Harvard Proves Again: They Are Who We Thought They Were

Paula Kerger, chief executive of the taxpayer-subsidized Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), recently told the New York Times, “In terms of the news, we work really hard to try to bring multiple viewpoints forward.” But as the second Trump administration begins and PBS comes under unprecedented existential pressure from the administration for its liberally biased evening news product, a review of coverage of the first four months of Trump II proves the PBS News Hour still occupies a liberal bubble, and it’s sealed tight as ever. A new Media Research Center study tracked and labeled every guest that appeared on the News Hour over the first four months of Trump’s second term -- January 20, 2025 (Inauguration Day) through May 19, 2025 -- and found that liberal-Democratic leaning guests outnumbered conservative-Republican leaning guests by 173-41, a ratio of 4.2 to 1 (106 guests were rated either neutral or politically unrelated). That gap surpassed findings from an analogous MRC study conducted two years ago, which uncovered a ratio of 3.7 to 1. Yet even those figures understate the program’s true slant, as many of the Republican and conservative guests opposed Trump on a variety of issues and controversies, including military issues, program cuts, and deportation of illegal immigrants. Key Findings: ■ Liberal-Democratic guests outnumbered conservative-Republican guests by 173-41, a ratio of 4.2 to 1. ■ Of 18 total appearances by Republican officials, eight were coded as anti-Trump. Of 24 total appearances by Democratic officials, none were pro-Trump. ■ When elected officials and political appointees were removed from the guest count, the ideological disparity of show guests becomes even more striking, with liberal-leaning guests outnumbering conservative-leaning guests 149-23, for a ratio of 6.5 to 1. ■ Liberal journalists made 22 appearances as guests, compared to just one appearance by a conservative journalist. ■ The ideological breakdown of guests on the News Hour’s new “On Democracy” segment was nearly balanced, 6-5 liberal-conservative. But the difference in hostility during the interviews themselves showed PBS’s liberal ideology had not changed.   Liberal Guests Fearmongering Over Trump 2.0 The incoming administration was attacked from all angles by PBS guests, who were encouraged to unload on Trump and budget-cutting Elon Musk by News Hour interviewers. Steve Vladeck, constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, made an impressive five appearances over the study period to fearmonger over Trump and the Supreme Court and Trump’s use or abuse of executive authority, deportations and due process. This same liberal expert came on PBS to defend Hillary Clinton on her email scandal in 2016. Natasha Sarin appeared twice in the study period to criticize cuts to the IRS by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Sarin worked for the Treasury Department during the Biden administration, but PBS failed to provide that information, or the fact that she contributed $750 to the Biden campaign in 2020. On March 19, host Geoff Bennett conducted a 13-minute interview with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and it was challenging -- from the Left. PBS began with a video medley of Democratic leaders expressing their fury at Schumer for voting in favor of a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown. The online headline for the interview summarized the tilt: “‘We had an awful choice’: Schumer defends voting with GOP saying shutdown would be worse.” Wouldn’t a balanced PBS moderate between Democrats and Republicans in policy disputes? Instead, PBS anchor Geoff Bennett pressed Schumer: "Why not be as tactically ruthless as Republicans have shown themselves to be?" The March 28 show brought a welcome bit of balance, as two Princeton University professors, Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee, discussed their book lamenting “public health” bureaucratic overreach during America’s panicked, authoritarian reaction to the COVID pandemic. Yale professor Jason Stanley went on the News Hour on April 1 and ranted to anchor Nawaz about how he was escaping to Canada because America was sinking into fascism under Trump. As usual, no conservatives were interviewed to offer a rebuttal. PBS, like the other networks, devoted oodles of sympathy to infamous “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia while covering the controversy of the Trump administration’s supposedly unjust deportation of the El Salvadoran illegal and suspected MS-13 gang member. Reporter Laura Barron-Lopez was joined April 15 by guest Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University, who relayed a sympathetic story on Garcia’s behalf: “He was a teenager. His mother sold pupusas. Gangs were trying to extort her and threatening her children and wanted her to put them into the gangs. He was sent here by his family. He's never broken any laws here. There are no criminal convictions here...” A News Hour favorite, McCord had in January defended Biden’s preemptive pardons of his family’s financial controversies.   