Late-Night TV may never be the same.
HBO’s John Oliver, host of “Last Week Tonight,” is facing a <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/01/media/healthcare-exec-sues-john-oliver-for-defamation-over-toilet-hygiene-rant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new defamation lawsuit</a> from health care executive Dr. Brian Morley who claims the comedian slurred him “for ratings and profits.” 
In an April 2024 telecast, Oliver played an alleged audio clip of Morley at an administrative hearing <a href="https://ew.com/john-oliver-sued-by-healthcare-official-he-called-out-on-last-week-tonight-11708201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saying</a>, “People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over [them] too much. People are allowed to be dirty … You know, I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple of days.”
Oliver’s immediate on-air response: “F*** that doctor with a rusty canoe! I hope he gets tetanus of the balls.”
Morley’s lawyer claims the recording was altered by the program.
Suing comedians for telling the wrong jokes seems an uphill legal battle at best. The First Amendment allows for plenty of creative embellishments, although Oliver’s comments proved highly specific and potentially damaging to the doctor’s reputation.
The courts will have the final say on the matter.
Should Dr. Morley emerge victorious it could have a much larger impact. Yes, “Last Week Tonight” would take a sizable hit, but consider the big picture.
What if other satirical comics have to watch what they say moving forward? Will they require fact-checkers on set? Should Stephen Colbert run his anti-Republican rants by CBS Legal before hitting the stage each night?
Comedians have considerable leeway when it comes to political satire as opposed to everyday citizens. Those wide guardrails matter, allowing for satirists to skewer elected officials without fear of political ramifications.
How far is too far, though? Thanks to the sorry state of modern late night TV, the question matters more than ever.
<div id="attachment_903043" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903043" class="size-large wp-image-903043" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK CITY - OCTOBER 8: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest Vice President Kamala Harris during Tuesday's October 8, 2024 show. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2176959872.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images</div>
The hosts in question, however, bend the truth so regularly it’s often unrecognizable. It’s not a bug but a feature. Yes, Legacy Media outlets warp reality in damning ways, too. The list of Fake News narratives continues to grow in the Age of Trump.
Colbert and co. often walk in lockstep with their journalist pals.
Look no further than the Russian Collusion Hoax™. Yes, the media fed that narrative beast for far too long, but late-night hosts parroted even the most extreme collusion talking points while assuming they had the goods on President Donald Trump.
They didn’t.
CBS’s Colbert hit the lowest low when he called President Donald Trump Vladimir Putin’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/you-cant-say-television-colbert-edition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BLEEP holster.</a> in one incendiary monologue. He also played up the Fake News story known to many as the Trump “pee-pee tape.”
The litigious world leader could have had something to say about that.
Colbert and fellow far-Left host Jimmy Kimmel also defended President Joe Biden from accusations, later confirmed, that he was suffering from dementia-like conditions during the 2024 presidential campaign. Both comedians had seen Biden up close during separate fundraising events.
They must have witnessed his diminished state firsthand. They didn’t share what they saw with their audiences, and Kimmel took that a step further. He used his “Jimmy Kimmel Live” bully pulpit to call anyone who said Biden froze up during his <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1140442/joe-biden-freezing-video-fundraiser-jimmy-kimmel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fundraising effort a liar</a>.
The projection was strong that night.
Other hosts have taken the media’s warped baton and run with it. Take the host of NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” The “Saturday Night Live” alum skewered President Trump in 2017 for <a href="https://time.com/4705083/seth-meyers-trump-meals-on-wheels-budget-cuts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gutting</a> the “Meals on Wheels” program.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fake-news-did-trump-just-kill-meals-wheels-not-ben-shapiro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Except Trump didn’t.</a>
Meyers also played down the rampant violence spreading in Portland in 2020, as did some press outlets, in ways that felt like propaganda, not satire. And he wasn’t alone.
<div id="attachment_903053" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903053" class="size-large wp-image-903053" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-864x576.jpg" alt="LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 1405 -- Pictured: (l-r) Comedian John Oliver during an interview with host Seth Meyers on March 13, 2023 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1248172738.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images</div>
Oliver also downplayed the ongoing violence swirling around parts of Portland, <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/john-oliver-media-portland-violence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">serving up this epic distortion</a>.
“Protests had been mostly peaceful there… it’s about one block that was actually starting to see fewer confrontations between protesters and police before federal agents moved in.”
Fake News? It’s beyond debate. But is it worth suing over? That’s where the conversation gets sticky.
What about late-night alum Amber Ruffin? She briefly hosted an ill-fated talk show on Peacock and has written for “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” Ruffin recently cited the serially debunked <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amber-ruffin-dropped-white-house-correspondents-dinner-response_n_67eb51c2e4b0ff137ab490b4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Very Fine People” hoax</a> anew during a late-night chat to smite President Trump.
Said hoax claims Trump praised Neo Nazis following a 2017 Charlottesville rally which left one woman dead. The lie proved so brazen even Snopes called it out (albeit several years after the lie gained cultural ground).
It’s not just late-night comedy, of course. Comedians use their considerable platforms to spread lies that could be seen as libelous.
Take <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-burr-goes-full-ahole?row=0&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;author=Ben+Shapiro&amp;title=Bill+Burr+Goes+Full+A**hole&amp;category=News" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bill Burr</a>, who insinuated Kyle Rittenhouse was a White Supremacist during his Netflix special “Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill.”
<div id="attachment_903055" style="width: 730px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-903055" class="size-large wp-image-903055" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-720x576.jpg" alt="BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 27: Comedian Bill Burr performs at the Bob Golub Stand-up For Deaf, Hard Of Hearing Fundraiser at Flappers Comedy Club and Restaurant Burbank on September 27, 2022 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images)" width="720" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-720x576.jpg 720w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-300x240.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659-768x614.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-1428254659.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" />Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images</div>
Rittenhouse shot three people, killing two and injuring one during a 2020 fracas tied to the BLM protests. A court of law found him innocent, agreeing with his self-defense explanation. Elements of the press and the Left insisted his actions were racist, even though his victims were white and they couldn’t pin any racially-charged comments to the young man.
Burr picked up that false narrative, saying Rittenhouse was a <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/bill-burr-kyle-rittenhouse-white-supremacist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">White Supremacist.</a>
“You gotta drop me off like two blocks away so my other racist friends don’t see my mommy drove me,” he cracked in the special, channeling Rittenhouse.
Comedians have more leeway when it comes to politicians, but no one elected Rittenhouse to elected office.
There’s a better solution here, one that doesn’t require legal challenges for First Amendment squabbles. A healthy, robust press would let viewers know that much of what’s said on late-night TV just isn’t true.
Journalists routinely regurgitate late-night jokes. They do the same with “Saturday Night Live” skits. That’s all well and good, but that practice is hollow if it doesn’t include fact checking when appropriate.
If comedians knew they’ve be held accountable for twisting the truth into so many pretzels, they might crack smarter gags that actually speak truth to power.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

