Newsbusters

Are NPR and PBS biased? Should they receive taxpayer funding? Don’t ask Google. The company’s AI chatbot showed its bias when it answered by simply pushing the leftist legacy media outlets in question.

Google showed a clear bias when MRC researchers asked “Are NPR and PBS biased?” and “Should NPR and PBS be defunded?” on March 25 and April 1. In its answers to the two prompts, Gemini cited NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which both NPR and PBS are funded by in part) as sources nearly 59 percent of the time (a combined total of 17 times out of 29 sources listed). Gemini’s responses included only six links that did not favor taxpayer-funded public media like PBS or NPR. This is a continuation of a similar tactic used by Gemini last week, the day before NPR and PBS executives were brought before members of Congress to answer for their networks’ biased reporting. Neither prompt cited a single article by the Media Research Center, which has produced countless reports on the bias at NPR and PBS  over the last 30+ years.

“When it comes to NPR and PBS, Google’s bias could not be more clear here,” said NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham. “Aside from perhaps NPR itself, no media entity has expended more ink over the decades on the question of NPR and PBS’s bias than the Media Research Center, and yet, at no point did Google even deign to mention the MRC as a source for either prompt. But this is just Google’s usual modus operandi, isn’t it?”

When asked on April 1, “Are NPR and PBS biased?” Google’s Gemini simply concluded that whether NPR and PBS are biased “is a subject of ongoing debate” and that “they aim for objectivity” without citing any sources. When prompted to “double check response,” the chatbot proceeded to list sources supporting its points, the majority of which came from PBS itself.

Even Gemini’s source explaining critiques of NPR and PBS bias cited PBS’s own coverage of the hearing about NPR and PBS’s bias. The chatbot proceeded to refer to this article a total of six times in its answers to the April 1 prompts.

MRC researchers decided to follow up by asking whether it would be biased for an AI chatbot to primarily cite the source in question when asked whether that source is biased. Gemini flat out admitted, “Yes, it would.”
The chatbot aptly noted that “Organizations, including media outlets, often have a vested interest in defending their own objectivity.” The chatbot added that “A comprehensive assessment of bias requires considering a range of viewpoints, including those of critics, independent analysts, and academic researchers.”

Google had a similar problem when asked, “Should NPR and PBS be defunded?” Gemini again cited PBS coverage as one of its sources showing that critics of NPR and PBS accuse it of having a liberal bias. However, this time, the chatbot also referred back to a press release for Rep. Strong’s proposed “No More Funding for NPR Act of 2025.” While there have been several other bills introduced with significant support, this is the only one Gemini referred to.  

These results were very reminiscent of Gemini’s responses last week, just one day before the hearing.

On March 25, MRC researchers asked, “Are NPR and PBS biased?” and Google’s Gemini gave a very diplomatic, almost relativist response, explaining both sides of the issue, but downplaying the question as “subjective.”

“What one person considers biased, another may view as objective reporting,” Gemini wrote. The chatbot then added, “Media bias is a broad and multifaceted issue, and it’s essential to consume news from a variety of sources to gain a well-rounded understanding of events.”

Gemini, however, did not offer a “well-rounded” understanding of the issue, just as it failed to do a week later. The AI chatbot instead presented sources that included links to two PBS pages, an NPR article, the Wikipedia page for “Public Broadcasting in the United States” and an article by Free Press defending NPR. 

When MRC researchers asked “Should NPR and PBS be defunded?”on March 25, Google’s Gemini offered six points for each side of the argument, but when it listed its sources, a clear bias shined through. While there was one source that simply analyzed funding and media statistics, two sources were from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — the organization that funnels federal funds to NPR and PBS. One was from an NPR affiliate, and another came from protectmypublicmedia.org in the form of an article headlined “How Federal Funding Cuts Would Devastate Local Public Media.” 

The only right-leaning source  Gemini cited on March 25 was an article by The Heritage Foundation headlined “Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Fund Biased, Woke Public Broadcasting.” The chatbot also included an article published by Broadband Breakfast with the headline, “Sen. Lee Proposes Bill to Defund NPR and PBS.” Rep. Strong’s press release also appeared among Gemini’s sources. Not one of MRC’s countless articles on NPR and PBS’s overt bias appeared in Gemini’s source list. 

This clear bias may be by design. Even former Vice President Kamala Harris said the quiet part out loud during a roundtable event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. “[P]art of the issue here is what information is going into the machine that will then determine, and we can predict… what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process,” she said.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Google be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and an equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

Methodology.

For this study, MRC Free Speech America asked Google’s AI Gemini to answer a series of questions on March 25 and April 1. The questions asked were as follows: “Are NPR and PBS biased?” and “Should NPR and PBS be defunded?” On April 1, researchers additionally asked, “Would it be biased for an AI chatbot to primarily cite the source in question when asked whether that source is biased?” 

MRC researchers examined the listed sources Google’s AI provided on March 25 and asked Gemini to “double check response” on April 1, which generated sources for its answer. Researchers then recorded the sources and content of the links that Gemini directed them to and analyzed whether the source defended or promoted publicly-funded media, including National Public Radio (NPR), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). 

Thus far, it has been a gloomy 2025 for the late night comedy shows as they have attacked Democrats from the left for not doing anything to stop Republicans, but on Wednesday, a trio of them claimed to have reason for optimism as they reacted to Sen. Cory Booker’s 25-hour talk. Some suggested he get an award, while others claimed he spoke for all of America, while others tried their hand at media criticism, arguing the media hasn’t praised Booker enough.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert teed up a clip on The Late Show of the final moments of Booker’s speech where he compared himself to the Civil Rights Movement, “There were many great moments, but Booker saved, I think, the best for last.”

