Monday’s PBS News Hour marked America’s upcoming 250th anniversary in typically perverse fashion, turning the national story inside out and showing, in the words from the introduction by substitute anchor William Brangham, how “America's celebrations have always been plagued by a deeper contradiction, a nation devoted to liberty while repeatedly denying it to millions of its own people.” Brangham introduced News Hour co-host Geoff Bennett’s taped interview with left-wing Princeton prof Eddie Glaude Jr. about his new book America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries. CO-HOST GEOFF BENNETT: This book, you open it with a striking line. You write: "I do not love America and never have, especially now." Why did you choose to begin there? What are you asking readers to reconsider about their relationship to this country? The author responded with a sad anecdote from his childhood involving being called a racist slur, then used it as an excuse to ditch patriotism for life. EDDIE GLAUDE: ….So I'm really asking the question, how can you expect me to love the country, given the reality of my experience and the experience of race in the country? Asked by Bennett why criticism can’t be “an act of love,” he responded by casting aspersions on patriotism: GLAUDE JR.: ….I'm more interested, Geoff, in loving closer to the ground, not the abstractions, because whenever I hear a certain kind of invocation of patriotism, it sounds to my ear like a Rebel yell. Asked why criticism of the United States can’t be “an act of love,” author and professor Eddie Glaude Jr. responded by likening patriotism to white supremacy "....whenever I hear a certain kind of invocation of patriotism, it sounds to my ear like a rebel yell." pic.twitter.com/RNonT97Xp3 — Clay Waters

Following Vice President J.D. Vance’s appearance on ABC’s The View on Tuesday, co-host Joy Behar and the show’s executive producer Brian Teta scurried off to record the daily episode of their Behind the Table podcast to, in part, commiserate about the interview. Generally happy with how it went, Behar predicted that every presidential hopeful needed to visit The View if they actually wanted the female vote in their corner. At the top of the episode, Teta had praise for how Vance conducted himself: TETA: So, J.D. Vance was our guest on the entire show today, and how do you feel like it went? BEHAR: Well, I think that we, you know, we were actually kind to him, I think. TETA: Mm-hmm I thought he was - I have to say very genial. BEHAR: Yeah. “We were able to ask whatever we wanted. And we asked tough questions. He answered, he definitely deflected plenty of them,” Teta added. “But at the same time, he was willing to sit with you guys and have this conversation which I respect.” Behar chided in response: “Well, he wants to sell a book and he wants to run for president. Let’s be real.”   On their podcast, The View proclaims that "the bar is set" and presidential candidates NEED to come on the show like VP Vance. Joy Behar Suggests The View is the gatekeepers to "the female vote." pic.twitter.com/7oIlQK0Uzc — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 17, 2026   Teta proclaimed that Vance had set the bar and that every presidential hopeful now had to visit The View. Behar took it further and said they needed to come if they wanted the female vote: TETA: What I really like about it is I think now the bar is set and I think if you're running for president, you got to come on The View like J.D. Vance did. BEHAR: They all will well they have to stop here. They want the female vote. Even if the most of our audience is not Republican. Teta lamented that they didn’t get to ask Vance all their questions (probably because they kept shouting over and interrupting each other and Vance). Behar predicted that Vance would certainly be back: TETA: Well, the problem with this, always, is we don't have enough time to get to all the questions. BEHAR: I know. TETA: I got a list of 20 more. BEHAR: Get him back. TETA: If he'll come back, I'd be happy to have him. BEHAR: He'll come back. TETA: You think so? BEHAR: He wants to run for president, believe me he'll be back. TETA: All right, so I won't give away any of the questions we had. While Behar also said she had never voted for a Republican and that Democrats had “good heart[s]” (and the GOP didn’t), she admitted to telling Vance during a commercial break that he had a “good vibe” “for a Republican.