NBC News gave viewers a trigger warning on Tuesday before quoting the phrases &#8220;biological male&#8221; and &#8220;biological female&#8221; from the Supreme Court&#8217;s landmark transgender athlete ruling.
A majority of the justices ruled that states have the constitutional power to ban men from women’s sports, dealing another blow to the transgender movement. 
“Just a quick note here. The terms that we’re using here during our reporting, biological male, biological female, the high court put those terms in quotations in their decision and their dissent,” NBC News anchor Craig Melvin said.
“But just so you know, we’re using those terms from the decision itself, biological male, biological female,” he added. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Liberal media corporation NBC warns its viewers that they are reading quotes from the Supreme Court majority ruling that states can ban male participation in competitive female sports in schools and universities. Leftists find “biological male” triggering. <a href="https://t.co/lx1j7cA7L4">pic.twitter.com/lx1j7cA7L4</a>
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) <a href="https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/2072003498158309814?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2026</a></blockquote>
The network’s White House correspondent, Kelly O’Donnell, downplayed the political salience of the issue, <a href="https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2071988378023731485?s=20">saying</a>, “the numbers of transgender athletes &#8230; is a very small pool, in many ways.” 
NBC was not the only network to frame the ruling sympathetically toward transgender-identifying athletes. Over on ABC, the network&#8217;s Supreme Court reporter, <a href="https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2071973340399407287?s=20">Devin Dwyer</a>, praised the transgender-identifying plaintiffs, saying they “bravely brought this case” and said the high court’s ruling reflected  “a blow” to transgender-identifying people everywhere &#8220;on this last day of Pride Month.&#8221; 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
WATCH: ABC News is very sad about the Supreme Court keeping biological men out of women’s sports, denying trans kids who “bravely brought this case” and “a blow” to trans people everywhere “on this last day of Pride Month”&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/CRIsKmOIvM">pic.twitter.com/CRIsKmOIvM</a>
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2071973340399407287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2026</a></blockquote>
ABC’s Mary Bruce shifted the focus to President Donald Trump, <a href="https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2071973644155150824?s=20">saying</a>, “rarely does a day go by here at the White House when the president doesn’t rail against the participation of transgender female athletes in girls and women’s sports.”
In a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-43_2b35.pdf">ruling</a> authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and joined by the other conservative justices, the Supreme Court held that Title IX  allows schools to determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports teams based on biological sex. Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed with parts of the majority opinion and dissented on other parts.
“They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
In a solo concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas went a step further.
&#8220;Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe they are,&#8221; he wrote.
The landmark decision centered on laws passed by Idaho and West Virginia restricting transgender-identifying athletes from competing in female athletics. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/politics/state-restrictions-trans-athletes-school-sports.html">More than half the states</a> have enacted similar laws to protect female sports and locker rooms. The justices upheld those bans and left for another day the question of whether Title IX requires states to prohibit transgender-identifying athletes from competing against women.
Beyond the screens of mainstream media, Tuesday’s ruling did not sit well with leftist politicians, including California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who is running to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in November. 
“In upholding trans sports bans, the Supreme Court has once again fueled the campaign to erase and dehumanize trans people,” Weiner said on social media. “And the way the Court wrote the decision opens the door for other efforts to eliminate trans people from public life.”
Back in DC, Tuesday’s ruling represents a momentous victory for the Trump administration, which issued an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/keeping-men-out-of-womens-sports/">executive order</a> in February 2025 directing the federal government to strip funding from schools that allow transgender-identifying students to compete in female athletics, calling the practice “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.”
“BIG WIN: The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS,” Trump celebrated on <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116839596876971289">Truth Social.</a> “Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!

Transgender Rights Advocates Rally Against The Supreme Court’s Ban On Gender-Affirming Youth Care

NBC News Issues Trigger Warning Before Quoting ‘Biological Male’ In Trans Ruling

ABC News

Legacy Media

Media

NBC News

Politics

Supreme Court

Transgender

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Across the country, Americans are preparing their 4th of July cookout menus and making stops at their local fireworks stands as the excitement surrounding America’s 250th birthday ramps up. But in typical fashion, left-wing media outlets are doing everything they can to trivialize the patriotic moment. 
Last week, the Atlantic published an article about international travelers visiting America for the first time to attend the World Cup. Several visitors have recently gone viral for praising aspects of American culture, such as one Japanese man who <a href="https://x.com/Realsociedad10m/status/2065084769466204310">recommended</a> everyone go to Texas Roadhouse for the “absolute best” ribeye or a Swedish girl <a href="https://x.com/elsathora/status/2064142970190758034?s=12">declaring</a> that she had “the best food ever” at a local Indiana diner.
However, as one might expect from legacy media, the Atlantic&#8217;s article <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/world-cup-tourists-america/687572/">“The Feel-Good Story of the World Cup is Too Good to Be True</a>” argues that this is all a facade. It points out that certain influencers who have been a part of the pro-America trend are actually acting for selfish reasons. It argues that the aforementioned Swedish girl is a social media influencer, therefore dismissing her affection for America although she has repeatedly insisted that her “enthusiasm for American culture is genuine.” The article also cites the X user Nobunaga, who had been posting AI generated content praising America. Although Nobunaga’s posts were done in jest, the Atlantic mocked patriotic Americans for responding to the posts with enthusiasm. The New York Times published a similar <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/style/world-cup-tourists-american-food-tiktok.html">article</a>, “World Cup Fans in the U.S. Are Sightseeing at… Buc-ee’s and Bass Pro Shops?” that mocked American culture for being “mundane.” 
The success of these World Cup fans’ posts reveals that Americans are desperate for patriotic messages. They are sick of hearing that America is “dark, aggressive, and lawless,” as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-mistake-venezuela-injustice/685560/">described</a> by the Atlantic less than six months ago. They are sick of allegedly neutral journalists claiming America has a “<a href="https://nypost.com/2022/05/18/us-racism-a-white-cultural-problem-cnns-nia-malika-henderson/">white cultural problem</a>” or that they live in a “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/the-view-co-hosts-clash-after-sunny-hostin-attributes-trump-win-racism-misogyny">misogynist country.</a>” They are sick of social media posts by Democratic party leaders, such as Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, that <a href="https://x.com/RepJeffries/status/1985417876258611651">refer</a> to America as a “malignant clown show.” 
The mainstream media can’t stomach the patriotic messages World Cup tourists are so eager to share. Videos of travelers trying <a href="https://x.com/washghost1/status/2068097190237470935?s=12">BuzzBallz</a> outside of a 7-Eleven and <a href="https://x.com/TONYxTWO/status/2068516485367009655">thanking America</a> for being “so friendly and so accommodating” are making the media seethe. They spent years trying to push the narrative that American culture was inherently toxic. They fixated on divisive propaganda, alleging the U.S. was racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, bigoted, and evil.
They have desperately tried to pretend that the love of international travelers is nothing more than vapid consumerism. Unfortunately, that narrative falls flat as videos emerge of tourists <a href="https://x.com/BuzzPatterson/status/2066883493674754099">belting</a> out the U.S. national anthem or <a href="https://x.com/Trivela_Futebol/status/2069013328069009722">dancing</a> together in the middle of Central Park. The international love for America isn’t born from a mythologized &#8220;consumer culture.&#8221; It’s a reaction to American glory. As tourists pour in from across the globe and experience the joys of American culture firsthand, legacy media outlets are being forced to watch their web of lies get exposed. 
One of their worst lies has targeted the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-soccer-fans-are-discovering-something-many-americans-forgot">rising social media star Freddy</a>. The soccer fan from Germany has earned three-quarters of a million followers after posting about his experiences across America, from <a href="https://x.com/FreddyLA7/status/2063853754449850487">Waffle House</a> to <a href="https://x.com/FreddyLA7/status/2067003781804355904">NASA</a>. He has shown nothing but love to America, profusely thanking cities for their hospitality. Naturally, the Atlantic tried to speculate that this was all a fabrication, alleging that his content isn’t genuine and that his posts don’t “reflect reality.” The article&#8217;s author speculated about his intentions and criticized him for remaining anonymous. It’s pretty crazy to believe that his entire posting journey is, as the author insists, an attempt to fulfill what “professional influencers dream of.” It’s even crazier to realize that mainstream media and their liberal audiences can’t comprehend the notion that somebody could genuinely love America. The Left can’t fathom that America is actually good. 
The simple truth underlying this wave of media criticism is that liberal elites hate American culture. They have spent a long time sneering at middle America for watching football on Sundays, listening to Johnny Cash, and making the best BBQ in the world. They have isolated themselves in universities and progressive institutions, distancing themselves from the working-class citizens they claim to represent. They don’t want people like Freddy drinking slushies at Buc-ee’s or enjoying an Astros game. They don’t want people to gush about Walmart or get excited over free refills. They don’t want people to realize that America is the greatest country on earth. The story of the 2026 World Cup isn’t “too good to be true”; the story of the 2026 World Cup proves that America represents everything that is good and true. 
***
Brooke Brandtjen is a writer and journalist from Wisconsin who focuses primarily on culture, politics, and religion. She is a senior contributor at New Guard Press, a publication she joined while attending Hillsdale College.

