It's rare for PBS to allow an expert to defy the liberal argument that Donald Trump is a dangerous president, which is why they created a series called "On Democracy.' Tuesday’s PBS News Hour identified guest Ilya Shapiro as a fellow at the "conservative Manhattan Institute," while the parade of liberal guests don’t get an ideological label. The online headline: "Conservative legal scholar on constitutionality of Trump's first year." Also rare on the network that purports to a deeper more nuanced look at issues – the substantive discussion that took place between he and co-anchor Geoff Bennett. That substantiveness was due almost entirely to Shapiro, who ably parried host Bennett’s attempts to get him to label Trump a unique historical threat to democracy. It was Shapiro’s second time in that position, both while a guest for PBS’s occasional “On Democracy” feature. After his impressive performance, will he be invited back a third time? First, Bennett laid out his long bill of particulars against Trump. Geoff Bennett: Today marks one year since President Trump took the oath of office for the second time. Over the past 12 months, the president has pushed the boundaries of executive power, challenged the Constitution, and reshaped the federal government. He's imposed unilateral tariffs, asserted control over independent agencies. The Department of Justice has launched investigations into his political opponents. He's deployed the National Guard and active duty troops to American cities over the objections of local officials. He's launched military operations in Venezuela and Iran, while threatening action in Greenland. And he's followed through on his pledge to carry out a nationwide mass deportation campaign. To help make sense of all these moves, we're returning this week to guests from our On Democracy series, which explores the laws, institutions, and norms that have shaped this country and the different pressures they face today. Our first conversation is with Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute….I know, in speaking with you, that you believe that presidents deserve wide latitude to execute their agendas. But at what point does expansive use of presidential power cross a line into abuse of power? Asked about Trump’s “imperial presidency,” Shapiro argued that “….the nature of what we're seeing is just a difference of degree, not kind. We have presidents of both parties going back decades and even over a century that keep growing this what's come to be known as the imperial presidency….” Bennett: The military strikes in Venezuela that were launched without explicit congressional authorization, has Congress become irrelevant to decisions of war and peace? When Shapiro noted that paying “lip service” to the War Powers Act has a bipartisan history, Bennett seemed shocked. Shapiro: ….President Clinton had a longer-than-90-day excursion into Kosovo, into the Balkans without congressional approval, and nothing happened. I think this was, what President Trump is using in terms of the use of force is more minor than what a lot of his predecessors were doing. Bennett: Really? Shapiro: Certainly. President Obama had kinetic military action in Libya over several days. I mean, this is greater than what Trump has done in Venezuela, in Iran, or anywhere. He hasn't done anything in Iran yet. He just gave the green light to Israel to do it, and with some assistance there. So, yes, I think a lot of people have short memories.... The PBS host continued to prod. Bennett: So is there any concrete action the president has taken so far that, in your view, you would say this crosses a constitutional line, full stop? Shapiro's example was Trump postponing the divestment of TikTok by China-owned ByteDance. Each time Bennett lunged, Shapiro parried by putting Trump’s actions in the context of what previous presidents had done in power. Far from a Trump yes-man, he refused to indulge in hysterics about Trumpism as fascism. The tone was similar when Shapiro was first invited on as part of the show’s then-new “On Democracy” series in February 2024 to evaluate Trump. A transcript is available, click “Expand.” PBS News Hour 1/20/06 7:39:07 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: Today marks one year since President Trump took the oath of office for the second time. Over the past 12 months, the president has pushed the boundaries of executive power, challenged the Constitution, and reshaped the federal government. He's imposed unilateral tariffs, asserted control over independent agencies. The Department of Justice has launched investigations into his political opponents. He's deployed the National Guard and