Friday’s White House press briefing began with a distinct 2016 vibe as the Biden administration demanded it be taken seriously on the reelection front with Star Wars actor Mark Hamill surprising reporters ahead of May 4 (aka May the Fourth Be With You!) and a few dutifully complied by asking him questions despite the fact that, as we’d later learn, one hasn’t seen any of the movies. Elsewhere, the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre faced her usual hardballs from the like of Fox colleagues Edward Lawrence on tax cuts and basic respect for laws on the books and then Peter Doocy on both-sides-ing anti-Semitism and Islamphobia, Jean-Pierre’s alma mater, and the now-famous UNC fraternity brothers.     Hamill led off with his surprise appearance and donning a pair of aviators to match the President before saying he “was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the President, the most legislatively successful president in my lifetime” and listing off standard party talking points. He then opened it up to questions after thanking The New York Times’s Peter Baker in the second row for his most recent book which was, naturally, an anti-Trump tome with wife Susan Glasser. ABC’s Selina Wang seized the opportunity: “Thank you, Mark Hamill, for being here. What did you ask? What did you talk about with the President?” After Hamill replied this was his first time visiting a White House on his own in the Oval and thus more special (as opposed to going in a group), CBS’s Weijia Jiang had the other question:  JIANG: Did President Biden bring up Star Wars to you, sir? HAMILL: Well, you know, I called him Mr President. He said, you can call me Joe and I said, “can I call you Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi?” Jiang returned to this topic during her Q&A with a genuine question about why Hamill came to the White House, but Jean-Pierre didn’t like her tone and it quickly devolved into a mini-roast of the CBS correspondent for admitting she’s never watched the movies (click “expand”): JIANG: And then just to close the loop. What was Mark Hamill doing here today? JEAN-PIERRE: I think he said. He said he was meeting with — he was having a meeting. Did you not like having him in? JIANG: No, I mean, that’s not — we all loved meeting him, but —  JEAN-PIERRE: It sounded — it sounded — it sounded very kind of like, why? Why here? Um, he was no, He said it himself. I — we — we wanted to make sure that he provided — which is one of the reasons he spoke to — why he was here himself. He wanted to meet with the President. They had a meeting, and — JIANG: About what? JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, you guys asked him questions. Uh — uh — uh — uh, they had a meeting about — um — what the President has been able to do on behalf of the American people. Mark Hamill was in town. They met. I think it was — it was important as someone — you all — you all know Mark Hamill. He is someone who has who is very much invested in our country — very much invested in — um — in the direction of this country. And so — uh — they had a — you know, they had a meeting. It was — he — he went into that meeting, and I thought — we thought it would be fun for him to come out here and lighten up — and lighten up the room a little bit on a Friday. We also believe that you guys are — so — there are some Star Wars fans in here. Uh — but, you know, the President — I mean, the President meets with a lot of people. There’s a lot of people that come through the White House that the President has an opportunity to sit down and talk with. You just happen to — you just happen to see Mark Hamill today because we thought it would be a nice gesture to have him come out and say hello, but I wouldn’t put too much. I really wouldn’t put too much into it. He meets with a lot of people here.  JIANG: Thank you. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. All right. Jeez. Weijia is not happy about Mark Hamill being here. [REPORTERS LAUGH] That’s okay. I’m not gonna tell him. He’s not watching probably. I won’t tell him. REPORTER: Have you [inaudible] JIANG: I don’t — I haven’t seen the movies. JEAN-PIERRE: Do you — do you not like Star Wars? You have not seen Star Wars. What? JIANG: I will now. I will now. [REPORTERS BOO] JEAN-PIERRE: That’s why that happened, folks. That’s why I got the question. Yeah. JIANG: I’m gonna watch. I’m going to watch. REPORTER: She’s not alone. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, there’s more.  REPORTER: What? JEAN-PIERRE: Well, All right. I’m gonna let that go. Fast-forwarding to the back end of the briefing, Lawrence fact-checked the administration on tax cuts: “So, the President says that he wants to let the tax cuts — the Trump tax cuts expire. If that law expires, it does raise taxes on almost every American. So, does he still support that expiring without anything else in place?”     