US-FBL-WC-2026-SCOTLAND-FANS

The America-Love Story The Media Never Wanted To Go Viral

America 250

Media Bias

Upstream

World Cup

CBS News fired “60 Minutes” correspondent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/somewhere-cbs-newsman-scott-pelley-is-chewing-the-hell-out-of-his-innocent-glasses?author=Ben+Domenech&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Somewhere+CBS+Newsman+Scott+Pelley+Is+Chewing+The+Hell+Out+Of+His+Innocent+Glasses">Scott Pelley</a> on Tuesday, just one day after he accused editor-in-chief Bari Weiss of attempting to “murder” the long-running show. 
Nick Bilton, the tech journalist and filmmaker recently named the new boss of “60 Minutes,” told Pelley that he was being fired after he aggressively &#8220;hijacked&#8221; a staff meeting to attack the new direction of CBS. Pelley, who has been with the network for decades, attacked Bilton’s qualifications during a staff meeting on Monday and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/business/media/cbs-60-minutes-scott-pelley-nick-bilton.html">reportedly</a> ignored opportunities for private meetings with the new leadership. 
“Yesterday&#8217;s performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress,” Bilton wrote to Pelley. “I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama.”
WATCH FROM TODAY&#8217;S EPISODE OF MORNING WIRE:
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Bilton said that Pelley “hijacked” his first meeting with staff to “disparage” him and responded to his efforts to reach out with “remarkable incivility and contempt.” 
“I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort,” he said. 
During Bilton’s first meeting with staff, Pelley interrupted Bilton to say that Weiss was “murdering ‘60 Minutes,&#8221; according to a recording obtained by The New York Times.
“She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that,” Pelley said of Weiss.
“She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job,” he added. “The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?”
Bilton responded by saying that he would be meeting with everyone, including Pelley, to discuss his plans for the show and that he wanted to focus on producing quality journalism. Pelley met with Bilton and other CBS executives on Tuesday, but that meeting did not go well. 
“Despite yesterday&#8217;s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together,” Bilton wrote. “You made clear that you are not interested in such a path. Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (‘CBS’) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
Pelley had worked for CBS News since 1989 and once anchored “CBS Evening News.” 
In an interview with the New York Times after his firing, Pelley discussed his experience reporting in various war zones. 
“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” he said. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”
Weiss came to CBS after the network and “60 Minutes” had faced years of accusations of bias, including for releasing a highly edited interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 election.

CBS Fall Schedule Celebration – Arrivals

Longtime ‘60 Minutes’ Anchor Fired After Attacks On New Leadership

60 Minutes

Bari Weiss

CBS News

Far-Left <a href="https://latenighter.com/news/strike-force-five-reunion-colbert-late-show/">Avengers</a> … assemble!
The Legacy Media is celebrating the return of Strike Force Five. The group, comprised of progressive late-night hosts, originally gathered in 2023 during the protracted Hollywood writers’ strike.
Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon. Stephen Colbert. Seth Meyers. John Oliver. (Jon Stewart hadn’t returned to “The Daily Show” at that time.)
Except one late-night liberal either lost his invite or never got one in the first place: Bill Maher.
It’s not as if the “Real Time with Bill Maher” host votes differently than that gaggle. Or that Maher doesn’t skewer President Donald Trump on a regular basis.
Boy, does he ever. He still hints that Trump won’t leave office once his second term wraps.
Maher isn’t a cozy fit for the Five comedians despite those similarities. He speaks freely and regularly roasts his own side. And, perhaps most of all, he invites right-leaning guests on his shows for frank talks about everything from culture to politics. Yes, politics.
All of the above makes him a unicorn on the late-night landscape, and a welcome one at that. Maher would be a square peg in a round Strike Force hole.
The progressive Five have become achingly predictable in recent years. The monologues all attack the same subjects – President Trump, Elon Musk, the right-leaning Supreme Court – while ignoring the foibles of modern Democrats.
What Rep. Eric Swalwell scandal?
They collectively downplayed or ignored President Joe Biden’s tragic cognitive decline for nearly four years. When Biden short-circuited during that cringeworthy 2024 presidential debate, they finally had to speak a bit of truth to power.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/late-night-gives-up-the-biden-ghost">Colbert finally teed off</a> on the 80-something leader a few days after the debate: “Biden debated as well as Abe Lincoln … if you dug him up right now.”
That came weeks after Colbert headlined a Biden fundraiser and didn’t alert his viewers that the president wasn’t intellectually up to the gig after seeing him up close.
Nor did Kimmel, who was on hand the night President Biden froze at the end of a fundraiser. Former President Barack Obama had to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-leading-biden-off-stage-hand-really-pissed-me-off-hunter-biden-seethes">gently guide him offstage.</a>
In a way, Maher is a more pragmatic Democrat than his peers. He’s spent the last few years warning his party about its extreme points of view, from a reliance on Identity Politics to woke overreach.
He’s argued on more than one occasion that a party that insists trans women can fairly compete against women may be doomed at the ballot box. He made the argument again <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/28/us-news/bill-maher-and-david-cross-in-war-of-words-over-looney-left-and-trans-rights/">during a recent sit-down</a> with progressive comic David Cross about Imane Khelif, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/french-journalist-claims-medical-report-proves-olympic-boxer-who-took-gold-in-womens-division-a-man">male boxer who won a gold medal against female competitors:</a>
<blockquote>
I mean, we saw in the Olympics … a man, now fighting as a woman boxer just beat the dog s*** out of a woman, the other boxer … I’m just saying there’s stuff inside the bubble that could be bad.
</blockquote>
The “loony Left,” Maher argued, continues to “die on the hills that are unnecessary to die on,” Maher said. That isn’t just a punchline. It’s a message directed straight at party leaders. Keep it up, and get ready for President JD Vance (or Marco Rubio).
Maher’s mission couldn’t be more obvious. He’s trying to save his party from itself, and he’s dropping smart bomb jokes to nudge that message along.
Strike Force Five members do just the opposite. They ignore their party’s failings and pretend there’s nothing beyond the pale about them to mock. That will ultimately hurt Democrats, who can’t sharpen their rhetorical skills while being coddled by their late-night defenders.
There’s another, more personal reason why Maher would never crack the Five. He’s no fan of their approach to their craft. Last year, he said his late-night peers <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tv/articles/bill-maher-blasts-kimmel-colbert-115003436.html">parrot what’s uttered on MSNBC:</a> “…everybody makes their decisions based on the politics of the art and not the art itself.”
Maher may not be Strike-worthy, but that <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/late-night-host-seth-meyers-lets-slip-one-of-colberts-final-surprises/">“Avengers” media label</a> is laughable on three fronts.
One, there’s nothing special about this collection of thinly disguised activists. After all, the current late-night TV landscape appears to be in a death spiral, according to both <a href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jimmy-kimmel-late-night-shows-wont-exist-10-years-1236105045/">Kimmel</a> and former late-night superstar David Letterman. The latter comic gives the format <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/5863868-letterman-late-night-colbert-cbs-skydance/">another year, at best.</a>
<a href="https://observer.com/2025/10/late-night-talk-show-decline-cultural-analysis/">Revenue is way down</a>. So are the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2026/04/22/how-the-morning-news-late-night-shows-lost-half-their-viewers/">ratings, by and large</a>. ABC did re-sign Kimmel late last year … for a measly <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jimmy-kimmel-abc-extension-8df182f90f7d068743b8c123f9ed50c5">one-year extension</a>. And if Colbert got the ax from CBS for reportedly losing the company $40 million a year, how much is Kimmel costing ABC, given the similar format and ratings that consistently follow Colbert’s lead?
Two, they all share essentially the same “superpowers,” the ability to hit one side and ignore the other. The MCU gang brings wildly different skill sets together for the greater good, be it super strength, the power of flight, or the ability to shrink to the size of an ant.
And three, by ignoring bad actors on the Left and pushing false narratives elsewhere, this group is the furthest thing from “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” They’re hurting the country.
Maher, at 70, is the oldest of the late-night bunch, but his late-night future still may be the most secure. He continues to attract both right-leaning guests and fans for his HBO showcase and “Club Random” podcast.
Kimmel may have famously wished “not good riddance, but riddance” to conservatives, but Maher says, “bring ‘em on.”
That means Maher isn’t automatically alienating half the country. That’s smart. It’s also his best survival tactic in an increasingly competitive market.
That’s his undeniable superpower.
***
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News&#8217; Big Hollywood. He&#8217;s also the host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hollywood-in-toto-podcast-w-christian-toto/id1186449155">The Hollywood in Toto Podcast</a>. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto?lang=en">@HollywoodInToto</a>.

