If there&#8217;s one key rule to American politics, it’s this: Americans do not like ugly pictures on their television.
There’s a lot Americans will tolerate, so long as they don’t have to see it on their televisions. Bad things happen constantly, both around the world and here at home. In a country of 340 million people, that’s inevitable. But when bad things elevate to television on a consistent basis, people tend not to like it. And that&#8217;s what has happened with ICE activity in major cities.
Who gets blamed for those ugly pictures on the television becomes the question, but it is not typically good for the elevation of an issue when raised under a particular president. If there are tons of pictures of people crossing the border en masse on our television under Joe Biden, it is not going to redound to his benefit. If there are a lot of ugly pictures on television of ICE agents confronting illegal immigrants or people who are attempting to block and tackle on behalf of illegal immigrants, it turns out that Americans aren&#8217;t going to like that either.
Americans generally like the idea of Immigration and Customs Enforcement doing immigration enforcement, finding people who are here illegally and deporting them, particularly if those people are criminals.
But what they do not like are pictures on their television screens of mass mobilization in the streets. They don&#8217;t like images of people being shot in their cars, even under disputed circumstances like Renee Good.
Fifty-six percent of Americans thought ICE was being too tough in November; today, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-trump-greenland-trump-poll/">that number is 61%</a>. Only about 15% say they&#8217;re not being tough enough. Among independents, only 35% say that the protesters have gone too far.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2349?elementPosition=6&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The Trump administration would like to believe that Americans believe that the people being prioritized for deportation are criminal illegal immigrants, because that is who is generally being prioritized: criminal illegal immigrants. But increasingly, Americans are not feeling that.
In November, 48% of Americans said that it was largely dangerous criminals who were being prioritized for deportation. Today, that number is 44%. Approval for the Trump administration&#8217;s program to deport immigrants illegally in the United States has dropped from 51% in December, down to 46% today.
It isn&#8217;t about the goals; it is about the pictures. Fifty-three percent of Americans apparently say that ICE operations in the United States should be decreased. Those are not great numbers for the president on an issue where, generally, he is quite popular.
But that doesn&#8217;t mean people trust Democrats.
A recent poll out from the Wall Street Journal looked at which party in Congress is best able to <a href="https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2012737797832966225">handle border security</a>. Since Democrats are not trusted on this issue, the Republican numbers look good.
Ugly pictures on the television do make a difference. This is likely why Democrats are sending protesters into the streets now.
But Democrats can overplay their hand. Right now, people are attributing the ugly images to the activities of ICE. But what happens when, for example, chaos breaks out at a church, which is what happened over the weekend, when a chaotic mob stormed through and shut down a Minnesota church over a pastor&#8217;s alleged ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The First Amendment does not mean that you get to walk on private property and start shouting in the middle of somebody&#8217;s business or in the middle of a church service.
The FACE Act prohibits desecrating houses of worship or interfering with Christian worshipers. The DHS says they will investigate. “All of the civil DOJ agitators aren&#8217;t just targeting our officers,” said the DHS in a post. “Now they&#8217;re targeting churches to then going from hotel to hotel, church to church, hunting for federal law enforcement who are risking their lives to protect Americans.”
This sort of activity by Democrats is likely to backfire.
The most recent ugly image people have in their heads is the image of Renee Good.
But that image can be replaced by a series of ugly images from Democrats, including, for example, storming churches.
There&#8217;s a fascinating <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/martin-luther-kings-game-theory-c33a577e?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqd7S08GEXiQtGaQ5zxl9lQ4CDKDNsoRDUaAA3VKE-QxR5JeQBma1kPr&amp;gaa_sig=fJoFFsQ3hXvmU_v4MjDcqQaWgVg0LpSM1bR8u86IiMpvsiJduWpcV1aqKX2WGjjtpe-Om7UQChhTMC66wbF4eA%3D%3D&amp;gaa_ts=696e74cb&amp;utm_source=chatgpt.com">piece</a> by Roland Fryer in The Wall Street Journal talking about the effect of protests. And one of the points Roland Fryer makes is that a nonviolent protest that does not disrupt things like church services is likely to work out better for you than being absolutely confrontational, violent, or chaotic.
He writes, “When I was young, I mistook restraint for weakness and anger for honesty. What I failed to see — and what we still fail to teach students—was that Martin Luther King wasn’t avoiding conflict. He was engineering it, on terms that made progress possible.”
In other words, don&#8217;t run into a church, start screaming at the top of your lungs, and hope that Americans are going to like that sort of thing — because they very likely will not.
Many things are less about the policy than about the implementation.
And ugly pictures, more often than not, make the difference.