Republican Party Poopers Of 18 total appearances by Republican elected officials or political appointees, eight were anti-Trump (three of those eight appearances were from one person, retired Rear Admiral James McPherson, criticizing various military moves by Trump). By contrast, of 24 total appearances by Democratic elected officials or political appointees, none were pro-Trump. Also notice that, somehow more Democrats (often disgruntled Biden bureaucrats taking aim at Trump) managed to appear on the PBS News Hour than did Republicans, even though Republicans would seem to be more newsworthy, given their control of both Congress and the presidency. When those elected officials and political appointees were removed from the guest count, the ideological disparity of show guests becomes even more striking, with liberal-leaning guests outnumbering conservative-leaning guests 149-23, for a ratio of 6.5 to 1.   Journalists as Guests Besides its own roster of reliably liberal reporters (White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez is typically the most slanted), the PBS guest list was stuffed with liberal journalists from other outlets as well. Over the four-month study period, identifiably liberal journalists made 22 appearances as guests, compared to just one appearance by a conservative journalist -- cartoonist Michael Ramirez, interviewed for a segment that also featured liberal former Washington Post cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who sketched Donald Trump conducting with a swastika-tipped baton. Subtle! Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of The Atlantic (and moderator of the PBS weekly roundtable Washington Week with The Atlantic) appeared twice to talk about his accidental inclusion on a sensitive military “group chat.” Paul Krugman, the former New York Times columnist, leaned into his partisanship in his February 13 appearance. PBS’s resident economics reporter Paul Solman drew Krugman out on the stupidity of low-income Trump voters, “We know that Trump won heavily among people who pay very little attention to the news.” Brian Stelter, editor of CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter (and reliable white knight for the liberal media) appeared on the February 25 show to discuss the “chilling effect” of the Trump administration blocking the Associated Press from the White House reporter pool. He borrowed a ridiculous Soviet-era comparison from White House correspondent Peter Baker of The New York Times, who wrote that “these changes remind him of how the Kremlin took over the press pool and banned certain outlets….So he sees parallels here to what's happened in more repressive countries in the past.” The March 3 “On Democracy” segment featured Nobel Peace Prize laureate and investigative journalist Maria Ressa. Bennett bluntly forwarded the maximalist anti-Trump angle, featuring Trump as autocrat: “[Ressa’s] book How to Stand Up to a Dictator detailed her experience running the news site Rappler under the increasingly autocratic regime of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. She recently sat down with Amna Nawaz to discuss parallels she's seeing between the Philippines and the U.S. under President Trump….” On March 14, the News Hour invited on Sarah Brown, senior editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education, to accuse Trump of withholding aid from elite colleges as “part of this larger effort by the Trump administration to try to have universities in alignment with his agenda. That`s really what is underlying everything that we`re seeing here with DEI programs, with these protesters and potential deportations of protesters.” No opposing view was offered. Guest host William Brangham gave New York Times reporter David Enrich a sympathetic March 17 interview to promote his anti-Trump book Murder The Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful. The online headline provided the flavor: “‘Murder the Truth’ examines growing effort to silence journalists and curtail free speech.” Enrich provided a laughable liberal media cliché, insisting that Trump’s fight against the Supreme Court precedent in New York Times vs. Sullivan (which set a high standard in defamation cases against public figures) was: “already causing a really severe chilling effect on the ability of everyone from a normal citizen to someone with a Substack newsletter or podcast to journalists at major news outlets being able to really properly scrutinize and hold powerful people to account.”   “On Democracy” Hypocrisy After a relatively mild first two weeks -- perhaps shell shock from Trump’s win? – the News Hour got its liberal groove back with a new series, the portentously titled “On Democracy,” which News Hour co-host Amna Nawaz promised would go beyond the day to day news “to look at big questions about the changing laws, institutions and norms.” How convenient that those became pertinent media questions only after Donald Trump began his second term. The recurring segment launched February 6 with guest Barton Gellman of the left-wing Brennan Center. After Nawaz asked Gellman if the courts are "sort of the most robust guardrail" against Trump, Nawaz fretted about an American descent into authoritarianism. This came after four years of PBS ignoring unilateral moves by the Biden administration on college loan forgiveness and COVID vaccine mandates. The “On Democracy” segment aired 11 times through May 19, and the ideological breakdown of guests was surprisingly balanced, 6-5 liberal-conservative. That might seem like a recognition that PBS knows it has a problem and is