Larry King’s Toast to 50 Years in Broadcasting

Strike Force Five Minus Maher

Bill Maher

Entertainment

Late-Night

Ted Turner, the billionaire media mogul who founded CNN, TNT, and TBS, has died, several media outlets reported Wednesday. 
Turner, 87, who is credited with creating the 24-hour news cycle, died on Wednesday at his home near Tallahassee, Florida. In 2018, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/ted-turner-dead.html">Turner revealed</a> he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive brain disease.
“Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgment,” Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, <a href="https://www.wtae.com/article/billionaire-media-mogul-ted-turner-dies-at-87/71229676">said in a statement</a>. “He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognize him and his impact on our lives and the world.”
President Donald Trump commented on the passing of the media mogul, referring to him as &#8220;one of the Greats of All Time&#8221; in a Truth Social post.
&#8220;Ted Turner, one of the Greats of All Time, just died. He founded CNN, sold it, and was personally devastated by the Deal because the new ownership took CNN, his &#8216;baby,&#8217; and destroyed it,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116528208383447126">wrote</a>. &#8220;It became woke, and everything that he is not all about. Maybe the new buyers, wonderful people, will be able to bring it back to its former credibility and glory. Regardless, however, one of the Greats of Broadcast History, and a friend of mine. Whenever I needed him, he was there, always willing to fight for a good cause!&#8221;
The Ohio-born, Atlanta-based businessman — nicknamed “The Mouth of the South” for his outspoken style — raced yachts, acquired vast tracts of land across the American West, donated $1 billion to establish the United Nations Foundation, and formerly owned the Atlanta Braves.
Turner&#8217;s sports empire included professional baseball, basketball, and hockey teams in Atlanta.
Turner purchased the Braves in January 1976 following a 67-94 season by the club, saying at a news conference: &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to see any more headlines calling Atlanta &#8216;Loserville U.S.A.&#8217; I want to see Winnersville U.S.A.,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/48693404/ted-turner-former-braves-owner-media-mogul-dies-87">according to ESPN.</a> The team went on to win the World Series in 1995.
&#8220;Our good friend and former owner, Ted Turner, was one of a kind — a brilliant businessman, consummate showman and passionate fan of his beloved Braves,&#8221; <a href="https://x.com/Braves/status/2052037035590816064?s=20">the team said in a statement.</a> &#8220;Ted&#8217;s visionary leadership and innovative approach to broadcast television transformed the Braves into &#8216;America&#8217;s Team.&#8217;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
We&#8217;ll miss you, Ted ❤️ <a href="https://t.co/ZvQoG6lwh7">pic.twitter.com/ZvQoG6lwh7</a>
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) <a href="https://twitter.com/Braves/status/2052040749185671585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
Turner also devoted significant time and resources to environmental conservation efforts.
<a href="https://www.tedturner.com/turner-ranches/">Through Turner Enterprises</a>, he owned more than two million acres of personal and ranch land in Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Colorado, and South Dakota. 
Before the official launch of CNN, the legendary entrepreneur produced a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6f7j1E61sM&amp;list=RDz6f7j1E61sM&amp;start_radio=1">“Doomsday Video”</a> to be used as the network’s final broadcast at the end of the world. The video features a performance of the Christian hymn &#8220;Nearer, My God, To Thee&#8221; performed by the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine bands in front of CNN&#8217;s original headquarters. The idea was that, in the event of an apocalypse, viewers would see this instead of regular news programming.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
CNN prepared a doomsday end of the world video to be broadcast by the last surviving employee. It was leaked by a former intern in 2009. The video, created at the direction of CNN founder Ted Turner before the network&#8217;s 1980 launch. <a href="https://t.co/8YPtb3P9Nr">pic.twitter.com/8YPtb3P9Nr</a>
— Morbid Knowledge (@MorbidKnowledge) <a href="https://twitter.com/MorbidKnowledge/status/1926710765215502700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 25, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Turner, who owned TNT and TBS, reshaped the wrestling industry, launching “Nitro” and scheduling it against “Monday Night Raw” in the same timeslot — a rivalry that became known as the Monday Night Wars, <a href="https://www.si.com/fannation/wrestling/ted-turner-former-wcw-owner-and-media-mogul-dead-at-87">according to Sports Illustrated</a>.
The media tycoon was married and divorced three times, including to actress and activist Jane Fonda.
Turner is survived by his <a href="https://www.wtae.com/article/billionaire-media-mogul-ted-turner-dies-at-87/71229676">five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.</a>

