How is talk radio doing when so many young people don't listen to broadcast radio? How can anyone stand listening to NPR? These questions and some free-speech concerns came up in a chat with Derek Hunter, talk-radio host on WMAL-FM in Washington, DC and the author of Outrage Incorporated: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood. MRC Free Speech America vice president Dan Schneider joined me in talking to Derek. Our recent poll question asking the public about the ideological beliefs of Charlie Kirk's assassin underlined how much young people aren't paying attention to conservative media or talk radio. Most don't listen to old-fashioned broadcast radio. We found 33 percent of students thought Charlie Kirk's killer was conservative, and only four percent accurately placed him on the left. Maybe someone could get confused by listening to Jimmy Kimmel or NPR. Then we discussed something Derek brings up often on his show: growing censorship in Western Europe of conservative social media posts, especially criticism of immigration policies.  Exhibit A is a woman named Lucy Connolly, currently sitting in prison on a 31-month sentence for “publishing written material with the intent to stir up racial hatred,” under a law from 1986. The New York Post reported that after the terrible mass stabbing incident with a 17-year-old kid with an 8-inch knife in Southport at a dance studio in July 2024, where three children under 10 died, Connolly posted on X her support for mass deportations.  Authorities say she “falsely claimed” the Al Qaeda-supporting killer was a migrant, When, in fact, it was his parents who were migrants, from Rwanda). Connolly deleted the tweet three hours after posting, but she’s now in prison. They showed up a week later to arrest her, and she’s in prison. For a tweet.  In one case, the cops hauled off a couple over comments they posted in a private WhatsApp group for parents at their children’s school. The leftist Labor Party's Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy plans to remove the right to a jury trial for defendants facing sentences of less than five years, as often happens with social-media "offenses." The Free Speech Union (FSU) said it would campaign against it, following its research that found defendants facing trial with juries were nearly twice as likely to be acquitted on the basis of free speech, compared to trials without juries. This story that Derek flagged on his show was a doozy, in this case from Australia. A policeman named Benedict Bryant has been charged with "dangerous driving" for putting a parked car in the way of an "indigenous" teenager who stole a motorbike. The teen tried to evade the car but crashed into it and died at the scene. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation warned "indigenous" readers that the story carried a photo of the teen who died. "The prosecutor said as an experienced police officer of more than 22 years, Bryant ought to have known the rider would not stop." Enjoy the podcast below, or you can listen to the audio here -- or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and so on.

In a rush to cast a pall on one element of President Trump’s announced farm relief, ABC’s Rachel Scott omitted another. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled when President Trump earlier referred to Scott's employer as “ABC Fake News.” Watch as Scott mischaracterized the aid received by farmers as “taxpayer money”, although it isn’t: ABC News omits one material fact about the $12B farm assistance and botches another. DAVID MUIR: President Trump's proposal to give American farmers a $12 billion bailout now in taxpayer money in part because of the pain caused by the president’s tariff policy? RACHEL SCOTT:… pic.twitter.com/n7wjgl8V2A — Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) December 9, 2025 DAVID MUIR: President Trump's proposal to give American farmers a $12 billion bailout now in taxpayer money in part because of the pain caused by the president’s tariff policy? RACHEL SCOTT: Yes. David. And American farmers have been struggling across the country for months, China refused to buy American soybeans because of that ongoing trade war. This $12 billion is taxpayer money and it's not the first time the president has had to help out farmers because of his policies. During his first term, he provided $20 billion to farmers because of his trade policies too, David. MUIR: Rachel Scott, live at The White House tonight. Rachel, thank you.  This exchange closed out Scott’s impromptu wrap-up, which was otherwise about the continued controversy over the decision to order additional strikes against a Cartel of the Suns narcovessel in the Caribbean. And it immediately begins with a key omission. It is true that the Chinese had stopped purchasing American soy. But Scott leaves out that the Chinese have begun purchasing again, pursuant to the trade framework announced between the United States and China. In a pinch, Scott could’ve checked with…ABC News. During Trump's high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, the U.S. and China announced a framework trade agreement that included a deal on soybeans. China agreed to purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans in the final two months of this year and 25 million metric tons in 2026, 2027 and 2028 -- on par with levels before the trade war.  So far, China has purchased about 2.2 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S. since the end of October, USDA data shows. Additionally, the report mischaracterizes the farm assistance as “taxpayer money.” Again, per ABC News: President Donald Trump announced a total $12 billion in funding to help American farmers during an event on Monday, and said that it would come from tariff revenue. "I'm delighted to announce this afternoon that the United States will be taking a small portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars we receive in tariffs. ... and we're going to be giving and providing it to the farmers in economic assistance. And we love our farmers," the president said. The assistance is coming from tariff revenue, but Scott makes it seem like the administration is raiding the treasury in order to make these temporary relief payments. And, again, they are temporary because the Chinese are purchasing American soy at agreed-upon intervals. As we’ve often said, much of what passes for news reporting these days is anti-news- politically charged narrative as opposed to plain facts that the viewer can assess on their own. Reports like these are why trust in the news is at all-time lows.  Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on ABC World News Tonight on Monday, December 8th, 2025: DAVID MUIR: Tonight, President Trump backtracking over whether he will release the video of that controversial second deadly strike on those two survivors of that alleged drug boat. The first strike ignited the boat in flames and capsized. The president saying he has now seen the video of the second strike. But will the American people? What he’s now saying about that and, here's Rachel Scott. RACHEL SCOTT: Tonight, President Trump backing away from his promise to release the video of that controversial and deadly second strike on an alleged drug boat that killed two survivors. Just last week, the president said he would release the video.  SELINA WANG: Will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves what happened? DONALD TRUMP: I don't know what they have, but whatever we have, we'll certainly release. No problem. SCOTT: But today when I asked him, a different story.  Mr. President, you said you would have no problem releasing the full video of that strike on September 2nd off the coast of Venezuela. Secretary Hegseth -- TRUMP: I didn't say that. You said that. I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news. SCOTT: You said that you would have no problem releasing the full- well, okay, Secretary Hegseth-- TRUMP: Whatever Hegseth wants to do is okay with me. SCOTT: Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth would not commit to releasing the video.  PETE HEGSETH: Whatever we were to decide to release, we’d have to be very responsible about, so we’re reviewing that right now. SCOTT: A source tells ABC News the survivors were clinging to the capsized boat. That at one point, they appeared to wave at something overhead. Democrats say the administration doesn't want the American people to see that the military fired on shipwrecked sailors in violation of the rules of law. JIM HIMES: I think it's really important that people see what it looks like when the full force of the United States military is turned on two guys who are clinging to a piece of wood and about to go under. SCOTT: But President Trump says he's now watched the video and that's not what he saw. TRUMP: I saw the video. They were trying to turn the boat back to where it could float and we didn't want to see that because that boat was loaded up with drugs just like everything else. SCOTT: So far, Secretary Hegseth will not commit to release that video but many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are trying to force the Pentagon's hand, David. MUIR: Big questions about this. Rachel, stay with us because there's another breaking headline from The White House tonight. President Trump's proposal to give American farmers a $12 billion bailout now in taxpayer money in part because of the pain caused by the president’s tariff policy? SCOTT: Yes. David. And American farmers have been struggling across the country for months, China refused to buy American soybeans because of that ongoing trade war. This $12 billion is taxpayer money and it's not the first time the president has had to help out farmers because of his policies. During his first term, he provided $20 billion to farmers because of his trade policies too, David. MUIR: Rachel Scott, live at The White House tonight. Rachel, thank you.  

