FBI Director Christopher Wray warned in an interview this week that the United States is facing an unprecedented threat environment across the board.
Wray made the remarks during a wide reaching interview with NBC News that aired on Tuesday in which he urged Americans who use TikTok to quit using the app and made remarks about the anti-Semitic protests across college campuses.
Wray told NBC News&#8217; Lester Holt: &#8220;As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I&#8217;m hard pressed to come up with a time where I&#8217;ve seen so many different threats all elevated all at the same time, whether it&#8217;s the threats from China, Russia, Iran, the terrorism threats, both foreign terrorist threats and domestic terrorist threats.&#8221;
&#8220;So we thought that even before October 7, if you and I were having this conversation then, we would have said that the terrorism threat was already elevated,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But post October 7, it&#8217;s gone to a whole other level.&#8221;
When asked about the protests that have erupted on college campuses across the U.S. in recent days, Wray said that the FBI has seen a &#8220;significant increase, especially in anti-Semitic threats and anti-Semitic violence.&#8221;
He said that the FBI typically does not get involved in the protests.
&#8220;We don&#8217;t monitor protests,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But we do share intelligence about specific threats of violence.&#8221;
Wray later warned Americans about using TikTok, the popular social media app that is controlled by China&#8217;s communist government.
<a href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-9096" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://onelink.to/dwapp&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1713981381428000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0sPVuNvu4teAWm2uWm60Ec">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP</a>
&#8220;Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that would essentially ban TikTok if it&#8217;s not sold,&#8221; Holt noted. &#8220;You&#8217;ve talked about this, many in the government have talked about the threat of TikTok, can you be specific about what your fear is?&#8221;
&#8220;TikTok, for us, represents a national security concern,&#8221; Wray responded. &#8220;And the reason I say that is that TikTok&#8217;s parent company is beholden to the Chinese government. So that for us manifests itself in three specific ways: it has to do with the data, it has to do with the recommendation algorithm, it has to deal with the software. The data, that we&#8217;re talking about the ability to control or collect data on millions and millions of users and to use it for all sorts of influence operations, like driving their AI efforts, which are not remotely constrained by the rule of law.&#8221;
&#8220;Are they doing that now or that&#8217;s simply, they have the capability to do that?&#8221; Holt asked.
&#8220;What I would say to you is that they are currently attempting to steal our AI and hack American technology every day,&#8221; Wray said. &#8220;My message is you need to take into account who the Chinese government is, who the Chinese Communist Party is, even if for some reason, you don&#8217;t care about that, which I would argue you should,&#8221; he said. &#8220;What about all of your friends, family members, classmates, co-workers, neighbors, etc, who are also participating and are connected to you through all those same things? Maybe they would care about the ability of the Chinese government and the Chinese intelligence services to access all that.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The FBI Director says he sees those in prison or facing trial in January 6 cases not as hostages as President Trump has said, but “criminal defendants”.
Lester Holt talks to Christopher Wray about that and more. <a href="https://t.co/UPvMaU2PEO">pic.twitter.com/UPvMaU2PEO</a>
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNightlyNews/status/1782913072660701451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Worldwide Threats

FBI Director Wray Raises Alarm About Terror Threat; Warns About TikTok; Raises Eyebrows On Protest Remarks

Christopher Wray

Lester Holt

Media

U.S.

Back when I covered the White House for a national newspaper in the aughts, I got word of some internal deliberations going on at the Associated Press.
For the record, the longtime wire service provides news to newspapers and news websites, and guess what? Most of them are liberal. So (and you can’t blame them), the AP delivers liberal news for their liberal readers. That’s just business.
So it turned out the AP was sick of all this balanced, just-the-facts-ma&#8217;am news stuff. The powers that be at the AP decided it no longer had to present two opposing sides equally. Instead, top editors there agreed that they would determine what viewpoint should be stressed, and what viewpoint should be minimized.
The AP then proceeded to cover President George W. Bush in the most biased manner, becoming a mere shadow of its former greatness. Since then, the wire service has become little more than a Democratic organ spewing out the party&#8217;s talking points.
So sure, you could certainly say journalism was grievously wounded back then. But the libs in the newsroom are back to fire off a final kill shot.
Former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward interviewed more than 75 media leaders and put together their findings in a <a href="https://cronkitenewslab.com/digital/2023/01/26/beyond-objectivity/">report</a> titled, &#8220;Beyond Objectivity: Producing Trustworthy News in Today&#8217;s Newsroom.&#8221;
Its conclusion? Objectivity in the media is now considered reactionary, even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, went so far as to say: &#8220;Objectivity has got to go.&#8221;
This is right in line with what liberal professors are teaching liberal students in liberal learning institutions. It&#8217;s now all about advocacy &#8212; pushing one side &#8212; and every fledgling journalist wants to be an activist that promotes change.
&#8220;Many forces have eroded public trust in journalism over the years. Additionally, the traditional standard of &#8216;objectivity&#8217; has lost its relevance for a new generation of journalists and news consumers,&#8221; Downie and Heyward wrote.
&#8220;This report and accompanying &#8216;playbook&#8217; offer actionable guidelines to help news organizations restore a belief in the value of fair, fact-based reporting — trustworthy news. We provide a fresh vision for how to replace outmoded &#8216;objectivity&#8217; with a more relevant articulation of journalistic standards,&#8221; they wrote.
The new edict of new journalism comes as Bob Woodward, who along with Carl Bernstein helped break Watergate, finally acknowledged that the Russian collusion coverage during former President Donald Trump&#8217;s term lacked objectivity and resulted in false reporting.
In a report for Columbia Journalism Review, journalist Jeff Gerth interviewed media and political figures who pushed Russiagate — which turned out to be completely false. Woodward told Gerth that viewers and readers had been &#8220;cheated&#8221; by the coverage, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/bob-woodward-condemns-medias-russiagate-coverage-reveals-reporters-ignored-his-warnings-about-steele-dossier">reported</a>.
&#8220;Bob Woodward, of the Post, told me that news coverage of the Russia inquiry ‘wasn’t handled well’ and that he thought viewers and readers had been &#8216;cheated.&#8217; He urged newsrooms to &#8216;walk down the painful road of introspection,'&#8221; Gerth wrote.
But the idea of presenting news in an unbiased fashion, allowing both sides an opportunity to explain its position, has been dying for a while.
Back in 2021, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt declared &#8220;fairness is overrated.&#8221;
&#8220;The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in. That the sun sets in the west is a fact. Any contrary view does not deserve our time or attention,&#8221; Holt said, The Daily Wire reported at the time.
Of course, that&#8217;s a silly oversimplification. What about complex issues like abortion, climate change, anything coming out of the White House or Capitol? Nothing&#8217;s ever that clear cut.
But Holt said there’s no longer any need for a journalist to give both sides of a story equal weight.
“Decisions to not give unsupported arguments equal time are not a dereliction of journalistic responsibility or some kind of agenda. In fact, it’s just the opposite,” Holt said. “Providing an open platform for misinformation, for anyone to come say whatever they want, especially when issues of public health and safety are at stake, can be quite dangerous.&#8221;
&#8220;Our duty is to be fair to the truth. Holding those in power accountable is at the core of our function and responsibility. We need to hear our leaders&#8217; views, their policies, and reasoning. It’s really important. But we have to stand ready to push back and call out falsehoods.”
And never forget, journalists now decide what the &#8220;truth&#8221; is. No wonder Americans have given up on its media.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