Ted Turner Featured Guest At Newsmakers Luncheon

CNN Founder Ted Turner Dead At 87

Ted Turner

As America approaches its 250th birthday, one might expect to see a nation eager to celebrate its inheritance. Instead, American pride has fallen to new lows, and the reason runs deeper than politics. A cultural phenomenon has taken hold within our institutions, eroding national pride at its root.
The problem comes down to a matter of loyalty versus hatred for one’s country.
Both phenomena have a name. The former is patriotism, expressed by a love of home, a national attachment shaped by loyalty to the values and goals of a country.
The latter is seldom identified, but the great British conservative thinker Sir Roger Scruton gave it a name: Oikophobia.
Sir Roger defined it as “the repudiation of inheritance and home.” The Greek root oikos denotes a dwelling place or a home in the fullest sense, which encompasses one’s home country and its inheritance: its history, culture, beliefs, and institutions.
And today, there is a tangible rise of oikophobia.
<div id="attachment_1087107" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1087107" class="size-large wp-image-1087107" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-589704846-864x576.jpg" alt="EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND - AUGUST 15: Roger Scruton attends the Edinburgh International Book Festival on August 15, 2016 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is one of the most important annual literary events, and takes place in the city which became a UNESCO City of Literature in 2004. (Photo by Awakening/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-589704846-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-589704846-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-589704846-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-589704846.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Awakening/Getty Images</div>
A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/692150/american-pride-slips-new-low.aspx">2025 Gallup poll</a> asked adults, “How proud are you to be an American — extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud or not at all proud?”
In 2001, 87% answered extremely or very proud. Today, that has fallen by a third to a disheartening 58%.
The remaining 40% certainly fall short of patriotism — 9% claimed they were not at all proud to be American, 11% attested to be only a little proud, and 19% were moderately proud. Nothing to boast about, for this is the grip of oikophobia. And it is exacerbated in certain groups.
Pride in America varies vastly between political parties, pointing to perhaps the root of the problem. Among Republicans, 92% were extremely or very proud to be American, and the figure for independents was 53%. But among Democrats, the rate plummets to 36%.
These numbers reflect a curious trend. For Democrats, their pride seems to fluctuate with current events and politics: President Trump in office, George Floyd’s death, January 6 — the list goes on.
Conservatives, on the other hand, appear to derive their pride from America’s history, its traditions, and its achievements — the unshaking character of our nation.
This is the difference between oikophobia and patriotism.
However, it is important to understand that oikophobia is not just a lack of pride or the expression of criticism. In fact, a healthy nation ought to reflect on its past and seek improvement. Oikophobia, by contrast, rejects national inheritance. It reframes history as something to be dismantled rather than understood.
Since the oikophobe — better, the oik — is so consumed by repudiation, one might expect him to simply leave the home he so thoroughly disdains.
Oddly, they instead choose to rule it. And they can be found across the most critical cultural institutions — museums, academia, and media, to name a few.
But these oiks are not working for the sake of public benefit, mind you. They infiltrate the public sphere and act as operatives of the Culture Wars, bending, or rather reframing, American history to their will: to paint America as systemically racist, oppressive, and cruel, all in order to tell what can only be described, in Scruton’s own words, as “a tale of shame and degradation.”
This tale is told in different ways depending on the institution.
Take first the Smithsonian — the home of America’s national museums that attract visitors from all over the country. As an institution that is nearly two-thirds publicly funded, it bears a responsibility to American taxpayers.
Yet it fails in nearly every way. The National Museum of American History, for instance, cannot even deliver an objective narrative of American history. Instead, it indoctrinates visitors with left-wing ideology and sows shame among Americans, all in an attempt to make them reject their national identity. It treats slavery, imperialism, political polarization, and identity politics as the defining characteristics of the United States.
<div id="attachment_936715" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-936715" class="size-large wp-image-936715" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2217701221-864x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 29: A view of the Smithsonian Institution near the National Mall on May 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2217701221-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2217701221-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2217701221-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/GettyImages-2217701221.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Roy Rochlin/Getty Images</div>
Undeniably, these are elements of our history, some more important than others, but when elevated above all else, they cease to inform and instead distort the American narrative. 
And this is where oikophobia becomes most visible — through omission, interpretive framing, and moralizing language. What is emphasized, what is forgotten, and how the story is told is a much more insightful story. 
Institutions like the Smithsonian are respected worldwide, and for them to show such blatant disrespect to the very heritage it is meant to preserve is nothing short of disgusting.
Its leaders also make it abundantly clear that they are oiks themselves. 
Dr. Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, never misses the chance to recite lines about how the Smithsonian Institution resides on the stolen land of native tribes or how her white privilege has afforded her her station in life. Both statements are meant to signal that the American story begins and remains in illegitimacy rather than achievement.
Nothing is further from the truth.
Like museums, academia too has been affected. Critical race theory tells young, impressionable students that institutions are not to be trusted, for they are inherently racist. Campuses not only allow but even enable protesters who threaten Jewish students and faculty, harass law enforcement, camp out on shared student grounds, and chant violently, anti-American sentiments. Conservative students self-censor so as not to be canceled. 
The media is not free either. An excellent example of this is the ongoing conflict in Iran. Just a few weeks ago, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called out the press for its lack of discipline and honesty, for its habitual practice of sowing shame and fear.
Referencing Operation Epic Fury, Hegseth asks why no one has run a story on the bravery and tenacity of American soldiers. Not MSNBC. Not CNN. Not even Newsmax.
Hegseth shamed the press corps for being irresponsible and for “undermining the success” of the American military. “How about we talk about how special America is,” he said, “that only we have these capabilities.” And then he even conceded, “I think it’s too much to ask.”
<div id="attachment_1074159" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1074159" class="size-large wp-image-1074159" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2269789867-865x576.jpg" alt="US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on April 8, 2026. The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7 barely an hour before President Donald Trump's deadline to obliterate the country, triggering global relief alongside apprehension. Tehran has agreed to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world's oil, gas and fertiliser passes, easing concerns for the battered global economy." width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2269789867-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2269789867-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2269789867-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2269789867.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" />Credit: Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images.</div>
Unfortunately, he may be right. This is yet another example of the ways in which oikophobia now permeates the most influential institutions, degrading national unity by diffusing doubt.
In the 2004 essay <a href="https://www.civitas.org.uk/content/files/NeedForNations2020.pdf">The Need for Nations</a>, in which he coined the term oikophobia, Scruton quotes Goethe’s Faust, “What you have inherited from your forefathers, earn it, that you might own it.”
Though he was writing about Europe of the early 2000s, Scruton’s analysis applies almost perfectly to contemporary America. He says that we must “earn again the sovereignty that previous generations so laboriously shaped from the inheritance of Christianity, imperial government and Roman law. Earning it, we will own it, and owning it, we will be at peace within our borders.”
The trouble with oikophobia is that it makes such ownership impossible. It breeds a class of followers who, set in their ways to redefine the nation according to their disdain for it, feel entitled to reject the very inheritance of their birthright. Thus, they will never earn it. And they will never own it.
Where gratitude should exist toward our forefathers, oiks replace with grievance. They say that America is not a nation striving toward its ideals, but one defined solely by its failures. And when that story is perpetuated through museums, classrooms, and the media — the very venues tasked with shaping national attachment — it does not remain abstract. It becomes formative. It becomes defining. It reshapes how Americans see their country, and ultimately, whether they believe it is worth loving at all.
This is the cost of the rise of oikophobia — a battle to define what it means to be American.
But the answer is simple: our American inheritance is worth conserving.
* * *
Anna Gustafson is a Research Assistant in the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. 
Savanna Donaldson is a former member of Heritage’s Young Leaders Program.

