"White" Is Not An Insult

Ana Navarro and Brad Palumbo had a spirited argument on CNN's "NewsNight' on July 14. The clip as presented on Brad Palumbo's podcast, in which the pertinent clip begins at 1:54, is immediately below. On her podcast, Megyn Kelly vigorously attacked Navarro and defended Palumbo in a podcast which appears to show an edited- and slightly misleading- version of the argument.

   

Navarro (AN): Millions of people out there protesting in small cities and big cities, small protests and huge protests, defying, uh, the fear, defying the reign of terror.

Palumbo (BP): You're definitely being hyperbolic. You talk about a reign of terror when the doomsday alarm from Democrats or from media critics is always at a 10. It doesn't hit the same.

AN: Honestly, also I want to respond to you saying that I was hyperbolic when I talked about a reign of terror.

BP: That is hyperbolic.

AN: No, it's- it might be hyperbolic for you as a white man.

BP: Oh, O.K.

AN: It's certainly not hyperbolic for me as a Latino. No, I'm not being racist.

BP: Incredible to dismiss my opinion for being a white man.

AN: No, I'm not dismissing your opinion. I am tell you that- what the Latino community in America-

(crosstalk)

AN: O.K., let me speak with my voice. And you said I was being hyperbolic. 

(crosstalk)

AN: Let me respond- I'm not.

(crosstalk)

AN: Being a white man is an insult?

BP: When you invoke it to dismiss my opinion-

AN: Being a white man is an insult? Do you think Latinos are living under circumstances that other people may not be right now?

In the Megyn Kelly podcast with guest Rich Lowry, Kelly remarks (beginning at 1:12)

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. It was said and then Abby Phillip allowed it and defended it. Derelict in her duty as the anchor, first of all, and he was 100% right to call her out.

As shown in the Palumbo video (way above), Phillip ended the segment with

We're about to have a whole conversation about that very thing. But I just want to make a point that Brad, all she's saying is that her view of the situation is different yours. I don't think that's an insult. She basically said "I see it differently from you," which is not an insult. It's not.

That was nearly perfect. Unfortunately, Phillip added "also, it's not a racial explanation." 

It was a racial explanation. However, a racial explanation is not necessarily racist, and it was not in the case of Navarro's remarks. All racism is racial- but not everything racial is racist.

Navarro was merely explaining that the Latino community in the USA sees the immigration issue differently than do most white men (actually, most whites of either sex/gender) and thus has a different opinion on the issue. Their perspective is different. She did not suggest that Palumbo as a white man is not entitled to his opinion or even that his view is necessarily wrong. Unavoidably, the Latino community is going to see it through a different lens, either more or less accurately.

Kelly was incensed at Phillip for condoning Navarro's remark(s) and contended (2:05)  "I mean, how dare she allow that to happen on her set? And how dare they keep booking Ana Navarro, whose bread and butter is comments like this?"

In general, but especially when discussing immigration, the individual(s) responsible for booking decisions appreciates getting the perspective of a Latino, especially one such as Navarro, who already had a national following because she is a co-host of The View. She is a compelling figure, and the days of television as a strictly "cool" medium are long gone. (See Trump, Donald; also, Sanders, Bernie.) 

Nonetheless, this was the fun part  At 1:59, Miss anti-identity politics Kelly maintained

I don't know if it matters but Brad also happens to be gay. So he checks the minority boxes. Abby Phillip should be interested in defending him to the extent that it was necessary, though he was raising exactly the right point.

Let's clear it up for Kelly, It most certainly does not matter that Palumbo is gay. Phillip should be no more (nor less) interested in defending any of her guests because he or she is gay. Were the discussion about gay rights or the LGBTQQIA community, Palumbo's perspective as a gay man would be relevant. However, he never suggested that his view of the Trump Administration's immigration policy is informed in any way by his sexuality, and it is unclear why or how it would. And gay people need no more (nor less) defending from a news host than does a straight person.

It turns out that "checking the minority boxes" is more important for the right-wing Megyn Kelly- when that "minority" is a conservative- than it is for most people on the left. Perhaps it's unsurprising for a pundit who asserts that Jesus, a first-century Palestinian, and Santa Claus, a mythical figure, were white.

That's ignoring reality, which was at the heart of this clash. Ignoring race is not proof of objectivity and raising its issue is no evidence of racism. It can, as it was in this case, merely a recognition of reality.

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Scott Jennings Finally Disagrees With Donald Trump

As Mediaite recounts

A CNN panel exploded on Thursday after one guest claimed President Donald Trump “supposedly got shot,” leading to Scott Jennings demanding an immediate correction.

On CNN NewsNight, Abby Phillip had to wrangle control of her panel after podcaster Touré exclaimed that Trump “supposedly” was shot in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. The comment came during a discussion about the president’s health.

Adrienne Elrod, a former campaign spokesperson for former Vice President Kamala Harris, accused the White House of having “not always been forthcoming” about the current president’s health following White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressing Trump’s bruised hands, chalking it up to “minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking, and the use of aspirin” after reading a note from the president’s physician.

Elrod also brought up the point that Trump appeared to forget that he appointed Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Daring to be politically incorrect

“He supposedly got shot in the ear. We never heard from his doctors about that,” Touré added, immediately setting off Jennings, a senior CNN correspondent, and conservative pundit Ben Ferguson.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Did you say supposedly?” Jennings asked, then pointing to the podcaster next to him and saying, “Abby, Abby,” to the panel’s anchor.