Donald Trump Holds Joint Press Conference With Colombian President Santos

Journalism Is Dead (No, This Time It Really Is)

Donald Trump

Journalism

Legacy Media

Media Bias

Vice President Kamala Harris ignited a firestorm online on Tuesday morning after she claimed during an interview with NBC News that the administration has been to the border amid President Joe Biden&#8217;s border crisis, which prompted quick pushback from host Lester Holt.
&#8220;Do you have any plans to visit the border?&#8221; Holt asked.
&#8220;At some point, you know, we are going to the border, we&#8217;ve been to the border,&#8221; Harris claimed. &#8220;So this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border.&#8221;
&#8220;You haven&#8217;t been to the border,&#8221; Holt responded.
&#8220;And I haven&#8217;t been to Europe,&#8221; Harris responded.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
What?! Kamala Harris is not serious about addressing the border crisis their policies created.
HARRIS: &quot;We&#39;ve been the border.&quot;
HOLT: &quot;YOU haven&#39;t been to the border.&quot;
HARRIS: &quot;&#8230; and I haven&#39;t been to Europe. I don&#39;t understand the point&#8230;&quot;<a href="https://t.co/koDjvA2SDf">pic.twitter.com/koDjvA2SDf</a>
&mdash; Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) <a href="https://twitter.com/NathanBrandWA/status/1402238336782249999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Below are some of the responses to Harris&#8217; remarks:
Chad Gilmartin: &#8220;Looking forward to Vice President Harris&#8217; visit to the U.S.-Europe border!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Looking forward to Vice President Harris&#39; visit to the U.S.-Europe border!
&mdash; Chad Gilmartin (@ChadGilmartinCA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChadGilmartinCA/status/1402238066111229952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Mark Bednar: &#8220;&#8216;I haven&#8217;t been to Europe.&#8217; &#8211; VP Kamala Harris, President Biden&#8217;s point person on the border crisis, defending her decision to not go to the southern border.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;I haven&#39;t been to Europe.&quot; 
&#8211; VP Kamala Harris, President Biden&#39;s point person on the border crisis, defending her decision to not go to the southern border. <a href="https://t.co/bZ7325zK3J">pic.twitter.com/bZ7325zK3J</a>
&mdash; Mark Bednar (@MarkBednar) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkBednar/status/1402242532319367169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Ashley Hinson: &#8220;VP Kamala Harris said that &#8216;we’ve been to the border.&#8217; Spoiler alert: She hasn’t. The VP would rather meet with foreign leaders than with border patrol agents who are dealing with these issues on American soil. I will continue to call out her failure to secure our border.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
VP Kamala Harris said that “we’ve been to the border.” 
Spoiler alert: She hasn’t. 
The VP would rather meet with foreign leaders than with border patrol agents who are dealing with these issues on American soil. I will continue to call out her failure to secure our border. <a href="https://t.co/Vpadu6jDIE">pic.twitter.com/Vpadu6jDIE</a>
&mdash; Ashley Hinson (@hinsonashley) <a href="https://twitter.com/hinsonashley/status/1402245673727242240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Jake Sherman: &#8220;&gt;@vp can disagree w the point he’s making. But it’s impossible to believe she doesn’t understand it!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&gt;<a href="https://twitter.com/VP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@vp</a> can disagree w the point he’s making. But it’s impossible to believe she doesn’t understand it! <a href="https://t.co/AhpW4HXB0g">https://t.co/AhpW4HXB0g</a>
&mdash; Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1402243562549526531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Stephen Lawson: &#8220;Between the gaslighting, condescension, and clueless answer, this is a master class on how to blow an interview.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Between the gaslighting, consdescension, and clueless answer, this is a master class on how to blow an interview. <a href="https://t.co/m5x6kOAnxb">https://t.co/m5x6kOAnxb</a>
&mdash; Stephen Lawson (@StephenLawson_) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenLawson_/status/1402246827437604865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Chris Martin: &#8220;No wonder Joe Biden tried walking back his decision to put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis She&#8217;s laughing and comparing it to&#8230; Europe?&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
No wonder Joe Biden tried walking back his decision to put Kamala Harris in charge of the border crisis
She&#39;s laughing and comparing it to&#8230; Europe? <a href="https://t.co/OLNVIsSNmD">pic.twitter.com/OLNVIsSNmD</a>
&mdash; Chris Martin (@chrisjdmartin) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrisjdmartin/status/1402244483698237444?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Steve Guest: &#8220;&#8216;I haven’t been to Europe.&#8217; 500,000 illegal aliens have streamed across the border since Biden and Harris got into office and Kamala still has no good answer about why she hasn’t visited the southern border.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“I haven’t been to Europe.”
500,000 illegal aliens have streamed across the border since Biden and Harris got into office and Kamala still has no good answer about why she hasn’t visited the southern border. <a href="https://t.co/XysoajHVev">https://t.co/XysoajHVev</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1402238419103780864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Matt Whitlock: &#8220;I genuinely can’t get over this exchange. HARRIS: We&#8217;ve been to the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border. HOLT: You haven&#8217;t been to the border&#8230; HARRIS: And I haven&#8217;t been to Europe. (She wasn’t named &#8216;Europe Czar,&#8217; she was named &#8216;border czar&#8217; and this is such absurd messaging)&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I genuinely can’t get over this exchange.
HARRIS: We&#39;ve been to the border. We&#39;ve been to the border.
HOLT: You haven&#39;t been to the border&#8230;
HARRIS: And I haven&#39;t been to Europe.
(She wasn’t named “Europe Czar,” she was named “border czar” and this is such absurd messaging) <a href="https://t.co/lTcVqnYG5G">https://t.co/lTcVqnYG5G</a>
&mdash; Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) <a href="https://twitter.com/mattdizwhitlock/status/1402234302973329412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Andrew Clark: &#8220;Cringe. Kamala Harris doesn&#8217;t get it. Holt: &#8216;Do you have any plans to visit the border?&#8217; Harris: &#8216;We&#8217;ve been to the border. We&#8217;ve been the border.&#8217; Holt: &#8216;YOU haven&#8217;t been to the border.&#8217; Harris: &#8216;&#8230;..and I haven&#8217;t been to Europe. I don&#8217;t understand the point you&#8217;re making.'&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Cringe. Kamala Harris doesn&#39;t get it.
Holt: &quot;Do you have any plans to visit the border?&quot;
Harris: &quot;We&#39;ve been to the border. We&#39;ve been the border.&quot;
Holt: &quot;YOU haven&#39;t been to the border.&quot;
Harris: &quot;&#8230;..and I haven&#39;t been to Europe. I don&#39;t understand the point you&#39;re making.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/fFXMf8X0b6">pic.twitter.com/fFXMf8X0b6</a>
&mdash; Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewHClark/status/1402235100386009089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>LESTER HOLT: Why will it be successful this time if it wasn&#8217;t in the past?
KAMALA HARRIS: Well, I think there was success about what happened in the past. And again, when you look at what we&#8217;re doing now you&#8217;re seeing progress. And so let&#8217;s not overlook progress.
HOLT: Let me just quickly put a button. Do you have any plans to visit the border?
HARRIS: At some point, you know, we are going to the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border. We&#8217;ve been to the border.
HOLT: You haven&#8217;t been to the border.
HARRIS: And I haven&#8217;t been to Europe. And I mean, I don&#8217;t understand the point that you&#8217;re making. I&#8217;m not discounting the importance of the border.
HOLT: Well, I mention it because I know Republicans have certainly come at you on this. But Democratic Congressman Cuellar, has a border district, has said to you and president, &#8220;Come. You need, you need to see this.
HARRIS: I care about, listen, I care about what&#8217;s happening at the border. I&#8217;m in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration. There may be some who think that that is not important, but it is my firm belief that if we care about what&#8217;s happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them. And so that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m doing.</blockquote>