TOPSHOT-US-IMMIGRATION-ICE-SHOOTING

How Ugly Images On TV Shape Immigration Politics

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Legacy Media

Minneapolis

Minnesota

Opinion

Television

Border czar Tom Homan said on Thursday that the Trump administration needs to be &#8220;better at messaging&#8221; on Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to push back on what he called &#8220;false&#8221; legacy media narratives.
Homan <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6387789141112">told</a> Fox News host Laura Ingraham that recent polls showing growing disapproval for Trump&#8217;s massive deportation operations are &#8220;egged on by the press.&#8221; Recent surveys conducted by the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/01/15/trump-ice-foreign-policy-economy-immigration-polls">Associated Press</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/republicans-split-trumps-aggressive-immigration-crackdown-reutersipsos-poll-2026-01-15/">Reuters</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/14/politics/ice-minnesota-cnn-poll">CNN</a>, and <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3945">Quinnipiac</a> show Trump&#8217;s approval rating on immigration slipping, despite immigration being one of the top issues that helped him win the 2024 election.
“Tom, are you concerned about the CNN and Quinnipiac polls that show declining public support for ICE and President Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement? Do you think those are accurate, or are they being egged on by the press?” Ingraham asked.
&#8220;I think they’re being egged on by the press. I think there’s a lot of false media out there. And I think we need to be better at messaging at what we’re doing,&#8221; Homan replied. &#8220;Look, bottom line is 70% of everybody arrested is a criminal. We need to start advertising that every single day and put their pictures all over social media.&#8221;
&#8220;We just gotta push back the lies because a lot of people don&#8217;t get the facts,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And we gotta be better about getting the facts out there.&#8221;
As part of gaining an advantage in messaging, Homan also proposed creating a &#8220;database&#8221; of people who are arrested for impeding ICE operations.
&#8220;These people saying, follow ICE, film ICE — you can protest, they have that right. But when you cross that line, and we&#8217;ve proven it, if you interfere or impede or assault an ICE officer, you will be prosecuted,&#8221; Homan said.
He added that he wants to make people who are arrested for getting in the way of ICE operations &#8220;famous&#8221; and will have their faces &#8220;put on TV.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to make their employers and their communities and their schools know who these people are,&#8221; Homan continued.
Following the shooting death of Renee Good last week, protesters have followed ICE around the city, and in some cases, have confronted and impeded federal agents. Protesters in Minnesota were encouraged by Democratic Governor Tim Walz to record ICE activities to help the state &#8220;create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans&#8221; that could be used for &#8220;future prosecutions.&#8221;
Demonstrators surrounded federal law enforcement officers on Wednesday night following another ICE shooting, when an agent shot a Venezuelan illegal immigrant in the leg after the agent was attacked by three illegal immigrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security. During the protests following Wednesday night&#8217;s shooting, agitators threw fireworks at law enforcement, and authorities had to clear them out of the area with tear gas.
Some federal law enforcement vehicles were also vandalized on Wednesday night, and one video showed agitators breaking into an agent&#8217;s equipment box, which was in the back of a vehicle.
&#8220;If the hateful rhetoric doesn&#8217;t stop, there&#8217;s going to be more bloodshed. It&#8217;s not over,&#8221; Homan said. &#8220;What scares me the most is there&#8217;s going to be another death.&#8221;

Tom Homan

Border Czar Says Trump Admin Needs To Be ‘Better At Messaging’ To Combat ‘False’ ICE Narratives

Polls

Trump Administration

CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil delivered a New Year&#8217;s Day message promising changes in coverage at the legacy media network, at least as far as he is concerned. Dokoupil, who will helm the outlet&#8217;s iconic &#8220;CBS Evening News,&#8221; said he was ready to pull out all the stops to make viewers trust the news again.
Dokoupil, who appeared regularly on &#8220;CBS Mornings&#8221; alongside hosts Gayle King and former pro-footballer Nate Burleson, is making the move to primetime amid other changes being made by new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. He delivered a statement promising to do better via a video posted Thursday to X.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.&#8221;
That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… <a href="https://t.co/NKdvRJjYCS">pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS</a>
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/2006696909235171821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,&#8221; Dokoupil observed. &#8220;But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it&#8217;s not just us. It&#8217;s all of legacy media. And I get it. I get it because I&#8217;ve been hearing about it from just about everybody for more than 20 years as I&#8217;ve traveled America on this assignment or that.&#8221;
Dokoupil went on to list a number of stories with which people on one side of the aisle or the other had taken issue: from COVID lockdowns and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&#8217;s emails to Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop, the Iraq War, and former President Joe Biden&#8217;s fitness for office — and he said that he understood why people were so upset.
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&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you,&#8221; he conceded. &#8220;And I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt this way, too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn&#8217;t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life — and that the most urgent questions simply weren&#8217;t being asked.&#8221;
&#8220;So here&#8217;s my promise to you,&#8221; Dokoupil declared. &#8220;You come first. Not advertisers, not politicians, not corporate interests. And yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS. I report for you — which means I tell you what I know, when I know it, and how I know it. And when I get it wrong, I&#8217;ll tell you that, too.&#8221;
He said that also meant he would hold everyone &#8220;to the very same standard&#8221; and dig in to &#8220;what works in this country and what doesn&#8217;t — and not only what should change, but the good ideas that should never change. I think telling the truth is one of them.&#8221;

