The lawyer representing COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci who had to be removed by security from Wednesday’s Senate hearing has a legacy of representing controversial figures.The attorney, identified as attorney David Schertler, was escorted out of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee when insisted on speaking and sitting in an unauthorized area, despite repeated admonishments and warnings by Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).Chairman Paul repeatedly told Schertler that he was not recognized to speak at the hearing, that he could not testify on Fauci’s behalf after the doctor invoked the Fifth Amendment because of the threat of self-incrimination. Paul also repeatedly told the attorney that he needed to sit in the row behind Fauci, instead of next to him.“This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered, for a lawyer not listening to the rules,” Chairman Paul noted."You basically don’t call him unless you’re in deep s**t," a veteran D.C. attorney, who represents politically connected clients, told The Washington Free Beacon in September of 2023 when Schertler was hired to represent then-Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in a high-profile criminal trial. As Free Beacon recalled, Schertler has a propensity to represent criminally-charged “elite” from criminal charges:“Considered one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country, David Schertler has represented all walks of elite life: an NFL player caught with a gun, military officials involved in shady lobbying, a high-profile murder suspect. Now, Schertler represents Menendez's campaign and his wife, the subjects of a multiyear Justice Department probe.”Despite retaining Schertler as counsel, Menendez was convicted on 16 federal felony counts including bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent for Egypt - and sentenced to 11 years in prison and permanently barred from holding public office in New Jersey.When he was called to testify in Congress in 2025 regarding a potential cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline while in office, Biden’s White House Physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, also hired Schertler.Like Fauci, Dr. O’Connor also refused to voluntarily appear before Congress and invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering any questions when he was compelled to appear.In the days before the House Oversight Committee hearing, Schertler unsuccessfully tried to have the July 9, 2025 hearing cancelled, or at least postponed, on the basis of doctor-client confidentiality.In his June 5, 2025 subpoena of O’Connor, House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) noted that issues of doctor-patient privilege “lack merit” because the American Medical Association’s code of ethics is not part of federal law.Unlike Dr. O’Connor, Dr. Fauci enjoys a blanket pardon by President Biden for all potential crimes committed while in office – and he appears to need it, Rep. Comer told Fox News on Tuesday:“We now know why President Biden gave a blanket pardon to Dr. Fauci. While obsessing about his own fame, Dr. Fauci wasn’t truthful with the American people about the origins of COVID and advised schools to be closed.”Excerpts from Dr. Fauci’s diary released by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) on Saturday appear to show that the Fauci-promoted origin theory of COVID, that it came from a Wuhan, China wet market, was not true.  Specifically, Paul cited an entry from January 26, 2020 in which Fauci admitted that the market was not the source of the virus.

Screenshot via CBS/Snapstream Wednesday’s CBS Mornings spent seven minutes and 18 seconds previewing the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing by defending Dr. Tony Fauci on everything from closing schools to gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, to Fauci dwelling on his stardom in 2020.All the while, accountability or admission of even a modicum of mistakes from the pandemic were nowhere to be found.Fill-in co-host Natalie Morales set it all up this way:Now to Capitol Hill where we could see an explosive hearing today when Dr. Anthony Fauci appears in front of a Senate committee. He will face questions about the origin and handling of the COVID pandemic. Senator Rand Paul released more an a thousand pages of revealing journal entries from Fauci. They detail Fauci’s relationship with President Trump and how he apparently reveled in his own fame.Congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns colored the perception of the hearing by saying Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) “has long been a Fauci critic” and has “a history of contentious debate” with the former longtime NIH official. First, Caitlin Huey-Burns insisted Fauci has been open to the lab-leak theory all along, and the diaries from “long...Fauci critic” only supposedly showed Fauci “apparently reveled in his own fame”Caitlin Huey-Burns only conceded in a throwaway line that “many, including… pic.twitter.com/ucppxk8pIh— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 