active duty troops to American cities over the objections of local officials. He's launched military operations in Venezuela and Iran, while threatening action in Greenland. And he's followed through on his pledge to carry out a nationwide mass deportation campaign. To help make sense of all these moves, we're returning this week to guests from our On Democracy series, which explores the laws, institutions, and norms that have shaped this country and the different pressures they face today. Our first conversation is with Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. Welcome back to the program. Ilya Shapiro, Manhattan Institute: Good to be back with you. Geoff Bennett: I know, in speaking with you, that you believe that presidents deserve wide latitude to execute their agendas. But at what point does expansive use of presidential power cross a line into abuse of power? Ilya Shapiro: Well, I don't think that presidents get wide deference just by sake of being presidents. There are constitutional limits. There are separation of powers. And what we have seen in the last year, just in terms of court cases, especially what we have seen from the Supreme Court, is that the president does get a lot of leeway in reorganizing the executive branch. He's the head of the executive branch. We will see. I think the Supreme Court is going to rule that he gets to remove the heads of executive branch agencies. On the other hand, when the president tries to make his own laws or change the laws in some way, he runs into trouble. And we have seen that as well, when, for example, using laws in a new way to use the National Guard in cities that the Supreme Court has paused, or with the tariff, which I think the Supreme Court is likely going to rule against him on that, although Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent has said there are other ways of putting other kinds of tariffs more narrowly. Wish they had thought of that at the beginning. Geoff Bennett: Well, yes, I know you ground your thinking in originalism. So where in the Constitution do you see the authority for a president to treat independent agencies as if they are extensions of the West Wing? Ilya Shapiro: Well, we have in the Constitution three branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. There's no fourth branch or fifth branch for agencies that are unaccountable to anyone else. So the question is, is an agency kind of some quasi-legislative body, or is it executive? Because if it's part of the executive branch, then the president, as the head of the executive, should be able to control it.   And that is ultimately why I think the Supreme Court is going to allow him to remove these agency heads. The Fed is different. And, as we're speaking, tomorrow, the Supreme Court is poised to take up a case about the removal of a governor of the Fed. The Fed's a little different because it's quasi-legislative, quasi-executive. It's its own sort of thing. And the president isn't even inserting the power to remove a governor for any reason. He says he has cause to remove Governor Cook. Geoff Bennett: A question about the politics of all this, because many of the same conservatives who used to warn against the imperial presidency now support President Trump's actions. What accounts for that? Is it just tribal politics? Or is there something else at play? Ilya Shapiro: Well, people change where they stand based on where they sit all the time. There are hypocrites on the left and the right. I like to think that I'm being consistent in believing that the president does have power over the executive branch, but wanting limited government overall. And so I have certain quibbles with the Trump administration in terms of policy, in terms of the scope and the growth of even taking bits of private companies for the U.S. government to own. But the nature of what we're seeing is just a difference of degree, not kind. We have presidents of both parties going back decades and even over a century that keep growing this what's come to be known as the imperial presidency. It's unfortunate, but it's not just the president acting badly. It's also Congress being satisfied with passing the buck to the president so it doesn't have to bear the consequences of those policy decisions. Geoff Bennett: What about the DOJ investigations, the Justice Department opening inquiries and investigations into President Trump's perceived political rivals? I know you have criticized politicized prosecutions in the past. Why shouldn't Americans see this as exactly the kind of abuse of prosecutorial power that conservatives once warned about? Ilya Shapiro: When President Trump was campaigning