CBS Mornings

CBS News Anchor Announces New Direction For 2026: Actual Journalism

Bari Weiss

CBS News

Journalism

Media

Politics

Even before he raised his right hand to take the Oath of Office for the second time, Donald Trump was warring with legacy media outlets over who would control the narrative. That battle played out all year long in headlines, press rooms, and on the Sunday morning political talk shows.
The Spin Cycle was there all year long, capturing the moments Democrats and the legacy media worked overtime to spin the narrative against President Trump and his administration. 
So, as 2025 comes to a close, let&#8217;s look back at five times that happened.
<h4>Inauguration Day:</h4>
The Sunday shows aired just hours before Trump was officially sworn in, and already a question hung in the air: was a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/spin-cycle-today-the-world-either-ends-or-it-begins-again">second Trump presidency</a> a new beginning or the beginning of the end?
ABC News host Jonathan Karl opened &#8220;This Week&#8221; with this statement: &#8220;We come on the air this morning on the precipice of a historic moment, one that feels more like the beginning of a new era than a new presidency.&#8221;
He balanced that almost optimistic sentiment, however, by pausing to note that Trump would swear the oath in &#8220;the very building that was attacked by rioters shortly before the last inauguration.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“We come on the air this morning on the precipice of a historic moment, one that feels more like the beginning of a new era than a new presidency.” <a href="https://twitter.com/jonkarl?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JonKarl</a> has the latest on Donald Trump’s return to Washington: <a href="https://t.co/DK1VYkzLWF">https://t.co/DK1VYkzLWF</a> <a href="https://t.co/CyrF40EIEz">pic.twitter.com/CyrF40EIEz</a>
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1880981125557891496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Of course, several Democrats voiced concerns over policy changes Trump promised to make, from tariffs to mass deportations, saying that they expected more bad than good to come out of the president&#8217;s second term. But on &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; a CBS News poll suggested that the public took a different view than the Democrats.
&#8220;There is majority optimism in the country about the next four years with Donald Trump as president,&#8221; Anthony Salvanto explained, showing a graphic of the poll results that said 60% were optimistic about Trump&#8217;s second term.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
A majority of Americans say they are optimistic about Donald Trump&#8217;s second term, a CBS News poll finds one day before the president-elect&#8217;s inauguration, with high expectations for the economy after he returns to office.<a href="https://twitter.com/SalvantoCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SalvantoCBS</a> breaks down what we&#8217;re seeing: <a href="https://t.co/wXABLCOVNc">pic.twitter.com/wXABLCOVNc</a>
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1881039442477232421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h4>DOGE Musk Be Stopped!</h4>
By February, nearly all of the new Trump administration hit the ground running — save for a few nominations <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/adam-schiff-complains-bondi-isnt-doing-the-job-his-party-is-blocking-her-from-getting">held up</a> in the Senate. That group included billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, with Trump&#8217;s full support, spearheading efforts to streamline the federal government via the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
ABC News anchor Martha Raddatz <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/spin-cycle-this-sudden-move-toward-government-accountability-doge-musk-be-stopped">dove in headfirst</a>, playing up the &#8220;chaos and confusion&#8221; caused by DOGE&#8217;s efforts, emphasizing details such as how much &#8220;access&#8221; to sensitive information DOGE employees must have in order to complete their tasks.
Raddatz had help from Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), who claimed, &#8220;I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly, since Watergate. The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly, since Watergate,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy tells <a href="https://twitter.com/MarthaRaddatz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MarthaRaddatz</a>.
“The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes.” <a href="https://t.co/XbLNUK9FRE">https://t.co/XbLNUK9FRE</a> <a href="https://t.co/mzJMn0uscV">pic.twitter.com/mzJMn0uscV</a>
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1888596549212443075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Murphy did not, however, endeavor to explain what was corrupt about suggesting that the American people should not be forced to fork over tax dollars to fund Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in Central and South America or build electric cars for Vietnam — just a few of the wasteful items uncovered by DOGE employees.
The Connecticut Democrat even suggested that &#8220;full-scale&#8221; opposition to Musk and DOGE was not only reasonable but necessary: &#8220;You cannot just rely on the court system when the challenge to the Constitution and the billionaire takeover is so acute and so urgent.&#8221;
The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser also weighed in, asking, “How is it possible that one unelected billionaire, the richest man in the world, can unilaterally do that without any process?”
To date, according to the DOGE website, the department has uncovered some $214 billion in savings, which amounts to more than $1,200 per taxpayer.
<h4 class="css-12aqo6z e1a9f8qs0">Beat The Press</h4>
In May, President Trump sat down for an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/spin-cycle-trump-takes-on-nbc-anchor-in-combative-meet-the-press-interview">interview</a> with NBC’s Kristen Welker, moderator of &#8220;Meet the Press,&#8221; and he routinely pushed back on the framing of her questions.
Welker asked about the economy, pressing Trump to say whether or not Americans were still living in the Biden economy or in his — and he threaded the needle carefully, noting that some policies would give noticeable effects more quickly than others.
&#8220;I think certain aspects of it are. Costs are. I was able to get down the costs, but even that, it takes a while to get them down but we got them down good. … We lost $5-6 billion a day [on trade] with Biden — $5-6 billion. And I’ve got that down to a great number right now in a record time.&#8221;
True to form, NBC published a piece on the interview stating that Trump had claimed ownership of the &#8220;good parts&#8221; of the economy while blaming Biden for the bad.
Welker pressed Trump on whether or not he believed everyone in the United States — whether citizen or not — was entitled to due process and the right to plead their case before a judge, and Trump’s reply was simple: “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.”
&#8220;We have thousands of people … some of the worst, most dangerous on earth — and I was elected to get them the hell out of here and the courts are holding me from doing it,” Trump added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a>: &#8220;We have thousands of people &#8230; some of the worst, most dangerous on earth — and I was elected to get them the hell out of here and the courts are holding me from doing it.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/uNJESyWas1">pic.twitter.com/uNJESyWas1</a>
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1919022289397452899?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h4>They Really Can’t Help It, Can They?</h4>
In September, the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus prompted President Trump to issue one of the first public statements mourning his friend. He later took the stage at Kirk’s memorial, expressing sorrow and anger before a crowd of thousands.
Charlie’s widow, Erika, also spoke at the memorial service, where she said she had forgiven the man responsible for murdering her husband and leaving her two children without their father: “That young man, that young man. On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That man, that young man, I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Erika Kirk forgives the man who murdered her husband:
&#8220;My husband Charlie&#8230;he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life&#8230;that young man&#8230;
I forgive him.
I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/Pd1yGRMRVw">pic.twitter.com/Pd1yGRMRVw</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1969893178393206823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
On MSNBC (Now MS NOW), Ayman Mohideen praised Erika Kirk — but he used her speech to attack President Trump for taking a different route.
&#8220;There is that disconnect between the grief that a mother who is just going to bury her husband, the father of her children, and a president who’s talking about the politics of this moment,” Mohideen complained. &#8220;And I think that’s what my takeaway was from that speech, you know, the opportunity for the president to try to heal and bring the country, as many had hoped he would, and not doing it in the way that many people would expect a president to do.&#8221;
On CNN, former Democratic National Committee comms director Xochitl Hinojosa gave essentially the same assessment: &#8220;I think in times like this, especially when there is political violence, you need the president, regardless of who it is, to bring the country together. And that has not happened. This was an opportunity for Trump to do that. He did not take that opportunity. The person who really did that was Erika Kirk.&#8221;
<h4>Jay Who? Sunday Shows Ignore Virginia AG Scandal</h4>
When a text scandal plagued Attorney General-elect Jay Jones (D-VA) in October, legacy media outlets all but ignored it — a move that likely aided him in coasting past incumbent and Trump-ally Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) in November.
After the scandal broke, the topic was only discussed on NBC&#8217;s &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; — and even then, it was not the show&#8217;s host who made it a topic of discussion. Marc Short, who served as Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, brought it up.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
BONKERS. Neera Tanden excuses Virginia Democrat AG candidate Jay Jones calling for the assassination of a Republican leader and his kids as just merely just a “private conversation.”
Utterly disgraceful. 🤡🤡🤡🤡 
<a href="https://t.co/N5KEyFZHPU">pic.twitter.com/N5KEyFZHPU</a>
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1974871008147616176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Can we stop with the pearl-clutching about the mean tweets and the sombrero tweets?” he asked. “This week it came to light that a Democrat candidate for attorney general in the state of Virginia called for the assassination of a political opponent, called for the assassination of that political opponent’s family, and there’s not one national Democrat calling for him to step aside — not one! It’s disgraceful.”
Kristen Welker prompted Neera Tanden, who worked in the Biden White House, to then weigh in, and she almost immediately pivoted to suggest that Trump was worse.
“I mean, I absolutely think people should criticize that, 100%,” Tanden said. &#8220;I think it was a private conversation he had, but still awful and disgusting … it should be condemned, but then we should condemn that, but then you should condemn when the president calls the Democratic Party the ‘party of satan.’”
Short mentioned the Jones scandal in light of so many Democrats engaged in a public meltdown over a few memes featuring House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) with a fake mustache and a sombrero.
Vice President JD Vance also pushed back on efforts to scuttle the story, saying, &#8220;The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages. I&#8217;m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race.&#8221;