The climate change lobby and eco-fanatic media suffered a major blow when a high-profile study predicting catastrophic economic damage from climate change was retracted due to significantly faulty data.  The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research study, published in April 2024 in the left-wing Nature journal, scaremongered based on supposed empirical findings from 1,600 regions over the past forty years that “the world economy is committed to an income reduction of 19% within the next 26 years independent of future emission” choices due to inevitable climate change. In the retraction notice published December 3, 2025, Nature noted that “post-publication, the results were found to be sensitive to the removal of one country, Uzbekistan, where inaccuracies were noted in the underlying economic data for the period 1995–1999.” In addition, “These changes led to discrepancies in the estimates for climate damages by mid-century, with an increased uncertainty” range. MRC Business tallied at least six major outlets that made a big stink about the study in 2024 that never put editors' notes on writers' original stories conceding the whole thing had been debunked. Axios, putting its fellow liberal publications to shame, was one of the few outlets that retracted their original story on the study. Even Bloomberg News, to its credit, dropped an editor's note on its initial story on the study and mentioned the retraction. The Associated Press’s in-house climate doomer Seth Borenstein, drummed up the sensationalism in his April 17, 2024 headline: “New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049.” He cited University of California Davis professor Frances Moore to snoot, “That’s why fighting climate change clearly passes economists’ tests of costs versus benefits.” Borenstein nor the AP ever bothered to update his piece with the new, narrative-wrecking context as of December 8, 2025.  Forbes magazine’s then-London based reporter Robert Hart committed the same offense in its April 17, 2024, propaganda on the study. It wielded the now-retracted study to paint the fossil fuel industry as a villain looking to dismiss the economic impact of climate change. Of course, Forbes didn’t post an editor’s note at all on its story following the major retraction news: Cost is a major sticking point when it comes to concrete action on climate change and money has become a key lever in making climate a ‘culture war’ issue. The costs and logistics involved in transitioning towards a greener, more sustainable economy and moving to net zero are immense and there are significant vested interests such as the fossil fuel industry, which is keen to retain as much of the profitable status quo for as long as possible. Score one for the fossil fuel industry.  Over at Reuters, correspondent Riham Alkousaa also blew up the news April 17 about the supposed economic devastation destined to be brought about by climate change. She praised the study for standing “out for the severity of its findings.” Further, according to Alkousaa’s spin, “While previous studies have concluded climate change could benefit some countries' economies, PIK's research found almost all would suffer - with poor, developing nations the hardest hit.” No editor’s note was added to the story as of December 8, 2025.  Lefty newspaper The Guardian, took the study a step further and made it seem like the economic costs projected by the researchers was simply on the conservative side and could actually be worse. “Although the newly painted scenario is far worse than anything that came before, the authors acknowledge it is still conservative and incomplete,” cried global environment writer Jonathan Watts. What’s hilarious is that a correction was included post-publication, but it had nothing to do with the study being retracted: This article was amended on 19 April 2024. An earlier version did not make clear that the projected loss of income figures are in comparison to a baseline without the impacts of climate breakdown. This has been rectified. No further update on the study’s retraction was posted to Watts’ article.  The New York Times climate team reporter David Gelles also promoted the dubious Potsdam study April 10, 2025 to help bolster his overarching thesis that “Climate Change Could Become a Global Economic Disaster.” The only correction included was published in May and had nothing to do with the retraction: “An earlier version of this newsletter stated incorrectly the country where the insurer Allianz SE is based. It is Germany, not Switzerland.” The irony is that The Times would later report on the retraction December 3, which makes it even more damning that they didn’t bother to update Welles’s climate propaganda from earlier in the year.  Business magazine Fast Company’s contribution to the climate scareporn narrative was simply reposting Borenstein’s story for AP. The article has neither been taken down or updated with an editor’s note following the study’s retraction. It’s pretty telling how media outlets want to churn out all the climate doom agitprop they can and then never be held accountable for it. Typical.

Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five). This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2025. > For 2023 and 2024, for 2021 and 2022, for 2020. For 2019. For 2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for: > July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.) Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week. (For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.)   ■ New on December 8, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Connie Chung bares fangs at husband over Bari Weiss CBS changes See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.   ■ December 1, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Joy Reid broadens her MAGA hate to Tea Party (Washington Examiner post) Getting dumped by MSNBC after years of raging against President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again movement hasn’t calmed former host Joy Reid down any. In fact, she’s stepped up her often insane attacks on conservatives as witnessed in a recent podcast, making her our Liberal Media Scream of the week. It was on the extremely liberal I’ve Had It podcast where she claimed that Trump’s MAGA supporters are driven by racism against immigrants. She even went so far as to claim that the word “illegals” was equivalent to the N-word, ignoring efforts by Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, to kick illegal migrants out of America. Then she took her hate of conservatives back a decade to claim that the Tea Party was driven by racism when it was actually based on cutting government spending and debt. As the two white women hosts nodded like puppies, Reid claimed she had “data” to prove her nutty claims. Racism is what “motivates” MAGA and the Tea Party, Reid charged as the two hosts, Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, said “right.” According to Curtis Houck, the managing editor of Newsbusters, who captured Reid’s rant, she also insisted that “the base of MAGA is fundamentally racist” and the thing they are most motivated by is a “hatred of non-white immigrants.” During the podcast, Reid wore a black T-shirt with white lettering announcing a series of left-wing phrases: “F*** Trump,” “F*** ICE,” “Free Palestine,” “Free DC!” and “Unoccupy Chicago.” Joy Reid on the I’ve Had It podcast hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie ‘Pumps’ Sullivan: “[Vice President JD] Vance has a problem in that the base of MAGA is fundamentally racist. I know people don’t like it when you say it, but it’s the emergence from the Tea Party to MAGA. Tea Party, when you finally did the actual data, [Public Religion Research Institute] and others, the thing that most motivated them was race and hatred of non-white immigrants. What most motivates MAGA? Hatred of non-white immigrants. They’re obsessed with non-white immigrants and undocumented people. They use the term illegals, which is just the N-word for brown people. If you want to say the N-word and it’s about brown people, you say ‘illegal.’ I’m sorry I said it again. That is me saying the N-word about, that is what it is, right? And that’s what motivates them. So they can’t have the successor to MAGA be the guy with the brown Hindu wife. They’re also Christian nationalists. That ain’t gonna work. That’s why he’s throwing his wife under the bus. Poor [second lady Usha Vance] — or she’s in on it, right?” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “MS NOW dodged a bullet when MSNBC dropped Reid before the newly named channel separated from NBC and inherited the MSNBC shows and hosts. Since her departure last February, Reid has regularly spewed racist rants and wild conspiracy theories, all driven by her hatred of President Trump and disgust with all who support him. Impugning concern over illegal aliens, as the same as vile anti-black racism, is par for the course for her.” RATING: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 24, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Jonathan Karl hatches turkey trap for Kevin Hassett (Washington Examiner post) If there is one thing that the legacy media bigots can’t stand, it is journalists who do not think like they do. That showed in the first Trump administration when former press secretary Sean Spicer called on conservative reporters in the White House press room. And it has been at play in the second administration with the inclusion of conservative influencers in the White House press mix. While the press has mostly kept its complaints private, it spilled out last week when podcaster Katie Couric and MS Now host Jen Psaki whined openly about the addition of conservative media to the White House press corps. Psaki, the former Biden White House spokeswoman, complained on Next Question with Katie Couric that the new media is made up of “sycophants … who are not asking about news that the American people cares about.” And Couric responded, “They’ve invited a lot of reporters from very right-wing media outlets.” Actually, the Trump press office has broadened the political diversity of the press corps covering the president, so it is more than the liberal Washington outlets. The office