76th Primetime Emmy Awards – Show

The People Versus John Oliver: The Murky Ethics Of Modern Comedy

Comedy

Entertainment

Humor

John Oliver

Lawsuit

Media Bias

President Trump

Satire

U.S. Politics

Woke Culture

In a recent piece, the great <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/03/21/democrats-10-part-strategy-to-stopping-trump-at-any-cost/?utm_source=TDS_Email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=MorningBell&amp;mkt_tok=ODI0LU1IVC0zMDQAAAGZXFVF8EiGHTOyBnThyW4grIVUl7BZT15Afcq-EIHg2MlGbVXGiYW0vNjgf4M2VoXDCfdVx3aPXat1HzDwjX0OzlMzAiZsyuw1NrKva4F7ED5RIRjnxQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Victor Davis Hanson</a> apologized to his readers for previously contending that Democrats were both disorganized and without a plan. Upon reflection, he now sees a very clear and organized ten-point plan largely focused on continued demonization of President Trump and Elon Musk, the opposition to any federal budget cuts or the deportation of anyone, continued promotion of open borders, support of radical Palestinians, the Ukraine war, DEI initiatives, and chaos, and an amplification of hysteria in all of their communication. Their actions thus far would indicate that he is spot on.
It is a truly audacious plan — audacious because it involves, in many ways, simply doubling down on the messaging from the losing 2024 presidential campaign, and audacious because with each of these issues, the Democrats are on the opposite side of the fence with regard to public sentiment, in some cases dramatically so. Nonetheless, their aim is to change that public perception on at least enough of those issues to overcome their opponents in the midterms and ultimately regain power. What would make them think they could pull that off?
The answer is likely that the Democrats have grown accustomed to having a very finely tuned, powerful and successful network for public influence at their disposal.
In 2019, author and researcher Dr. Robert Epstein<a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Epstein%20Testimony.pdf"> testified before Congress</a> about the dangers posed by just one piece of that network — Google. He concluded that Google represents a dire threat to both democracy and human autonomy, and provided numerous examples from his extensive data collection going back to 2016, including this one: “In 2016, biased search results generated by Google’s search algorithm likely impacted undecided voters in a way that gave at least 2.6 million votes to Hillary Clinton (whom I supported). I know this because I preserved more than 13,000 election-related searches conducted by a diverse group of Americans on Google, Bing, and Yahoo in the weeks leading up to the election, and Google search results – which dominate search in the U.S. and worldwide – were significantly biased in favor of Secretary Clinton in all 10 positions on the first page of search results in both blue states and red states.”
However, the Tech players are only one part of the larger Democrat propaganda apparatus. The revelations from the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2877184/twitter-files-have-exposed-the-unholy-alliance-between-democrats-the-fbi-big-tech-and-the-media/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter/X Files</a>, from DOGE regarding <a href="https://www.newstarget.com/2025-02-08-usaid-funds-6000-journalists-1000-platforms-worldwide.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">USAID</a> and other governmental funding have laid bare the indisputable <a href="https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/governments_collusion_with_social_media_is_worse_than_you_realize.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unholy alliance</a> of the Democrat party, key governmental and non-governmental agencies, and factions of the mainstream and social media.
We now see that these entities have worked together to simultaneously push false narratives and censor truth — often demonizing and punishing those parties that interfered with this process in any way. Michael Shellenberger warned and testified to Congress about “<a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Censorship Industrial Complex</a>.” He observed: “The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. Military during the Global War on Terror, with highly sophisticated tools from computer science, including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing. Federal government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans and disfavored public figures.”
Executive Director of Foundation for Freedom and former State Department official Mike Benz refers to the entities behind much of this clandestine activity as simply “<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/24/mike_benz_the_history_of_the_intelligence_state.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Blob</a>.” In describing the blurring of the lines in our intelligence state he says: “This means that when the U.S. government provides funding or assistance, suddenly the churches they were working with are no longer simply churches — they are instruments of statecraft. The nonprofit charities are no longer simply charities; they become instruments of statecraft. The media is no longer independent; it becomes an instrument of statecraft. Hollywood becomes an instrument of statecraft, and organized criminal mafias do as well.” 
He describes the technological methodology of state narrative control in his presentation “<a href="https://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MikeBenzCensorhip070924.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Whole-of-Society Censorship Framework”</a> saying, “This is why I refer to these AI super weapons as Weapons of Mass Deletion. They effectively did for internet censorship what weapons of mass destruction did for war. You didn’t need a standing army anymore of a million soldiers ready to go. You could have a few lines of code take out an entire political organization.”
In his piece <a href="https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2025/03/06/the_artificial_culture_1095413.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Artificial Culture</a>, Mathew Gasda refers to this political/governmental/media cabal as “the propaganda regime.” He asks and answers, “Why did newspapers, universities, publishing houses, record labels, and movie studios uniformly fall in line behind Trump Derangement Syndrome, Russiagate, cancel culture, COVID safetyism, dogmatic gender ideology, and other authoritarian ideological certainties? Because key figures in public and private institutions across the globe — literally — were being paid to propagate these narratives; this much we now know.”
Call the alliance what you will; the Democrat complex is an extraordinarily powerful, technologically sophisticated, and overwhelmingly partisan machine — not like a mere airplane to use a simile, but more like an F-47 Stealth Fighter.
This fighter jet has a storied track record of success in getting most or enough Americans to ignore the facts that surround various issues and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-2024-election-was-a-referendum-on-reality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">embrace a preferred alternative narrative</a> — at least for a while. From Obamacare, to Benghazi, to Russiagate, to Covid, to belief in multiple genders, to the activities of the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden Crime Family</a>, to the authenticity of <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/19/its-been-two-years-since-51-intelligence-agents-interfered-with-an-election-they-still-wont-apologize/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hunter’s laptop</a>, to border security, to a host of specific individuals, the Democrats’ warplane inflicted massive damage on their enemies and got them through turbulence and countless battles with shockingly low casualties.
It is perhaps understandable that with this impressive history of success, party leadership would be hesitant to abandon this awesome weapon. They will look earnestly for alternative explanations for the 2024 election result. Perhaps the pilot, whoever that was, had the wrong flight or battle plan for the aircraft? Perhaps the pilot didn’t understand and adequately maximize the sophisticated evasion and engagement capabilities of the aircraft? In fact, perhaps the pilot didn’t even employ or fully engage the aircraft’s most powerful weapons, or focus them on the correct targets?
Sure, a jackbooted DOJ may no longer be part of the arsenal (although the judiciary certainly isn’t on the sidelines), Twitter/X has now fallen to the enemy, and it looks like the plug is being pulled on some of the funding for sycophant NGOs, so the Democrat warplane has taken a bit of flak and may be down to only five or so of the eight engines. But those are big engines, and five of them still garner a lot of power — maybe more than has yet been shown. So it will obviously require more than the results of a single election to convince them that their combat-tested warbird needs to be mothballed. They’re going with pilot error, not aircraft design.
* * *
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D. is former president of Western Colorado University and Board of Advisor member for <a href="https://starrs.us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">STARRS.US</a>. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Senators Meet For Policy Luncheons Ahead Of Government Funding Deadline

As Democrat Warplane Takes Flak, Audacity Remains Intact

Democrats

Donald Trump

Elections

Google

Leftists

Opinion

Progressivism

Social Media

Social Media Censorship

Victor Davis Hanson

The Democrats are in disarray, and that’s not a partisan talking point.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrats-flail-schumer-fails" target="_blank" rel="noopener">days in charge may be waning</a>. Polling suggests the Democrat brand is at a shocking low. Progressives keep taking the 20 side of 80/20 debates like trans women competing against biological female athletes.
And the GOP controls the White House, the Senate and the House, the latter albeit by a whisker.
Enter three Hollywood liberals who grasp their party’s sorry state. They’re rarities in this space, willing to share contrary views no matter the consequences.
They may be truth tellers, full stop. Perhaps they understand their party is making a mad dash for the electoral cliff and they want them to stop before they fall to their doom.
Take Bill Maher. He’s been a constant presence in pop culture for decades, first on ABC’s “Politically Incorrect” and now via “Real Time with Bill Maher” and the “Club Random” podcast.
And, for all of that time, he’s been a proud liberal with a dash of Libertarianism for good measure.
<div id="attachment_895897" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895897" class="size-large wp-image-895897" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2153507689-384x576.jpg" alt="THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON -- Episode 1978 -- Pictured: Comedian &amp; writer Bill Maher during an interview on Tuesday, May 21, 2024 -- (Photo by: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images)" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2153507689-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2153507689-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2153507689.jpg 683w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images</div>
Maher has hated President Donald Trump from the jump and takes delight in mocking GOP figures like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. He once <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/flashback-bill-maher-trashed-sarah-palin-family-inbred/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">mocked her family</a> as a clan of “inbred weirdos” straight out of “The Hills Have Eyes” movie that featured mutant killers.
Palin’s child has Down Syndrome.
Yet in recent years Maher has been one of the Left’s most ardent critics. He’s savaged fellow progressives on the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/news/ni64058436/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woke Mind Virus</a>, to use a certain billionaire’s phrase.
He even sided with President Trump recently regarding the move to pull funding from Columbia University for <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/03/08/maher-trumps-right-to-pull-some-funds-from-columbia/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">failing to protect Jewish students</a>.
Maher regularly invites conservative guests on his “Club Random” show and recently stood up to guest Don Lemon for calling <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bill-maher-shuts-down-don-lemons-racist-comments-about-black-trump-supporters" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black MAGA supporters irrational.</a>
Radio show titan Charlamagne Tha God also refuses to toe the party line 24/7. The host of “The Breakfast Club” radio show often clashes with the progressive groupthink, much to the shock of many Democrats.
Recently, Charlamagne Tha God questioned why his fellow Democrats were fighting to stop Team Trump from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/charlamagne-tha-god-asks-why-anyones-raising-hell-over-gang-members-being-sent-away" target="_blank" rel="noopener">deporting dangerous illegal immigrants</a>.
“Like, there are some other deportation cases, I’m sure they could be fighting about, like folks who’ve been in this country for a long time, not committing no crimes, paying taxes, but have gotten caught up in the process,” he added. “Those are folks they should be fighting for. Why are they raising hell about a gang being deported?”
<div id="attachment_895899" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895899" class="size-large wp-image-895899" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2150440215-384x576.jpg" alt="ATLANTA, GEORGIA - APRIL 27: Charlamagne tha God attends the 2024 Black Effect Podcast Festival at Pullman Yards on April 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for iHeartMedia and The Black Effect Podcast Network )" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2150440215-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2150440215-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2150440215.jpg 683w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Paras Griffin/Getty Images for iHeartMedia and The Black Effect Podcast Network</div>
It’s a question few liberal celebrities are willing to ask. It’s one of many reasons the polls have been so cruel to modern-day Democrats.
He also defended rappers like Snoop Dogg from hardcore Leftists for performing at Trump’s second inaugural gala. You can’t savage stars for doing that while letting Democrats off the hook after they said Trump was Hitler 2.0 and a threat to democracy.
Those same politicians lined up to congratulate Trump following his 2024 electoral victory.
“We know why the rappers did what they did. We know why they’re doing it. They got paid. What’s the politicians’ excuse for normalizing Trump?”
The talker even called the “lawfare” attacks on Trump <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/01/13/charlamagne-tha-god-calls-prosecution-of-trump-pure-political-theater-ridiculous-watching-liberals-celebrate-this/">pure “theater</a>.” That’s something you’ll never hear on the late-night TV circuit or “Saturday Night Live.” It also resonates with voters across the political spectrum.
Few celebrities haunted President Trump quite like Michael Rapaport. The star of “Atypical,” “Beautiful Girls,” and many other projects used his podcast and social media to savage the president at every turn.
The <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/michael-rapaport-threatens-hog-tie-032648035.html">word “pig”</a> may be the only one suitable for family-friendly consumption.
That was then. In recent months, Rapaport has been busy attacking his own side on many fronts. 
Take <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/michael-rapaport-trump-charlottesville-lie/">the “Very Fine People” hoax</a>. The actor initially fell for it and blasted Trump via his social media platforms. He later learned the media had fed him a false narrative. He could have stayed quiet about it, but he had to speak out.
“When you see the full quote, that wasn’t what [Trump] said and I ranted on him hard for that, hard … I was like, ‘what are you talking about, man?&#8217;” Rapaport recalled.
Remember, Joe Biden launched his last presidential campaign with that lie.
How many liberal celebrities would not only do their own research on a chronic anti-Trump narrative but later go public with a mea culpa? That’s rhetorical.
<div id="attachment_895903" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-895903" class="size-large wp-image-895903" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2181559373-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 28: Andy Cohen and Michael Rapaport visit SiriusXM Studios on October 28, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Jason Mendez/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2181559373-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2181559373-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2181559373-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/GettyImages-2181559373.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Jason Mendez/Getty Images</div>
The actor also has repeatedly lashed out at Hollywood liberals for staying silent on the Hamas hostage ordeal. He even starred in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5esBxX5YoI&amp;t=26s">faux Oscars sketch</a> where he used his monologue to mock activist celebrities for standing down when they should be screaming for the hostages’ release
This all matters because the vast majority of Hollywood liberals refuse to concede their party’s current, sorry state. We’ve recently seen late-night hosts take delight in domestic terrorist attacks against Tesla dealerships, for example, just to burnish their anti-DOGE, anti-Musk bona fides.
Both Jimmy Kimmel and “The Daily Show’s” Jordan Klepper teed up images of burning Teslas while their audiences clapped in approval.
That cruelty may appease the hardcore Democratic base, but it’s surely alienating left-leaning voters and independents alike.
As a result, Democrats will double down on their deeply unpopular beliefs. They might even watch as their polling numbers droop anew.
They’d be wise to follow Maher, Charlamagne Tha God and Rapaport. The trio is trying to save fellow Democrats from themselves. Their warnings still may fall on deaf ears, meaning the 2028 election cycle could look suspiciously like 2024 for Democrats.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-22-Mar-2025-09-51-AM-7437

