When conservatives think of the National Endowment for the Arts, they think about government-funded outrages like Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ,” featuring a crucifix pictured in a glass of the artist’s urine. On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR found a new subsidy scandal, that Trump’s NEA is funding patriotic art, including pro-Ronald Reagan material. The headline: Patriotic art gets the spotlight as NEA funding shifts. Cue 'The Ronald Reagan Overture' NPR arts reporter Chloe Veltman began at the Reagan Presidential Library, where “A regional group, the New West Symphony, created 'The Ronald Reagan Overture' with the help of a $25,000 Garden of American Heroes grant from the NEA.” Trump wants the NEA to honor heroic Americans. VELTMAN: The NEA funds far more than patriotic programming, but this being the 250th anniversary year, there's a particular emphasis on national pride. In 2025, the Trump administration rescinded about $21 million in NEA grants, according to advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts. The money was pulled from projects around the country that did not meet the administration's funding objectives, for example, if they were too focused on diversity and inclusion. The administration said it was prioritizing grants for more patriotic works, like military band performances. Horrors! But it wasn’t all terrible news. Juan Dies with the Mexican folk music group Sones De Mexico Ensemble figured he could use the new rules to get some money, with maybe a little DEI spirit in Espanol.  VELTMAN: He repitched the project to the NEA, this time using Trump administration-approved subjects like aviator Amelia Earhart and baseball star Roberto Clemente. The grant came through. SONES DE MEXICO ENSEMBLE: (Singing in Spanish). VELTMAN: Like other corridos, Dies' American Heroes ballads are celebratory, but they also don't shy away from darker details. For example, the racism Clemente faced as a high-profile Puerto Rican in the United States. SONES DE MEXICO ENSEMBLE: (Singing in Spanish). DIES: I don't feel like we're compromising our goals or mission. By playing with the rules, we are able to give our perspective on the lives of these American heroes. Ah, American racism! That’s a theme NPR can get behind. Patriotism, not so much. They found their art expert to explain the NPR view: DAVID LUBIN: There are two forms of patriotism. One is my country, right or wrong, that America is the greatest place on the face of the Earth. VELTMAN: This is David Lubin. The retired Wake Forest University professor has written books about American art, politics and cultural propaganda. LUBIN: And then the patriotic emotions of, we can do better and it's our mission in life to keep hewing to the ideals of the origins of the country. VELTMAN: Lubin says patriotic art is a useful tool for governments because it can unite people around policies and ideologies. But, he says, when a country is as politically divided as ours is today, patriotic art often only ends up reinforcing rifts. LUBIN: It feeds into thought patterns that are already prevalent among half the population. We know which "half" that is! It's appalling that lefties always think conservative patriotism is "my country, right or wrong," that it never qualifies as "love of country, and we can do better." They pretend their so-called "critical patriotism" -- endlessly obsessing over why America should never be proud -- is much more thoughtful. 

After Monday’s PBS News Hour dealt with breaking news about the red-flag festooned Democrat Graham Platner suspending his campaign for U.S. Senate in Maine (he would later drop out), guests Tamara Keith of NPR and Carrie Dann representing the Cook Political Report in place of Cook’s usual News Hour representative Amy Walter, who was out for the week. Dann, who previously reported from D.C. for NBC News, proved more partisan than Walter, chirpily optimistic on the prospects of radical Abdul el-Sayed, who’s running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Michigan. Co-anchor Amna Nawaz: Meanwhile, I know you're also tracking another big race in Michigan. This is the Democratic Senate primary race, a big moment this weekend when one of the candidates, Mallory McMorrow, decided to drop out. The race is now down to two people. There's a centrist candidate in Haley Stevens, and a progressive candidate in Abdul El-Sayed…. Dann answered Nawaz’s question about what the race revealed “about the direction of the Democratic Party” by pushing El-Sayed as a normal guy with “progressive ideas.” Carrie Dann of the Cook Political Report goes surprisingly partisan on the PBS News Hour for radical Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed: "He does these advertisements where he's waterskiing. I mean, he looks like a normal guy... that may be appealing to people." pic.twitter.com/pu8BpGPB0R — Clay Waters

On Wednesday's The Moment with Katy Tur, MS NOW political analyst Molly Jong-Fast came on to discuss Platner’s decision to step out of the race and how he plans to use “leverage” with a future candidate. Jong-Fast claimed that the media was “sold an arc” by Platner and his team and questioned whether or not he is a changed man. In other words, she bought Platner's claims, and now feels like she was duped. Tur began the segment by stating Platner wants to have some “leverage” by finding a candidate who can “take up the mantle that he was pushing,” someone who is “more progressive, more focused on working-class issues” and who can be a “change candidate," and not someone “like a Janet Mills,” who Platner defeated in the primary. MSNBC Reacts to Platner: ‘We Were Sold an Arc!’