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Behind the Table June 16, 2026 00:24 BRIAN TETA: But first, I think we have to talk about this show we just finished. JOY BEHAR: Yeah, of course. It was a most interesting show with J.D.. TETA: It was. J.D.? You're on a first the first initials basis with. [Title card] TETA: So, J.D. Vance was our guest on the entire show today, and how do you feel like it went? BEHAR: Well, I think that we, you know, we were actually kind to him, I think. TETA: Mm-hmm I thought he was - I have to say very genial. BEHAR: Yeah. TETA: He came on - I think he came on in good faith. You know, we had that conversation with some of the hosts before and we've talked about this. BEHAR: Yeah. TETA: Often people come here looking to disrupt. BEHAR: Here’s my theory about J.D. Vance. TETA: That he's running for president? BEHAR: Totally running for president. (…) 02:18 TETA: Here's what I liked. He came on willing to face - there were no rules on this interview. BEHAR: No. TETA: We were able to ask whatever we wanted. BEHAR: He didn’t know what we were asking him. TETA: And we asked tough questions. He answered, he definitely deflected plenty of them. BEHAR: Right. TETA: But at the same time, he was willing to sit with you guys and have this conversation which I respect. BEHAR: Well, he wants to sell a book and he wants to run for president. Let’s be real. TETA: Yes. Yeah, I think for sure. What I really like about it is I think now the bar is set and I think if you're running for president, you got to come on The View like J.D. Vance did. BEHAR: They all will well they have to stop here. They want the female vote. TETA: Yeah. I’d love to have - BEHAR: Even if the most of our audience is not Republican. TETA: I'd love to have Marco Rubio on. I'd love to have, really. BEHAR: Put him on with Anna Navarro. That'll be interesting to watch. TETA: Sure. BEHAR: Talk about a cage match. [Laughter] TETA: It wouldn't be. It would be a respectful display and a nice discussion of ideas. BEHAR: Okay. (…) 04:42 BEHAR: Scapegoating. Scapegoating immigrants. Every autocrat, including Donald Trump, and you know all the rest of them all over the world. They find somebody to hate. They tap into that part of your brain that wants to believe that. TETA: Well, the problem with this, always, is we don't have enough time to get to all the questions. BEHAR: I know. TETA: I got a list of 20 more. BEHAR: Get him back. TETA: If he'll come back, I'd be happy to have him. BEHAR: He'll come back. TETA: You think so? BEHAR: He wants to run for president, believe me he'll be back. TETA: All right, so I won't give away any of the questions we had. (…)

On Wednesday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish played a campaign ad from Rick Jackson, winner of Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, in which Jackson promised voters that criminal illegals who “commit sick, violent crimes, victimize our children, and get away with murder” would, if he becomes governor, “end up deported or departed.”  The spot featured the case of José Antonio Ibarra, the illegal immigrant who murdered Laken Riley. Cornish pounced: “I said [saw?] the death threat at the end of that.” She added that what she heard was “culture war.” According to Cornish, the message was simply telling voters, “Hey, remember how you hate those people and that people, and these people shouldn't come over the border.” Americans don’t “hate” legal immigrants, but they sure do hate illegal aliens who rape and murder Americans like Laken Riley. What about you, Audie? Why is it a "culture war" to object to illegal alien murderers? Jackson was simply pledging to enforce that law, especially given that the local prosecutor in Ibarra’s case has a policy of always refusing to seek the death penalty. Yet for Cornish, Jackson's straightforward tough-on-crime promise was apparently the real outrage. Later, when talk turned to affordability, conservative Terry Schilling pointed out that not even one Democrat member of Congress will vote against taxpayer-funded sex change procedures. The conversation turned heated. Dem strategist Antjuan Seawright repeatedly called Schilling's point a “distraction.” CNN’s Cornish: Georgia GOP Candidate’s Pledge to Deport or ‘Depart’ Illegal Alien Murderers a ‘Death Threat pic.twitter.com/xSTtOLLRJH — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) June 17, 2026 Naturally, Cornish responded with her usual inclination to admonish conservatives for changing the subject from her liberal narrative, cutting Schilling short: “Let me just pause for a second, ’cause we weren’t talking about trans health care, and I feel like we’re going on a journey here, Terry, so let’s, let’s journey back to the news today.” By embracing the left’s activist euphemism “trans health care” for sex change surgeries, and siding with Seawright’s "distraction" accusation, Cornish made CNN’s priorities crystal clear: a pledge to deport or execute illegal immigrant murderers is a “death threat” and “culture war,” but challenging taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries is verboten, and not “the news today.” Classic CNN. Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 6/17/26 6:34 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: When we're talking about Oklahoma and Alabama, that's one thing.  Georgia to me is a special case because of its role in the 2020 election, and the role Republicans there faced in rejecting the Trump administration at a time, in its attempts to overturn the election.  