Jean-Pierre deflected by claiming while Biden will “let the Trump tax cut expire....he will not raise taxes on anyone less than $400,000” and he’s “been very clear about that.” Lawrence doubled down: “[T]he President can’t pick and choose which part of the law sunsets. The entire law will sunset and the Tax Foundation says that someone who’s married, two kids, making 85,000 would pay $1,700 more in taxes. That’s somebody under $400,000”. Jean-Pierre didn’t budge on any of her talking points, including the irrelevant claim about Republicans “want[ing] to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security” Doocy Time began with this both-sidesism that, if it were done by a Republican president, would trigger liberal media-wide excoriations: “So, in the President’s remarks yesterday, he’s talking about Islamophobia on campuses. Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of vile, anti-Semitic rhetoric on campuses. Does he think Islamophobia is just as big of a problem on campus as anti-Semitism?” Jean-Pierre shamelessly wouldn’t fully rebut that and instead remained in neutral with a standard word salad about Bide being able “to call out all forms of hate, always” and opposing protests that aren’t “within the law”.     Doocy next used Jean-Pierre’s own words against her when noting no one had asked her about the fact that anti-Semitic protest hotbed Columbia University is Jean-Pierre’s alma mater. Pathetically, Jean-Pierre mocked Doocy for having done “some research” (click “expand”): DOOCY: Something else that it somehow slipped my mind. JEAN-PIERRE: How is that — DOOCY: — over the last couple of weeks. JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, goodness. DOOCY: You are an alumna of Columbia — OTHER REPORTERS: Ooooo! DOOCY: — University. JEAN-PIERRE: Wow, that’s a shocker. DOOCY: You, in all the talking about it — JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: — you haven’t brought it up. Uh, you told Columbia students a few years back. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah. DOOCY: “Don’t” — JEAN-PIERRE: Oh! DOOCY: — “lose the idealism that you have.” So what do you tell them now? JEAN-PIERRE: You did — you did some research. Oh, my God! DOOCY: All I do is research and just hope that you call me. JEAN-PIERRE: [LAUGHS] You did some —” DOOCY: But no! What do you tell, the — JEAN-PIERRE: I mean, look —“ DOOCY: — the students who are following in your footsteps? JEAN-PIERRE: — look — I mean, look, going to be — oh, and that’s actually gonna be a great segue to — uh — to the student — student journalist that we have in the room, Danny — um — after I answer this question. DOOCY: I do have one more, though. [REPORTERS LAUGH] JEAN-PIERRE: Ah! DOOCY: Sorry, Danny. JEAN-PIERRE: It’s okay. Uh — so, look — I’m not speaking on behalf of me. I’m not. I speak on behalf of this President. That’s my job, and I believe in this president. I believe in the work that we do. It is an honor and a privilege to stand at this lectern every day to speak to you and all your colleagues and to take your questions. It is not about me — uh — and really your question and what you’re asking me and — and what I have said to students is pretty much what the President has said. All Americans have the right to peacefully protest within the law. They have to — we have the right. That’s what makes this country so great, right? That’s what makes what — when we’re talking about our freedoms, our democracy. That’s what’s so important — to have the opportunity to agree and disagree and do it in a peaceful way in a peaceful way. That’s important, and the President also called out — if you’re — if you are breaking and entering and you are taking over buildings, that is not peacefully protesting, and the President was very clear about calling that out as well and also anti-Semitism and calling it what it is. It is hate speech. Doocy closed by being the first reporter to bring up in the briefing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who “saved an American flag from an angry mob of protesters” and there was “a GoFundMe where people can donate to throw them a rager.” Amazingly, Doocy asked if Biden “would...donate” to which Jean-Pierre was incredulous: “You never disappoint, my friend.” She then gave a standard answer about how ripping down the American flag as anti-Israel students was not an example of peaceful protest”. When Doocy asked if Biden would even give them a call, Jean-Pierre only said “protecting the American flag is admirable.” To see the relevant transcript from the May 3 briefing (including a question from the left by the AP on anti-Semitic campus protests and a long back-and-forth with April Ryan directly lobbying for a pardon of former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby), click here.