 

 

After the clip and audience cheers, Colbert declared he was such a fan that he invited Booker on the show, “Yes, sir. That was beautiful. Give that man an award, eventually. First give him a toilet and a bed and a cauliflower steak or whatever he calls food. And I’m happy to say Cory Booker will be my guest on Monday right over there to talk about what is going on in the Senate, what is going on in America, and what can be done.”

Over at NBC and Late Night, host Seth Meyers welcomed MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and recalled, “Cory Booker, last night, did speak for 25 hours and then went straight on your show before declaring, “I did think, you know, as for what it accomplishes, I don’t know, but it did, at least, say, I think, to, you know, his voters ‘Look, I do still have some energy for this fight.’”

Maddow agreed, “Oh yeah, and I think that that initial, like, lethargy and kind of stunned reaction from the Democrats is over now, and I think it’s also interesting when Senator Booker said, sort of explained, he had time to talk, when he explained why he was doing it, he said, ‘Listen, my constituents put me up to it, my constituents are demanding me, are challenging me to do more,’ and we’re seeing that targeted at Democratic politicians all over the country.”

 

 

She further claimed, “Senator Booker said his constituents told him, ‘Take risks, do something you don’t think you can do, you need to show people that this not normal times and it is worth doing everything we can’ and he did.”

After cheers from the audience, Maddow tried to claim that Late Night’s audience and TikTok are representative of the whole country, “I think that kind of reaction and the way you guys saw that, I think the whole country kind of saw that, every single time I tuned in on TikTok or CSPAN or YouTube or anything there were tens if not hundreds of thousands of people watching, it’s like the whole country stood up and gave him a standing ovation.”

Back on Comedy Central, The Daily Show’s host of the week, Michael Kosta, attacked the media for insufficiently gushing over Booker’s speech, “And the amazing thing is that Booker didn’t just get out there and read from Wikipedia, he stayed focused on condemning the Trump Administration’s assault on working people and the rule of law, so you can imagine the media had a lot of questions for him about these serious issues.”

 

 

Following a montage of reporters discussing how Booker was not allowed to take a bathroom break, Kosta returned, ‘“Senator, senator, senator, senator: pee-pee. Senator, a follow up: poo-poo.’ This is why our country is the shape that it’s in. The media won’t talk about the substance of this speech, they’d rather talk about how he held it in for so long. No one cares about that, but just out of curiosity, how did you do it?”

The truth is nobody cares about Booker’s speech either. To return to Maddow’s point, tens of thousands of video views is not exactly history-altering.

Here are transcripts for the April 2-taped shows:

CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

4/2/2025

11:46 PM ET

STEPHEN COLBERT: There were many great moments, but Booker saved, I think, the best for last.

CORY BOOKER: The power of the people is greater than the people in power. It is time to heed the words of the man I began this whole thing with, John Lewis, I beg folks to take his example of his early days where he made himself determined to show his love for his country at a time the country didn’t love him, to love this country so much, to be such a patriot that he endured beatings savagely on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, at lunch counters, on freedom rides. He said he had to do something. [Jump Cut] This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right, it’s right or wrong. It’s getting good trouble. My friend, madam president, I yield the floor.

COLBERT: Yes, sir. That was beautiful. Give that man an award, eventually. First give him a toilet and a bed and a cauliflower steak or whatever he calls food. And I’m happy to say Cory Booker will be my guest on Monday right over there to talk about what is going on in the Senate, what is going on in America, and what can be done.

***

NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers

4/3/2025

SETH MEYERS: Cory Booker, last night, did speak for 25 hours and then went straight on your show.

RACHEL MADDOW: Yes. Yeah.

MEYERS: I did think, you know, as for what it accomplishes, I don’t know, but it did, at least, say, I think, to, you know, his voters “Look, I do still have some energy for this fight.”

MADDOW: Oh yeah, and I think that that initial, like, lethargy and kind of stunned reaction from the Democrats is over now, and I think it’s also interesting when Senator Booker said, sort of explained, he had time to talk, when he explained why he was doing it, he said, “Listen, my constituents put me up to it, my constituents are demanding me, are challenging me to do more,” and we’re seeing that targeted at Democratic politicians all over the country. The Republicans are too afraid to hold town halls, Democrats are holding them everywhere, but every time they do, they get screamed at by their constituents saying “Do more. Do more. This isn’t a normal time. Stand up more strongly, be more radical in your opposition to this guy, do more to stop him from what he’s doing” and Senator Booker said his constituents told him, “Take risks, do something you don’t think you can do, you need to show people that this not normal times and it is worth doing everything we can” and he did and I think that kind of reaction and the way you guys saw that, I think the whole country kind of saw that, every single time I tuned in on TikTok or CSPAN or YouTube or anything there were tens if not hundreds of thousands of people watching, it’s like the whole country stood up and gave him a standing ovation.

***

Comedy Central The Daily Show

4/3/2025

11:03 PM ET

MICHAEL KOSTA: And the amazing thing is that Booker didn’t just get out there and read from Wikipedia, he stayed focused on condemning the Trump Administration’s assault on working people and the rule of law, so you can imagine the media had a lot of questions for him about these serious issues.

…

“Senator, senator, senator, senator: pee-pee. Senator, a follow up: poo-poo.” This is why our country is the shape that it’s in. The media won’t talk about the substance of this speech, they’d rather talk about how he held it in for so long. No one cares about that, but just out of curiosity, how did you do it?