President Trump Delivers Remarks In North Carolina

Spin Cycle: Five Times The Legacy Media, Trump Battled For Narrative Control In 2025

ABC News

Donald Trump

NBC News

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that The New York Times is a “national security” threat that must be “stopped.”
Trump made the comments in an early morning Truth Social post, accusing the paper of printing false articles. Trump has long fought with the paper and filed a massive defamation suit against the Times earlier this year accusing the newspaper of lying about him. 
“The Failing New York Times, and their lies and purposeful misrepresentations, is a serious threat to the National Security of our Nation. Their Radical Left, Unhinged Behavior, writing FAKE Articles and Opinions in a never ending way, must be dealt with and stopped. THEY ARE A TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! Thank you for you attention to this matter,” Trump posted. 
Last month, Trump slammed the Times after it published a story claiming that the president was losing energy and slowing down. 
&#8220;[T]he Radical Left Lunatics in the soon to fold New York Times did a hit piece on me that I am perhaps losing my Energy, despite facts that show the exact opposite,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “They know this is wrong, as is almost every thing that they write about me, including election results, ALL PURPOSELY NEGATIVE. This cheap ‘RAG’ is truly an ‘ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.’”
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In his defamation filed in October, Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/round-two-trump-files-another-defamation-suit-against-the-new-york-times">said</a> the Times printed false and defamatory statements about his business career that damaged his professional reputation. The suit also names multiple reporters for the Times and Penguin Random House, which published a book on Trump’s business career. He is asking for $15 billion in damages. 
“The statements in question wrongly defame and disparage President Trump’s hard-earned professional reputation, which he painstakingly built for decades as a private citizen before becoming President of the United States, including as a successful businessman and as star of the most successful reality television show of all-time— The Apprentice,” the suit said. 
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
That suit followed a similar one Trump filed in September targeting the Times and multiple reporters he said made defamatory statements to maliciously interfere in the outcome of the 2024 election. That suit was <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/judge-trump-cut-complaint-nyt/">tossed</a> out by Judge Steven Merryday, who said it was improper.

UK Hosts President Trump And First Lady Melania Trump For State Visit – Day Three

Trump Calls The New York Times A ‘National Security’ Threat That Must Be ‘Stopped’

New York Times

U.S.