trying to solve it. But the interviews themselves fell back into the same liberal grooves, with conservative guests employed as punching bags and liberal guests treated with all respect. Nawaz practically seethed at her conservative guest Michael Knowles during their February 20 interview, blasting him in this exchange on transgenderism after he made a point about the concept spreading via social contagion. Nawaz: Michael, you realize this is the same argument people made about gay people, right? Knowles: Well, I'm talking about the whole LGBT ideology. So I suppose, in some ways, I'm making that argument myself. Nawaz: You don't believe that gay people exist? Yet three days beforehand, in an “On Democracy” segment February 17, Nawaz set up radical-left Princeton professor Kim Lane Scheppele to imply President Trump was a fascist dictator who would use immigrants and transgenders as scapegoats. Nawaz: We have also seen the targeting with very specific groups like immigrants and transgender people. Is that something you have seen before? Scheppele rose to the liberal bait. Scheppele: Absolutely. Picking scapegoats is partly a way of generating public approval for people who don't like the scapegoats. But it's also a way of saying to people who might challenge this government, this could happen to you. So if you step out of line, you can see what happens. You fall into this abyss of arbitrary treatment, where the law cannot protect you and where we are going to come after you.  Nawaz: We have also seen the targeting with very specific groups like immigrants and transgender people. Is that something you have seen before? Scheppele: Absolutely. Picking scapegoats is partly a way of generating public approval for people who don`t like the scapegoats. But it’s also a way of saying to people who might challenge this government, this could happen to you. So if you step out of line, you can see what happens. You fall into this abyss of arbitrary treatment, where the law cannot protect you and where we are going to come after you. Another “On Democracy” guest, law professor Ilya Shapiro, was introduced as hailing from the “conservative-leaning” Manhattan Institute, which was either to provide an ideological warning label, or perhaps the beleaguered network drawing attention to the fact that it was trying to be balanced. Still, Shapiro didn’t get softball questions but was peppered with dubious questions from co-host Geoff Bennett about Trump’s claims of executive authority like this: “There have been arguments, as you well know, that we are either in or that we're approaching a constitutional crisis. I’d imagine you would disagree with that. But what to you would signal a constitutional crisis? What to you, would signal that this democratic experiment is in peril?” Even one of the ostensibly Republican guests for “On Democracy,” Alberto Gonzales, who served as Attorney General during the George W. Bush administration, was invited onto the April 30 broadcast to relay his anti-Trump position. Nawaz introduced him as a Kamala Harris voter and for having called Trump "the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation." Nawaz’s last question to him: “Attorney General, you called Donald Trump the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation. Based on the norm-breaking and the rule-bending we have seen so far, are you worried that you can't get it back once it`s gone?”   As demonstrated, the News Hour guest list was dominated by radical professors, disgruntled Democratic bureaucrats, and legacy media liberals -- an unwise stance for a tax-funded network that operates (for now) under a congressional mandate to maintain "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”    METHODOLOGY: The study covered a four-month period, using a Nexis search of News Hour transcripts from Jan 20, 2025 (Inauguration Day) through May 19, 2025, encompassing every edition of the PBS News Hour, Monday through Friday, for a total of 86 episodes of news coverage. (Not included: The half-hour PBS News Weekend show, a separate entity with different hosts that airs on Saturday and Sunday.)  Guests were defined as interview subjects if they appeared in studio or talked to a host or in-studio reporter remotely. Also included as guests were main subjects of field profiles, as well as the show’s occasional “Brief But Spectacular” segments, in which a single guest talked without interaction from an interviewee. Guests were defined as either liberal or conservative based on the subject matter and content of the interview, or classified as non-applicable if neither designation applied.  Elected officials and political appointees were included in the tally -- defined as current or recently retired officeholders at the federal, state, and local level, as well as those who currently serve in the Biden White House or served previously or currently in the Trump White House, or were appointed to their position during the Biden or Trump administrations. Regular PBS pundits were excluded from the tally, as were National Public Radio reporters and public television reporters from local member stations. Guests included in the tally: All other journalists, both reporters and columnists, as well as academics, activists, think tank staffers, etc., save those who discussed non-political subjects or didn’t advance partisan or ideological positions during their interviews.