did not take away liberal media slots, but opened up the pool of reporters allowed into the White House. And of note, Trump, who is considered the most accessible president ever, typically calls on liberal reporters in his extended meet-and-greets. From the Next Question with Katie Couric video podcast on Wednesday for Substack and YouTube: JEN PSAKI: And what they’ve done is they have really, and I read the press briefing a lot because we do a little thing on our show about it sometimes, more and more of the questions in there are by sycophants, are by people who are not asking about news that the American people cares about, but they’re asking about, I mean, literally a question has started more than once, why is Trump in such good shape, right? Or they are, you know, putting out conspiracy theories. There are people who, and they are getting a lot of the questions. There are some of the people who are in the press pools — this means that reporters who are there to cover MBS being at the White House, or to cover Zelensky being at the White House, or to ask these questions that Mary Bruce fortunately asked yesterday, there are fewer of them. And that is, you don’t know that and see that unless you’ve lived there, but that’s a huge, huge problem because it’s becoming more of a Kremlin-esque press corps. KATIE COURIC: Right. And they’ve invited a lot of reporters from very right-wing media outlets, and you’re right, they usually say, I forget there was one example, like, “Did you ever believe that you would be the peacemaker?” I mean, just, so– Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “What chutzpah. After presiding over press briefings dominated by Biden-friendly reporters while rarely taking a question from a journalist tough on Biden, Psaki is now upset when Trump and his press secretary get some friendly questions while also taking plenty from ‘traditional’ outlets very hostile to Trump. In fact, this answer from Psaki came in the context of her responding to how President Trump had criticized a question from ABC’s Mary Bruce – proof in itself that Trump still gets aggressive questions from the left-wing media.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 17, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Couric and Psaki condemn pressroom political diversity (Washington Examiner post) It was a classic media “gotcha” moment. On ABC’s This Week on Sunday, host Jonathan Karl was going to show that President Donald Trump is a liar on costs and prices. He hit his guest, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, with the much-reported-on Walmart Thanksgiving price list, which showed a less expensive dinner menu with fewer items than last year. Trump has touted the lower price, but Karl said, “Does he know that’s not true?” Boom, right? No. Hassett had his own list showing the prices are down on other items, such as gas and homes, and he fired back that it is unrealistic to expect Trump to “fix the hole that [former President] Joe Biden dug right away.” Our choice for the weekly Liberal Media Scream from Sunday’s This Week on ABC: JONATHAN KARL: So, the president claims that Thanksgiving costs are down 25%. I mean, does he know that’s not true? KEVIN HASSETT: Well, if you look at Walmart and the few places that put out their prices, Thanksgiving prices– KARL: Wait, wait a minute, I got to stop you because the Walmart comparison’s like not a thing — I mean, Walmart had a Thanksgiving package last year. They’ve got a Thanksgiving package this year. The one this year contains much less than what the one last year it took. So that’s why the price is less. Look, we got a chart here. Last year, with 21 total products. This year, it’s 15. Total number of items in those products was … 29, now it’s 22. There’s more generic brand stuff. So, I mean, Thanksgiving — if you’re going to the store to buy groceries for Thanksgiving, it’s going to be more expensive this year. HASSETT: You know, I really don’t understand where you’re going in the sense that Joe Biden gave us 20% inflation– KARL: He’s not president. Donald Trump’s president. HASSETT: No, and you’re– you want us to fix the hole that Joe Biden dug right away. KARL: No, I’m just saying, why does the president tell– HASSETT: I mean, the prices went up so much under Joe Biden, and inflation is way down. Inflation is about half what it was in December. This is something that’s being fixed fast, and real incomes are up after dropping about [$]3,000 under Joe Biden. And so, sure, you could find a few things where the price is higher, but there’s a whole bunch of stuff where the price is lower, like gasoline, like mortgage rates. KARL: When are we going to get the Republican plan to– HASSETT: You understand that mortgage rates have gone way down, and it’s much cheaper to buy a home now than it was when President Trump took office? KARL: Because interest rates have come down, right. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal package this year is cheaper than the one last year, and the inflation rate for food is way down from the Biden years, but Karl chose to sandbag his guest, with an obviously pre-planned hit, in order to once again demonstrate his well-earned anti-Trump bona fides.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 10, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Joe Scarborough spins shutdown cave-in as win (Washington Examiner post) Since Joe Scarborough has built his MSNBC show around bashing Republicans and President Donald Trump, how else could he spin the Sunday cave-in by Senate Democrats on the government shutdown as anything other than a liberal victory? And not just any win. On his Monday show, he compared the move by Senate Democrats to retreats of George Washington and the British against Adolf Hitler. A temporary retreat, he argued, is part of the long game of beating Trump. “It also happened when George Washington retreated from Long Island in 1776. That retreat helped us eventually win the Revolutionary War. And let’s make you feel better. My God, there have been movies made about Dunkirk. I mean, one of the great retreats in the history of modern warfare allowed the British to live to fight another day,” he said on his morning show on Monday. What’s more, Scarborough said it proves that only Democrats care about the needy, even though the Sunday procedural vote was an acceptance of what the Republicans have been offering for over 40 days in their bid to end the government shutdown. “Why did these Democrats do what they did? This is very easy to explain. Well, because Democrats, unlike a lot of Republicans, actually care about the hungry. They just do,” he said. “Democrats live to fight another day with the political winds finally, for the first time in a year and a half, at their backs,” he said in a twisted and unrealistic argument that easily made his rant the weekly choice for our Liberal Media Scream. Joe Scarborough on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC: If I were at a town hall meeting, and I did hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, and if I were a Democrat, this would be easy. I would go in tonight, go, ‘Let me tell you what happened. We fought Donald Trump. We fought him like hell. We fought the Republicans. We fought them like hell. And all we wanted to do, not help liberals, not help Democrats. We wanted to help people in their own home districts. We wanted to help them with food assistance. We wanted to help them paying their healthcare bills. But they were obsessed with giving tax cuts to billionaires, to multinational corporations, to tech monopolies.’ I mean, damn, even this last week, we were still finding out that they were extending tax cuts to crypto tycoons. They were extending new tax cuts, by the way they were interpreting the law, to tycoons in foreign real estate, foreign real estate tycoons. And at the same time they were doing that, they were fighting like hell to stop people in red state America from getting a little bit of a helping hand on their healthcare costs, which are exploding through the roof. And to get some food assistance so their kids could eat. So, we’ve framed this debate, and while we framed this debate in a way that puts us in a powerful position as we move forward over the next year, guess what else we did? We had historic wins in Virginia. We had historic wins in New Jersey. We had a historic win in California, and Donald Trump’s approval ratings are lower now than they’ve ever been, according to CNN — according to four out of five polls last week, his approval ratings when it comes to the economy are in the 30s. So, yes, sometimes you declare victory, sometimes you win. And then I would give a couple of historical analogies because, after all, who at a town hall meeting doesn’t like historical analogies? I would talk about how sometimes Katty Kay’s strategic retreats actually lead to eventual victory. And I can tell you that happened for us as Republicans after the government shutdown ended. But it also happened, I mean, not to rub salt in the wound, but it also happened when George Washington retreated from Long Island in 1776. That retreat helped us eventually win the Revolutionary War. And let’s make you feel better. My god, there have been movies made about Dunkirk. I mean, one of the great retreats in the history of modern warfare allowed the British to live to fight another day. Why did these Democrats do what they did? This is very easy to explain. Well, because Democrats, unlike a lot of Republicans, actually care about the hungry. They just do. Are Republicans going to be rewarded because they don’t give a damn about helping the hungry in their own districts? I say no because Democrats care about the hungry, because Democrats understand if this continues, families will not be able to be together over Thanksgiving, over the holidays. And for many, that’s the only time they get to see their children, they get to see their grandchildren. They understand the chaos was building and that disasters could be happening. That’s pretty easy. And also, I’m sorry, it’s just true whether you like it or not, Democrats live to fight another day with the political winds finally, for the first time in a year and a half, at their backs. The polls have all shifted, and they will stay that way when the next debate comes up on giving working Americans a little bit of help, being able to afford their healthcare. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Scarborough proved his driving motivation every morning is to spin the news to put Republicans and President Trump in the worst light and provide an uplifting narrative for liberals to tout. Of course, Scarborough didn’t explain how he can say Democrats are the ones who truly care about those who need federal food assistance when only eight of 47 Democratic senators voted to provide that funding, by voting to end the shutdown, while 52 of 53 Republican Senators have consistently voted to keep the government open and thus never endanger the food aid.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 3, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Norah O’Donnell just can’t give Trump any credit (Washington Examiner post) It was a simple question from President Donald Trump to CBS 60 Minutes interviewer Norah O’Donnell. Don’t you feel safer in Washington, D.C., where crime plummeted after the National Guard was called in to help clean up crime-filled neighborhoods? But instead of answering yes or no, she bobbed and weaved to avoid giving Trump any credit for making the city safer, something the district’s liberal mayor has repeatedly done. Trump pressed her: “You see a difference?” She demurred: “I think I’ve been working too hard. I haven’t been out and about that much.” Trump parried back: “Oh, that’s not a fair answer. You see the difference.” She deflected again: “I get in my car and go to work, and I go home.” The exchange between Trump and O’Donnell during a portion of their 74-minute interview that was not aired on 60 Minutes, but posted online by CBS News on their 60 Minutes Overtime page: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We’re cleaning up our cities. You know, I campaigned on crime, but I’ve done a much better job on crime than I thought. You know, the crime numbers are way down, even though we have a lot more people in our country that really shouldn’t be here. And many of them are stone-cold hard criminals. When I look at D.C. now, you can walk down the middle of the street. You can have your daughter, who’s 10 years old, meet you at the park. She’s gonna be OK. O’DONNELL: In certain parts of D.C. TRUMP: She woulda been murdered. Well, I — in almost— O’DONNELL: I live in D.C. TRUMP: Well, you tell me— O’DONNELL: Certain parts of D.C. TRUMP: How big a difference is D.C. now compared to what it was a year ago? Right? I mean, you have to be honest with me. People walk — people in the White House, they walk up to me, young ladies I’ve never seen. “Sir, thank you very much.” I know, they don’t even have to tell me what they’re thanking me for. But when I ask why? He said — she — one girl said, “I’d get into Uber and I felt dangerous even in an Uber.” They’d attack the car, OK. It wasn’t even safe then. “Sir, I now walk to work every day, and I walk. I’m so safe, there’s nothing going to happen — 100% safe.” And you know that too, Norah. O’DONNELL: I wanna ask you about the— TRUMP: You live here. You know that, too. O’DONNELL: I wanna ask you about Amer— TRUMP: Do you see a difference? O’DONNELL: –American cities— TRUMP: You see a difference? O’DONNELL: –in Washington, D.C.? TRUMP: Yes. O’DONNELL: I think I’ve been working too hard. I haven’t been out and about that much. TRUMP: Oh, that’s not a fair answer. You see the difference. O’DONNELL: I get in my car and go to work, and I go home. TRUMP: That’s good. You don’t have to use that one. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I won’t embarrass her. O’DONNELL: I’ve been working too hard. TRUMP: It’s like you know what the difference is? Like, day and night. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “This interview went a lot better for the image of CBS News than did the one five years ago with the antagonistic and aggressively misinformed Lesley Stahl, but O’Donnell couldn’t let herself be seen agreeing with Trump, let alone saying anything that could be construed as positive toward any Trump achievement. That would be a cardinal sin in the eyes of her colleagues. In that way, CBS News hasn’t yet changed under its new management.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 27, 2025: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ October 20, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Queen of kooks: Kathy Griffin confirms her TDS and doubts Trump’s election (Washington Examiner post) Left-wing influencer Kathy Griffin has done the impossible. She has topped her crazy 2017 post of decapitating President Donald Trump and given in fully to Trump Derangement Syndrome. As our Liberal Media Scream of the week, Griffin used her YouTube channel, Talk Your Head Off with Kathy Griffin, to vent about Trump and Elon Musk, claiming that the 2024 election was rigged. Her aim was to talk up Saturday’s “No Kings” protests by liberal Trump critics, but she went much further in calling Musk and Trump Nazis and wrongly claiming that Trump’s win in the seven battleground states was unprecedented and must have been bought. “I don’t think he won in a free and fair election. You heard me. I’m coming out and saying it myself. I don’t care if that means I look crazy,” said Griffin. And as if that wasn’t nutty enough, she stood firm on her decapitation post. “That’s called punching up,” she said. Griffin, on her Talk Your Head Off with Kathy Griffin video podcast, posted on YouTube on Wednesday, Oct. 15: “People are calling this protest the No King’s Day because Trump thinks he’s a fucking king. And you know, he’s not, he’s barely a president. In fact, guess what? I’m gonna say something that’s gonna get me in trouble. I don’t think he won in a free and fair election. You heard me. I’m coming out and saying it myself. I don’t care if that means I look crazy because Elon Musk, who’s this other Nazi guy running around town who owns X, and a lot of people think he’s a genius, but he’s not, he’s like a fake genius. “Anyway, he’s a — but he’s a professional Nazi in my humble opinion, and he’s good friends with Trump, and at one point, I don’t know if you remember, but he was giving out million-dollar checks to people if they would vote for Trump. That’s illegal. It’s unconstitutional and illegal, so that was happening, and the fact that Trump won all seven swing states, which has never happened in the history of the U.S., makes it all very suspicious to me. So there I said it. “All right, now for some fun pop culture. I went to an award show over the weekend, and it’s the first time that I’ve walked a red carpet since my controversial Kathy Griffin/Donald Trump decapitated head photo, which you can Google very easily. And by the way, it was a Halloween mask. I’m not actually trying to kill anybody. I do make fun of people, though, especially the president. That’s called punching up.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Truer words have rarely been said: ‘I don’t care if that means I look crazy.’ Yes, not only does this make Griffin look crazy, it proves she is crazy for thinking she’ll gain any relevance — and get herself back into polite society after her disgusting Trump decapitated head image — by advancing baseless election conspiracies which soothe the minds of Trump haters. And, by the way, Trump is hardly the first president to win all the swing states. Reagan won all but one state in 1984.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 13, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN’s dour Dana Bash rains on Trump triumph parade (Washington Examiner post) CNN is so addled by its Trump derangement syndrome that its lead hosts couldn’t give the president a break for a day after he made history in bringing the Israel-Hamas war to an end. Consider CNN State of the Union host Dana Bash’s knife-twist on Sunday while her panel discussed Trump and his hope for the first lasting peace in the Middle East in decades. As he traveled to Israel to celebrate the release of hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, Bash turned the discussion to the “split screen” of peace in Gaza with immigration protests and clashes with police and troops back home. Tapping another TDS sufferer, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Bash rained on Trump’s success parade by quoting Dowd’s argument against giving the president the Nobel Peace Prize because some liberals are violently protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, which a majority of voters favor. For that, she wins our Liberal Media Scream of the week. From Sunday morning’s CNN State of the Union: Host Dana Bash: I do want to kind of bring it back to the United States as we talk about what’s happening overseas and kind of the split screen, and Maureen Dowd highlighted just that, the split screen. She said: ‘You can’t get,’ and this is about the Nobel Prize, ‘you can’t get a medal for promoting democracy when you try to overthrow the democracy you were running. … Trump seems oblivious to the paradox of enforcing peace abroad and disrupting it badly at home, of soothing violence overseas and inflaming it here.’ Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Dowd and Bash are the quintessential skunks at the garden party, with Bash the worse offender for deciding, barely 18 hours before the Israeli hostages were released unleashing joy across Israel, it was wise to use some of the limited time on her show to rain on President Trump. She just couldn’t let him have his day of triumph.