#msnow #msnbc #news #platner #democrat #newsbusters #republican pic.twitter.com/4LTi1zq9Go — Sarah (@scbpoli) July 10, 2026 Jong-Fast quickly emphasized that they need to “pull back” and focus on how they got to this point, mentioning that she interviewed Platner on her Fast Politics podcast. She noted that when the first New York Times article concerning Platner 's behavior with women was published, it read “sort of funny.”   On her podcast, Jong-Fast asked Platner and his team whether there was “something else coming out,” but was told “absolutely not.” She added that, from the Platner’s team’s perspective, the situation was “clearly a misunderstanding.” Still fired up, Jong-Fast argued that “we were sold an arc” but more specifically the “character arc of a person who had blacked out, but now no longer did that behavior.” She regretted not asking Platner on her podcast whether or not “he was drinking still, because there's only one way you get those blackouts and that's from drinking.” Jong-Fast concluded that the media bought into this narrative that Platner had changed and had become a better person, but she questioned that maybe he wasn’t better after all. She can't seem to imagine that the media desperately wanted Platner to be a changed man, so they would defeat Sen. Susan Collins. She added that “the fact that he feels he has so much capital still is sort of striking to me.” Click "Expand" to view transcript: The Moment With Katy Tur  7/8/2026 2:29:24-2:30:57 pm KATY TUR: Yeah. I mean, the reporting is that Plattner wants to have some leverage here. He wants somebody who can take up the mantle that that he was pushing. More Progressive, more focused on working class issues, working class policies, more of a change candidate, not a mainstream democratic party person. Maybe like a like a Janet Mills. MOLLY JONG-FAST (Political Analyst and Host of “Fast Politics” Podcast): So I would like to pull back here for a minute and just talk about how we got here because you know, a lot of us, I interviewed him for my podcast. I've talked to his team. When the first New York Times article came out, I said, this reads sort of funny - what else is there? Is there something else coming out? And everyone told me up and down, absolutely not. And I, and I think all of us heard that same thing from him, from his team, nothing else coming out. This is clearly a misunderstanding. There's nothing more coming out. We were sold an arc, right? A character arc of a person who had blacked out, but now no longer did that behavior. Now, I should have asked him when I interviewed him if he was drinking still because there's only one way you get those blackouts and that's from drinking. And so the idea we were sold this, this character arc, this, this person who gets better, who got better, but he wasn't maybe better. And so, I just think the fact that he feels he has so much capital still is sort of striking to me.

On Wednesday, Jewish Democrat Rahm Emanuel delivered a speech at Tel Aviv University, where he attacked Israel and their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that Israel needs to make major changes if it wants to keep America as its top ally. The speech was a topic of conversation Wednesday on CNN's NewsNight with Abby Phillip, and it was used as a vehicle to further bash Netanyahu and Israel. Phillip got the ball rolling by undoubtedly overstating the significance of the speech, and playing a clip of Emanuel. PHILLIP: Tonight, a turning point for mainstream Democrats on U.S.-Israel  relations. Speaking in Tel Aviv, potential Democratic Presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel said that unconditional U.S. support for Israel must end, warning that its leadership has turned into a territorial pariah. EMANUEL: Israel does not have a problem in the Democratic Party. Israel has a problem in America and very specifically a generational problem under 30.... there's a poll out today, Mamdani is more popular with American Jews than your Prime Minister. I want that to sink in. Phillip failed to inform viewers of other results from that AP-NORC poll, which shows that in fact, Israel does mostly have a Democrat problem. Just 20% of Democrats consider U.S. support for Israel "about right", 60% say the U.S. is too supportive. The numbers are reversed for Republicans.  She then threw it to former GOP congressman Peter Meijer who added insightful perspective to the Mamdani findings. MEIJER:  He's (Netanyahu) a very easy person to pin blame on for the consequences post-October 7th ...but 98% of the prosecution of the war would have been the same under any other Israeli government.... So I don't know how much you can read into it. Phillip then gave the floor to a woke Middle East "expert," former ESPN-er Jemele Hill of The Atlantic. HILL: Israel has kind of a narrative issue in this country.... There's a lot of people here who... just feel like.... he (Netanyahu) had one over on the President, and that he was somehow suckered into getting into this conflict. And so people just don't like the idea of Israel running the shots for us and controlling what we do....whether that is one rooted in fact or just one rooted in emotion.... People see the vast amount of money that we're pouring into Israel, and they don't like it. They don't like the idea that we are single-handedly writing blank checks to this country.  