“If y’all stop screaming at the table, maybe I can actually respond,” Phillip said over the crosstalk.

“Supposedly,” Jennings said in frustration.

“Supposedly. That’s where we’re at now,” Ferguson added. “Touré, he was shot in the ear.”

Supposedly. That's where we're at now. Toure, he was shot in the ear.

Don't blame Toure, who said merely "supposedly." Instead, blame the only two individuals who have de facto stated that candidate Trump was not struck in the ear by a bullet. Objective yet sentient, Phillip continued as if she were a professional mediator and

“Hold on a second!” Phillip said. “Touré, he was shot in the ear.”

“But did we hear from the doctors? We would always hear from his doctors when he gets shot?” Touré asked.

“Did we hear from his doctors?” Phillip then asked Jennings.

“I mean, all I know is I went to the Republican National Commission and he had a bandage on his ear,” Jennings answered.

“That would be a no,” Touré said.

That indeed would be a "no" but

“He had blood on his face! Where did it come from?” Jennings asked.

Phillip cut through crosstalk yet again and got things back on track.

“This is not really what we’re talking about because the one of the reasons he released this information is because there were photos of his swelling. There were photos of his hand. They kind of had to say something at some point,” she said. “And look, it’s a benign — hold on — it’s benign condition. He is fine. It’s just a function, frankly, of being an older person.”

"Where it did come from,"  asked Jennings. Without the medical report, we don't know.  It may have come from Trump hitting his head, as he was going down, on the pistol of one of the Secret Service agents. It may have come from Trump scraping his ear against the ground. There may have been another source.

There is no reason to doubt, however, that Trump still takes a baby aspirin prescribed for him years ago. Aspirin is a powerful anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombotic non-prescription drug. In the latter role, it helps prevent blood clots and in so doing, makes it very likely that a patient will suffer bleeding episodes.

And yet Donald Trump was hit by a bullet and had the presence of mind to yell "Fight! Fight!" It may have happened that way- but two prominent individuals see it otherwise.

On June 6, Vice President Vance stated "I mean, think about it. It's a guy who, not even a year ago nearly took a bullet in the process of campaigning. Went back on the horse the next day." Nearly took a bullet.

JD Vance said Trump “nearly took a bullet” at his Butler rally.

Why did he say “nearly?” pic.twitter.com/Is0eJ4r0X4

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 13, 2025

It was only 35 later that his boss would confirm Vance's assessment.  The President told Fox News' Dean Cain "The people that are shooters- not so much, but people that, who are shooters, say "it's almost impossible that that was a miss". And it was a hit (pointing to his ear) but it was a miss."

President @realdonaldtrump was saved in Butler, PA by the Grace of God: “I was really saved by somebody very special…. people that are shooters say it is almost impossible that was a miss." pic.twitter.com/rugD5RODCh

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 11, 2025

Almost impossible that that was a miss- but not quite impossible. The President and the Vice President admit that Donald Trump was not hit. Yet, supposedly! supposedly! Jennings and Ferguson should take up their disagreement with Trump himself., the man who slipped and let be known that which is blasphemous for anyone else to suggest even is possible.

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Canny President

Those missiles have a mind of their own, I tell 'ya!

As CNN reported

As the ceasefire teetered on the brink of collapse Tuesday morning, Trump, who has promised to end longstanding wars during his presidency and has openly angled for a Nobel Peace Prize, didn’t hide his frustration at both Israel and Iran for violating the deal he had heralded one day earlier.

“We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before departing to meet with NATO allies in the Netherlands.

The president also suggested that the two countries might not have broken the ceasefire intentionally but quickly added that he planned to speak with Israeli leaders to persuade them to call off additional attacks.

            

Fox News, at least a little favorable to the Trump Administration, does not understand the politics of profanity, circa 2025. In its telling

"I'm not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don't go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I'm not happy with them. I'm not happy with Iran either, but I'm really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning," Trump said.

He continued, "We basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don't know what the **** they're doing."

A mere three months after Donald Trump first was inaugurated as President- over eight years ago- CNN noticed

Swearing has become such a part of Democratic stump speeches that profane clips have become routine in Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez’s speeches. With children on stage behind him, Perez told an audience in Las Vegas this weekend that Trump “doesn’t give a shit about health care.”

Perez, President Barack Obama’s former labor secretary, made similar comments earlier this year.

“They call it a skinny budget, I call it a shitty budget,” Perez said in Portland, Maine.

Maybe it’s a calculated move to conjure up excitement. Maybe it’s a direct response to the President Donald Trump, who repeatedly riled up campaign crowds with expletives incorporated into policy pronouncements. Whatever the motivation, it appears to be a trend – and it’s not just Perez.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this propensity has reappeared in recent months. Acknowledging, "cursing, of course, is not new in American politics," Politico nonetheless recognizes

.... the breadth of swearing is unmistakable, newly fashionable among members of a party in the wilderness who are looking for shortcuts to authenticity to channel voters’ rage.