Huey-Burns joined ABC and NBC in suggesting Fauci has always been open to the lab-leak theory (click “expand”):HUEY-BURNS: Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic started, questions still swirl over where the virus actually came from. In the thousands of diary entries from his time leading the government’s response, Dr. Anthony Fauci recounted the debate over how it all started. In an entry in late January of 2020, Fauci referred to a wet market in Wuhan, China, writing, “now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” In May of 2021, Fauci addressed questions about the theory the virus leaked from a lab, writing, “the very highly likelihood is that the virus originated naturally, but adding, no one is 100% certain of the origin, including me, so I am calling for a thorough investigation.” Something Fauci echoed that same month publicly.FAUCI [on 05/25/21]: Many of us feel that it is more likely that this is a natural occurrence, as has happened with SARS-CoV-1, where it goes from an animal reservoir to a human, but we don’t know 100 percent the answer to that.HUEY-BURNS: Republican Senator Rand Paul says Fauci suppressed the lab-leak theory and alleges that money from the National Institutes of Health grant funded research to make viruses more transmissible at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the same lab where he claims COVID-19 originated.Only at the end did Huey-Burns deliver as a throwaway that “many, including President Trump...argued that his COVID policies were too strict, especially when it came to masking and school closures.”Perhaps most insidious was the next block with CBS News medical contributor and Biden-Harris transition team member, Dr. Celine Gounder.Prompted to explain gain-of-function research, Gounder had the gall to tout its necessity under the guise of needing to play god to ensure effective treatments: Then, CBS News medical contributor and Biden-Harris transition official Dr. Celine Gounder DEFENDS gain-of-function research as vital for public health and national security, and there’s no way to hold Fauci responsible for what she implied were pennies on the dollar to the Wuhan… pic.twitter.com/RzOSUQ51ZH— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 When we have new vaccines every year, we’re trying to figure out: Is COVID itself becoming more infectious, more virulent, and how do you have a vaccine that addresses that? And so, gain-of-function research is you’re trying to anticipate what’s going to happen naturally — you’re anticipating in the lab — and you are developing vaccines, and anti-virals, and other countermeasures for what we anticipate may happen.Thus, she declared, letting virologists around the world — including in communist China — “is an important tool in terms of keeping ahead of things.”In other words, nothing went wrong here!As for Fauci’s culpability in funding the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Gounder was obtuse in lodging a logical fallacy.“Dr. Fauci was the head of the National Institutes for Allergies and Infectious Diseases for about 40 years. Over that time, funded many, many different grants. We’re talking about $600,000 between 2014 and 2019, so about $100,000 a year we are talking about here. That’s — what? — a couple people you might have been able to fund with that. Does the CEO of this company know about three people paid $50,000 a year,” she scoffed.After making that point, she threw a hand up in disgust.Next, Gounder asserted Fauci had nothing to do with the massive, long-term school closures. Next, CBS’s Gounder said governors, teachers unions, and school boards were the ones who closed down the schools and kept them closed for as long as they did, not Fauci.In other words, CBS’s medical contributor wants you to believe Fauci had little to nothing to do with what… pic.twitter.com/kqR7SCihgH— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 Specifically, she said that, even though “Fauci was the most recognizable face of the COVID pandemic in terms of expertise and providing guidance,” “he had no legal authority to act” like “school boards, governors, [and] teachers unions.”Again, Gounder was deliberately obtuse. While the legal authority did rest with state and local officials, it’s preposterous to claim these officials were any more than lemmings going over the cliff because Fauci told them to.And, for states that did reopen (ask Florida and Georgia), Fauci menacingly came down with the rest of the liberal press in shaming them as mass killers.For example, here he was in September 2020 when Florida eased many of its already-lax restrictions: Dr. Fauci scolds Florida for re-opening society: "Very concerning to me ... Because when you’re dealing with community spread & you have the congregate setting where people get together particularly without masks you’re asking for trouble. Now is the time to double down" pic.twitter.com/u0vJUbZh1z— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 28, 2020 The third topic for Gounder to spin and explain away was Fauci’s obsession with his fame.Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers set up well:There is an awareness in reading the public diaries that he is very aware of his own public profile. So one of the risks, as you know, of celebrity in politics is people start making decisions with an eye towards the camera. Does that happen in medicine when a public health leader is being lauded on camera? Does that influence the way they make decisions or recommendations?Instead of taking this opportunity to even lightly criticize Fauci, Gounder suggested the real conclusion from all his mentions of hobnobbing was illustrating “the pressure” he faced, along with “the harassment, and death threats, and what that led to in terms of security, so that’s actually most of his comments about the fame.” Next, Gounder argued the diaries actually proved Tony Fauci was NOT reveling in his newfound celebrity during the pandemic, but rather uncomfortable facing so much “pressure” as well as “harassment and death threats.”But even so, she added, who DOESN’T like to meet famous… pic.twitter.com/6EpB0SY0DU— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 To the approval of Morales, she and Burleson argued who wouldn’t have been swept up or been enamored by him (click “expand”):GOUNDER: Who here has not taken a selfie with a celebrity who has been here in the studio?MORALES: Right.GOUNDER: I’m going to say it’s basically everybody.MORALES: Everybody, right. Yes, right.BURLESON: It’s human nature to lean into the limelight, and he had it.GOUNDER: He had it. But if you look at the preponderance of his comments, most of them are actually concerns about this is making me really uncomfortable —MORALES: Aww.GOUNDER: — I’m really uneasy, this is leading to security issues. It’s — you know, the occasional comment about Barbra Streisand is not the headline here.They concluded with one last act of unrepentance, masquerading as a pity party for the “public health” profession.Morales put the ball on the tee for Gounder by fretting the COVID debate has “rage[d] on for six years now” and “become somewhat political theater” that’s had an “impact...on our public health system.” The ‘CBS Mornings’ coverage concluded with fill-in co-host Natalie Morales fretting the COVID debate has “rage[d] on for six years now” and “become somewhat political threater” that’s had an “impact...on our public health system.”Gounder replied that, because of the attacks on… pic.twitter.com/LBx36X0CCp— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 29, 2026 “Oh, public health is devastated, and the massive budget cuts — we have multiple outbreaks right now, cyclospora, et cetera, this is very much a reflection, and it’s just the beginning,” Gounder declared, channeling her inner Mr. Burns. To see the relevant CBS transcript from July 29, click here.

CNN This Morning 7-29-26 Somewhere, James Carville is smiling.The Ragin' Cajun would surely approve of Dem strategist Antjuan Seawright's attempt on today's CNN This Morning to distract from the Fauci scandal and the Senate committee hearing regarding it that Rand Paul is heading today.Seawright twice claimed that people should forget about Fauci and focus instead on . . . screwworms. Screwworms: scarier than squirrels!Substitute host Erica Hill described the 1,100-page Fauci diary dump as “a little choose-your-own-adventure, if you will, depending on what you are looking for in the diaries of Dr. Fauci . . . A little bit of something in here for everybody.” Hill left no doubt as to what "little bit" she was "looking for”— something flattering to Fauci and casting President Trump in a negative light. From all the 1,100 diary pages, Hill highlighted just one entry, that from March 2020 in which Fauci boasted: "We met with POTUS in the living quarters, not the Oval, for about an hour. I led the discussion since the POTUS kept referring to me. It was a disturbingly rambling discussion. He kept talking about TV ratings, and HC, and influenza and virtually everything else as I was trying to keep him on track."Such a hero, that Fauci--if he does say so himself--keeping the supposedly rambling Trump on track!Seawright then launched his distraction campaign. After briefly citing praise for Fauci from Trump’s former surgeon general, he complained that today’s hearing would be mere “political theater.” What really “burns my biscuits,” said the South Carolinian, is the lack of focus on current problems:“There’s no interest in the fact that you have the screwworms sending everyone on the run . . and there’s no sense of accountability in that regard.”  Look Over There: A Screwworm! -- CNNer Tries To Distract From Fauci Scandal pic.twitter.com/wGHKTfywJr— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) July 29, 2026 Seawright renewed the screwworm pivot later when conservative Rob Bluey, an MRC alum and head of the Daily Signal, pressed the point that Congress has a duty to oversee a former $400,000-a-year government employee who, Bluey said, “lied to the American people repeatedly about the origin of COVID.”Seawright interrupted: “But Rob, but Rob, but Rob. Respectfully, how do you know that?”Bluey shot back: "Because it's in the diary!"Seawright then circled back to his preferred topic: “So where’s the accountability for the screwworm? Screwworm."Seawright tried one last deflection: "Remind me who was in charge when we were going through the COVID-19 pandemic, because I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation. Who was the president?"  