Don't tell Hill that we give Israel $3.8 billion per year, a figure that increased to $6.82 billion in 2024, and beyond, , due to the war in Gaza. Jordan and Egypt get $1.5 billion, and since the war, we have given Ukraine $195 billion. Don't worry, Phillip didn't tell her! She also didn't mention that Trump has denied that the Iran war was Netanyahu's idea, which allowed former Biden Senior Advisor Neera Tanden to bring up old, discredited talking points. TANDEN: Marco Rubio, at the beginning of the war, pointed to Israel, that there's been reporting that essentially, Netanyahu talked the President into the in the Situation Room, talked him into this war.... She continued before Scott Jennings briefly interrupted her, making what would oddly be his only contribution to the entire segment. TANDEN: I think the real problem here is that under Netanyahu, Israel has seemed like an aggressor nation and in a way that has undermined support for people. It's really pushing-- JENNINGS: Who was the aggressor on October the 7th, just for the record? TANDEN: Absolutely, Hamas was the aggressor.... This is the reporting, that Netanyahu told the President that the war would be over in two weeks....And I personally think that Israel's role in the war with Iran is actually another reason why so many Democrats have turned against them. In fact, as Netanyahu pointed out Tuesday, to Dana Bash, on CNN's Inside Politics: I've looked at the the Gallup polls.... And you see the decline in support for Israel. And it's several years before the Gaza war took place.... The one correlation you see...is the penetration of TikTok and other social media in the United States. And as the penetration increases, the support for Israel decreases. Of course Phillip did not mention this, and later, after bringing up the issue of increased Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, she made no mention of the fact that the Palestinian Authority, who shares responsibility of the area along with Israel, still pays their people to kill Jews.  Phillips used Emanuel's anti-Israel, anti Netanyahu speech, as an excuse to bash and trash Israel and Netanyahu. This is CNN.

Late on Wednesday, the thoroughly disgraced Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner dropped out of the 2026 midterm race, after a new rape allegation and unfavorable polls surfaced. Even most of the liberal media was done running cover for him and trying to bury his many scandals. Two hours after Platner’s 11-minute dropout announcement video was posted to his campaign’s X account, MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell went on his show The Last Word to spend nearly the full runtime bashing Platner with a passion that, previously, he’d reserved only for Donald Trump. If only he had done this before Platner won the nomination. It was almost impressive how much Platner managed to tick off the elitist media’s old grump: I would love to be reporting to you tonight that Graham Platner looked within himself and in his own words, from the heart, delivered the best speech of his campaign. But that's not what happened tonight. Instead, Graham Platner lied his way out of the Senate race in Maine tonight.    Not gonna lie, it's so refreshing to see old Larry O'Donnell hating on somebody besides Trump Source: @MSNOWNews's @TheLastWord, July 8, 2026 pic.twitter.com/VYLQTLGbJz — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   O’Donnell attacked Platner for being recruited for office by a New York Democrat strategist who previously worked on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign: That consultant, Morris Katz, described the recruitment of this candidate this way: "'Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was like, this guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,' Katz recalled, of his first meeting with Platner." That will take its place as the stupidest line about American politics said by anyone on the Democratic side of campaigning in this campaign season.    Oh so now they're gonna pretend to notice the Democrat political machine for the first time? pic.twitter.com/At23tXM6V7 — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   He then reiterated his criticism from the previous night about Platner’s false image as a working-class American: The image Graham Platner tried to create nationally was just of a hard working guy struggling with the mortgage payments, struggling with all of the economic pressures that people who just are living paycheck to paycheck have to struggle with. It was never true.  O’Donnell credited the New York Times with doing their “due diligence” on Platner and breaking the story of his intergenerational wealth, when the Free Beacon actually first broke the story months ago.   Um... the @nytimes definitely DIDN'T do their due diligence when it came to corroborating the rape allegations, right? pic.twitter.com/gXxgyQJlu0 — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   As NewsBusters reported yesterday, O’Donnell never bothered to reveal his skepticism on Platner before this latest round of allegations. He supposedly never thought Platner would make it to November, yet he kept his mouth shut through the Reddit posts, sexting, Nazi tattoo, and domestic violence accusations. However, O’Donnell denied the real reason Platner dropped out, accusing Platner of lying about the backstage forces compelling him to quit: O’DONNELL: Graham Platner said that this didn't happen to him because of horrible things he had written in old social media posts, which he never denied, or because he had a Nazi tattoo, which he claimed he had no idea was a Nazi tattoo. So, like, no discussion at all with the tattoo artist about what that was that was going on his chest?  And of course, it wasn't happening, he said tonight, by omission, because of women he knew and dated who accused him of sexual abuse and violence. That had nothing to do with what was happening to him, in Graham Platner's view.  In the Graham Platner lying version of where he is tonight, none of those things or people, none of the words from any of those women in any way brought him down. Instead, it was some dark, large force. [Cut to video] PLATNER: Large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing that a person could do, and it was not remotely true.   