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 6, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS calls ‘cruelty’ Vought’s ‘erogenous zone’ (Washington Examiner post) In discussing the White House budget chief’s plans for massive federal worker cuts during the government shutdown, a contributor to the Friday show Washington Week with the Atlantic turned a joking comment from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) about Russ Vought into a crude putdown. Host Jeffrey Goldberg played Lee telling Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, “Russ Vought, the OMB director, has been dreaming about this moment, preparing this moment, since puberty. Russ Vought has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in empowering, further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.” When he turned to the Atlantic’s Ashley Parker for analysis, she ripped Vought’s goals in the government shutdown and said “cruelty” is the goal, and that “is squarely in his erogenous zone.” From Friday’s Washington Week with the Atlantic on PBS: Jeffrey Goldberg: Ashley, who is Russ Vought? What does he want? Ashley Parker: I mean, he wants, as I mentioned at the beginning, sort of the deconstruction of the administrative state of the federal bureaucracy. Goldberg: What are the ideological roots of this? Parker: He’s — I mean, he’s incredibly conservative. He worked in Trump’s first admin. So, there are some people, including Stephen Miller, but there are not actually a ton of people who worked in the first Trump administration and then came back for a second tour of duty, but Russ Vought is one of them. And he came back, like the president himself, sort of stronger, bolder, more empowered, more creative with his interpretations of laws and what’s acceptable than ever. And he used his — Goldberg: Russ Vought, faster and furiouser. Parker: Yes. Goldberg: Yes. Parker: And he used those years out of power to basically create this document that you mentioned called Project 2025, that — it’s a dense, dense policy document. That is sort of his wheelhouse, his actual policy. And it tells sort of all the ways you can, first of all, just utterly minimize the government, tear away at it, tear it down, and use it to push through deeply conservative priorities. And I also, based on my reporting, agree with Sen. Lee that this is squarely in his erogenous zone. And that when he said what he wants to do, I mean, to use a phrase that was popularized by one of our colleagues at the Atlantic, cruelty is the point. Now, that was in reference to Donald Trump. But Russ Vought also, he said, “I want to terrorize the federal bureaucrats.” So, some of these choices, the fork-in-the-road email of should you choose to basically resign or risk losing your job, I mean, the way these things were structured were deeply humiliating and devastating and financially devastating to hundreds of thousands of people, and that was an intentional choice by people like Russ Vought. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Parker encapsulates the Washington media establishment, which sees anyone who tries to reduce the size and role of government as driven by some sort of vicious delight in the misery of others. It can’t just be a simple policy disagreement. Conservatives must be discredited for having a nefarious agenda.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 29, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Poor Comey, target of ‘ruthless’ Trump (Washington Examiner post) It wasn’t even a year ago that liberal media were cheering the slew of politically driven prosecutions and court cases targeting President Donald Trump and his associates before he returned to the White House for his second term. But now that the tables have turned, most notably with last week’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress in a get-Trump case, the same media have declared those types of prosecutions the height of ruthlessness. Trump foe and New Yorker Editor David Remnick, for example, charged on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that Trump is in political payback mode and using prosecutions for revenge. “The first term was filled with impulses, and the second term is efficient, ruthless, and it’s happening every day. This movement toward authoritarianism is very distinct and needs to be taken seriously,” he charged, making him our featured Liberal Media Scream. David Remnick on Sunday’s Meet the Press: DAVID REMNICK: I think we should take the president at his word. It used to be in 2016 and Trump 1.0, I guess, that it was considered the height of wisdom that the press takes Trump literally and the people take him seriously, and then vice versa. I think it’s possible to do both at the same time. The president is telling us that he has an enemies list that he’s going to act on. He’s told us who is on the enemies list: John Bolton, Letitia James, Fani Willis ought to be on her guard, and many more, whether they’re in the press or civic society. I think this is a real emergency, and it should be taken seriously, and know that he’s going to act on it. It’s not just blather out on the White House lawn. That’s the difference between the first term and the second term. The first term was filled with impulses, and the second term is efficient, ruthless, and it’s happening every day. This movement toward authoritarianism is very distinct and needs to be taken seriously. This is not just a normal, you know, we talked about a budget battle. That’s normal politics. This is something extraordinary. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, explained our pick: “This Obama sycophant once said that ‘the future of the Earth’ was contingent on the impeachment of Donald Trump. Now that the show is on the other foot, this is ‘extraordinary.’ If it weren’t for double standards in the media, there’d be none at all.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 22, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC calls Kirk memorial divisive, Trump vs. widow (Washington Examiner post) President Donald Trump is President Donald Trump, and many in the liberal media still can’t accept that. That was clear yesterday at the Arizona memorial for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this month, allegedly by a hate-filled leftist. After Kirk’s widow, Erika, forgave her husband’s killer, Trump, himself the target of two assassination attempts and years of political attacks, said he admired Kirk’s ability to forgive, but it’s something he could never do. It’s just not in his blood. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said of Kirk. Then he added, “I hate my opponents.” For some at CNN and MSNBC, that was the big takeaway of the hourslong event as they searched for a way to portray it as divisive. “He has never made a pretense of being a leader for all Americans, as most of his predecessors have — even if they didn’t follow through,” said a CNN analysis. On MSNBC, following the memorial, White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard also highlighted the different views and said, “I think what was stunning about the tension that exists here in 2025 was to listen to Erika Kirk, a big supporter of the president, be followed 15 to 20 minutes later by the president of the United States. Clearly, somebody who she loves, but come out and directly say, ‘I disagree with Charlie Kirk. I disagree with you, Erika,’ and say, ‘I hate my opponents.’” He added, “And I think that says a lot about where we are and the questions about where we go moving forward. The Erika Kirk route or the Donald Trump route.” Vaughn Hillyard on MSNBC’s The Weekend Primetime: VAUGHN HILLYARD: I think what, honestly, I’ll take away from tonight is watching the weight of a woman, a mother, lose her husband. Most people cannot say they’ve experienced losing a spouse at this young of an age, and I don’t know who we are to suggest how somebody should respond in real time. One week after her husband’s passing, she went in front of a crowd of 40 to 50,000 people, people watching all over the world. And she delivered remarks in which she forgave the assassin that shot her husband and killed him. Co-host Elise Jordan: I thought it was just remarkable. HILLYARD: A remarkable moment because in so many ways, where America stands in 2025 is: How do we respond going forward? And the woman that just lost her husband stood there in front of the world and said, ‘I forgive.’ And because her Christian faith teaches her to love your enemy and not hate your enemy, and to love those that persecute you. And I think what was stunning about the tension that exists here in 2025 was to listen to Erika Kirk, a big supporter of the president, be followed 15-20 minutes later by the president of the United States. Clearly, somebody who she loves, but come out and directly say, ‘I disagree with Charlie Kirk. I disagree with you, Erika,’ and say, ‘I hate my opponents.’ And I think that says a lot about where we are and the questions about where we go moving forward. The Erika Kirk route or the Donald Trump route. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, explained our pick: “In the immediate aftermath of the powerful Charlie Kirk memorial, Trump-deranged MSNBC showed that they couldn’t leave well enough alone. What began as a complimentary reaction turned into Trump-deranged brainworms for MSNBC consumption. Erika Kirk’s testimony of forgiveness towards her husband’s murderer stands as a potent example of Christ-like behavior in a most difficult time. Forgive them for they know not what they do, indeed. But Hillyard couldn’t leave well enough alone, and he had to fabricate this oppositional friction where none exists between the Kirks and Trump. It’s almost as if they didn’t watch the memorial, and its many underlying messages centering around grace.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 15, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Martha Raddatz went 0-3 swinging for Trump hate (Washington Examiner post) In the fallout of the assassination of youthful Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, there has been the liberal media’s refusal to accept its role in dividing the nation, as it instead tries to blame President Donald Trump for the Left’s political violence. Martha Raddatz led the way while hosting ABC’s This Week on Sunday. She had one thing top of mind: get one or more of the three elected officials she had on as guests to denounce Trump for blaming the assassination of Charlie Kirk on “the radical Left.” First up, Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) was asked, “What’s your reaction to that? Is that something you think he should be doing?” Next was Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO), who was quizzed with, “Is that the message you believe he should be putting out?” And finally, Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) was pressed, “Is that the right thing to do? Or what do you wish he was saying?” Raddatz struck out, going 0-3, and is our pick for the weekly Liberal Media Scream. Three questions from Martha Raddatz on Sunday’s This Week on ABC: To Cox: “You immediately talked about Democrats who had been targeted. President Trump said nothing about the political violence against Democrats. In fact, he blamed ‘the radical Left.’ What’s your reaction to that? Is that something you think he should be doing?” To Polis: “You heard Gov. Cox. He did not, clearly did not want to criticize President Trump at this time, and Charlie Kirk was a good friend of President Trump and his family, but he has pointed the finger at what he calls ‘the radical Left.’ Is that the message you believe he should be putting out?” To Curtis: “A lot of people, certainly a lot of Republicans, a lot of people are listening to President Trump, and you’ve heard me talk about it earlier in the show. But several Republican lawmakers, prominent conservatives, including President Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, as well as President Trump, have blamed this on ‘the radical Left.’ Is that the right thing to do? Or what do you wish he was saying?” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Martha Raddatz certainly seems to have had an agenda on Sunday: Get one or more of her guests to denounce President Trump for daring to blame ‘the radical Left’ for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But isn’t that a reasonable supposition? Maybe a better area for her to have explored with her guests would have been why hasn’t there been more focus on that threat than the words used by a president who had just lost a friend to political violence?” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 8, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Clintonista Stephanopoulos desperate to condemn Trump (Washington Examiner post) For TV news liberals, one-upping competitors while venting their anti-Trump bias seems a requirement, especially for the big shots who host the weekly public affairs shows. Consider former Clinton spokesman George Stephanopoulos, who on Sunday was hosting ABC’s This Week for the first time since Aug. 3. Outdone on the Trump Derangement Syndrome spouted by the other hosts for weeks, notably CBS 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley’s regular editorial attacks on President Donald Trump, Stephanopoulos put on his serious face and listed all that was bad about the president’s week. It was, he said, “a week of challenges,” and he cited several examples that have, in the findings of several pollsters, helped revive Trump’s approval ratings. Stephanopoulos has been on the losing side of his fights with Trump for a while. Recall that in December, he and ABC News were ordered to apologize and pay $15 million in a Trump defamation lawsuit settlement. For his one-sided, off-base rant, Stephanopoulos wins our weekly Liberal Media Scream. Stephanopoulos at the top of ABC’s This Week on Sunday: “On Friday, President Trump rebranded the Department of Defense the ‘Department of War.’ Saturday, he announced the department’s first target, an American city. The President’s words: ‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.’ A chorus of criticism followed, including this from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D): ‘The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.’ “And this chilling threat from President Trump comes after a week of challenges: Friday’s weak jobs report, on Capitol Hill a bipartisan grilling for [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and a demand for transparency from Jeffrey Epstein’s victims; China’s display of diplomatic skill and military force and Russia’s rebuff of another Trump deadline on the war in Ukraine.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Stephanopoulos pops up every month or so to host This Week (he last hosted on Aug. 3) and seems bent each time on re-proving his anti-Trump bonafides. He did it again Sunday, framing in the worst possible light Trump’s efforts to save lives in Chicago and then proceeding to paint a world closing in on Trump — all in a week when Trump’s approval got an up bounce.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ September 1, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: ABC reporter fired for Trump hate doubles down (Washington Examiner post) A top political reporter dumped by ABC News for spewing hate toward President Donald Trump and deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller on X is doubling down on his rant. Instead of shushing after the embarrassing episode, Terry Moran stepped up his attack on Trump, telling a podcaster last week that Trump “is the man that we were warned about by the founders, that democracies fall when a man who can captivate the populace wants to exercise the power that’s there in the government.” What makes Moran our Liberal Media Scream of the week isn’t just his continued hate toward Trump but his embrace of the Founding Fathers, whom the liberal media have recently attacked as racist slave-holders not worthy of memorializing. Moran was dumped in June when he went after Miller on X. “He eats his hate,” Moran wrote of the president’s chief policy aide. “Trump is a world-class hater. … That’s his spiritual nourishment.” Moran on In Good Faith With Philip DeFranco: “What we’re seeing is, no question, what other countries have seen a lot, what our Founding Fathers predicted would happen, that a great strongman would, would, all right, not great in the good sense, but great in the power sense, right? “Trump is the most dominant figure of our age around the world. Don’t underestimate him. He is a world historical figure, and he is the man that we were warned about by the Founders, that democracies fall when a man who can captivate the populace wants to exercise the power that’s there in the government, and that is what we’re watching.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Legacy media figures keep reaching back in history to find different historic figures to use to condemn President Trump. The go-to has been Hitler, but now Moran is ridiculously invoking the Founding Fathers, a sudden respect for the supposed foresight of the founders, whom liberals normally condemn as immoral figures for condoning slavery, but now find so wise.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 25, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Velshi: MAGA is worse than Pearl Harbor, Civil War (Washington Examiner post) For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we have an extraordinary Trump Derangement Syndrome rant that doesn’t just declare President Donald Trump a “strongman,” but more evil than Japan’s attack on America and more dangerous than the Civil War. It comes from weekend MSNBC host Ali Velshi, who on Sunday spat out a seven-minute-plus speech denouncing Trump and Republicans for the “collapse of democracy.” He claimed Trump has enacted a “police state” in cities while Republican “election security” efforts are really the “classic playbook of the strongman.” It was classic TDS and then he doused his fire with gasoline, charging, “America’s democracy has withstood civil war, depressions, attacks by foreign enemies on its soil, but it has never faced an assault on this scale: an internal demolition carried out not by outsiders or even by well-armed rebels, but by the holder of the highest office in the land.” Portions of Velshi from Sunday: It’s Sunday, August the 24th. I’m Ali Velshi, and we begin this hour with a reality check, a crucial one. The collapse of democracy is a strange, almost surreal thing. It can be abstract and hard to recognize in the moment. At first, it just feels like politics. It’s messy, it’s noisy, it’s frustrating, and sometimes a bit removed from one’s day-to-day life. But then the guardrails that we’ve taken for granted begin to topple one after another… At best, each assault may seem like an outlier until the day you wake up and realize the system itself has become unrecognizable. Well, that’s where we are right now. It’s not where we’re headed. It’s where we are. The tragedy of what’s unfolding and the danger of what’s ahead will be compounded if American citizens en masse, all of us, do not recognize this moment for what it is. Understandably, unless it touches you directly, it’s easy sometimes to miss what’s being taken away… This is not about public safety. It’s about flexing power, teaching dissenters and political opponents a lesson, normalizing the use of troops against Americans. In the nation’s capital, hundreds of federal troops now patrol the streets alongside [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Drug Enforcement Administration] and FBI agents, ticketing residents for minor offenses like broken taillights. Federal troops policing petty crime on America’s main street. Think about that. Crime may be statistically down, but intimidation is way up. The police state is here, and that’s the whole point. D.C. restaurants and bars report business down by one-third. What Trump is doing is designed to bleed blue cities dry economically… What Republicans label election security is the classic playbook of the strongman: tilt the playing field toward yourself and lock yourself into power. It doesn’t stop in Washington, D.C. Across the country, Republican controlled legislatures are dismantling the last avenues of direct democracy: Citizen ballot initiatives… The message is clear: Even if voters pass something that Republicans don’t like, Republicans in power will just rewrite the rules. This is not democracy. That is something called competitive authoritarianism. Elections in name. One-party rule in practice. And here lies the tragedy. Ultimate power in this country still belongs to the people. But every time we accept or tolerate one more red line being crossed, we normalize the next. Each violation larger than the last makes what came before feel almost normal. America’s democracy has withstood civil war, depressions, attacks by foreign enemies on its soil, but it has never faced an assault on this scale. An internal demolition carried out not by outsiders or even by well-armed rebels, but by the holder of the highest office in the land. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Ali Velshi is auditioning to win the role as the [Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA)] of the left-wing legacy media: The guy who most excites the anti-Trump world as the chief conveyor of Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 18, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CNN says Obama, Clinton, and Bush smarter than Trump (Washington Examiner post) CNN reached a new low in its anti-Trump bias, declaring that Russian President Vladimir Putin ate President Donald Trump’s lunch on Friday because Trump doesn’t have the “intellect” of former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Regular commentator Bakari Sellers on Sunday’s State of the Union overlooked that the political trio oversaw several wars, while Trump, in his second term, has ended a half-dozen wars and is today hosting a world summit at the White House to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Sellers was focused on Trump’s meeting in Alaska with Putin, an icebreaker on several fronts after former President Joe Biden let U.S.-Russian relations reach a Cold War low. “Donald Trump cannot perform on the world stage because he simply does not have the intellect to match up with these world leaders. He’s not Barack Obama, he’s not Hillary Clinton. He’s not even George Bush when it comes to being able to maneuver in these environments,” said Sellers. From CNN’s Sunday morning State of the Union hosted by Jake Tapper: BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think Vladimir Putin is a thug. I think he’s a war criminal. And I think he made Donald Trump look small. I mean, I understand the minutiae of where — I want a deal, like every other American wants a deal, or you should be praying for that deal. However, like I have said before many times, Donald Trump cannot perform on the world stage because he simply does not have the intellect to match up with these world leaders. He’s not Barack Obama, he’s not Hillary Clinton. He’s not even George Bush when it comes to being able to maneuver in these environments. And so what you saw was Vladimir Putin come and get what he wanted. I mean, the winner of this is Vladimir Putin. I don’t know why we’re trying to hide the ball. BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That’s what happened when he took Crimea. Obama gave him exactly what he wanted when he let Vladimir Putin have Crimea without so much as a shot or an objection. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “How vacuous can you be? When [former Sen.] Mitt Romney called Putin ‘the biggest political threat facing America,’ which has proven true, Obama ridiculed Romney: ‘The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.’ And as Todd pointed out, Obama didn’t do anything to counter Putin’s invasion of Crimea. Yet Obama is intellectually superior to Trump because Trump isn’t standing up enough to Putin? To say nothing of George W. Bush declaring he got ‘a sense’ of Putin’s ‘soul’ and found him ‘trustworthy’ or Hillary Clinton offering Putin a ‘reset’ button.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ August 11: No Liberal Media Scream this week    ■ August 4, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Washington Post reporter quit over patriotism request (Washington Examiner post) The generous buyout offer from Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been too hard for a number of top reporters and editors to turn down. But for one columnist, leaving was coming no matter what. The reason: Bezos wanted “positive things happening in this country” to be covered “unapologetically patriotic.” For left-wing writer Jonathan Capehart, also a contributor to PBS and MSNBC, that was too much to ask. “There was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine,” he said on the NewsHour. For PBS, which lost taxpayer support in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act due to perceived anti-Trump bias, that was a tremendous decision by Capehart. Said NewsHour co-host Amna Nawaz, “Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour: AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, before we go, folks will have noticed that we introduced you slightly differently tonight than we usually do. We should point out, after nearly two decades at the Washington Post, you recently made the decision to leave. I just wanted to give you a chance to speak directly to our audience to tell them why. JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, the direction of the opinion section changed. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, as is his right, decided that he wanted the section to focus on the twin pillars of personal liberties and free markets. And it became clear, as time went along, and especially when he chose a new leader for the section, that there was just not going to be any room for a voice like mine, especially when we were told that we would have to be unapologetically patriotic in talking about the positive things happening in the country. How can you talk about the positive things happening in the country when the rest of the house is engulfed in flames and the foundation is flooding? I wanted to go some place where my voice would be heard. NAWAZ: Jonathan Capehart, we’re so glad your voice is heard right here at our table. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Quite an admission that a leading PBS political analyst was so angry about the state of the country ‘engulfed in flames’ under President Trump that he’s opposed to expressing patriotism. But he fits right in on PBS and MSNBC and recognizes that’s ‘where my voice would be heard.’” Rating: THREE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 28, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Connie Chung wants Fox News anchors in ‘ankle monitors’ (Washington Examiner post) Connie Chung is back, and she’s still mouthing off about the conservative media she hates, making her our Liberal Media Scream of the week. What’s more, she’s giving advice to CBS, the network that dumped her in 1995 after a controversial interview and recently caved in to President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a manipulated 60 Minutes interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris.      Chung, who held several other media posts, went on CNN to rip the deal by Skydance Media to take over Paramount, the owner of CBS. She also hit media influencers and Fox News as providers of fake news. Of conservative media outlets, she said, “I think they should be putting ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.” From Friday’s CNN News Central: Connie Chung: “I would say that they have to fight the good fight, that they have to protect the legacy of CBS. They cannot allow biased owners, because honestly, I don’t think CBS is necessarily the culprit. What needs to be policed is social media, which have no fact checkers, podcasters, and the like. No one is checking those facts. And the problem is, that is inaccurate information that’s being disseminated “I think they should be put in ankle bracelets, ankle monitors on certain anchors at certain cable stations in prime time. Those are the culprits.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “An unpleasant blast from the past. TV network stars like her of the 1980s and ‘90s, who so sanctimoniously saw themselves as paragons of virtue and facts, are what created the marketplace for Fox News and all the other new media outlets which so disturb her by not following the same liberal line as CBS. Yet, decades later, she still doesn’t recognize that.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 21, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: CBS reporter blames PTSD on MAGA crowd at Trump shooting (Washington Examiner post) A CBS political reporter said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder following his coverage of the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. But Scott MacFarlane didn’t blame shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, the noise of Crooks’s rifle going off eight times, or the near-death of Trump. He blamed the crowd of MAGA supporters, whom he envisioned “were going to come kill us.” He said he felt the crowd would blame the media for the shooting and that “we’d be dead” if Trump didn’t survive. For that, he easily won as our Liberal Media Scream of the week. But he was challenged during an interview on The Chuck ToddCast when Todd offered up his own bizarre reaction to the assassination attempt that killed Trump supporter Corey Comperatore. Todd said, “I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was — literally the first thing I was going to do after landing [in Milwaukee to cover the GOP convention] on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, ‘I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.'” Todd went on to say he has long feared Trump supporters.  