Last week, ABC, CBS, and NBC spent nearly 100 minutes covering leaked messages from a private Signal chat for Trump administration officials, in just the first 96 hours after the messages were published. But those same networks spent only 13 minutes covering the actual military operation that was discussed in those leaked messages.

In mid-March, the United States launched a still-ongoing series of airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, in retaliation for more than 100 reported attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea. The operation, which would ultimately prove successful, initially received moderate coverage from broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC — until two weeks later, when Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published screenshots showing Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other U.S. officials discussing the strikes in a private Signal chat.

The broadcast networks, which had long since dropped their light coverage of the strikes, immediately flooded the airwaves with the “Signalgate” story. That night, all three networks front-loaded their evening newscasts with lengthy reports about the mishap. In that single evening, the networks devoted more combined air time to the Signal messages than they’d spent on the airstrikes for the entire duration of the military operation two weeks prior.

MRC analysts examined the first 96 hours of coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC’s flagship morning and evening news shows, for both the air strikes (the evening of March 15 through the morning of March 19) and the Signal messages (the evening of March 24 through the morning of March 28). The “Signalgate” story received a whopping 99 minutes and 40 seconds across all three networks, while the combined total time spent on the Yemen airstrikes totaled just 13 minutes and 47 seconds.

In aggregate, that comes out to 7.2 times more coverage for the leaked chat messages. But that ratio would have been significantly higher without ABC, which spent both the least time on the Signal story (31 minutes and 53 seconds), and the most on the airstrikes (9 minutes, 20 seconds).

CBS, meanwhile, gave a colossal 16 times more coverage to the Signal story (35 minutes, nine seconds, versus two minutes, 12 seconds). Things weren’t much better on NBC, which devoted 14.5 times more coverage to Signal (32 minutes, 38 seconds, versus two minutes, 15 seconds).

The Signal story broke on March 24, when Goldberg revealed he had been added inadvertently to a private group chat by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. As of this piece’s publishing, Waltz continues to maintain that he did not add any journalists to the group, but Goldberg published screenshots proving he did manage to gain entry.

To say the least, it’s newsworthy that a journalist was able to gain access to a private channel in which officials were discussing an ongoing military operation. But fortunately, the operation itself was not affected by Goldberg’s presence in the chat, and it was executed without incident and with no casualties.

If the broadcast networks who relentlessly covered this Signal debacle were seriously interested in the national security angle, one might expect they’d have paid a similar amount of attention to the actual airstrikes that were discussed in the leaked messages. But that’s not what the numbers bear out.

Instead, they ran a deluge of reports about an incompetently-managed group chat, but showed nowhere near the same level of interest in the competently-executed military operation underpinning the whole story.

NewsBusters readers know that Joe Scarborough has the braggadocious habit of mentioning his former congressman status at every possible opportunity.  They’re also aware that Scarborough, whom we’ve dubbed Muy Macho Joe, likes to brag about what a tough a hombre he is.

Scarborough earned that moniker back in 2023 by bragging that if he ever saw a Capitol tourist snapping a photo somewhere Joe didn’t like, he’d say: “Put the camera down or I’m gonna make you eat it. I would slap the camera out of his hand.” Dirty Harry was a wimp in comparison.

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough seized as a two-fer on the result in yesterday’s judicial election in Wisconsin, in which the Democrat won despite Elon Musk campaigning in the state and donating heavily to the Republican candidate.

Scarborough not only dragged his former congressman status into the conversation, he also bragged about how tough he was when Republican leaders threatened to campaign against him when he took votes they didn’t like.

As Scarborough described his display of extreme machismo. There’s only one major problem. Does anyone actually remember the national GOP establishment opposing Scarborough in the 1994 primary, when he ran as a rock-ribbed conservative?

I had the Republicans doing everything they could to beat me in 1994. And I won. 

And so, I get up there, and I start voting in ways they don’t want me to vote, and they threaten me. And at one point, I had a member of leadership say, if you, you know, if you don’t go this way, Scarborough, we’re going to, and I cut him off. 

I go, what, come into my district? Please come into my district. I won by 62% the first time you did. Come in again, and I’ll win by 75%, and I turned around and walked off. 

That is one tough dude. Shades of a brave gunslinger turning his back on his rival! Hollywood might well be tempted to cast Joe as Wyatt Earp in a remake of Gunfight at the OK Corral. Scarborough did win easily in his first two races, after Democrats had long held that seat. But don’t buy he was some courageous Lisa Murkowski wannabe. The New York Times reported “Mr. Scarborough, 31, ran an energetic campaign with extensive support from religious conservatives.”

Beyond boasting about his toughness, Scarborough’s claim was that, just as he was supposedly unafraid of people coming into his congressional district to campaign against him, today’s candidates need not worry about the prospect of Musk campaigning against them.

Note: Democrats like to accuse Republicans of using foul campaign tactics. But Symone Sanders mentioned that in the Wisconsin race, Democrats ran ads calling the Republican candidate, Brad Schimel, “Knee Pads Brad.” That earned a “yikes” from Scarborough.

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
4/2/25
6:04 am EDT

SYMONE SANDERS: So my question becomes, are the Republicans now going to release themselves from the shackles of being scared of Elon Musk jumping into their primary and spending money against them? Because if Susan Crawford can hold on against the onslaught of the money, more than $20 million, $26 million, I believe.

