Newsbusters

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.

President Donald Trump’s administration has taken action on two Biden-era initiatives revealed by MRC Free Speech America to have been targeting Americans’ constitutionally protected speech.

MRC Free Speech America released a study on March 13 exposing 57 Biden administration censorship initiatives. Under the Biden administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a compelled speech rule requiring companies to suppress employees’ speech that ran afoul of leftist fearmongering about climate change (Initiative #45). The Biden Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), furthermore, awarded a grant to the University of Washington to create virtual “escape rooms” to push censorship (Initiative #17). 

But no more. On March 14, Trump signed an executive order taking an ax to the IMLS workforce, and on March 28, Trump’s SEC voted to stop defending the Biden-era climate change disclosure rule.

Read the full blog on MRC Free Speech America.

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker may have broken the record for the longest speech in Senate history on Tuesday, but it didn’t accomplish anything practical. Nevertheless, he joined The Rachel Maddow Show to take a victory lap while Maddow essentially worshipped the ground he walked on as she declared he “captured the moral imagination of this nation.”

Maddow gushed, “I don’t know if you are conscious of how much this caught the attention and caught the imagination of the American people. I know that you’re not using electronic devices on the Senate floor. You’re not watching your TikTok numbers and your YouTube numbers and the C-SPAN contemporaneous viewing numbers while you’re there, because you can’t be. But every time that I checked any form of media by which you could be live monitored, there were no less than tens of thousands of people watching in the same place that I was in that moment.”

 

 

She further oozed, “What you’ve done with all everything else that’s going on with this administration and the horrific cuts of, you know, 10,000 people fired today from the nation’s health agencies and all these other things. This is the biggest story in the country right now. You have captured people’s attention for 25 hours.”

Finally getting to a question of sorts, Maddow continued, “And I’m wondering, for people who were moved by what you did, either among your Senate colleagues or just people who watched you from home, what do you hope they might do differently if they’re moved by you, and they feel the same sort of spirit that caused you to do what you did?”

Booker began, “Well, I hope that we’re all served to be ignition points for each other, my constituents, the letters, the calls, the demands. We’re definitely an action point for me, but we’ve got to continue to ignite this movement. The only thing that stopped Donald Trump from tearing away the Affordable Care Act was the engagement of tens of thousands of Americans who didn’t think they would become little lobbyists or activists or come down to the capitol or protest in their communities.”

The praise between interviewer and interviewee flowed both directions as Booker rolled on, “You know, Rachel, you and I have known each other a long time, and I’ve been listening to your show more regularly. I’m so grateful that you’re doing this first 100 days, and I love how you start every show by showing what other Americans are doing. They’re not waiting for us in Congress to lead. They’ve decided to take matters into their own hands and do something different.”

Maddow would later conclude the interview with more praise, “Well, senator, as I said, what you have done has captured the nation’s attention and, I think, captured the moral imagination of this nation in a way that you were really demanding with what you did. And so I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. You never know what the outcome is going to be of these things. I do know that if you don’t do it, nothing’s going to happen. And so I wish you rest. And I think you should get checked out by a doctor, and I think you should hydrate. And I hope you get people to leave you alone for the next few hours.”

Additionally, earlier in the interview, Maddow simply gasped in amazement as Booker detailed how he was feeling after his speech.

 

Rachel Maddow’s breath is taken away by Cory Booker’s response to her softball question pic.twitter.com/6g9JTJTOCv
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) April 2, 2025
 

Here is a transcript for the April 1 show:

MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show

4/1/2025

9:11 PM ET

RACHEL MADDOW: I don’t know if you are conscious of how much this caught the attention and caught the imagination of the American people. I know that you’re not using electronic devices on the Senate floor. You’re not watching your TikTok numbers and your YouTube numbers and the C-SPAN contemporaneous viewing numbers while you’re there, because you can’t be. But every time that I checked any form of media by which you could be live monitored, there were no less than tens of thousands of people watching in the same place that I was in that moment.