In recent days, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona said he wanted the “intern” at the National Republican Campaign Congressional Committee who posted “racist shit” on X fired. And appraising the landscape of Trump’s America, Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii noted this week that the “stock market is down but at least everything is more expensive and services are getting shittier.”

Politics, the late Andrew Breitbart once observed, is downstream of culture. And linguistically speaking, Democrats are up a certain creek.

Trump beat them to it, using curses increasingly in his march back to the White House, though for some Democrats it is part of their native tongue.

“I mean, I was swearing before Trump, so I can’t really blame it on him,” Gallego told POLITICO. “I’m gonna blame it more on being in the Marines for as long as I was.”

Of course, that was at least 18 years ago, when Gallego was in his low-to-mid '20s, and he's now a worldly, mature individual. Well, at least worldly.

There is a reason Democrats do this. Donald Trump started it, and he now has won the presidency twice. Positive reinforcement.

Caitlin Legacki, described as "a Democratic campaign veteran," remarked

If elected officials are going to cuss, they have to mean it. If it's authentic to who they are and how they're feeling, voters will probably be fine with it and even relate to it. But if it's not authentic, there's nothing more cringeworthy."

Oh, give me a break. These are national party leaders or officials elected district-wide or statewide. They know precisely what they're doing or saying. It's not authentic but it works because there is nothing more important to be a successful politician than to be able to fake authenticity.

As we should expect, there is no one who can fake authenticity better than an actor. That's the point of acting- convincing viewers you're someone you're not.

And as luck would have it, we have a bad businessman and very good actor in the White House. He's someone who can believably remark "We have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing." 

Trump may have been channeling the zeitgeist and the fears of the public. The current conflict has only contributed to the long-held perspective of Americans that opposing parties in the Middle East always have been fighting and always will. Further, the common instinct (in this and other unpleasant matters) is to howl "they don't know what they're doing."

The cherry on top is for Trump to invoke a profanity. H.L. Mencken is said to have once quipped "nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American. (Underestimate or overestimate anything long enough and you will go broke, but you know what he meant.) Here comes along an excellent actor turned politician who once said "I love the poorly educated," and this remark, complete with expletive, is stated perfectly.

Of course, Iran and Israel both know what they're doing, and they've been doing it. In May, "Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called Israel a 'cancerous tumor' that he vowed would be 'eradicated,'" a boast consistent with previous rhetoric and effort to become a nuclear power. Israel responded with a bombing attack it claimed has set Iran's program back by "two to three years" and, not incidentally, decimated the nation's air defense.

 

The USA then bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, setting Tehran's goal back by anywhere from a few months to several years.  In response, Iran launched a bunch of missiles at a U.S. military base in the Middle East, which (at least according to President Trump) it warned the USA of.  This resulted- as apparently expected- in little damage and no lives lost. hence no American response which might have decimated the country. Quite a sensible move on the regional chessboard by a country clearly quite aware of what it was, and is, doing.

So President Trump's reaction to this lacked credibility, never a priority of his. However, it was an accurate reflection of the emotional response of most Americans and further degrades the credibility of Iran and Israel in their eyes. He will more likely be considered the consummate dealmaker if there is an agreement because "they don't know what the ( ) they're doing." 

Iran and Israel know what they're doing. So, too, does Donald Trump, given that his goal is to win the Nobel Peace Prize, whatever his contribution- or lack thereof- to stability in the region.

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Nothing to See Here, Really

This is not as simple as these tweeters think.

What pisses me off, and it has been said 1000 times. if kamala said the idiotic and demented things , that trump says, every news station, every republican would say she has a screw loose. There are a few MSM TV hosts that call him out. Most gloss over it, as that is just…

— floundered 🇺🇸🦅🌊 (@flounder199) September 24, 2024

CNN's Jake Tapper asked/stated "Donald Trump saying that Kamala Harris has bigger cognitive problems than Joe Biden." Both tweeters slammed the CNN host for the question, with one stating "Tapper deserved it." 

We know what "deserved it" means when a woman is the victim of sexual assault but here it is less clear.  Pelosi's partial response was "Why would you even cover that? This is a person who is not on the level. He is the nominee for President. He is incompetent. Let's not even talk about the silliness of it all. We're not talking issues."

Of course, Republicans and news organs would say Harris "has a screw loose" if she said "idiotic and demented things." The media would do so because Republicans would slam her and the media would report the GOP criticism.

That's how it works. News organizations cover news and when the nominee of the two major parties says something worthwhile and/or outlandish, it's covered. The recipe for Trump's secret sauce includes remarks that are ridiculous to approximately 60% of the population His opponent's recipe includes an emphasis on joy and a claim that she is from and of the middle class, unlike the ostentatiously wealthy Republican nominee.

Trump knows how the game is played. Nancy Pelosi, despite whining "why would you even cover that" does also, including that attacking a journalist to his face rarely brings a rebuke. Kamala Harris, thus far running an excellent campaign, knows that the former House Speaker is more adept at deflecting charges from Donald Trump and turning questions against the interviewer than she herself does.

Jake Tapper's question was predictable and Nancy Pelosi's answer, reasonable. Harris does not say idiotic and demented things but, until she became Vice President, she did make comments that, if they were emphasized by the media, would be very controversial and probably fatal. We should be satisfied that she knew to retreat from those positions in the interest of defeating Donald Trump, a major reason that she has not done a solo interview with a journalist with a national platform.