One of the big questions that has plagued American politics for the last decade and a half is: What the hell is going on?
In order to understand what the hell is going on, I think we need to understand the transformation that happened around 2014.
In 2012, we had what I consider to be the most consequential election of my lifetime, the one that everybody forgets. That&#8217;s the one that I think was really important. Why?
Because in 2008, Barack Obama, America&#8217;s first black president, was elected on the platform of unifying Americans around race. Racial optimism in the country was at an all-time high, according to the polling data.
And then, in 2012, Barack Obama, who had been a very progressive and left-wing president, who had pushed Obamacare through, lost popularity. So he decided that the best way to win reelection was not to broadcast a unifying message, but to divide Americans by race and then to cobble together enough racial coalitions in order to win a victory. He defeated Mitt Romney, the most milquetoast candidate in the history of American politics, in what was a fairly solid victory. 
And that seemed to change everything, because by 2014, race relations in the United States were on the decline. Barack Obama — who had made a lot of promises to a lot of people — needed to fulfill those promises, particularly on issues of race.
He claimed Trayvon Martin could have been his son. That was a racial claim because what he was saying was that any black person would have been subjected to the same treatment as Trayvon Martin, that circumstances did not matter. He said the same thing with regard to Ferguson, Missouri, where he claimed that nobody would make up the kinds of experiences that Michael Brown had undergone.
Of course, it turned out that in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown&#8217;s acolytes, people who were pseudo-witnesses, actually did make up the story about Michael Brown claiming that he had raised his hands: Hands up, don&#8217;t shoot! and all of the rest.
Thus, by 2014, race relations were on a steep decline in the United States, and have never recovered.
That is because so much of this attitude is racially divisive. The attitude was then baked into American politics.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2336-how-white-men-became-the-targets-of-america-s-most-powerful-institutions?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
There&#8217;s a fascinating and important <a href="https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/">piece</a> in Compact magazine by Jacob Savage, talking about the realities of hiring and firing in the elite institutions of the United States, which became explicitly race-based around 2014.
He writes: 
<blockquote>The doors seemed to close everywhere and all at once. In 2011, the year I moved to Los Angeles, white men were 48 percent of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9 percent. The Atlantic’s editorial staff went from 53 percent male and 89 percent white in 2013 to 36 percent male and 66 percent white in 2024. White men fell from 39 percent of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18 percent in 2023. In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life. </blockquote>
There are people who are DEI advocates who will claim that this is the natural state of things, that white people were being artificially elevated. And when that ended, thanks to DEI, white people fell out of positions of power. 
But the reality is the opposite: America had been, for at least a couple of generations, generally a meritocracy, particularly on issues of race. For example, when you go back to how hiring was done in TV studios, some of the most Left-leaning areas in American life in 2011, it wasn&#8217;t that the heads of the writers&#8217; room were selecting for white people; it was that they were selecting for the funniest people. 
And then they decided to radically shift how they did hiring and firing, thus dispossessing people of the positions that they had earned in favor of other people based on group characteristics.
I&#8217;m 41. People of my generation were brought up in the 1990s, and we were taught from a very, very early age that Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s exhortation to judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, was morally correct.
That’s because it is morally correct.
And then an entire cadre of elite institutional professionals decided not to do that anymore. Not only that, they decided, in many cases, that the majority of potential employees in a potential applicant pool were bad because of the immutable characteristics, the color of their skin, or their maleness. The idea was that these people were somehow lesser, that they had participated in systemic discrimination, and even if they themselves were not racist, the system was racist and thus these people had to be dispossessed. 
They took the most tolerant cohort of people, people who had been trained in the idea of a colorblind meritocracy, and told them that colorblind meritocracy was for them, but it wasn&#8217;t for anyone else. These people were told that they should continue to adhere to an idea of colorblind meritocracy because it was morally correct, but they were the beneficiaries of racialist systems, and therefore, they had to pay.
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That is unsustainable. There&#8217;s one system for everyone. And if you are told that colorblind meritocracy is something that you should morally accept — which is true — and then you are told it doesn&#8217;t apply to you, it only applies to everyone else, you are likely to get a generation of people who start to reject a colorblind meritocracy and start to look at race relations as a zero sum game rather than an additive bonus.
They start to see everything as a question of who gets the job based on immutable characteristics, and start to view themselves as a put-upon identity group, because they are a put-upon identity group. If a group is determined to be lesser on the basis of immutable characteristics, they&#8217;re going to start seeing themselves in identitarian ways.
That doesn&#8217;t mean that they are right to do so. It does mean, however, that the only way to destroy all of this, this new identitarian moment we are living in, where there’s an identitarianism of the Left that adheres to the idea that group identity is really, really good except if you&#8217;re talking about white Christian men, and an identitarian Right that is formed in counter-response that says, “Fine, you want to play that game? We&#8217;ll play that game, too,” is to go back to a system that we were all taught as kids, and that was natural to us: Colorblind meritocracy.
Colorblind meritocracy is good. It is right.
Why?
Because meritocracy is the only system of human relations ever devised that has positive externalities. When the people who are best at the job, get the job, you get greater efficiency, you get better job performance, you get better innovation, better products.
People are able to expend their best abilities to the benefit of everyone else.
Every other system, every other anti-meritocratic system has negative externalities. They help the people who are inside the system and hurt the people who are outside the system.
Meritocracy benefits everyone because even if you didn&#8217;t get the job — let’s say you lost the job to a person who is better qualified than you, better at the job than you — that means that the person who filled the job is going to perform the job better than you would have, and so that company will do better. They will perform better, the prices will be better, and the products will be better.
Moreover, you will end up in a job where you are most meritorious.
If you want a happier human society, meritocracy is the way.
We were told by the leftists that meritocracy is inherently bad. Why? Because people looked at the outcome numbers and they judged for themselves that if outcomes were not equal, the system was unequal and bad.
But if you don&#8217;t use meritocracy, then you have to prejudge. Either you are going to judge a system based on the effect of the system, or you&#8217;re going to prejudge a system based on your perception of fairness between groups.
There is nothing just or fair about the idea that a person should be hampered in their capacity to succeed because of their immutable characteristics.
That is just wrong.
Grievance-based politics need to end. Yes, white male American millennials, Christians do have reason for grievance.
But the solution to that grievance is meritocracy. It is not, in fact, reversed grievance. Otherwise, we&#8217;re just going to ping-pong between grievances. It will become a question of who grabs the government gun and crams down their preferred solution.
That is not what America was built on.
And it is not what is going to cause America to succeed.
The negative externalities of the DEI system have been felt everywhere from the social sphere to the job sphere to the governmental sphere. And that spiral will keep on swirling in the drain unless we reverse it and go back to what we all taught our kids and what we were taught as kids: to treat every individual human being as an individual, and not on the basis of some sort of immutable characteristic.
What happened over the course of the last decade was a sin against decency, and the fact that so many people are still invested in that sin, or who now want to pursue the same sin, but with a different color at the top, will not make for a successful America.

Car engine assembly, workers adjusting engine block valve

Renewing The American Merit Ideal

Bias

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Gen Z

Millennials

Racism

White Men

DEI – Diversity, equity, and inclusion policy practice company business organization

How Anti-White Male Discrimination Is The Root Of Our Decline

anti-white

Books

Hollywood

Matt Walsh

Earlier this week, The Washington Post launched a customizable artificial intelligence podcast format targeting younger adults, but the episodes are causing headaches for news and standards editors at the paper, Semafor <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/12/11/2025/washington-posts-ai-generated-podcasts-rife-with-errors-fictional-quotes">reported</a> on Thursday.
The Post&#8217;s new AI format, called “Your Personal Podcast,&#8221; allows users to customize their listening experience by choosing the topic, host, and length of a show, per a <a href="https://digiday.com/media/the-washington-post-debuts-ai-personalized-podcasts-to-hook-younger-listeners/">report</a> from marketing and media website Digiday. But according to Semafor, which viewed internal communications from the Post, the AI podcasts are spitting out fake quotes and adding commentary to stories that are supposed to be simple news reports.
Washington Post staff began flagging issues immediately after the AI podcasts were released to the public. The AI behind &#8220;Your Personal Podcast&#8221; has made significant changes to story content, including inventing quotes and presenting them as the Post&#8217;s editorial position on a particular issue.
The disastrous AI podcast rollout has reportedly infuriated editors who are already trying to push back on the Trump administration after it recently <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/mediabias/">labeled</a> the Post one of the worst &#8220;media offenders.&#8221;
“It is truly astonishing that this was allowed to go forward at all,” one Post editor said, according to Semafor. “Never would I have imagined that the Washington Post would deliberately warp its own journalism and then push these errors out to our audience at scale. And just days after the White House put up a site dedicated to attacking journalists, most notably our own, including for stories with corrections or editors notes attached. If we were serious we would pull this tool immediately.”
Karen Pensiero, the Post&#8217;s head of standards, added that the AI debacle has been &#8220;frustrating for all of us.&#8221;
The Daily Wire reached out to the Post, seeking comment.
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The Washington, D.C., newspaper has been looking for ways to incorporate AI-generated content into its audio platforms and signed a multi-year deal with AI voice-generating software company ElevenLabs in May 2024. Media outlets, including the Post, Time, and The Atlantic, have used ElevenLabs to create audio versions of articles on their websites, but the Post&#8217;s &#8220;Your Personal Podcast&#8221; project took AI generation to a new level in media production.
Bailey Kattleman, the Post’s head of product and design, said that &#8220;Your Personal Podcast&#8221; would give news consumers a &#8220;flexible way&#8221; to access the paper&#8217;s wide array of stories, according to Digiday. Kattleman said that she is excited to learn what the customizable AI-generated content says about listeners&#8217; habits and interests.
“It’s early, and it’s an experimental product in a lot of ways,” she said. “It’s kind of inventing a new category in a way. It’s so different from traditional podcasts. We’ll definitely be looking at habit-based metrics rather than volume in the early going.”
Semafor&#8217;s report on the Post&#8217;s plunge into AI-generated content, however, suggests that the move could come back to bite the newspaper that is attempting to redefine its image. The Post, which was purchased by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2013, is supposedly in the process of making major changes to its opinion section per orders from Bezos.
Bezos told the Post’s staff in an email in February, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
The Post&#8217;s news team has continued to face criticism after publishing a story late last month claiming that War Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order for a second strike on a suspected drug boat after he saw survivors in the water and gave the command to “kill them all.” The Post&#8217;s reporting, which relied on &#8220;two people with direct knowledge of the operation,&#8221; was refuted by Navy Admiral Mitch Bradley, who told Congress that Hegseth did not give a &#8220;kill them all&#8221; order.