And she leaned into it, she said she’s the one that made this race about versus her versus Elon Musk. They were literally running ads in Wisconsin calling Brad Schimel, who’s a sitting judge in Waukesha County, Knee Pad Brad, right?!

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me tell you, the — yikes. I know, right? 

SANDERS: It was bad. 

SCARBOROUGH:It gets rough up there in Oshkosh. 

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That’s rough. 

SCARBOROUGH: You know, Claire McCaskill, we know how this works, right?

I mean, I had the Republicans doing everything they could to beat me in 1994. And through there — I won. 

And so, I get up there, and I start voting in ways they don’t want me to vote, and they threaten me. And at one point, I had a member of leadership say, if you, you know, if you don’t go this way, Scarborough, we’re going to, and I cut him off. 

I go, what, come into my district? Please come into my district. I won by 62% the first time you did. Come in again, and I’ll win by 75%, and I turned around and walked off. 

Like, it was, talk about Liberation Day. You know, this is Liberation Day for Republicans if they want to take it. They don’t have to be scared of Elon Musk. They can actually do their constituents’ biddings, And when he says, I’m going to come into your district, say, great! I’ll win big, just like that judge up in Wisconsin. 

As predicted, the Resistance Media have scrambled to make Tesla/SpaceX founder Elon Musk the scapegoat for last night’s special election outcomes. As part of that effort and despite clear evidence to the contrary, they have tied Musk’s upcoming exit from the Trump administration to these election results.  

Consider how ABC World News Tonight closed out its report: by insinuating that Musk’s exit is due to the election results:

ELON MUSK: Hey, everybody.

MARY BRUCE: Overnight, voters in Wisconsin delivered Musk a firm rebuke, rejecting his choice for a state Supreme Court seat after the billionaire campaigned aggressively in the state and poured millions into the race. And now, the president himself has been indicating Musk’s time may be up.

DONALD TRUMP: I think he’s been amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run, and so at some point, he’s going to be going back. He wants to.

BRUCE: Now, Musk’s term would come to an end around the end of May, and despite those earlier suggestions that the president might want to keep him on longer, The White House tonight insists the president still supports Musk and the work he’s doing. David.

You’ll notice that, for the most part, these reports single Musk out for his spending. However, these same reports never mention liberal billionaires JB Pritzker, George Soros and Reid Hoffmann, who spent big money on the Democrat candidate. But we digress.

The anchors set the tone in their reporting. Here’s ABC’s David Muir:

DAVID MUIR: Next here tonight, how much longer will Elon Musk have his role alongside President Trump? What sources are telling ABC News tonight, and it comes after two election wins in Florida last night, but a major loss in Wisconsin, where Elon Musk spent millions of his own money. 

And NBC’s Lester Holt:

LESTER HOLT: We have new reporting tonight about when Elon Musk may be leaving the Trump administration . It comes after he played a central role in an election last night. 

Both of these reports did their part to contribute to the speculation, and to establish the election as the cause for Musk’s departure. However, none of these reports told you that Musk himself signaled an exit during his Fox interview with Bret Baier five days ago:

Contra the ousting narrative, Elon Musk told Bret Baier 5 days ago that he expected to be done with his @DOGE work within the 130-day special gov’t employee timeframe.@bretbaier: You, technically, are a special government employee. And you’re supposed to be 130 days. Are you… pic.twitter.com/MyVmC3y9bi
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 2, 2025

BRET BAIER: You, technically, are a special government employee. And you’re supposed to be 130 days. Are you going to continue past that or do you think that’s the- what you’re going to do, or…?

ELON MUSK: I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by a trillion dollars within that time frame.

BAIER: So, in that time frame, 130 days?

MUSK: Yes.

This interview has been a matter of public record for almost a week, and yet no one cites this portion when breathlessly speculating about Musk’s exit. Honest, factual reporting might’ve averted some of the dumb conspiracy theorizing of the last couple of days. Instead, we get fake narrative crafted for purposes of triggering the sense of chaos and discord in the Trump White House- even if Trump and Elon are mostly on the same page. 

As is often the case, viewers get fake narratives and innuendo sold as “news”. This is how trust in the media dies.

Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the aforementioned reports as aired on their respective newscasts on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2025:”

ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT

4/2/25

6:44 PM

DAVID MUIR: Next here tonight, how much longer will Elon Musk have his role alongside President Trump? What sources are telling ABC News tonight, and it comes after two election wins in Florida last night, but a major loss in Wisconsin, where Elon Musk spent millions of his own money. Here’s our Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce.

MARY BRUCE: Tonight, sources tell ABC News Elon Musk’s days as President Trump’s right hand in The White House could soon be coming to an end. As a, quote, “special government employee”, Musk’s appointment was only supposed to last 130 days, but there were hints Trump wanted to keep him on longer. The world’s richest man and his DOGE team have dominated the early days of the administration.

ELON MUSK: This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

BRUCE: But Musk’s chainsaw approach to slashing jobs and government programs sparking anger at town meetings.

CONSTITUENT: Elon was going to be the main topic tonight, and he’s going to continue to be the main topic tonight, because we are all freakin’ pissed off about this. You’re going to hear it and feel it.

BRUCE: And causing frustration among Cabinet secretaries.

MUSK: Hey, everybody.

BRUCE: Overnight, voters in Wisconsin delivered Musk a firm rebuke, rejecting his choice for a state Supreme Court seat after the billionaire campaigned aggressively in the state and poured millions into the race. And now, the president himself has been indicating Musk’s time may be up.

DONALD TRUMP: I think he’s been amazing, but I also think he’s got a big company to run, and so at some point, he’s going to be going back. He wants to.