On Sunday morning, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria re-aired an April 6 primetime special with the not-so-subtle title of The War on Government, which purported to be a history lesson on the conservative movement’s frustration with Republican politicians’ unwillingness or inability to shrink the government going back to President Dwight Eisenhower, which has culminated in DOGE’s blunt-force bureaucratic firings. The whole show operated on the assumption that conservatives, from FDR’s critics to DOGE, are wrong and out of touch, but the part about Tea Party opposition to President Barack Obama was the worst. Zakaria tried to claim Obamacare was actually conservative and had John Hopkins Professor Leah Wright Rigueur then surmise that the opposition to it was based in racism. Zakaria huffed, “And yet, the core idea of Obamacare, requiring people to buy mostly private health insurance, had been championed by conservatives. It was proposed by Republicans as an alternative to Bill Clinton's healthcare plan in the 1990s, and actually implemented in Massachusetts by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in 2006. But, none of that mattered.”     It should be said that the people who led those efforts in the 90s insist that Zakaria’s interpretation of their work is wrong. Romney was also heavily criticized in the 2012 primary for that law. Nevertheless, Zakaria continued, proving that even in 2009, long before Donald Trump descended down the escalator, PolitiFact was a problematic website, “Ferocious protests sprang up everywhere in 2009, warning of a government takeover of healthcare, which PolitiFact called the lie of the year.” The fact that PolitiFact said that in 2010 aside, PolitiFact has this habit of treating Republican or conservative claims extremely literally. So, when Obamacare did not install a British-style nationalization system, it attacked. The idea that heavy mandates on individuals and employers, including religious ones, could constitute a takeover is something PolitiFact refuses to consider. It did this same trick when Democrats tried to pass their federal election bill dubbed the Freedom to Vote Act during the Biden administration. However, when Democrats compare Republicans to Jim Crow, PolitiFact insists the subject is simply too nuanced to break out the Truth-o-Meter as its cherry-picked experts insist political hyperbole should not be taken too literally and instead be viewed as an attention-getting tactic. As for the Tea Party, Rigueur echoed Zakaria’s first claim, “The Tea Party is opposing that which is drawn from their own movement.” Zakaria then suggested the Tea Party was just a tool of the Koch Brothers, “According to an authoritative study of the Tea Party, much of the movement was bankrolled by billionaire activists like the Koch brothers, libertarians, who had a massive influence on the message of the movement.” So what? Would CNN ever run a documentary downplaying liberal causes simply because they were funded by George Soros? No, of course not, but that didn’t stop Rigueur from adding, “You also have a group of people who are deeply uneasy about the idea of having a black president.” No matter how many times people like Zakaria may try to claim it, opposition to Obamacare was and is based in long-standing conservative principles, not racism towards the black president, but Zakaria does have history of specials that mangle GOP history. Here is a transcript for the May 25 show: CNN The War on Government: A Fareed Zakaria Special 5/25/2025 10:45 AM ET FAREED ZAKARIA: And yet, the core idea of Obamacare, requiring people to buy mostly private health insurance, had been championed by conservatives. It was proposed by Republicans as an alternative to Bill Clinton's healthcare plan in the 1990s, and actually implemented in Massachusetts by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in 2006. But, none of that mattered. RACHEL MADDOW: The wave of angry mobs. CHRIS MATTHEWS: The protester who came to the town hall meeting today with a gun. ZAKARIA: Ferocious protests sprang up everywhere in 2009, warning of a government takeover of healthcare, which PolitiFact called the lie of the year. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoever senator or congressman vote for this bill, we will vote you out. ZAKARIA: After that, no Republican in Congress – CHUCK GRASSLEY: I would not vote for that. ZAKARIA: -- dared to go near Obamacare. LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR: The Tea Party is opposing that which is drawn from their own movement. ZAKARIA: According to an authoritative study of the Tea Party, much of the movement was bankrolled by billionaire activists like the Koch brothers, libertarians, who had a massive influence on the message of the movement. RIGUEUR: You also have a group of people who are deeply uneasy about the idea of having a black president. ZAKARIA: Despite Obamacare's powerful opposition and many moments when the bill looked dead – UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 219 to 212, no votes are Republicans. BLITZER: All Democrats. No Republicans. ZAKARIA: -- the Affordable Care Act became law.