WaPo AI

The Washington Post’s AI Podcast Rollout Has Been A Train Wreck

Artificial Intelligence

Podcast

Washington Post

Defense analysts and technologists have noted that the legacy media coverage of drone failures reflects a deeper misunderstanding of how America has historically developed advanced military systems — and why failure-based <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/yes-blowing-shit-up-is-how-we-build">testing</a> has long been essential to U.S. security.
Recent reporting from <a href="https://www.wsj.com/business/anduril-industries-defense-tech-problems-52b90cae">The Wall Street Journal </a>and<a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-defense-firm-anduril-faces-setbacks-drone-crashes-2025-11-27/"> Reuters</a> took aim at defense-tech firm Anduril, highlighting test failures ranging from crashed drones to an engine-damaging nail discovered after a ground run of the company’s experimental unmanned jet.
The scrutiny comes as Anduril accelerates work on autonomous systems for the Pentagon, including loitering munitions, counter-drone platforms, and a next-generation “Collaborative Combat Aircraft.” According to reporters, the company has encountered issues during Navy exercises, experienced drone failures in Ukraine, and seen fiery mishaps on U.S. test ranges. The tone of the coverage suggests a pattern of dysfunction.
But defense experts argue the opposite: the tests reveal a healthy development pipeline operating the way America’s most successful Cold War programs once did.
Historical precedent strongly supports that view. In 1957, General Bernard Schriever — the architect of the U.S. ICBM program — watched the Thor missile explode just inches off the launch pad. Several subsequent tests ended in a similar fashion. Yet rather than treating those failures as scandalous, contemporaneous media framed them as inevitable steps in the rapid creation of systems meant to counter the Soviet threat. Thor’s problems directly informed the Minuteman program, which achieved a successful test flight within four years and became one of the most consequential deterrent weapons ever fielded.
Other iconic programs followed the same pattern. The CIA’s CORONA spy satellites failed 12 times before returning reconnaissance film that altered the strategic balance of the Cold War. Early Sidewinder missile tests regularly missed targets; a test pilot joked the missile flew off “like a big-assed bird.” Tomahawk cruise missile prototypes repeatedly crashed during demonstrations, prompting the Secretary of Defense to remind reporters that testing exists precisely to expose design flaws.
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Against that backdrop, observers say today’s intense focus on Anduril’s failed test flights — many of which occurred during intentionally aggressive trial conditions — reflects a shift toward a risk-averse, slow-moving defense culture that critics argue has already delayed major modernization programs. Anduril itself has emphasized that rapid iteration is central to its model, noting that it tests “five days a week, nearly 52 weeks a year,” and that failures are “intentional” opportunities to accelerate learning.
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey stated bluntly on X, “We aren&#8217;t going to change. We aren&#8217;t going to slow down. That is exactly what they want us to do, exactly what our competitors want, and the opposite of what building safe, powerful, cost-effective weapons actually looks like.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
We aren&#39;t going to change. We aren&#39;t going to slow down. That is exactly what they want us to do, exactly what our competitors want, and the opposite of what building safe, powerful, cost-effecfive weapons actually looks like. <a href="https://t.co/bQ9J9YgSaZ">https://t.co/bQ9J9YgSaZ</a>
&mdash; Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) <a href="https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1996057619388301530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The larger concern, experts warn, is that media narratives portraying routine developmental setbacks as alarming may inadvertently push the defense sector toward even greater caution, mirroring practices that historically hindered rivals like the Soviet Union. In an era of rising Chinese military capability, they argue, discouraging aggressive testing risks slowing innovation at the precise moment the U.S. can least afford it.
From this view, criticizing failure-focused testing doesn’t expose a national security problem — it helps create one.

Anduril Founder Says Defense Supply Chain Must Split From China

Crashed Drones From Defense Startup Highlight American Ingenuity, Not Failure

Legacy Media Targets Anduril’s Crashed Drones—But History Shows Failure Is How America Innovates

Anduril

Defense

Palmer Luckey

Gallup’s <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx">latest survey</a> on Americans’ trust in the mass media paints a stark picture: confidence in newspapers, television, and radio has hit a historic low.
Only 28% of U.S. adults now say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust that news outlets report fully, accurately, and fairly. That’s down from 31% last year and a steep fall from 40% just five years ago. In contrast, roughly seven in ten adults express little to no confidence, with 36% saying “not very much” and 34% saying “none at all.” This is the first time Gallup has recorded trust dipping below 30% since it began tracking the metric in the 1970s, when roughly 70% of Americans expressed confidence in the news.
The decline is pervasive across political affiliations. Republicans’ confidence, already weak, has plunged to single digits for the first time, with only 8% expressing trust. Independents remain skeptical at 27%, matching last year’s record low. Even Democrats, historically the most trusting, register a narrow majority of 51%, echoing lows last seen in 2016. Generational divisions further underscore the crisis: adults 65 and older retain relatively higher trust at 43%, while younger Americans across all party lines rarely exceed 28%.
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These survey results come amid repeated high-profile media failures. The New York Times’ <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nyt-was-pressed-to-hedge-on-gaza-hospital-story-but-senior-editors-ignored-warnings-report?utm_source=chatgpt.com">false Gaza hospital story</a> in 2023, which relied solely on a Palestinian source, highlighted a pattern of insufficient verification. Similarly, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-times-ignored-examples-of-kamalas-plagiarism-withheld-them-from-cited-expert?utm_source=chatgpt.com">reporting</a> on Vice President Kamala Harris’ alleged plagiarism was criticized for deliberately underrepresenting the scope of the issue, contrasting sharply with how the Times covered similar Republican controversies.
In October, President Donald Trump filed a $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times. In the <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437.9.0.pdf">suit</a>, Trump accused the Times of printing false and defamatory statements about his business career that damaged his professional reputation.
The Media Research Center’s October 2025 <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/bill-dagostino/2025/11/05/study-tv-news-spends-shutdown-playing-defense-democrats">analysis</a> of network coverage during the government shutdown adds another layer: ABC, CBS, and NBC reportedly framed Democrats favorably while heavily criticizing Republicans, with 87% of coverage skewed toward Democratic talking points and only twelve instances of criticism directed at Democrats.

