The left-wing consortium of Smithsonian museums in D.C. have been accused by the Trump Administration of ideological capture on issues of race and gender. In NPR’s July 21 online report, culture reporter Anastasia Tsioulcas covered a congressional hearing featuring House Republicans sharply questioning the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Anthea Hartig. Tsioulcas did not delve into the details of the Republican arguments against the Smithsonian, but muddled their points into crude accusations to make the conservative criticism sound buffoonish:In a subcommittee hearing Tuesday, House Republicans sharply questioned the director of the National Museum of American History, Anthea Hartig. The GOP lawmakers' comments closely mirrored the Trump administration's criticisms of the institution she leads as insufficiently patriotic. NPR's article briefly raised a specific criticism, but kept the details out of it. For example, an exhibit at the National Museum of American History featured "transgender advocate Jazz Jennings," a biological male. The hearing itself unspooled on strict partisan lines. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) questioned Hartig about an exhibition called "Girlhood," which included mentions of gender identity and puberty. Mace asked, "When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?"At another point, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) asked Hartig, "You intend to use a taxpayer-funded national museum to push a racial narrative that divides Americans by their skin color and guilt?" Hartig, who kept a cool tone throughout the hearing, eventually replied: "So the Smithsonian is a nonpartisan institution we're very proud of."Just like NPR, leftist museum curators pretend to be nonpartisan. Meanwhile, truly vitriolic attacks on the GOP by Democratic pols were blandly relayed:Many of the Democrats who spoke at the hearing linked the July 4 report to what they perceive as broader GOP attacks on museums, the arts and education. Rep Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) spoke about another Smithsonian institution, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, saying: "I'm here as a Black man who grew up in segregation … We will not let you destroy that museum, no matter how long it takes, how many battles are required, how much effort is needed. We will not allow that to happen unless you find a way to kill all of us and walk over our bodies to change history. That history is too sacred, it is too precious, and it will not be erased."There are no "fact checkers" when it's claimed that Republicans want to destroy a museum. Left out: The African American museum’s 2020 online display of a graphic linking positive traits like hard work, punctuality, and rational thought as presumably unfavorable aspects of “white culture,” which managed to be racist all the way around.The two-minute audio version of this story on Morning Edition contained only two congressmen: Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) arguing the Smithsonian suggests "history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed," and Mfume's wild charges, again with no pushback. A July 7 interview by Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep was worse, showing a hypocritical respect for Independence Day (to bash Trump), a respect totally absent from NPR, which halted its annual reading of the Declaration of Independence in 2022 and whose past transcripts now carry a prominent trigger warning.Steve Inskeep, Host: President Trump's administration chose Independence Day weekend to attack the Smithsonian Institution again. The administration accuses the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History here in Washington of, quote, "extreme political activism" for its portrayal of history….Sarah Weicksel joins us next. She's executive director of the American Historical Association….OK. So you've seen the latest accusations against the Smithsonian, which didn't strike me as all that major. They disagreed with a few bits of wording on cards and so forth. What do you make of it?With a slanted set-up like this by Inskeep, his guest had no choice but to answer in the negative.Inskeep: You've walked around that museum, I would imagine. Does it distort history, in your view?Weicksel: It does not distort history. And in fact, the report is misrepresenting the museum's collection and especially the exhibition of extraordinary artifacts that tell the history of the American Revolution. They seem to have missed entirely, for instance, one of the exhibits that takes up the greatest floor space, "The Price Of Freedom," which tells the history of American war.Inskeep: Wow. Wow. I want to ask briefly in the seconds we have left about Lonnie Bunch, who we heard at the beginning -- first African-American head of the Smithsonian Institution. He has not been fired. He's not been removed. He's not been pushed aside. Are you -- how would you rate his performance over the last year and a half of pressure?Weicksel: I think that Secretary Bunch has done an extraordinary job….Inskeep returned to his opening Trump-ruining-July 4 theme, concluding, "On this week after Independence Day weekend, Sarah Weicksel, thanks so much."PBS’s brief hearing mention on July 21 also emphasized the rebuttals, and PBS’s live coverage of the House oversight hearing was accompanied by an Associated Press story claiming “Many historians are alarmed by the revisionism.” 

