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We speak with The Nation's Chris Lehmann about President-elect Donald Trump's escalating attacks on the press and how major media figures and institutions are “capitulating preemptively” to the pressure. ABC News recently settled a defamation suit brought by Trump by making a $15 million donation to his future presidential library, despite experts saying the case was easily winnable. Trump is also suing The Des Moines Register for publishing a poll before the election that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris. “What’s happening is a very clear pattern in Trump’s public life,” says Lehmann. “This is a show of power.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We end today’s show looking at Donald Trump’s renewed war on the press, which he’s often called “the enemy of the people.” Trump recently sued The Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett and the pollster Ann Selzer for publishing a poll before the election that showed him trailing Kamala Harris in Iowa. While Trump ended up easily winning Iowa, he’s now accusing the paper of committing, quote, “brazen election interference,” unquote. Trump laid out his plans to target The Des Moines Register and other news outlets during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: And I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.

AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register came just days after ABC News, which is owned by Disney, settled a defamation lawsuit filed by the president-elect. The network agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library and pay $1 million in legal fees to Trump’s lawyer. Trump sued ABC after its anchor George Stephanopoulos said Trump was found “liable for rape” in a 2023 civil case in Manhattan brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. ABC has been widely criticized for agreeing to settle instead of going to court to fight what many believed to be a winnable case. The prominent attorney Marc Elias responded to the settlement by writing, “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience,” unquote.

Juan González and I recently spoke to Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation, who wrote an article headlined “Trump’s Attack on the Free Press Is Just Getting Started.” I started out by asking Chris to lay out what’s happening.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Well, what’s happening is a very clear pattern in Trump’s public life. It actually well antedates his rise to political power. He made a practice of frequently going after journalists for defamation. He famously sued one of his biographers, who wrote in this biography that Trump did not qualify as a billionaire. And in his subsequent deposition, Trump basically said he was a billionaire because he felt like a billionaire. This is a long-standing pattern of just intimidation of the press. And Trump was very open as a private businessperson that that was his aim. He wanted to exert a chilling effect on people doing critical reporting from him.

Now, of course, he has the awesome power of the federal government behind him, or prospectively behind him, and ABC disgracefully capitulated right away. And The Des Moines Register suit is a clear augur of what’s lying ahead. At the Mar-a-Lago conference you mentioned, Trump also threatened to sue Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize — Pulitzer Peace Prize committee for these, you know, alleged offenses against, basically, Trump’s bottomless vanity. So, by capitulating, you know, sort of preemptively the way ABC has, this news organization has set the stage for a torrent of similar suits like this. You know, Trump will, and his henchmen, like Kash Patel — also, Pete Hegseth has threatened a defamation suit against the person alleging sexual assault against him. You know, this will be a prime MO of the second Trump administration. And it’s very worrisome that even before Trump takes office, ABC is, without cause, giving in. It sends a very distressing signal.

In point of fact, what George Stephanopoulos said on the air was just a paraphrase of what the judge in Trump’s — in the E. Jean Carroll case said. He said that even though Trump’s conduct on the case did not rise to the strict definition of rape under New York law, any commonsense understanding of rape suggests that Trump did, in fact, commit that act. So —

AMY GOODMAN: The judge said that.

CHRIS LEHMANN: The judge in the case. So, there is not — this was not George Stephanopoulos just randomly popping off on the air. It was a documented claim.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Chris, I wanted to ask you — in The Des Moines Register lawsuit, Trump is alleging consumer fraud by The Des Moines Register as a weapon? Could you talk about that, particularly, and also the impact on these media companies, many of which tend to want to settle just to get rid of a lawsuit?

CHRIS LEHMANN: Right, right. Yeah, the fraud charge is — you know, as far as I know, has no legal basis. You can’t just say, because a pollster got something wrong, there is some deliberate intent to mislead. It’s a plainly frivolous suit. But that is the point. This is a show of power on the part of an administration that, we know from his prior turn in office, takes every opportunity to demonize, harass and intimidate the free press. So, you know, this, The Des Moines Register suit, is very much like the Trump biography suit I mentioned earlier. It’s just his vanity was affronted by poll findings that, you know, turned out to be wrong. You know, I don’t know what he can assert the damage has been, if he won Iowa by 15 points after this poll was released. It is just a plain effort to harass and intimidate.

To its credit, the _Register_’s parent company, unlike Disney, which owns ABC, indicates it will be putting up a robust defense. And, you know, in a sane court system, they will prevail. But, you know, all of this takes resources and money. And as you mentioned, Juan, you know, big companies don’t want to be bothered with the hassle of going to court, even though these companies also have libel insurance precisely for cases like this, and they don’t actually tend to suffer in terms of the bottom line.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is extremely serious, when you look at the amount that ABC settled for. They were —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — just about to go to depositions — right? — of George Stephanopoulos —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Right, to discovery, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — and Trump, to discovery.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, ABC called that off. Fifteen million dollars plus another million for lawyers’ fees, any smaller news organization couldn’t possibly deal with something like this. And then —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have these news divisions that are not, you know, profitable. They only profit democracy, but —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — so-called, you know, financially profitable. From these multinational or these very large corporations that own lots of other things, like Bezos with The Washington Post —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — and they care more about that other stuff, they don’t want to be seen unfavorably by Trump, so they settle on the news issue. This is so extremely disturbing.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yeah, and this is what happens when you have large corporations who are not — they don’t have journalistic values. They don’t have journalistic priorities. You know, as you said, the news operations are loss leaders for these figures, and Jeff Bezos has billions of dollars in government contracts. The publisher of the L.A. Times, it’s the same story. He has extensive pharmaceutical holdings that come under federal regulation, so he, too, is preemptively knuckling under to the Trump administration. He’s killed editorials critical of Trump. He’s installed this absurd new feature for readers of the paper to track bias. And he’s insisted that anything critical of Trump run alongside, in the op-ed section, something that’s the opposite point of view. This is more than just callow bothsidesism. This is just craven corporate misconduct. And it is —

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Patrick Soon-Shiong who owns the Los Angeles Times.

CHRIS LEHMANN: Yes. Thank you. Yes. So, yeah, this is what happens —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Chris, I wanted to —

CHRIS LEHMANN: Oh, go ahead.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Chris, I wanted to ask you — we only have about a minute left. I wanted to ask you about the potential — what Trump could do with the FCC, especially in terms of broadcasters. Are there any concerns in that area?

CHRIS LEHMANN: Oh, absolutely. Cameron Barr, his nominee to head the FCC, is a very vocal critic of, you know, what in MAGA-land is considered mainstream media censorship. He has gone on and on about how Big Tech, in particular, you know, during COVID and at other times, have allegedly suppressed MAGA causes and talking points. So, yeah, there’s a very real and immediate danger. You know, the call will be coming from inside the White House soon, when Trump’s FCC starts implementing policy.