Roger Scruton Portrait Session

Roger Scruton Was Right About The War On Patriotism

American History

Heritage Foundation

Patriotism

Smithsonian Museum

For decades, Americans have viewed their primary adversaries as foreign nationals or international terrorist organizations. Yet this perspective has proven dangerously naive. Over the past 60 years, socialist and Marxist ideologies have taken root within our own borders, often hiding in plain sight. This internal threat operates not from distant shores but from within.
Recent events only underscore this concern. The arrest of a would-be assassin at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — reportedly a former “Teacher of the Year” — is deeply disturbing. It raises a critical question: how have individuals entrusted with educating our children become radicalized to such extremes? And more importantly — where is the line when freedom of speech ends and subversion begins?
<h3>Quietly Reshaping Society From the Inside Out</h3>
This enemy is not a shadowy cabal of spies but a network of socialist and Marxist-influenced elites who have methodically gained influence over key pillars of American life: universities, the legal system, media, political parties, and even religious organizations. Operating under the banners of progress, equity, and social justice, they have advanced while many citizens focused on daily responsibilities. The outcome has been a slow erosion of foundational American values and a deliberate division of people along lines of ethnicity, religion, and sexual identity and even splits amongst once close family members. The result is the gradual weakening of the nation’s core institutions and social fabric.
<h3>The Decimation of the Nuclear Family</h3>
One of the most striking impacts appears in the decline of the nuclear family. This trend began prominently in the black community. In the 1960s, roughly 80% of black children lived in two-parent homes. Today, that figure is reversed with 77% of black children born to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/693212/77-black-births-to-single-moms-49-for-hispanic-immigrants/">single mothers</a>. The problem has since spread nationwide. Pew Research Center <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/">data</a> show the United States has the highest rate of children living in single-parent households among developed nations — 23% of U.S. children under 18 live in fatherless homes, more than three times the global average.
Marriage rates have also hit historic lows, undermining the stable family structures historically linked to prosperity, child well-being, and social mobility. A prosperous country cannot long thrive without strong families as its foundation.
<h3>Academic Excellence Subverted into a Marxist Trojan Horse</h3>
Nowhere is the transformation more evident than in education. In public schools, social justice curricula emphasizing systemic racism, gender ideology, and equity have often displaced core academics. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores — the Nation’s Report Card — reveal reading and math proficiency at historic lows, with declines affecting students across demographic groups. Resources flow into DEI initiatives and “restorative justice” programs that prioritize emotional outcomes over measurable skills.
The human cost is profound: <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/most-us-would-fail-u-s-citizenship-test-survey-finds-n918961">surveys indicate</a> only about 19% of Americans under age 45 can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test, with many unable to name the three branches of government or explain the Bill of Rights. Older Americans pass at much higher rates (around 74% in some studies), underscoring that this reflects educational shifts rather than inherent generational differences. 
Teachers’ unions have sometimes embraced ideological language. During the 2022 Minneapolis strike, a union leader framed the effort as a fight against “the patriarchy” and “capitalism.”
Universities, once centers of free inquiry, now exhibit stark ideological imbalance. Faculty ratios have shifted dramatically, with liberal-to-conservative balances moving from roughly 2:1 in the mid-1990s to far wider margins today — often 10:1 or higher in many studies, with even greater disparities in humanities and education departments. In the national survey, Departments of Education faculty self-identify as Radical, Activist, Socialist or Marxist. This is especially concerning because they instruct the next generation of public-school teachers.
<h3>Propaganda Masquerading as Journalism and Advocacy</h3>
This academic capture influences media, law, and advocacy. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have faced scrutiny, including allegations in legal contexts of questionable practices while labeling mainstream groups. Media outlets often amplify such frameworks, shaping narratives through selective coverage. In politics, socialist ideas have moved from the fringes to mainstream Democratic platforms.
In November 2025, New York City elected Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, as mayor — the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of America’s largest city. His administration prioritizes expansive government and redistribution. Similar dynamics appear in Minnesota: Minneapolis City Council includes self-declared Democratic Socialists of America members advancing related priorities amid ongoing challenges with crime and services. The 2020 unrest in Minneapolis, involving organized elements, accelerated “defund the police” experiments rooted in these ideologies.
<h3>Undermining Service to Citizens</h3>
Elected officials advancing such agendas can weaken state capacity and national cohesion. When civic education falters, informed citizenship declines — an outcome aligned with views that see the Constitution as an outdated instrument of oppression.
Religious institutions have also been affected. Some mainline Protestant and Catholic circles have incorporated critiques of “systemic sin,” shifting emphasis toward social justice over personal redemption. Sermons increasingly echo academic and media talking points on privilege and reparations.
<h3>Pattern Recognition and the Path Forward</h3>
This is not paranoia but observable pattern recognition. Socialist and Marxist influences advanced not through overt revolution but via tenure committees, HR departments, grants, and activist networks. They reframed compassion-based concepts like diversity, inclusion, and equity into tools against dissent.
Evidence surrounds us: politicized campuses stifling debate, advocacy groups facing credibility questions, socialist elected officials, schools prioritizing socialist ideology, unions opposing capitalism, coordinated protests and riots, and churches emphasizing liberal politics.
Americans must awaken to this reality. The adversary lectures from podiums, edits content, drafts laws, grades papers, and serves on councils — seldom wearing foreign uniforms. Reclaiming institutions require vigilance: restoring academic excellence and viewpoint diversity in universities, demanding transparency from nonprofits and unions, electing leaders focused on merit and results, and ensuring schools prioritize fundamentals — reading, writing, history, and civics — over grievance.
The republic was not lost overnight but inch by inch. The time to push back is now. Our children’s future and the nation’s character depend on it.
* * *
Kendall Qualls is an Army veteran, business leader, and the leading Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota. TakeCharge is a national nonprofit organization led by Kendall and Sheila Qualls focused on restoring strong families as the foundation for opportunity, dignity, and upward mobility.