In response, Bluey unleashed the line o' the day: “Apparently, Anthony Fauci thought he was!” Seawright’s repeated insistence that Americans should focus on screwworms rather than Fauci’s record was a textbook attempt to change the subject. The hearing is about accountability for decisions made at the highest levels of the federal government during a national crisis. Pretending the only accountability that matters is today’s is the oldest trick in the book.Here's the transcript.CNN This Morning7/29/266:39 am EDTERICA HILL: Also happening on the Hill today, just about two hours from now, Dr. Anthony Fauci will head to Capitol Hill where he's set to face a grilling by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. That committee is led by Senator Rand Paul, who has butted heads with Fauci in past hearings over his role leading the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the days leading up to this hearing, later this morning, the committee published 1,100 pages from Fauci's personal diary, detailing everything from high level White House pandemic meetings to his newfound fame and press attention. Fauci isn't appearing voluntarily after Senator Paul previously called for the doctor to be thrown in jail.RAND PAUL: I would just, just suggest that he tell the truth. And if he tells the truth, he has no liability. But I would suggest that he testify because, because he's protected by the pardon, there's no real constitutional reason for him not to testify.HILL: The Group Chat is back with us. I will note, there is a lot in here, as I noted, more than 1,100 pages. It's a little choose-your-own-adventure, if you will, depending on what you are looking for in the diaries of Dr. Fauci. Here is one thing that he wrote about a meeting in March of 2020, writing, "We met with POTUS in the living quarters, not the Oval, for about an hour. I led the discussion since the POTUS kept referring to me. It was a disturbingly rambling discussion. He kept talking about TV ratings, and HC, and influenza and virtually everything else as I was tryin to keep him on track. With the help of the VP, we finally got him to agree to a travel advisory, not a quarantine." As I noted, there is a little bit of something in here for everybody. We know it's going to be contentious with Rand Paul, but how are Democrats, do you think, going to approach this hearing today, Antjuan?ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT: First of all, you had Trump's former Surgeon General, I think as late as this morning, come out and praise Dr. Fauci, and called him, basically, a trusted and good public servant. But I think what's frustrating and what burns my biscuits the most is you have this political theater that will happen in the United States Senate today, with Senator Rand Paul.But there's no interest in the fact that you have the screwworms sending everyone on the run, the fact that you see recall after recall and foods that basic everyday Americans are afraid to even deal with, and all the challenges that came along, that come along with this current administration. And there's no sense of accountability in that regard. I think that is what the American people focus on. Not in retrospect, but they're focused on right now in front of them, and right now in front of them are the challenges because of the people who are in charge of our government, but yet there's no accountability from the legislative standpoint. And so the theater is just gonna be political theater, for today, and I think the American people have grown numb to some of that.HILL: And then you think people move on. Rob does not feel that way.ROB BLUEY: Yeah, no. You can probably tell that I don't. I mean, I think that there will be fireworks today. I agree with you on that point But it's the role of Congress, in this case, Senator Rand Paul, to have oversight and hold this, this government employee, former government employee, who was paid $400,000 a year with our tax dollars, and who lied to the American people repeatedly about the origin of COVID. I mean, he talked about it.SEAWRIGHT: But Rob, but Rob, but Rob. Respectfully, how do you know that? And, and I— We agree --BLUEY: -- Because it's in the diary! SEAWRIGHT: Well, here's what we agree on. We agree that the, the legislative branch is supposed to have oversight and accountability to the executive branch. We agree with that. So where's the accountability for the screwworm? Screwworm. Where's accountability for all these recalls we see every single day and the lack thereof from the current leaders of our government? You, you don't see that, but you want to focus on someone who's no longer in the government.Remind me who was in charge when we were going through the COVID-19 pandemic, because I think sometimes that gets lost in the conversation. Who was the president? BLUEY: Apparently, Anthony Fauci thought he was.