He's only half-right. Platner dropped out because he was pushed by the Democrat party, who pretended it was because of his rape allegations when it was also very much about his falling poll numbers. Same old Biden-style switcheroo. pic.twitter.com/OuQJ2kmqem — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   O’Donnell was half-right. The scandals, which have been mounting for months now, certainly played a role in forcing Platner’s hand. But the final straw was the Democratic Party establishment pulling their support and money. All they had to do was pretend to suddenly grow a moral backbone, and they could have themselves a new, hopefully less problematic, Senate candidate. All the Democrats care about is winning. That’s why they didn’t force Platner to drop when the revelations about his Nazi tattoo or domestic violence came out. Their media did their best to paint him as a redeemed man, the embodiment of healthy masculinity. But when that didn’t work, they waited until Platner was down in the polls to stab him in the back and let his campaign die. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 7/8/26 10:01:57 P.M. Eastern (...) LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: And so, I would love to be reporting to you tonight that Graham Platner looked within himself and in his own words, from the heart, delivered the best speech of his campaign. But that's not what happened tonight.  Instead, Graham Platner lied his way out of the Senate race in Maine tonight.  He issued an 11-minute online video statement recorded today, full of self-pity, completely absent of any word of apology to anyone, and blaming everyone he could think of for the collapse of his campaign except himself.  He began by saying that everything we have heard and read from women who accuse him of sexual abuse is a lie. [Cut to video] GRAHAM PLATNER: Hey everyone, it's Graham Platner here. I think as many of you know, over the past couple of days, I have faced some very serious allegations. And I just want to make it clear this is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: It then seemed that he was going to tell the story of how his political campaign began.[Cut to video] PLATNER: Amy and I are regular people. We were not looking for this experience. We were not looking to get into politics. We had no desire to run for office.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: But that was the end of the story of how he decided to become a candidate. He didn't tell that story.  He left out the fact that he was recruited to run for Senate in the state of Maine by a 27-year-old political consultant who has lived his entire life in New York City, having been born and raised in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan.  That consultant, Morris Katz, described the recruitment of this candidate this way: "'Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was like, this guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,' Katz recalled, of his first meeting with Platner."  That will take its place as the stupidest line about American politics said by anyone on the Democratic side of campaigning in this campaign season.  Graham Platner complained about a corporate media system and the political establishment conspiring against him. Much of the corporate media he is complaining about delivered admiring coverage of his campaign to the entire country, thereby helping him raise money all over the country.  The New York Times, no doubt, is part of what Graham Platner considers the corporate media, and it was the New York Times that did due diligence on Graham Platner and reported to its readers that he was born a rich kid in a family of intergenerational wealth, with a rich, famous architect as his grandfather and a rich lawyer as his father, and that his mother, who owns a restaurant in Maine, buys most or all of the oysters that he harvests, and his father, in effect, bought him a house, providing him with a 200,000 dollar mortgage for a house that sold for 205,000 dollars. There is no way of tracking just how much of a struggle Graham Platner has in staying up to date in making mortgage mortgage payments to his father.  The image Graham Platner tried to create nationally was just of a hard working guy struggling with the mortgage payments, struggling with all of the economic pressures that people who just are living paycheck to paycheck have to struggle with. It was never true.  There was only one victim in Graham Platner's statement tonight, and that was, of course, Graham Platner.[Cut to video] PLATNER: We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: Tell that to this guy. The only winning political campaign, which Morris Katz has played a significant role in was last year's mayoral election in New York City, where he served as Zohran Mamdani's top strategist. And no one [Zohran] crushed that mayoral campaign. And Zohran Mamdani's political influence has only grown since he won the mayor's election.  Graham Platner said that this didn't happen to him because of horrible things he had written in old social media posts, which he never denied, or because he had a Nazi tattoo, which he claimed he had no idea was a Nazi tattoo. So, like, no discussion at all with the tattoo artist about what that was that was going on his chest? And of course, it wasn't happening, he said tonight, by omission, because of women he knew and dated who accused him of sexual abuse and violence. That had nothing to do with what was happening to him, in Graham Platner's view.  In the Graham Platner lying version of where he is tonight, none of those things or people, none of the words from any of those women in any way brought him down. Instead, it was some dark, large force.