BRUCE: Now, Musk’s term would come to an end around the end of May, and despite those earlier suggestions that the president might want to keep him on longer, The White House tonight insists the president still supports Musk and the work he’s doing. David.

MUIR: Mary Bruce, who was on the air with us this afternoon as well. Mary, thank you.

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS

4/2/25

6:40 PM

LESTER HOLT: We have new reporting tonight about when Elon Musk may be leaving the Trump administration . It comes after he played a central role in an election last night. Here is Ryan Nobles.

RYAN NOBLES: Tonight, Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration could soon be coming to an end. A senior White House official tells NBC News President Trump told Cabinet members last week Musk would be leaving his government role in the coming months. Something the president suggested Monday, saying Musk has done a good job slashing government spending.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think he’s amazing but I also think he’s got a big company to run. And so at some point he’s going to be going back.

NOBLES: This, as Tesla sales have dropped 13%. And it’s become a target for vandalism and violence.

ELON MUSK: It’s widesp- wide scale domestic terrorism with the purpose of intimidation, and it’s harming innocent people.

NOBLES: Musk is a special government employee, an appointment that lasts 130 days.

MUSK: What do you think of my hat?

NOBLES: Musk just went all-in on the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, spending millions of dollars backing a conservative judge who lost to a liberal candidate that turned the race into a referendum on Musk.

SUSAN CRAWFORD: I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world, (VIDEO SWIPE) and we won!

NOBLES: Today, mixed reviews from Republicans.

LISA MURKOWSKI: I don’t follow what Elon Musk does, believe it or not.

JOHN KENNEDY: I’m glad he’s on my side.

NOBLES: And in Florida last night, Republicans picking up two double-digit victories in House races, though those margins of victory were smaller than President Trump’s in November. Those two Republicans just sworn into office, expanding the slim GOP majority in the House to 7 seats. Lester.

HOLT: Okay. Ryan Nobles, thanks.

 

PBS and NPR are shamelessly demonstrating their leftist broadcasting powers in the wake of going to Capitol Hill and lying about how they’re interested in “delivering unbiased, nonpartisan fact-based reporting.” (So said NPR CEO Katherine Maher.) 

Both networks are now promoting leftist Yale professor and self-anointed fascism expert Jason Stanley to explain why he’s leaving for Canada because America is sinking into fascism under Trump. 

On Tuesday night, the PBS NewsHour awarded nearly seven minutes to Stanley’s rantings. There was no opposing view from conservatives, which would begin with welcoming Stanley’s departure as making America a saner place.

Stanley is not “fact checked in real time” for claiming America is devolving into a fascist regime. Here’s how PBS anchor Amna Nawaz began: 

NAWAZ: Yale University philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced he’s leaving not only his school, but the country, to teach at the University of Toronto in Canada. Stanley said he’s making the move so he can — quote — “raise his kids in a country that’s not tilting towards a fascist dictatorship.” For more on his decision, Jason Stanley joins me now.

Nawaz displayed the covers of Stanley’s two books on American fascism, and all the questions were softballs. It began like this: 

NAWAZ: So you have authored two books on fascism. It’s a topic you spend a lot of time studying. Your decision to leave has been framed as you fleeing the U.S. That’s the word people are using. Is that how you see it?

STANLEY: No, but that has resonance with Jewish intellectuals fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s, so it’s kind of interesting to see the use of that word.

Stanley’s claim is that democracy ends when the government doesn’t fund Ivy League universities where campuses are occupied by nasty pro-Hamas rallies, as if favoring Hamas is favoring democracy.

STANLEY: When Columbia folded, that’s when I thought, OK, I’m just going to look at the probabilities of our institutions folding, of our democratic institutions folding. And by that, I mean not just the universities, but the media and our legal system. And I thought, well, maybe they can hold the line, but this is an opportunity. It’s a great opportunity. And I think the probabilities are not in the favor of U.S. democracy.

On Tuesday’s Morning Edition, co-host A Martinez tossed the softballs for 7.5 minutes as Stanley dropped the F-bombs. The F-word came out seven times, or about once a minute.

MARTÍNEZ: Wouldn’t it be more helpful in that fight, Professor, for you to stay at Yale to fight that fight, as opposed to being in Canada?

STANLEY: I have Black Jewish children, and the attacks on DEI are an attacks — are attacks on Black people. They’re attacking Black history. They’re targeting Black people in positions of power, and they’re creating mass popular anger against Jewish people by taking Jewish people, by setting us up and saying, you know, we’re the excuse for taking down democracy. And, you know, personally, I’m not going to risk my kids’ safety for a political point. And finally, by leaving, I’m making a political point. I’m making the political point that I’m repeating history of Jewish intellectuals leaving a country in the face of a fascist regime.

MARTÍNEZ: Now, you’ve written two books on fascism, seeing that history as a cautionary tale. So how much did that play into your decision to leave?

STANLEY: Well, it’s – it played into my decision because my work over the last decade has been calling attention to the rise of fascism in the United States. And you can only write so much. At some point, you have to do something.

The only question that suggested Team Trump’s opinion to Stanley, that it’s fighting campus anti-Semitism, drew Stanley’s bizarre analogy that Team Trump harping on Islamist anti-Semitism is making Jews unsafe: “What’s happening is like what Stalin did in Eastern – in the Soviet Union – setting up large groups of people for popular rage.”

Trump can be both Hitler and Stalin.  And PBS and NPR are fine with that — in their “fact-based” and “nonpartisan” way.

