On Friday, CNN This Morning previewed Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner by spotlighting a highly questionable choice by the White House Correspondents' Association—then compounding it with a guest selection that ensured a one-sided Trump-bashing fest. Substitute host Jessica Dean noted that the Wall Street Journal will receive the WHCA’s top honor for its report on a letter Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Dean acknowledged that Trump has denied sending the letter and sued the newspaper over the story. But CNN didn’t stop at describing the report. It chose to display a graphic of the explicit letter—even as it described it as merely “alleged”—including the crude image formed by Trump’s signature. Instead of inviting a WHCA official or media reporter to discuss the dinner and the award, CNN chose Pete Dominick, a longtime warm-up comedian for The Colbert Report and an acidulous Trump hater. Dominick quickly launched into a tirade, calling Trump a “thin-skinned, insecure, immature, sad, mean, terrible president.” Dominick went on to insist—repeatedly—that the role of comedians is to “speak truth to power,” lamenting that no comic had been invited to perform at this year’s dinner. And here we thought the role of a comedian is to make people laugh. CNN Flashes Alleged Trump-Epstein Letter, Invites Colbert Comic to Rip Trump pic.twitter.com/0pCHrC2uDn — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) April 24, 2026 Dominick argued that the WHCA’s decision not to include a comedian was...injustice. "It won't be anywhere positive for democracy or a real celebration of the First Amendment because, Jessica, they didn't invite a comedian....There should be a comedian there. The fact that there's not a comedian there is injustice. It looks like they're trying to kiss his butt and appease him." The man was very upset they're bringing on a mentalist instead of a comedian. He absurdly alleged that Trump had “canceled Colbert,” a claim Dean did not challenge. "It's really bad for America and bad for democracy, especially because he's tried to cancel comedians. He canceled Colbert. He tried to cancel Kimmel and he couldn't." Throughout the segment, Dean offered no pushback to any of Dominick’s assertions. Instead, she teed up the discussion with a clip of Barack Obama mocking Trump at the 2011 dinner. He insisted "it's such an important moment, element of this dinner, to have a comedian there to speak truth to power, to make fun of the president to his face." But CNN didn't show someone mocking Obama. They showed Obama mocking Trump, the future president. The result was a revealing reflection of CNN’s liberal bias: an award centered on a disputed, denied claim, amplified by the show’s display of the letter itself, followed by commentary from an ardently anti-Trump comic—all without a hint of skepticism. Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 4/24/26 6:53 am EDT JESSICA DEAN: Some of that reporting on Epstein will take center stage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner tomorrow night. The Wall Street Journal will receive the group's top honor for their report on a letter Trump allegedly sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday. You'll remember the president called the story fake and sued the paper for $10 billion. That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. The reported author of that note will also be in attendance.  President Trump is set to attend and speak at the dinner for the first time as president. Joining us now, Pete Dominick, comedian and host of the Stand Up with Pete Dominick podcast. Pete, great to have you. I think I just kind of laid it out in terms of all the competing dynamics that are gonna be happening at that dinner tomorrow night. Trump obviously has been attacking the media, suing them constantly. What might tomorrow night be like?  PETE DOMINICK: Well, unfortunately, It won't be anywhere positive for democracy or a real celebration of the First Amendment because, Jessica, they didn't invite a comedian.  And the reason why they didn't invite a comedian is because they knew our thin-skinned, insecure, immature, sad, mean, terrible president wouldn't come.  And why shouldn't they? I mean, comedians are there to speak truth to power. I was at that dinner five years in a row. And I also worked for Stephen Colbert at The Colbert Report. And every night, at every taping of the Colbert Report, there was always an audience member who remembered his performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, I believe in 2006, when he questioned George W. Bush while he was right by his side, and his failure to find weapons of mass destruction.  It put Colbert on the maps, meant that his legacy, because he spoke truth to power in a way, right to the president at the time, that too many journalists weren't doing.  And the same is the case for now.  . . .  DEAN: And look, you mentioned past dinners. Obviously, Trump has his history with this event. There is that moment. And I think it is a key moment when then-President Obama joked about him. He was in the audience. This was in 2011. I just want to play a quick clip.  BARACK OBAMA: In an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. You didn't blame Little John or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night.  DEAN: And later on, there was a lot of talk that, like, that moment really affected President Trump and pushed him toward potentially running.  But this, to your point, this dinner has the potential to create moments over the years like Stephen Colbert with George W. Bush, as you mentioned, like that.  DOMINICK: Yeah, I mean, it's such an important moment, element of this dinner, to have a comedian there to speak truth to power, to make fun of the president to his face, and journalists and journalism as well. For the White House Correspondents Association to not invite a comedian is to, it looks like, to appease the president. And there's already so much erosion and faith in journalism, especially corporate journalism. It doesn't do them any favors either.  There should be a comedian there. The fact that there's not a comedian there is injustice. It looks like they're trying to kiss his butt and appease him, the only way they could get him to go. 