The Unlikely Trio Shaking Up The Hollywood Echo Chamber

Bill Maher

Celebrities

Charlamagne Tha God

comedian

Hollywood

Liberals

Michael Rapaport

This is the second part of an edited <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/michael-knowles-live-at-yaf-ordo-amoris-the-hierarchy-of-political-love" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech</a>, titled “‘Ordo Amoris’: The Hierarchy of Political Love,” delivered by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michael Knowles</a> at the YAF Freedom Conference in San Diego, California.
* * *
Saint Thomas’ reasoning is, as always, clear and persuasive in his discussions of the order of charity. In the “Summa Theologiae,” Secunda Secundae, Question 26, he writes, “There must needs be some order in things loved out of charity, which order is in reference to the first principle of that love, which is God.” This expression alone proves editor of The Yale Review James Surowiecki had no idea what he was talking about when he <a href="https://x.com/JamesSurowiecki/status/1885302779058557080" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claimed</a> that the ordo amoris is not in the Gospels.
Not only is the ordo amoris in the Gospels, but it is also the principle articulated in the most famous line of the Gospels, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2022%3A37-39&amp;version=ESV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matthew 22:37-39</a>: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
There is, in other words, an order of charity — a hierarchy of love — and this order is the very foundation of Christian morality. We must love God first, and only then and upon that basis do we love everything else. And this order does not just comprise two categories. It isn’t just “God” and “everyone else.”
We find further scriptural evidence of the order of charity in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy%205%3A8&amp;version=RSV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 Timothy 5:8</a>: “If any one does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his own family, he has disowned the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” A man does not necessarily disown the faith — he is not necessarily worse than an unbeliever — if he does not care for some random guy on the other side of the world. We have greater obligations to those who are closest to us.
This moral insight is attested to both by philosophy and religion — reason and revelation — and yet many liberals deny it. And we know they deny, not just because of their snarky tweets about JD Vance, but also from social science. Shortly after the ordo amoris debate kicked off, a graph went viral on social media.
<div id="attachment_886629" style="width: 678px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-886629" class="wp-image-886629 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML.jpg" alt="Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Note. The highest value on the heatmap scale is 20 units for liberals, and 12 units for conservatives. Moral circle rings, from inner to outer, are described as follows: (1) all of your immediate family, (2) all of your extended family, (3) all of your closest friends, (4) all of your friends (including distant ones), (5) all of your acquaintances, (6) all people you have ever met, (7) all people in your country, (8) all people on your continent, (9) all people on all continents, (10) all mammals, (11) all amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, and birds, (12) all animals on earth including paramecia and amoebae, (13) all animals in the universe, including alien lifeforms, (14) all living things in the universe including plants and trees, (15) all natural things in the universe including inert entities such as rocks, (16) all things in existence. SOURCE: “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle.” Adam Waytz, Ravi Iyer, Liane Young, Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31558713/" width="668" height="281" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML.jpg 668w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/03/41467_2019_12227_Fig5_HTML-300x126.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" />SOURCE: “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle.” Adam Waytz, Ravi Iyer, Liane Young, Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham. National Center for Biotechnology Information. National Library of Medicine.</div>
It’s from a 2019 <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31558713/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> titled, “Ideological Differences in the Expanse of the Moral Circle.” The graph depicts heat maps “indicating highest moral allocation by ideology.” The “moral circle rings” extend from the center outward. Care for “your immediate family” is in the center, followed by “all of your extended family,” then “all of your closest friends,” then “all of your friends (including distant ones),” then your acquaintances, people you’ve ever met, your countrymen, people on your continent, all people, all mammals, all other animals, all living creatures (including amoebae), all potential life in the universe (including aliens), all living things (including plants and trees), all non-living things (including rocks), and finally all things in existence.
The study found that conservatives, being normal, tend to care more about the things closest to them; they tend to care more about their immediate families than they care about rocks. Liberals, being the sort of people who hug trees and hate their dads, tend not to care more about things closer to them. The study found that “the more liberal people were, the more they allocated equally to humans and non-humans.” A distinguishing feature of Right-wingers is that they are more likely “to morally prioritize humans over nonhumans.”
Some libs have attempted to argue that conservatives simply misunderstand the study. They argue the study shows that conservatives don’t care more about their families than liberals do; it’s just that liberals care more generally. Now, even if that were true — and it’s a perfectly plausible hypothesis given liberals’ frequent inability to control their emotions — it would still be extremely disordered to care more about strangers than about one’s own parents. Even if they cared more overall — which, it turns out, they don’t.
Liberals really do care more about rocks and trees than they do about their own families. We don’t need a chart or study to show us that. Just ask a liberal about climate change and abortion. Liberals will rend their garments over environmental threats to the coral reef, but they’ll dance in the streets to celebrate the murder of their own children through abortion.
And, it turns out, the study shows as much. Because the study “constrained the number of units that participants could assign to each group, forcing participants to distribute moral concern in a zero-sum fashion” (i.e., the more concern they allocate to one circle, the less they can allocate to another circle). And the researchers did this because research suggests that’s how people really do distribute “empathy and moral concern.” Of course: It’s a finite world. We only have so many hours to worry. We only have so many tears to shed.
But just to prove how deep this moral perversion runs on the political Left, the researchers conducted another study to test what would happen if they did not constrain people to zero-sum moral thinking. And what they discovered was that “even when participants’ allocations were not constrained, the same pattern replicated.” Conservatives, the researchers showed, exhibit “greater concern and preference for family relative to friends, the nation relative to the world … and humans relative to non-humans.”
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-michael-knowles-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
So what conclusion are we to draw from this? Is it just a matter of preference? “Conservatives love their family and friends; liberals love trees and rocks” — de gustibus non disputandum est! No accounting for taste! I don’t think so. Any reasonable person knows that one should care more for his children than for rocks and trees. If liberals do not, it is because they have made a moral error.
And the liberals didn’t even necessarily fall into this moral error because they’re wicked. More likely, I think, they fall into it because they’re trying (and failing) to be good. I suspect most of the time it actually comes from a place of love. But that love is misplaced. It’s out of order. And disordered love tends to evil, just as the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
G.K. Chesterton explains the phenomenon with regard to his friend, the socialist atheist George Bernard Shaw.
“Bernard Shaw,” Chesterton <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/439/orthodoxy2-3.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writes</a>, “has a heroically large and generous heart; but not a heart in the right place. And this is so of the typical society of our time. The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues.”
“When a religious scheme is shattered,” he concludes, “it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.”
Our nation’s — our whole civilization’s — religious scheme has obviously been shattered. The vice president invoked Thomas Aquinas, and our political elites were left drooling and scratching their heads.
The scheme has been shattered, the virtues have wandered, and these wandering virtues — these errant loves — have caused our present political ills. The only remedy is to restore order — not just to our streets and our communities but to our loves — if for no other reason than that without order, without caring for ourselves and our own, we can’t properly care for anyone else either.