for his second term, he said, citing the lawfare against him, that he would be different, that he was going to put a stop to this politicization. And I think he's succumbed to a bit of the temptation to get involved in that with the tit-for-tat politicization sometimes, with James Comey, for example, going after the governor of the Fed, the chairman of the Fed, Jerome Powell. So I think there are excesses there. But certain investigations that the Justice Department has been criticized for as being politicized are actually going after real wrongdoing. Geoff Bennett: The military strikes in Venezuela that were launched without explicit congressional authorization, has Congress become irrelevant to decisions of war and peace? Ilya Shapiro: I think it has when we're talking about something other than a major war. What's a major war? Well, Iraq or Afghanistan, something that's certainly longer than just getting in, getting out, the Maduro operation in Venezuela, or even the drone strikes on the fishing boats. We have this War Powers Act that's over 50 years old. Most presidents have paid lip service to it while maintaining that it's unconstitutional. It was passed over President Nixon's veto. President Clinton had a longer-than-90-day excursion into Kosovo, into the Balkans without congressional approval, and nothing happened. I think this was -- what President Trump is using in terms of the use of force is more minor than what a lot of his predecessors were doing. Geoff Bennett: Really? Ilya Shapiro: Certainly. President Obama had kinetic military action in Libya over several days. I mean, this is greater than what Trump has done in Venezuela, in Iran, or anywhere. He hasn't done anything in Iran yet. He just gave the green light to Israel to do it, and with some assistance there. So, yes, I think a lot of people have short memories. And Clinton probably is the biggest example. Geoff Bennett: James Madison, as you will know, warned that the accumulation of legislative, executive, and judicial power in the same hands is the very definition of tyranny. Are we closer to that danger today? Ilya Shapiro: If we are, it's not because of President Trump. It's because of this dynamic of Congress ceding its power to the presidency. Again, Congress is controlled by both parties. The president is controlled by both parties. There's this dynamic that I think Madison missed of the incentive to pass the political buck, so that your constituents who are upset, the congressmen can then say, no, don't blame me. It's the deputy undersecretary of such and such that promulgated that regulation that is hurting you. So, yes, there are definitely problems with the way our system is functioning. And I'm seeing good things out of the Supreme Court, for example, overturning judicial deference to agencies taking -- executive agencies, taking expansive power, and to presidents, for that matter, checking President Obama, President Biden, President Bush, and President Trump. So we will see. There's this give-and-take that's certainly playing out. Geoff Bennett: So is there any concrete action the president has taken so far that, in your view, you would say this crosses a constitutional line, full stop? Ilya Shapiro: I think, for me, the worst thing he's done legally is the continued postponement of the law requiring divestment of TikTok by ByteDance. This was a law passed with a supermajority in Congress, that never happens anymore, approved by unanimous vote of the Supreme Court. And yet the president has three or four times, four times now, I think, said, we will give a 90-day pause, which the law does provide for if all that's left in a deal for divestiture is the lawyers to paper it over, which hasn't happened. So this doesn't satisfy anybody's narrative, but I point to TikTok as the biggest violation by President Trump. Geoff Bennett: Ilya Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, always enjoy speaking with you. Thanks for being here. Ilya Shapiro: Thank you.