And I-- between that and the Marjorie Taylor Greene of it all, it feels like the Republican politics there are a little more scrambled. So is it the money? Is it also the local? TERRY SCHILLING: I, I think it's a little bit of everything, obviously. I think we're seeing now that the, the, what the value of a Trump endorsement is, and it's a hundred million dollars.  But one thing I will point out is that Mike Collins is a solid, MAGA candidate. He is America first all the way, and you could actually make the argument that while, in the gubernatorial race, the Trump endorsed candidate didn't win, the Trump candidate won, right? So why wouldn't Trump back him? SCHILLINGh: Well, look, there are all different types of reasons to endorse people, but Rick Jackson, if you listen to his comments last night, he's the outsider. He's the guy running on pro-family, family-centered economics. He wants to halve the state income tax, like, for everyone.  CORNISH: Here's the thing, he's not-- You talking about Rick Jackson? SCHILLING: Rick Jackson.  CORNISH: All right, here's what he's running on though. I wanna play an ad, 'cause what you're saying is very interesting, but this is what he told the voters. RICK JACKSON AD: I don't care if you're Muslim or Mongolian, you don't have the right to force your culture on our country. Conservative Rick Jackson. Too often, criminal illegals commit sick, violent crimes, victimize our children, and get away with murder [photo of Laken Riley's murderer appears on screen.] So here's my guarantee to them. Do that when I'm governor, and you'll end up deported, or departed. Rick Jackson for Georgia. Any questions? CORNISH: I said [saw?] a death threat at the end of that. I don't know if there's a Mongolian human trafficking ring going on. But what I hear is culture war. It's not gas prices, it was not affordability, it wasn't any of those things.  Antoine, is the return of a culture war argument a weakness for Democrats? ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT: I don't know. I can summarize these primaries -- CORNISH: Never say I don't know, do you know that? Like that, that is, that's a telling thing. SEAWRIGHT: Well, you know, it's hard to say because, and this is why it's hard to say. Number one, I think the Republican primary contests have been about who can be most loyal or who can wrap their arms most around Donald Trump.  I think on the Democratic side has been, it has been a generational divide and an ideological conversation, and, and I think both of those things will look different in a general election.  And I'll tell you, I think the ice is melting in the Donald Trump cup. I think he's had a chilling effect on the Republican primaries, what we saw in Iowa, we saw in Georgia, and we've seen with some of the candidates.  CORNISH: But is that why, then, their candidates would turn to those kinds of messages that do resonate instead of focusing on, "Here's what Trump did, this is a referendum on him, let's have a fight about the Iran war," what they're saying is, "Hey, remember how you hate those people and that people, and these people shouldn't come over the border. We should go back to that conversation." SEAWRIGHT: Well, I think they cannot run away from the reality that Donald Trump's economy has been a failure for them. Voters are gonna vote on affordability and feeling economics, economics you and I can feel, and I think they failed on that. If you look at Georgia, you look at Oklahoma, you look at what's likely gonna happen in South Carolina, you look at what happened in Iowa just last week or a week before last, the, the narrative have been the same. Farmers, rural voters, those who voted for Trump are feeling the effect of a Donald Trump failing economy. SCHILLING: And here's where it gets challenging for, for your party, Antoine. You guys are going to have a really hard time arguing about affordability when you can't get a single Democrat in the House or the Senate to vote against taxpayer-funded sex change procedures, sex rejection procedures. SEAWRIGHT: So, so, no, no, no, no, no.  SCHILLING: $100,000. You're going to tax us over that? SEAWRIGHT: We're not going to distract from the reality that everyday Americans -- SCHILLING: -- The affordability --  SEAWRIGHT: You want to come on programs like this, and you want to distract on these issues that Americans are not talking about -- SCHILLING: Distract? You're taking my tax dollars -- SEAWRIGHT: You cannot find one American in this country who's not screaming and yelling about the prices of gas, goods, and services --  SCHILLING: -- or their taxes! SEAWRIGHT: That's what the American vote for -- and that's why you have failed since Donald Trump has taken office.  CORNISH: Let me let just pause for a second, 'cause we weren't talking about trans health care, and I feel like that -- SEAWRIGHT: -- It's just a distraction.  CORNISH: We're going on a journey here, Terry, so let's, let's journey back to the news today.