Vice President Kamala Harris vists Guatemala For Talks on Economy and Migration

WATCH: Internet Erupts Over Kamala Harris’ Response To Grilling By NBC For Claiming Admin Has Been To Border

Illegal Immigration

Kamala Harris

Southern Border

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt says &#8220;fairness is overrated&#8221; and the news media no longer needs to present both sides of a given story.
Holt, who was this week awarded the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism from Washington State University, waxed poetic on the news media, at one point declaring that &#8220;it’s become clearer that fairness is over-rated.”
“Before you run off and tweet that headline, let me explain a bit,” he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWIbAKI9PSA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">said</a>. “The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in. That the sun sets in the west is a fact. Any contrary view does not deserve our time or attention.”
Holt said &#8220;you won’t have to look far to find more current and relevant examples,” noting misinformation about the 2020 presidential election and COVID-19.
And the anchor said there&#8217;s no longer any need for a journalist to give both sides of a story equal weight.
“Decisions to not give unsupported arguments equal time are not a dereliction of journalistic responsibility or some kind of agenda. In fact, it’s just the opposite,” Holt said. “Providing an open platform for misinformation, for anyone to come say whatever they want, especially when issues of public health and safety are at stake, can be quite dangerous. Our duty is to be fair to the truth. Holding those in power accountable is at the core of our function and responsibility. We need to hear our leader’s views, their policies, and reasoning. It’s really important. But we have to stand ready to push back and call out falsehoods.”
Holt has served as the anchor of NBC Nightly News since 2015, having joined the network in 2000 and working as a co-host of &#8220;Today&#8221; and other NBC news programs.
The anchor also talked about an evolution of major media companies, which have to win the trust of their audiences even as they report &#8220;uncomfortable truths.&#8221;
And he acknowledged the fact that a departure from the objectivity once represented in journalism could &#8220;reinforce negative sentiment some hold to journalists.&#8221;
&#8220;That we have had to be more direct in our language in recent times only speaks to the volume and gravity of particular statements and claims,&#8221; Holt said. &#8220;Fact-checking is not a vendetta or attack. We all have a stake in us getting it right.&#8221;
&#8220;We must help our audiences understand what our role is in a healthy democracy. Because if we&#8217;re not asking the right questions, who is?&#8221; he said. &#8220;Imagine, if you would, what the pandemic would look like without the media holding leaders to account for vaccines rollouts or countering harmful misinformation or why some communities are being left behind.&#8221;
&#8220;Regard for truth must regain a foothold in our society so that we can weather the storms of tomorrow&#8217;s calamities, tomorrow’s pandemics,&#8221; Holt added.

NBC-TV coverage of Trump impeachment vote

NBC News Anchor: ‘Fairness Is Overrated’