From The Chuck ToddCast: SCOTT MACFARLANE: For those of us there, it was such a horror because you saw an emerging America. And it wasn’t the shooting, Chuck. This was … I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because, I think, of the shooting, but because, you could … you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us. If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us. CHUCK TODD: I know … Look, I share your concern. Just a little thing. I was, literally, the first thing I was going to do after landing on Saturday was go to the Nats-Brewers game, and I said, “I’m not going. I’m not going to be seen going. I’m not, I’m not doing that. This is not the moment for this.” And I think we … none of us knew what the reaction of that Milwaukee crowd was going to be to this. Right? It turned into euphoria, right? It turned into this messiah, sort of messiah feeling. I think that, you know, that this was divine intervention. But I share that, that Saturday, and what you just described, being on the ground, was the first thing I thought of was my team down there. I think it was Vaughn Hillyard, if I’m not mistaken. MACFARLANE: Dasha was there as well. TODD: And Dasha Burns, right? And, look, let’s be honest. We’ve been fearing this for about a decade. That all of this heightened rhetoric, that what all this crap online, what happened on Jan. 6, those of us that experienced that as well, you’re like, we’re a tinderbox, right? You know what? There’s a fear that this moment is coming. And it’s interesting that you … the fact that we dodged that. You know, you’re right. I mean, it’s, it is … I don’t know what would have happened had the outcome been different. MACFARLANE: We are all … many of us on press row, as we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after, were quite confident we’d be dead if he didn’t get back up. There was a subset, not everybody, there’s dozens of people in the crowd who started coming for us, saying, “You did this. This is your fault. You caused this. You killed him.” And they’re going to beat us with their hands. I mean, they were going to kill us. And respectfully, the Secret Service had bigger issues than protecting us. When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us, but that’s the thing. I can’t eliminate from my mind’s eye the look on their faces. They … that’s what America is right now. It’s not rational. It’s an irrational thought to think the media shot somebody from atop a building, but the lack of rationality is what connects Jan. 6 to this. It’s … how do we pull out of this as a country is the defining question of our time. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Yes, the near-assassination of President Donald Trump wasn’t the real ‘horror’ of the day. The real ‘horror’ was in how, in the few seconds before Trump triumphantly raised his fists, MacFarlane somehow sensed the crowd would ‘kill’ him and other reporters? Really? If Trump supporters were on the cusp of deadly violence, why are we just hearing about it a year later? And McFarlane really got diagnosed with PTSD? We all know too many journalists are snowflakes, but you’d think MacFarlane would have the self-respect to keep such an embarrassing admission, of his fear of fellow Americans, to himself.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 14, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Katie Couric labels Trump’s MAGA ‘a s*** show’ (Washington Examiner post) The disdain the legacy media have for President Donald Trump has reached new levels since Congress approved his “big, beautiful bill.” Many liberal outlets have resorted to following Democratic talking points and inflated the negative effects, and others have made ridiculous claims that it will kill millions. And then there is media darling Katie Couric, who just brushed aside the whole Trump administration in one profane and sour characterization, winning this week’s feature as our Liberal Media Scream. In calling for more media attention to the administration, the one-time Today show host fretted over “this moment in our history” and then hit “The s*** show that is the Trump administration.” In a joint video podcast with left-wing freelance journalist Liz Plank, Couric said “social media creators … depend on a lot of mainstream outlets” for basic information, so that “underscores the importance of more traditional media … especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.” Couric, during a podcast cross-posted on Liz Plank’s Airplane Mode Substack podcast and the Next Question with Katie Couric podcast on Substack and YouTube: “I think it just, it underscores the importance of more traditional media, and I think we need it all, to be honest, especially at this moment in our history and what’s happening in our country and the s*** show that it is the Trump administration.” Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Couric demonstrates how ingrained the disdain is for Trump administration policies amongst the legacy media elite. It’s like muscle memory to them. And her blurting out her disgust, for a president who earned the most votes, in such a casual manner in a conversation with a like-minded liberal, shows how she sees it as a commonly-accepted view amongst her peers.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.   ■ July 7, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: Stephanopoulos blames downpour deaths on Trump (Washington Examiner post) The weekend saw some of the most embarrassing efforts by the liberal media to take President Donald Trump down, this time blaming him for the horrific flash flood deaths in Texas. The ea

After the case was thrown out in August, on Monday, Navy veteran Zachary Young filed an appeal of his defamation suit against Puck News. In addition to wanting Florida’s First District Court of Appeals to allow the case to proceed, Young also requested they order a new judge be assigned to preside over the case; pointing to Judge William Scott Henry’s comments about the merits of the case. Just as he did with his appeal for his defamation case against the Associated Press. The appeal filed by Young’s counsel Jason Greaves, didn’t hold back as it repeatedly accused Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit of coming to “erroneous” conclusions in Puck’s favor on multiple fronts and upending the order of operations for how defamation cases were supposed to proceed: The circuit court erroneously dismissed Appellants’ Amended Complaint with prejudice, ignoring reasonable defamatory interpretations, and denied them leave to seek punitive damages, improperly preventing Appellants from “protect[ing their] own good name.” (…) As an initial matter, the circuit court erroneously held that Puck’s articles were protected under the fair report privilege. (…) Here, it was erroneous for the circuit court to have determined as a matter of law that Puck’s articles gave a reasonably fair and accurate report on the CNN case. Specifically, the circuit court found that Puck’s statements were merely “correct accounts of what was transpiring in the CNN Case at the time.” And that just because certain things were omitted or presented with bias is of no consequence. This, however, ignores the reality of the articles. (…) The court erroneously concluded, as a matter of law, that Puck’s September Article was not capable of defamatory meaning, because of the presumed “context” of Puck’s affirmative defense of fair report privilege. At this pleading stage, however, where the defamatory statement, on its face and without innuendo, accused Mr. Young of preying on vulnerable Afghans and charging them exorbitant rates, the circuit court cannot rewrite the statement for Puck. As in his initial complaint, Young’s filing argued that Puck News (a media industry-focus publication), via coverage from “entertainment law expert” Eriq Gardner, took CNN’s side and presented slanted reporting that aimed to clean some of the egg of their face: Gardner described the CNN report, writing, “reporter Alex Marquardt detailed how, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the government, panicked locals turned to private contractors to help them flee the country.” Gardner followed this sentence immediately with the following: “One such contractor was Zachary Young, a Navy Veteran whose firm was charging people hefty fees—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars—to escape the Taliban.” Through this framing, Gardner unequivocally adopted CNN’s false characterization of events, embracing them as his own, and claimed that Mr. Young preyed on “panicked locals” by charging them “tens of thousands of dollars.” Greaves also drew the appellate court’s attention to how Gardner tried to dismiss the merits of Young case, trial, and victory over CNN by suggesting it was only political: Gardner went on to express doubt about the verdict, writing, “CNN’s loss isn’t a stunner, although many may find it questionable whether the network’s reporters truly branded Young a criminal war profiteer, as he alleged.” Rather, “CNN’s real problem was geographical: the trial was set in Panama City, one of Florida’s deepest-red outposts.” (…) Separately, the articles repeatedly imply—through juxtaposition, selective omissions, and snide commentary about geography and politics—that Mr. Young actually did what CNN accused him of and only won because of partisan courts. In a statement to NewsBusters, Greaves said: “Puck didn’t just report on the CNN case, it revived CNN’s false accusation after a court had already ruled it was untrue. When a media outlet repeats a lie knowing the truth, that’s not journalism. It’s defamation, plain and simple.” As he did with the AP case, Young also wanted a new judge to oversee the case on remand: Because of the flippant way that the court below composed the Order, Appellants reasonably fear that, on remand, their claims would not receive the detached and neutral attention to which they are entitled, and thus respectfully request this Court order that this case be reassigned to a new judge. Throughout the Order, the court below demonstrated bias toward Appellants by inappropriately invoking the analogy that this case was a bad sequel to the CNN case that never should have been made. As NewsBusters reported back in August, Judge William Scott Henry dismissed the case with language that cast doubt on the merits of the case: Because of the flippant way that the court below composed the Order, Appellants reasonably fear that, on remand, their claims would not receive the detached and neutral attention to which they are entitled, and thus respectfully request this Court order that this case be reassigned to a new judge. Throughout the Order, the court below demonstrated bias toward Appellants by inappropriately invoking the analogy that this case was a bad sequel to the CNN case that never should have been made. During the CNN defamation trial, Judge Henry did occasionally admonish both sides, but in particular CNN's lead counsel David Axelrod for spreading lies about Young in the courtroom. He forced Axelrod to apologize to the Navy veteran, which Young understandably did not accept. Henry also looked out for the media reporting on the trial. He looked to confirm with the press pool that Axelrod had obtained our consensus to not sure images of their star witness (they apparently didn’t inform him that the trial was televised online). When NewsBusters spoke out and informed Judge Henry that we were not consulted, he sided with us and instructed the witness would be shown.