On Wednesday's The 11th Hour, it was sore loser time. MS NOW contributor Eddie Glaude claimed that Donald Trump was elected because of "greed and hatreds" after former CNN political analyst John Avlon quoted Bill Clinton in claiming that voters in 2024 supported "strong and wrong" over Democrats who seemed too weak on issues that were "distractions." During a discussion of the Trump administration's handling of the war on Iran, including War Secretary Pete Hegseth firing the secretary of the Navy, Glaude proclaimed: MS NOW's Glaude: Voters Elected Trump Because of 'Greed and Hatreds' pic.twitter.com/HT73JQvv1m — Brad Wilmouth (@bradwilmouth) April 24, 2026 The inmates are running the damn asylum. This makes no sense. And they're going to put -- first of all, we know that Donald Trump wasn't temperamentally or dispositionally prepared to be the President of the United States. We knew that, and we know that Pete Hegseth, well, what do we know about Pete Hegseth, right? There's a lot in his cup. So part of what we do know is that they're going -- these are the people we're going to entrust to put our loved ones in danger. So here we are in a war, and they're firing all of these people who have the competency to execute it. Ruhle then jumped in to recall that it was clear what voters were getting when Trump was elected: Is this about Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump -- or is it about the United States? Because you started your answer with, "We knew -- we knew all of this, right?" Pete Hegseth Donald Trump, this administration, Howard Lutnick, Stephen Miller, take your pick. Aren't they just a mirror looking -- this is who the United -- this is who the American voter chose. This time there were no surprises. And Congress confirmed all these people. Avlon then complained: "And there's a lot -- there's there -- for all the senators who approved the people they knew were unqualified, whether it's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Kash Patel or Pete Hegseth, there's a special, you know, sin on their heads." Avlon's a true sore loser -- he ran as a Democrat for Congress in New York and pulled 44.8 percent. As there was a back and forth, Glaude wondered why voters voted the President into office: RUHLE: But that's the point. There were no surprises about them. All of the things about them we knew. GLAUDE: So the question is why? That's the question. The question is why? What were the superordinate values, those things that really motivated people to put the country in the hands of these folk? Avlon complained that voters will vote for "strong and wrong" as he soon jumped in: AVLON: Look, people were pissed off about the border -- they were pissed off about a lot of things that were distractions. GLAUDE: So the culture -- the culture war stuff. AVLON: Yeah, well, yeah. But let me just say -- and if you look at what happened, Democrats didn't have the confidence of folks for being strong on the stuff people cared about, and the Bill Clinton quote I always quote is the most important quote in politics: "People vote for strong and wrong every time." And that's what -- and now we're dealing with the downstream effect of that. And, of course, the strong man is always the weak one. Glaude summed up, "So our greed and our hatreds have come back to bite us in the ass," leading Ruhle to quip, "Just so you know, Eddie's currently winning this segment. The pressure's on." Transcript follows: MS NOW's The 11th Hour April 22, 2026 11:11 p.m. Eastern EDDIE GLAUDE, MS NOW CONTRIBUTOR: The inmates are running the damn asylum. This makes no sense. And they're going to put -- first of all, we know that Donald Trump wasn't temperamentally or dispositionally prepared to be the President of the United States. We knew that, and we know that Pete Hegseth, well, what do we know about Pete Hegseth, right? There's a lot in his cup. So part of what we do know is that they're going -- these are the people we're going to entrust to put our loved ones in danger. So here we are in a war, and they're firing all of these people who have the competency to