NBC News

On Monday, a woman who lost her mother to COVID-19 in a New York nursing home told Fox News that NBC News asked her to refrain from using New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s name when she spoke of her mother’s death. After she made the claim, a review of the video of an interview she referenced found that the woman did call out Cuomo by name but appeared to correct herself, saying, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t say that as well as I could.&#8221;
Dawn Best, whose mother died in April 2020, told Brian Kilmeade of &#8220;Fox &amp; Friends&#8221; that she was told by NBC News, “Can you say that a different way without Governor Cuomo&#8217;s name, and just say New York failed you?&#8221; Best continued, “So I had no choice. So I had to say, ‘New York failed me.’&#8221;
Best told the chilling story of how her mother died from dehydration in a New York nursing home after Cuomo’s state department of health issued a directive on March 25, 2020, calling for nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients. Asked about Cuomo&#8217;s claim that he had been following CDC guidelines, Best snapped, “That&#8217;s a complete and utter lie. It&#8217;s part of the Cuomo cover-up. The media was complicit with it and it&#8217;s a complete and total lie.&#8221;
The March 25 <a href="https://skillednursingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/03/DOH_COVID19__NHAdmissionsReadmissions__032520_1585166684475_0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">advisory</a> required nursing homes to accept &#8220;the expedited receipt of residents returning from hospitals&#8221; if the patients were determined to be medically stable. &#8220;No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,&#8221; the advisory read. &#8220;[Nursing homes] are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Daughter who lost her mother in a nursing home accuses the media of protecting Gov. Andrew Cuomo, slams New York’s response on the nursing home crisis. <a href="https://t.co/A38ehzrCnq">pic.twitter.com/A38ehzrCnq</a>
&mdash; Brian Kilmeade (@kilmeade) <a href="https://twitter.com/kilmeade/status/1356219151312973824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
At one point in her discussion with Kilmeade, Best claimed that NBC asked her to refrain from using Governor Cuomo&#8217;s name:
<blockquote>KILMEADE: Dawn, how did it happen that when you said Governor Cuomo failed us, it ends up being, &#8220;New York failed us.&#8221;
BEST: Well, I&#8217;d like to say, Governor Cuomo failed us now, am I allowed to say it on your program?  
KILMEADE: Yes.
BEST: All right. There we go. Well, I kinda got used to it because the media was never letting me say “Governor Cuomo: all along, and it was being cut out of every interview that I was in and so then I started starting every sentence that they asked with, &#8220;Governor Cuomo,&#8221; so they couldn&#8217;t do that to me. So then they were forced to literally ask me to cut out Governor Cuomo&#8217;s name. 
Lester Holt&#8217;s show wasn&#8217;t the only one to do it. So what happened specifically on that show was I was telling them that Governor Cuomo failed us; his book should be named, not “Lessons In Leadership,” it should be “Lessons In Failure.” She stopped me and she said to me, &#8220;Can you differently&#8211;,&#8221; or something or like this, &#8220;Can you say that a different way without Governor Cuomo&#8217;s name, and just say New York failed you?&#8221;  So I had no choice.  So I had to say, &#8220;New York failed me.&#8221;
KILMEADE: So it was NBC News, but who was the reporter? 
BEST: Kristen, I don&#8217;t know her last name.  
KILMEADE: And how did they get New York in that line?  Did you repeat it like they asked you to, instead of Governor Cuomo?
BEST: Absolutely, yes. They told me to say “New York” and to take Governor Cuomo&#8217;s name out. Now, I was very, very accustomed to that, and I just wish that Governor Cuomo did as good a job of protecting the elderly as the press has done all along protecting him.  </blockquote>
After Best&#8217;s interview on Fox made headlines, an NBC News source provided <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/a-fox-friends-guest-accused-nbc-news-of-silencing-her-criticism-of-andrew-cuomo-the-video-shows-otherwise/">Mediaite</a> with the full video of the interview with NBC News correspondent Kristen Dahlgren she had appeared to reference. According to Mediaite&#8217;s transcript, the video shows that Best expressly criticized Cuomo during the interview but ended up correcting herself.
&#8220;Governor Cuomo has written a book &#8216;Lessons In Leadership.&#8217; He knew that the numbers were twice as high. And he was hiding it. And he was hiding it because what we’re gonna find out and we’re finding out is that New York State had was such a failure. His handling – his book’s named &#8216;The Lessons In Leadership,&#8217; I believe. His book should be &#8216;Lessons in Failures,'&#8221; Best told Dahlgren. &#8220;New York State was a tremendous failure. Most of the so many unnecessary deaths, the nursing home deaths were preventable. They they didn’t, there was a certain amount that obviously would have happened because of their natural natural circumstances. But they were, they were set up and I didn’t say that as well as I could. If you want to ask me in a different way I could.&#8221;
&#8220;Did New York state fail your mother?&#8221; Dahlgren asked.
Best responded: &#8220;New York State failed my mother and failed 1000s of people’s mothers and fathers and I know many of these people, and I watched their suffering every day.&#8221;
Along with blasting Cuomo and the mainstream media, Best also revealed details about the tragic death of her mother:
<blockquote>KILMEADE: Right. And that report that came out was scathing but he doesn&#8217;t acknowledge it. Let&#8217;s talk about your mom for a second. She was getting care, you said, 24/7, until the pandemic hit. She ends up dying of dehydration. How does that go back to the governor?
BEST: I&#8217;d like to know how this happened. My mom was in the best nursing home, getting the best care, being watched 24/7, fine and healthy and happy, and within three weeks of his deadly directive where he sent the Covid-positive patients into the nursing homes, my mother was dead from neglect. That is because the nursing home was overrun with Covid patients. I know this because the doctor told me when I called and asked what was wrong with my mother, she said, and this is a quote, she was frantic, she said, &#8220;The Covid is everywhere; it&#8217;s in every unit; the doctors have it; the nurses have it, and your mother may have it.&#8221; I had her tested, she didn&#8217;t have it. My mother died of neglect because of Governor Cuomo.  
KILMEADE: And you don&#8217;t think it was the hospital that just stopped looking in on her because they were overwhelmed by the Coronavirus?  
BEST: Well, she was in the nursing home. In the nursing home, they were giving her the best level of care and the nurses were wonderful and they did care, so I believe they were doing the best that they possibly could, but under the circumstances they couldn&#8217;t handle it.  You can have — they&#8217;re short-staffed as it is; they could not handle what he put on them. And the nursing home begged him not to send the Covid patients there. They knew it would happen. There was not the proper PBE equipment. Governor Cuomo knew it would happen at the time. It was after the 3/25 directive; he said that it was like setting fire in dry grass.</blockquote>
Kilmeade pointed out Cuomo&#8217;s remark from last week in which he said, &#8220;What difference does it make whether they died in a hospital or they died in a nursing home. They still died.&#8221;
&#8220;Yeah, that was pretty unbelievable, the things that he said,&#8221; Best replied, accusing Cuomo of having known that &#8220;his record of deaths, fatalities in nursing homes, was the worst in the whole country.&#8221; Excluding deaths that occurred out of the hospital, she said, masked the total number of deaths that were counted as nursing home fatalities. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been screaming from the hilltops to release the numbers and it took them a very long time to finally do that,&#8221; she said.
“He has no compassion,” Best continued. “He has no remorse. It&#8217;s outrageous. It&#8217;s infuriating. Our family, and unfortunately I&#8217;m not alone, there are thousands and thousands, three times as many times died in the nursing homes in New York than died on 9/11.  And everybody needs to let that sink in. And these are healthy people, that he put COVID patients in there. How would you like to sleep next to a COVID patient tonight? A third-grader would know not to send COVID patients into a nursing home. It&#8217;s inexcusable and I believe that he did it for political reasons.&#8221;
Kilmeade asked about Cuomo&#8217;s claim that he had been following CDC guidelines. Best snapped, “That&#8217;s a complete and utter lie. It&#8217;s part of the Cuomo cover-up. The media was complicit with it and it&#8217;s a complete and total lie. He signed the 3/25 directive, knowing what would happen. I believe his actions were criminal. He needs to be held accountable. The Democrats have done nothing all this time. We have begged them&#8230;&#8221;
Best also praised Democrat Assemblyman Ron Kim for publicly criticizing New York officials over the nursing home directive. In August, the <a href="https://www.pressrepublican.com/news/coronavirus/nursing-home-deaths-questioned/article_e2f8d196-5e09-55bd-bd05-f702ae3c85f6.html">Press-Republican</a> reported:
<blockquote>Kim and numerous lawmakers have reacted with skepticism to a report issued by the state Department of Health that suggested the virus spread at nursing homes was caused by infected nursing home workers introducing the contagion at their place of employment.
&#8220;It is no coincidence that the &#8216;experts&#8217; who authored the Department of Health report on this issue exonerated (Cuomo) from his fatal decision of sending COVID-19 patients back to nursing homes, have strong ties to his administration and have benefited from his policies and contracts,&#8221; Kim said.</blockquote>
Some fact-checkers have said that it is <a href="https://khn.org/news/is-cuomo-directive-to-blame-for-nursing-home-covid-deaths-as-us-official-claims/">unfair</a> to blame Cuomo&#8217;s directive for the death rate at nursing home facilities, but the Democratic governor has also been called out by fact-checkers for making false claims about the situation, including claiming that the state requiring a nursing home to take on Covid-positive patients &#8220;never happened,&#8221; as left-leaning <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/01/politics/andrew-cuomo-nursing-homes-fact-check/index.html">CNN</a> concluded in October (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>Cuomo said that the advisory was a precaution if hospitals became overwhelmed &#8212; calling it an &#8220;anticipatory rule&#8221; &#8212; which he said didn&#8217;t happen. &#8220;We never needed nursing home beds because we always had hospital beds,&#8221; Cuomo told Finger Lakes News. &#8220;So it just never happened in New York where we needed to say to a nursing home, &#8216;We need you to take this person even though they&#8217;re Covid-positive.&#8217; It never happened.&#8221;</blockquote>
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<div class="zn-body__paragraph" data-paragraph-id="paragraph_A8C8D5C0-9B14-F64D-5377-E579ED9A5D05">Facts First: Cuomo&#8217;s assertion that &#8220;it never happened&#8221; is false. According to a <a href="https://www.health.ny.gov/press/releases/2020/docs/nh_factors_report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> from the New York State Department of Health, &#8220;6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to [nursing home] facilities&#8221; following Cuomo&#8217;s mandate that nursing homes accept the readmission of Covid-positive patients from hospitals. Whether or not this was &#8220;needed,&#8221; it did in fact happen.</div>
</blockquote>
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This article has been updated to provide context and partial transcript from Best&#8217;s interview with Dahlgren.

