The Democrat Primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan is coming up on August 4th, with Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens and radical left-winger Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on the ballot, and many in the Democrat Party are fearing that a win by El-Sayed, will mean a loss in the general election in November. That was the lead in a recent CNN story on the race, and may explain why El-Sayed has been given a hard time during recent interviews on the network.Earlier in the month, it was  Kasie Hunt who pressed El-Sayed on The Arena, and Sunday on Inside Politics, host Manu Raju, did more of the same. He also began his interview in much the same way Hunt did, relaying Democrat concern over his candidacy.RAJU: As you know, your party leadership, they're, frankly, fearful of your candidacy. They see you as the kind of candidate who could win a primary but can lose a general election in a purple state and cost Democrats the majority. So why shouldn't Democrats nominate a more moderate candidate, someone who doesn't have such progressive views and may not alienate those swing voters you need in November?Raju then turned to El-Sayed's political label. RAJU: You said you're not a Democratic socialist, but your policies really are in line with Democratic socialist ideology, like backing "Medicare for All." And you're obviously campaigning with the most prominent Democratic socialists of them all, Bernie Sanders. So, what makes you different than a Democratic socialist?EL-SAYED: I support "Medicare for All," not because of any ideology. I support Medicare for all because I went to medical school to learn how to heal. And when I graduated, I realized that I didn't want to work in a system that too often chews up patients and spits them out. I am a scientist. Instead of asking El-Sayed about revelations that he has falsely claimed to be a physician, Raju stayed on topic, interrupting with, "Just what makes you different than a Democratic Socialist?" From there, it was on to Israel.RAJU: You have signaled in previous interviews an openness to there being a Palestinian state. Do you believe that a Jewish state of Israel should exist alongside it?El-Sayed did not answer the question.EL-SAYED: I believe that a free Palestinian people, alongside free Jewish Israeli people, ought to decide what the future of the region looks like. That is not my job. My job is to make sure that the money that we're sending over there right now to subsidize a foreign military, to do things like apartheid and genocide, is spent here to provide schools and health care for our kids....Israel does not have a right to their tax dollars. RAJU: So you don't have a view of there should be a two state whether a Jewish state should exist, you don't have a view of that, is that what you're saying?Again, he did not answer the question, and Raju failed to point out that Israel is not the only recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the Middle East, and we have given Ukraine $195 billion in aid. El-Sayed also did not answer when asked if he thought the Israeli government should be considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the same classification we give Hamas. Instead he called it a rogue state. Next up, defunding the police.RAJU: You've said recently you never, never called for defunding the police, but our K-File team here in CNN found interviews in the past where you did repeatedly back in 2020, including in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing. I want you to listen to your comments here.EL-SAYED CLIP: I believe that we do need to defund the police insofar as defunding the police is disinvesting in the means of incarcerating someone or killing them on the streets. What if we were to invest in social services? What if we were to invest in public schools? What if we were to invest in public libraries?... And it also means investing less in police.RAJU: So why did you say you never called for defunding the police when it sounded like you did in the past?The best El-Sayed could do, wasn't very good: "Do you disagree with investing in libraries and public services and social services?.... You fixate on the word defund."The back and forth continued on this issue, before Raju pressed him on why he hasn't released information on his finances.As was the case when Hunt interviewed El-Sayed, Raju treated him more like a Republican guest, and the reason seems to be pretty obvious, to help the Democrats take the Senate.