MixCollage-04-Mar-2025-09-54-AM-7123

Restoring The Order Of Love: The Remedy To Political Ills

Bible

Catholics

Christianity

Conservatives

Environmentalism

JD Vance

Michael Knowles

Young America's Foundation

Woke leftism is totally on the ropes.
The Democrats don&#8217;t know what to do about this, but their entire centralizing philosophy is on the ropes.
Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post. When he bought the Post, he said he would not get involved in the editorial side of the newspaper. 
Then, the newspaper decided to become the repository of the most radical woke nonsense in all of American media. By doing so, The Washington Post blew out its credibility more than any other major newspaper in the country.
It had been the paper of record. It had been the paper of Watergate. It had been the paper that broke an enormous number of serious scandals about the American government.
And then it turned into Salon.com. It was Jennifer Rubin whining about how Donald Trump was a mean, bad man. It was Eugene Robinson whining about how America was terrible. It was all the usual suspects saying the most radical, stupid things.
The number of Washington Post subscriptions began to seriously dip because they weren&#8217;t making any of the same smart business moves The New York Times was making. The New York Times also became a liberal fan paper, but they also decided to diversify into Wordle.
That did not happen with The Washington Post, who simply kept doubling down on the anti-Trump radical leftism and the suggestion that boys weren&#8217;t just girls, boys had to be girls. This had to be taught to kids — the idea that all politics could be boiled down to racial and sexual identity along with the idea that capitalism was, in and of itself, bad.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2147-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
But now there is a new middle in America, and the new middle is pro free market. It&#8217;s a middle that doesn&#8217;t like the leftist idea that the American economy is rigged on behalf of white people, rigged on behalf of men.
It&#8217;s an American middle that believes in the American dream and thus believes in the idea, generally speaking, of capitalism. It&#8217;s also an American middle that, while fairly liberal about what their neighbors do, is not completely liberal about what their neighbors do — meaning if their neighbors decide to open a porn shop next door, the answer is no. If their neighbors decide the local public school is going to be teaching gender-queer, the answer is no.
That&#8217;s the new middle in America.
So, what does that mean? It means there is now a real market possibility of newspapers like The Washington Post reorienting. Bezos is not a traditional Republican. He is not someone who believes in traditional conservative social values. He&#8217;s not somebody who, as far as I am aware, is particularly hawkish on foreign policy.
But Bezos does exist in the business world and in the world of semi-rationality. So yesterday, Bezos announced he will be reorienting (and remaking) the Post’s editorial board. It is worth sharing <a href="https://x.com/JeffBezos/status/1894757287052362088" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his statement</a> in full:
<blockquote>I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning:
I’m writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.
I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift, it won’t be easy, and it will require 100% commitment —  I respect his decision. We’ll be searching for a new Opinion Editor to own this new direction.
I’m confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I’m excited for us together to fill that void.</blockquote>
This is a sea change. It is a true recognition of the fact that The Washington Post never had a broad spectrum of opinion. The tacit recognition in Bezos’ announcement is that there might have been a time when The Washington Post was a sort of platform with a variety of opinions — Charles Krauthammer and George Mitchell used to write for The Washington Post —  but then something changed.
Once The Washington Post became the exclusive preserve of the radical Left on matters economic and social, it was no longer a platform. It became, in the most real sense, a publisher of only the content the editorial board wanted to publish.
So Bezos is now saying, “Listen, if that&#8217;s going to be the way this works, then I want the Post to publish things I want. I spent $100 million on this newspaper. I own this newspaper. I get to decide what&#8217;s in this newspaper.”
Good for him.
I think that we are exiting the era of “objective journalism” and moving toward the realization there is no such thing. The case can be made that there are journalists who do their best to remove their personal bias from situations, but the notion of there being an “objective news media” writ large was a lie and is a lie.
There&#8217;s a prism of politics through which the news is refracted at every one of these major publications. Everybody knows The Wall Street Journal editorial page tilts to the Right and The New York Times’ editorial page toward the Left.
I remember when Twitter (now X) was owned by Jack Dorsey — and when conservatives said that the standards that were being applied were unfair and that the standards Twitter professed to be applying were not actually the standards they were applying — people on the Left said, “Well, then, build your own.”
Then, Elon Musk bought it, and now the Left is whining about it.
The same is true here. When people complained about the editorial direction of The Washington Post, the Left said, “You don&#8217;t own The Washington Post. You don&#8217;t like it? Build your own.”
All of this is part and parcel of a radical sea change that is happening in American politics.
And it is driven by the Democrats, who are totally disconnected from reality.

Washington Post Shakes Up Leadership

The Washington Post Surrenders — To Reality

Ben Shapiro

Jeff Bezos

Journalism

Legacy Media

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Washington Post

The Atlantic published a fascinating <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/covid-youth-conservative-shift/681705/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">piece</a> yesterday by Derek Thompson. In it, he discusses the radical shift in the voting patterns of young people in the United States.
What he found is that COVID and BLM basically shoved an entire generation of people to the Right. He writes:
<blockquote>For decades, America’s young voters have been deeply—and famously—progressive. In 2008, a youthquake sent Barack Obama to the White House. In 2016, voters ages 18 to 29 broke for Hillary Clinton by 18 points. In 2020, they voted for Joe Biden by 24 points. In 2024, Donald Trump closed most of the gap, losing voters under 30 by a 51–47 margin. In one recent CBS poll, Americans under 30 weren’t just evenly split between the parties. They were even more pro-Trump than Boomers over 65.</blockquote>
So what exactly is happening? Thompson suggests that this is essentially a reaction to government overreach during COVID, that the bizarre institutional failures during COVID — ranging from the idea that proper political credentials brought about riots in the streets and protection from a COVID attack to the idea that kids had to be locked out of schools — shoved an entire generation of young people to the Right and radicalized them.
And this, of course, is true.
This is evidence too that people are incredibly variable and vacillating when it comes to their politics. Exogenous events can shove entire generations of people one way or another.
This has happened several times over the course of my lifetime. I remember after 2001, a brand new security boom prompted people, particularly suburban moms who had traditionally voted Democrat, to suddenly vote Republican.
Then, COVID apparently shoved many young people to the Right. Wokeness shoved many young people to the Right.
This is a good reminder to everyone in politics that while you may think the pendulum will never shift back over to the other side, it absolutely will.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2141-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
And thus, two points ought to be taken from that.
First, politicians ought to be very careful with their use of political power. That doesn&#8217;t mean they shouldn&#8217;t move fast and break things. It means they should be very careful not to set a trip wire that is going to blow up.
Second, they have to move with alacrity when they get to power; the Left always does, and the Right rarely does. This is one of the differences between MAGA and prior conservative Republican movements.
Prior Republican movements took that first bit of advice — “move cautiously; don&#8217;t break too many things” — but they neglected the fact that if you don&#8217;t break enough things, that if you don&#8217;t move fast enough in breaking up things, you don&#8217;t get enough done and the Left comes back in.
And when the Left gets in power, they move fast and they break things.
Barack Obama was not shy about using his power in 2009-2010 in order to shove forward Obamacare and a vast expansion of the federal government. President Trump is doing precisely the opposite.
On Tuesday, President Trump set about issuing a number of new executive orders. Some of them are incredibly consequential. One of them is just a reinstatement of his stated purpose, which is to create more governmental transparency. He issued an executive order titled Radical Transparency about Wasteful Spending, which <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/memorandum-for-the-heads-of-executive-departments-and-agencies-7c05/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reads</a>:
<blockquote>The United States Government spends too much money on programs, contracts, and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people.  For too long, taxpayers have subsidized ideological projects overseas and domestic organizations engaged in actions that undermine the national interest.  The American people have seen their tax dollars used to fund the passion projects of unelected bureaucrats rather than to advance the national interest.  The American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.
I therefore direct the heads of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to take all appropriate actions to make public, to the maximum extent permitted by law and as the heads of agencies deem appropriate to promote the policies of my Administration, the complete details of every terminated program, cancelled contract, terminated grant, or any other discontinued obligation of Federal funds.</blockquote>
Again, this is all part and parcel of the DOGE approach to American government.
As part of that, President Trump also <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-accountability-for-all-agencies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">issued</a> an executive order on Tuesday “ensuring accountability for all agencies,” the goal being to re-enshrine the unitary executive theory of the federal government.
In the Constitution, there is no unelected fourth branch of government that is sort of half-run by Congress and half-run by the executive. If Congress delegates power to the executive, it is the job of the executive to perform those powers.
That means if an executive branch agency exists, that executive branch agency is headed by the president of the United States. That was the point of this particular executive order. It states:
<blockquote>Previous administrations have allowed so-called “independent regulatory agencies” to operate with minimal Presidential supervision.  These regulatory agencies currently exercise substantial executive authority without sufficient accountability to the President, and through him, to the American people.  Moreover, these regulatory agencies have been permitted to promulgate significant regulations without review by the President.  
These practices undermine such regulatory agencies’ accountability to the American people and prevent a unified and coherent execution of Federal law.  For the Federal Government to be truly accountable to the American people, officials who wield vast executive power must be supervised and controlled by the people’s elected President. 
Therefore, in order to improve the administration of the executive branch and to increase regulatory officials’ accountability to the American people, it shall be the policy of the executive branch to ensure Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch.</blockquote>
This is a restatement of the constitutional principle that the president runs the executive branch. All the pseudo-shocks from Democrats on this particular point stems from their long-standing assumption that an independent agency would be run by Democrats. They always assumed that “career bureaucrat” meant Democrat.
There was, in fact, a deep state. It was permanent political appointees who were supposedly insulated from any Republican president who would take power.
And now, Trump is saying no, that&#8217;s not the way this is going to work.
As part and parcel of that, President Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114027416979768016" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> on Truth Social, “Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before. Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining “Biden Era” U.S. Attorneys. We must “clean house” IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America’s Golden Age must have a fair Justice System &#8211; THAT BEGINS TODAY!”
There&#8217;s a lot of hue and cry over this, but this is not, in fact, a rarity. President Bill Clinton fired 93 U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in 1993, and when Barack Obama came into office, he cleared out many in the justice system who had been appointed by George W. Bush.
This sort of change-over of career bureaucrats in these particular agencies, including the DOJ, is not a rarity; it’s a regular part of American government.
It&#8217;s only Republicans who are chided about this.
And this time, we don’t give a damn.