What you’ve done with all everything else that’s going on with this administration and the horrific cuts of, you know, 10,000 people fired today from the nation’s health agencies and all these other things. This is the biggest story in the country right now. You have captured people’s attention for 25 hours.

And I’m wondering, for people who were moved by what you did, either among your Senate colleagues or just people who watched you from home, what do you hope they might do differently if they’re moved by you, and they feel the same sort of spirit that caused you to do what you did?

CORY BOOKER: Well, I hope that we’re all served to be ignition points for each other, my constituents, the letters, the calls, the demands. We’re definitely an action point for me, but we’ve got to continue to ignite this movement. The only thing that stopped Donald Trump from tearing away the Affordable Care Act was the engagement of tens of thousands of Americans who didn’t think they would become little lobbyists or activists or come down to the capitol or protest in their communities. 

You know, Rachel, you and I have known each other a long time, and I’ve been listening to your show more regularly. I’m so grateful that you’re doing this first 100 days, and I love how you start every show by showing what other Americans are doing. They’re not waiting for us in Congress to lead. They’ve decided to take matters into their own hands and do something different. 

Those people were demanding to me, to catch up, to try to do what, like, they’re doing. This is really about folks leading from their hearts and deciding, I’m not going to just let business as usual go on in my life and so I’m hoping that this is one part of a larger effort that tries to stop them from doing what they’re about to do later this week or next week. 

…

MADDOW: Well, senator, as I said, what you have done has captured the nation’s attention and I think, captured the moral imagination of this nation in a way that you were really demanding with what you did. And so I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. You never know what the outcome is going to be of these things. I do know that if you don’t do it, nothing’s going to happen. And so I wish you rest. And, I think you should get checked out by a doctor, and I think you should hydrate. And I hope you get people to leave you alone for the next few hours.

BOOKER: Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you.

MADDOW: Thank you, sir.

Tuesday’s White House press briefing came nearly 24 hours before President Donald Trump’s alleged blockbuster tariffs against foreign countries around the globe, so the questions naturally skewed toward this issue and good-faith, legitimate questions for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt from Fox’s Peter Doocy and Edward Lawrence, NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer, NOTUS’s Jasmine Wright, and Politico’s Dasha Burns.

2WayApp’s Mark Halperin led off the briefing in the new media seat, starting with tariffs and specifically what factors Trump would take in place to remove any if foreign companies and/or countries reached out:

Fox’s Peter Doocy came next and again proved a change in administration didn’t mean he was going to let up in the difficulty of his questions:

Doocy moved onto Tuesday’s elections, but not before one simple follow-up: “And you said that the President now is with the trade and tariff team. They are very confident that this is all going to work. But what if they’re wrong?”

Leavitt insisted “they are not going to be wrong” because Trump “has a brilliant team of advisors who have been studying these issues for decades and we are focused on restoring the golden age of America and making America manufacturing superpower and….I would point you to the investments that have already trickled into this country.”

NOTUS’s Jasmine Wright had another straightforward but important question to consider: “[W]hat, if any, market indicators is the White House looking for to see if this tariffs plan is successful down the line?”

Leavitt replied Trump had already “answered this question about the stock market and whether he’s watching it” and “the focus of these tariffs” is “ensur[ing] that all Americans make out well, particularly Main Street.”

Formerly with NBC, Burns brought up a concern about Americans looking to buy cars from foreign automakers (which could include, say, Hyundai and Toyota):

A few minutes later, Kellie Meyer from the good people at NewsNation cited back a statement Trump made about tariffs on Inauguration Day:

Fox Business’s Edward Lawrence closed out the briefing with one about tariffs as it related to Canada:

On a non-tariff note, Frontlines’s Monica Luisi sought comment on allegations made by Elon Musk about illegal immigrants receiving Social Security:

To see the relevant transcript from the April 1 briefing (including even more questions), click here.