And it is all of a piece. It’s really important to underline that. You know, what we’re going to see, I think, is what happened in Hungary under Orbán’s rise to power. Trump and JD Vance are both ardent admirers of Viktor Orbán. And Orbán basically used his version of Elon Musk to buy out the national press and turn it into a party propaganda arm.

And, you know, that is a very real and present danger with Trump coming back into power and feeling this kind of impunity and this drive to avenge the people he sees as his enemies. It’s crucial that the press hold the line and follow the example of The Des Moines Register and not the example of ABC News.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Lehmann, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation. We’ll link to his piece, “Trump’s Attack on the Free Press Is Just Getting Started.”

We continue to discuss the new HBO Original film Surveilled and explore the film’s investigation of high-tech spyware firms with journalist Ronan Farrow and director Matthew O’Neill. We focus on the influence of the Israeli military in the development of some of the most widely used versions of these surveillance technologies, which in many cases are first tested on Palestinians and used to enforce Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and on the potential expansion of domestic U.S. surveillance under a second Trump administration. Ever-increasing surveillance is “dangerous for democracy,” says Farrow. “We’re making and selling a weapon that is largely unregulated.” As O’Neill emphasizes, “We could all be caught up.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We return to our conversation with filmmaker Matthew O’Neill and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow about their HBO documentary Surveilled, that’s now streaming on Max. The film looks at the dangers of spyware like Pegasus, which was developed by the Israeli firm NSO.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Given the fact that Israeli industry has become such a main source of this surveillance technology, do you have any indication that it’s basically United States military funding that goes to Israel, and the government then contracts with its own so-called private companies to develop this technology?

RONAN FARROW: In an attenuated way, there absolutely is that flow of resources. Israel has become a cradle for innovation in this kind of technology for a combination of reasons. I mean, Tel Aviv is a center of tech innovation in general. They have a great pool of tech talent. And Israel is set up in a very specific way, where there’s mandatory military service. People at a pretty early time in their careers go into government, military and intelligence units, and then, also pretty early in their lives and careers, they come out of that service, and they apply those skills and that knowledge in the private industry.

So, you have companies like NSO Group and companies like Black Cube, that Amy mentioned, that do more traditional human intelligence operations, that have all of these resources directly from a government that is, of course, as you point out, supported largely by the United States and its military aid. So, a lot of these solutions are Israeli as a result of all of those factors.

AMY GOODMAN: How much does Israel target Palestinians? We’ve talked with reporters like Yuval Abraham from +972, who exposed Lavender and “Where’s Daddy?” where they follow people home, Palestinians in Gaza. Of course, we know about the exploding beepers and phones in Lebanon. And then I want to ask: Did you ultimately take down the head of NSO Group, which makes Pegasus?

RONAN FARROW: So, first of all, on this question of targeting Palestinians, the reporting suggests, yes, there have been a number of documented cases of spyware technology being found on the phones of Palestinian activists, politicians. We talked to a Palestinian former Knesset member politician in the film who puts forward the theory that Israel essentially uses the Palestinian populations as a laboratory for this technology. And, you know, one of the reasons why private spyware companies thrive in Israel is that in addition to the Israeli government’s internal, very robust capacity for this kind of espionage, there’s always a demand for more of this kind of tech, including from private vendors, to deploy in the conflict that surrounds Israel at all times. Because they are a highly militarized state beset by all of these existential threats, and especially now in this state of conflict, there is just always a context in which to apply and refine this technology. And there has been additional reporting that in this most recent conflict, as well, there’s been a deployment of Pegasus in an effort to try to track hostages.

Now, of course, there’s controversy within Israel. People see some of the intelligence failures around this latest conflict, and there’s right-wingers who in that country say, “Well, there should be more use of this technology.” But certainly, to your question, people who care about the agony of Palestinians right now, I think, should be aware that this technology has wormed its way into this conflict, and that this conflict has reinforced the development of this technology.

To your question about the leadership of NSO Group, I would not say that I took out the head of NSO. The head of NSO was, as we acknowledge openly in this film, a source of mine. He did depart that company amidst a lot of the scandals. The company was very embattled, and then there was a leadership change. The reporting of a whole consortium of international publications, a lot of different outlets, I think, contributed to those scandals. I would say the foremost player in disclosing information about this company was the watchdog group that we track in the film, Citizen Lab.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ronan, what could the outgoing Biden administration do to curtail the ability of the incoming Trump administration to use the powers of this technology? Or what could Congress do, do you think, given the makeup of the Congress, of the new Congress coming in?

RONAN FARROW: This is where it gets really tricky and, frankly, even bleak. And I think this is why activists and journalists tracking this issue are in a state of such alarm. The Biden administration, the executive branch, can do relatively little, as far as I understand, that can’t be undone by the Trump administration. More robust executive orders, you know, are a possibility, but the Trump administration, A, can pass its own executive orders and, B, has just shown an unprecedented disregard for the rule of law.

So, not only are there existing loopholes, not only can those loopholes be widened, but we may have a set of players coming in, based on their own statements, who just disregard the entire framework and overreach in various ways. You see a clear, concerted effort in Trump’s appointments in this new Cabinet and wider administration to circumvent the rule of law. You see the selection of someone like Kash Patel, who would very clearly give Trump free rein to manipulate law enforcement investigations if he were running the FBI, and has suggested that the executive should have absolute power, has suggested that journalists should be prosecuted.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Patel speaking to Steve Bannon on his podcast the War Room.

KASH PATEL: We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice. And, Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators, because we’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Kash Patel, the Trump nominee for head of the FBI, to replace Christopher Wray, who was already called on the carpet around buying Pegasus. So, when not only Kash Patel, because who knows if he’ll make it, but President Trump has repeatedly talked about journalists, for example, as the enemy of the people, your final thoughts, Ronan?

RONAN FARROW: Trump and his associates have explicitly threatened journalists with prosecution, and specifically threatened journalists who protect their sources with prosecution. That is dangerous for democracy. This is one of the first times — and I’m, as we discussed, someone who’s dealt with a fair number of surveillance and intimidation efforts — that I felt frightened to work in this country.

I think in this incoming administration, we’re going to need the work of journalists more than ever. And we’re going to need the space for journalism, for dissent, for all of the spaces that are shrunk and cracked down on when you have this technology freely used in an unfettered way. And we’ve just seen this horror story play out in one country after another, even where there are ostensible protections in place. We see how hard it is to get accountability after the fact. We see how tempting it is for law enforcement to overreach and start to target people in a vindictive, politicized way. And then you have these sets of statements, where you have Donald Trump threatening political opponents with military tribunals, for instance.

And as ever, we’re in the media engaged in this debate of what’s a joke and what’s not, but these kinds of appointments, or at least attempted appointments that we’re seeing, are no joke. And this technology that is already at the fingertips of this government, that’s no joke. So, people need to really care. And members of Congress, of whatever party, who remain sane in a context that is increasingly not normal, really need to clock and appreciate this issue.

