If The View celebrating how President Trump and his cabinet feared for their lives during the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting wasn’t bad enough, on their Behind the Table podcast, they decried how the attack fueled calls for the White House ballroom and the indictment of disgraced former FBI Director James Comey for his “8747” post. On Tuesday’s episode, alongside executive producer Brian Teta, faux conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin bemoaned about how Trump and others on the right were holding up the attack as a reason to back the construction of the White House Ballroom. According to her, the argument that it helped keep the president safe was invalid because it wouldn’t be able to protect him at all points in time seeing as he did need to leave the building on occasion: FARAH GRIFFIN:  But on the flip side, as I mentioned on the show, using this to justify the ballroom is absurd. On its face, It falls apart. I would ask any serious person to look me in the eye and say that will eliminate the threat risk against the president. It just simply won't unless he's going to hunker down and just not leave the however-many acres the White House is. That would mean that all future - rather than going to campaign events all over the country ahead of the midterms, he'd have to do it at the White House; rather than going to the G7, he'd do it at the White House. Or even going to CPAC. TETA: Or even with the Kennedy Center, which the rebuilding right now. The President often goes to the Kennedy Center. FARAH GRIFFIN: Correct. He often does. He likes to go golfing. Like this is just - It's not to say that that's the answer to security threats is just a ridiculous reason. “If you want to make the argument, which I said on air that we just need a bigger room to host state dinners, and he would like it, then then say that with your full chest, but don't make it about the security risks,” she huffed.   On The View's podcast, Alyssa Farah Griffin and executive producer Brian Teta scoff at the notion of building the White House ballroom to protect the president because it doesn't completely protect him at all times. They whine Trump is just exploiting the attempt to kill him.… pic.twitter.com/xr3aGuhOTm — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 1, 2026   Teta suggested that Trump and his supporters were partially to blame for why conspiracy theorists that the attack was a hoax (Click “expand”): TETA: There was a real - we talked about this a little bit - but there was a real right-wing kind of social media blitz that happened very quick - FARAH GRIFFIN: Bizarre. TETA: - minutes after this happened before the President even referenced the ballroom or right afterwards. Right-wing influencers in unison started posting tweets and I guess truths and other things, pushing Trump's ballroom. (…) TETA: Which has probably contributed to this idea that is everywhere on social media that this was staged, which you and I don't believe. FARAH GRIFFIN: Right. “I do think that was a part of it,” Farah Griffin agreed. “And then you add in just like perfect storm things of like Karoline Leavitt saying, you know, ‘shots will be fired.’ She's clearly talking about the President is going to have jokes, he's gonna take you know jabs at different people there. But for a super-online audience of people in this country, that is just like catnip for them to believe in conspiracies.” On Thursday’s episode, it was co-host Ana Navarro’s turn with Teta. According to Navarro, Trump was “exploiting” the attempt on his life to manipulate the grand jury who indicted Comey: NAVARRO: I think his - you know, I think he is vindictive and he likes to take retribution. And I think it is no coincidence that this Comey indictment came two days after the White House Correspondents Dinner association shooting attempt. So, they are exploiting and using the moment to go in front of a grand jury that, you know - is - is - is hyper sensitive two days after that shooting attempt. Shooting attempts against the president. TETA: Yeah, understandable. NAVARRO: You know, are milking it for everything it's worth. And we're seeing that that's happened, not just regarding Comey.   On a later episode, Ana Navarro whines the attempt to kill Trump was being "exploited" for the ballroom and indict Comey. She also blames Trump for people thinking the assassination attempt was a hoax. pic.twitter.com/PIkQ6AQOzV — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) May 1, 2026   She too blamed the White House for why crazies thought the attack was a “hoax” (Click “expand”): NAVARRO: I think that's why there are so many people out there. I have been - I'm telling you I have been shocked by the amount of people who are not conspiracy theorists, who never believe a conspiracy, smart people who immediately jump to the conclusion that this thing at the White House Correspondence Dinner association was a hoax. You were there. TETA: Yeah. NAVARRO: Nobody in that room thought it was