Current New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn granted an interview to former Times media columnist Ben Smith at his new venture Semafor.com. Kahn surely infuriated leftists like former Times ombudsman Margaret Sullivan, who want to shred any notion of objectivity against those horribly lying authoritarian Republicans. He said don't skew the news!?  BEN SMITH: Dan Pfeiffer, who used to work for Barack Obama, recently wrote of the Times, “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Why don’t you see your job as: “We’ve got to stop Trump?” What about your job doesn’t let you think that way? JOE KAHN: ...One of the absolute necessities of democracy is having a free and fair and open election where people can compete for votes, andthe role of the news media in that environment is not to skew your coverage towards one candidate or the other, but just to provide very good, hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters. If you believe in democracy, I don’t see how we get past the essential role of quality media in informing people about their choice in a presidential election. To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda. It is true that Biden’s agenda is more in sync with traditional establishment parties and candidates. And we’re reporting on that and making it very clear. Kahn said Trump could possibly win the popular vote in November. "It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening." It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top, and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them? I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work. We become an instrument of the Biden campaign? We turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side? And that would accomplish — what? I think editors like Kahn are trying to maintain this pose that their media outlets are independent and fact-based and not a partisan machine. The pose fails when you actually read them. But it’s like he’s lecturing his troops that this is who they want to Appear. They want to be seen as independent. They want a little finesse in their editorializing. Trump drove them to an excess, Kahn implied, into an explicit Stop Trump mentality, especially in 2020, with the whole Tom Cotton op-ed fiasco. Smith asked "Do you think the Times let the inmates run the asylum for too long?" KAHN: I wouldn’t use those words. I do think that there was a period of peak cultural angst at this organization, with the combination of the intensity of the Trump era, COVID, and then George Floyd. The summer of 2020 was a crazy period where the world felt threatened, people’s individual safety was threatened, we had a murder of an innocent black man by police suffocation. And we have the tail end of the most divisive presidency that anyone alive today has experienced. And those things just frayed nerves everywhere. Kahn said "the newsroom is not a safe space." KAHN: It’s a space where you’re being exposed to lots of journalism, some of which you are not going to like. Don’t you feel like there was a generation of students who came out of school saying you should only work at places that align completely with your values? SMITH: Don’t you think we all sort of said that to them? KAHN: I don’t think we said it explicitly. I think there was a period [where] we implied it. And I think that the early days of Trump in particular, were, “join us for the mission.” SMITH: Was it a mistake to say that — even to think it? KAHN: I think it went too far. It was overly simplistic. And I think the big push that you’re seeing us make and reestablish our norms and emphasize independent journalism and build a more resilient culture comes out of some of the excesses of that period.

Does anyone remember Kristen Welker -- in her short tenure at the helm of NBC's Meet the Press -- pushing around a Democrat to answer a question SIX times? Last December, Welker pressed Ron DeSantis six times to condemn Trump calling radical leftists "vermin." On Sunday, she was back on the anti-Trump train, demanding SIX times that Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) pledge to accept the election results of 2024 long before we know what they are.  The first answer could be "I don't know, Kristen. Has NBC accepted the 2016 election results yet? Because that's not what it looked like through the whole Russian-collusion fiasco."  You can say this is a fair question, since Trump hasn't accepted the results of the last election. But this question certainly implies "will the Republicans accept their inevitable defeat?" “You voted to certify the election results of 2020,” Welker said. Trump said “the exact opposite of what you said and did after 2020. Why would you want to be on a ticket with someone where there’s such a fundamental difference?” “President Trump himself said he expects this election to be fair,” Scott replied. “He expects it to be honest, and he expects to win. That’s what the presidential candidate should expect. And I expect the exact same thing. And frankly, the American people agree with him.” Then Welker began pressing Scott on his willingness to accept the 2024 results. “Will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024: Bottom line?” Welker asked. “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump,” Scott said. “Wait Senator,” Welker said, “Yes or no? Will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?” Scott just said, “That is my statement." After demanding Tim