On Friday's The 11th Hour show, MS NOW host Ali Velshi devoted a segment to comparing the Donald Trump administration, declaring that the President is trying to make ICE accountable only to him. He then had on liberal historian and University of Toronto Professor Jason Stanley to claim that Trump is promoting fascism like 1930s Germany.After beginning the segment with some polling suggesting that the President's approval ratings are down, Velshi intoned:Trump is losing the country. And here's the thing that should worry you much more than the polling. ... He doesn't seem to care. A President who governs against the will of the people he serves isn't really accountable to them, and a President who isn't accountable to the people he serves isn't really a President in the way that we've come to understand that word. This is not hyperbole.There are no funnier words on MS NOW than "This is not hyperbole." The MS NOW leaned into hyperbole, claiming that under Trump, ICE "terrorizes" immigrants and minorities, and then argued that the President is trying to make ICE into "a force that answers to Donald Trump and to no one else." Velshi invoked leftist hyperbole machine Tim Snyder, who puts the word "fascism" into every other sentence: MS NOW's Velshi Compares Trump Admin to 1930s Germany pic.twitter.com/Ocr00DXHjI— Brad Wilmouth (@bradwilmouth) July 27, 2026 This administration is working to make our government less accountable. The historian Timothy Snyder put it this way: "The only advantage we have over the Jews in Germany in the 1930s is that we know their history. And because we can know their history, we can recognize the patterns, not to be surprised, and to act effectively," end quote.After bringing aboard Stanley as a guest, Velshi began by making more Nazi comparisons:... it may get boring to some people, but we've actually got to go back to the early 1930s in Germany to remember that stuff that looks like this happened quite frequently. Little laws that were taken away, police that were meant to be homicide investigators all of a sudden moved over here to harass people -- people who thought, "This is crazy and it will go away," and, "How bad can it get?" It's all playing itself out. And you and I puzzle about the fact that: How can this happen in 2026? How can we watch authoritarianism set in and not have an adequate response?Stanley, who was so panicked by Trump he moved to Canada, pushed for resistance to Trump as he began:Yeah, I mean, I don't puzzle about it in 2026. I've been on these networks for eight years now saying this is a would-be fascist dictator, this is a fascist movement behind him. They know what they're doing. And the reason that it's not going to succeed is because of journalists like you, Ali, and your colleagues -- because of police officers who will refuse to do orders that are immoral and illegal -- because of military officers that will refuse to follow unconstitutional orders.A bit later, Stanley fearmongered:And they are putting people in these concentration camps. The -- I say "concentration camps" because they're zones of lawlessness. They can take seemingly anyone they want and put them there. ... we're already the country that has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the world, and we're adding to that a system of concentration camps where they're putting people in for no reason at all, just because they say that they're threats. Now, they're saying radical leftists are threats. They're saying the same thing about radical leftists. We are literally living "First they came for" in real time.So "this is not hyperbole"??Transcript follows:MS NOW's The 11th HourJuly 24, 2026ALI VELSHI: Trump is losing the country. And here's the thing that should worry you much more than the polling. It actually has something to do with what you saw tonight. He doesn't seem to care. A President who governs against the will of the people he serves isn't really accountable to them, and a President who isn't accountable to the people he serves isn't really a President in the way that we've come to understand that word.This is not hyperbole. I want to show you exactly where this is playing out right now, and it is under the banner of immigration enforcement. Donald Trump has dramatically built up the force carrying out his mass deportation agenda. ICE's budget has quadrupled since he took office. The agency has more than doubled in size -- 12,000 new agents and officers hired -- a lot of them patrol in masks in unmarked cars, and they are armed. We've talked about them before because that presence alone terrorizes immigrant communities.But more than that, it terrorizes communities of color. And more than that, if you've been to Minnesota or Chicago or L.A. lately, it terrorizes communities in general. And that was always the point. But let's look at what's happened after two recent ICE killings because you start to see something bigger than intimidation. You start to see a system built so that ICE answers to no one but Trump himself. Again, this is not hyperbole. This is hyper specific.In Houston, an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo -- 52 years old, a father of three, no criminal record, not even the target of the operation. His family says he was close to getting legal status after 35 years in the United States. Six days later, in Biddeford, Maine, another agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero -- 25 years old, also a father legally authorized to work. He had a Social Security number, also not the target of any investigation or traffic stop. Both men were shot in their vehicles.In both cases, DHS's first claim -- I don't even have to tell you this -- you can probably guess it on your own: "The men used their cars as weapons against agents." In both cases, that claim didn't hold up against video and witness accounts, and, in both cases, DHS will not release the agents' names -- which, if you've been watching this beat, you know, is a pattern. The AP, however, after speaking with close relatives, identified the agent in the main shooting anyway, and his name is David Brouillette. His own relatives describe a history of violent, frightening behavior. The Washington Post reports a judge found him to be not credible in court testimony last year.Both outlets reached out to Brouillette for comment, but he did not reply. So there were already questions about how well DHS is actually vetting these agents as they have this hiring surge. After these two killings, DHS actually paused most traffic stops. Okay, that's in theory a good thing. Said they were going to wear body cameras and all that kind of stuff -- 12 hours later -- 12 hours later, Donald Trump reversed that decision. He ordered ICE back onto the road, doing exactly the kind of stops that got two innocent men killed. He posted it himself on social media. He said, quote, "The men and women of ICE are doing a great job -- one that has to be done. We cannot give up on one of ICE's most important and effective crime fighting tools, the traffic stop."Just sit with that for a second. The President of the United States personally intervening to make sure that a masked, unmarked, armed federal force faces zero check on its power, and doing it through social media. Except there's nothing about this that is isolated. After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed in Minnesota back in January, state investigators said that the federal government wouldn't hand over evidence in that case. Most of it only arrived last week -- six months later. This week, ICE briefed the House Homeland Security Committee behind closed doors. Since January 2025, 53 reports of excessive force -- 32 have been closed, 21 are still open. One has been referred for discipline. And now the New York Times reports that federal agents have been told that the FBI will not investigate assault claims that are made against federal immigration agents anymore. Just not going to be investigated. So knock yourself out if you've got a complaint.DHS and Justice deny that, but, given how little evidence they've shared with state and local authorities already, a policy like that would leave ICE to police itself. Now, I want to be careful with the history here because it matters. When Trump's first administration separated children from their families, we understood very clearly that the cruelty was, in fact, the point.Separating people from their families -- it's about the worst thing you can do -- is designed to deter people from coming to the United States. Now, what's happening now is cruel, too, but I don't think deterrence is the goal anymore. I think the goal is actually broader than that. It's actually the creation of a force that answers to Donald Trump and to no one else, and whose presence is just meant to unsettle everyone, not just immigrants. We're at the point where we have to say the plain thing. This administration is working to make our government less accountable. The historian Timothy Snyder put it this way: "The only advantage we have over the Jews in Germany in the 1930s is that we know their history. And because we can know their history, we can recognize the patterns, not to be surprised, and to act effectively," end quote.That's the assignment -- not to panic, but to pay attention on purpose so we're not surprised by what comes next, and to be ready with a plan for November 3rd. Back with me is Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, a colleague of the aforementioned professor Timothy Snyder -- works out of my hometown, which I miss a lot. He's the author of a book called Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future. Jason, again, it may get boring to some people, but we've actually got to go back to the early 1930s in Germany to remember that stuff that looks like this happened quite frequently.Little laws that were taken away, police that were meant to be homicide investigators all of a sudden moved over here to harass people -- people who thought, "This is crazy and it will go away," and, "How bad can it get?" It's all playing itself out. And you and I puzzle about the fact that: How can this happen in 2026? How can we watch authoritarianism set in and not have an