a hoax. TETA: No. NAVARRO: You know, I have a lot of friends and people I love including you who were there who thought it was very serious. I certainly don't think it's a hoax, but you have to delve into and ask yourself why do so many people think it's a hoax? “[O]ne of the reasons is the way that Trump and his administration have reacted,” she exclaimed. “That they have used this moment to try to get their agenda through, and to try to get their pet projects, and to try to get revenge against those that they don't like, to try to silence opponents, to try to indict James Comey, and to try to get a ballroom!” Apparently, only Democrats were allowed to work on their agendas. The transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Behind the Table April 28, 2026 4:51 (…) ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN:  But on the flip side, as I mentioned on the show, using this to justify the ballroom is absurd. On its face, It falls apart. I would ask any serious person to look me in the eye and say that will eliminate the threat risk against the president. It just simply won't unless he's going to hunker down and just not leave the however-many acres the White House is. That would mean that all future - rather than going to campaign events all over the country ahead of the midterms, he'd have to do it at the White House; rather than going to the G7, he'd do it at the White House. Or even going to CPAC. BRIAN TETA: Or even with the Kennedy Center, which the rebuilding right now. The President often goes to the Kennedy Center. FARAH GRIFFIN: Correct. He often does. He likes to go golfing. Like this is just - It's not to say that that's the answer to security threats is just a ridiculous reason. If you want - if you want to make the argument, which I said on air that we just need a bigger room to host state dinners, and he would like it, then then say that with your full chest, but don't make it about the security risks. TETA: There was a real - we talked about this a little bit - but there was a real right-wing kind of social media blitz that happened very quick - FARAH GRIFFIN: Bizarre. TETA: - minutes after this happened before the President even referenced the ballroom or right afterwards. Right-wing influencers in unison started posting tweets and I guess truths and other things, pushing Trump's ballroom. Now, you and I have spoken a lot about this and we've - you've told me a little bit about how this all works on the right. I mean, I think there's versions of this on the left too, but the rights just better at it. FARAH GRIFFIN: Yeah, the right is in this era so much better at the social media sort of rapid response to things. And what it is is allies of the President have text message chains and they have email chains, and they blast out their orders to - I'm not talking hundreds, I'm talking thousands of influencers - to say, ‘hey, this is the line of messaging,’ and people respond to it. And because now you have a system of social media that's monetized, that's an added incentive. So, you see a lot of these influencers who make all their money basically on X posting things that are in line, like pro-administration that are gonna get amplified heavily for saying, you know, what the public line is. And it was really remarkable, because I was like, ‘that's, that's the response? It's not you know” - and people were wishing him well and grateful and talking about security failures. But it was so wild to just see how quickly everyone on the right was like, ‘well and now we need a ballroom.’ That is clearly the logical answer of this. TETA: Which has probably contributed to this idea that is everywhere on social media that this was staged, which you and I don't believe. FARAH GRIFFIN: Right. TETA: But even in the comments for the show yesterday I was saying like you know, ‘how do you guys believe it's real?’ It's really - and it's not just on the left, it's on the right too. FARAH GRIFFIN: One hundred percent. TETA: It’s fascinating to me. FARAH GRIFFIN: I do think that was a part of it. And then you add in just like perfect storm things of like Karoline Leavitt saying, you know, ‘shots will be fired.’ She's clearly talking about the President is going to have jokes, he's gonna take you know jabs at different people there. But for a super-online audience of people in this country, that is just like catnip for them to believe in conspiracies. And into folks who are - who are believing that and playing into like this was staged, whatever I would just remind them of a few facts. We do have more guns than people in this country. We have an epidemic of mental health crises in this country, where people are truly struggling and not getting treatment they need. And then, add to that we have social media - Sarah spoke about this on the show today. Social media algorithms that are meant to make us radicalize, meant to make us hate one another. You put all those things together, and honestly, thank God we're having as few of these events as possible. It