Liberal media darling John Oliver and the production company behind his show, Last Week Tonight on CBS, were the recipients of a defamation complaint in the United States Southern District of New York, last Friday. The 23-page complaint alleged that Oliver and his producers “knowingly manipulated” the sworn testimony of Dr. Brian Morley, who was the medical director of Iowa’s Managed Care Organization dealing with their Medicaid program, “and then knowingly manipulated the context” of the testimony, effectively lying about it to millions of people around the globe.

The alleged defamation occurred in an episode of Last Week Tonight which aired on April 14, 2024. In the episode in question, Oliver was railing against the Medicaid systems in red states as he pushed for America “to adopt a universal healthcare model” like the one in his failing home country of Britain, which he left.

According to the complaint, Oliver falsely portrayed Morley, who “is a board certified physician, having served in the United States Army as a field surgeon and practiced family medicine,” as a heartless healthcare executive who was okay with disabled patients sitting and stewing in their own excrement:

Defendants falsely told millions of viewers of their show, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, that Dr. Morley testified in a Medicaid hearing that “he thinks it’s okay if people have shit on them for days,” intentionally leading viewers to believe that Dr. Morley made these alleged statements about—and illegally denied Medicaid services to—a young man who has severe mental impairment, was harnessed in a wheelchair, wears diapers, and required in-home bathing and diaper changing because he could do neither himself.

“Defendants’ false accusations were designed to spark outrage, and they did,” the filing went on. It noted that Oliver shared his own outrage at what he purported were Morley comments. “Fuck that doctor with a rusty canoe. I hope he gets tetanus of the balls,” he declared, seemingly promoting a violent sexual assault of Morley.

The filing contended “Oliver’s feigned outrage at Dr. Morley was fabricated for ratings and profits at the expense of Dr. Morley’s reputation and personal well-being,” and that Morley’s comments were stitched together to form a Frankenstein’s Monster against him.

 

 

In the segment in question, Oliver tugged on the heartstrings of viewers by telling the story of a kid named Louis who had home care visits temporarily cut; Louis had a mental disability, was confined to a wheelchair (as was his mother), and he needed help cleaning himself.

Oliver played a soundbite of Morley’s testimony before a Medicaid hearing, which he claimed was about a “similar patient” to Louis, and was accompanied by an on-screen graphic showing the purported quote:

People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves, and we don’t fuss over [them] too much. People are allowed to be dirty … You know, I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple of days.

Following the soundbite, Oliver declared: “when I first heard that, I thought that had to be taken out of context. There is no way a doctor, a licensed physician, would testify in a hearing that he thinks it’s okay if people have shit on them for days.” He then admitted that “we got the full hearing” but “I’m not going to play it for you.” “I’m just gonna tell you: [Morley] said it, he meant it,” Oliver claimed.

The reason Oliver probably didn’t want to share Morley’s full comments was because what the show was claiming was apparently a lie. According to the filing, the below comment was what got chopped up by Oliver’s producers, and which “was in reference to the average individual who is independently mobile but may not wipe perfectly—not someone who is wearing diapers or otherwise laying in their own bowel movements”:

In certain cases, yes, with the patient with significant comorbidities, you would want to have someone wiping them and getting the feces off. But like I said, people have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over too much. People are allowed to be dirty. It’s when the dirty and the feces and the urine interfere with, you know, medical safety, like in someone who has concomitant comorbidities that you worry, but not in this specific case. I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple days.

 

 

Elsewhere in Morley’s testimony, he explained why cleaning an immobile patient was so necessary for their wellbeing:

If feces were left on the skin for an extended period of time in someone that’s totally immobile, you can get significant skin breakdown. But if feces are left on the skin for several hours, or even a day, and the feces are removed the next day in someone that’s mobile and is not confined to a bed, then it would just be a matter of washing the feces off.

The filing notes that the hiring reaffirmed Morley’s chosen course of care as completely legal, contrary to Oliver’s suggestion.

Dr. Morley was contacted by a producer prior to the airing of the show; when he asked them if they had the full hearing available to them, they confirmed it him.