Portrait of man holding nose

Gallup: Trust In The Media Crashes To Historic Low

Gallup: Americans’ Trust In The Media Crashes To Historic Low

Gallup

Mainstream Media

Many people blame the troubles of the world on the news media. Many say that journalists have become out-of-touch elites, so committed to the destructive lies of leftism that their minds have become gnarled and pocked with hatred of those everyday Americans whose better values threaten to expose journalists to themselves as Gollum-like creatures eaten away by their own corruption until they look into the mirrors of their imaginations and see horrific images of their bodies riddled with leprous decay as a physical representation of the spiritual degeneracy that clearly foreshadows an eternity of desolation in bleak and endless severance from the God who created them and who now, even in his omniscience, himself turns to alternative forms of media in the hopes of getting some honest news once in a while.
Of course, many people still trust the news media and softly murmur to themselves that Walter Cronkite seems awfully nice, before they retreat into a corner of the assisted care facility and stare at the blank wall with rheumy eyes, fondly watching a parade of misty memories from a distant past that now seems much better than it really was.
Recently, unseemly revelations have detracted even more from the news media’s reputation so that trust in the honesty of journalists has now sunk to just 28% of journalists, and they’re journalists, so they’re obviously lying and don’t trust journalists any more than the rest of us do.
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In formerly Great Britain, for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation has recently become mired in scandal. The once-respected news organization, often affectionately referred to as “Auntie,” because it reminds viewers of the sort of grey-haired old lady whose silhouette can sometimes be seen at the second story window of a gothic mansion while her delusional, hectoring high-pitched rants drift down to the desolate motel below until, in the last reel, we find out the silhouette is really Norman Bates in a dress and a wig, and the real Auntie is the rotten corpse of a once respected news organization…
What was I talking about? Oh yeah…
Recently, the BBC was exposed for deceptively editing a speech by Donald Trump for a 2024 report that was clearly meant to influence American voters against Trump’s re-election. In Trump’s original speech, delivered to a group of protestors on January 6th after Trump’s 2021 election loss, Trump said, “God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.” In the BBC version, Trump said, “Kill them all! Storm the Capitol and kill them all! Kill, Kill, Kill! Insurrection now! Destroy Democracy and kill them all!”
BBC President Cor Blimey issued a statement saying that the minor discrepancy was the result of an innocent mistake in which producers confused the Trump speech with the film “Starship Troopers” because they think of Americans as just so many gigantic alien bugs.
To be fair, not all news organizations have sunk out of sight into the BBC’s tarpit of disgrace, shame, corruption, decadence, degradation, and vice. With some outlets, you can still just see the tops of their heads for a few final moments before the tar closes over them. 
For example, the New York Times, a former newspaper, was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for linking Donald Trump’s name to Jeffrey Epstein’s name a record number of times, without once explaining that no one has ever plausibly accused Trump of doing anything wrong with Epstein. The Pulitzer Committee says it hopes the Times prize for irrelevantly linking Trump and Epstein will encourage other former news outlets to distract people from the fact that Trump has closed the border, brought peace to the Middle East, drawn in trillions of dollars of new investment to the U.S., lowered inflation and bettered our trading deals in ways that promise to cut the deficit, not to mention the fact that he barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for being a creep while sleazy journalists like George Stephanopoulos and Katie Couric were still attending dinners in Epstein’s honor.
In a statement carved into the clay of a goat-headed idol, the Pulitzer Committee said it would continue to give news outlets like the Times awards for what they do best, namely, lie.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is NOW AVAILABLE. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this satirical piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words ‘Trump’ And ‘Epstein’ Record Number Of Times

NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words 'Trump' And 'Epstein' Record Number Of Times