President Trump Signs Executive Orders At Mar-a-Lago In Palm Beach, Florida

T​​rump Cleans Out Deep State

Deep State

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Elon Musk

Federal Government

Republicans

The Swamp

The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and Jarrett Stepman on a special <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/biden-to-trump-a-tale-of-two-presidencies-1-19-25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sunday edition of Morning Wire.</a>
* * *
As Joe Biden exits stage left, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. One presidential legacy is now in the books and another – Trump’s remarkable comeback second term – is about to be written. Morning Wire sat down with the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-History-Conspiracy-Rewrite-Americas/dp/1621578097" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The War on History</a>,” Jarrett Stepman to discuss the defining moments of Biden’s presidency and what to expect from Trump’s second term.
JOHN: Joining us to discuss Joe Biden’s legacy and expectations around Trump’s second term is Jarrett Stepman, author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-History-Conspiracy-Rewrite-Americas/dp/1621578097" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past</a>.” Jarrett, thanks for coming on.
JARRETT: Thanks for having me.
JOHN: Let’s start by looking back, with a post-mortem on Biden’s presidency. He gave his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-farewell-address-four-years-too-late" target="_blank" rel="noopener">farewell address</a> on Wednesday evening – what stood out to you?
JARRETT: It really felt like, in this address, that this was the “Friday night news dump.” It was very low energy, which I think defined especially the last part of his presidency. He focused on things like the spread of misinformation and perhaps censorship of online media, which I thought was a very peculiar take for a president trying to define his presidency, his one term in office. And I felt that the speech itself had very little impact, which is very fitting for the Biden presidency that seems to have wound down into nothing very quickly. But it seems to be an outlier, too, because farewell addresses are usually a defining moment of any presidency, how to define his term. And Biden simply faded out, which I think is very appropriate for his presidency.
JOHN: Joe Biden’s presidency was plagued by inflation and a catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan – what else will he be remembered for? 
JARRETT: I actually think that he will be remembered for being a frail man who represented crumbling institutions at the end of history. I think that really is what&#8217;s defined the Biden presidency, he very much came into office. As an institutionalist, he was supposed to represent the third term of Barack Obama, a sort of attempt to create a permanent Democratic majority through the executive branch. That basically ground to a halt at the end of Biden&#8217;s presidency. I think he was a president who was often missing in action, especially when the country was counting on him. When you had incidents like the failed Afghanistan withdrawal that really turned into a shambolic affair, President Biden was often nowhere to be seen and it was unclear where exactly the buck stopped in our executive branch. Nobody at the top seemed to have lost their job and business continued on as usual. I think that these were ominous signs about his presidency — one that was more ruled by the various executive agencies than the man at the top, than the man who was actually elected to be president of the United States. So, I think his legacy was of an institutionalist and institutions that were losing favor from the American people and going in a direction that Americans didn&#8217;t want.
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/biden-to-trump-a-tale-of-two-presidencies-1-19-25/id1576594336?i=1000684559035" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
JOHN: Often, a presidential legacy boils down to just one or two defining moments or developments. What will come to define Biden’s legacy?
JARRETT: Again, I think that Biden was an institutionalist at a time where the confidence in institutions was crumbling, and I think that Biden&#8217;s, behavior, his frailty, his inability to actually be a strong leader in a time of great challenges to an old system that had been in place will define his presidency. I think it was very symbolic, especially given the man who will eventually replace him. These are two men who come from a similar age demographic, but represent two very different directions for the American people. And I think Biden’s legacy will be ushering in the age of Trump at the end of the age of Biden.
JOHN: Now, turning our gaze to the near future – we have the 47th president being inaugurated Monday – and he happens to also have been the 45th president. Non-consecutive terms have only happened one other time in our country’s history. Do you believe the gap will have a positive or negative influence on his second term and how he governs?
JARRETT: I think the gap will actually have a positive effect on his second term. Now everything will be quickened — it&#8217;s almost like he&#8217;ll be very quickly a lame duck president. That&#8217;s obviously something that happens at the end of a presidency. It&#8217;s certainly a unique situation in American history. This has only happened one other time with Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century. But this is actually a unique situation even in comparison to that because Trump didn&#8217;t just lose a presidency, he was really up against many institutions that tried to squeeze him out, to prevent him from ever coming back into office ever again. That Trump was able to triumph over all those forces — both the political institutional forces and also the media forces that tried to keep him out of the White House — the fact that he triumphed given those challenging circumstances makes this a unique journey to the White House. And I think it actually empowers him. It may end up being a blessing in disguise, because I think Trump the first time around you could say that his presidency was maybe a bit of an accident and Democrats had simply gotten lazy or careless in allowing this man to become president. I think especially given the headwinds that were against him and the fact that now Trump comes in more popular than he&#8217;s ever been, he comes in with closer to what you consider an electoral mandate. He actually didn&#8217;t just win the electoral college, he seems to have won the popular vote as well, which he certainly has touted. I think it makes him a lot stronger than in 2016, especially given now his experience actually running the White House and being a statesman. Whereas before, he had very little. He was a complete neophyte. He was a man of business and entertainment, but now he&#8217;s a man with quite a bit of experience in running the executive branch, with his own outlook on how to run things. So, I think he&#8217;s going to hit the ground running faster this time than he did last time and have his own institutional support, as opposed to 2016.
<div id="attachment_861551" style="width: 916px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-861551" class="size-large wp-image-861551" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2194251751-906x576.jpg" alt="TOPSHOT - Melania Trump watches her husband, US President-elect Donald Trump, speak at a candlelight dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, on January 19, 2025, a day before his inauguration ceremony. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)" width="906" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2194251751-906x576.jpg 906w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2194251751-300x191.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2194251751-768x488.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2194251751.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 906px) 100vw, 906px" />JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images</div>
JOHN: There&#8217;s been a lot made of the resistance movement against Trump over the years – and it was very robust in his first term. When he first took office, there was a huge array of resistance elements in the government and the media – that had a lot of power. And it does seem like this last election, so many of those institutions, as you have pointed out, were failing, and his defeat of them seems to have undermined the idea that there could be as robust of a resistance. What do you see coming in terms of the resistance effort against Trump? Will it be as influential as it was in 2016?
JARRETT: It&#8217;s going to be much more marginalized in comparison to that time. Again, because Trump comes in with so much more of a mandate this time around. Trump is not going to be surprised about the hashtag “resistance” this time around. In fact, I think he&#8217;s keenly aware of it, and it may even become a defining part of his presidency. I think he&#8217;s going to use a lot of cool tools, including something called Schedule F to remove recalcitrant bureaucrats. I think that in many cases, this election was about Trump&#8217;s kind of populist uprising against the White House. I know that Biden Democrats tried to define themselves as standing with democracy, but it really was an uprising against the bureaucratic fiat that they thought was ruling the country during the Biden administration. And I think that they, the bureaucrats who were so empowered during the Biden presidency, I think they&#8217;ve lost a lot of power and I think that there&#8217;s going to be a lot less tolerance within the Trump administration for that kind of resistance. And I think the American people are fed up with it too. So, I do think that there&#8217;s going to be a sort of revival of a kind of popular self-government – and I think that will define the Trump presidency.
JOHN: So, weeding out bad elements in the bureaucracy. What other specific actions or policies do you believe he will pursue, based on his campaign trail rhetoric and the kinds of nominations he&#8217;s made for his cabinet?
JARRETT: Yeah, I think something&#8217;s going to happen immediately. I think he&#8217;s going to restore a lot of the immigration and border policies of his first term, including the Remain in Mexico policy. I think that is going to be absolutely a priority. I think something that&#8217;s going to be worked on in conjunction with the legislature, undoing some of Biden&#8217;s executive decisions in the bureaucratic fight, especially when it came to, redefining gender through Title IX, which was, I think, a very big issue, an underrated issue of the Biden presidency. There&#8217;s already a bill in the House to undo that, to undo those changes that happened under the Biden administration. His first term, his first 100 days in office, he will also re-implement tax cuts from his first administration. I think those will be the big priorities, especially the border, which was a big theme of his first term, but now seems to be even more of a crisis, especially given the fact that under the Biden administration there was a massive surge of illegal immigration. A lot of Biden&#8217;s supporters turned against him given the chaos in American cities and a lot of chaos across the country, not just at the border.
JOHN: What do you make of Trump&#8217;s cabinet picks so far? We&#8217;ve had some days now of confirmation hearings. Is there a unified message we&#8217;re hearing from those cabinet picks?
JARRETT: I think his cabinet picks are very interesting because all of them, while they have some disagreement on various issues, all of them represent a critique of those various institutions. If it&#8217;s somebody like Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department, this is a man who comes in not as a four star general. He comes in as a man who has experience as just a regular soldier criticizing the woke DEI direction of the agency. You have somebody like Cash Patel, a man who was not part of the FBI, now being potentially put at the head of the FBI in criticism of the way that the FBI has operated during the Biden presidency. He really has created a team. Many of whom have very impressive resumes, but they are sort of anti-institutionalists. I think this time around, Trump is less dependent on the sort of conservative Republican infrastructure that exists in Washington D.C. and now has his own team that&#8217;s going to define his presidency. That is a big difference from the first time around. I think Trump has a much more clear and defined different direction for where he wants to take his presidency and the issues that he wants to prioritize. I think all of his cabinet picks represent Trump&#8217;s various feelings about the issues in those various policy areas.
JOHN: In his first term, Trump focused on significant deregulation and judicial appointments based on his rhetoric and policy priorities. What legacy building actions do you think he&#8217;ll focus on this time around?
JARRETT: Interestingly enough, I think a big part of his legacy is actually going to be his foreign policy. It&#8217;s something that&#8217;s an underrated part of Trump. I think he was a very strong president on foreign policy during his first term, but I think you can even see in the days before he actually enters the White House how much he prioritized issues like Greenland, possibly reacquiring the Panama Canal — talking about a revival of a sort of Monroe Doctrine — ending conflicts around the globe. There&#8217;s been a deal to end the war between Israel and Hamas, and potentially in the future, ending the war in Ukraine. And I think that Trump actually will make foreign policy a priority because, I think the way that Trump looks at it, if there is going to be a Golden Era of the United States, and he is going to make a lot of changes, domestically, then that means he must prevent any kind of global catastrophe, any kind of potential war with China. So, I think he is going to create a more realist perspective in American foreign policy and focus on containing the threat of communist China, which represents a real threat to the United States. I think the appointment of Marco Rubio at the State Department really defines that. And I think that will be a huge part of his legacy that is very underrated, especially when people focus on his domestic outlook. I think his foreign policy is actually a huge part of what Trump does as president, what he does best.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/biden-to-trump-a-tale-of-two-presidencies-1-19-25" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LISTEN: Catch the full interview with Jarrett Stepman on Morning Wire</a></h3>
JOHN: Yeah, I think you&#8217;re right. Final question, Trump has vowed to make America great again. Do you see things aligning in such a way that he&#8217;ll be able to pull off that very lofty goal?
JARRETT: I think it is a massive challenge. As I said, Biden really represented the last part of the crumbling institutions at the end of history. I think that Trump represents, potentially, a great man and a return to history. Now that means many complicated and dangerous things. I think we&#8217;re returning to an era of great power conflict, something that we haven&#8217;t experienced in a very long time. The United States has had no challenge or peers since the end of the Cold War. Suddenly we have that again. I think there&#8217;s a lot of questions about the end of the Cold War, the Post Cold War consensus that Americans have come to regret some of the things that have happened since that time. I think Trump has an enormous challenge ahead of him. It&#8217;s certainly too much for simply one man to be expected to restore confidence in America and continue into this new American century. But I think Trump is uniquely placed. I think he represents a pivot point in American history. And I think if he does actually pull this off, he will certainly be remembered as one of the great presidents in the country&#8217;s history. There&#8217;s no question that the contrast between him and his predecessor will be enormous. Now, whether that ends up being a spectacular catastrophe or a spectacular revival, I think is really up to him and how he treats issues and how he performs in office. But I think he is at a point in which he could have enormous impact over the trajectory of the United States and really the world.
JOHN: In the meantime, enormous anticipation leading up to the inauguration and what will follow in Trump’s first executive actions. Jarrett, thank you so much for joining us.
JARETT: Thank you for having me.
* * *

TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP-INAUGURATION

‘Ushering In The Age Of Trump’: An Interview With The Author Of ‘The War On History’

'Ushering In The Age Of Trump': An Interview With The Author Of 'The War On History'

2024 Election

Books

Inauguration

interview

Joe Biden

Morning Wire

Presidency

Nature is healing.
Things are beginning to change. Donald Trump will be taking his oath of office in a few days, but in order for him to take office, Joe Biden has to go.
And before he goes, Biden is attempting to constrain President Trump as he comes in.
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/us/politics/biden-policy-decisions.html">reported</a>:
<blockquote>In the final days of his term, President Biden has issued a series of policy decisions intended to cement his agenda and, in some cases, make it harder for President-elect Donald J. Trump to put in place his own.
The 11th-hour decisions, many of them executive actions, include measures on environmental justice, prison reform, immigration and foreign relations. Some are intended to preserve Mr. Biden’s legacy, while others are last-ditch efforts to expand his approach. Many are likely to be undone after Mr. Trump takes office next week.</blockquote>
“Environmental justice” means banning fracking and limiting drilling off the coast. “Prison reform” means jailbreak.
This is always the danger of an outgoing administration, particularly one as venal, corrupt, and terrible as Joe Biden&#8217;s administration.
Biden is creating two national monuments in California, an action that is not really about creating national monuments; the monuments are intended to prevent mining and drilling that would cover 848,000 acres of desert and mountainous land in a portion of the state where no human would ever visit — unless they were actually going to increase the energy production of the United States.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2119-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The Biden administration announced they would remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in an attempt to box Trump in.
Biden commuted the sentence of 37 out of 40 inmates on federal death row. He left out those who had murdered protected classes of people, which apparently does not include small children. Biden said he would cancel student loans for more than 150,000 borrowers, which he doesn&#8217;t actually have the capacity to do and the Supreme Court said he could not do.
The Biden administration issued sweeping extensions of deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of people to prevent President Trump from actually moving those people out of the country. And, of course, President Biden signed a piece of legislation that gives full Social Security benefits to some public sector retirees who are currently receiving them at a reduced level.
The garbage policies that Biden is planting in the heart of American democracy are going to take a while to come to fruition, but they&#8217;re going to be completely damaging. The vast overspending, the changes to procurement systems, the way that environmental regulations have been done, all those things will take time to fully materialize.
By the time Biden left office, people didn’t like him — across the spectrum. Moderates didn&#8217;t like him because he wasn&#8217;t moderate. The Left didn&#8217;t like him because they are nuts and felt he wasn’t nuts enough.
Meanwhile, President Trump is entering the White House with more positive sentiment than he has ever had in his entire political career, including his first term. According to a new <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/16/politics/cnn-poll-trump/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNN poll</a>, Trump continues to see majority approval for his handling of the transition; 55% approval, which is a very, very high percentage.
Almost six in 10 Americans expect Trump to do a good job in his second term, and that&#8217;s including moderates, Democrats, and everybody else.
Why?
It’s because as it turns out, Trump is a pragmatist. He&#8217;s utilitarian. All he cares about is winning. Even people who may not agree with many of his conservative policies are interested in a country that actually functions again, a country that actually has a booming economy and a strong foreign policy.
He is coming in with a honeymoon. And if Congress does what it is supposed to do, then we are going to see this boomlet turn into an actual boom on behalf of President Trump.
You can feel the mood changing in the country.
The addition of Elon Musk on the Republican side of the aisle has been an imagistic boon in extraordinary ways. Yesterday, for example, his super-heavy booster was caught again by the so-called chopsticks. Musk is doing things with technology that are simply astonishing.
It’s cool to be American. It&#8217;s cool to live in a country that makes this sort of thing possible. It&#8217;s cool to live in a country where a guy who comes to America with pretty much no money can build himself into the richest person on Earth, making companies that create electric cars and rockets that are reusable and can be caught in mid-air that are 20 stories high.
It gives you a feeling of optimism about the country.
The Trump effect.
It’s real and it’s amazing.
* * *
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TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-BIDEN-DIPLOMACY