[Cut to video] PLATNER: Large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing that a person could do, and it was not remotely true.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: "Large forces."  Okay, here is what Zohran Mamdani, whose political movement has not been crushed, said yesterday about Graham Platner:[Cut to video] ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I believe that it's time for him to drop out of the race.  And when it comes to my own endorsements, I've made eight endorsements at the state and federal level. They've all been right here in New York City. I'm incredibly excited at the fact that they won their races, and that's where my focus is for now.  I think the focus of today should be to respond to the gravity of what so many of us have read, and I think that the only appropriate response is for the campaign to come to an end.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: So, according to Graham Platner, he must be part of the large force trying to crush Graham Platner and push him out of the race.  And it's worth noting that Mayor Mamdani, who shares his top political strategist with Platner, never endorsed Graham Platner's campaign.  Graham Platner told this lie about the people who urged him to drop out of the race:[Cut to video] PLATNER: They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next Senator from Maine.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: That is an obvious lie. That is what he looks like when he is lying to you, just boldly lying to you.  Not one Democrat anywhere in Maine or outside of Maine who has called on Graham Platner to leave the race would rather see Susan Collins win. He is lying about that.  They wanted him out of the race because they hope to beat Susan Collins in November, and that Graham Platner would have to leave the race, in their view, at this point in order to do that.  But when you are committed to a self-centered, lying version of what is happening here, that is the kind of lie that Graham Platner is willing to throw at people who chose to support him, people who know that's a lie, including United States Senators who chose to endorse him and who then called on him to leave the race.  Graham Platner said he's not trying to dictate who the next Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine should be:[Cut to video] PLATNER: I'm not trying to dictate to anyone who it should be or how we get there, but I will say this: it needs to be open, transparent and democratic. It needs to be reflecting the will and the values of the people that built this movement, the people that showed up on June 9th. People in D.C. need to stay in D.C.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: That sounds good to me, "People in D.C. need to stay in D.C." But Graham Platner sure didn't think that when this guy, Bernie Sanders, came up from D.C. to endorse him. And now, every single person, every Senator, every House member who made the trip from D.C. to endorse and campaign for Graham Platner in Maine has already called for him to drop out of the race. They did that yesterday.  And so we have to wonder, who wrote that line, "People in D.C. need to stay in D.C.?" And one reason to wonder is that Morris Katz flew from New York City today to Maine to help Graham Platner prepare his exit statement tonight. So, who wrote that line?  And so, does Graham Platner think that people in New York should stay in New York? Because he sure didn't think that when he began his campaign at the urgings of that New York City political operative who flew to Maine today to help him.[Cut to video] PLATNER: We are suspending campaign operations. This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We're not doing it because of the allegations. We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: "We're not doing it because of the allegations." So, he's not dropping out because of anything any woman has ever said about him.  He's doing it because of those evil people in power, people like Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, people who have been advocating for the policy positions that Graham Platner took from them to use in his campaign for, in Bernie Sanders's case, decades before Graham Platner was even born.[Cut to video] PLATNER: All we were asking for was health care, was the end of genocide. To use our taxpayer dollars at home to uplift our communities instead of waging war overseas. We were asking for a fairer system. We were asking for an end to the corruption, the end to the money in politics. We were asking for real democracy.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: Yeah, no one has ever asked for that before. No one's ever campaigned on anything like that before. So that campaign had to be crushed.  Bernie Sanders is a Senator from Vermont. You can - you could, if you wanted to, walk from Maine to Vermont, wouldn't take that long, walking across New Hampshire, especially at the Northernmost point, and find a Senator who's been campaigning on those things for all of Graham Platner's life.  But Graham Platner pretended tonight that without him, we never would have heard any of those ideas, all of which were lifted directly from Bernie Sanders and from many other Democratic elected officials all over the country.  There wasn't a single original idea in the Platner campaign, not one. Graham Platner, who has been paying attention to politics for all of a year now, decided to lecture the people who have the horrible job, now, the horrible duty to clean up after his mess. He decided to lecture our first guest tonight and all of the other people who were going to have to step in now and fix all of this, the mess that Graham Platner created, and do it in a hurry. (...)