If the Democratic candidate believed that Trump remains a viable candidate before Tapper and his colleagues gloss over his deceit, racism, rampant greed or cognitive ability, she would be out front slamming them for it. Given her carefully planned mercurial rise over the past six months, the relationship she has established and maintained with the media has been working just fine.

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Not So Clear

At the Trump-Harris presidential debate in Philadelphia, the Vice President stated

And to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy 'cause you don't like the outcome. And be clear on that point. Donald Trump the candidate has said in this election there will be a bloodbath, if this -- and the outcome of this election is not to his liking. Let's turn the page on this. Let's not go back. Let's chart a course for the future and not go backwards to the past.

During the standard CNN 10:00 p.m. Eastern panel discussion, Scott Jennings, GOP strategist and network contributor, evidently accused Kamala Harris of predicting a bloodbath were she elected President  CNN anchor Abby Phillip, determined to be fair and balanced, remarked.

Let's clear this up. You're referring to Trump's use of "bloodbath" when he was talking. He was talking_ I'm going to explain it to people because I think there's confusion about this. Use of the word "bloodbath" when he was talking about jobs in vehicle manufacturing jobs in the United States. Vice President Harris improperly and unfairly mischaracterized that as him saying there would be a bloodbath if he were elected.

MUST WATCH! CNN finally admits Kamala and their people have been lying about Trump's use of the word "bloodbath."

They must know Trump is winning... or else they wouldn't be suddenly fact-checking this. pic.twitter.com/6A6ArebSLv

— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) September 18, 2024

Let's clear up your own statement, Ms. Phillip. Harris had stated that Trump's intention was a bloodbath if he were not elected, not if he were elected.  Moreover, Phillip tried to clear up something that was, and is, not all that clear.

Campaigning in March 2024 for a US Senate candidate who went on to win the primary, Trump declared

If you’re listening, President Xi — and you and I are friends — but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now … you’re going to not hire Americans and you’re going to sell the cars to us, no. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected.

Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

Trump was in fact speaking about auto manufacturing when he invoked the term "bloodbath." However, he stated that the bloodbath would be "for the whole" and immediately thereafter clarified "for the country." He added "that will be the least of it."

He then added "that will be the least of it" because, evidently, he is threatening something beyond a "bloodbath." Whatever that might be is unknowable. However, it at least appears that he meant something beyond a bloodbath.

If  a news host chooses not to disregard facts in favor of an insistence upon "clearing up" the "confusion about this," she at least ought to leave room for the possibility that Mr. Trump meant, well, what he literally said.  Nonetheless, in the interest of the fairness Phillip forswore, consideration should be given to the view of Republican Bill Cassidy as expressed the day after Trump's remark.

The Louisiana senator implied that Trump's words permit the listener, whatever his or her views, to interprets them as wished. He said Trump's rhetoric often "walks up to the edge" and "that kind of rhetoric, it's always on the edge, maybe doesn't cross, maybe does, depending upon your perspective."

A great news organization will not give a political candidate the benefit of the doubt if he is intentionally ambiguous. It will attempt to pin him or her down- and if it tries and is unable to do so, the default interpretation must be the less flattering. In this case, the network was uninterested in trying to determine definitively what Donald Trump was and additionally, one of its major players misinterpreted what he literally said. 

Accuracy, not "fairness," should not be the highest priority of a news organization. Bending over backwards to appear balanced and non-partisan betrays the network's one-time slogan of "facts matter."  

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Adept Journalism

The background, courtesy of CNN:

In the hours after President Joe Biden’s historic decision to step aside from the 2024 presidential race last month, journalists across three major US newsrooms began receiving emails from an anonymous person claiming to have tantalizing new information about the election.

The individual, who identified themself only as “Robert,” sent a trove of private documents from inside Donald Trump’s campaign operation to journalists at Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Beginning on July 22, Politico reported, it began receiving emails from an AOL email address that contained internal communications from a senior Trump campaign official and a research dossier the campaign had put together on Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance. The dossier included what the Trump campaign identified as Vance’s potential vulnerabilities. Politico was also sent portions of a research document about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who had been among the contenders to join Trump on the GOP ticket.

The Times and The Post later reported that they, too, had been sent a similar cache, including a 271-page document on Vance dated Feb. 23 and labeled “privileged & confidential,” that the outlets said was based on publicly available information.

But despite receiving the sensitive campaign files, the three outlets opted to not publish reporting on the trove they’d been handed, even as the the person suggested they still had a variety of additional documents “from [Trump’s] legal and court documents to internal campaign discussions.”

"Themself?" Anyway, on Saturday, the Trump campaign implied that Iran was responsible for the hack and

On Monday, CNN reported that the FBI and other investigators were probing the apparent security breach, which sources said involved compromising the personal email account of longtime Republican and Trump operative Roger Stone.

Iran has denied the allegations, and the US government has declined to officially blame Tehran for the hack, a source told CNN, adding that the hackers’ techniques closely resembled those used by Iranian operatives.

But while the hacking incident, which occurred in June, set off a scramble in the Trump campaign, the FBI and Microsoft, the three news organizations that had received the files held off on publishing information from the trove. The decision marked a reversal from the 2016 election, when news outlets breathlessly reported embarrassing and damaging stories about Hillary Clinton’s campaign after Russian hackers stole a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee, publishing them on the website Wikileaks.