is a perfect mix of a dangerous environment that's like a powder keg that these things are likely to happen. So when it feels like this just seems unbelievable that it could, unfortunately when you consider all those factors, it's really not unbelievable at all. (…) ABC’s Behind the Table April 30, 2026 6:07 (…) BRIAN TETA: So, Whoopi rang the distraction bell yesterday when talking about this [indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for “8647” post]. She thinks this is you know, yet another distraction. And it does seem unlikely - most legal experts seem to think this will get thrown out, but do you believe it's a distraction or do you think he's really trying to put these people into jail? ANA NAVARRO: Oh, I think he hates Comey. TETA: Yeah. NAVARRO: I think his - you know, I think he is vindictive and he likes to take retribution. And I think it is no coincidence that this Comey indictment came two days after the White House Correspondents Dinner association shooting attempt. So, they are exploiting and using the moment to go in front of a grand jury that, you know - is - is - is hyper sensitive two days after that shooting attempt. Shooting attempts against the president. TETA: Yeah, understandable. NAVARRO: You know, are milking it for everything it's worth. And we're seeing that that's happened, not just regarding Comey. And I think that's why, you know, I think that's why there are so many people out there. I have been - I'm telling you I have been shocked by the amount of people who are not conspiracy theorists, who never believe a conspiracy, smart people who immediately jump to the conclusion that this thing at the White House Correspondence Dinner association was a hoax. You were there. TETA: Yeah. NAVARRO: Nobody in that room thought it was a hoax. TETA: No. NAVARRO: You know, I have a lot of friends and people I love including you who were there who thought it was very serious. I certainly don't think it's a hoax, but you have to delve into and ask yourself why do so many people think it's a hoax? TETA: On both sides of the aisle, that's the fascinating thing. Yeah, I've seen Republicans say it too. It's so strange. NAVARRO: I think there's several reasons, you know, I mean, but certainly one of the reasons is the way that Trump and his administration have reacted. That they have used this moment to try to get their agenda through, and to try to get their pet projects, and to try to get revenge against those that they don't like, to try to silence opponents, to try to indict James Comey, and to try to get a ballroom! I mean, that's a hell of a reaction from a guy who's now had three failed assassination attempts. You think there would be a moment of reflection. You think there would be a call to unity. You think there would be a call to our better angels. No, let's build the ballroom. Let's silence our opponents and let's indict James Comey. (…)

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has a brand-new book titled Trump 2.0: The Revolution That Will Permanently Transform America. The book blurb boasts: “President Donald J. Trump’s second term in office will be the most consequential administration in history because of the people and the policies that are markedly different than his first term.” MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider joined me to discuss with Sean how different Term 2 is from Term 1. He began with the Defense Secretaries: Gen. Jim Mattis barely knew Trump when he was appointed, but Trump's known Pete Hegseth for more than a decade. The media complained that Trump has now appointed "loyalists" to his Cabinet. That's what reporters say when they refuse to leak negative information. Biden's cabinet was stuffed full of "loyalists" who pretended Biden wasn't mentally declining. Dan suggested that Mike Pence acted as "Cheerleader-in-Chief" when he was vice president, while J.D. Vance is different. Spicer suggested Pence was more of an old-school Reagan Republican, where Vance is more aligned with Trump's positions against free trade and long wars.  Then there was the ruined White House Correspondents Dinner, where the shooter denied us the chance to witness President Trump roasting reporters. Spicer says Republicans should never go to the White House Correspondents Dinner: “Don’t go give them their credibility by going to their dinner and be a prop.” This was underlined by Sarah Huckabee Sanders going to the dinner in 2018 and getting roasted by liberal comedian Michele Wolf, who said she "burns facts" for her eye shadow. Then Trump granted an interview to Norah O'Donnell on 60 Minutes, where she dared to read the manifesto of the crazy man who wanted to kill Trump, where he called the president a rapist, a pedophile, and a traitor. Axios said Trump broke the "truce" with the press by objecting to the questioner as "disgusting," when that obnoxious question broke any truce that was in place. Enjoy the podcast below, or the audio version is here. Sean's book can be found on Amazon here. 