adequate response?JASON STANLEY, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO: Yeah, I mean, I don't puzzle about it in 2026. I've been on these networks for eight years now saying this is a would-be fascist dictator, this is a fascist movement behind him. They know what they're doing. And the reason that it's not going to succeed is because of journalists like you, Ali, and your colleagues -- because of police officers who will refuse to do orders that are immoral and illegal -- because of military officers that will refuse to follow unconstitutional orders.That's the only reason we are not in a fully authoritarian situation. It's been clear from the beginning, and, in particular, as you pointed out, it's been clear from the very beginning of this regime -- Trump's second term -- that he has no intention of broadening his popular support. You know, I've been saying this in the very beginning. He's not making a single attempt to win over a single --VELSHI: Which is why we have gerrymandering, which is why we've got the SAVE Act, which is why he did a primetime speech talking about how the vote can't be trusted. None of that involves winning an election with extra votes. It's winning an election, possibly, with fewer votes.STANLEY; Yeah, he has no intention of winning -- of winning an election with more votes. It's not the route he's going, and we're already well down this road. And, as you pointed out the role -- ICE has a very particular role to play. And it's very obvious what their role is here. Steve Bannon already said it. They're going to flood the polling places. They're speaking in the most threatening possible ways about -- about potential fraudulent voters, you know, and what they're going to do to them.They're going to intimidate the heck out of voters and more. They're going to intimidate -- intimidate poll workers at elections. And what, what we're now allowing them to do as a country, and we need to stop allowing them to do this is -- is acting with total impunity. They're doing it in immigration, but they're just -- they're going to -- it's -- they're going to broaden it out. The message they're sending is, "Everyone is a criminal -- anyone can be a criminal."VELSHI: Yeah, yeah, yeah.STANLEY: They're arresting students. They're detaining students with visas. They're detaining people who are clearly here legally --VELSHI: Well, they have this weird -- they have this weird rule, which they got that Columbia student on, right, that he's a threat to national security because he participated in one of the protests at Columbia University against -- against Israel's actions in Gaza. It's like there was once a free speech. And, in fact, free speech is not about Twitter. It's about the government. But the government apparently deemed this guy to be a national security risk.STANLEY: Yeah, they're going to do everything they can. I mean, it is just to be put in what they're building a mass -- massive number of concentration camps. They're building a system of concentration camps. It's not just on the borders right now. It's national. And they are putting people in these concentration camps. The -- I say "concentration camps" because they're zones of lawlessness. They can take seemingly anyone they want and put them there. And it's not clear how to get access to them. They're often away from courts, far away from people's lawyers and families. So they're experimenting with that.This -- we're already the country that has the fourth highest incarceration rate in the world, and we're adding to that a system of concentration camps where they're putting people in for no reason at all, just because they say that they're threats. Now, they're saying radical leftists are threats. They're saying the same thing about radical leftists. We are literally living "First they came for" in real time. First they came for the immigrants.Now, "First they came for" starts with, "First they came for the communists." They're doing that second now. But -- but they are -- they are really just -- they're, "Oh, you let us put everyone in these concentration camps without legal with -- when we just said they were just, you know, threats. So now we're going to -- now we're going to broaden that." And even if we don't have to actually fill these camps up, they're tools of intimidation.VELSHI: Yeah. And, by the way, there are people in -- in these detention centers who have habeas corpus cases to get out. And then a judge puts a bond on them because they are a flight risk. It's like you're, you're trying to deport them. What's -- what's a flight risk for somebody you're trying to actually deport? They are putting every possible legal block up to do that. But we still have fighters in this country -- people who are prepared to stand by these people. And I do want to point out you and Tim Snyder and Marci Shore are in my hometown, and you are building a world class department of study of, of authoritarianism and this kind of thing. And, as a result, we will all be better informed. So thank you as always, Jason. Good to see you. Jason Stanley from the University of Toronto.