I have seen, in talking about this film in public spaces, how the public gets it, how ordinary Americans understand that it is scary to have these spaces shrunk and cracked down on. And I think that politicians who take a stand and realize that the spyware companies in this film who say this is a weapon of war — the spyware companies themselves. We have NSO’s lawyer on camera in the film saying, “There’s no equivalent to the Geneva Conventions for this. And that’s not on us. We’re making and selling a weapon that is largely unregulated.” We’ve got to fix that. And I think people care, is what I’m seeing. And my hope is that political representatives understand that the people care. And this is not a partisan issue. People who don’t want big government, people who have traditional conservative values should especially care about protecting people from this tech.

AMY GOODMAN: Matt O’Neill, you traveled the world with Ronan as you interviewed people almost on every continent. I want to ask you, for example, about Guatemala. In 2022, a group of journalists working for the award-winning Central American independent news outlet El Faro filed a lawsuit in U.S. court against NSO Group, the Israeli company that operates Pegasus spyware used to monitor and track journalists, human rights activists, dissidents. The El Faro journalists, which is based in El Salvador, allege Pegasus software was used to infiltrate their iPhones and track their communications and movements. Now, you didn’t go to El Salvador. They sued, and one of the heads of it went to Guatemala.

MATTHEW O’NEILL: Yes, we went to Guatemala City to interview Roman Gressier, who was targeted by Pegasus spyware. And I think this is indicative of what you see on every continent where Pegasus is in use, is that you’re seeing journalists, civil rights activists, human rights activists who are being targeted with this software. If you’re looking at El Salvador, this tool is only as responsible as the people using it. So, in El Salvador, they’re prosecuting journalists. In Saudi Arabia, they’re tracking down and executing journalists. If we have this software here, I think people listening at home might be thinking, “I’m not going to be subject to an ICE investigation. The Department of Homeland Security isn’t interested in my selfies or my pictures of my kids.” And that’s likely true. However, if this investigative tool makes it into the hands of people who have an expansive idea about what criminality is or what the reach of their institution is into people’s lives, we —

AMY GOODMAN: Or proudly announce their enemies lists they have.

MATTHEW O’NEILL: We will all be caught up. We don’t need to be the target of an investigation. They could be targeting you, and our text exchange this morning would have looped me right into that.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you can talk, Ronan, about what you do? Juan asked you this question before. But really specifically, it amazed me how simple some of it is, and, of course, much more complicated to stop this level of spying.

RONAN FARROW: Well, it’s simple, but it’s not foolproof. You know, I have been told by senior people within spyware companies that rebooting your phone every day is a great practice.

AMY GOODMAN: Why?

RONAN FARROW: It doesn’t foil all of these forms of technology. Reboot survivability is built into some of them. But others, including, at least when I last checked in on it, Pegasus, will actually have to reinfect you after a reboot.

AMY GOODMAN: Meaning turning your phone off.

RONAN FARROW: Just turning your phone off every day is a good digital hygiene practice — again, not foolproof. And increasingly, these technologies are more and more sophisticated and can survive reboots. But it will clear out some types of spyware infections.

Also, this may seem obvious, but just keep all of your devices updated in every way you can. I mentioned that kind of Mr. Robot digital sniping between the platform holders like Apple and Meta and the spyware companies. What that means is that every single day there is a multibillion-dollar industry that is geared towards finding the vulnerabilities in the latest Apple patch, the latest WhatsApp patch, and exploiting them. And on the other hand, there are teams of sophisticated programmers within the companies that make your software and your hardware that are spending their lives creating those new patches to close up those vulnerabilities. And we see some of those battles in the film, if you’re interested in learning more. But the end result is: update everything all the time. When you get that little alert, it’s annoying, but don’t wait.

AMY GOODMAN: Aluminum foil?

RONAN FARROW: Well, we do — we follow a scene in the film where a live infection is found of another type of spyware technology, Candiru. And Citizen Lab investigators race to the scene, and they have the activist who’s been infected wrap his laptop where the infection is taking place in tin foil to create a Faraday cage, like you get when elevator doors close and you lose reception, to interrupt the flow of data in and out of the laptop, and hopefully prevent a signal from being sent to it that might cause the technology to delete itself. In that case, it was successful. They managed to prevent the technology from self-destructing, and they got a live example of how this infection was working. And it actually helped Microsoft generate a patch that thwarted this technology for a time.

So, tin foil, theoretically — or even better, you can get Faraday bags, that in secure settings sometimes people use to interrupt transmissions to their devices — can theoretically be a help, but I wouldn’t count on it, because you’ve got to wrap those things really thoroughly. And I have also talked to sophisticated technology experts who say, “You know what? That’s really far from fail-safe.”

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Ronan, did you find in your investigation any companies or platforms that had better practices in terms of securing individual phones against surveillance?

RONAN FARROW: Well, I have been impressed, whatever you think of the wider companies, with the commitment of the programmers who are playing defense on this issue within Apple and within WhatsApp. You know, these companies are sometimes secretive about what they do on this front. Nobody likes to publicize that the device you make or the software you make is so vulnerable. But I’m grateful to the sources within those teams who spoke for this reporting and to the cases in which the companies in question, Microsoft or Meta, for instance, agreed to participate even in the film. You know, we have people going on camera talking about how they do this. I think more openness about this is called for and that people should celebrate the cases in which companies put resources into protecting their customers in this way. There’s not enough, but there is some going on, and that does deserve acknowledgement.

AMY GOODMAN: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow and Matthew O’Neill talking about their new documentary Surveilled. It’s streaming on Max. It’s directed by Perri Peltz, Matthew O’Neill, and produced by Ronan Farrow. We’ll link to Ronan Farrow’s New Yorkerpiece, “The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone.”

A frustrated Jim Acosta unleashed on a Republican operative for defending Donald Trump after the president-elect continued to tie the issue of illegal immigration to the New Year's Eve terror attack in New Orleans.

Neil Chatterjee, who served under Trump as commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, spoke with Acosta on CNN Thursday.

Acosta referred to Trump's TruthSocial post from Wednesday where he wrote, "When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”

"I mean this this is a problem!" Acosta said. "And, you know, you were saying a few moments ago, you can't take him literally. The president — why — shouldn't you take the president of the United States literally? Isn't that isn't that sort of a baseline expectation that he should stick to the facts?"

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Chatterjee answered, "I don't think he was saying that this individual crossed illegally, or if he was, it was based on initial reporting that was incorrect, that somebody had crossed at Eagle Pass —"

"We can show it up on screen again, I mean he's talking about, he's blaming Biden's 'open borders policy', and he's talking about that on Truth Social."

Acosta continued, "What he is saying in that Truth Social post is false! That is false!"