Actor and comedian Ike Barinholtz became this year's second summer guest host of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday and the second to try to claim they are following in Kimmel’s footsteps by becoming a free speech martyr. What made Barinholtz’s claim extra dumb is that he tried to do so preemptively as he attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell after his hospitalization as a health care hypocrite and Sen. Lindsey Graham after his unexpected death by joking with sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez that they had nothing nice to say about him.In Barinholtz’s world, if you do not agree with him about the economics of health insurance, you do not want people to have health care at all, “In all seriousness, though, I do want to extend well wishes to Senator McConnell. I hope you get the quality health care you've fought so hard to deny everyone else, so thank you. Pulling for you, Mitch.”  Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Ike Barinholtz appears to preemptively make himself a free speech martyr for going after Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, "In all seriousness, though, I do want to extend well wishes to Senator McConnell. I hope you get the quality healthcare… pic.twitter.com/ZMn46pZNcf— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 14, 2026  Barinholtz then started to change topics to Graham’s death, but first he had to do some preemptive self-pity, “What a weekend. What a crazy weekend. Mitch McConnell is alive. Lindsey Graham is dead. There’s so many opportunities to get Jimmy's show pulled off the air again. They’re gonna to pull it off!”Only if you make the deliberate choice to be a jerk about it, which is what Barinholtz and Rodriguez decided to do when they joked that they had nothing nice to say about Graham. Barinholtz began, “As I'm sure you've heard, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina passed away suddenly on Saturday at the age of 71. Guillermo, I know you and him were close friends. You hosted fundraisers for him at the Dave & Busters in Charleston. And I know you've prepared some heartfelt remarks. Do you want to share them with all of America right now?”Rodriguez sarcastically responded with, “Maybe later on. Maybe later on. I'll do it later on, yeah, yeah," as Barinholtz explained, “Later on. He's emotional, folks. He’s emotional.”For liberals, Jimmy Kimmel is a free speech hero for getting himself suspended. The actual details of what he said don’t matter to them. Kimmel’s guest hosts are now trying to get in on the hero status by trying to force free speech narratives into existence. In Barinholtz’s case, he is being cruel for the sake of getting a reaction to bolster his liberal street cred, and that says more about him than it does McConnell, Graham, or any of Kimmel’s critics.Here is a transcript for the July 13 show:ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!7/13/202611:38 PM ETIKE BARINHOLTZ: In all seriousness, though, I do want to extend well wishes to Senator McConnell. I hope you get the quality health care you've fought so hard to deny everyone else, so thank you. Pulling for you, Mitch. What a weekend. What a crazy weekend. Mitch McConnell is alive. Lindsey Graham is dead. There’s so many opportunities to get Jimmy's show pulled off the air again. They’re gonna to pull it off! As I'm sure you've heard, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina passed away suddenly on Saturday at the age of 71. Guillermo, I know you and him were close friends. You hosted fundraisers for him at the Dave & Busters in Charleston. And I know you've prepared some heartfelt remarks. Do you want to share them with all of America right now?GUILLERMO RODRIGUEZ: Maybe later on. Maybe later on.BARINHOLTZ: Later on.RODRIGUEZ: I'll do it later on, yeah, yeah.BARINHOLTZ: Later on. He's emotional, folks. He’s emotional.  

It’s usually a bad idea to speak ill of the dead, especially soon after a person’s passing. But MS NOW instead danced over Republican Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham’s grave before his body was even laid in it. On Monday’s episode of Money, Power, Politics, host Stephanie Ruhle platformed three guest panelists to shamelessly drag the late Senator’s name through the mud.“I remember him being a very important person. I’m not sure he’ll be remembered as great,” former Ambassador and Democratic Representative Sean Patrick Maloney set the general tone for the rest of the segment. While he granted that Graham “could be great fun in person,” he also slammed him for being “willing to follow where power led” and failing “to make the difficult choice to be somebody who truly stood for something throughout his career.” Don't speak ill of the dead: @SeanPMaloney doing his best to tarnish @LindseyGrahamSC's legacy less than 48 hours after his death.When we say the left is evil, this is what we mean. pic.twitter.com/LIWWA0FMC5— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 13, 2026 The only action of Graham’s that Ruhle and the panelists were willing to praise was the late Senator's insults of President Trump. CNBC contributor Dan Nathan bizarrely claimed Trump didn't have a policy agenda: "I think politics won over policy. He really didn't have a lot of policy that resonated with the American people." Then he voiced his disappointment that Graham went from sharply criticizing Trump to becoming one of his allies:So when I think about, you know, Lindsey Graham, I think about all the contradictions, right? When you hear that sort of interview, that sort of rhetoric, and then coming around not too long after, you know, in that pursuit of power, I mean, that's something that is very disappointing.  And about Graham’s passionate defense of Justice Kavanaugh, who the liberal media was trying their best to sink in 2018 with unproven charges of sexual assault, Nathan went on:One of the things I'll remember most is somebody who's not, you know, involved in politics, is his defense of Justice Kavanaugh when he was, you know, being confirmed. I mean, that was like unhinged. It was just - it made me think twice about who this man is. Nathan claimed “that moment changed everything for me, how I thought about politics as it relates to Congress and the ability to work together going forward.” Disgusting: what kind of sicko do you have to be to drag a Senator's name not even 48 hours after he dies?Source: Dan Nathan on @MSNOWNews's @mppmsnow pic.twitter.com/1dqvDoj0mB— Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 13, 2026 But the prize for ‘Most Disrespectful of a Dead Man’ went to Eddie Glaude, Princeton University professor and MS NOW’s favorite race-baiter:EDDIE GLAUDE: But I keep thinking about this quotation from James Baldwin that one must earn one's death by embracing with passion the conundrum of life. So what does it mean to earn one's death when their Faustian bargains that line the life that has been lived and those Faustian bargains end up corrupting the soul? So we have a ritual in the United States, we're in America, I suspect it's around the globe, that when someone passes away, we try to tell the best - we try to tell stories of the best of their lives, and it's important that we do that. You don't speak ill of the dead if you have a good home training, as we would say back home. But I do know this, that Faustian bargains have lasting effects and one will be judged accordingly. So you earn your death accordingly.Glaude hated Graham so much that he felt entitled to go on live television talking about how he didn’t want to “speak ill of the dead,” before immediately implying that Graham had made deals with the devil, which ended up “corrupting” his soul and killing him.  