With the Federal Communications Commission just weeks away from possibly stripping The View of their status as a purported “bona fide news program,” and the fight over the license renewal of ABC-owned affiliates just heating up, the left was still trying to muster their defenses. However, the coalitions of liberal former FCC officials and far-left activist groups coming out of the woodwork on Disney and ABC’s behalf could not make any sound legal argument to counter the evidence provided by the Media Research Center, with some even taking nip at the companies in their support letter.As reported by Variety, a letter showing support was signed by a slew of leftist organizations and delivered to Disney CEO Josh D’Amero. The signatories included: the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fall of Freedom, Issue One, LGBT Tech, National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America, People for the American Way, Public Knowledge, TechFreedom, The Media and Democracy Project, The Trevor Project, The Tully Center for Free Speech, and UnidosUS.“We urge you to continue to defend and exercise your First Amendment rights, so that we can all continue to exercise ours,” the collective proclaimed.  Image ABC via SnapStream  The letter did seem to suggest that they felt ABC and Disney were being too silent about what they were going through and they needed to do more:“Meaningfully fighting back requires more than strongly worded regulatory filings. It requires that you make clear to the public what is happening to you and to them — that the government is violating the First Amendment,” the letter to D’Amaro reads. “Remember: the public rebelled against the heavy-handed attempt to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and stood with you. Disney now has the opportunity to stand with all of us in protecting our rights to watch, read, and access information the government wishes we would not. Illegal jawboning demands decisive and vocal resistance. Your rights, and all of our rights, depend on it.”As NewsBusters previously reported, ABC had waited until the final day of public comment to launch their audience write-in campaign.In a response to the Media Research Center’s petition to deny the renewal of broadcast licenses for eight ABC-owned affiliates, a laundry list of former FCC officials spilled 28 pages of ink without laying down a good legal argument in Disney and ABC’s favor. They were helped along by the leftist Protect Democracy Project and a collection of others likes Gigi Sohn of G Squared Strategies, Berlin Szoka of TechFreedom, and Andrew Jay Schwartzman.“This early license renewal proceeding is unprecedented in the history of the Federal Communications Commission and a grave violation of both the Communications Act and the Constitution. Through this proceeding, the FCC seeks to censor Disney’s and ABC’s speech and send a chilling message to all broadcasters: carry speech we don’t like at your peril,” they proclaimed.At no point did the group argue that MRC’s evidence of license violations (i.e. electioneering, promotion of political violence, abdicating their duty to act in the public interest etc.) were wrong or inaccurate in anyway.Instead, they falsely suggested it was part of ABC’s “editorial discretion” and right to flout their responsibilities as a broadcaster:Invoking the news distortion policy and equal opportunities requirement, these petitions ask the Commission to interfere with the stations’ First Amendment-protected editorial discretion: word choices, fact-checks, time covering certain topics, personnel, and the licensees’ perceived viewpoints. These are not legitimate subjects of FCC regulation. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may not “un-bias” what it thinks is biased. The news distortion policy has never authorized the type of interference with editorial discretion that the petitions call for. And, as a group of us argued in a separate petition, the policy is inherently vulnerable to abuse and should be repealed. Nor does the equal opportunities requirement permit investigation into whether, across all content, a licensee harbors partisan bias.Without ever addressing any of the MRC’s specific arguments, they contended, “The Commission has always underscored that ‘mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion’ cannot constitute a news distortion violation.”In fact, they took it a step further and demanded that the FCC repeal their policy to examine and discipline broadcasters for “news distortion.”“Both petitions ask the Commission to scrutinize and second-guess ABC’s editorial decisions at the microscopic level—word choices, fact-checks, the number of minutes spent covering particular topics, even personnel. These petitions only underscore the danger created by failing to repeal the news distortion policy,” they wrote.Yes, ABC does have editorial discretion. However, they can’t use that discretion to willingly violate the responsibilities they agreed to when they sought their licenses. This also wasn’t an effort at censorship because even if they lost their license, they could still compete as a cable news outlet like CNN and MS NOW.