This week, there was another cascade of sophomoric hit pieces against CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil for publicly expressing the need for CBS to regain the trust of more Americans. Hilariously, the smears ignored the newscast and wider network’s record of recent bias, including 96 percent negative coverage of ICE in Minneapolis. Four separate hit pieces seethed over Weiss and Dokoupil as possibly overseeing a “pancaked, Wile E. Coyote-style” “death spiral” and state of “dysfunction” refusing to “value the standards held by veteran journalists” and instead turning to “bile” and “boilerplate jinoism” from half the country. First, The Ringer thought it was edgy in “The Five Farcical Principles of the ‘CBS Evening News,’” but it came off like a sneering, prepubescent Mean Girl trying to humiliate a rival in front of the entire study body. Brian Phillips screeched from the get-go that David Ellison “hired a conservative former New York Times opinion writer with no TV experience to remake the news division, and she gave Dokoupil, a cohost of CBS Mornings best known for accosting Ta-Nehisi Coates over Israel, the anchor’s job.” In other words, Phillips wants you to believe Dokoupil has little media experience (instead of decades at CBS, The Daily Beast, MSNBC, NBC, and Newsweek). “It’s going horrendously. I don’t mean there have been a few minor speed bumps; I mean the bus is pancaked, Wile E. Coyote–style, against the side of the mountain. Ratings have nosedived. The broadcasts have been beset by basic technical errors,” he giddily said, citing Megyn Kelly as proof the right hates him too. Most notably, he showed the power of The Borg known as the elite, legacy, liberal press as, when they want a narrative, they can will it into existence (click “expand”): A new exposé about the chaos inside CBS News seems to drop every day, stuffed with juicy quotes from staffers furious about Weiss’s leadership. (They’re also stuffed with bizarre details: According to a scorched-earth New York Times piece last week, one of the lieutenants Weiss brought with her to CBS is Sascha Seinfeld, whose main qualification seems to be that she’s Jerry Seinfeld’s daughter.) At one point, Dokoupil cried on the air. “Let’s do the fucking news!” Weiss shouted at her staff during her first editorial meeting, on October 7. Well, here’s some of the fucking news CBS has done on her watch, as reflected in the headlines it’s inspired. “CBS Anchor Tony Dokoupil Is Stuck in an Endless Loop of Humiliation.” “This Tony Dokoupil Thing Isn’t Working.” “It’s Worse Than Even CBS Thought It Could Be.” “Tony Dokoupil’s ‘Embarrassing’ First Days at CBS Evening News Savaged by Staff.” ”‘Blood in the Water’: Bari Weiss’s Chaotic First Three Months in Charge of CBS News.” “The CBS Evening Debut of Tony Dokoupil Was Embarrassing in Ways I Didn’t Know Possible.” As the headline indicated, he went through each of the show’s five principles and condescendingly tore them part as a “105-degree fever now dampening the pillow of one of America’s most storied media institutions.” On the “We Work for You” plank, Phillips said this was “wildly inaccurate” because Dokoupil and Weiss actually work for “the Trump administration” with Weiss holding “anti-woke, anti-cancel culture, and pro-Zionist views” and thus she cannot possibly be a true liberal because those are “conservative conclusions.” “If you’re a rich white man convinced that pronouns and trans athletes are the greatest threats facing America today, Weiss is there to assure you not just that you’re right, but also that your bile is proof of your intellectual fearlessness...Weiss will typically define “elites” exclusively as left-leaning academics and journalists, then depict the billionaires who feel aggrieved...as the leaders of a bold grassroots rebellion,” he screeched. Along with whining about the Marco Rubio memes story and Dokoupil’s January 3 interview of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Phillips played prick saying Dokoupil’s Trump interview was a “shit-eating chat.” On “We Report on the World as It Is” and “We Respect You,” Phillips again flaunted his word choice as a personality when it’s really a doltish fad to appear smart in attacking the lunacy of pretending the right is human too (click “expand”): Principle No. 2: “We Report on the World as It Is.” (....) How does it sound? A little weird! This is literally just a description of how a news organization is supposed to work. Uniqlo doesn’t have to put a giant placard in the window reading, “We will sell you socks.” If it did, I’d feel suspicious. How accurate is it? Not particularly! I don’t mean Dokoupil lies on camera, or even distorts narratives Fox News–style. It’s more that the tone of his reporting, which combines a professionally folksy everyman demeanor with low-calorie pseudo-gravitas, smooths away the sharp edges of events, favoring vibes of unity and healing over real understanding, particularly when the causes of a tragedy lie in right-wi ideology. Conservative media reacted to the killing of Renee Nicole Good by trying to convince you she had it coming; Dokoupil, by contrast, delivered a much-mocked soliloquy filled with high-toned rhetoric that, on close examination, didn’t seem to mean much at all. “There is so much to say about the last 24 hours,” he intoned, “but