We’ve got a brand new, fun interactive series for the new year called Worst Media Take of the Week, where you — our loyal NewsBusters visitors and MRC supporters — get to vote on which leftist journalist or celebrity had the worst media take of the week.   Much appreciation to all who voted last week via NewsBusters and the MRC’s various social media sites (Facebook, Instagram and X.com).   The results of the Worst Media Take of the Week are in and the winner is… Whoopi Goldberg! The comedian and co-host of ABC’s The View won with 58 percent of the vote! Goldberg took first place for her lame attempt to brush-off the Democratic party and legacy media’s attempt to hide Joe Biden’s mental decline. Goldberg huffed: “Why is this important to know now?”  CBS News political contributor/former VP Kamala Harris communications director Ashley Etienne finished in second place with 28 percent of the vote. Former NBC’s Today and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric finished third with 14 percent. The following is a montage of all the nominees:      WINNER (58 percent of the vote)   Whoopi: Why is It “Important to Know” About Biden’s Decline Now? “So should anonymous sources who talked to [Jake] Tapper have spoken up about their concerns while he [Joe Biden] was in office - while he was in still in office? And my other question is, why is this important to know now?”— Co-host Whoopi Goldberg on ABC’s The View, May 20.   SECOND PLACE (28 percent of the vote)   Ashley Etienne: Trump Released Biden Memory Lapse Tape to “Distract” From His “Disastrous First 100 Days” “It’s clear to me that President Trump released the [Special Counsel Robert Hur/President Joe Biden] tape because he’s trying to distract from his disastrous - unprecedented disastrous first 100 days.” — CBS News political contributor/former VP Kamala Harris communications director Ashley Etienne on NBC’s Meet the Press, May 18.   THIRD PLACE (14 percent of the vote)   Katie Couric: “There’s No Such Thing as True Objectivity” “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 a true objectivity, but having said that, - you know I really struggle with that.”— Former NBC’s Today show co-host and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric on Next Question podcast, May 15.   Thanks again to all who participated!    Funded by James P. Jimirro

Police in Springfield, Massachusetts, said a father told them he was outside of his vehicle making a delivery around 10 p.m. May 19 when he noticed an unknown individual enter his car.Worse still? The father told police his child also was in the vehicle at the time.Officers arrested 40-year-old Angel Tapia-Otero and charged him with carjacking and kidnapping, police said.Police said the dad got back into his car from the passenger side and tried to remove the intruder from the driver's seat and fought with him.With that, police said the intruder began accelerating the vehicle — and soon hit another car head-on.In the aftermath, the driver of the other vehicle involved in the collision could see two people fighting in the other car with a child inside it, police said.RELATED: 17-year-old opens fire while attempting carjacking, cops say. But victim also has a gun — and teaches suspect painful lesson. Image source: Springfield (Mass.) Police DepartmentAfter arriving at 10:50 p.m. at the intersection of Belmont Avenue and Keith Street — the scene of the head-on crash with injuries — officers arrested 40-year-old Angel Tapia-Otero and charged him with carjacking and kidnapping, police said.Police said it wasn't clear if Tapia-Otero knew a child was inside the car when he entered it. Police said the suspect also was charged with operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license.Blaze News reached out to Springfield police and asked if the victim or his child or both were injured, and if so, what were the extent of their injuries. Police told Blaze News they don't provide information about crime victims — but they did say Tapia-Otero was injured in the fight with the victim and taken to a hospital.The Hampden County Correctional Center on Tuesday morning confirmed to Blaze News that Tapia-Otero was still in the facility after being booked into jail May 20. Officials said he is not bailable and that they couldn't provide his next court date.WWLP-TV reported that Tapia-Otero is from Springfield. The city is located in Western Massachusetts, on the shores of the Connecticut river just north of the border.RELATED: DC bartender fights back against 3 teenage wannabe carjackers — and wins: 'I work too hard for what I have' Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced Monday that the bureau will revisit a number of "cases of potential public corruption" that apparently went nowhere under previous management. Bongino indicated that he and FBI Director Kash Patel have decided to re-open or assign "additional resources and investigative attention" to the following cases: "the DC pipe bombing investigation, the cocaine discovery at the prior administration's White House, and the leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs case." This renewed interest in improprieties swept aside during the Biden era signals the FBI's new leadership might actually be serious about restoring trust in the agency, which was badly damaged in recent years by its politicization and apparent engagement in "election interference"; its difficulty holding leftist extremists accountable; and its zealous targeting of conservatives and Democrats' political opponents. Blaze Media contributor and investigative reporter Steve Baker — who with Joseph Hanneman