The decision underscored the challenge news organizations face when presented with information potentially obtained by nefarious means and the shifting publishing standards of newsrooms in the wake of the 2016 election, during which Russian disinformation efforts we seen as playing a key role in Trump’s victory.

The justice correspondent for The Nation sees it differently:

WHY THE FUCK would Harris give an interview with any of these publications that are so clearly running a protection game for her opponent? Nah. Harris should give an interview to @theGrio and no one the fuck else, until @nytimes @washingtonpost and @politico PUBLISH HIS EMAILS.

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) August 14, 2024

"News outlets," CNN observes, "breathlessly reported embarrassing and damaging stories about Hillary Clinton's campaign after Russian hackers stole a cache of emails from the Democratic National Committee." Choosing not to do so now may be inconsistent, and the decision in both cases accrued to the benefit of Donald J. Trump.

But that is certainly not the reason for the reticence now. In 2016, news organizations figured Hillary Clinton would win the presidential race anyway and did not want to be accused after the election of running interference for her. (And they generally disliked her.) Now, a victory for the Democratic candidate in what currently appears to be a tossup is less certain than it was in 2016.  News outlets do not want to be accused of putting their thumb on the scale again, as they did for Mr. Trump in 2016.

Moreover, unless one is a Harris campaign operative, it should be clear that the vice-president should be doing interviews. The news media is a conduit to the final destination, the American public, of information gleaned from an interview of a candidate for public office. Information is good. Transparency is good. Even a clash of ideas is good.

One would assume that Elie Mystal would understand that, even though as an employee of The Nation with ideological preferences befitting that role, he's not expected to be objective. Moreover,, as a graduate of Harvard Law School, he need not assume the responsibility of a journalist.  He presumably could fall back on his training as a lawyer and perhaps be of some use in that profession. 

Nonetheless, if Mystal wants to see how a real journalist approaches a subject, he should view the following excerpt of an interview conducted by Bob Acosta.

You know things are bad when CNN and Jim Acosta are calling out Kamala. pic.twitter.com/Lw9KaUogtr

— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) August 14, 2024

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Dictator, Dictatorship, and Dictatorial

When President Biden met tyrant Xi Jinping of Mainland China outside of San Francisco on Wednesday, he may have broached the topics of Chinese spy balloons, breach of American cybersecurity by Mainland China, Beijing's support of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and of North Korea, Tik-Tok, the brutal treatment of the Xinjiang Uyghurs by the Butchers of Beijing. Instead 

Joe Biden said Wednesday he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco.

“Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”

When asked about Biden’s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.”

Alleged journalist Lee had asked "And Mr. President, after today, would you still refer to President Xi as a 'dictator'? This is a term that you used earlier this year.

  "

Newsflash to Lee: Mainland China is a dictatorship run by the Communist Chinese Party completely controlled by Xi Jinping.

She should know that and, absent complete ignorance of world affairs, does. That puts her question in the category of "gotcha." Worse, Lee forfeited an opportunity to ask the head of the world's #1 superpower a question about the world's #2 or #3, superpower, with which the #1 superpower has many points of serious disagreement.

Disappointingly, reporters at The Washington Post responded with 

But in true Biden fashion, he veered off script despite the careful planning of his aides. White House officials had structured the news conference so Biden would take four questions. The president did take the four questions and began to walk away, but couldn’t help himself as a television reporter shouted out another one. Biden turned around and came back to the podium, giving another television reporter time to ask whether the President still believed Xi was a dictator.

“Look, he is. He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said.

Video from the news conference showed some of his aides noticeably grimacing. China’s foreign ministry later said it “strongly opposes” the remarks.

President Biden could have avoided the question and been accused, rightly, of being cowardly and intimidated. He could have lied and stated that Xi Jinping is not a dictator, or given an ambiguous answer and been accused, still rightly, of a lack of honesty and transparency. Republicans would have had a field day, and Biden probably would have sealed his defeat next November.

 Or he could have stated the obvious, that Xi Jinping is "a dictator."

It was a "gotcha" question asked by a reporter who, educated beyond 4th grade, knew the answer. Presumably, M.J. Lee asked the question to put the President on the spot and get her on every CNN news segment in the following two days aired about the summit. Alternatively, she had another motive. As of now, in the absence of more evidence, she deserves the benefit of the doubt and simply represents failed journalism.

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Long and Winding Road Ahead

During Sunday's State of the Union, Dana Bash of CNN asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

before I let you go, I know you have been asked this several times, but I have had multiple people inside Israel reach out to me knowing that I was going to interview you and say the one thing they want to hear from you is that you take personal responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attacks and protecting your people.

I know you say the time for that will come after the war. Why won't you take responsibility now?

When I pressed PM Netanyahu about refusing to take responsibility, he responded by questioning whether FDR was asked that after Pearl Harbor. https://t.co/JT4JnLKR1y

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) November 12, 2023

Surprise! Netanyahu, though pressed by Bash, would not take responsibility. He would not take responsibility because no politician ever takes responsibility. None. He or she may say "I take responsibility" but none will say "I am responsible." The politician then will go on to explain how he/she is not to blame for whatever was said or done.