sometimes, what matters most is what is yet to be said at all, and what we all still need to hear.” The effect of this speech was to turn an event with very clear and specific political causes into a lukewarm bath of emotions. The real tragedy, Dokoupil seemed to say, isn’t that ICE shot Good; the real tragedy is our national mood, and our national mood can be rescued by Dokoupil looking into the camera and taking it very, very seriously. All the words, in this case, were weasel words. (....) Principle No. 3: “We Respect You.” (....) How does it sound? Like an influencer about to drop four minutes of anti-vax propaganda? How accurate is it? Hmm. I can’t say I felt hugely respected by CBS’s decision to push the transparently ludicrous claim from anonymous Trump officials that the ICE officer who killed Good “suffered internal bleeding” during the incident. (A bruise, technically, is a form of internal bleeding.) Nor did I feel trusted to make up my own mind when Weiss yanked a 60 Minutes segment that might have made the administration look bad. If you think I’m so smart and discerning, don’t you think I’ve noticed that this sort of deferential wise-centrist rhetoric—there are always two sides, and they must be presented with equal weight so that viewers can decide for themselves—is almost always a cover for incorporating right-wing misinformation into the news? When it came to point four about “We Love America,” Phillips came off like a tortured soul over the “boilerplate jingoism” when a real CBS News, in his mind, should be waging war and not “enabling the forces working to subvert” the country and “undermin[e] access to accurate information.” Point five was “We Respect Tradition, But We Also Believe in the Future” and concerning how people consume news, so of course Phillips was deliberately obtuse in mocking this acknowledgment. Over at Variety on Monday, Brian Steinberg leaned into the descriptive words to claim CBS News is teetering on the edge of destruction because Weiss has dared to do things differently than the network has for over half a century. With “ten people familiar with the workings of CBS News” at his disposal, Steinberg boasted CBS News “is veering toward dysfunction” because of Weiss refusing to “value the standards held by veteran journalists” to the point the only way to fix the network’s “value and credibility” would be if “producers and reporters challenge Weiss more regularly.” Unfortunately for these out-of-touch weasels, it’s doubtful the person who signs their paychecks (Ellison) would appreciate it. He did get someone to speak on the record in a Yale dean saying Weiss’s “degradation of CBS News” is on the verge of becoming “‘a death spiral’ that is ‘hard to reverse.’” On the news-y front, Steinberg revealed Weiss could soon shift her focus from the CBS Evening News to CBS Mornings, starting with the obvious reality that, given the hemorrhaging bottom lines of old media, co-host Gayle King’s salary of “around $15 million a year...is no longer viable.” Thus, he revealed, Weiss could grant King “a special correspondent role” or extend her another year for a farewell tour. As far as Dokoupil goes, Steinberg said his “nascent tenure....has been marred by awkward segments,” citing all the usual hits that left liberals triggered, whether it be the Rubio memes, speaking about parental rights in making medical decisions without derision, refusing to spend minutes on end marking January 6, and their Renee Good coverage. Back in reality, Dokoupil’s CBS Evening News was actually more negative toward ICE than competitors on ABC and NBC and, in one show, called Good’s death a “murder.” But given all these manufactured negative headlines, Steinberg expressed faux dismay that CBS’s “attention” has been “taken...away from actual scoops and newsgathering” and that Weiss is, for lack of a better term, a tough boss. He found one arrogant anonymous source to tell him CBS News staff were already “doing our damn jobs and doing them well.” If that was the case, why have they been in third place for a lifetime in a profession with an approval rating in the high 20s? Status’s snake of founder Oliver Darcy was spitting in his cup Tuesday night at Status over anonymous sources telling him that, prior to Sunday’s 60 Minutes finally airing the delayed piece on the El Salvadoran jail CECOT, “Weiss was busy working the phones with reporters...to shape the coverage around it.” Huffing she “wanted to personally explain to reporters how it made its way to air and offer her perspective” on background, Darcy whines “it is rather unusual for a network boss to personally call reporters in the middle of such a controversy.” Using