Andrew Klavan

Humor

Satire

The New York Times

The BBC is in dire straits. 
The BBC is a state-funded enterprise in much the same way that NPR is a state-funded enterprise. The BBC has been the dominant broadcast platform in the United Kingdom for decades, going all the way back to World War II.
For the last several decades, they have just been a left-wing agitprop organization. But now they are absolutely falling apart thanks to their extraordinarily dishonest attacks on President Trump.
According to <a href="https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/bbc-chairman-apologizes-for-error-in-edit-of-trump-speech-0fe74118?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqf781o2BxWmESpy94akpjS_SOnvktxokVenvnnMPy6tJ-fywHqZCCn9uJ3C1xM%3D&amp;gaa_ts=69138fec&amp;gaa_sig=kc-AZqr5Ns4_DEx0ceuxv-1KbM20bCfSonvth9cyYdEk3d0ZpXL-gT6wLovg8uQpQ_IJ8IQY6HUYgz6HF0v35Q%3D%3D">The Wall Street Journal</a>:
<blockquote>President Trump has threatened to file a $ 1 billion lawsuit against the BBC over the way the U.K. state broadcaster edited one of his speeches in a documentary last year. BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the controversy, which has plunged the broadcaster into crisis. The apology came a day after BBC Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News Chief Executive Deborah Turness said they were leaving the organization following criticism from the White House. </blockquote>
What happened? There was an episode from the BBC’s flagship investigative series called Panorama, which ran one week before the 2024 United States election.
You may ask, did that affect the election? It doesn&#8217;t matter. The job of the BBC is to cover the news, not make the news up. 
One week before the election, they ran a piece in which they spliced together things that President Trump said on January 6, 2021, to make it look as though he himself personally was leading an armed insurrection at the Capitol building.
That was not true.
In order to achieve this effect, they had to cut out 24 pages of material. They cut from one part of the speech, and then they fast-forwarded 50 minutes and cut together the last part of the speech to clip them together, and then basically put in ellipses in order to make it seem as though President Trump himself was personally calling on people to follow him to the Capitol building and to assault the Capitol building.
If you watch that original clip, they had a music bed underneath, which connected the first part of the statement to the last part of the statement. It is not as though they had some sort of interpolation from a narrator explaining that much later in the speech, President Trump made the second part of the statement.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2315-member-exclusive?elementPosition=4&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The Journal continued:
<blockquote>According to a letter from Trump’s lawyers, the BBC faces a legal claim for at least $1 billion unless the documentary is retracted, an apology published and compensation paid to the president. The letter set a deadline of Friday. The broadcaster said in a statement that it would “respond in due course.”</blockquote>
This follows hard on a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/06/read-devastating-internal-bbc-memo-in-full/">19-page memo</a> that was put out by a top staffer at the BBC named Michael Prescott. He was an independent adviser to the BBC&#8217;s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, and he wrote a 19-page memo pushing the idea that the BBC had become a biased and ridiculous organization. He wrote: 
<blockquote>Dear Board Members,
You may know that I have been one of the two independent external advisers working alongside the EGSC. I held this role for three years and stood down in the summer.
I departed with profound and unresolved concerns about the BBC. Since leaving, I have thought long and hard about what, if anything, to do about this.
My conclusion is that these concerns are serious enough for me to draw them to your attention, in your oversight role of the BBC.
What follows is a summary of what were, in my view, some of the most troubling matters to come before the EGSC during my term.
My view is that the Executive repeatedly failed to implement measures to resolve highlighted problems, and in many cases simply refused to acknowledge there was an issue at all. </blockquote>
Prescott pointed out that there was tremendous bias with regard to the U.S. election. He specifically pointed out that edit in the Panorama program. He said, “This was one of the most shocking sets of issues uncovered during my time with the EGSC. If BBC journalists are to be allowed to edit video in order to make people ‘say’ things they never actually said, then what value are the Corporation’s guidelines, why should the BBC be trusted, and where will this all end?&#8221; 
And yet top members of the staff said, “There was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr. Trump’s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It’s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.”
These kinds of shenanigans occurred repeatedly. They did this with comments that President Trump made about Liz Cheney. There are reports in which the BBC routinely ignored its own guidelines, giving excessive coverage, for example, to that rogue Iowa poll that suggested that Kamala Harris was going to win the state by a substantial margin. Of course, President Trump won the state pretty easily.
“During my time as an advisor to the EGSC it became clear the BBC fell too easily for putting out ill-researched material that suggested issues of racism when there were none,” Prescott wrote. Then he listed chapter and verse across the BBC in which they basically manufactured a bunch of racial issues where no racial issue existed.
They went out of their way to promote idiocies about biological sex and gender. Prescott noted:
<blockquote>I was told that time and time again the LGBTQ desk staffers would decline to cover any story raising difficult questions about the trans-debate. The allegation made to me was stark: that the desk had been captured by a small group of people promoting the Stonewall view of the debate and keeping other perspectives off-air. Individual programmes had come to lack their own reporters as a counterweight. &#8230; 
There was also a constant drip-feed of one-sided stories, usually news features, celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity. &#8230; There&#8217;s a constant drip feed of one sided stories, usually news features celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity.</blockquote>
One example of this might be a report that happened in 2024 from the BBC, in which they reported that male breast milk was just as nutritious for babies as female breast milk. You may be asking yourself, what is male breast milk? The answer is that if you pump men full of estrogen, you will get some secretions from the nipples that are not actually like female breast milk.
But the BBC had an interest in pretending that males can become females. And so <a href="https://x.com/millihill/status/1987836199969382892">they ran with this report</a>.
This is what the BBC is. It’s true on a wide variety of issues.
It&#8217;s particularly true about the Hamas-Israel war. According to the UK Telegraph, the BBC was forced to correct two stories every single week about the Gaza conflict since the October 7 attacks on Israel.
That’s insane. How many stories can you retract before you finally lose all credibility? BBC Arabic had to make 215 corrections and clarifications over the past two years on stories that were found to be biased, inaccurate, or misleading.
The BBC despises Israel, and it’s not possible for them to make it any clearer. For example, in November 2023, BBC editor Jeremy Bowen falsely reported that Israel had blown up the Al Ahli Hospital in the Gaza Strip.
That wasn’t true. He later <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/bbc-jeremy-bowen-admits-got-194844026.html">admitted he got it wrong</a>, but said he didn’t feel bad at all that he got it wrong, saying, “I don&#8217;t regret one thing in my reporting, because I think, I think I was measured throughout. I didn&#8217;t race to judgment.” 
Interviewer: “But you said that the building had been flattened.”
Bowen replied, “Oh, yeah. Well, I got that wrong because I was looking at the pictures and like, what I could see was a square that appeared to be flaming on all sides. And there was a, you know, sort of a void in the middle. And it was, I think it was a picture taken from a drone. And so, you know, we have to piece together what we see. And I thought, ‘Well, that looks like the whole building&#8217;s gone.’ And that was my conclusion from looking at the pictures. And I was wrong on that. But I don&#8217;t feel too bad about that.”
It doesn&#8217;t feel bad at all, because this is the way the BBC operates. They start with the conclusion, and then they backfill the news in order to reach that particular conclusion.
So, is it any surprise that the BBC is a disaster area or that they&#8217;re in serious trouble now?
It is long past time for the BBC to admit what it is, which is an agitprop organization on behalf of the political Left. They have been for decades. Nothing has changed.
And this latest brouhaha is just more evidence that the government should not be subsidizing media organizations such as NPR, PBS, or the BBC in Britain, because you wind up with left-wing media sponsored by taxpayers.

Trump Threatens $1b Lawsuit Against BBC Over ‘Defamatory’ Coverage

How Bias And Dishonesty Brought Down The BBC

Ben Shapiro

England

Great Britain

Lawsuit

Media Bias

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