has dug extensively into the planting of pipe bombs near the Washington, D.C., offices of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee on Jan. 5, 2021 — welcomed the news. Baker noted, however, that there was something "curious" about Bongino framing the cases as instances of "potential public corruption," particularly with regard to the case of the pipe bombs. "It's not public corruption if it was MAGA [behind it]; if it was Antifa; if it was BLM; if it was Oath Keepers; the Proud Boys; the 3% Militia or something like that," Baker told Blaze News. "It's only a public corruption case if they believe that it's an inside job by Capitol Police, Metro Police, FBI, or U.S. Secret Service." On its website, FBI uses the term "public corruption" in reference to violations of federal law by public officials at the federal, state, and local levels of government. RELATED: Was the DNC pipe bomb planted while Kamala Harris was inside on January 6? Photo from US Capitol Police CCTV camera 8021 on Jan. 6, 2021 Baker downplayed the possibility that the public corruption framing was the result of careless wording, suggesting that Bongino likely "can't even type out a single X post without going through general counsel." Baker also suggested that if one or more of the cases had been closed, the bureau should have said as much and disclosed its conclusions to the public. "For them to say that they're reopening the case implies that the FBI closed the case, that it was not an ongoing case. Therefore, they should have told the American people that they didn't or couldn't solve it," said Baker. Blaze News reached out to the FBI for comment but did not receive a response by publication time. Baker indicated that the FBI signaled as recently as January that the investigation into the pipe bomb case was still alive. On Jan. 4, the bureau announced that the $500,000 reward for information pertaining to the bomber remained in effect. According to Axios, the case remains unsolved even after the FBI assessed over 600 tips and conducted over 1,000 interviews. RELATED: Blaze News original: FBI agents: True servants of justice — or bullies 'just following orders'? Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images While seemingly easier cases to solve, the probes into who primed pro-abortion radicals by leaking the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and who left cocaine in the Biden White House similarly left the public with their suspicions unverified. White House mystery White powder was discovered near the West Executive Entrance of the Biden White House, not far from the Situation Room on July 2, 2023, by members of the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service. Precautionary closures were undertaken while D.C. Fire and EMS investigated. Following a field test, a firefighter with the department's hazardous material team concluded that the substance was "cocaine hydrochloride." 'You still don't know what everyone in the public knows.' The U.S. Secret Service launched an investigation into how the cocaine made it into the White House while Hunter Biden — a longtime drug-abuser who was kicked out of the Navy Reserve for cocaine use — had then been visiting. The FBI's crime lab conducted "advanced fingerprint and DNA analysis" on the cocaine baggie. Unfortunately, the FBI results received by the Secret Service were allegedly a dead-end on fingerprints and DNA. The Secret Service announced it was ending its probe into the matter without a suspect on July 13, 2023. Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck suggested that in the cocaine case, the Secret Service and FBI were either evidencing extreme incompetence or engaged in a cover-up, stating in 2023, "At some point you need to say, 'You know, you're really bad at these ongoing investigations because you've had an ongoing investigation on Hunter Biden for how many years? And you still don't know what everyone in the public knows.'" High court leaker An initial draft of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked a month early, then published in May 2022 by Politico. 'I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible.' The high court characterized the leak as "one of the worst breaches of trust in its history," stressing it was "no mere misguided attempt at protest" but rather "a grave assault on the judicial process." Chief Justice John Roberts directed Gail Curley, the marshal of the court, to investigate the leak. The marshal failed to identify the responsible party and admitted as much in her 2023 report. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff attested to the thoroughness of the court's inquiry. In the wake of the investigation's conclusion, President Donald Trump noted on Truth Social, "The Supreme Court has just announced it is not able to find out, even with the help of our 'crack' FBI, who the leaker was on the R v Wade scandal. They'll never find out, & it's important that they do." RELATED: Kash Patel, Dan Bongino say Jeffrey Epstein DID commit suicide: 'I've seen the whole file' Photo (left): Roy Rochlin/Getty Images; Photo (center): Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images; Photo (right): Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito later indicated that he had an idea who might have been responsible but that his suspicion wasn't enough. "I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible, but that's different from the level of proof that is needed to name somebody," Alito said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "It was a part of an effort to prevent the Dobbs draft ... from becoming the decision of the court. And that's how it was used for those six weeks by people on the outside — as part of the campaign to try to intimidate the court." Bongino noted in his post Monday, "I receive requested briefings on these cases weekly and we are making progress. If you have any investigative tips on these matters that may assist us then please contact the FBI." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Monday night the grill cools, the flag comes down, and you crash on that “half-off” mattress you never planned to buy. By Tuesday morning, America is already scrolling to the next thing. But the moms in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery aren’t scrolling — and neither should we. Treating Memorial Day like a red, white, and blue props department proves a sad stat from a poll conducted by the National World War II Museum a few years ago: Barely one in five Americans could explain what the holiday is actually for. We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose. If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur, that’s on us. So let’s talk about Tuesday morning in America and the 364 days that follow. What does it look like to honor our war dead all year long? We must price-check freedom — every day. Scripture is always an appropriate place to start. In John 15:13 the Bible teaches us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This verse is memorialized on headstones form sea to shining sea. President Reagan reminded the nation at Arlington in 1982 that “freedom is not bought cheaply. It has a cost; it imposes a burden.” That burden extends beyond military service. It demands vigilance. It requires raising children who understand why our flag is folded 13 times — not just how many “likes” a TikTok dance racks up. We must finish the unfinished work. Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg was delivered five months after that battlefield fell silent, long after the trending topic had shifted. He challenged the living “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” Our unfinished work today is cultural: defending truth in classrooms, fostering marriages that can withstand deployment, protecting girls’ sports from idealogues who would erase biological reality, and pushing back when elites sneer at patriotism as passe. We must guard the souls who come home. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ most recent suicide-prevention report still lands with a thud: An average of 17.6 veterans take their own lives each day. We flunk Remembrance 101. RELATED: ‘So that others may live’: The true meaning of the holiday APCortizasJr via iStock/Getty Images We cannot claim to honor the fallen if we abandon the brothers- and sisters-in-arms who made it home only to fight invisible wars. That means supporting faith-based counseling (which bureaucrats keep trying to sideline), turning the VA paperwork morass into a mission, helping veterans find meaningful and rewarding post-service careers, and checking on the veteran down the street instead of waiting for Washington to do it. We must restore the faith they fought for. According to Pew Research, eight in ten Americans now believe religion is losing influence in public life, and roughly half say that’s a bad thing. The men and women we memorialize took an oath to defend a nation “under God.” When pastors self-censor, when corporate America flies a Pride flag over Old Glory, and when our schools swap the Bible for the 1619 Project, we’re torching the spiritual scaffolding those soldiers died to protect. God bless America. We must teach the next generation to remember on purpose. If your kids can quote Marvel but not MacArthur (“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation”), that’s on us. Take them to a war memorial in July, not just on the last Monday in May. Tell them why “Taps” is 24 notes of holy silence. Ask a Gold Star family to dinner and let the conversation run long. The goal isn’t to glorify war; it’s to glorify virtue — courage, duty, sacrifice — so that when the recruiters call, our sons and daughters know what they’re signing up to defend. We must live gratefully and live out loud. Gratitude is not a Hallmark feeling; it’s a muscle you flex in public. Fly the flag correctly (sunrise to sunset, illuminated at night). Stand for the anthem even when the stadium lump next to you kneels or leaves his hat on. Support companies that still believe in America like Blaze Media and my podcast, “We the People with Gates Garcia.” And pray for our leaders — yes, even the ones making it hard. We must trade hashtag for habits. Hashtags flicker; habit forges character. Start small: Write a letter to a deployed Marine, sign up for a volunteer shift at the VA hospital, make a family pledge to read one military biography a year; and if you are blessed with means, cut a check to a veterans’ nonprofit organization. Imagine 20 million American households stepping up to do that. The culture would shift faster than Congress could rename the next great American holiday. The 365-day test: I love a good cookout more than anyone. That’s part of the freedom they bought us. But the measure of our gratitude isn’t how loudly we celebrate on one Monday — it’s how deliberately we lie on all the rest. Reagan’s challenge, Lincoln’s unfinished work, and Christ’s supreme definition of love converge on a single question the fallen silently ask us every dawn: Are you living a life worthy of my sacrifice? One day a year it’s fine to say, “Happy Memorial Day.” But on those other 364, make sure you live like you’re worth that sacrifice.