plenty of anonymous sources, Darcy claimed “Weiss expressed significant frustration with Alfonsi, who had declined to make changes to her piece at Weiss’ behest” and that she would have the nerve to “complain...about” their workplace when “strong leaders keep disagreements within the house.” The anonymous 60 Minutes source showed how narcissistic CBS News and liberal, elite journalists are by insisting Weiss should have come in and kissed their feet instead of “insult[ing] us” or “say[ing] we’re biased” (click “expand”): A “60 Minutes” staffer, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, sharply criticized Weiss’ conduct. Weiss, the staffer said, was “deflecting” the widespread criticism she has faced just months into the job by “blaming us.” “The reality is the ‘60 Minutes’ staff are the best of the best,” the staffer told Status. “These are people who have been doing ‘60’ stories for 30+ years. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they do it exceptionally well. That’s why the show has been No. 1 for as long as it has.” “Of course, there’s going to be friction when Bari walks in acting like she owns the place. These are the people who built it,” the staffer added. “You don’t gain and build trust when you insult us, come in and say we’re biased, don’t learn the place [and] how we work, the fact checking and research involved.” Unsurprisingly, Weiss’ private criticism of Alfonsi is not likely to land well with staffers. The longest piece was nearly 10,000 words in The New Yorker that took a comprehensive view of Weiss’s life from birth to the present (and, in between her entrance and well-publicized exit from The New York Times. Also relying on a slew of anonymous drama queens and a hilariously hypocritical caricature of Weiss as an unsavory elitist (in one of the world’s most elitist magazines), Clare Malone said it’s become “apparent to many inside the network that Weiss...was an uneasy fit” more concerned about the “de-Baathification of CBS” and “align[ing] her[self] with a tech-billionaire class more willing than ever to indulge Trump to protect the sanctity of shareholder value.” Malone would often provide on-the-record or anonymous quotes to paint Weiss as obtuse and a prick, but another read would lead one to conclude she’s tenacious and hard-charging in an ultra-competitive industry. Conceding she’s still a liberal, Weiss’s anti-woke and pro-Israel planks have thus made it unsatiable in these circles, including at The New Yorker. When it came to the present, Malone strongly implied the CECOT segment was put on ice — despite having been “fact-checked and vetted by the network’s legal department” — because of Paramount Skydance’s pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery and thus wanted to avoid irking the Trump administration “since regulatory approval would be required.” Malone offered her own anonymous sources inside CBS about 60 Minutes and that Weiss has expressed alarm at the Trump administration’s actions (click “expand”): A former CBS executive told me that, even if Weiss’s concerns had been valid, her decision to cut the segment at such a late hour had opened her up to charges of corporate interference: “It makes you wonder, Did someone call once they saw the promo on the air and then she spent more time on it because there was some big complaint?” Sources close to Weiss and Ellison said that Skydance leadership had zero involvement in the story and did not screen the piece. These sources also told me that Weiss “readily realizes and admits that she was not as knowledgeable as she should have been about the timing of the marketing and promo process at ‘60 Minutes.’ She brings the sometimes chaotic energy and work ethic of a startup, but she also realizes she needs to work on having more executive discipline.” Weiss also seemed to be struggling with the fact that, at a time when the Trump Administration is routinely lying to the public and straining to justify blatant abuses of executive power, often with violent or deadly consequences, she was still wedded to the idea of news coverage as a contest of ideas, in which both sides of the debate are equally valid. Privately, she has expressed alarm at many of the Administration’s actions, a person close to Weiss told me. But, in her role as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, her main concern is being able to book its main players on her network’s shows. And because it’s seemingly required to argue the CBS Evening News is a MAGA outfit, The New Yorker decried January 6 receiving only a news brief as proof the newscast is “not...more successful or journalistically sound than what came before.”