NBC Cuomo

Woman Tells ‘Fox & Friends’ Media Asked Her Not To Blame Cuomo For Nursing Home Deaths [UPDATE]

Andrew Cuomo

Dawn Best

New York

Readers Pass

NBC was aghast that Megyn Kelly said it was once OK to color your skin during Halloween when she was a kid.
&#8221;But what is racist?&#8221; she said on her NBC morning show last week. &#8220;Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.&#8221;
Kelly was quickly drummed out of NBC and accused of being a racist.
Now, before we go on, we want to point out that Kelly didn&#8217;t actually appear in blackface, dressed up like, say, Aunt Jemima. She just said those words.
But now it turns out several NBC stars have dressed up in blackface, and in whiteface &#8212; including one who fiercely criticized Kelly.
NBC News anchor Lester Holt once dressed as British pop singer and YouTube sensation Susan Boyle for Halloween, complete with wig and a dress, but also wearing whiteface, <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/lester-holt-dressed-up-as-a-woman-in-whiteface-fallon-in-blackface-what-exactly-is-nbcs-policy/">Mediaite reported</a>. Ironically, Holt did so for an appearance on the Today Show &#8212; the very same show from which Kelly was fired.
See a <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/03/the-today-shows-most-unsettling-halloween-costumes/slide-6/">picture here</a>, posted on Page Six of the New York Post.
Fox News&#8217; Tucker Carlson discussed Holt on his show Tuesday.
&#8220;He has changed his appearance in a way that is now very controversial. He wore that costume for a Halloween episode of the &#8216;Today&#8217; show, Megyn Kelly of course was just fired for suggesting that it wasn&#8217;t always bad to dress up as a member of an opposite race,&#8221; Carlson said.
At the 2016 Golden Globes, Jimmy Fallon, another NBC star, wore blackface during an impersonation of comedian Chris Rock. He also did the same during a &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; sketch in 2000.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E37BSMRA7-o" width="1280"></iframe></div>
And ABC late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel also donned blackface for a skit back in 2000, when he appeared in blackface to pretend he was NBA Hall of Famer Karl Malone on Comedy Central&#8217;s &#8220;The Man Show.&#8221;
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="722" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wse5lgIDxM" width="963"></iframe></div>
And who can forget the time &#8220;30 Rock,&#8221; another NBC show, featured Tracy Morgan as a white woman and Jane Krakowski in blackface.
But &#8203;Carlson rightly said the whole thing is silly, and noted that whiteface is not exactly blackface, which has a long history.
&#8220;Look, I just want to be clear, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s an equivalence between the two. There is a long history of one and not of the other. But I also wonder, I don&#8217;t think, there are like five people in America who would be deeply offended by what Lester Holt did. I&#8217;m not offended by it. Maybe though if you dress like that you should be slightly less self-righteous in the face of other people&#8217;s transgressions.&#8221;