Former President Obama Joins NYC Mayor Mamdani On A Visit To Child Care Center

The Quiet Campaign Weaponizing America’s Youth

DW Opinion

Education

Family Values

Gen Z

Leftists

Minnesota

Propaganda

Teenagers

“Look.” I elbowed James, a Hill comms guy I’d just met in line. “It’s Taylor Lorenz, the founder of, uh, User Magazine.”
“Good lord,” he said.
At 7:57 she scurried up the sidewalk, chin down and shoulders turned in, wearing a surgical mask that was slightly too big — it stretched from the bridge of the nose to the chin, obscuring everything but her wide-set eyes. Two crowd-control lanes had been set up out front, and all us proles were squeezed into one of them. The other was empty, presumably reserved for big celebrities like Lorenz.
“Hey, Taylor!” I said, loud enough that she had to acknowledge it.
“Heeeyyy.” She didn’t quite stop. “What’s going on, guys?”
The “guys” in question were James, me, and a cluster of boomer couples who paused their conversation long enough to look at her, register nothing, and resume it. I considered asking some obnoxious question about her age (Lorenz is famously secretive about the exact birth year) and decided against it. I was worried she’d denounce me as a troll, at which point I’d be frog-marched off the premises of this third and most extravagant New Media Party, promoted by Substack as the founding event of a new American press.
What had been advertised, in the run-up to the night, was a celebrity gathering. Looksmaxxing icon Clavicular was supposed to attend and didn’t. Quentin Tarantino was supposed to attend and didn’t. Gavin Newsom was supposed to attend and didn’t. What did attend was a couple hundred people who write newsletters for a living, a handful of former CNN anchors, a Miami Herald reporter who covers Jeffrey Epstein, and David “Fluoride Stare” Pakman. By any measure, this was a less impressive room than the one I’d been promised. It was also, almost certainly, a more honest one. Every previous new intellectual class — the New York Intellectuals arguing about Trotsky in a City College cafeteria in 1937, the soixante-huitards throwing cobblestones at French police in 1968 — has looked, at the moment of its emergence, like a cheap imitation of the elite it was about to replace. If the Renwick was any indication, the next American intelligentsia was going to look like Jim Acosta threatening to fight Michael Tracey on the floor of a federal museum. Which is, I came to suspect, a more accurate sample of the future than anything happening at the Hilton.
I went through the metal detectors at 8 p.m. sharp. A red-carpeted staircase climbed two stories under a vaulted ceiling, and through the arch at the top of it, I could just barely hear a party. The Grand Salon at this hour held maybe fifty people, all sober, all standing in the unsettled clusters peculiar to early arrivals. I needed a drink immediately. The bartender, an African migrant whose grasp of English was tenuous, took my order for a double tequila soda and reached for a bottle of Tito’s. I corrected him.
“Ahahaha! Sounds just the same, eh?” he said.
“Uh, yeah. I guess so,” I said, and chuckled politely.
He set down the Tito&#8217;s, surveyed his station, and reached for a bottle of Absolut. I corrected him a second time. He started over. He worked at a pace that, by the third round, I came to understand was less a function of skill than of an entire continent’s relationship to time, and possibly to the postcolonial project as a whole.
By the time the drink was in my hand, the room behind me had quadrupled. It operated on a geometry I recognized from every other D.C. event I’d been to — cliques of three and four, each one a closed circuit that opened occasionally to admit someone, then sealed shut behind them. The conversations all had the same posture: people facing each other but looking past each other, scanning for the next conversation while performing the present one. I didn’t know who any of them were yet, but I knew what they were. They were people, by and large, who had figured out that you could leave a real publication, take your Twitter following with you, and charge five dollars a month for what you used to give away for free. Some of them were making more money than they’d ever made. Most were only pretending to.
The first person I spoke to was David Pakman. I found James, the comms guy from outside, deep in conversation with him near the bar, and inserted myself. The subject was Virginia congressional redistricting, on which Pakman had strong views. He was small and quick and never quite still — he held forth on the redistricting question while alighting on James’s words for a beat at a time, then shifting to whatever conversation was happening around him, the way a lemur tracks movement. When he had exhausted the redistricting subject, I mentioned I was writing a piece for The Daily Wire.
“Oh. How is the Daily Wire lately?” he said. There was an accusation in the cadence, like he’d recently read something disqualifying about the place and assumed I had too.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t work there. I’m a freelancer.”
“OK. Well. I’m going to go mingle.”
Then he was gone. I didn’t see him for the rest of the night.
Michael Tracey was easy to find. He was the loudest person in his vicinity, and his vicinity contained two young men in suits who, in the course of about thirty seconds of eavesdropping, identified themselves as Oxford PPE graduates working somewhere or other. I had only ever seen Tracey in his X profile picture, the sort of stylized cartoon avatar a man commissions of himself on Fiverr when he wants to be perceived as a serious thinker — bearded, bespectacled, knuckles to chin. In person he was sweaty, faintly purple, and topped with the kind of hair a bald man might acquire by rubbing glue on his scalp and rolling around on a barber shop floor. He was already belligerent when I joined the conversation. The subject was Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who has spent the better part of a decade documenting the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.
“She’s a c*nt,” Tracey said, “and I don’t use that word lightly.”
I said that, on the contrary, I considered her a beautiful angel and one of the most important journalists of our time. The British guys found this funnier than Tracey did. Tracey did not look at me; he continued his train of thought as though I hadn’t spoken, which was probably the most impressive thing he did all night.
Substack had advertised the party as “an ideologically diverse mix.” This was technically accurate but beside the point. What Tracey and Pakman and the several hundred others sipping cutely named cocktails — one was called “The Hot Take” — had in common was not a politics or a sensibility but an enemy. Every person in the room had built an audience on the conviction that the institutions producing the news a mile and a half north, at the Hilton, where the actual White House Correspondents’ Dinner was getting underway, were no longer fit to do so. The two routes were both in the room. Acosta had been pushed out of CNN. Tracey had been on the outside, throwing rocks at it for 15 years. And now they were both under the forty-foot ceiling of the Grand Salon, drinking all night from the same open bar.
A little after 8:30 the music stopped. A man I didn’t recognize was standing at the DJ booth, behind a Marlboro-styled Substack logo, asking for everyone’s attention. There had been an incident, he said. The Renwick was closing its doors as a precaution, which meant that nobody inside would be permitted to leave. Since we were all already here, he added, we were going to keep the party going, and somebody would let us know when it was safe to step out. He thanked us for our patience and the DJ resumed.
He wasn’t telling most of the room anything new. For some minutes before he spoke, the news had been spreading unevenly through the salon. A handful of people had drifted into the side galleries — past the butter cow in its refrigerated case, past a stack of jars called Mount Zeitler — and were pacing on phone calls, faces troubled. For others, the announcement was the first they’d heard of it. Nobody left, because nobody could. The complaint I heard most often in the hour that followed was not about the shooting itself but about Tarantino and Newsom: multiple people informed me, with apparent disappointment, that it was why they hadn’t made it to Substack that night.
While we drank, the Hilton was being evacuated. A man named Cole Allen had charged the security checkpoint outside the ballroom with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38, and a manifesto he had emailed to his family ten minutes before. The president was being lifted from the dais. The speaker of the House, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the directors of the FBI and HHS were all escorted out in a hurry. The press corps — the people most of the room at the Renwick had built their careers denouncing — were diving under their tables in evening dress.
The Renwick stayed locked for another 90 minutes. None of us could leave. Neither, it turned out, could Julie K. Brown. What happened next, I missed. I had drifted into the side galleries, or to the bathroom, or to whoever I’d been introduced to in line for the bar. Tracey, who at 8:45 had merely been calling Brown a c*nt, had by 9:30 graduated to the physical phase of his plan. Allegedly, he cornered her, started screaming, and blocked her when she tried to walk away.
What I learned the next morning, in pieces, on Twitter, was that several men intervened. Acosta was among them. So was security. Acosta, by his own account and Brown’s confirmation, stood between them and helped escort her away. At which point Acosta turned to Tracey and yelled, “LET’S STEP OUTSIDE.” Tracey accepted, replying, “OK JIM LET’S GO.” Security pulled Tracey out before either of them could leave.
In any case, they couldn’t have gone anywhere. The Renwick was still sealed. But the gesture had been made, and Tracey, escorted out and free of the lockdown that constrained the rest of us, took it with him. He walked east, arriving sometime after midnight at the Hampton Inn on 6th Street, where he’d been told Acosta was staying. He lurked on the sidewalk. At 1:01 a.m., he posted to X that he still had no idea what had happened with Trump that night. Six minutes later he posted a photograph of the entrance with the caption: Jim, I’m literally waiting for you right now, you piece of shit. Acosta did not come downstairs.
The image of a middle-aged man standing alone outside a Hampton Inn at 1 a.m., posting threats at another middle-aged man on a website neither of them owned, was a degraded image. But it was an old one. Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal — members in good standing of the New York literary establishment that produced both of them — had spent the 1970s trying to kill each other at parties. Mailer headbutted Vidal in the green room of The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. He threw a drink at him at a Lally Weymouth party in 1977. Mary McCarthy went on television in 1980 to call Lillian Hellman a liar; Hellman sued her for libel; the suit was still unresolved when Hellman died. None of these men or women were friends. Several of them loathed each other, for legitimate reasons.
Mailer’s grievance with Vidal was that Vidal had compared his writing in print to the work of Charles Manson. McCarthy’s grievance with Hellman was that Hellman had spent decades lying in her memoirs about her Stalinism. They were serious ideological feuds — about American masculinity, about the responsibility of the intellectual to political truth, about what could and could not be said about the Soviet Union — that found, in time, a personal form.
The class that fought through these feuds eventually replaced the older liberal establishment it had grown up wanting to displace. It produced Trilling, Bellow, Sontag, and Hardwick. It also produced Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, and most of the intellectual scaffolding for the neoconservative project, including a great deal of what came later in the way of American foreign policy. Sometimes it honored its inheritance — but it often squandered it, too. The record is mixed in a way that should give anyone watching the next emergence pause.
What I’d watched for three hours at the Renwick was, I believe, an emergent class of the same model. The substrate was different — Substack rather than the little magazines. The disputes were smaller, pettier. The people were obviously less impressive and more embarrassing. But the resentments were structured the same way. They will probably win, in the sense that previous classes of this type have won. Whether what they produce will be worth what they replace is a question I’m in no position to answer, and neither, on the evidence I’d collected over three hours of standing in the room, were they.
***
Thomas English