PS: PBS also featured this radical professor on Amanpour & Co, as Clay Waters wrote here. That lasted 19 minutes. Stanley claimed “The history of this era will say that Jewish people were the sledgehammer for fascism.”

Sign the petition to help us defund another MSNBC in PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC were head over heels for Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) 25-hour-long, “marathon” act of chicanery “speaking in a protest” against Trump and “shin[ning] a spotlight on” his “rapid fire and controversial actions” through “the little bit of power and influence” they have in Washington.

At one point, one anchor even compared Booker to the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

 

 

Thus far, the networks have spent five minutes and 19 seconds on their flagship morning and evening news shows (excluding CBS Evening News Plus and CBS Mornings Plus, although we’ll include them for their bias below).

Tuesday’s CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today were the first to bring it up. CBS co-host Gayle King — whom Booker counts as a personal friend but wasn’t disclosed, of course — gushed that viewers were “looking now at a live shot of the Senate floor where Senator Cory Booker is speaking in a protest against President Trump’s policies” and “talking all night.”

“He started at 7:00 Eastern time, more than 12 hours ago. The senator spent most of his time reading letters from voters, both Democrats and Republicans, who say they have been hurt by the changes since Donald Trump took office. He says that he will keep talking as long as he is physically able to do so,” King added.

“Still a lot of energy in his voice, it seems,” co-host Tony Dokoupil replied.

Over on Today, co-host Craig Melvin cheered Booker for “launching a marathon speech” and senior White House correspondent Garrett Haake lauded Booker for “still speaking through this morning as Democrats try to shine a spotlight on President Trump’s rapid fire and controversial actions in these first ten weeks.”

Tuesday night brought about more free PR. ABC’s World News Tonight had chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce on the case, stating this ahead of a Booker soundbite: “Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey taking to the Senate floor for over 20 hours, speaking out against the Trump administration, in what he calls a nation in crisis.”

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt didn’t refer to Booker as Spartacus, but he did offer the comparison to the movie starring Jimmy Stewart in a tease: “And Mr. Booker takes on Washington. The Democrat whose marathon Senate speech opposing the White House is smashing records.”

Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez touted the far-left base as having a point: “[A]s Democrats face criticism from their base for not effectively countering the cuts, a symbolic effort by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker criticizing the President at the Capitol for over 23 hours.”

CBS stashed its PM mention of Booker on CBS Evening News Plus. A liberal historian of sorts pretending to be a journalist, anchor John Dickerson at least admitted it was all for show:

Despite Booker having finally ended the charade later Tuesday night, the Wednesday morning news shows were ebullient over Booker’s showboating.

ABC’s Good Morning America had co-hosts Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos and Trump-hating correspondent Rachel Scott were giddy and in awe as though Booker were some war hero (click “expand”):

ROBERTS: And, Rachel, we know, overnight, that New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, he — he set a record, didn’t he?

SCOTT: Yeah, he — he did. 25 hours and four minutes later, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker broke the record for the longest speech given on the Senate floor. He said he was doing it all to protest actions taken by the Trump administration from immigration to those cuts to the federal workforce. It comes as Democrats are really trying to find their footing in how to counter President Trump’s agenda and his message. But to pull off that marathon speech, he had to stay standing the entire time with no bathroom breaks, Robin.

ROBERTS: Okay. We’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Rachel. George?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Talked about fasting before he did that. What a record he set yesterday.

NBC’s Today also had a half segment on Booker’s shenanigans. Chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander gushed that “Booker’s historic speech broke the previous record held by segregationist Strom Thurmond, who was trying to block the passage of a civil rights bill overnight, which Booker said was part of his motivation to keep going.”

CBS Mornings took up roughly two minutes (1:59) with King cheering her friend for having “made history” with “no bathroom breaks, no food” in “protesting what he called a crisis brought on by the Trump administration’s policies.”

 

 

Out of concern, King asked senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe whether this was the path forward for their party (click “expand”):

KING: Ed, Cory Booker kept saying repeatedly this is not about Democrat or Republican, this is about right and wrong. Do you think that that message resonated, and why do you think he chose to make this speech now?

O’KEEFE: Well, first of all, he breaks a record that was held by the late Strom Thurmond who had spoken about that long 24 hours and change, he hit 25 hours and change. He breaks a long-standing record. And look, at the same time that Democrats were keeping margins closer in Florida and winning a big race in Wisconsin, this appeared to be an attempt by someone who may run for president again to show that Democratic leaders in Washington at least are putting a little action behind their words, and literally putting their bodies on the line as they try to speak out against President Trump. He made use of a rare senate power. You can hold the control of the floor of the Senate as long as you try to make a point, and he used the stories of constituents from across New Jersey. He earned bipartisan praise for doing so and you’re wondering how did he do it? This is a guy who had done hunger strikes before. He had started dehydrating and fasting on Friday. Didn’t drink much water yesterday, so he didn’t have to run to the bathroom, Gayle —

KING: Alright —

O’KEEFE: — Nate, all ya.

KING: — a lot of people talking about it today.

CBS Mornings Plus brought O’Keefe back, who told Dokoupil and co-host Adriana Diaz that Booker’s strategy was in tandem with the election results in Florida and Wisconsin that were “encouraging” for Democrats.

“[T]his was a way for Washington-based Democrats to show the party we’re doing things too. We are going to take advantage of the little bit of power and influence that we have to make the point that President Trump is dangerous…Expect to see more of this from Democrats going forward. And remember, this is somebody who may one day run again for president,” he added in part.