Lester Holt Once Dressed As Woman In ‘Whiteface,’ Jimmy Fallon In Blackface

Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Kimmel

Megyn Kelly

Racism

According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/us/politics/trump-threatens-retaliation-against-comey-warns-he-may-cancel-press-briefings.html?mtrref=www.axios.com&amp;_r=0">The New York Times</a>, former FBI Director James B. Comey, who was summarily fired by President Trump last week, then declined to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday in closed-door testimony, is actually willing to testify, but wants it to be in public.
Comey&#8217;s reported willingness to testify in public would be a direct challenge to Trump, who warned Comey against leaking anything negative about him on Friday, tweeting;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
James Comey better hope that there are no &#8220;tapes&#8221; of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473">May 12, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump&#8217;s tweet, which may have been prompted by an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html?ref=todayspaper">article</a> in the Times that reported he had asked Comey to pledge loyalty during a dinner at the White House, stirred up controversy in Washington D.C. as it hinted Trump may have taped the conversation he had with Comey, although Trump later refused to say confirm whether he tapes people who have visited him. Asked by Fox News whether he had taped conversations. Trump answered, &#8220;That I can&#8217;t talk about. I won&#8217;t talk about it. All I want is for Comey to be honest.&#8221;
The timeline of events leading up to the report that Comey wants to testify publicly looks like this:
1. Trump fires Comey last Tuesday, indicating that that the firing was triggered by letters from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, and was driven by Comey&#8217;s refusal last summer to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her email misconduct. Trump writes of Rosenstein and Sessions that he &#8220;accepted their recommendation.&#8221; This version of events is corroborated by Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, on Tuesday night and Vice-President Mike Pence on Wednesday. As FBI director, Comey reported to Rosenstein.
2. Reports surface on Thursday that Rosenstein threatens to quit because Trump cited his letter as the reason for firing Comey.
3. On Thursday, Trump changes the story; he tells Lester Holt in an <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/pres-trump-s-extended-exclusive-interview-with-lester-holt-at-the-white-house-941854787582">interview with NBC News</a> that he had already decided to fire Comey because of the investigation Comey was heading into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Trump states, &#8220;And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, &#8216;You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It&#8217;s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.&#8217;&#8221; Trump says Comey asked for a dinner because he wanted to be reassured that he was keeping his job. Trump states, &#8220;He wanted to stay on as the F.B.I. head. I said: &#8216;I&#8217;ll consider. We&#8217;ll see what happens.&#8217; But we had a very nice dinner and at that time, he told me I wasn&#8217;t under investigation, which I knew anyway.&#8221; Trump says he had two subsequent phone conversations wioth Comey, who reassured him that he was not under investigation.
4. On Friday, Trump explains the mixed messages sent out by himself and his spokespeople by tweeting, &#8220;As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s threat to Comey is not the first time he has threatened those opposing him; he threatened Senator Ted Cruz during the presidential primaries, tweeting:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Lyin&#8217; Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin&#8217; Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/712457104515317764">March 23, 2016</a></blockquote>
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He later threatened MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski after they criticized him:
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Some day, when things calm down, I&#8217;ll tell the real story of <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeNBC">@JoeNBC</a> and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, <a href="https://twitter.com/morningmika">@morningmika</a>. Two clowns!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/767685048703279104">August 22, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
Threatening Comey, though, could have much harsher consequences; Samuel W. Buell, a former federal prosecutor, told the Times that Trump&#8217;s threat could be interpreted as an obstruction of justice because it could be viewed as an effort to intimidate a witness to any future investigation. Buell added, &#8220;If this were an actual criminal investigation &#8212; in other words, if there were a prosecutor and a defense lawyer in the picture &#8212; this would draw a severe phone call to counsel warning that the defendant is at serious risk of indictment if he continues to speak to witnesses.&#8221;

LOOK OUT: Comey Wants To Testify. Publicly.

Investigation

James Comey

Jeff Sessions

Rod J. Rosenstein

Russia

On Thursday night, President Donald Trump sat down NBC News&#8217; Lester Holt in a vain attempt to clear the air over the firing of FBI director James Comey. Instead of clearing things up, however, he seemed to make the situation even murkier.
The interview began with Trump admitting that he was &#8220;going to fire Comey&#8230;there&#8217;s no good time to do it, by the way&#8230;I was going to fire him regardless of recommendation.&#8221; That contention is in direct opposition to statements by press secretary Sean Spicer, Vice President Mike Pence, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and many other top-level Republicans, all of whom spent the past 48 hours explaining that Trump had fired Comey on the recommendation of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.
But the fun was only beginning.
Trump then stated openly that the Russia investigation was on his mind when he fired Comey. &#8220;[Rod Rosenstein] made a recommendation, he&#8217;s highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, he made a recommendation I was going to fire Comey. Knowing, there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story&#8230;&#8221; This isn&#8217;t going to help White House&#8217;s contention that the Russia situation wasn&#8217;t on Trump&#8217;s mind when he fired Comey &#8211; though it&#8217;s still far more likely that Trump was annoyed that Comey wouldn&#8217;t just say that Trump himself is free and clear than that Trump is actively trying to scuttle an investigation into his campaign.
<iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>
Later on the interview, Trump would contend that although &#8220;it should be over with, in my opinion, should have been over with a long time ago,&#8221; he wants the investigation &#8220;to be absolutely done properly&#8230;I might even lengthen out the investigation but I have to do the right thing for the American people. He&#8217;s the wrong man for that position.&#8221; So Trump supposedly believes that Comey was just the wrong guy to finish the investigation in credible fashion. A few minutes later, Trump insisted the investigation was a hit job by Democrats, and that there was &#8220;no collusion between me and my campaign and the Russians. The other thing is the Russians did not affect the vote.&#8221; Trump then tried to deny there was an FBI investigation, but had to walk that back after Holt informed him that Comey had testified under oath that there was.
The confusion didn&#8217;t end there, either.
Trump confessed that he had dined with Comey after his election &#8211; and that during that dinner, Trump had discussed Comey&#8217;s future. &#8220;He wanted to stay on as FBI head,&#8221; Trump recalled, &#8220;I said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll consider, we&#8217;ll see what happens,&#8221; but we had a very nice dinner, and at that time he told me, &#8216;You are not under investigation.&#8217;&#8221; If you remember when Republicans used to oppose law enforcement meeting with the potential targets of investigations (see Lynch, Loretta and Clinton, Bill), that was long ago &#8211; now it&#8217;s apparently fine for the president to meet with the FBI director who is lobbying for retention, and to be assured by that FBI director that he&#8217;s not under investigation. Wow.
Trump did deny that anyone from the White House had asked Comey to end the investigation. At least he did that much.
Next, Trump then had to explain why he would fire Comey with nearly no notice after spending 18 days waiting to fire National Security Advisor Mike Flynn after acting attorney general Sally Yates told him Flynn might be compromised by the Russians. Trump dropped this whopper: &#8220;It didn&#8217;t sound like an emergency&#8230;and [Yates] didn&#8217;t make it sound that way either, in the hearings the other day, like it had to be done immediately&#8230;.I believe it would be very unfair to hear from somebody we don&#8217;t even know and run out and fire a general&#8230;We ultimately fired, but we fired for a different reason.&#8221; Trump then concluded, &#8220;We fired him because he said something to the vice president that was not so.&#8221; He denied knowledge that Flynn had received payments from the Russian or Turkish governments, and then blamed the Obama administration.
Finally, Trump denied any connections with Russia financially, citing a &#8220;certified letter, you understand&#8221; from a &#8220;tremendous, highly-rated law firm&#8221; saying he has no investments in Russia. He said he didn&#8217;t think about the optics of having Russian ambassador Sergey Lavrov at the White House the day after Comey&#8217;s firing: &#8220;I could have waited,&#8221; he acknowledged, &#8220;but what difference does it make?&#8221;
None of this is likely to tamp down speculation about Trump&#8217;s timing. There&#8217;s only one way for Trump to do that: to appoint a new head of the FBI with bipartisan approval and support. We&#8217;ll find out soon enough if Trump has the political acumen to do that, at least.