Friday’s I’ve Had It Podcast News featured 16 minutes of unhinged smears from two of the most chronically miserable, repugnant humans on the media landscape with Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan trashing our friend Scott Jennings after he smacked down the MediasTouch kid, peddling more gay jokes about House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), mixing up two prominent black Republicans, and argued Trump is now being led around on foreign policy by outside forces. The bat signal must have gone out that condescending and pompously partisan Adam Mockler needed defending after this interaction with Jennings the night prior on CNN NewsNight: Scott Jennings goes off on Adam Mockler: “Get your fucking hand out of my face” pic.twitter.com/Q891NlV8nL — Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) May 1, 2026 Welch insisted this was a “stage-five meltdown on live TV” and boasted in Jennings’s general direction: “Trigger to party of one, your table is now available. Trigger to party of one. Your table is now available.” “I would just like to say number one, Adam Mockler, you are incredible. You are doing incredible work. Your poise, your defense of Democratic ideals, the battlegrounds that you go into. A+ no notes. Abby Phillips [sic] really calmed everybody down after that. A+ no notes,” she continued, cheering on the double standards when it comes to discourse and Phillip’s atrocious hosting abilities. Welch then uncorked her conspiracy theories about Jennings, claiming she saw a series of X posts making wild claims about his personal life: These are some pretty vile and awful smears against Scott Jennings by quite possibly two of the worst human beings on the planet pic.twitter.com/JH10PqrR2N — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2026 You see, dear readers, homosexuality is used as an insult and thus fine when the left does it! For her part, Sullivan obviously agreed, arguing such meltdowns happen “when you have sold your soul, you have sold your integrity,” and life comes apart after “insecure” personality is brought to the surface by someone who’s “younger and smarter.” Further proving this rally-around-the-flag strategy was out on Friday, they also called for Jennings’s firing for using profanity and dressing down a liberal guest, which just so happened to be the subject of former CNN correspondent and fellow miserable person Jim Acosta’s Friday morning Substack column. Here was Welch demanding Jennings’s firing, even though she predicted nothing would happen because rules of employment do not apply for “white MAGA men.” Sullivan piled on that such people would never “survive in a meritocracy” (click “expand”): WELCH: Pumps, in situations like this, if a liberal behaved this way on one of these corporate-owned television shows, they would be fired. They would be fired and it would be immediate. On Fox News, you can have a morning host talk about killing homeless people — just kill the whole population. You can have Jesse Watters acting like an unhinged lunatic at all times. Now we have Scott Jennings telling appear, a colleague, get your fucking hand out of my face. And will — will the network address this? Or does this just go on? There’s one set of rules for white MAGA men, and we will never hold them accountable, and then there’s another set of rules for the people who try to defend democracy. What’s your take on that? What do you think CNN’s going to do here? SULLIVAN: I think CNN is going to do exactly fucking nothing. I think they have shown they have no backbone. They have embraced this. There’s two sides to a fact because they want to reach an audience that doesn’t want to be reached. They want to knock on the door of people that will never open the door to them, so nothing’s going to happen to them, just like nothing’s going to happen to Fox News with the line and the racism and the misogyny. But you know, Brendan Carr, he’s getting after Jimmy Kimmel for making a joke. But none — this shit, oh, it’s just fine. And to your point about white men, I mean, would any of these men — Trump included — survive in a meritocracy?  WELCH: No.  SULLIVAN: No. WELCH: Not for a fucking second. SULLIVAN: No. WELCH: His whole cabinet are just like Fox News narcissists that have failed forward because they have taken these culture war ideals that speak to the rich, broken people that own these networks. And it’s just — it’s really horrible.  