While many Americans took advantage of the three-day weekend meant to honor our nation's fallen service members, Rep. Glenn Ivey (Md.) became the latest Democrat to travel to El Salvador to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal alien the Trump administration deported a few months ago.The alarming accusations against Garcia regarding ties to MS-13, human trafficking, and domestic violence are well-documented, but they have not stopped the Democratic Party from going all out to demand his return.On Monday, Ivey posted a video on X explaining he was unable to physically meet with Garcia even though he had notified the Salvadoran government, through multiple channels, the purpose of his visit."We came here to visit him today, and now they're telling us we gotta go all the way back to San Salvador to get a permit. That's ridiculous! We ought to have a chance to come in and visit. They knew we were coming. They knew why we were coming, and they know we have the right to do this," Ivey vented."So they just need to cut the crap. Let us get in there and have a chance to see him and talk with him. ... Let us in. Stop playing games. Let us have a chance to talk with him," he angrily concluded.In his post on X, Ivey labeled Garcia as "my constituent." Ivey was present with Garcia's lawyer and "somebody from the union."RELATED: Senate Democrat says he will go the literal extra mile to bring back illegal immigrant Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Paul W. Gillespie/Baltimore Sun RELATED: President Bukele tells reporters why he won't return El Salvador citizen: 'The question is preposterous' Nayib Bukele. Win McNamee/Getty Images — (@) A few hours before the video was uploaded to X, Ivey sent out a statement to mark Memorial Day, but many of the responses to the post asked the congressman why he was in El Salvador on Monday. — (@) — (@) The Department of Homeland Security has made it clear that should Garcia be returned to the United States, he would immediately be taken into federal custody and eventually be removed from the country again. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Over the course of a few years, famous comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan went from mocking Christianity as a “myth” to telling his audience that “we need Jesus.” “The difference between science and religion is that science only asks you for one miracle. ‘I want you to believe in one miracle, the big bang.’ And it’s funny because people would be incredulous about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but yet, they’re convinced that the entire universe was smaller than the head of a pin,” Rogan said on a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “Instantaneously became everything,” Rogan continued, adding, “I’m sticking with Jesus on that one.” “I can’t say that I’m surprised,” BlazeTV Host Jason Whitlock tells Anthony Walker on “Jason Whitlock Harmony.” “As their rights to crack jokes get infringed upon, they’ll see the value of a Christian culture, and then someone like Joe Rogan who is just in pursuit of truth will realize, ‘No, this secular culture prevents, blocks you from truth.’” Whitlock believes another catalyst for Rogan’s change of heart was the COVID-19 pandemic. “The way it was handled, the foolishness of the science experts, has made people say, ‘Well, man, maybe I’ve been trusting the wrong people or person, and maybe Dr. Fauci doesn’t know more than Jesus Christ,’” he explains. “I’m with you,” Walker responds. “It’s just inevitable. There’s no other answer that satisfies the ‘Where did I come from? Why am I here? How do I handle my grief? And what happens when I die?' There’s nothing else that answers that other than God’s word.” “COVID was a turning point for most, where real life starts to hit. That, ‘Wow, the whole world is responding to a virus, and governments are shutting down, and covert and overt policies are being pedaled, like what is going on?’” he says. “And then, you begin to see the uncovering of Hollywood, and celebrity, and the illicit sex trafficking and porn and all that, like all of this kind of comes open, and you saw thousands, millions, starting to turn to Christ,” he continues, adding, “So it doesn’t shock me.” Want more from Jason Whitlock?To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The Health and Human Services Department announced Tuesday that the COVID vaccine will be dropped from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended vaccine schedule for healthy pregnant women and children. By amending the vaccine schedule, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is combatting the residual COVID hysteria from former President Joe Biden's administration. Kennedy made the highly anticipated announcement alongside Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Martin Makary, who serves as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. "I couldn't be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," Kennedy said. 'We're now one step closer to realizing President Trump's promise to make America healthy again.'RELATED: Who is bankrolling the anti-MAHA movement?RFK JR: “As of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule. We’re now one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.”HUGE! pic.twitter.com/Zq5eRhdQkf— TheBlaze (@theblaze) May 27, 2025 "Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data, to support the repeat booster strategy in children," Kennedy said."That ends today," Bhattacharya added. "It's common sense, and it's good science." Prior to the announcement, the CDC recommended the COVID vaccine to any person over 6 months old, particularly people over the age of 65, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and women planning to conceive. Despite the CDC's previous recommendations, several studies and medical professionals have indicated that the COVID vaccines are not as effective or as necessary as they were originally made out to be. Some even noted a range of adverse effects on children and pregnant women."There's no evidence healthy kids need it today, and most countries have stopped recommending it for children," Makary said.RELATED: HHS scrapping COVID jab recommendations for pregnant moms and kids: Report Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesThis is just the latest effort from President Donald Trump's administration to restore faith in American institutions, especially when it comes to health. Just last week, Kennedy released his highly anticipated MAHA report, which shed light on potential root causes for chronic health issues like chemical exposure, ultra-processed foods, and over-medicalization of children. "We're now one step closer to realizing President Trump's promise to make America healthy again," Kennedy said.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!