MS NOW on SnapStream One of the greatest things about living in America is our guaranteed freedom of speech and the press, but the government can fire or otherwise discipline officials who leak classified information to the press without violating the First Amendment. But, according to failed former CNN anchor Jim Acosta and MS NOW’s Ali Velshi on Thursday’s episode of The 11th Hour, the Trump administration’s efforts to identify leaks is horribly authoritarian and Putin-like.If “your only job were to listen to what the White House press secretary says and report that to the people, that would be a little hollow, right? That would be the kind of thing that they do in authoritarian countries,” Velshi said, ignoring that for almost four years under Biden, that’s exactly what his network did for questions about the president’s health.“Imagine if those things [Trump says] were reported as true,” Acosta agreed.On the contrary, imagine if nothing the President said was ‘reported as true.’ That wouldn’t be journalism, either.“Donald Trump needs to understand he is not Vladimir Putin and this is not Russia,” Acosta continued. “And now, we're seeing journalists being jailed.”No journalists have been imprisoned during Trump’s administration. Acosta repeated this line several times, and Velshi never once asked him to name a journalist that Trump had supposedly jailed. Maybe he's thinking about Don Lemon getting arrested for a church invasion, but he's roaming free.Another fascist thing the White House does, according to Acosta? They’re “in charge of who gets to sit where in the briefing room, and who gets to go on Air Force One.”Trump’s press team allowed smaller media companies to have reporters in the briefing room, but to Acosta, that was a bad thing. Additionally, they don’t let the general public ride on the President’s plane. If that doesn’t scream Nazi, Acosta doesn’t know what does.And then, of course, Acosta made it about himself and his "narcissistic" book: I remember being out on the campaign trail in 2016 and Trump calling us all sorts of things, liars and scum. . . when I had my press pass taken away in 2018 - Ali, you mentioned my book, I mean, I wrote that seven or eight years ago - and when my press pass was taken away, it was a Trump-appointed judge who made sure I got it back.Acosta did not mention that his story started when he refused to stop hogging the microphone while an intern tried to move on to the next reporter. He also mentioned the fight to delicense ABC, which the MRC has been supporting.But missing from Acosta and Velshi’s lamentations was the actual target of these subpoenas. Trump’s administration isn’t interested in prosecuting journalists just for doing their jobs. They’re going after leakers who jeopardize national security by talking to the press about security concerns around the president himself. This kind of leak is different from something like Watergate. Mark Felt never told his media contacts about a potential security flaw that could lead to Nixon’s physical harm. But to Acosta, it always has to be about him and his industry:I think they do want to put reporters, more reporters in jail, and they want to make it very difficult for news organizations to tell the truth in this country. I experienced that firsthand. But there's something sadistic about it - there's a sadism in this and, that Donald Trump seems, and his people seem to really get off on grinding down the free press in this country. And Ali, this is - I mean, look what's taking place in a day from now. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, they're going to try to do another correspondents' dinner in Washington, D.C., and news organizations are going to be getting together with the president of the United States, who has been going after the free press with a meat ax over the last ten years. This is no time to be clinking glasses with the people who would put this industry out of business.Contrary to what Acosta would have people believe, journalists are not always the main character in every story.The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:MS NOW's The 11th Hour7/23/2611:45:29 p.m. Eastern ALI VELSHI: Joining me now is Jim Acosta, independent journalist and host of The Jim Acosta Show on Substack. He's the former CNN chief White House correspondent. He's the author of the New York Times best seller, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, which is an important title for what we're talking about.  Jim, my friend, good to see you. Thanks for joining us tonight.JIM ACOSTA: Good to see you, Ali.VELSHI: Let's talk about this for a second. Journalists have sources, right? If your only job, as you were the chief White House correspondent, if your only job were to listen to what the White House Press Secretary says and report that to the people, that would be a little hollow, right? That would be the kind of thing that they do in authoritarian countries.  Your job is to take that information, use your sources, find out whether that information is true or not true. Sources are what we rely on as journalists.ACOSTA: Yeah, no question about it.  I mean, Donald Trump needs to understand he is not Vladimir Putin and this is not Russia.  And I think what they're trying to do over at the Justice Department, what they're trying to do inside the administration, is put a chilling effect on journalists in Washington and around the country so they can't do their job anymore.  