Chatterjee pushed back: "He's not saying that this individual crossed the border illegally, but there were 400 people on the terrorist watch list —"

"Of course, but when there's an act of terrorism in this country, the incoming president should tell the truth to the American people. I mean, that is just — isn't that what the president should do at all times?" Acosta asked.

"He's talking about securing the border, and he's been talking for years about securing the border. And I think the data bears out that he won the election, partially because —"

Acosta interjected, "I mean, i just have to say, here he goes again! He talks about everybody else being fake news, and he's the one peddling fake news."

Watch the CNN clip below or click here.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

Jessica Tarlov, a progresive Fox News host, attempted to fact check conservative co-host Jeanine Pirro on Thursday over Republicans' narrative that the New Orleans truck attack that left 14 people dead was due to illegal immigration.

"When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true," President-elect Donald Trump wrote in a statement in response to the tragedy. "Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!"

In her response to President Joe Biden's statement, on the other hand, Mediate reports that Tarlov said to Pirro, "When you say, 'I’m embarrassed watching Joe Biden,’ I’m not embarrassed seeing someone stand up there and saying, 'Let’s wait for some facts here,' because Donald Trump went out there and he said…"

READ MORE: 'Disgrace': GOP senator slammed for 'tone deaf' remark in response to terror attack

Tarlov was then interrupted by the right-wing host.

"No, he assured Americans all was well," Pirro shot back.

"No, listen to all of the comments that he made and the statements which said we need to make sure we have the right facts," Tarlov replied, "and the right facts were that the guy in New Orleans was an American. He wasn’t an illegal."

Pirro then said, "No one’s saying he wasn’t."

"That’s not true!" Tarlov protested. "There have been Republicans who have been on TV today talking about how this was an open border problem."

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Pirro replied, "Seventy-five percent of the arrests in New York City are illegals! Let’s stop playing games!"

Tarlov shot back, "Move the goalposts! Move them as far as you want. Sugar Bowl-wide! Whatever."

Watch Mediaite's video below or at this link.

Despite the suspects in both New Year’s possible terror attacks being Americans and either current or former U.S. military personnel, House and Senate Republicans are leveraging the incidents to advance Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant “America First” agenda, calling for closing down the border and pressing for swift confirmation of the President-elect’s highly controversial national security nominees—including those described by some as “unqualified” or even “dangerously unqualified.”

“First and foremost, close our border,” U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a former Green Beret, told “Fox & Friends when asked what should be done to protect the nation from further attacks,” The Daily Beast reports. Waltz is Trump’s nominee to become Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), also known as the President’s National Security Advisor (NSA).

“I can’t emphasize enough, close the border, secure our sovereignty, you know, and that is completely unacceptable,” Waltz also said on the right-wing cable channel. “The entire world knows that we have an open border. They intend to hit us, and they are pushing people into our interior to do just that.”

The suspect in the deadly New Orleans attack was a U.S. citizen from Texas, and the “suspected driver of the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded Wednesday outside the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel has been identified as active duty Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger, according to an official briefed on the probe,” CBS News reported.

The Daily Beast Thursday afternoon reported the “man suspected of being behind Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas was a ‘big’ supporter of Donald Trump and voted for him in November, a senior law enforcement official tells the Daily Beast.”

“The U.S. Senate must confirm President Trump’s national security team as soon as possible. Lives depend on it,” wrote U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) at 1:29 PM on January 1.

“The U.S. Senate must confirm President Trump’s national security picks as soon as possible,” said U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), barely one hour later, at 2:44 PM on January 1.

U.S. Senator John Thune (R-SD), who will become Senate Majority Leader, called the New Orleans attack “a clear example of why the Senate must get President Trump’s national security team in place as quickly as possible.”

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX), also pushed the border control narrative, on Fox Business on Thursday.

Eric Columbus, who served as special litigation counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Office of General Counsel, responded to Weber’s remarks by calling it a “Great opportunity for Dems not to defend Biden but to insist that the GOP take the danger seriously and reject nominees plainly unsuited to the task — like [Kash] Patel and [Tulsi] Gabbard.”

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, just endorsed by Trump for a second term, declared Thursday that the New Orleans attack—whose suspect is a Texan and former military—the FBI is investigating as terrorism—is the reason House Republicans passed “the strongest border security act ever passed by Congress.”

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Republicans, Johnson also said, have repeatedly expressed concerns about what he called “the wide-open border” in a Fox News segment on the possible domestic terrorism attack in New Orleans. Johnson discussed “the idea that dangerous people were coming here in droves, potentially setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country.”

Punchbowl News on Thursday reported the “New Orleans attack could help limit confirmation drama” for Trump’s “most-controversial” national security nominees, and specified them as “Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, FBI nominee Kash Patel, and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), the nominee for director of national intelligence.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Medicare Pick Dr. Oz Says Uninsured ‘Don’t Have Right to Health’ in Resurfaced Clip

President-elect Donald Trump slammed "criminals coming in" from other countries after a driver plowed into dozens of people in New Orleans, killing 10 and wounding dozens of others. But Trump's statement, issued Wednesday morning, appeared to have been made before authorities identified the suspect as a 42-year-old Texas military veteran — a fact not lost on even the right-wing Fox News network.

Around 3 a.m. Wednesday, a pickup truck intentionally mowed down a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street in the city's French Quarter. The suspect, identified as Shamsud Din Jabbar, drove a Ford F-150 Lightning truck in the attack that was apparently rented via the Turo app, the owner of the truck told ABC7.

Hours after the attack on Wednesday morning, Trump echoed his campaign rhetoric in blaming criminals from other countries.

ALSO READ: Merrick Garland's last task and the explosive evidence that could save America

"When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true. The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department. The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!" he exclaimed.

A Fox News reporter read the statement on air Wednesday afternoon after federal officials identified the suspect, and fact-checked the president-elect.

"Now the former president said criminals coming in in a statement, meaning into our country, but to be clear Molly [Line] and Brian [Llenas] the suspect was born in the United States, he served in the United States Army, he was a veteran, the FBI is the lead agency in this investigation going through the social media and any other accounts associated with the suspect," said Justice Correspondent David Spunt.

Watch the clip at this link.

Just a few hours after a man plowed his pickup truck into a crowd on New Orleans' Bourbon Street on New Years Day killing ten people, reports confirmed that the suspect — who died after a firefight with police — intentionally carried out the attack.

At a Wednesday morning press conference, it was confirmed that the FBI is taking over the investigation into the mass casualty event.

During an interview with MSNBC on the matter, former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi offered his take on the tragic incident.

READ MORE: Ten dead after mass casualty incident on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street: reports

The network's Ana Cabrera asked the former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, "Frank, are you surprised that a car was able to go some eight to ten blocks down Bourbon street on a night like this?"