Before He Exits, Biden Tries To Undermine Trump

Biden Administration

federal regulation

Tennessee&#8217;s Republican Senator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/marsha-blackburn" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marsha Blackburn</a>, who was just reelected by nearly 30 points in November, is considering a run for Tennessee governor.
Citing sources in Washington, D.C., and Tennessee, Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/01/14/marsha-blackburn-tennessee-governor-2026-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that Blackburn was making calls saying she was likely to enter the 2026 gubernatorial race to replace term-limited Governor Bill Lee. Blackburn, a conservative senator and strong ally of President-elect Donald Trump, has been in the Senate since 2019. 
Neither Blackburn nor her campaign has publicly confirmed that she will enter the race, but some Republicans have already come out to announce their support for her. 
“Senator Blackburn has done an outstanding job as a state senator, U.S. congresswoman, and U.S. Senator,” said Glenn Jacobs, the former WWE wrestler-turned-politician, posted on X. “She would do an equally outstanding job as Governor and would have my full support if that’s what she decides.”
His name had been floated in Republican circles in the state as another potential gubernatorial candidate, but his endorsement of Blackburn signals that he wouldn&#8217;t enter the race should Blackburn declare.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Great to see <a href="https://twitter.com/VoteMarsha?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VoteMarsha</a> at tonight’s TN Chamber event. Senator Blackburn has done an outstanding job as a state senator, U.S. congresswoman, and U.S. Senator. She would do an equally outstanding job as Governor and would have my full support if that’s what she decides. <a href="https://t.co/II52SK5D6i">pic.twitter.com/II52SK5D6i</a>
— Glenn Jacobs (@GlennJacobsTN) <a href="https://twitter.com/GlennJacobsTN/status/1879323364281753767?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Blackburn, previously a state legislator and congresswoman, was first elected to the Senate in 2018, defeating former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen 54.7%-43.9%. In 2024, she built on her margin of victory, handily defeating Democratic challenger Gloria Johnson 63.8%-34.2%. 
“This victory tonight really does belong to the people of Tennessee because they’re the ones we’ve listened to, they’re the ones that have shown up at meetings all across this state in each of our 95 counties, and the people of Tennessee have spoken,” Blackburn said on Election Day after her sweeping win. 
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Blackburn said she had been given a &#8220;to-do&#8221; list by the people of Tennessee.
“Here’s your to-do list that we’ve heard from you: Bring back a strong economy and get rid of this inflation. And make the Trump tax cuts permanent,” Blackburn said. “Secure that southern border and absolutely build the wall.” 
During her time in the Senate, Blackburn has backed measures to crack down on illegal immigration, oppose transgender ideology, keep men out of women&#8217;s sports, and push for tech companies to ensure more safety online for kids. 
Blackburn has also won public support from prominent Tennessee conservatives, including Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing and commentator Clay Travis.
&#8220;I am an enormous fan of my governor Bill Lee. I am also an enormous fan of my senator Marsha Blackburn,&#8221; Boreing wrote on X. &#8220;That likely means I am an enormous fan of my next governor as well.&#8221;
&#8220;She’s been a fabulous senator and Marsha Blackburn will make a great Tennessee governor too,&#8221; said Travis. &#8220;She’s got my vote next year.&#8221;
Other potential Republican candidates for governor might include Reps. John Rose and Mark Green, State House Speaker Cameron Sexton, and Secretary of State Tre Hargett.

Senate Republicans Hold Capitol Hill Press Conference On Border Security

Marsha Blackburn Considering Run For Tennessee Governor

Bill Lee

Marsha Blackburn

Tennessee

President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> released a farewell letter Wednesday morning claiming the country was “stronger” and “more prosperous” now than when he took office four years ago.
Biden, who said in the letter that it was the &#8220;privilege&#8221; of his life to be president, is scheduled to deliver a farewell address from the Oval Office Wednesday evening. In a “fact sheet” attached to the letter, Biden took credit for &#8220;securing our border,&#8221; &#8220;lowering costs,&#8221; funding climate change programs, and backing Ukraine. 
“Four years ago, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden wrote. “But we came together as Americans, and we braved through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure.”
“Today, we have the strongest economy in the world and have created a record 16.6 million new jobs. Wages are up. Inflation continues to come down,” he said. “The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re rebuilding our entire nation—urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities. Manufacturing is coming back to America. We’re leading the world again in science and innovation, including the semiconductor industry.”
In the letter, Biden highlighted several pieces of legislation signed during his tenure, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-signs-most-expansive-gun-control-bill-in-decades-into-law-following-republican-support" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including</a> the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” which was the most expansive gun control law passed in decades. He also touted <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bidens-inflation-reduction-act-paid-huge-dividends-for-solar-company-that-donated-to-him" target="_blank" rel="noopener">his signing</a> of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which allotted nearly $1 trillion for environmental spending. 
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“I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake,” Biden said. “And, that’s still the case. America is an idea stronger than any army and larger than any ocean. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world.”
He concluded by writing that “there is simply nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.”
Biden, whose <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-approval-rating-hits-record-low-2014691" target="_blank" rel="noopener">approval rating</a> has hit record lows in recent weeks, has spent his last few weeks in office making a series of policy decisions that critics believe are intended to undercut the incoming Trump administration. For example, Biden&#8217;s administration started <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-biden-races-to-sell-off-border-wall-parts-before-trump-takes-office" target="_blank" rel="noopener">selling off</a> border wall materials, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-bans-offshore-drilling-for-most-of-u-s-coastline-before-trump-takes-over" target="_blank" rel="noopener">banned</a> offshore drilling for most of the U.S. coastline, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-announces-cancellation-of-another-4-billion-in-student-loans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">canceled</a> more student loans, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-commutes-sentences-of-dozens-of-murderers-two-days-before-christmas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commuted the sentences</a> of more than three dozen prisoners on federal death row who had been convicted of murder.