The Circus Barbershop. 1890 Engraving of a Busy Circus Dressing Room and Barbershop

That Night At The Renwick

Substack

White House Correspondents’ Dinner

For the ninety seconds when members of the media were diving under tables at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, watching as politicians and cabinet members were yanked from the room by security, you have to wonder how many had the honest thought: did we do this?
The repeated media normalization of assassination fantasies on the American left hasn&#8217;t been a quiet trend. A decade after Kathy Griffin posed with Donald Trump&#8217;s severed head, their attitude is the same as Steve Schmidt&#8217;s in the immediate aftermath of this latest attempt: to the extent anyone is to blame for repeated attempts at Trump&#8217;s assassination, it&#8217;s the man himself — and then maybe his supporters for having the audacity to elect Orange Hitler twice.
Remember the Rutgers study that found more than half of Left-of-center respondents said it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Donald Trump? When the &#8220;radical Left&#8221; describes such a vast portion of the Democratic electorate on the question &#8220;should the president be unalived,” believe them.
The legacy media has declared who they want dead. They continue to platform the Left&#8217;s voices who urge his death. They rely on the violent Left&#8217;s bark being worse than their bite — even as those who bay for blood continually show their eagerness for the exact outcome that motivates the president&#8217;s would-be murderers.
Hasan Piker&#8217;s call to murder capitalists and drench the streets with their blood gets the New York Times and Conde Nast imprimatur. &#8220;Your cool murderous communist message is such a song of the summer vibe, tell me more, lol.&#8221; That casual endorsement of bloodshed isn’t fringe — it’s increasingly mainstream by the same people who claim democracy dies in darkness. Well, it almost died in the sun in Butler and West Palm and the bowels of the Washington Hilton. How many more cracks does the media want their psychotic fellow travelers to take at this? How long will they stand by Senate Democrats who have blocked security funding in the midst of war and blatant terror threats? Or should we just get used to a political reality where we refuse to treat violent rhetoric as the incitement it is?
The WHCD attack was not an isolated incident of random violence. It was the predictable outcome of years of rhetoric, glorified in newsrooms, popularized on campuses, featured on podcasts, and given serious, intoned consideration in the pages of glossy magazines by the same people who claim to be standing against hate. The Left’s open celebration of political murder did this, and it will continue to do it, fueled by a legacy media that knows a click is a click, no matter the motivation.

“No Kings” Protest In San Francisco

The Legacy Media Is Complicit In America’s Assassination Vibes

assassination attempt

Political Violence

For years, the legacy media has uncritically pointed to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an authoritative source on extremism, frequently relying on its designations of &#8220;hate lists&#8221; in coverage of political and cultural issues, going so far as including Christian groups alongside neo-Nazi organizations and the KKK.
On Tuesday, however, the Justice Department accused the SPLC of secretly using donor money to pay leaders within white supremacist groups. The SPLC, which labels organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom as a hate group, was charged with multiple financial crimes, including money laundering and bank fraud. 
Prosecutors say the SPLC directed more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to such individuals while obscuring the transactions through accounts tied to &#8220;a series of fictitious entities.&#8221;
The charges come years after legacy media outlets have repeatedly cited the SPLC in reporting on conservative organizations and activists. 
The New York Times, for example, frequently refers to SPLC experts in articles on conservative figures and movements, including the late Charlie Kirk, whose Turning Point USA was labeled a “hate group.” In an article published on the day of Kirk’s assassination, the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/us/politics/trump-charlie-kirk-ally.html?searchResultPosition=12">wrote</a> that his “rhetoric was long cast as racist, xenophobic and extreme by groups that study hate speech, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
The paper&#8217;s obituary of conservative activist David Horowitz also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/us/politics/david-horowitz-dead.html?searchResultPosition=28">quoted</a> the SPLC, which labeled him “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement.”
Other outlets have similarly relied on SPLC reports and designations. When the conservative grassroots group Moms for Liberty was added to the list in 2023, NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/07/1180486760/splc-moms-for-liberty-extremist-group">reported </a>that the SPLC compared the parental rights group to “pro-segregationist parent groups.” CBS News, in its coverage, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/gov-desantis-appoints-moms-for-liberty-co-founder-to-state-commission-on-ethics/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h">pointed</a> to the SPLC&#8217;s claims that the group had a history of &#8220;harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.&#8221;
The SPLC&#8217;s designation of groups opposed to transgender ideology on kids or that hold to traditional Christian beliefs has received much coverage over the years.
One article from NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/groups-opposed-gay-rights-rake-millions-states-debate-anti-lgbtq-bills-rcna21016">cited</a> the SPLC to identify groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council, and the American College of Pediatricians as the core of the “anti-gay movement.&#8221; Similarly, the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/09/colorado-flag-program/">turned</a> to the SPLC to label the group Gays Against Groomers as “an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.”
Groups concerned about Sharia law have also faced criticism from the SPLC. An article from NBC <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/smart-facts/what-shariah-law-n859981">pointed</a> to the SPLC as a source in a report about momentum to ban Sharia law in the United States. It noted that one anti-Sharia group had been labeled a hate group by the SPLC. 
The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/22/white-nationalist-hate-extremist-groups">framed</a> the SPLC&#8217;s 2024 hate list as driven by people critical of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. 
Reporting in 2017 on the annual hate group list, CNN ran a headline titled “Here are all the active hate groups where you live,” providing a “hate map” that included groups that held traditional Christian beliefs. They later changed that headline to “The Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups” after <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/302442/cnn-modifies-story-on-the-southern-poverty-law-centers-bogus-list-of-hate-groups-adds-editors-note/?utm_source=chatgpt.com">complaints</a> from conservatives.