On MS NOW, Eddie Glaude was asked about the late Lindsey Graham’s political evolution, just a day after his death, and said, “Faustian bargains have lasting effects, and one will be judged accordingly. So, you earn your death accordingly.” pic.twitter.com/7DqUetR1Vm— Nick (@nspin310) July 13, 2026 Trump is Satan. Another home run from the party of love and tolerance, who publicly dance on the graves of the people they dislike.The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:MS NOW's Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle7/13/2610:00:43 a.m. EasternSTEPHANIE RUHLE: Flags are flying at half staff this morning as Washington and the country are mourning South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. He died unexpectedly at 71 years old.Graham had been in Congress since 1994 and had a dramatic political evolution. He was a McCain-era establishment conservative, and at the same time, one of Donald Trump's biggest critics turned biggest advocates and allies, and one of the President's most loyal supporters. Nobody would have guessed that ten years ago. He publicly traded punches with Democrats, yet had a reputation of being willing to negotiate across the aisle.[Cut to video]SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): He's a puzzle to me. I mean, I played football in the Pac-10 and have banged my head and helmet with a lot of people, but I don't think I headbutted anybody as hard as he and I, when we disagreed, fought ferociously. But he was the kind of guy that, when the spotlight was off, he like - "Hey Cory, can we talk and try to figure out - is there a way to make a deal?"[Cut to second video]SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): No better friend, no tougher adversary. And he and I certainly fought plenty over our differences about politics and policy. But we also traveled the world together.[Cut back to live]RUHLE: With that, let's enter the group chat. Dan Nathan is here, co-founder of Risk Reversal and CNBC Fast Money contributor.Eddie Glaude joins us, professor at Princeton University and author of the new must-read book America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries.And Sean Patrick Maloney, former Democratic Congressman from New York and former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Ambassador, you were in the House when Lindsey Graham was in the Senate. What do you remember most about him?SEAN PATRICK MALONEY: I remember him being a very important person. I'm not sure he'll be remembered as great. And the reason I say that is because he was a master at understanding that in politics, you can do lots of things if you aren't truly dedicated to any one ideology or one set of beliefs. And he was famous for being ideologically and personally flexible in that way, and that allowed him to remain relevant and really important. He could be great fun in person. I was out with him late at night in foreign capitals. I'm here to tell you he's a lot of fun. But I think the tragedy in some ways of his career is that, rather than like, a John McCain stand on principle, he was willing to follow where power led, and that continued to grow his influence and to make him an important figure. But I think he failed to make the difficult choice to be somebody who truly stood for something throughout his career.RUHLE: I did wonder over the weekend, when he arrives at the Pearly Gates, greeted by John McCain and Saint Peter, like how that conversation is going to go between those old friends. Dan, in the 2016 race, we saw Lindsey Graham go after Donald Trump fiercely. I want to share just one example.[Cut to video]LINDSEY GRAHAM: He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn't represent my party. He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.[Cut back to live]RUHLE: He then changed his views. As The Economist put it, "Lindsey Graham represented the arc of his party." How do you see it?DAN NATHAN: Yeah, well, I go back to 2016 or even 2015. I think of Marco Rubio. I think of Ted Cruz, obviously, Lindsey Graham. I mean, it looked like - Jeb Bush. He was going to be like roadkill, right? If you think about it - Trump - and I think politics won over policy. He really didn't have a lot of policy that resonated with the American people. But he was an extremely good politician. That's what he's proven to be. So when I think about, you know, Lindsey Graham, I think about all the contradictions, right? When you hear that sort of interview, that sort of rhetoric, and then coming around not too long after, you know, in that pursuit of power, I mean, that's something that is very disappointing. And then it takes me to 2018. And one of the things I'll remember most is somebody who's not, you know, involved in politics, is his defense of Justice Kavanaugh when he was, you know, being confirmed. I mean, that was like unhinged. It was just - it made me think twice about who this man is. And when you hear all of this talk about his ability to reach across the aisle and do, you know, bipartisan deals, that moment changed everything for me, how I thought about politics as it relates to Congress and the ability to work together going forward.And think about it. Since then, we just really [haven't had] any meaningful bipartisan legislation.RUHLE: Well, we have a housing bill that, well - actually is now a law because the President didn't veto it. But no help from Donald Trump. What does his evolution tell us about politics today, Eddie?EDDIE GLAUDE: Oh, Oh my god. Tells us so much... morally bankrupt can compromise the soul. Not really interested in so many ways and in the lives of everyday ordinary folk. But I keep thinking about this quotation from James Baldwin that one must earn one's death by embracing with passion the conundrum of life. So what does it mean to earn one's death when their Faustian bargains that line the life that has been lived and those Faustian bargains end up corrupting the soul? So we have a ritual in the United States, we're in America, I suspect it's around the globe, that when someone passes away, we try to tell the best - we try to tell stories of the best of their lives, and it's important that we do that. You don't speak ill of the dead if you have a good home training, as we would say back home. But I do know this, that Faustian bargains have lasting effects and one will be judged accordingly. So you earn your death accordingly.RUHLE: Ambassador, Lindsey Graham had very strong words for the President after January 6th. I want to share just some of them.