He replied, "I'm not surprised that we have had this horrible event. What does kind of cause me to wonder is the length to which the car or truck was able to travel. How many people died, or were injured, along that lengthy course. Now, I realize the speed might have been extremely fast, but police officers have to make a split-second decision here."

Figliuzzi continued, "And once they realize, this is not an accident — this is deliberate — it's often too late. And then the suspect comes out of the car and engages the officers. So, people might be thinking, 'Why weren't police shooting at this car?' Well, it's crowded. It's elbow-to-elbow crowded near Bourbon Street and the French Quarter, so split-second decisions, have I acquired my target? What's behind my target? Is it worth shooting upwards at this car or not? It's a panic situation. And, I hate to say this, but it's almost a positive that this ended with the suspect exiting his vehicle, reportedly, or this could have kept going, and they could have been chasing this truck all over the city. It's contained. It's a tragedy."

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Man charged for shooting at Dem field office had 120 guns, 250K bullets and grenade launcher

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Donald Trump Jr. revealed that he dreaded attending the annual New Year's Eve party at Mar-a-Lago because his father's drunk friends treat him like a "freaking imbecile."

While speaking on Monday's Triggered podcast, Trump said ringing in the New Year at Mar-a-Lago would be "a little rough."

"My birthday is New Year's Eve... I get older," he complained. "I was a kid, New Year's Eve was a lot better because it was like, there's always something to do. There's always a party."

"Now it's sort of like amateur night," the president-elect's son complained. "I get to be around a thousand drunk people giving me their political opinions that I don't necessarily want to hear."

"While I love Mar-a-Lago, it's sort of like, you know, the, you know, by about midnight when everyone's like, you know, 12 beers deep or whatever it is they're drinking, you know, the close talking opinions."

ALSO READ: Merrick Garland's last task and the explosive evidence that could save America

Trump said he would rather be hunting or fishing.

"This'll be like year, like nine of, 'Hey, you know, have you ever thought to maybe have your dad not tweet that?'" he griped. "I'm like, no, I've never thought that 'cause I'm a freaking imbecile."

Watch the video below from Triggered.

A former CNN anchor unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on his podcast while talking about a rift that has grown in MAGA world between the right-wing tech crowd of Silicon Valley and President-elect Donald Trump's base.

Don Lemon, who worked at CNN for nearly a decade until leaving in 2023, launched his rant on his YouTube channel on Friday as he cackled at the brouhaha that unfolded.

The rift emerged between two factions. On one side, tech allies such as billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who have been tapped to slash trillions from the federal budget — are advocating for more visas to attract highly skilled foreign workers. On the other side is the MAGA base, which has opposed expanding H-1B visas, seeing it as a threat to American jobs.

"If you were taken by this whole tech bro DOGE thing — oh and also, you know, we're going to deport migrants —" Lemon began, before breaking out into a hysterical laugh.

Lemon asserts that the tech crowd supports people who come to America and then overstay their visas, believing them to be "good workers" and "good people." Furthermore, they can't unionize.

"And now they're figuring out without these people we cannot do our tech jobs! But guess who knew that? The tech bros knew that. The folks who are supporting Donald Trump. The folks who you want to put in charge of the DOGE already knew that," he said.

Lemon continued laughing as he noted farms have indicated they'd have to shut down after just two days without visa workers.

"After that, it's over! Oh my gosh I love this!" a hysterical Lemon continued laughing. "Now you're finding out you dumb f---ing idiots. Now you're just figuring this s--- out. You're so f---ing stupid and you deserve it. You f---ing deserve it because you're so dumb."

Lemon said he was "openly gloating" over MAGA "stupidity" and how they were "taken."

Lemon continued laying into Trump's fans.

"You have been co-opted because you are in a f---ing cult and you don't even realize it because you have stupid MAGA brain and you don't get it. How stupid and dumb are you?" he said.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

As House Speaker Mike Johnson faces pushback from a group of his fellow GOP lawmakers, and threats of an ouster on January 2, "one thing" is saving the congressional leader in the meantime.

Vanity Fair special correspondent and MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong Fast submitted on Monday that Democrats are the reason Johnson is able to stay afloat after negotiating with the opposing party to keep the government open.

"Mike Johnson has been really needing those Democratic votes," Fast said.

READ MORE: Mike Johnson facing 'nonsensical food fight' as lawmakers gear up for chaotic House speaker battle

"It's not just [House Minority Leader] Hakeem [Jeffries] (D-NY), it's the Democrats," she continued, "because you know there are about 30 Republicans who will not vote for a CR, and that's been a real problem. I would say there's a sort of an anti-government streak."

"Here's the question, right?" Fast said. "The general ethos here is to shut down the government, and you'll remember, right, that's the thing, is just to keep the government from working, to prove that the federal government is bad. I mean that's the gestalt."

"So here we are, and if you look back at Trump 1.0 in 2016, what happened? He controlled all three branches, and what did he do? He shut down the government," Fast asserted. "So, I could see that happening again. Look, Mike Johnson, has been able to keep things going, but the only reason he's been able to keep things going is because of those Democratic votes."

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Totally perverse': How MAGA’s revolt against Johnson could lead to 'meltdown and anarchy'

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After an appeals court upheld veteran journalist E. Jean Carroll's $5 million judgement against Donald Trump on Monday — one day after the president-elect former floated the idea of retribution against the ex-advice columnist — ex-federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann explained why Trump is likely the one in danger.

"This is an interesting day," the former FBI counsel told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace during the latest episode of Deadline: White House.

"I think clearly what the former president and president-elect is doing is another shot across to send a message to those people who might sue him for wrongs," Weissmann continued. "E. Jean Carroll obviously was the victim here, as found by not one but two juries that awarded her a sum of over 85 million dollars, and they found that she was sexually is assaulted."

READ MORE: 'Guardrails of the rule of law': Why federal appeals court upheld Trump/Carroll abuse verdict

The former top prosecutor went on to explain why Trump's appeal failed.

"And so, the claims against her by Donald Trump are unsupported by any facts, and in fact, are contrary to the jury verdicts and just legally, by the way, Donald Trump cannot re-litigate that," Weissmann emphasizes. "He had an opportunity not once, but twice, he could have testified and didn't, so this is a lot of fear mongering, but it is effective fear mongering, as we have seen in a variety of different contexts. It's something to keep an eye on in terms of the courts."

Weissmann continued, "Today's decision is frankly quite a routine decision. There was not much of a legal issue here. The court issued an unusually long opinion, probably to make sure this case was bulletproof in terms of an appeal. It was issued per curiam — one judge wrote it. I think that also was an is the effect of Trump, so that no one judge was bearing the brunt of any repercussions. And it remains to be seen just whether the judicial system is going to hold up. But today is a good sign. It remains to be seen whether it is going to last for four more years of this."

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Did he defame her again?' Expert points out how Trump just risked new E. Jean Carroll charges

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After former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday, December 29, President Joe Biden fondly remembered him at a press conference.