The New York Times Co. Post An 82 Percent Decline In 2nd Quarter Profi

Legacy Media Relied On SPLC’s Hate Rankings To Bash Conservatives

Department of Justice

New York Times

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

There is a long-honored pattern among progressive media figures when it comes to any form of new media. Prolific X (formerly Twitter) user David Burge (@Iowahawkblog) made <a href="https://x.com/iowahawkblog/status/664089892599631872">this observation</a> in 2015, and it has not been stated better since:
<blockquote>
1. Identify a respected institution. 
2. kill it. 
3. gut it. 
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect. <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/lefties?src=hashtag_click">#lefties</a>
</blockquote>
This weekend, during White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD) and festivities, Substack will be hosting its own third annual invite-only party at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. Substack has sold this as a form of counter programming to traditional media, like network news and newspapers, and has always billed itself as a “New and Independent” media enterprise.
Except there is no longer anything new or independent about Substack, which over the last year has largely become a sanctuary catering to former corporate and legacy partisan journalists. For the first time, President Donald Trump will be in attendance, and several of the journalists he regularly spars with will be attending the Substack party instead.
Substack’s exclusive, invite-only party will feature a cadre of so-called independent media voices. Kara Swisher, Mehdi Hassan, Chuck Todd, Chris Cillizza, Jennifer Rubin, Jim Acosta, and more mainstream media cast-offs who now all lay a claim to Substack and who Substack is turning to for their audiences, and it goes without saying that they are the farthest thing from “independent” media.
There is also one more addition slated to appear — the looksmaxxing <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/politics/white-house-correspondents-dinner-weekend/65-ab37e62c-8089-4749-a4db-e8f9d8647df8">online influencer Clavicular</a>, who has made waves of late in Florida and seen cavorting around with far-Right nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes. As someone who makes a great deal of his living from Substack and has for the past three years, the glaring shift in ideology and mission has been hard to ignore, as have the algorithmic changes that now favor those very same journalists — the ones who will be partying this weekend. What independent voices on Substack see is The David Burge Effect happening in real time.
It wasn’t even five years ago that mainstream media figures and outlets were publishing hit pieces against Substack, calling it a platform <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/pressure-builds-newsletter-company-substack-stop-paying-nazi-writers-rcna132593">that hosts white supremacists</a>, dangerous vaccine disinformation, <a href="https://judedoyle.medium.com/substack-is-still-a-problem-dec84cb84188">transphobic, and lacking proper moderation</a>, that these same journalists and media figures were successful at hollowing out platforms like Facebook and Twitter of voices they found problematic, until Elon Musk purchased Twitter. Several prominent media figures, like Kara Swisher, abandoned Twitter because they stated they could not participate on a platform owned by Elon Musk.
In actuality, what happened is they lost the power, through Twitter, to silence voices they disagreed with. Gone were media allies Vijaya Gadde and Yoel Roth, the heads of (former) Twitter’s so-called “Safety Team,” which was disbanded under Musk, and with the release of the Twitter Files, revealed how they worked closely with journalists to censor voices on the platform, oftentimes conservative or Right-leaning in nature.
After Donald Trump&#8217;s second election in 2024, several media institutions began recalculating their business models. Resistance porn was no longer effective, and their audiences were dwindling. Several prominent journalists and media personalities found themselves out of a job. CNN’s grandstanding partisan personality, Jim Acosta, refused to be moved to late-night. Chuck Todd was out at NBC’s Meet the Press, and social media punchline and Wrongest Human Being on Earth Chris Cillizza had also departed CNN.
That’s where Substack stepped up, not only offering its platform to voices and institutions that had disparaged it in the past, but also pursuing promotional partnerships. Earlier this year, Head of News and Politics Catherine Valentine <a href="https://x.com/redsteeze/status/2019375521105383662">partnered with Cillizza to offer a Substack “Masterclass”</a> for journalists laid off at the Washington Post. Valentine also reached out on her public timeline for an anonymous CBS anchor unhappy with CBS News’s direction under new Editor-In-Chief Bari Weiss.
Cillizza, who once famously stated that “for the billionth time, journalists don’t root for a side,” had only recently joined Substack but was clearly being promoted by the platform as a new and important voice for content over less prominent long-time users of the platform.
Last year, Substack made a push into video and live video, and there are rumors of Substack wanting to become essentially a new online television network, with the development of <a href="https://likeandsubscribenews.substack.com/p/scoop-substack-is-launching-a-tv">a live TV app</a>. Substack sent out a promotional email to users and subscribers (like my Substack, Versus Media). Who were they promoting with this new direction? Jim Acosta and Katie Couric — two well-established detractors in the media of the political and cultural Right.
Valentine’s X bio states that she is helping “to lead a new media revolution.” She’s a former CNN, Politico, and Washington Post journalist herself, which explains the urge to turn Substack into a newer version of those biased outlets; the same outlets that targeted Right-leaning and independent voices on social media over some of the biggest news stories of the last five years, including the origins of Covid and the resulting vaccines, Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, and the Hunter Biden laptop story, which journalists actively assisted Twitter at the time in stopping the sharing of the story on social media platforms.
To her credit, Valentine and other heads of Substack have been open to concerns about catering to legacy media partisans, but that doesn’t appear to be slowing this trend. It’s being lavishly celebrated and catered to, even with more of these promotional partnerships. Of <a href="https://substack.com/leaderboard/us-politics/paid">the Top Ten Bestsellers on Substack</a>, eight of the top 10 are progressive personalities or former corporate media journalists, and they will all likely be in attendance at Substack’s counter party to the WHCD.
Substack can no longer lay claim to being “New Media” when they have turned their platform over to the most prominent partisan voices of old media personalities from the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC. If Substack wants to become the platform of the media it helped destroy in the first place, that’s certainly their choice.
After journalist/activist Don Lemon was arrested in Minneapolis earlier this year for his role in a church protest, during which congregants said Lemon blocked a doorway and would not let them exit, Substack released a <a href="https://substack.com/@substack/note/c-207583763">statement</a> defending Lemon, another former CNN personality, as an act of free speech and journalism.
It wasn’t.
While there was spirited debate among members of Substack&#8217;s leadership about religious freedom and the right to worship in peace, there was no mention of the First Amendment rights of the congregation that were being violated by Lemon and the protestors, with whom he was working.
What made Substack special in the beginning, and what made it thrive, was that it was a model that stood up to those very same institutions, which have largely been discredited by dwindling audiences and a lack of credibility. It didn’t cave to pressure and accusations of being a transphobic platform that also gladly hosted Neo Nazis. Now, Substack is throwing lavish invite-only parties for those very same people.
Substack is becoming South By Southwest and Coachella. What was once a fledgling, daring independent music festival featuring some of the boldest independent and undiscovered bands and musicians became a sell-out corporate media playground that hosted progressive politicians for TED Talks.
Coachella, once a bold four-day music festival featuring independent acts, is now simply a fashion orgy for the rich and the celebrity elite. The question we are all asking ourselves now is where we go from here, after Substack’s party for the media elites.
***
Stephen L. Miller is the host and producer of Versus Media Podcast on Substack. He has written for The Spectator magazine, National Review, the New York Post, and Fox News. He can be found on Twitter @redsteeze

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