With the Obama Presidential Library opening on Thursday, the cast of characters that make up MS NOW has been provided an excuse to return to fangirling over their favorite president. On Wednesday’s On the Line, it was host Alicia Menendez’s turn as she claimed the library would not just be a tribute to Obama, but to the whole country. Menendez’s gushing review also fit in nicely with how the media historically reports on Democratic presidential libraries. Menendez began the segment by claiming, “Tomorrow is the grand opening of the Obama presidential center here in Chicago, not just a tribute to the nation's first black president, but the country he represented and the city that first gave him a shot as a young political upstart.”   MS NOW's Alicia Menendez says the new Obama library isn't just a tribute to Obama, but to the country, "Tomorrow is the grand opening of the Obama presidential center here in Chicago, not just a tribute to the nation's first black president, but the country he represented and the… pic.twitter.com/QG1NepHjlV — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) June 17, 2026   As it hard as it may be for media people to understand, the Obamas are not as universally beloved among Americans as they are among journalists. Nevertheless, Menendez then hyped the facility itself, “And this is no typical presidential library. The sprawling campus is meant to function as a community hub. There is a basketball court, a recording studio, a teaching kitchen, and fruit and vegetable garden, a beehive that functions as part of a sustainable ecosystem, a children's playground, and, of course, the presidential reading room, part of a new Chicago Public Library branch with roughly 3,500 book titles handpicked by the Obamas.” Menendez then transitioned into a preview of Michele Norris’s Friday special with the not-at-all subtle title of Hope Comes Home: Inside the Obama Presidential Center. The last time a Democratic presidential library opened was November 2004, and it was hard to differentiate Menendez’s Obama fandom with former ABC anchor Peter Jennings’s Bill Clinton fandom. Jennings described Clinton’s library as “appropriately dramatic for a man whose presidency was dramatic and divisive and full of accomplishment” who is “hugely popular in other parts of the world.” CNN’s Judy Woodruff claimed Clinton is "the quintessential American, super-sized” and summed up his career as “Dreaming big, flying sometimes too close to the sun, falling hard and coming back strong… Brilliant and captivating. Sometimes foolish and weak. Forever a promise not quite fulfilled. A legacy still to be determined.” Looking ahead to the 2008 presidential race, NBC’s Katie Couric worried to Sen. Hillary Clinton, “Is it disappointing for both you and your husband that his detractors and critics continue to pursue him?” By contrast, when the George W. Bush Library opened in 2013, Jonathan Karl quipped, “The Bush legacy – history is, at least the early indication, not gonna be too kind to President Bush.” NBC Meet the Press anchor David Gregory claimed Bush had a “reputation for incompetence” that “stained the administration and the GOP brand.”  ABC’s Dianne Sawyer used the occasion to pester Bush if he was ready to flip-flop on same-sex marriage. Bush declined the offer. Odds are that when it comes time to open up the Trump Library, he will get the George W. Bush treatment from the media, not the Clinton or Obama treatment. Here is a transcript for the June 17 show: MS NOW On the Line with Alicia Menendez 6/17/2026 1:50 PM ET ALICIA MENENDEZ: Tomorrow is the grand opening of the Obama presidential center here in Chicago, not just a tribute to the nation's first black president, but the country he represented and the city that first gave him a shot as a young political upstart.  And this is no typical presidential library. The sprawling campus is meant to function as a community hub. There is a basketball court, a recording studio, a teaching kitchen, and fruit and vegetable garden, a beehive that functions as part of a sustainable ecosystem, a children's playground, and, of course, the presidential reading room, part of a new Chicago Public Library branch with roughly 3,500 book titles handpicked by the Obamas. 

Democrats are far more likely to say they’re “ashamed” to be Americans than are other U.S. adult citizens, results of a new national survey by The Economist/YouGov reveal. With the nation’s 250th anniversary less than a month away, the survey conducted June 13-15 polled Americans’ views on their country. When asked to rate how “proud” they were to be an American, 60% of U.S. adult citizens said they were either “very proud” (42%) or “somewhat proud” (18%). While 20% of all adults said they were either somewhat (12%) or very (8%) “ashamed,” nearly twice as many Democrat citizens (38%) said they were ashamed, including 12% who reported that they were “very ashamed.” Only 40% of Democrats said they were at least somewhat proud to be Americans. Another 22% of Democrats said they were “neither” proud nor ashamed to be Americans, on par with the 20% of all U.S. adults who voiced no opinion, one way or the other. Democrats were also much less likely to think that America has been “a force for good in the world.” Fully 61% of all U.S. adults answered either “yes” (25%) or “mostly yes” (36%) when asked if America has been a force for good, but only 10% of Democrats fully agreed, while 35% said they mostly agreed. In a separate question, nearly half (45%) of Democrats said American compared poorly to the world’s other countries, including 25% who called it “worse than average,” 14% who labeled it “among the worst” and 6% who declared their home country “the worst” in the world. In all, 54% of U.S. citizens said America was either the greatest country in the world (21%), among the greatest (20%), or better than the average country (13%). Democrats were also found to be more critical of their country in an America 250 national survey of U.S. adults conducted between April 30 and May 3, 2026 by Elon University/YouGov. Fully 68% of U.S. adults agreed that “I am proud to be an American,” including half (48%) who said it’s “very true” that they were a proud American. Slightly less than half (48%) of Democrats agreed. And, when asked if there was “any other country on Earth you would rather live in than the United States today,” 55% of Democrat adults said “Yes.” Among all U.S. adults, about two-thirds (65%) said there’s no place else they’d rather be.