execute it. STEPHANIE RUHLE: Is this about Pete Hegseth or Donald Trump -- or is it about the United States? Because you started your answer with, "We knew -- we knew all of this, right?" Pete Hegseth Donald Trump, this administration, Howard Lutnick, Stephen Miller, take your pick. Aren't they just a mirror looking -- this is who the United -- this is who the American voter chose. This time there were no surprises. GLAUDE: Yes. RUHLE: And Congress confirmed all these people. GLAUDE: Yes. JOHN AVLON, EX-CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And there's a lot -- there's there -- for all the senators who approved the people they knew were unqualified, whether it's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Kash Patel or Pete Hegseth, there's a special, you know, sin on their heads. But, but -- RUHLE: But that's the point. There were no surprises about them. All of the things about them we knew. GLAUDE: So the question is why? That's the question. The question is why? What were the superordinate values, those things that really motivated people to put the country in the hands of these folk? RON INSANA, THE MESSAGE OF THE MARKETS: Being primaried, believe it or not. It's self interest. GLAUDE: No, self interest on certain -- RUHLE: John, to you and then to David. AVLON: Look, people were pissed off about the border -- they were pissed off about a lot of things that were distractions. GLAUDE: So the culture -- the culture war stuff. AVLON: Yeah, well, yeah. GLAUDE: Ah. AVLON: But let me just say -- and if you look at what happened, Democrats didn't have the confidence of folks for being strong on the stuff people cared about, and the Bill Clinton quote I always quote is the most important quote in politics: "People vote for strong and wrong every time." And that's what -- and now we're dealing with the downstream effect of that. And, of course, the strong man is always the weak one. GLAUDE: So just really quickly -- sorry, John. AVLON: Yes, sir. Yeah. GLAUDE: So our greed and our hatreds have come back to bite us in the ass. AVLON: Yep. GLAUDE: And we're right here. DAVID ROHDE, MS NOW SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: I think in the Republican -- RUHLE: Just so you know, Eddie's currently winning this segment. ROHDE: I know. RUHLE: The pressure's on.

Asked to comment on his faith in himself after becoming the top pick in the National Football League draft Thursday, Fernando Mendoza responded by stressing his faith in God. Mendoza, a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback who led his Indiana University team to the national college football championship earlier this year, was asked a question by Sports Writer Hondo Carpenter in an interview following being picked: “When you look back at your career, through high school to Cal to IU to the Raiders, it’s really been a journey of faith, both your personal faith, but also betting on yourself. You could’ve gotten more money or gone other places, but you chose to go to IU because of the coaching. “I'm just curious, how much is faith, in you, not just your spiritual faith, but your faith and trust in you and what you do in your team part of who you are as a man?” But, Mendoza didn’t separate his faith and trust in himself from his faith in God in his answer: “Well, first off, I’m a man of God and I think God has a plan. He’s blessed my family, blessed me and I just can’t thank him enough. And second of all, I think that fortune favors the bold and that, sometimes, when you’re bold and you bet on yourself, it’ll work out, most of the time. But, if it doesn’t work out, at least you’ll be able to at least sleep easy at night 20 years down the road knowing that you do everything possible to accomplish your goals.” “And, that’s what I look forward to doing: doing everything possible to accomplish my goals with this football club and helping any way I can,” Mendoza concluded. Mendoza has not been shy about praising and crediting God in post-game interviews, such as in his interview after beating Miami in this year's college national championship game.  