Biden, addressing reporters, compared Carter and Donald Trump in a way that was very unfavorable to the president-elect. And Fox News host Tammy Bruce responded by raging against Biden.

The outgoing president told reporters, "Is there anything President Trump could take from President Carter? Decency, decency, decency. Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? I can't. I can't."

READ MORE: Jimmy Carter's lasting Cold War legacy: His human rights focus helped dismantle the Soviet Union

The following day, on Fox News' "Outnumbered," Bruce described Biden as "mean" and a "bully."

Bruce told an "Outnumbered" panel, "(The) American people have made their decision. We're all Americans. We're moving forward. We will disagree politically and philosophically. But it's just a remarkable and a shameful thing to watch. But it is classic Biden. This is what we've been seeing, and it's partly what the American people don't like."

Bruce continued, "You might not agree with Trump's style. But Biden is presented as being…. the unifier and the nice guy. You know, Scranton, Joe. And he's mean and he’s a bully. And it's a shame and it's embarrassing, and it's unfortunate."

Bruce, now 62, was once a prominent figure in liberalism and the feminist movement, but she later took a hard-right turn and became a Fox News pundit.

READ MORE: 'What is going on here???' Trump melts down over Harris endorsements weeks after election

The Los Angeles native served as president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) from 1990-1996, but she turned against liberalism and the Democratic Party during the 2000s and developed a strong presence in right-wing media.

READ MORE: Georgia AG wants Trump administration to restrain rising migrant farm worker pay

Watch the full video below or at this link.

Donald Trump has set his sights on the Americas, threatening to retake the Panama Canal if Panama doesn’t lower fees for U.S. ships. The United States controlled the waterway until 1977, when President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal. Trump has also recently floated the idea of annexing Canada, and even a possible “soft invasion” of Mexico. Pulitzer Prize-winning Yale historian Greg Grandin explains the practical impossibilities of such plans but analyzes the political impacts of Trump’s statements. “There’s no way the United States is going to fill out greater America. This is red meat for the Trump base,” says Grandin. “It’s classic Trump.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to look at how President-elect Trump has threatened to retake the Panama Canal. The United States controlled the waterway after its completion in the early 20th century. But in 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a landmark treaty to give Panama control of the canal, which, by providing a path through Central America, revolutionized maritime shipping. During a speech in Arizona Sunday, Trump threatened to retake the canal.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America, in full, quickly and without question.

AMY GOODMAN: Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino rejected Trump’s threat in a video he posted online.

PRESIDENT JOSÉ RAÚL MULINO: [translated] I want to express that every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent areas belong to Panama and will continue to belong to Panama. The sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Trump announced he’s picking Trump loyalist, local official Kevin Marino Cabrera from Miami to serve as U.S. ambassador to Panama.

For more on this and Trump’s vow to maybe also annex Canada, as he continually to refers to “Governor Trudeau,” and even a possible soft invasion of Mexico, we’re joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Greg Grandin, history professor at Yale University, his recent op-ed in The New York Times headlined “The Republicans Who Want to Invade Mexico.” His forthcoming book, America, América: A New History of the New World.

Thanks for joining us, Professor Grandin. First, your response to Panama?

GREG GRANDIN: Well, Panama is interesting. I mean, I think there’s a lot of things going on. Obviously, Trump is not president yet, and he’s sending out messages that are meant to set a tone. In some ways, it’s classic Trump. He’s saber-rattling about these fantasies about taking back the canal. But I think the real kind of prosaic reason why he’s doing that is to place, you know, single pressure on Panama to clamp down on immigration, and particularly to close down the Darién Gap. Last year, I believe the numbers are quite off the charts. Something like 400,000 migrants traipsed through the very narrow jungle Darién Gap as part of the migration into the United States. And by placing the pressure on Panama about the canal, this is Trump’s way of, you know, bait and switch, in some ways.

But I think there are other things also going on. In some ways, it’s distraction. The more we talk about Greenland, the more we talk about Canada and “Governor Trudeau,” and the more we talk about taking back the Panama Canal, the less we’re talking about Syria or Gaza or, you know, these other hot spots that require significant attention and real diplomacy, rather than this kind of circus act.

But I also think that it also — it speaks to this signal shift in the global order. I think that, you know, the liberal — the old liberal order, multilateral order, that Trump stands apart and above from and has pledged to overthrow, you know, it presided over untold number of hypocrisies and atrocities. But at least the premise that it was founded on was that nations were to cooperate with each other to create a peaceful world, and hence diplomatic protocol. Trump, by just talking about taking the canal or taking Greenland or turning Canada into the 51st state, is really harkening back to a world where the doctrine of conquest still reigned, you know, where the presumption wasn’t cooperation. The presumption was rivalry, competition and domination, in which smaller nations suffer what they must and bigger nations do what they will.

And I think that, you know, this is classic — this is classic Trump. There’s no way the United States is going to fill out greater America. This is red meat for the Trump base. If you go to Twitter, you can see all of these MAGA maps in which greater America is filled out from Greenland down to Panama. And it’s a fantasy. There is not going to be a kind of return to territorial annexation in any significant way. I mean, the United States is not Israel, right? In Israel, there is a Greater Israel actually being created. In the United States, it exists more in the kind of fantasy life of his rank and file. And I think that some of that is what is going on.

And let me just add, it’s Panama. Panama is one of the largest offshore money-laundering shelters in the world. By some accounts, some $7 trillion exists in these offshore accounts. And if he really wanted to make America great again, he would go after not the Panama Canal or worry about immigration, he would shut down — he would shut down the ability of these offshore financing to function, and he would tax that money. And then we’d have high-speed trains. We’d have healthcare. We’d have a nation, as he likes to put it.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, just as we talked about Greenland and China and the U.S. interest in Greenland, what about the Panama Canal and the possibility of a larger canal being built through Nicaragua, and the role of China versus the U.S.? Is Trump seeing it in this context?

GREG GRANDIN: I think, I mean, obviously, Latin America and its relationship with China is always a geostrategic concern for national security types. And it has been, and has been for quite a while. And in terms of the Panama Canal in particular, there are alternatives on the table. Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico has talked about creating an interoceanic corridor, a combination of roadways and trains, in that thin kind of waistband area of Mexico, that would compete with the Panama Canal. Nicaragua, of course, is run by a degraded version of the Sandinistas, but they’ve been in talks with China. But this has been going on for decades, so it’s unclear how real they were.