WATCH: Trump On Firing Comey: ‘When I Decided To Just Do It, I Said…Russia Is A Made-Up Story’

So what&#8217;s the newest conspiracy theory from supporters of Donald Trump?
Try this: Hillary Clinton was in cahoots with moderator Lester Holt during Monday night&#8217;s debate, sending secret hand signals to him that indicated she wanted to speak.
And what were those nefarious hand signals, you may ask?
Rubbing her face.
<a href="http://truepundit.com/rigged-damning-video-busts-hillary-using-hand-signals-to-trigger-lester-holt/">True Pundit</a> breathlessly reports:
<blockquote>
A comprehensive video has surfaced that rather convincingly shows Hillary Clinton using hand signals like a third base baseball coach to prompt moderator Lester Holt to quickly call on her to counter comments by opponent Donald Trump during Monday&#8217;s first Presidential Debate.
The video breaks down each one of Clinton&#8217;s movements which are followed by either Holt calling on her to comment and retort with what she believes is a zinger or Holt attacking Trump&#8217;s dialogue. Apparently in a move lifted right out of a high school cheating for dummies book, Clinton is seen scratching her nose and face to signal Holt several times.
</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/09/breaking-poker-pro-agrees-hillary-sending-hand-signals-debate-moderator-holt/">Gateway Pundit</a> excitedly posted tweets from poker pro Mike Matusow:
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Wow ive watched the debates 3 times &amp; never noticed!! I felt the whole time she had the questions but after watching that i she def signals <a href="https://t.co/dOSZlmfB9G">https://t.co/dOSZlmfB9G</a>
&#8212; Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) <a href="https://twitter.com/themouthmatusow/status/781135968141053952">September 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="media_embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I know they were desperate &amp; i do agree its the same scratch and look at holt everytime <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/crookedHillary?src=hash">#crookedHillary</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Debates2016?src=hash">#Debates2016</a> <a href="https://t.co/dOSZlmfB9G">https://t.co/dOSZlmfB9G</a>
&#8212; Mike Matusow (@themouthmatusow) <a href="https://twitter.com/themouthmatusow/status/781136568824111108">September 28, 2016</a></blockquote>
</div>
Trump&#8217;s own penchant for conspiracies, as delineated<a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/9548/new-trump-supporters-conspiracy-hillary-was-wired-hank-berrien"> here</a>, has lent credibility to every crazy idea that his supporters can create. The same man who thinks the National Enquirer <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/donald-trump-wonders-out-loud-why-didnt-the-national-enquirer-get-the-pulitzer-prize/">deserves a Pulitzer Prize</a>, and whose astounding <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trumps-shocking-ignorance-laid-bare/2016/03/24/b66d2b6c-f1f7-11e5-89c3-a647fcce95e0_story.html">shallowness of depth</a> on policy issues bespeaks the likelihood that he has hardly ever read any material of genuine depth has enabled those people entertaining every paranoid fantasy to spout nonsense.
And the dumbing down of America continues . . .

New Debate Conspiracy Theory: Hillary Signaled Lester Holt!

Hillary Clinton

When Mitt Romney lost in 2012, there was very little discussion of blame. Everyone assumed that Romney simply lost because he didn&#8217;t do a good enough job of convincing voters to punch the ballot for him. He didn&#8217;t debate Barack Obama properly; he didn&#8217;t stand up to Candy Crowley; he backed off of the Benghazi issue, or botched it completely; he gratuitously insulted 47 percent of Americans.
Romney lost, Republicans generally believed, because Romney deserved to lose &#8212; even if he deserved to win morally.
That&#8217;s not so for Donald Trump.
Never has a presidential candidate had so many ready-made excuses for his mess of a campaign. Since the primaries, Trump&#8217;s defenders have justified his every gaffe by saying, &#8220;Well, he&#8217;s just a businessman!&#8221; His anti-conservative heresies have been excused with a wave of the hand and a comment of, &#8220;Well, conservatism has never accomplished anything, anyway!&#8221; His general ignorance with regard to basic issues has been shrugged away: &#8220;He&#8217;s learning!&#8221; His general unpopularity has been attributed not to his own narcissistic nastiness but to an unnamed group of conspirators out to get him. Sometimes, it&#8217;s the eeeeevil &#8220;cuck&#8221; Never Trumpers hiding in their holes, waiting to strike him down at any moment. Sometimes, it&#8217;s the Machiavellian &#8220;establishment&#8221; seeking to crush this supposed change agent. And sometimes, it&#8217;s a suspiciously defective earpiece forcing him to go soft on David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan.
Now, after his airplane vomit bag of a debate performance &#8212; a performance in which he spent the first 30 minutes bloodying Hillary Clinton, only to revert to insecure, incoherent defenses of birtherism, his business record and his Iraq war opposition &#8212; Trump has a whole new set of excuses.
First, Trump&#8217;s defenders attack his microphone. Yes, his microphone. According to Trump, some nefarious conspiracy took place to sabotage his weapon of mass instruction, throwing him off his game. This seems both implausible and irrelevant.
More realistically, Trump&#8217;s defenders rightly point out that debate moderator Lester Holt hit Trump far harder than he hit Clinton. That&#8217;s absolutely true. Holt interrupted Trump far more frequently &#8212; although, in Holt&#8217;s defense, Trump bulldozed both him and Clinton routinely. Holt asked Trump about birtherism and his Iraq war opposition and his IRS records and his mean comments about Clinton&#8217;s &#8220;look,&#8221; but didn&#8217;t ask Clinton about the Clinton Foundation or Benghazi. And he asked her zero follow-up questions about her private email server. Holt clearly did Clinton&#8217;s dirty work.
So what?
Trump has known this entire campaign that the media would target him. He said so before the debate. He had every opportunity to swivel and hit both Clinton and the media, and he failed to do so. That&#8217;s on him.
This entire campaign is on him. It&#8217;s nobody&#8217;s fault but Trump&#8217;s that he spends the morning after the debate complaining about a Miss Universe contestant gaining too much weight. It&#8217;s nobody&#8217;s fault but Trump&#8217;s that he ignored hitting Clinton over the Clinton Foundation so he could massage his own feelings over his prior business bankruptcies.
Trump is the candidate. It&#8217;s time for those who defend him to own it.
If they don&#8217;t, if they keep allowing Trump to get away with excusing all of his failures by blaming somebody else, then they&#8217;ll be paving the way to his defeat. Losers whine about the playing conditions and the referees. Winners change their game plans. Those who whine for Trump won&#8217;t be winning for him.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS 2016