I mean, look at the headlines tonight, the Pentagon trying to artificially lower the number of dead in the war in Iran or Donald Trump's, you know, crazy election conspiracy theory speech that he gave last week.  Imagine if those things were reported as true, as reality. We just can't have that kind of situation in this country. You have to have journalists who are able to do the job.  And, Ali, I worry about the journey that we've been over on over the last ten years. I remember being out on the campaign trail in 2016 and Trump calling us all sorts of things, liars and scum, and then it became fake news and the enemy of the people.  And now we're seeing journalists being jailed. We're seeing journalists having their records sought after, their mother's phone records being sought after, the White House in charge of who gets to sit where in the briefing room, and who gets to go on Air Force One.And it's spiraling downward quickly. And, you know, when I had my press pass taken away in 2018 - Ali, you mentioned my book, I mean, I wrote that seven or eight years ago - and when my press pass was taken away, it was a Trump-appointed judge who made sure I got it back. VELSHI: Yeah.ACOSTA: Now we have Trump-appointed judges when they go through their confirmation hearings, can't even say whether or not Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.  And so, you can only imagine a scenario where this continues to get worse.VELSHI: So let's talk about - so, in this particular case in the New York Times, it's about whether there was security issues on the plane.  It does feel like once you start subpoenaing people's records and phone records - and phone records of your family and things like that, I don't know how much of that is about getting to the truth and getting to the source.  Some of it is about punishing the journalists. Some of it is about putting a chill on leakers, and some of it's straight out intimidation, because once you start getting involved in a federal investigation as a journalist, you then have to get a lawyer who can handle the federal investigation. If you work for a major corporation, hopefully they'll pay for it. But you're an independent journalist, so that starts happening to you.  It just creates a system in which everybody says, “maybe I should stay out of the way of this government.”ACOSTA: Yes, that's exactly right. And it's not just the reporters who feel the pressure. It's the reporters' bosses. It's the companies that own those news outlets. They don't want to get in the crosshairs of this administration.  Look what's happening right now with ABC and Brendan Carr over at the FCC. They're threatening the licenses of ABC stations around this country. Donald Trump, just a week ago was threatening the licenses for ABC and NBC stations in this country. And so this certainly has a chilling effect.  And, you know, this is - it's incumbent upon these news organizations to stand tough. They have to stand up to this administration.  You mentioned the Pentagon Papers. Imagine a world in which Katharine Graham and the Washington Post did not stand up --  VELSHI: Yeah. ACOSTA: --to the Nixon administration. Imagine a world where the New York Times did not stand up to the Nixon administration.  The truth is more important than all of that.  Look at what we've been going through since Donald Trump came into office in this second administration. It's been a pretty dark and disturbing place.  Ali, how do we get out of this corn maze? How do we get out of this hall of mirrors without the free press, shining lights in dark corners? It's the only way out of this.(...) 11:50:31 p.m. VELSHI: But ultimately, people could go to jail for this.ACOSTA: Right. And look at the judge in this New York Times case, the judge, I believe, said to the government, you know, "going after reporters is not the first thing you do. It's the last thing you do. And the circumstances have to be pretty dire for you to even go down that road." And - but I think there's more going on here. And I agree with Marty 100 percent. I think they do want to put reporters, more reporters in jail, and they want to make it very difficult for news organizations to tell the truth in this country. I experienced that firsthand.  But there's something sadistic about it - there's a sadism in this and, in that Donald Trump seems, and his people seem to really get off on grinding down the free press in this country.  And Ali, this is - I mean, look what's taking place in a day from now. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, they're going to try to do another correspondents' dinner in Washington, D.C., and news organizations are going to be getting together with the president of the United States, who has been going after the free press with a meat ax over the last ten years.  This is no time to be clinking glasses with the people who would put this industry out of business. It is a time to stand up and stand tough.  And I hope that my colleagues in the press who are at that dinner the other night, that they send a powerful message to the president that this First Amendment is not going anywhere. He is not Vladimir Putin, and this is not Russia. VELSHI: Jim, it's good to see you, my friend. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate your time, as always.  