Growth in the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter of 2025 was even stronger than initially estimated, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported Thursday. BEA’s final inflation-adjusted number for the period shows that GDP grew at a 4.4% annual rate, an improvement from its previous estimate of 4.3% and well above the 3.8% increase recorded the previous quarter. “That figure topped the expectations of economists polled by LSEG, who had estimated 3.3% GDP growth in the third quarter. It was also the fastest growth rate in two years,” Fox Business reports. “Q3 GDP was revised up yet again — a final read of 4.4%. And Q4 looks even better, with the Atlanta Fed predicting 5.4% growth,” the White House Rapid Response team cheered in a social media post reacting to the news. The economy was “on a firm footing heading into the end of last year,” Chief U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics Michael Pearce noted. Q3 GDP was revised up yet again — a final read of 4.4%. And Q4 looks even better, with the Atlanta Fed predicting 5.4% growth. ? pic.twitter.com/dg1rtQHEOz — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 22, 2026 The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending (+3.5%), exports, government spending, and investment, the BEA explained. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased. Within exports, the upward revision was primarily due to goods (led by capital goods, except automotive; industrial supplies and materials; and foods, feeds, and beverages). Real final sales to private domestic purchasers, the sum of consumer spending and gross private fixed investment, increased 2.9% in the third quarter, a downward revision of 0.1 percentage point from the previous estimate, according to the final report. Meanwhile, the third quarter growth estimates for the price index for gross domestic purchases (+3.4%), the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index (+2.8 percent) and the PCE price index excluding the volatile food and energy components (+2.9 percent) were all unchanged in the final report.

Cameron Kasky came to national attention as a student activist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school after the tragic shooting there in Parkland, Florida in 2018.  His first notorious turn on CNN came on Jake Tapper's screechy anti-conservative town hall, where he said then-Sen. Marco Rubio reminded him facially of the Parkland mass shooter, Niklas Cruz.  Kasky has attempted emulate his fellow student at that school, David Hogg, and grift off the Parkland anti-gun halo. He recently attempted to run for Congress in New York but quickly withdrew from that race and somehow ended up as a first time panelist on Monday on CNN's NewsNight. And that first time on Newnight will probably be his last time on CNN due to coming close to getting that network involved in a massive lawsuit by making, and then repeating, a scurrilous charge against President Trump and self-righteously finishing up with an encore act of snapping at regular panelist Scott Jennings that he is not allowed to say the term "illegal aliens." A smug 25-year-old leftist activist just got HUMBLED live on CNN by Scott Jennings. Cameron Kasky claimed President Trump was part of a “human sex-trafficking network” — and for a moment, the panel let it slide. Until @ScottJenningsKY stepped in and FORCED the host John Berman… pic.twitter.com/wRxV2sQ3B5 — Overton (@overton_news) January 20, 2026 CAMERON KASKY: So, I am appreciative that the president is being transparent about this. I would love it if he was more transparent about the human sex trafficking network that he was a part of, but you can't win them all. JOHN BERMAN: Cameron's grateful that the president is being transparent about the Nobel Peace Prize and his desires for Greenland, Scott. What do you think about that? SCOTT JENNINGS: Are you going to let that sit? Are we going to claim here on CNN that the president is part of a global sex trafficking ring, or... BERMAN: Well, I mean, we're going to talk about the Epstein file. Scott, I will do the fact-checking as we go along here. Repeat what you said about the global sex trafficking ring? KASKY: That Donald Trump was provably very involved with it. BERMAN: Okay, we'll get to that later. I mean, Donald Trump has never been charged with any crimes in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. But we... KASKY: Yes, but let's be adults. BERMAN: We'll talk about the Epstein later. KASKY: Let's be serious. BERMAN: Satisfied? Although CNN might have avoided a massive lawsuit thanks to Scott Jennings forcing an apparently reluctant John Berman to issue a fact check, poor Kasky was definitely not in the clear which became apparent the next day, perhaps after receiving urgent legal advice, when he issued this somewhat dubious retraction which Raw Story characterized as sarcastic: I would like to retract my comments from CNN last night and truly apologize. Donald Trump was obviously not involved with a giant international child sex trafficking ring where women and children were systematically raped by elites. I said that by accident and didn’t mean it. — Cameron Kasky (@camkasky) January 20, 2026 Um, sorry Cameron but it was hardly some sort of "accident" that you blurted out by mistake. You were given an opportunity to correct yourself but instead repeated your vile charge. On top of that your reaction to Berman's fact check (at Scott Jennings insistence) was one of sarcasm. So welcome to the possible world of lawsuit hell, Cameron, caused by your own snarky mouth. At the very least you will probably never again be invited to appear on CNN since you might have dragged them into the lawsuit you could soon be facing.