They then moved to a truly embarrassing and actually racist portion of the show when they confused Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) with Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) as Sullivan declared Scott is “running for office in Florida” (click “expand”): WATCH: Jennifer Welch's sidekick Angie "Pumps" Sullivan confuses @VoteTimScott with @ByronDonalds pic.twitter.com/wLr0Fa6Po3 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2026 WELCH: Okay, speaking of horrible people, Republicans are choosing to just completely ignore reality. Here’s Tim Scott saying that Trump’s economy is a miracle. Play the clip. SCOTT [on FBN’s Mornings with Maria, data N/A]: Finally, because of President Trump, we have to look back at the Biden years. Remember, nine percent inflation interest rates went in the same direction. The great news is the last 15, 16 months, President Trump has pulled a miracle. We finally have it. WELCH: Angie, Angie. SULLIVAN: I don’t know what you say to this. Like, it’s all lies. I just — I don’t understand how you can, and he’s running for office in Florida. And he just — he’s lying. He’s just getting on there and making shit up. And I guess what I don’t understand is people that go get gas that went and got gas two years ago, how they can’t, like, sniff this out or bread or whatever. WELCH: Well, I want to sorry — to interrupt you, but I want to put up proving your point right here. Americans disagree with Tim Scott — completely. Pop this up. Share of Americans who say their financial situation is getting worse. And look at this chart and we have it shooting and skyrocketing up 55 percent. And so, it’s higher now that think the economy is getting worse than it was in 2008 during the Great Recession. And it’s higher than it was during the COVID-induced recession. Look at those two points. And it is higher that — think the economy is getting worse. And here’s the messaging for Democrats. And here’s the messaging for all of you listening who comment on things, who have conversations with moderates or somewhat reasonable-minded people. The biggest argument we have to elect Democrats right now, the Republicans control everything. They have the presidency. They have the house. They have the Senate. They have Supreme — the Supreme Court and all of the oligarchs. They have all of the industry titans that back them up. These are Republican policies. Nobody is stopping them except for themselves. All of this is American, Republican, MAGA policies on steroids. It is always a race to the bottom. It is always massive deficit. It is always in some bullshit illegal war. It is always driving the economy into the ground. It’s always taking away rights from other people, so that is our biggest message moving forward. I would always use this argument — Pumps and I would use this argument to our friends in Oklahoma. If you don’t like what’s going on in Oklahoma, you have no one to blame except for Republicans. They have controlled everything for 20 years. If you think Oklahoma’s policies are shitty, look no further than the governing class.  Going back to making homosexuality something to ridicule (which, again, is supposedly not something the left condones), Welch reupped one of their running bits lacking a shred of evidence that Johnson is gay: And perhaps Mike Johnson — our Little Moses Mike Grinder Johnson is taking an approach to defending the war that we haven’t seen before. Let’s pop this up: “When asked about the deadline, Johnson told the network, ‘we are not at war.’ He added: ‘We’re policing the Strait of Hormuz and trying to get a piece. The president and the administration are moving as aggressively as possible. There’s nothing Congress can do to move that along any further. So, we’ll see how this plays out. That’s my position.’” Sullivan also leveled some gross, not-safe-for-work descriptors: “Speaking of sold your soul and your integrity, Mike Johnson is number one. And here’s the thing with Mike Johnson. He can hold a dick in his hands and act like he doesn’t like it. And we all know the truth. This man will lie while standing on his Bible. It’s unbelievable that he is not universally hated by every party[.]” “I can hardly feel anything about him except for just overwhelming pity that you have all of this power and you choose to kiss the ass, Donald Trump, while Bible thumping all of the time and having these imaginary conversations where you claim God woke you up and told you you were Moses,” Welch replied. They continued on this topic of Iran by treating as gospel Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) — aka Da Nang Dick — claiming Thursday on CNN that there’s “an imminent military strike” on Iran. Welch — who still roots for Iran despite being one of the first people who would be sent to Iranian prison camps or worse — reacted by declaring she’s “so sick of this aspect of being an American where the Republican Party acts like they’re so pro-military, support the troops, support the troops, yet they always vote for these men who get us into these wars that are not in America’s best