You might expect the left leaning New Yorker magazine to be at least somewhat sympathetic to the plight of Venezuelan President (via fraud) Nicolas Maduro, currently residing in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting his court trial for drug trafficking, narco-terrorism, and weapons offences. But Diego Lasarte's Tuesday story seems less about sympathy and more about generating laughter whether intentional or not as you can see in "What Nicolás Maduro’s Life Is Like in a Notorious Brooklyn Jail. The jail is "notorious," and Maduro is not?  The possibility of laughter immediately emerges when Lasarte reveals that Maduro's temporary roommate was a heavily tattooed rapper with a long rap sheet named Tekashi 6ix9ine (birth name Daniel Hernandez). It turns out that Mr. 6ix9ine quickly became a huge fanboy of Maduro due in large part to the fact that the incarcerated Venezuelan gave him an autographed handmade figurine of SpongeBob SquarePants: “Look, one of one,” 6ix9ine said, holding up the SpongeBob, which, he later explained, another inmate had meticulously crafted, folding six hundred pieces of paper and sewing them together, over the course of two weeks. “Maduro signed it,” he said, proudly, before adding, “Venezuela forever." ...6ix9ine, who was at M.D.C. Brooklyn after violating the terms of his supervised release related to a 2018 case, claims to have been roommates with Maduro for a portion of his sentence—an experience he described in great detail to Adin Ross, the manosphere streamer. “I didn’t want to bug him, like, I didn’t want to seem like a fanned-out little girl,” 6ix9ine told Ross. “ ’Cuz as soon as he came in, like, I was, like, Yo, whatever you need.” At one point, early in his incarceration, Maduro seems to have been kept in a unit designed for solitary confinement, as is often the case for inmates of his status. Of course, 6ix9ine did have to overcome some problems with Maduro when they first met such as the latter's odor: “He smelled like shit when he first came out the box,” 6ix9ine explained. “But then, you know, he was able to get time to take a shower and stuff like that.” Despite his strange demeanor and appearance, 6ix9ine insists that he is a proud patriot: 6ix9ine also claimed that Maduro told him the details of the raid in Caracas, an operation that has been shrouded in mystery. (President Trump has said that U.S. forces used a secret weapon he called the “discombobulator” to incapacitate Maduro’s guards.) “I don’t think I can share it,” 6ix9ine said, when asked to elaborate. “He did, though . . . Imma just keep it to myself. And, if I ever get killed, I am deciding not to say anything. Like, I don’t want to talk about it at all. And I’m never going to talk about it. I’m a true American patriot.” Perhaps the funniest revelation of the story was that Maduro, who suffers from extreme insomnia, apparently spends his sleepless hours late at night screaming into the void: This sleeplessness has reportedly persisted in jail. According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, Maduro could be heard at night yelling, “I am the President of Venezuela!” and “Tell my country that I have been kidnapped!” Does Maduro think that no one in Venezuela has noticed that he he gone? Yes, they have noticed but the funny thing is they don't even much care, including his vice-president who hasn't really bothered much to bring about his return other than a few initial words of protest.

Using confidential information about his nation’s upcoming U.S. operation in Venezuela, a U.S. Army soldier with insider information placed prediction market wagers, netting him more than $400,000, the Justice Department said Thursday, announcing charges against Gannon Ken Van Dyke. Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, called “Operation Absolute Resolve,” and used his access to classified U.S. military information about that operation to personally profit, the indictment states. Maduro had been wanted in the U.S. on narco-terrorism charges. The charges against Van Dyke arise from an alleged scheme in which the U.S. soldier used sensitive classified information to make wagers on Polymarket, a prediction marketplace. Van Dyke made a series of wagers on the timing and outcome of Operation Absolute Resolve, despite having classified information about the operation, some made just hours before the U.S. invasion into Venezuela that successfully captured Maduro. Using classified information about the Venezuela operation, Van Dyke allegedly turned $33,034 into $409,881, using prediction wages, then made a series of transfers in an apparent effort to cloak his winnings. “That is clear insider trading and is illegal under federal law,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York said. Van Dyke. an active-duty soldier stationed at the Army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina, had signed nondisclosure agreements in which he promised to “never divulge, publish, or reveal by writing, words, conduct, or otherwise . . . any classified or sensitive information” relating to military operations. "Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law, and this FBI will do whatever it takes to defend the homeland and safeguard our nation’s secrets," FBI Director Kash Patel said. "Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable." Those event contracts regarding Operation Absolute Resolve, included the future likelihood of: “US forces in Venezuela by” certain dates, The future likelihood of Maduro being “out” of or removed from power by certain dates, The future likelihood of the U.S. invading Venezuela by on or before Jan. 31, and The future likelihood of President Trump “invoking War Powers against Venezuela” by a certain date. Operation took place January 2-3, 2026, making Van Dyke a winner. Van Dyke has been charged with three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud and one count of an unlawful monetary transaction. Separately, he faces insider trading charges by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). When President Donald Trump was asked about the DOJ's announcement, he asked if Van Dyke had wagered that the U.S. would succeed - noting that that's the type of behavior that prompted Major League Baseball to punish Pete Rose, one of the league's legendary players, with a lifetime ban from its Hall of Fame. Three years after retirement from playing in 1983, Rose was managing the Cincinnati Reds when he was caught gambling on baseball - and even on his own team.