EXCLUSIVE: December is often marked by celebration. However, for right-leaning media, the month was defined by censorship at the hands of Google News. A new MRC study found that the tech giant’s news app suppressed right-leaning sources throughout December. For four weeks straight, Google News stifled right-leaning media, funneling unknowing users toward coverage dominated by leftist perspectives. MRC’s Findings:  Google News skewed coverage by promoting left-leaning outlets 70.3% of the time, out of all stories, while limiting right-leaning sources to just 1.3%, resulting in a ratio of 52 left-leaning stories for every one right-leaning story. The tech giant overwhelmingly boosted leftist, elitist media outlets like The New York Times (59), CNN (38), The Washington Post (27), NPR (25), The Guardian (23), NBC News (20) and ABC News (19). Across the entire month, Google News featured just seven right-leaning stories, comprising five from Fox News, one from the New York Post and one from The Washington Times. The Data, Explained:  Over the course of December, MRC reviewed the top 20 publications promoted daily on Google News, producing a sample of 600 total stories. Data for Dec. 2 was unavailable but would not have materially affected the results. Of the 600 stories, 522 came from outlets with AllSides bias ratings. Here’s the breakdown of the 522 AllSides-rated articles, showing how Google News prioritized left-leaning outlets significantly more than right-leaning outlets throughout December: 367 were left (70) or lean left (297) and seven were right (6) or lean right (1), with the remaining stories (148) coming from center-rated outlets. Why This Matters:  Google News plays a central role in how Americans consume information. Pre-downloaded onto smartphones and given a tab among search results, the app serves as a default news feed for millions of users. That makes December’s findings especially troubling. Google News’s pattern of anti-conservative bias is not new. A previous MRC report found that Google News virtually ignored the massive Minnesota fraud scandal, covering just four stories out of 840 promoted over six weeks. As detailed by MRC earlier this month: Google News, a digital gatekeeper that shapes what millions of Americans see each day, kept its readers in the dark as the Minnesota fraud scandal intensified, publishing just four stories on the matter out of 840 in its top 20 morning editions from Nov. 28 to Jan. 9.  The scandal gained national attention in November amid reporting that a group of Somali Americans exploited a COVID-19 relief program and later became linked to broader child care fraud allegations in Minnesota. Google News’s near blackout of the Minnesota fraud scandal is stunning, given its magnitude and political consequences, especially after Walz abruptly suspended his re-election campaign despite repeatedly signaling his intention to seek a third term. A separate MRC study also uncovered how Google News and the other Big Four News Apps (Apple News, MSN and Yahoo News) played a role in promoting a highly one-sided narrative around the Minneapolis ICE shooting in early January, despite conflicting accounts of what occurred and legitimate opposing arguments about the sequence of events. MRC also uncovered Google News’s selective coverage in November, when the digital gatekeeper did not include any stories on the Minnesota fraud scandal that implicated Gov. Tim Walz, even after the leftist New York Times acknowledged the story. Google News also did not surface reporting on the indictment of Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick on allegations she unlawfully kept FEMA COVID-19 funds when that story first emerged in November.  The digital gatekeeper also ignored stories on the Jeffrey Epstein scandals involving House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), despite widespread public attention to those developments. Methodology: From Dec. 1 through Dec. 31, MRC researchers reviewed the top 20 AllSides-rated news stories featured on Google News each day at approximately 10:00 a.m. ET. Using AllSides media bias ratings, which classify outlets as “left,” “lean left,” “center,” “lean right” or “right,” researchers assessed the ideological slant presented by Google News and analyzed the results. For clarity, MRC combined the “left” and “lean left” categories, as well as the “lean right” and “right” groupings. MRC did not collect or analyze Google News data on Dec. 2.