The reason is obvious. Once a politician admits responsibility, he or she can be held accountable. Opposing politicians will hold up the concession as proof that the individual is not worthy of continuing to hold office. Once they do that, the media will do what the media does, jumping on the bandwagon and question whether the pol should remain in office. Virtually no one will credit him/her for doing what no other public figure has the integrity to do.

It would be particularly perilous for a wartime head of state to admit responsibility because that leadere would be undermining his or her credibility, which would in turn undermine legitimacy. Bash should have known that and if she in fact has had "multiple people inside Israel." tell her that "the one thing they want to hear from" Netanyahu is that he "take personal responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attacks and protecting your people," she has been talking to the wrong individuals. It's unlikely an Israeli politician will do what American politicians won't: admit error. Not going to happen.

However, this was a critical line of questioning:

BASH: "If not the Palestinian Authority, then who?"

NETANYAHU: "There has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. There has to be something else. Otherwise we're just falling into that same rabbit hole." pic.twitter.com/4yWNtVYVWG

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) November 12, 2023

Bash asked

The U.S. also says that any postwar plan for Gaza must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. You appeared to reject that yesterday. You said Israel will not accept a -- quote -- "civilian authority there that educates its children to hate Israel."

So I just want to be clear. Are you saying that Israel would not accept giving control of Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority after the war?

After Netanyahu dismissed the Palestinian Authority because it has "unfortunately failed" to "de-militarize" and "de-radicalize" Gaza, he remarked

So, you have to have some kind of authority, civilian Palestinian authority, that is willing to fight the terrorists and educating -- and, importantly, must educate their children for a future of peace, peace, cooperation, prosperity, cooperation with Israel, not the annihilation of Israel.

After the fighting ends and Hamas is subdued (hopefully eliminated), there still will be a Gaza and there still will have to be an authority ruling it. Gazans have little confidence in the Palestinian Authority, western hegemony wouldn't be accepted by the supermajority Muslims, and it's nothing Israel wants to do in perpetuity. Persian Iran is obviously out, so the ultimate answer probably lies in a some combination of Arab states, actors not partial to drowning the Jewish state.

That would be difficult to accomplish. Buy-in would be difficult to obtain from nations which themselves have wanted no part of ethnic Palestinians. There is one more roadblock: it would require some actual acceptance of genuine responsibility. And as with politicians in Israel and the West, that is asking a great deal.

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Make It a Positive

From the world of mathematics: -3 X +3= -9;  -3 X -3= +9.

Beginning at 1:06 of the tweet/video below,  Anderson Cooper states

Now, many of you think CNN shouldn't have given him any platform to speak and I understand the anger about that- giving him the audience, the time- I get that. But this is what I also get. The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night? That man is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President and according no polling, no other Republican is even close.

Once CNN announced it was going to hold a town hall with former President Trump, many people complained that he was offered any airtime at all. However, following the performance- uh, er, event- the nature of the criticism shifted.

Cooper continues

That man you wee so upset to hear from last night, he may be the President of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you? That's a sampling of about half the country and they are your family members, your neighbors, and they are voting. And many say they are voting for him.

I'd like to believe that if Cooper had proofread or, prior to airing the segment, had read aloud his commentary, he would have realized how absurd the third sentence immediately above is. (Hopefully, that's what Sullivan was applying the adjective "silly" to.)

It was not "a sampling of about half the country." It was a sampling- presumably, that- of the roughly half the country which will vote for Trump or seriously consider voting for him. It was not representative of the country, which includes the nearly 50% which would walk over burning coals before rather than vote for him. CNN selected Republicans and Independents for its audience while omitting Democrats. Some cross-sample.

Concluding, Cooper remarks

Now, maybe you haven't been paying attention to him since he left office, maybe you've been enjoying not hearing from him, thinking that can't happen again, some investigation is going to stop him. Well, it hasn't so far. So if last night showed anything, it showed it can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn't changed and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and be angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?

Anderson surely knows this is silly and illogical. There are many ways to cover Trump responsibly. That debacle — no. https://t.co/EZPeaogUkN

— Margaret Sullivan (@Sulliview) May 12, 2023

It won't make him go away. We all know that because we've all been paying attention to him since he left office as he is in the news every (every) day. Moreover, we all realize that he may be elected President again because we know he is the odds-on favorite to win the nomination of his decadent party. And a couple of days before the townhall event, we learned from The Washington Post, which teams with ABC News on its surveys

When asked who they would support in 2024, 44 percent of voting-age adults say they would "definitely" or "probably" vote for Trump while 38 percent would definitely or probably vote for Biden. The remaining 18 percent are either undecided or gave another answer.

The typically reliable New York Times noted "critics of the poll disparaged it for including all adults in its sample of 1,006, rather than just registered voters."  The typically unreliable CNN and MSNBC (probably also Fox News, though I wouldn't know) omitted from its breathless headline and explanation the four words "of voting-age adults."  The poll was trash and obviously so, yet bolstered the credibility of the leading candidate, whose detractors have argued that unlike other possible GOP nominees, he cannot possibly be elected.