To complete the liberal media’s latest flip-flop on supporting the filibuster, the Cackling Coven of ABC’s The View spent part of Wednesday’s episode gushing about New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker’s 24-hour, so-called “filibusters” (he wasn’t blocking legislation). Moderator Whoopi Goldberg went so far as to ridiculously and falsely assert that “no one” in the media covered Booker speaking until he was done.

“People have been fighting since the election,” Goldberg touted and pivoting to Booker. “And just because we’re not aware of it because media wasn’t covering – Nobody was covering it.”

“That’s true,” clueless Joy Behar agreed. Pretend independent Sara Haines also agreed, but added: “No one covered it till he broke the record.”

Goldberg also decried how supposedly, “no one is talking about all the resistance that happening in the streets in America.”

It was unclear what she meant by “the resistance happening in the streets.” If she meant the terrorism directed at Tesla dealerships and Tesla drivers, media outlets had mentioned it. Perhaps she was confusing the media writ-large with The View since they haven’t discussed nor condemned it.

Co-host Sunny Hostin praised Booker for using the same unhinged rhetoric that she did. “And what I loved when he really began, he said this is not normal. This is a crisis. I have been saying this for so long! We are in a constitutional crisis! Now is not the time to act normally!” she shouted.

 

 

The cast was also obsessed with Booker’s bladder:

JOY BEHAR: He said all that without peeing once!

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: That’s the real sunning part. That part.

HOSTIN: Without peeing [inaudible] He was dehydrated. He was fasting for three days. For three days.

Hostin also touted that Booker’s speech obtained “350 million likes on TikTok live,” as if that meant something. “That’s more people than exist in the United States of America! So, think about that,” she demanded.

In recent weeks, Haines had decried the ‘theatrics’ of Republicans censuring Democrats for their antics and attention seeking misbehavior. But with Booker, she had nothing but praise for his theatrics:

I have said to react in rage and hot-headed just to show you’re resisting and you’re fighting, is not effective. This was effective, this was calculated, coordinated, and disciplined. He did it have a village of other Democrats!

“That is what fighting looks like if you want results!” she declared.

She didn’t give a single example of the “results” that followed because of Booker’s non-filibuster.

Proving once again to be an empty suit for the Republican side, faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin wanted him to become the new leader of the Democratic Party:

I’ve got nothing but respect for the fact he didn’t eat, didn’t drink, and didn’t pee for that period of time. I mean, that shows the sort of old-school kind of fighting that I don’t feel like we see in politicians anymore. I think there’s going to be a lot of folks who are going to be looking at Cory Booker and saying maybe that’s who should be leading the Senate.

“Democrats do have the power in the minority to go up there and say ‘I’m not going to stop talking until we reconsider this bill or this judicial nomination.’ The power of the minority exists for a reason,” she proclaimed.

And without directly calling out her co-host’s hypocrisy on filibusters, Farah Griffin weakly noted: “I know this table disagrees, the filibuster is a very powerful tool especially when it’s a talking filibuster.”

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

ABC’s The View
April 2, 2025
11:19:39 a.m. Eastern

(…)

SUNNY HOSTIN: And what I loved when he really began, he said this is not normal. This is a crisis. I have been saying this for so long! We are in a constitutional crisis! Now is not the time to act normally!

JOY BEHAR: He said all that without peeing once!

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: That’s the real sunning part. That part.

HOSTIN: Without peeing [inaudible] He was dehydrated. He was fasting for three days. For three days.

SARA HAINES: And one thing we’ve talked about at this table but actually disagreed a little bit is what the fight should look like. I have said to react in rage and hot-headed just to show you’re resisting and you’re fighting, is not effective. This was effective, this was calculated, coordinated, and disciplined. He did it have a village of other Democrats!

FARAH GRIFFIN: [Inaudible]

HAINES: He didn’t pee but he used the question of, like, two dozen Democrats stood up to help him with that. That is what fighting looks like if you want results!

[Cheers and applause]

HOSTIN: It’s also what leadership looks like. I just want to say one thing, 350 million likes on TikTok live. That’s more people than exist in the United States of America! So think about that.

FARAH GRIFFIN: I’ve got nothing but respect for the fact he didn’t eat, didn’t drink, and didn’t pee for that period of time. I mean, that shows the sort of old-school kind of fighting that I don’t feel like we see in politicians anymore. I think there’s going to be a lot of folks who are going to be looking at Cory Booker and saying maybe that’s who should be leading the Senate.

Something I still believe – and I know this table disagrees, the filibuster is a very powerful tool especially when it’s a talking filibuster. It was a little different because he wasn’t blocking specific legislation, but Democrats do have the power in the minority to go up there and say ‘I’m not going to stop talking until we reconsider this bill or this judicial nomination.’ The power of the minority exists for a reason.

HOSTIN: He stopped the business of the Senate. There was supposed to be a vote on the NATO rep. That didn’t happen. When Harry Reid was the Democratic minority leader he knew how to get business done even though he was the minority leader.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You know what, here’s what I’m going to say. We can sit back and talk about what people should be doing, haven’t been doing – People have been fighting since the election. And just because we’re not aware of it because media wasn’t covering – Nobody was covering it.

BEHAR: That’s true.

GOLDBERG: People weren’t talking —

HAINES: No one covered it till he broke the record.

GOLDBERG: No. And no one is talking about all the resistance that happening in the streets in America. People are resisting. They are saying, no, no, no.

BEHAR: The town halls too.