As spelled out in the filing, Oliver’s producers knew that the “Actual Patient” Morley was talking about in the hearing (name omitted from the filing for confidentiality) bore no resemblance to Louis’s situation:

Defendants knew, contradicted, and otherwise failed to disclose that Louis was not “similar” to the Actual Patient in any material sense.

(…)

Defendants knew, contradicted, and otherwise failed to disclose that that the Actual Patient was not confined to a wheelchair, was not incontinent, did not wear diapers, independently toilet transferred, was independently mobile, could change his or her own clothes, bathed him or herself, and did not require in-home diaper changing or assistance to bathe generally.

Arguing that actual malice existed in the case (something needed for a punitive damages reward), Morley partially pointed to the manipulation of his quote:

Defendants additionally published the False and Defamatory Statements and Meanings negligently and with actual malice because they manipulated the sole source quote attributed to Dr. Morley to make it mean something it did not mean and otherwise manipulated the evidence and context to make it seem condemnatory, when it was not.

Morley was demanding a jury trial and the damage were “an amount to be determined.”

A blue-haired brigade of bulges took to Washington D.C. to demand our nation affirm their delusions as part of their so-called “Transgender Day of Visibility,” Monday. 

It’s not like they’re hard to spot already… All I had to do was look for the trail of kids. 

But when I approached the rainbow crowd to ask what more visibility could they possibly achieve, demonstrators only wished to be seen and not heard. They were confident enough in their ideology to stomp and scream at our Capitol building with bright picket signs, but not enough to elaborate why they were present.

When I tried to ask, the mob grew violent as an enraged Rosie O’Donnell stunt double grabbed my microphone and chucked it yards away. 

The he/shes aggressively blocked our camera as a force of yellow-vested thought police instructed attendees not to speak with us. 

Tune into the circus on this episode of “Woke of the Weak.”

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God joined Comedy Central’s The Daily Show on Tuesday for one of his irregular scheduled “In My Opinion” segments. Recently, Charlamagne’s opinions have focused on the woeful state of the Democratic Party, but Charlamagne found reason for optimism on Tuesday as he applauded the stunt work of Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and his own uncensored N-words.

Reacting to Booker’s Tuesday talk-a-thon, that at the time of recording had reached 22 hours, Charlamagne gushed, “This is unbelievable. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! A Democrat actually did something! Wow! Wow! That’s the longest someone’s held Congress captive since January 6th. I mean, yeah. I mean, so far, he’s only talking, but he’s talking a lot, so I’ll take it, okay. What Booker did today is like the political version of phone sex: It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing. That’s right. And nothing is what it seems like the Democratic Party has been doing for the last three months. The Democrats are like Jason Momoa in-between Aquaman movies: Not in good shape.”

 

 

After some clips and commentary about how he views Democratic leaders to be uninspiring, Charlamagne came to Crockett, “Fortunately, there are people on the left really willing to put up a fight.”

Last June, Charlamagne interviewed Crockett on The Daily Show where she accused Rep. Byron Donalds and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of being Uncle Toms, so naturally he was a fan of her latest work.

After a trio of clips from Crockett, Charlamagne moved to her recent attack on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, “That’s right! That’s the homie, Jasmine Crockett, a U.S. Representative and social justice warrior with less filter than a Pall Mall, okay. She did get into a little trouble for some recent comments about the Texas governor, Greg Abbott. And to appreciate this next clip, all you need to know is that he’s a far-right bigot who happens to use a wheelchair.”

In another clip, Crockett huffed, “We’re in these hot ass Texas streets, honey. Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now. And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot ass mess.”

 

 

Charlamagne approved, “Hey, man, when they go low, Jasmine slashes the tires on their wheelchairs, okay. And you know Republicans are scared of Democrats stooping to their level because conservatives were big fake mad.”

After another montage, this one punctuated with a clip of President Trump calling Crockett “a lowlife” and “a very low IQ person,” Charlamagne reacted, “Excuse me, Donald Trump is going to lecture someone about tasteless jokes? MAGA complaining that a Democrat is ableist is like Quentin Tarantino telling me I use the N-word too much. [N-Word] please, okay? I’m not saying Democrats need to be offensive like Trump is. Just show any kind of authenticity and fight, alright? That’s why people are cheering Cory Booker today. Yeah, yeah. And that’s why Bernie Sanders and AOC are turning out huge crowds at rallies all across the country.”