President Biden Addresses NAACP Convention In Las Vegas

Biden Says He Made America ‘Stronger’ And ‘More Prosperous’ In Farewell Letter

Climate Change

Economy

Executive

Politics

Ukraine

White House

Remember Gov. Gavin Newsom’s French Laundry gaffe?
Many have likely forgotten, even though it showed the California Democrat as the ultimate hypocrite. The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/no-masks-all-indoors-award-winning-journalist-claims-22-people-attended-newsom-dinner-not-12-15k-bar-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wannabe president dined, sans mask</a> with a large group at the height of the pandemic lockdowns.
No social distancing. No chance for Californians to similarly enjoy a carefree meal. He got caught red-handed defying his own rules.
That memory might have lingered if late-night comics or “Saturday Night Live” had parodied the moment. They had the material, of course. The jokes all but wrote themselves.
Instead, they collectively stood down. And other politicians followed Newsom’s embarrassing lead, from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pelosi-admits-breaking-lockdown-for-salon-visit-blames-business-says-she-did-nothing-wrong" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rep. Nancy Pelosi</a> to then-<a href="https://reason.com/2021/09/17/london-breed-san-francisco-mask-covid-hypocrisy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">San Francisco Mayor London Breed.</a> Comedy Nation looked the other way during those news cycles, too, and the American people suffered as a result.
Some of those same politicians won re-election post-COVID.
It’s why political humor has consequences. The right joke or comedy sketch can linger longer than a white paper or news headline. We laugh and then we think, and suddenly we’re looking at an issue in a new, startling way.
Even false political jabs can linger longer. Sarah Palin never said, “I can see Russia from my house.” Tina Fey’s Palin “Saturday Night Live” sketch character did, though, and people tied it to the real Palin.
Politicians hold considerable sway over us, yet they can be brought to heel by laughter. It’s why free speech matters and stinging satire leaves a mark.
<div id="attachment_855679" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-855679" class="size-large wp-image-855679" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192407154-864x576.jpg" alt="LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 8: California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades Fire continues to burn on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Fueled by intense Santa Ana Winds, the Palisades Fire has grown to over 2,900 acres and 30,000 people have been ordered to evacuate while a second major fire continues to burn near Eaton Canyon in Altadena." width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192407154-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192407154-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192407154-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192407154.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Credit: Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images.</div>
Will we see comedians hold the politicians at the heart of the California wildfires accountable in the days ahead? If not, shame on them.
We’re watching gross incompetence in real time as thousands flee their homes and worry if they’ll be still standing upon their return. The raging fires are like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie.
It’s often unhealthy to score political points during a tragedy. At times, it’s unavoidable, and now is certainly the case.
We know L.A. Mayor Karen Bass cut $17.6 million from the city’s fire department budget. The progressive mayor wasn’t even in L.A. when the fires broke out. She was in Ghana on a political junket.
The optics couldn’t get much worse. Remember how “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gaqTdV4pqI" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saturday Night Live</a>” and late-night comedians mocked Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas when he was out of state in Cancun during a deadly cold weather front in 2021?  It’s hard to forget given the nonstop jokes on the subject.
Fair? Unfair? He probably thinks twice now before jetting out of town. What Bass and Co. have done to California is immeasurably worse.
Need more material tied to the fires? <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/karen-bass-ignores-questions-about-her-handling-of-devastating-fires" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mayor Bass literally stood silent</a> as a European journalist pelted her with tough but fair questions about the unfolding tragedy. Later, the Mayor tried to steer locals to a website where they could get more information, except during her speech she simply said “URL” <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/la-mayor-karen-bass-stumbles-through-presser-script-failing-to-share-emergency-information-website-address-this-can-be-found-at-url/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">and omitted the actual website’s address</a>.
More comedy gold for satirists speaking truth to power. An A.I. bot could probably crank out a few monologue jokes. Will late-night comedians bite?
So far, they’re <a href="https://latenighter.com/news/heres-how-the-late-night-shows-addressed-the-l-a-wildfires/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">taking the high road</a> regarding the devastation.
Far-Left “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert kept the mood serious.
“We want to send our love and concern to all the residents of Los Angeles who are facing what is being described as the most destructive fire in the city’s history.”
The host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” took a similar tack.
“The scenes we’re seeing on television are obviously harrowing, and there are no real words that I can share other than that we are thinking about you and we are hoping for your safety.”
<div id="attachment_856473" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856473" class="size-large wp-image-856473" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192537247-864x576.jpg" alt="LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS -- Episode 1607 -- Pictured: Host Seth Meyers during the monologue on January 9, 2025 -- (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192537247-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192537247-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192537247-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192537247.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images</div>
That’s understandable … for now. Although, if a Republican governor was in charge the tone might be different. Might.
It’s what happens next that matters, and it could have political repercussions.
Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” won’t hold back. The Libertarian host <a href="https://x.com/greggutfeld/status/1877334892398129301" target="_blank" rel="noopener">already weighed in</a> via his X account, and his 10:00 p.m. show will likely do the same.
<div id="attachment_856469" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856469" class="size-large wp-image-856469" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1954075349-864x576.jpg" alt="NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 22: Host Greg Gutfeld appears during Former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's visit to &quot;Gutfeld!&quot; with at Fox News Channel Studios on January 22, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1954075349-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1954075349-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1954075349-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-1954075349.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Roy Rochlin/Getty Images</div>
Another possible source of comedy? HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” The long-running host has shown a knack for truth-telling regardless of party affiliation. He’s been a thorn in the Left’s side for several years, mocking progressives for their extreme culture war positions and woke overreach.
He’s based in L.A. and might skewer pols who have made the problem exponentially worse. He’s also a Climate Change alarmist and might focus on that angle, even if there’s no evidence climate change played a role in the catastrophe.
So far, late-night hosts are living down to their partisan reputations.
Rather than satirize Newsom or Bass — or others directly overseeing the city and state — they&#8217;re targeting President-elect Donald Trump for his rhetoric.
Both &#8220;Daily Show&#8221; host Desi Lydic and Meyers <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/late-night-hosts-mock-trump-response-la-fires-1236271464/">attacked Trump&#8217;s critiques</a> rather than the actions, or inactions, of key Democrats. That&#8217;s a sign it will only grow more one-sided from here.
Will Jimmy Fallon courageously skewer the politicians who let their constituents down? Colbert? Meyers? Kimmel? Stewart?
<div id="attachment_856475" style="width: 394px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-856475" class="size-large wp-image-856475" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192544199-384x576.jpg" alt="THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON -- Episode 2076 -- Pictured: Host Jimmy Fallon during the monologue on Thursday, January 9, 2025 -- (Photo by: Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images)" width="384" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192544199-384x576.jpg 384w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192544199-200x300.jpg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/01/GettyImages-2192544199.jpg 683w" sizes="(max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px" />Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images</div>
We’ll have to wait and see. If the past is prologue, these comedians will find a way to blame President-Elect Donald Trump for the crisis or avoid political name-calling in general. It may be up to YouTube-based comedians and podcasters to pick up the slack, and their social media platforms will only grow in response.
Too many modern journalists have refused to hold Democratic politicians accountable over the past few years. Just consider how many questions Vice President Kamala Harris has fielded of late over President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.
Try zero, and that’s inexcusable.
It’s no laughing matter when mainstream comedians choose politics over the truth.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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Late Night with Seth Meyers – Season 12

Will Late Night Roast Newsom And Bass For Fires? Don’t Hold Your Breath.

California

Fires

Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Kimmel

Jon Stewart

Seth Meyers

Democrats and other pestilential nudniks are still trying to solve the impenetrable mystery of how their presidential candidate lost to someone as horrible as they pretended Donald Trump was. Chairman of the Democrat National Committee Vladimir Jihad recently discussed the issue on a Zoom call with a group of masked rioters and financial con men called Black Lives Matter Unless They Don’t.
Mr. Jihad, who usually identifies as a woman except at this time of month when he feels the cramps just aren’t worth it, told the group, “Like many of you, I’ve been trying to unravel the puzzling riddle of how anyone could reject the Democrat party. After weeks of reflection, I began to wonder if it was because we burned down cities, mismanaged wars, mutilated children and allowed criminals to pour across our borders, but then I thought, Nah, it must be the fault of the voters. Sure, there was terrible inflation, higher crime and more global threats, but that was just in real life. On the news, everything was great! The problem was that instead of getting the facts from trusted sources like NBC and the New York Times, voters were swamped with misinformation from social media, and their wallets, and the sad, hungry faces of their children, and their own eyes. We have to work harder to keep that misinformation from spreading by repeatedly calling people racist until they’re intimidated into silence. We just haven’t done enough of that.”
Despite the gloomy outcome, the Zoom call was immediately followed by a celebratory gala during which the participants fondly relived the party’s glory days by burning Minneapolis to the ground again.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
To investigate further, the Daily Wire dispatched crack reporter Spencer Crack to Hawaii where he entered the Tikki Takki Lounge, quickly downed four Mai Tais, fell to the floor and rolled under a table, in order to interview Kamala Harris, who had gone there to recuperate after her election loss and the following bender.
According to a transcript of the interview, Harris told Crack, “Sure, the election didn’t have the result I wanted, with millions of people cheering, ‘Hooray for President Kamala’ … or Camela or com-ALA or however the hell you pronounce it. But I still have the same power, the same energy, even the same underwear, which may account for this terrible urinary infection, or maybe that’s just the booze. Whatever happens, I’ll always be the first female Vice President of the United States and maybe even the last, if anyone was paying attention to how that worked out. And to those who say, No one remembers the losing candidate, I say, oh yeah? What about that guy? The one in the tank. Everyone remembers him. Maybe not his name but that picture was hilarious. So don’t let anyone take your power. Especially after you’ve had a few. Things get blurry and the next thing you know, your power is gone, and you’re lying under a table. Now why don’t you go buy me another Mai Tai. And, while you’re at it, make sure my husband’s gone home. The last time he saw me talking to another man, he left a handprint in my cheek so deep I looked like a second grader’s Playdough project.”
While the Democrats’ loss will continue to confound experts for years, many feel it was a simple matter of the wrong candidate. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC said this to his audience, “Excuse me, sir. Before you change the channel, let me just tell you one more thing. Kamala’s candidacy was a complete media fantasy. We told you she had joy. We lied. We told you she was competent. We lied. We told you her VP pick wasn’t a homosexual serial killer. And okay, maybe that was half true. But we should have just stuck with Joe Biden, who was sharp as a tack, honest as the day is long and totally committed to the rule of law.”
Whatever the reason for the loss, most Democrats agree there is now no way Americans can escape horrifying news stories about President Trump’s oppression, corruption and bigotry unless they turn off the television and pay attention to reality, in which case Democrats may never win an election again.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. He is the bestselling author of the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A WOMAN UNDERGROUND</a>,” is now available. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Diverse Group Engaged in Group Therapy

Democrats Still Trying To Unravel The Riddle Of Trump Victory

Kamala Harris

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U.S. Politics

The People Versus John Oliver: The Murky Ethics Of Modern Comedy

As Democrat Warplane Takes Flak, Audacity Remains Intact

The Unlikely Trio Shaking Up The Hollywood Echo Chamber

Restoring The Order Of Love: The Remedy To Political Ills

The Washington Post Surrenders — To Reality

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‘Ushering In The Age Of Trump’: An Interview With The Author Of ‘The War On History’

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Marsha Blackburn Considering Run For Tennessee Governor

Biden Says He Made America ‘Stronger’ And ‘More Prosperous’ In Farewell Letter

Will Late Night Roast Newsom And Bass For Fires? Don’t Hold Your Breath.

Democrats Still Trying To Unravel The Riddle Of Trump Victory

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U.S. Politics

The People Versus John Oliver: The Murky Ethics Of Modern Comedy

As Democrat Warplane Takes Flak, Audacity Remains Intact

The Unlikely Trio Shaking Up The Hollywood Echo Chamber

Restoring The Order Of Love: The Remedy To Political Ills

The Washington Post Surrenders — To Reality

T​​rump Cleans Out Deep State

‘Ushering In The Age Of Trump’: An Interview With The Author Of ‘The War On History’

Before He Exits, Biden Tries To Undermine Trump

Marsha Blackburn Considering Run For Tennessee Governor

Biden Says He Made America ‘Stronger’ And ‘More Prosperous’ In Farewell Letter

Will Late Night Roast Newsom And Bass For Fires? Don’t Hold Your Breath.

Democrats Still Trying To Unravel The Riddle Of Trump Victory

Trump Cleans Out Deep State