interests.” “They’re in the interests of Haliburton or...oil and gas companies or some military industrial complex where people are making billions. It never helps working-class Americans. And the way that a lot of people go to the military is they go there for a career, for an education. And we need to elect people that are good ambassadors to these young men and women. And instead we’ve got this dipshit, raging alcoholic Hegseth who is just like the sociopath that likes to sit around and watch shit get blown up,” she added, sounding like Cindy Sheehen from 20 years ago. Ironically, she said Hegseth engages in “really juvenile stuff” and “enjoys blowing up innocent fishermen without due process and it makes him feel so masculine and it makes him feel like such a big boy,” which sure sounds like she trusts random speedboats coming from a narco state more than the U.S. She also implied more Americans are dying in Iran, claiming without evidence “we already have American deaths” and the administration’s “not reporting the truth to the American public as to what’s happening — happening over in Iran and the greater area where we have American military bases.” Reacting to a final clip of Trump calling The New York Times’s Iran war coverage “seditious,” Welch declared it a “train wreck of dementia, batshit flight of ideas.” Sullivan replied, “nobody knows sedition like Donald Trump” and he should really “just kind of, like, shut the fuck up” because “he’s stupid,” “a dipshit,” and “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Welch closed the stream with a conspiracy theory that he’s being “gas lit” by mysterious, unnamed forces (meaning Israel). She even deployed a series of insults one could simply change the meaning of the word “he” from Trump to Biden: Jennifer Welch: “So, I think our President is being gaslit. He’s insane. He has dementia. And then in turn, you get these batshit press conferences and our country is being torn down all around us by forces that are getting their claws into the United States government because… pic.twitter.com/icOlaMWVmg — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) May 1, 2026 To see the transcript of the May 1 I’ve Had It Podcast News, click here.

Ever since Secretary of War Pete Hegseth began his testimony before Congress on Wednesday, he has arguably surpassed President Trump as public enemy number one in the eyes of the liberal media, especially after he pushed back on a claim by Democrat Rep John Garamendi, that the Iran War had become a quagmire, something he stated on Wednesday on CNN and again at the hearing. After Wednesday's hearing things went a giant step further, with Dem Rep Seth Moulton insinuating that Hegseth could face the death penalty, and CNN helped facilitate that outrageous claim.  Wednesday evening on Erin Burnett OutFront, the Host asked Moulton to weigh in on the quagmire accusations, ignoring Hegseth's lengthy military service, including in Iraq, in the process. BURNETT: You heard Congressman, Hegseth's response to the suggestion that this war is a quagmire, right? He said it's nothing like Iraq and Afghanistan, which he called quagmires. And of course, those wars lasted decades. This war, he said, okay, look, it started two months ago. Fine. Initially, they had said right before it started, it would be just a few days and then a few weeks. But you actually served in Iraq. So do you see an equivalency here? MOULTON: Absolutely. I mean, this is another war of choice in the Middle East that we're in very grave danger of getting drawn into further, because there's no exit plan, there's no way out. And remember, just before Hegseth said, it's not a fair comparison to compare Iran to Iraq, Iraq being a war that both Trump and Hegseth have decried for years as being a quagmire. Right before he said that, he said, actually, you've got to give us more time in Iran because look at how much time Iran or the Iraq war took, the Afghanistan war took and Vietnam took. So he's actually justifying extending this war longer, giving him more chance to turn it around because he's obviously losing the war right now. No way out, we are losing? No push back from Burnett on those claims, but the worst part was about to come. Burnett played a brief portion of an exchange between the Congressman and Hegseth from Wednesday's hearing, again, setting up Moulton, this time for an astounding statement.. MOULTON CLIP: You said we will give them no quarter, no mercy. An order for no quarter or no survivors is a war crime under the Geneva conventions. Do you understand that's murder. Do you stand by that statement? HEGSETH CLIP: The Department of War fights to win, and we ensure that our war fighters have the rules of engagement necessary to be as effective. MOULTON: So just to be clear, you called Democratic members of Congress to be tried for sedition, for reminding our troops to follow the law. But when you tell them to commit a war crime, you stand by yourself.  