Cooper addressed the opposition of some individuals- overtaken in the aftermath of the event itself- to Trump being given any platform. However, as details about the event trickle out afterward, it should become clear that the problem lay not in the platform but in the nature of the platform. Ever since these "town halls" became a thing, candidates and other politicians have been able to manipulate the forum for their own advantage. The CNN occasion was particularly bad because, unlike most of these shows, opponents of the official were deliberately excluded and the audience was given special instructions. Salon explains

Republican political consultant Matthew Bartlett told Puck's senior political correspondent, Tara Palmeri, that while many members of the audience applauded the former president, "there were also people that sat there quietly disgusted or bewildered," estimating that the audience was split in half.

"The floor manager came out ahead of time and said, Please do not boo, please be respectful. You were allowed to applaud," Bartlett said. "And I think that set the tone where people were going to try their best to keep this between the navigational beacons, and that if they felt compelled to applaud, they would, but they weren't going to have an outburst or they weren't going to boo an answer."  

Nonetheless, there is a possible silver lining to the CNN travesty. Before there is a general election season, there is a primary season.  Aside from Trump, there currently are three candidates- Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy- for the GOP presidential nomination. Each of the three should be given the same courtesy as was given the ex-President. Each could be granted a town hall meeting with Republicans and Independents; no Democrats need apply. The ground rules should be the same, including Kaitlan Collins as the moderator and booing discouraged. As more candidates emerged, they should be extended the same privilege by CNN.

If this were to transpire, one or more of the candidates would benefit more than Donald Trump did or could have hoped to. Trump is a known commodity. The cake is baked, with virtually everyone having a strong opinion of a fellow  whose floor is high and ceiling, low. Not so with the other candidates, who would be given a chance to shine (or flame out).

Two wrongs, some would say, do not make a right. In this case, multiplication of negative numbers is a much more applicable analogy. A negative number is a negative number, yet when it is multiplied by another negative number, a positive number results.

Give them all (and every declared Democratic presidential nominee) a shot. CNN's Chris Licht may decide not to do this and instead declare that he has learned from his error(s) or give another other excuse for not doing what is right. But beware. As he has done for one, he must do for all or face the charge- justified- that he's in the tank for Donald J. Trump.

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The Fox News Difference

In its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox and its parent company, Dominion Voting System maintains that

In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory.

Off the air, the network's stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them "mind-blowingly nuts," "totally off the rails" and "completely bs" - often in far earthier terms.

The network's top primetime stars - Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity - texted contemptuously of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues pointing that out publicly or on television.

Ingraham called Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell "a bit nuts." Carlson, who famously demanded evidence from Powell on the air, privately used a vulgar epithet for women to describe her. A top network programming executive wrote privately that he did not believe the shows of Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro were credible sources of news.

Even so, top executives strategized about how to make it up to their viewers - among Trump's strongest supporters - after Fox News' election-night team correctly called the pivotal state of Arizona for Democratic nominee Joe Biden before other networks. A sense of desperation pervades the private notes from Fox's top stars, reflecting an obsession with collapsing ratings.

So it was an amazing case of bad timing (or chutzpah/gall) that the very night after this revelation, the host of "Dan Abrams Live" commented

One of the reasons so few trust the mainstream media is that so many refuse to accept and admit their biases. They're just neutral observers focusing on the fact. At least Fox News, their prime time folks admit that they're basically in the tank for the GOP. They speak at conservative events and many outright admit that they support Republicans and they'll bask President Biden at every opportunity.

But most of the left-leaning media and the left wing media insist they just play it straight. They play this game of just trying to pretend that they're not biased, even on a network as left-leaning as MSNBC.

Abrams, who presents himself as opinionated yet balanced, objective, and non-partisan, charged

Transparency is the foundation upon which journalism is built, except when it applies to them. And this lack of transparency or self-awareness about their own beliefs is a big part of the problem why the public's trust in media has eroded so much.

It's a misconception that erasing the line between journalist (or media personality) and partisan political hack constitutes transparency. And if there is any truth to Dominion's argument, prominent Fox News personalities knew Trump had lost but promoted the lie that the presidential election had been stolen. They were "in the tank for the GOP," honesty and transparency be damned.  Until Dan Abrams- or anyone- credibly suggests that MSNBC or CNN engages has allowed its bias even to approach that level of deception, Fox News stands alone among the three major cable news networks in its contempt for truth and accuracy.

So, you'll enjoy this: we put what Fox hosts Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham said, on air, side by side with what they were saying to each other on text, in private, when the cameras stopped rolling.

It's a must-watch and it's pretty shocking:pic.twitter.com/tkrkzpF5tY

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 18, 2023

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Sunset

This is how politicians should be interviewed- not only Republicans but also Democrats, and not only by CNN's Kaitlan Collins. But in this case it was she and in the wake of President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Scott was the a prime, and deserving, target.

In this interview, Florida senator Scott insists that President Biden has cut Medicare, though he is careful not to say “cut Medicare benefits.”In a fact check on Thursday, CNN noted that deputy director of the Medicare policy program at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Mark

Cubanski explained that the Inflation Reduction Act’s projected prescription drug savings of $237 billion will largely come from three particular provisions. None of these provisions cuts Medicare benefits.