The thing about building alternatives to the Panama Canal is that this happens whenever — it’s been going on for quite a long time, for at least a century, because, of course, the problem with the Panama Canal, it’s not a — it’s a lock canal. It’s not a sea level canal. So it takes a long time to fill up the locks, bring them down, bring the ship across. And that’s why the tariffs are so high. That’s why the fees are so high. It’s an enormous operation. So there’s been a dream of a sea level canal for over a century. And maybe the will there is to build it either in Mexico or Nicaragua, but, you know, it’s not anything I would hold my breath for, waiting to see happen. We’d probably have high-speed trains in the United States before that happened.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, Trump’s pick for the ambassador to Mexico is Ron Johnson, whose military career began in Panama. In the '80s, he was stationed in El Salvador as one of 55 U.S. military advisers as the Salvadoran military and paramilitaries were killing thousands of Salvadorans. He was a specialist in covert operations, became a member of the elite U.S. Special Forces, informally known as the Green Berets, a highly selective unit that also included figures like Trump's pick for national security adviser, Michael Waltz. He has pushed for the U.S. also invading Mexico, Greg, as we wrap up.

GREG GRANDIN: Yeah, these are bad signs. Ron Johnson just brings us back to Iran-Contra, I mean, right into the heart of it. I mean, he was one of the so-called 55 military advisers on the ground in El Salvador while the United States was helping El Salvador build a death squad state. I mean, he’s got — and then he had a career in the Green Berets and onward to the CIA. He’s been — you know, he’s seen some things. And to name him ambassador to Mexico is, again, sending a strong signal.

Again, Mexico is Mexico. It’s stubborn. It has a strong commitment to sovereignty. On the other hand, it’s poor, and it needs capital, and the United States is the largest trading partner. Claudia Sheinbaum seems to be very astute in not — you know, where we see obsequiousness on the part of Justin Trudeau, Sheinbaum has come back quite strongly, at least rhetorically, on Trump. But on the other hand, Mexico has cooperated with the United States on all sorts of things having to do with migration, and including helping the United States enforce a hard line on migration. I imagine that’s going to continue, no matter what the rhetoric of Sheinbaum. But Mexico does have a — has a much stronger commitment to the idea of sovereignty because of the history, where, you know, you started talking about territorial annexation. I mean, a third of Mexico was lost to the United States. Texas was lost to the United States. The United States almost took the Yucatán in 1948 along with Texas — 1848, along with Texas. So, that history is there.

And, of course, the people that Trump has put in, Marco Rubio as secretary of state, Ron Johnson, Mike Waltz, I mean, they might as well move the State Department down to Mar-a-Lago or down to Tampa. I mean, it’s basically a Florida-based operation, which suggests that we’re going to see a lot of interesting rivalries or a lot of interesting conflicts with Latin America, which will not necessarily be — which might reveal some big cleavages, because one of the things that the mathematic —

AMY GOODMAN: We just have 20 seconds, Greg.

GREG GRANDIN: OK. One of the things that the Trump people want to do is build an alliance with right-wing Latin Americans. And you ain’t gonna do that by threatening to take back the Panama Canal.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, even The Wall Street Journal editorial page, well known for its conservatism, said, “Trump, you did not campaign on this issue. Where is it coming from?” Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor of history at Yale University. We’ll link your New York Timesop-ed headlined “The Republicans Who Want to Invade Mexico.” We’ll also link to Tracy Wilkerson’s piece in The New York Times — Tracy Wilkinson’s Los Angeles Timespiece about Ron Johnson.

At a time when Donald Trump's inner circle should be working on getting his Cabinet nominees primed for getting Senate approval, now time is being spent tamping down on a foreign worker controversy that has riled the president-elect's base forcing him to have to weigh in.

At the center of the controversy are comments made by Trump advisors Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk about America needing more H-1B foreign specialty workers which has erupted into a war with Trump's MAGA base that had been promised "America First" policies.

Appearing on CNN early Sunday morning, longtime political observer Lynn Sweet claimed the timing could not be worse and it has forced Trump to take sides –– which is not being received well.

ALSO READ: Poor Trump supporters are about to get a rude awakening — but we shouldn't be celebrating

Speaking with host Amara Walker, the Chicago Sun-Times journalist explained, "What we're seeing here is a civil war being triggered by the unelected advisers to President Trump, so let's just see where this goes. Immigration is the most important issue to the MAGA base and now the DOGE, you know, he appointed Musk and Ramaswamy to reform government, have waded into an area of making policy."

"So not only is this a fight Trump did not need, it is needlessly dividing the base," she added. "And on that point you made of Trump defending what Musk is doing and saying he will fight to the death to expand or keep H-1B visas, so while it's true that it seems that Trump is backing him, the reason he's giving is incorrect."

"Trump has said that I have many H-1B visas on my properties," she explained. "Well, he is not referring to the highly skilled workers who qualify for those visas. But what Trump has used on his properties, including his vineyard and his other resorts, are workers who qualify for visas under their status as hospitality or agricultural workers."

"So in one swoop here, Musk has muddied the waters and created a problem he didn't have to and we'll see if Trump will continue to tolerate this kind of trouble-making, unnecessary trouble-making," she predicted.

Watch below or at this link.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) was asked if there is a viable replacement for House speaker since it appears current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) may be in trouble with some of his colleagues.

With at least four GOP House members sitting on the fence or outright saying they will not support Johnson in the closely divided legislative chamber, combined with Donald Trump keeping quiet, Walsh stunned the panel by suggesting retired former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) for the job since there is no rule against a non-member holding the position.

After Walsh proposed McCarthy, "The Weekend" co-host Michael Steele burst out laughing.

ALSO READ: Poor Trump supporters are about to get a rude awakening — but we shouldn't be celebrating

"The best thing Johnson has going for him is the calendar," Walsh continued. "Trump wants to do a bunch of cruel aggressive stuff in January, a speaker's mess messes that up, but Kevin McCarthy. I could see Donald Trump getting behind Kevin McCarthy, what a wonderful turn that would be. I'm just saying."

'How many votes were there to oust Kevin McCarthy?" panelist April Ryan asked. "Do we want to go through that again?"

"Do we want to go through any of this again?" co-host Alicia Menendez interjected as Steele continued to laugh.

Watch below or at this link:

- YouTubeyoutu.be

MSNBC host Michael Steele on Sunday criticized billionaire X owner Elon Musk over another online "war" he and fellow Donald Trump nominee Vivek Ramaswamy started in defense of the H-1B visa program, which, according to CBS News, tech businesses rely on to bring "thousands of foreign engineers and other skilled workers each year from India, China and other nations."

CBS reports:

That debate has again erupted after Musk, himself once on an H-1B visa and whose electric vehicle company Tesla has hired workers using the program, defended the tech industry's need to bring in foreign workers. Ramaswamy, for his part, wrote in an X post that American culture "has venerated mediocrity over excellence,' leading to a nation that does "not produce the best engineers.'

'There is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent. It is the fundamental limiting factor in Silicon Valley,' Musk wrote on Dec. 25 on X, his social media app.

When one Trump supporter criticized Musk's support of the visa program on Friday, Musk replied "The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B. Take a big step back and F— YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend."