Fortune magazine behaved like George Soros dumping more of his wealth than others into “philanthropy” was somehow some kind of an altruistic flex. No, we’re not kidding. YouTube Fortune associate editor Sydney Lake beamed in a July 22 item that “George Soros never signed the Giving Pledge. He’s given away more of his fortune than the billionaires who did.” As if the $32 billion he’s poured into his Open Society Foundations to fundamentally bend “the arc of history” in “the right direction” away from American exceptionalism and towards his New World Orderish utopia is something to celebrate. Lake snorted that “many” of the 250 wealthy signatories to liberal billionaire Melinda Gates’s Giving Pledge have reneged on their commitments. “But one philanthropist has gone above and beyond without even signing the Giving Pledge: George Soros, the 95-year-old Hungarian-American investor and political donor.”Indeed, Soros has given new meaning to going “above and beyond” and practically most of it would send chills up the spine. This includes the following: Spending $618 million towards buying a climate utopia, spending $131 million across 253 media organizations around the world to increase leftist influence over global news coverage, pouring $77,663,316 into 20 leftist nonprofits to coordinate and control soft-on-crime prosecutors he’s helped elect across the U.S., fueling 30 organizations pushing Big Tech censorship ahead of the 2022 midterms with $80 million and fueling another $80 million into pro-terrorist organizations. Take your pick, and none of them are good. But according to Lake’s spin, Soros is just the bee’s knees when it comes to philanthropy:He founded Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations, a network of international charities supporting democracy, human rights, and social reform. He’s committed more than $32 billion to philanthropy since 1984, and is one of the most generous philanthropists in the world … But many billionaire philanthropists haven’t given away nearly that much money or that percentage of their wealth.Maybe because other billionaires aren’t as consumed with becoming the “only man in the United States who has his own foreign policy and can implement it,” as former Carnegie Endowment for International Peace President Morton Abramowitz once quipped about Soros. In fact, as Soros said himself according to late New York Times reporter Michael T. Kaufman’s 2002 bookSoros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire, “ Yes, I do have a foreign policy, and now I have it more consciously. My goal is to become the conscience of the world.” If that sounds like a god-complex to you, it’s because it is. But don’t take our word for it. Soros has no issue making himself look like he belongs on Mount Olympus, as this 1993 quote cited by The Independent put it: “It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” But you wouldn’t get this vibe reading Lake’s blatant, proverbial lipstick smear on Soros as if he should be anointed the patron saint of philanthropy. Vomitous. 

On Wednesday, Fox News released a poll showing that, as we approach the midterms, Democrats have a 22 point lead on who can better handle income inequality, and significant leads on other issues. On his Wednesday show, Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, who served as Assistant to the President for Economic Policy in the first Trump administration, wasn't shy about pressing a member of the GOP leadership on the economy and moreKudlow got things started in his opening commentary, The Riff, with, "Call it swag, swagger, rizz, aura, or just plain messaging, but the GOP doesn't have it." He continued, focusing on his area of expertise. KUDLOW: No swag. They've lost their mojo. We're not draining the swamp by  getting rid of all the fraudulent corrupt spending left by Joe Biden's big government socialism. And we are not helping middle-class folks so they won't  have to pay taxes on Joe Biden's inflation....While the President is fighting a war to end the nuclear threats to freedom and civilization from radical Islam, the Republicans in the House and Senate are doing him and the GOP midterm election outlook, no favors. They are bumbling budget policy, they are bumbling affordability issues, they're bumbling the growth issue, they're concocting weird inside the beltway word salad reasons why they're not getting anything done that will actually help make life easier for hard working taxpayers. Next, Kudlow pressed Senator James Lankford, Republican from Oklahoma, the Vice Chair of the Republican Conference. KUDLOW: You, the leadership in both Houses, are bumbling everything sir. I say that with all due respect and we are personal friends. But you are bumbling everything. Nothing is getting done, your messaging is nonexistent, you've lost your swag... no one knows what you are doing sir, they have no idea.Lankford, bizarrely, then accused the conservative media of ignoring Socialist Democrats in NYC and around the U.S., and beating up on Republicans, and that didn't sit well with Kudlow. "Nobody has attacked Mamdani more than I have."He then continued pressing on the issue of economics.KUDLOW: What is it that your policy is? Senator Lankford, my friend, where are the tax cuts, where are the spending cuts....Where's the straight talk and messaging for the midterm? Where's the growth messaging, where's the we're gonna make it better for taxpayers and working folks messaging? Come on, Senator.Lankford pointed out that there were tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress in July of last year, and also brought up the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law earlier this month, Kudlow responded. KUDLOW: The One Big Beautiful Bill is good, nobody fought for that  harder than I did but that was a year ago. What have you done for me lately, this year? The tense back and forth continued, until Kudlow needed to wrap up the segment, thanking him multiple times, after not backing down, and pleading for more leadership, more economic support for the American people as the President  deals wit Iran, and a more effective messaging plan as the midterms get closer. KUDLOW: I'm saying you don't have a message and you have lost your swagger....You are part of the leadership gang, stand up and be counted. Tell people you're gonna cut spending, you're gonna cut fraud, you're gonna cut corruption, and you're gonna give them a break on capital gains and inflation. Just in general you should have sweeping tax reform. Where's the growth message? That's what I'm looking for.We could  go on forever, I've got to go and do the rest of the TV show, I appreciate you coming on Senator Lankford and we are friends...The President's fighting in Iran and we've got to help him out on that. So help him out on the home front too. Make it easier for him.... I've got to leave it there Senator. Thank you very much, with all respect.Kudlow was relentless in his attempt to not only solicit answers to his questions form his friend Senator Lankford, but in throwing unsolicited advice his way as well.  Having served as a top economic advisor to Trump in his first administration, it's easy to understand Kudlow's frustration, and passion, which made for great television as well. 

