On Saturday evening’s The Weekend: Primetime, MS NOW gave Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) free rein to unload an anti-Trump rant without a word of pushback. It's considered essential MS NOW content as the Democrat  called Trump a “madman,” urged his removal via the 25th Amendment, and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had effectively maneuvered him into war with Iran. Throughout, she returned again and again to one word: “rubble.” Six times, Dean invoked “the rubble,” at one point sounding less like a congresswoman than someone stuck in a Flintstones loop. It played like a pre-packaged line she was determined to deliver. Dean’s suggestion that Netanyahu maneuvered Trump into war veers into a familiar and ugly trope—casting Israeli or Jewish leaders as puppet-masters pulling American strings. Notably, there was no pushback on Dean’s “rubble”-fixated rant. Instead, the hosts quickly changed the subject, asking about the Eric Swalwell scandal. There, Dean displayed the same penchant for repetition—calling the allegations “extraordinarily serious,” saying she takes them “very, very seriously,” that she takes any woman who comes forward “very, very seriously,” and labeling the situation a “very, very serious distraction”—before urging Swalwell to end his campaign. MS NOW Gives Free Rein To Dem Rep’s ‘Rubble’ Rant pic.twitter.com/HRLQsAcpou — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) April 12, 2026 The hosts engaged on that topic—making their silence in the face of her earlier claims about Trump and Netanyahu all the more conspicuous. Not all of the liberal media is buying the Democrats’ Trump-as-“madman”/25th Amendment pitch. Over on CNN, host Michael Smerconish offered a different take, defending Trump against calls for his removal and arguing that what critics see as instability may instead be a deliberate “madman” strategy to keep adversaries off balance. Here's the transcript. MS NOW The Weekend: Primetime 4/11/26 7:02 am EDT ELISE JORDAN: Joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania. She sits on the Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committee, and is also one of the many lawmakers calling on the use of the 25th Amendment.  . . .  MADELINE DEAN: Our allies cannot understand it, but I hope and pray they have a long view. They recognize this president won't be president forever. He's a wrecking ball right now. He's a madman. He should be removed, whether by way of the 25th Amendment, which of course makes perfect sense. And he should be impeached again, but I don't want to spend time on that having done two of those already. We'll do it again someday.  And I want to just make sure you understand something I noticed. This president will be remembered for the rubble. Notice how he went to war in Iran alongside Mr. Netanyahu, who left rubble Gaza.  Mr. Netanyahu came over to the Situation Room and said to our president, let's go to war in Iran. Go with me to war in Iran and Lebanon and in the theater. This is a president who will be remembered for the rubble and the children who are dead in the rubble, the futures who are extinguished in the rubble.  And to me, it's about the children in the rubble.