One provision allows the federal government, starting in 2026, to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over the prices of certain high-cost drugs for Medicare. Another requires the drug companies to pay rebates to Medicare if the price of certain drugs rises faster than inflation. A third provision delays, until 2032, the implementation of a Trump administration rule that had never taken effect and already been postponed until 2027. That rule, which would have effectively banned rebates from drug companies to insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, had been expected not only to increase Medicare spending but to force Medicare beneficiaries to pay higher premiums.

So, again, not even the cost-saving parts of the law are Medicare cuts. And then there are the additional provisions Cubanski mentioned above, which will add expenditures to the government but save seniors money – such as the new $35-per-month cap on out-of-pocket spending on insulin and a new $2,000-per-year cap, starting in 2025, on out-of-pocket prescription drug spending in Medicare Part D.

Scott insists that he hasn't endorsed benefit cuts. At 6:10 of the video with Collins, he states

I've been clear. I will not reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits. Alright? I've been clear. And I was in my plan. Congress needs to fix Med- make sure that Medicare and Social Security survive.

Sen. Rick Scott says "no," it wasn’t a mistake to propose a plan that would require all legislation, including that relating to programs like Social Security and Medicare, to sunset unless Congress reauthorizes them. Our full interview this morning: pic.twitter.com/wOxxApUCpR

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) February 9, 2023

It is an article of faith- or at least, it seems to be- of Republicans that Medicare and Social Security will die on the vine (i.e., not survive) unless benefits are slashed. There is a little bit of logic there. Scott, as with some of his GOP colleagues, says he will never vote to raise taxes. If Congress does not increase the maximum annual wage- now $160,200- that's subject to Social Security tax, the trust fund eventually, in a matter of decades, will run out.

The cap, as Senator Bernie Sanders and other Democrats have long advocated, could be increased or (as it should be) eliminated altogether. That's a bridge to decency Republicans will not cross.

Senator Scott knows that cutting, or decreasing, benefits won't fly politically. Therefore, he wants to sunset "entitlements" (earned benefits) which- in the short term- does not necessarily cut benefits.  A lot of voters don't know what sunsetting is (and it's not an actual word). Elderly individuals, the Florida senator believes, may believe it wouldn't happen for awhile, and Republicans have been trying for years to condition young people to accept as inevitable that Social Security, if not Medicare also, won't last forever. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, if he's not lying through his teeth, is not keen on Scott's plan. That's for now, though. Republicans in the House of Representatives, which the GOP controls, are unpredictable, and ghastly.  So it becomes essential for President Biden, as he did in his State of the Union address, to tell the public that some Republicans want to sunset the program and tie that to a decrease in benefits. And it can only help if journalists, such as Kaitlan Collins did one fine Thursday morning, persist in asking the uncomfortable questions.

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He Always Had It In Him

What happened to Rudy Giuliani is that (nearly) nothing happened to Rudy Giuliani.

Every time I see ads for CNN's "Giuliani: What Happened to America's Mayor," I think "He was never America's mayor and what happened is a whole lot of people only just realized it."

— Renée Graham 🏳️‍🌈 (@reneeygraham) January 2, 2023

In a 2006 review in The Los Angeles Times of "Grand Illusion: the untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11" by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, Kit R. Roane writes of a New York mayor whose "political statute was in a tailspin and whose private life was being rocked by illness and scandal."  Then on a beautiful Tuesday morning in early (meteorological) autumn, two planes were flown into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan by Islamic fundamentalists of Al Qaeda and, as understood by Barrett/Collins,  the myth of "America's Mayor" was born. 

Roane explains

Police officers and firefighters hardly communicated. With radios that didn’t operate between departments or work at all in steel high-rises, many firefighters didn’t get the final mayday call to evacuate the North Tower before it fell. Cut off from relevant information, emergency operators continued to tell victims in the tower to stay put even though top fire chiefs had called for a complete evacuation almost immediately after arriving on the scene.

Although terrorists eight years earlier had exploded a bomb beneath one of the towers

Barrett and Collins’ detailed research shows a mayor who utterly failed to grasp the importance of readying the city for another terrorist attack. Lou Anemone, the police department’s chief operating officer during much of Giuliani’s tenure, recalls trying to brief the mayor on a citywide terrorism security plan in 1998. “Rudy glazed over,” he said, adding: “We never had any discussion about security at the World Trade Center. We never even had a drill or exercise there.... There was just a lack of recognition of the problem at City Hall.”

The city's Director of Emergency Management promoted placing the city's command center in the World Trade Center complex, a recommendation implemented by Mayor Giuliani.

That decision ill-served the people of the City of New York, but was a political boon for Giuliani.  The command center collapsed in the attack and viewers nationwide (probably, worldwide) were treated to repeated video of the Mayor walking around the city and- owing to the impressive visuals- seemingly calm, confident, and  in charge.

Giuliani's lack of concern for security in his city contributed to the disastrous impact of the attack. However, the impression television, whose coverage of news understandably was consumed by  "9/11" for months, was of a mayor responding decisively, forcefully, and effectively to an unprecedented crisis which hit an American city and terrified the nation at-large.

The myth gradually gathered strength, as of a snowball rolling slowly down a mountain, for many years as the legend of "America's Mayor" was born, reinforced by the media, and rarely challenged.  If "Giuliani: What Happened to America's Mayor" is true to the title, Rudy Giuliani again will be portrayed as what he never was. A better show would be "CNN: What Happened to 'The Most Trusted Name in News'?"

 

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