[Cut to video]GRAHAM: When it comes to accountability, the President needs to understand that his actions were the problem, not the solution. It breaks my heart that my friend, a president of a consequence, would allow yesterday to happen.[Cut back to live]RUHLE: But then a few months later, Lindsey Graham said he was advocating for Trump and said 'we cannot grow as a party without him.' So how do you balance the two?MALONEY: Right. Well, I was there on January 6th. I felt pretty strongly about it. And when we watched the people who, like us, had to evacuate the building because of this mob that Trump had whipped up, we were pretty shocked when people started to just go back home to the President, which they did one after another, Lindsey Graham among them. But I will tell you that I think that the issue with Senator Graham, which is true of a lot of politicians, is that politics is easy, power is easy if you don't care that much about anything. In other words, if the primary goal is your own ambition and your own influence, and then everything just becomes simple. It's like, what are you getting so upset about? We can figure this out. And that was the approach, I think, after January 6th, and you see that time and again, which is the priority, is how do I remain close to the person who's powerful? How do I maximize my influence? And you hope when you're in politics, that you then use that for something. That's an energy source you deploy to get something done, but it tends to become an end in itself. And you can justify all manner of conduct under that rationale. And I think, unfortunately, we saw that a lot with Senator Graham. But, you know, I'm trying to be nice--RUHLE: No, of course, of course!MALONEY: --the man has only been, you know--RUHLE: Yes!MALONEY: --dead a few hours. And I do think it's also worth pointing out that on issues like Ukraine and elsewhere, he remained a critically important anchor to U.S. foreign policy. And right now in Kyiv, they are going to have a very favorable view of Senator Graham's legacy, because even in the midst of so much backsliding by this administration, he remains strong on certain issues like that, even if the way he did it made some of us uncomfortable.And so it wasn't like he was never trying to accomplish things. It's just that I always felt the priority for him was maintaining his own influence.(...)

The Elitist Media appear to circle the wagons as the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger approaches, terrified that CNN might face editorial standards approaching fairness. Perhaps this explains why news of the California-led Democrat lawsuit to block the deal was left off of the evening news on ABC and NBC. The CBS Evening News did cover the lawsuit. Here is that brief in its entirety, as aired on Monday, July 13th, 2026: WATCH: @CBSEveningNews was the sole network evening newscast to report the Democrat-led lawsuit to block the Paramount-WBD deal. TONY DOKOUPIL: Some news tonight concerning Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News. 12 states filed an antitrust suit today aiming to… pic.twitter.com/hQP4PzMW01 — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) July 14, 2026 TONY DOKOUPIL: Some news tonight concerning Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News. 12 states filed an antitrust suit today aiming to block the roughly $110 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery. The state attorneys general, all Democrats, said the deal would create a monopoly and undermine competition, violating a century-old law. Paramount Skydance argues the opposite, that the merger would increase jobs and increase consumer choice. Government regulators in several other countries have signed off and so has the U.S. Department of Justice. There is more to the story than Dokoupil could cram into that brief towards the end of their A-block. Per NPR: A dozen states, led by California, are suing to block Paramount from buying Warner Bros. Discovery in a Hollywood mega-merger that would unite some of the nation's largest movie studios, television newsrooms, and other entertainment properties. "The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement announcing the suit, which was filed in federal court in California's Northern District. … The other states involved in the lawsuit are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. An overlapping cadre of Democratic state attorneys general have sued to block the takeover of local TV giant Tegna by Nexstar, the nation's largest owner of television stations.   “Overlapping cadre” is how NPR roundabout disclosed that the lawsuit is filed exclusively by Democrat attorneys general- but at least they disclosed it. And this disclosure is very important. The crown jewel of this merger, at least as far as the Elitist Media are concerned, is CNN. As our very own Curtis Houck previously exposed, the media (and their self-appointed hall monitors) are terrified that CNN might become “MAGAfied”: (Oliver) Darcy argued “CNN staffers have every reason to be worried” and predicted it’ll undergo a “MAGA-fication” akin to what he said has happened at CBS.  As Curtis notes, there is no factual basis to these fears. The “MAGA-fication” of CBS did not materialize. In addition to the many examples provided by Curtis, I know this firsthand because I am still watching Margaret Brennan ply her trade on Sundays.  As I pointed out on the NewsBusters Podcast, the left want to preserve and retain their Regime Media. Conversely, the media would like to continue to operate as a Regime Media for Democrats, where anything Donald Trump gets a 93% negative spin and the Hunter Biden laptops (or Platner Totenkopf tats) of the world get suppressed into oblivion per secula seculorum. Thus, the introduction of any standards in news reporting gets hysterically smeared as “MAGA-fication.” This is part of the reason why ABC and NBC kept this story off their evening news. It is a story about Democrats wanting to control the flow of information to the American public.  