Scott accept the unknown 2024 election results SIX times, NBC host Kristen Welker hops on her NARAL hobby horse again, yelling at Scott that he can't say Democrats support abortion up until birth. Welker refuses to accept the 2020 DNC platform! pic.twitter.com/6LTzoJzxTv — Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 6, 2024 Welker robotically repeated: “Just yes or no: Will you accept the election results of 2024?” Welker said. The senator repeated: “I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president. Kristen, you can ask him multiple times—” “Sir,” Welker pressed on. “Just a yes or no answer.” “The American people will make the decision,” Scott replied. “And the decision will be for President Trump.” Welker wouldn't let up, like she had a Jeff Zucker yelling into her earpiece. “I don’t hear you committing to the election results,” she said. “Will you commit to the election results?” Then Scott called out her Democrat tilt. “This is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat Party. At the end of the day, I’ve said what I’ve said, and I know that the American people, their voices will be heard. And I believe that President Trump will be our next president.” Welker fanatically tried a sixth time: “The hallmark of our democracy is that both candidates agree to a peaceful transfer of power,” she said. “So I’m asking you, as a potential VP nominee, will you accept to commit to the election results in this election cycle, no matter who wins? Just simply yes or no.” “I expect President Trump to win the next election. Listen, I’m not going to ask to answer your hypothetical question,” Scott said. In the same show, Welker interviewed Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and she didn't ask him anything six times. But Welker also returned to quibbling with Sen. Scott when he said Democrats support abortion up to birth. That's a fact, NBC! NBC’s @kwelkernbc obsesses with @SenatorTimScott, asking SIX times variations of “Senator, yes or no? Will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins?” Scott: “This is why so many Americans believe NBC is an extension of the Democratic Party” #MTP pic.twitter.com/IgoJLQXpZI — Brent Baker ?? ?? (@BrentHBaker) May 5, 2024

Last week, a group of heroic Pi Kappa Phi fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill saved an American flag from being torn down a desecrated by a mob of anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas student extremists. But in the week since the incident occurred, the flagship morning and evening newscasts of ABC and CBS ignored the incident, while NBC only gave their heroism in the face of evil anti-Americanism a fleeting eight seconds on NBC Nightly News two nights later. To be fair, the broadcast networks were too busy whining about the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia University being busted by the NYPD. ABC in particular was also busy lying about the UCLA encampment being “largely peaceful.” And CBS was busy worrying that the protests could hurt President Biden’s reelection chances. ABC and CBS might argue that they thought that the flag-saving incident didn’t rise to a level that would allow it to be considered a national story, but that’s debunked by the fact that at least NBC gave it a few seconds. NBC correspondent Liz Kreutz tucked the frat bros into a much larger report on the college encampments generally. “This American flag at UNC put back in place and protected in part by a group of fraternity brothers after protesters had replaced it with a Palestinian flag,” she said.   This 8-seconds from NBC Nightly News (May 2) was all the Big Three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) could muster for the heroic frat bros at UNC who saved an American flag from the anti-Semitic/pro-Hamas extremists who gathered on campus. It's been a week. pic.twitter.com/kxtQtVnTMi — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 6, 2024   On Thursday’s edition of NewsNation’s On Balance, host Leland Vittert spoke with three of the brothers to get a sense of what it was like in the moment and what it’s been like since the video of them saving the flag went viral. “When we saw our brothers there defending that flag, there was no doubt in any of our minds that we're going to go and join them,” Zachary Serinsky explained. “I'm glad that it was able to be put to an end. And the way that it did eventually. But yeah, we were there defending our brothers and there wasn't going to be anything that was going to stop us from going to that flag.” When asked about the GoFundMe campaign set up on their behalf to pay for a party (which at the time of the interview had raised over $400,000) and the John Rich concert they were getting as a reward, Trevor Lan stated: I mean, I think that we can all agree that we didn't anticipate that that part of it would occur, but we did know that it's important to stand strong on our beliefs and to be a representation of what we hope to see for Jewish students and for students who believe in our flag and democracy across the country.     Brendan Rosenblum said that people have reached out to them about job opportunities, “But again, like, that's not what this was about. It was just to bring attention to the issue we believe in.” He was also hopeful about how their actions changed the conversation on campus. “People are talking to both sides about it and trying to have constructive dialogue because they realize that what happened on our campus is not okay and we have to figure out a way to move forward together,” he said. “And that's the biggest, the most positive thing that came out of this. And I think that's something that we both, and everyone there can be proud of.