In the final 3 seconds of the exchange, before time ran out, Hegseth responded to that accusation, but CNN cut it out. He stated, "You're insinuating that the laws we are giving them are unlawful". (You can view that here at 1:56:40 into the video) Burnett's softball toss asked Moulton if he believes that Hegseth is guilty of war crimes, and he brought up the U.S. hitting drug trafficking boats, even defending those on board, with no proof offered, and non requested by Burnett. MOULTON: Absolutely. I mean, he's clearly behind the operation to shoot all these boats in the Caribbean when it's very unclear that we actually have any confirmation that these so-called narco terrorists, a term the administration invented to justify this action, are even on the boats. I mean, in fact, there's a lot of evidence that these are just fishermen, you know, getting jobs, piloting these boats, trying to feed their families.... We then have the strike where they came back in and hit it again. A double tap, just purely to kill these survivors who were clinging to wreckage. And then the warning to Secretary Hegseth. Moulton: Another historical analogy back in World War Two, the allies tried Nazi submarine captains for doing this exact same thing. And guess what the conclusion was? They got executed. Listen to that, Mr. Secretary. Moulton appeared to be threatening Pete Hegseth with the death penalty, and Burnett's response was to move on, "So let me ask you one thing that just posted here." You can't make this up. And in the next hour, Anderson Cooper defended Moulton's death penalty claim. Once again, this is CNN.

Using taxpayer money to send students and teachers to a May Day political protest is “dereliction of duty,” U.S. Department of Education (DOE) Secretary Linda McMahon said Friday as Chicago Public Schools (CPS) was preparing to just that later. “There’s never an excuse for diverting taxpayer dollars away from students and into political agendas,” Sec. McMahon wrote in a X.com post responding to a CBS news report about how CPS would be transporting students and staff to a rally to protest the Trump Administration. Diverting money intended for education to political activism is especially heinous, given the dire state of public school education in Chicago, Sec. McMahon explained: “But when chronic absenteeism is so high and only 1 in 3 students can read at grade level @ChiPubSchools, this is a dereliction of duty.” McMahon’s comments were made in reply to education advocate Erika Donalds, the wife of Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who posted a clip from a CBS News Chicago news report: “Chicago Public Schools will be transporting students to ANTI-TRUMP May Day rallies on Friday. 40% of CPS students are chronically absent, missing at least 18 days of school per year. Kids belong in classrooms, NOT at taxpayer funded political rallies!” CBS News Chicago reports, per an agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union, CPS will transport hundreds of school children on a “field trip” to a May Day rally “speaking out in opposition to the policies of the Trump Administration”: “According to the agreement between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union, CPS will provide buses for field trips for students and educators to attend the 1:00 p.m. May Day rally in Union Park this year.”   There’s never an excuse for diverting taxpayer dollars away from students and into political agendas. But when chronic absenteeism is so high and only 1 in 3 students can read at grade level @ChiPubSchools, this is a dereliction of duty. https://t.co/mKBiIL7BSV — Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) May 1, 2026   The agreement was a compromise struck after Chicago Public Schools refused to accommodate the original “semi-insane plans of the socialist-friendly 30,000-strong Chicago Teachers Union,” which included the cancellation of classes so students could skip school to protest, National Review explains – noting that the compromise was actually a win for the teachers union: “In truth, however, after tough negotiations, the teachers’ union has won. Technically, classes will be held on May 1. But the agreement struck by the CTU and CPS  requires CPS to provide food and transportation for students from at least 100 schools to attend anti-Trump rallies on May 1. Many thousands of students are expected. “What’s more, future May Days are to be set aside for ‘teacher professional development’ — meaning classes will be out, and teachers will be able to lead students in leftist political demonstrations, as CTU plans to do.”