As a member of the Group Chat on Monday's edition of CNN This Morning, Adam Harris, a podcast host at the adamantly anti-Trump The Atlantic, couldn't resist injecting politics — and doing so in remarkably tasteless fashion — into the discussion of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham's death and legacy. Harris began by recalling the "very sort of vicious campaign" of 2016, when Graham was running for president and trading barbs with Trump. The language was so harsh, Harris said, that if he used such language in a Group Chat, "I'm not necessarily coming back to the group chat after that." Moments later, the conversation turned to Trump's warm words for Graham. Trump had noted that the senator was "full of vim and vigor" and pushing hard for the Save America Act right up to the end. CNN host Audie Cornish pointed out: "I noticed the president still managed to mention his chief priority right now, the priority that is inadvertently holding up almost everything else." Harris pounced at that opportunity: "You know, it's interesting that the president mentioned him as, you know, a great politician. Because he [Trump] immediately starts playing politics as, Lindsey Graham -- before the body's even cold, necessarily, right?" 'The Atlantic' Host: Trump Played Politics on Graham 'Before Body Cold'@AdamHSays @CNNThisMorning pic.twitter.com/aZA0UUMpOr — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) July 13, 2026 Harris's comment may not have been vicious, but, without a doubt, it was utterly tasteless.  We'll have to see whether, on that basis, he's barred from the Group Chat. Then again, it's precisely that kind of tasteless attack on Trump that might score Harris future CNN appearances. CNN This Morning 7/13/26 6:02 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Eleanor Mueller, White House economy policy reporter at Semafor, Elena Schneider, national political reporter at Notus, and Adam Harris, co-host of Radio Atlantic. Thank you guys for being with me here on this Monday morning. And I have to say, I think it was a surprise and shock to everybody, because Lindsey Graham had very much been on the road. We're going to talk about his foreign policy approach in, later in the show. But first, I wanna talk about him as reflecting the arc of the Republican Party itself, going from anti-Trump to bear-hug Trump. Adam, can you talk about sort of how you were thinking about his legacy this morning? ADAM HARRIS: Yeah. You know, I, I, I -- when you think about the 2016 campaign, it was a very, sort of vicious campaign in terms of, of the language that they were, that they were using to describe each other -- CORNISH: When Graham was running for president -- HARRIS: -- for president, and, and he's, he's calling President Trump all sorts of names, things that, that, you know, if, if we're in a group chat, I'm not, I'm not necessarily coming back to the group chat after that. CORNISH: Yeah, exactly. . . .  Lastly, I wanna talk about the the president remembering him. Here was Trump on Sunday, talking to CNN, about what he'd like to see happen next, and his words for the late senator. [ DONALD TRUMP: He was pushing very, very hard, you probably know, he wanted to do the Save America Act, and he was talking about that. He was full of vim and vigor.  He was tired. He said, "I'm tired, because it's a long trip." But other than that, he was, he was fine. CORNISH: I noticed the president still managed to mention his chief priority right now, the priority that is inadvertently holding up almost everything else. HARRIS: You know, it's interesting that, that the president mentioned him as, you know, a great politician. Because [Trump] immediately starts playing politics as, as soon as, as, Lindsey Graham is -- before the body's even cold, necessarily, right?