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: NewsNation’s On Balance May 2, 2024 7:07:54 p.m. Eastern (…) LELAND VITTERT: I want to bring in the boys here in a second. Zachary Serinsky, Brendan Rosenblum, Trevor Lan. The guys who are in that video. Brendan, we had you we had you yesterday. Start with Zachary, real quick. You guys just did what you thought was the right thing. All of a sudden. Are you surprised by the result? ZACHARY SERINSKY: I'm not. first of all, thank you for having us. We’re all happy to be here. When we saw our brothers there defending that flag, there was no doubt in any of our minds that we're going to go and join them. I'm glad that it was able to be put to an end. And the way that it did eventually. But yeah, we were there defending our brothers and there wasn't going to be anything that was going to stop us from going to that flag. VITTERT: All right. But Trevor, I think about this. Right, okay. A couple days ago, you guys did the right thing. You weren’t doing it for fame or for glory. You were doing it because you thought it was the right thing to do. You were there with your brothers who were taking a stand and now you're on TV with John Rich, who is going to play you a concert with $400,000 worth of free beer. That's pretty cool. TREVOR LAN: Yeah. I mean, I think that we can all agree that we didn't anticipate that that part of it would occur, but we did know that it's important to stand strong on our beliefs and to be a representation of what we hope to see for Jewish students and for students who believe in our flag and democracy across the country. VITTERT: Brendan, tell me what's happened in the past 24 hours and the conversations you've had. BRENDAN ROSENBLUM: Yeah, I think first of all, we've definitely got a lot more media attention. And for us, it's not about fame, it's not about coolness. It's about bringing attention to our message. Stand up for what you believe in, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. For me, it’s when your values are questioned that’s when it matters. It's easy to believe in something when no one – it’s easy – But when people question that, that's when it's important to stand by them. (…) 1:12:57 p.m. Eastern ROSENBLUM: I think there's been a lot of outreach, there's definitely been job opportunities. But again, like, that's not what this was about. It was just to bring attention to the issue we believe in. And I think the biggest thing we saw from this is people are talking about it. People are talking to both sides about it and trying to have constructive dialogue because they realize that what happened on our campus is not okay and we have to figure out a way to move forward together. And that's the biggest, the most positive thing that came out of this. And I think that's something that we both, and everyone there can be proud of. (…)

Another week, another teacher sexually assaulting a student. Maddison Bergmann, a 24-year-old Wisconsin elementary school teacher, was arrested recently after allegedly making out with one of her 5th grade students. Screenshots from numerous text message conversations between the victim and Bergmann suggest that the sexual abuse took place during lunch or after school, CBS News reported. Apparently, the victim’s mother overheard a phone call between Bergmann and her son which prompted the mother to go through her 11-year-old's cellphone. The victim then told investigators that he spoke with Bergmann “almost daily.” When the child’s father found out about the alleged relationship, he marched to River Crest Elementary with the printed conversations from his son's phone, leading to police being called “regarding inappropriate conduct between a current teacher and a 5th grade student.” Additionally, court documents indicate that Bergmann’s bag had a folder in it with handwritten notes from the victim. The victim noted that the boy and his teacher would write notes to one another talking about “kissing each other” throughout the day. Related: Church Volunteer Accused of Sexual Assaulting 15-Year-Old Boy “One of my cousins is in the 5th grade and I can't imagine a man talking to her how we talk. I know we have a special relationship and I do love you more than anyone in the world but I have to be the adult here and stop,” one of the notes, allegedly from Bergmann, said. Documents also report that Bergmann told the victim how much she enjoyed “him touching her” and “making out” with him, the New York Post reported. After being arrested and released on a $25,000 bond, Bergmann has been placed on administrative leave and faces one count of first-degree child sexual assault. Her fiancé has since reportedly called off their July wedding, shocking no one. Sadly, stories like this one are becoming way too common. It’s essentially weekly that we here at MRCTV report on another teacher sexually assaulting one or more of her students, often repeatedly. If you were considering homeschooling and needed something to push you in one direction or the other, this is it. Follow us on Twitter/X: Woke of The Weak: The Left Needs Therapy & You Might Too After Watching This The people featured in this video really need therapy & our prayers too. pic.twitter.com/zLbJcivOW3 — MRCTV (@mrctv) April 30, 2024