The New Yorker contributor Ruth Marcus joined Friday’s edition of PBS News Hour to recap the week’s news that focused heavily on the Middle East. During a discussion about a potential nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, Marcus rewound roughly 50 years to the 1970s and claimed that the reason why the U.S. finds itself in a difficult situation with Iran today is because it made a similar deal with the shah.Co-panelist and The Atlantic staff writer David Brooks was supposed to be talking about the Saudi deal, which may now be in jeopardy because Trump has since said it is contingent on Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords. During a discussion on Trump's nuclear deal with the Saudis, New Yorker contributor Ruth Marcus tries to analogize the situation to Iran, "We are mired in this situation with Iran because we helped them get nuclear technology when the shah was in power. How did that work out for… pic.twitter.com/2l9rU12Aoa— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 25, 2026 However, he launched into an unrelated argument about the U.S. nuclear umbrella providing global security and what happens when that is taken away, “So you have—you could see a dozen, 15 countries not getting nuclear weapons, but considering it, because the U.S. umbrella is no longer there. So if you wonder what the effect of U.S. power is, whether it's a force of stability or not, here's your sign. It is a force of stability, and when you withdraw that force, the world gets a lot more dangerous right quick.”That led moderator Amna Nawaz to turn to Marcus and exclaim, “I mean, that's a major reworking of the global security landscape, Ruth.”Marcus agreed, “And that's precisely why this is a bad idea, this nuclear deal is a bad idea, because more proliferation is—and the risk of proliferation is worse than nonproliferation.”She then blamed the U.S. using similar logic 50ish years ago for the current problems with Iran, “And we are mired in this situation with Iran because we helped them get nuclear technology when the shah was in power. How did that work out for us? So, Trump—and it was a bad idea, by the way, when the Biden administration was talking about doing this, though it at least had the prospect of getting the benefit of Israeli recognition.”Marcus concluded by claiming Trump’s “erratic” behavior might end up saving him from himself, “Here, Trump, he's so erratic. He knows that Saudi Arabia can't at the last minute agree to the Israel recognition, and he throws it in anyway, like he's still negotiating leasing the top two floors of Trump Tower or something, and thinks he can wring something else out of people at the last minute. It's not going to work, and I think we should probably be semi-thankful for that.”While Marcus’s idea may seem to have the benefit of long-term thinking and imagination, the problem with her diagnosis is that history did not end when the shah fell. American adversaries, such as Russia and China, have been helping Iran with its nuclear program, and there’s no reason to believe Saudi Arabia couldn’t also enlist their help.Whatever one thinks of the pros and cons of a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, the reason why the U.S. is in “this situation with Iran” is because of the regime’s anti-American, clerical ideology and its unwillingness to let its neighbors live in peace.Here is a transcript for the July 24 show:PBS News Hour7/24/20267:37 PM ETDAVID BROOKS: So you have—you could see a dozen, 15 countries not getting nuclear weapons, but considering it, because the U.S. umbrella is no longer there.So if you wonder what the effect of U.S. power is, whether it's a force of stability or not, here's your sign. It is a force of stability, and when you withdraw that force, the world gets a lot more dangerous right quick.AMNA NAWAZ: I mean, that's a major reworking of the global security landscape, Ruth.RUTH MARCUS: And that's precisely why this is a bad idea, this nuclear deal is a bad idea, because more proliferation is—and the risk of proliferation is worse than nonproliferation.And we are mired in this situation with Iran because we helped them get nuclear technology when the shah was in power. How did that work out for us? So, Trump—and it was a bad idea, by the way, when the Biden administration was talking about doing this, though it at least had the prospect of getting the benefit of Israeli recognition.Here, Trump, he's so erratic. He knows that Saudi Arabia can't at the last minute agree to the Israel recognition, and he throws it in anyway, like he's still negotiating leasing the top two floors of Trump Tower or something, and thinks he can wring something else out of people at the last minute. It's not going to work, and I think we should probably be semi-thankful for that.