GOLDBERG: These are all important because the bottom line is, it’s great that Cory did what he did, but it really is going to be up to us, this is this fight is our fight.

HOSTIN: And he said that.

[Applause]

GOLDBERG: I know. I know but I’m just going to put a period on what I’m saying.

(…)

It’s finally spring.

Better mow your lawn.

If you don’t, your town government may fine you thousands of dollars a day.

Worse, if you can’t pay the fine, they may confiscate your home.

Six years ago, in Dunedin, Florida, Jim Ficken let his grass grow.

His mom had died, and he’d left town to take care of her estate. He asked a friend to cut his grass, but that friend died, too!

In the two months Ficken was away, his grass grew taller than 10 inches.

City bureaucrats started fining him.

But they didn’t tell Ficken that. When he finally got back, there was no notice of the $500-a-day fine. Only when he ran into a “code enforcement officer” did he learn he’d be getting “a big bill.”

When the bill came, it was for $24,454.

Ficken quickly mowed his lawn. Then the city tacked on another $5,000 for “non-compliance.”

Ficken didn’t have that much money, so city officials told him they would take his home.

Fortunately, Ficken discovered the libertarian law firm, the Institute for Justice, which fights government abuse.

IJ lawyer Ari Bargil took on Ficken’s case, arguing that the $30,000 fine violates the Constitution’s limits on “excessive bail, fines, and cruel punishments.”

But a judge ruled that the fine was “not excessive.”

Of course, judges are just lawyers with robes. Often they are lawyer/bureaucrats who’ve become very comfortable with big government.

I call a $30K penalty for not cutting your lawn absurdly excessive,

IJ attorney Bargil told local news stations, “If $30,000 for tall grass in Florida is not excessive, it is hard to imagine what is.”

Dunedin’s politicians often impose heavy fines for minor transgressions.

One resident told us, “They fined me $32,000 for a hole the size of a quarter in my stucco … For a lawn mower in my yard … They fine people they can pick on … and they keep picking on them.”

It happens elsewhere, too.

Charlotte, North Carolina, fined a church for “excessive pruning.”

Danbury, Connecticut, charged a resident $200,000 for leaving his yard messy.

Bargil notes, “It’s pretty apparent that code enforcement is a major cash cow.”

In just five-and-a-half years, Dunedin collected $3.6 million in fines.

But by then, I and others had noticed. We were reporting on Dunedin’s heavy fines.

So did the politicians sheepishly acknowledge that they had milked citizens with excessive fines and give the money back?

Of course not. They hired a PR firm. That cost taxpayers another $25,000 a month.

Politicians care mostly about themselves.

After The Institute for Justice filed a second lawsuit, Dunedin agreed that Ficken could pay less: $10,000.

Still too much, but Ficken agreed.

“Our Founders,” says Bargil, “recognized that the ability to fine is the ability to cripple. It’s one of the ways, other than incarceration, that government can really oppress.”

Government routinely oppresses. For six long years, Dunedin’s politicians oppressed Jim Ficken.

Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”

The Washington Post came running to the rescue of its liberal friends at NPR on Wednesday on the front page of their Style section. Online, their book review by former Post media reporter Paul Farhi came with this promotional headline: 

With NPR under threat, a colorful new history shows why it matters

Steve Oney’s engaging and deeply reported On Air follows NPR from its beginnings in the early 1970s to tens of millions of listeners per week.

This is just the latest liberal book on the history of NPR liberals. Farhi is effusive on how every penny ever spent on NPR is glorious: 

As longtime journalist Steve Oney documents in On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR, a lively and engaging new history of the organization, it has been money well spent by the government, helping to create and support a national network of enormous value.

Conservatives have long despised and disparaged NPR for its allegedly liberal bent, but its news programming has been of routinely high quality for decades. There’s no real substitute for NPR: Satellite radio and podcasts don’t offer its comprehensive live coverage; commercial radio gave up long ago trying to tell the stories NPR does. Without NPR, many parts of the country would be audio deserts, bereft of in-depth news, foreign reporting and newsmaker interviews (yes, even with Republican newsmakers).

Liberals sound ridiculous when they write the phrase the “allegedly liberal bent” of NPR, as if that’s in doubt. Would they write about the “allegedly conservative bent” of Fox News or Newsmax? It’s like writing about “allegedly alcoholic” whiskey. 

Farhi explored how Oney curiously leaves out inconvenient topics, like NPR’s extreme tolerance of Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg palling around everywhere with leftist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (later penning a book about their palling around). He then weirdly acknowledges maybe “allegedly” is a silly term.

He might also have engaged more with the criticisms of the committed cadre of NPR haters. Yes, NPR has sometimes sounded suspiciously liberal, but it has more often sounded suspiciously effete and overly focused on the tastes of the upscale suburbanites who also happen to be the most loyal contributors to its stations’ pledge drives.

We at MRC have spent years providing a mountain of examples of NPR’s effect leftist tilt. Farhi failed to engage in the notion that if NPR is taxpayer-funded, it ought to represent the viewpoints of a broader spectrum of taxpayers. NPR CEO Katherine Maher paid lip service to this at the latest hearing, even if NPR never seriously engages with that principle during their broadcasts.

Farhi could only concluded defunding NPR would be shameful, as if its existence was solely dependent on stealing tax money from the committed cadre of NPR haters: 

Conservatives’ long-sought goal of severing public broadcasting from its federal lifeline could be imminent. As Oney writes, American journalism “is better for the existence of NPR.” When, or if, the hammer comes down, it will be a day of mourning, and a day of shame.