Excuses For Losing Just Don’t Cut it

Mitt Romney

The statistics show that Monday&#8217;s presidential debate moderator, Lester Holt, was heavily biased toward Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
The <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in-debate-trump-gets-6-follow-up-questions-clinton-gets-none/article/2602939">Washington Examiner</a> reports that Holt asked at least six follow-up questions to Trump, while asking Clinton literally zero follow-ups.
For instance, Holt pressed Trump about the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk and why Trump won&#8217;t release his tax returns, as well as lingering on the issue of President Barack Obama&#8217;s birth certificate for an unnecessarily long time. When Trump boasted that he had always opposed the Iraq War, Holt responded that &#8220;the record shows otherwise.&#8221;
Meanwhile, the only tepid challenge Holt gave Clinton was on &#8220;how to improve whether she believed police &#8216;are implicitly biased against black people.'&#8221; He did not challenge her on her emails, Benghazi, her health, her lack of transparency or her &#8220;deplorables&#8221; comment aimed at Trump supporters.
Additionally, the Daily Wire&#8216;s <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/9489/lester-holt-drills-trump-lets-hillary-hook-here-james-barrett">James Barrett</a> found that Holt interrupted Trump a total of 41 times, while he only interrupted Clinton seven times&#8211;a massive disparity that clearly favors Clinton.
This should not be a surprise given <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/geoffrey-dickens/2016/09/06/presidential-debate-moderator-lester-holts-most-liberal-moments">Holt&#8217;s lengthy record of leftist bias</a>, including his shilling for Obamacare, the Iran deal and fear-mongering over the SUV as possibly &#8220;a weapon of mass destruction.&#8221; Holt has also hammered Trump with questioning in the past while asking Clinton embarrassing softballs like: &#8220;You&#8217;ve obviously been in tough battles, political battles, but do you get your feelings hurt sometimes?&#8221; 
<blockquote>
&#8220;Lester Holt clearly heard the cries of his colleagues in the liberal media to be tough on Trump and ease up on Hillary loud and clear.&#8221;
Media Reserch Center president Brent Bozell
</blockquote>
Holt may be <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2016/09/26/lester-holt-registered-republican-not-office">registered as a Republican</a>, but clearly his bias is toward the left.
&#8220;Lester Holt clearly heard the cries of his colleagues in the liberal media to be tough on Trump and ease up on Hillary loud and clear,&#8221; Media Reserch Center president Brent Bozell said in a statement published by <a href="http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nb-staff/2016/09/26/mrcs-brent-bozell-slams-nbcs-lester-holts-failed-performance-debate">Newsbusters</a>. &#8220;Holt continually challenged, fact-checked, and interrupted Trump and not once challenged Hillary. Holt pounded Trump repeatedly on the birth certificate controversy, his position on Iraq, his tax returns, and whether or not Hillary looked presidential.
&#8220;Where were the questions on the Clinton Foundation or Benghazi or her email server? These are the questions that drive right to the heart of whether Hillary is ready to be president and yet viewers tuning in tonight heard nothing about these important issues. Lester Holt failed in his role as a moderator. Period.&#8221;

Stats Show Lester Holt Favored Hillary. Heavily.

After Monday night&#8217;s debate, Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, furious with what he felt was moderator Lester Holt&#8217;s bias in favor of Hillary Clinton, suggested Trump <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/297967-giuliani-i-wouldnt-debate-again-after-holts-interference">refuse to participate</a> in any further debates.
Giuliani blasted, &#8220;If I were Donald Trump, I wouldn&#8217;t participate in another debate unless I was promised the journalist would act like a journalist, and not an ignorant fact check. My advice would be the moderator would have to promise they&#8217;d be a moderator.&#8221;
When Giuliani was queried as to whether he would discuss the matter with Trump, he replied that his conversations with Trump were a private matter. Trump&#8217;s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, insisted that Trump would not eschew participation in the next two debates.
Trump <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/297955-trump-praises-lester-holt-after-debate">praised</a> Holt after the debate, saying, &#8220;I thought Lester did a great job. Honestly, I thought he did a great job. I thought [the questions] were very fair.&#8221; But Giuliani asserted that Holt&#8217;s &#8220;interference&#8221; in a discussion about stop-and-frisk in New York was &#8220;outrageous,&#8221; adding, &#8220;If journalism has ethics, Lester Holt unethically interfering in the area of law he knows nothing about. It is not unconstitutional and Trump&#8217;s description of that case was correct.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/26/the-first-trump-clinton-presidential-debate-transcript-annotated/">exchange</a> that prompted Giuliani&#8217;s ire came about at this point.
<blockquote>
Trump: Now, whether or not in a place like Chicago you do stop and frisk, which worked very well, Mayor Giuliani is here, worked very well in New York. It brought the crime rate way down. But you take the gun away from criminals that shouldn&#8217;t be having it. We have gangs roaming the street. And in many cases, they&#8217;re illegally here, illegal immigrants. And they have guns. And they shoot people. And we have to be very strong. And we have to be very vigilant.We have to be &#8212; we have to know what we&#8217;re doing. Right now, our police, in many cases, are afraid to do anything. We have to protect our inner cities, because African-American communities are being decimated by crime, decimated.
Holt: Your two &#8212; your two minutes expired, but I do want to follow up. Stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out black and Hispanic young men.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
&#8220;If journalism has ethics, Lester Holt unethically interfering in the area of law he knows nothing about.&#8221;
Rudy Giuliani
</blockquote>
Giuliani approved &#8220;stop-and-frisk&#8221; as mayor of New York; current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio stopped the program. 
Giuliani snapped that Holt&#8217;s interruption of Trump dwarfed the incident from 2012 in which moderator Candy Crowley corrected Mitt Romney, even though she was incorrect. Giuliani blasted, &#8220;He&#8217;s five times Candy Crowley.&#8221;

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