READ MORE: 'It’s a joke': Trump appointee Ramaswamy's economic plan blasted by expert

Steele offered his take on the issue.

"You've got Vivek and Elon talking about how lazy white men are," Steele said. "That's why everybody got upset."

The former Republican National Committee Chair continued, "Elon may want to go to war on an issue like this, but he's going to war against a base that does not want Vivek Ramaswamy here. Even though he's a citizen. Vivek is like, 'Well, you're too dumb to do the job that we have done.' Elon Musk is not hiring Donald Trump's base to come work at SpaceX. He's not hiring that base to come work at Google, or whatever company he buys next."

Steele then slammed Musk for telling his critic to "take a big step back and 'F' yourself in the face."

"Who the is this man?" the MSNBC host said. "Except an immigrant."

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy to confront Congress in struggle for control of the public purse

When co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend added, "naturalized US citizen," Steele emphasized, "Still an immigrant."

Watch the video below or at this link.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

A baffled MSNBC host and an amused Florida prosecutor attempted to make sense of a brief submitted by Donald Trump's lawyers to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a possible ban of the popular TikTok app.

With the court poised to rule on the ban, an attorney for the president-elect -submitted a brief on Friday asking the judges to hold off on hearing the case until the president-elect is sworn in so he can attempt to negotiate a compromise.

In the brief, which has been widely ridiculed, the incoming president's attorney asserted, "President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged."

ALSO READ: America's dark past and the key to stopping Trump's authoritarian rule

Speaking with State Attorney for Palm Beach County Dave Aronberg, MSNBC host Christina Ruffini professed, "Does the president even have standing to do this? And what kind of a motion is this? Is this an amicus brief, a writ? I don't know what this is. Can he just involve himself in a case that he is not, you know, a party to? "

The laughing Aronberg replied, "These are all great questions; I had the same questions, too, because normally, Supreme Court? You've got this very buttoned-up group of lawyers who argue specific legal issues, and here's Trump, coming in like a bull in a china shop."

"It's like the movie 'Legally Blonde' when he comes in and just starts spouting off, like 'I have a huge electoral mandate, I'm the smartest and the best, and I can negotiate, so just pause everything, let me step in and let me handle this!'" he joked.

"There's nothing in the law that says he can do that, but he's Donald Trump," the prosecutor explained. "He appointed three out of these nine justices, so he thinks he can do it. I don't know if the Supreme Court is going to go along with it, but it is really interesting that Trump, who often thinks he's above the law, is now doing something I've never seen before in front of the Supreme Court."

Watch below or at the link.

- YouTubeyoutu.be

According to longtime political observer Jonathan Alter, the moment Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, the clock begins ticking on his hold of power since he will be widely regarded as a lame-duck president.

Speaking with MSNBC host Charles Coleman Jr. on Saturday morning, Alter said that the president-elect stands no chance of running for a third term on 2028 despite speculation that he might attempt it, and lawmakers won't have to go along with every demand he makes.

As he explained, "In the short and middle term I think he'll be held to account for all sorts of campaign promises. If he is not successful in lowering prices, as he promised he would do, and if his tariffs and other policies contribute to renewed inflation, he will be judged very harshly on that."

ALSO READ: It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press

"But remember, he's not a candidate for reelection," he pointed out. "He becomes a lame duck on January 20th. I know people talk about him getting around the 22nd Amendment and being in office forever –– that's not going to happen."

"His political power will start to ooze out of him, and a lot of the accountability will be reflected first in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections this coming year and then in the 2026 midterms," he elaborated. "But if he ends up governing with a billionaire boys club -- he's already appointed 12 billionaires -- that's not what he promised. He promised to look out for middle-class working families and if his policies include deep cuts to very popular programs or other things that don't really seem to resemble the populist promises that he made during the campaign, his popularity is going to suffer."

Watch below or at this link:

- YouTubeyoutu.be

An online civil war between hardcore Donald Trump "America First" partisans and the men whom the president-elect chose to head up his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spilled onto Trump's Truth Social media platform.

The war began with a spat when longtime Trump supporter Laura Loomer lashed out at Trump's choice of tech entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan, who was born in India and is an avid supporter of removing caps on H-1B visas, as his senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence.

That, in turn, set off a battle on X with both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who pushed back at Loomer which in turn led to ugly attacks about the two leeching onto Trump for their own tech industry purposes and Musk firing back at Loomer for "trolling" for clicks.

Over on Truth Social under the #DOGE hashtag, supporters of Trump sided with Loomer and have begun questioning the motives of what some are calling the "DOGE twins."

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AmericanGal_69, whose bio claims she lives in Tennessee and boasts, "The Constitution cause those are my God given rights," leveled accusations that the MAGA movement may have been defrauded.

In a post where she tagged the president-elect, she wrote, "Some dumb a-- comments from folks that are blinded by false prophets.

"Do your research. I knew all this crap was coming from him and CONSWAMY. Did @realDonaldTrump know?" she asked. "Is he in on it? Has #MAGA been duped? Let's see how the Boss @realDonaldTrump @TeamTrump reacts to all the negative feedback on the #DOGE twins."

USMC Veteran BlackBeardsFlag chimed in, "#Doge and #ElonMusk want to outsource our jobs instead of America first. They love H1B visas for cheap labor."

"How about a complete moratorium on immigration? That sounds about my speed, but then I'm #AmericaFirst #MAGA #Doge needs to hush #Truth #MAHA #Trump #elonmusk," wrote AnneOfTheWest whose bio states, "Pro-West, anti immigration. Christian, conservative, and a Patriot. Men are men, women are women. Return this country to what it was."

"Deport ALL illegal aliens with a lifetime ban from re-entering the US. NO EXCEPTIONS," is the bio for TruthSayer who also joined the pile-on by warning, "@realDonaldTrump, we didn't support you so you could bring and keep more foreign nationals here to further drain our resources. #AmericansFirst! Student visas in the US are hideously abused by foreign agitators, activists, fake-student criminals, and visa overstayers. We should NOT offer green cards to ANY US college graduate to encourage more to come or stay. Student grants, scholarships, school resources, and student housing, should be for AMERICANS FIRST. We should stop the importation of legions of student visas and focus on offering better opportunities for AMERICAN students instead! #RestrictStudentVisas"

Another Truth Social user raised red flags that Musk is impacting Loomer's reach.

"Kiss #Doge goodbye after the last 24 hours. Elon, aka Jack Dorsey 2.0 just took blue ✅ s from @LauraLoomer 💩 new rules w/ update seems to be deboosting the #MAGA Conservatives voices," wrote "pro-life scientist" Michael Szumega.

"There are at least 1.5 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. awaiting deportation that are not in custody. Perhaps we should pause immigration, with few exceptions, until they are removed. Then we can have a conversation about changes to legal immigration," contributed Alx who has a pinned picture of himself with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on his Truth Social page.