Charlamagne says “authenticity,” everyone else says “performance art.” Still, he concluded, “I just hope it’s enough because right now, the Democratic Party brand is so whack, it almost doesn’t matter who runs. A ‘D’ beside their name makes even great candidates seem bad. Voters are like a college student halfway through her first year at Bryn Mawr: She just doesn’t want that D no more. Okay. Democrats just need to fight back and whether that looks like filibustering on the Senate floor, rallying across the country, or getting in a roast battle with a wheelchair-bound senior citizen, you got to take that fight. But that’s just my opinion.”

Democrats lost in November because their policies wrecked the economy and are too far left on cultural issues. There is one group of people in America who agrees with Charlamagne that Booker and Crockett should be the face of the Democratic Party’s rebuild: Republicans.

Here is a transcript for the April 1 show:

Comedy Central The Daily Show

4/1/2025

11:14 PM ET:

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: This is unbelievable. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! A Democrat actually doing something! Wow! Wow! That’s the longest someone’s held Congress captive since January 6th. I mean, yeah. I mean, so far, he’s only talking, but he’s talking a lot, so I’ll take it, okay. What Booker did today is like the political version of phone sex: It’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing. That’s right. And nothing is what it seems like the Democratic Party has been doing for the last three months. The Democrats are like Jason Momoa in-between Aquaman movies: Not in good shape. 

…

Fortunately, there are people on the left really willing to put up a fight.

JASMINE CROCKETT: The Republicans have actually organized these goofy hearings to try to convince the American people that PBS and NPR are quote “Domestic threats.” It’s as stupid as it sounds.

I would tell him to grow a spine. And stop being Putin’s ho.

REPORTER: If you could speak directly to Elon Musk, what would you say?

CROCKETT: [Bleep] Off.

CHARLAMAGNE: That’s right! That’s the homie, Jasmine Crockett, a U.S. Representative and social justice warrior with less filter than a pall mall, okay. She did get into a little trouble for some recent comments about the Texas governor, Greg Abbott. And to appreciate this next clip, all you need to know is that he’s a far-right bigot who happens to use a wheelchair.

CROCKETT: We’re in these hot ass Texas streets, honey. Y’all know we got Governor Hot Wheels down there. Come on now. And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot ass mess. 

CHARLAMAGNE: Hey, man, when they go low, Jasmine slashes the tires on their wheelchairs, okay. And you know Republicans are scared of Democrats stooping to their level because conservatives were big fake mad.

SEAN HANNITY: Jasmine Crockett stoops to a new low. [jump cut] Pretty disgusting.

ALEK KRAMER: Speaker Johnson saying this, quote, “These outrageous remarks by Crockett are shameful and completely out of line.”

DONALD TRUMP: She’s a lowlife. And she’s a very low IQ person.

CHARLAMAGNE: Excuse me, Donald Trump is going to lecture someone about tasteless jokes? MAGA complaining that a Democrat is ableist is like Quentin Tarantino telling me I use the N-word too much. [N-Word] please, okay? I’m not saying Democrats need to be offensive like Trump is. Just show any kind of authenticity and fight, alright? 

That’s why people are cheering Cory Booker today. Yeah, yeah. And that’s why Bernie Sanders and AOC are turning out huge crowds at rallies all across the country. Yes. I just hope it’s enough because right now, the Democratic Party brand is so whack, it almost doesn’t matter who runs. A “D” beside their name makes even great candidates seem bad. Voters are like a college student halfway through her first year at Bryn Mawr: She just doesn’t want that D no more. Okay. Democrats just need to fight back and whether that looks like filibustering on the Senate floor, rallying across the country, or getting in a roast battle with a wheelchair-bound senior citizen, you got to take that fight. But that’s just my opinion.