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On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed President Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill” by a narrow margin of 216 to 214. Despite early concerns among Republicans and unified opposition from House Democrats, the bill was able to pass by the July 4th deadline, with Speaker Mike Johnson expressing optimism over the momentum of a unified GOP. Shannon Bream joins the Rundown to discuss public reaction to the bill and its potential role as a midterm talking point. Later, she weighs in on a new SCOTUS case to be heard on trans athletes, the Russian-Ukraine conflict, and polling on American pride. As the country celebrates America's independence with parades, parties, and cookouts, we also mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and the 250th birthday of the US Navy and Marine Corps. Host of America's Funniest Home Videos and Dancing With the Stars, Alfonso Ribeiro, joins to discuss his involvement with "A Capitol Fourth," one of the largest fireworks displays in the nation. Don't miss the good news with Tonya J. Powers. Plus, commentary from AEI Senior Fellow and former CPB board member, Howard Husock. Photo Credit: AP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ukraine says Russia carried out its biggest drone and missile attack on the capital yet, just two days after the US announced it was suspending the supply of some critical weapons to Kyiv, and hours after Presidents Trump and Putin spoke on the phone. We report from Kyiv. Also in the programme: President Trump's huge tax and spending bill squeaks through Congress – but will it be a vote-winner or loser at next year's midterm elections? We hear from a Republican pollster; and a security contractor for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation tells the BBC they were instructed to shoot first and ask questions later.(IMAGE: Smoke is seen from outskirts of the city, after a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 4, 2025 / CREDIT: Alina Smutko / Reuters)
The 3WHH bartenders take time away from the news headlines and court cases to take up some aspects of patriotism (but also with a tutorial for John about the mellotron!). We start with an origin story of sorts for John himself, as he is an immigrant to the U.S., and as such provides a good reminder of how immigration ought to be understood and practiced. From there, Lucretia meditates on the curious recent survey results showing that love of country among Democrats has precipitously declined over the last decade or so. We agree that our dessicated education system has a lot to do with this—did we really think the Howard-Zinnification of our history would be without consequences?—but we need to wonder why Republicans seem to be immune to these calumnies against our great country. Lucretia fingers the Progressives, and that leads to the final gonzo segment for the holiday, where Steve settles scores from slanders against him when he missed an episode three weeks ago, and makes the evidently futile attempt to school John about the mellotron and the inherent greatness of the brief shining moment of progressive rock—"rock and roll that went to college," as Jody Bottum calls it—in the early 1970s, which, come to think of it, is when the Clean Air Act was first enacted.So come for the patriotism (and a sharp and unexpected argument about Daniel Bell), and stay for the awesome music!
Democrats are trying to get it together ahead of what should be a pretty good election cycle for them here in Texas. But the top of their ticket already includes the very real possibility of a US Senate nominee who lost badly to one of the most hated Republicans in America just 9 months ago. What are they even doing? Join the conversation with Scott Braddock, editor of The Quorum Report, and Houston Chronicle political writer Jeremy Wallace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The U.S. government is running it hot — and Bitcoin may be the only exit.In episode 10 of the Bitcoin Policy Hour, the Bitcoin Policy Institute team — Executive Director Matthew Pines, Head of Policy Zack Shapiro, and Associate Zack Cohen — break down what just happened with the Big Beautiful Bill and why it matters for Bitcoin, inflation, and America's fiscal future.They dive into the last-minute push to pass pro-Bitcoin tax reform (including the de minimis exemption and mining tax fixes), explain why it failed, and assess the rising importance of the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) as the next key battleground.The episode also explores deep tensions within the Republican coalition, how Bitcoin fits into U.S. national security priorities, and what the growing demand for stablecoins reveals about where the monetary system is headed.
Chris From Brooklyn is back at it again talking Turmps aligator alcatraz, why the Big Beautiful War may have been a work all along, Trumps new spending bill and why it's not actually that big of a deal, Ice having a bigger budget than most countries, Zohran clearly pandering by eating with his hands but Republicans missing the hypocricy to be xenophobic, why Co-Ops with land leases are screwed and so much more!Record Date: 6/26/25WATCH CHRIS' NEW "NOT SPECIAL" HEREhttps://www.youtube.com/@HighSocietyRadioPodcastSUPPORT OUR SPONSORhttps://xbar.com/ - Get JACKED with an X Bar!FatDickHotChocolate.net - Get a fat dick by drinking chocolate!Knight Fights In Brooklyn On 7/31/25Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-armored-league-tickets-1435152231959?aff=oddtdtcreatorEmail Your Ask The Goon Questions to: askthegoon@gmail.comFollow the host on socialChris From Brooklyn Twitter https://twitter.com/ChrisFromBklynHigh Society Radio Instagram https://www.instagram.com/highsocietyradioHigh Society Radio YouTube http://bit.ly/HSRYoutubeHigh Society Radio Twitter https://twitter.com/HSRadioshowWebsite https://gasdigital.comMike Harrington Twitter https://twitter.com/TheMHarringtonMike Harrington Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themharrington/Notes Of A Goon is a weekly podcast where Goon of note, Chris from BK sits down and yells about childhood trauma, how he'd fix the whole damn country, and all sorts of other bullshit. All while splitting a six pack with you the listener. Chris is joined by his stalwart producer and homeless weirdo Mike Harrington on this journey of self reflection and yelling. There's lots of yelling.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This week's show is sponsored in part by EPIC-MRA Public Opinion Research MIRS News
Happy Independence Day. It's coming up. And I must say that I think differently about this one, more than normal.On the heels of watching an election get stolen and Donald Trump BBQ'd by the Leftists in the court, I treasure my freedom.Do Leftist really think about freedom or even care. Consider their plight.They speak freely of their hatred of President Trump, MAGA, conservatives, Republicans, God, religion, the police, the military, and so on.But is this really their views? I think they are slaves to their conventions. Wholly afraid to truly speak their minds. BTW, so are many of us. I'm not, but I know many who are.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Happy 4th of July from the Sean Spicer Show. We hope you are celebrating a safe and fun Independence Day surrounded by your friends and family. As the big, beautiful bill hits President Trump's desk, just like he said it would, it marks another historic achievement early in his presidency. The big, beautiful bill is President Trump's America First agenda and its passing shows a united Republican party. As President Trump signed the bill today, I want to share the latest data from Seth Kesher. If you remember, Keshel perfectly predicted the 2024 election right here on the show. His forecast models with states that register voters by party are incredibly accurate, allowing Seth to look at comparable counties and trends to predict how other states will vote. Today, Seth is taking us to 2026 to unpack the midterm elections to see if Donald Trump could be one of two presidents since World War II to grow their majority mid-term. Featuring: Seth Keshel Captain K's Corner | Substack https://skeshel.substack.com/ Read Seth's article on election integrity here: https://skeshel.substack.com/p/director-patel-may-have-struck-gold Today's show is brought to you byt these great sponsors: Masa Chips You're probably watching the Sean Spicer Show right now and thinking “hmm, I wish I had something healthy and satisfying to snack on…” Well Masa Chips are exactly what you are looking for. Big corporations use cheap nasty seed oils that can cause inflammation and health issues. Masa cut out all the bad stuff and created a tortilla chip with just 3 ingredients: organic nixtamalized corn, sea salt, and 100 percent grass-fed beef tallow. Snacking on MASA chips feels different—you feel satisfied, light, and energetic, with no crash, bloat, or sluggishness. So head to https://MASAChips.com/SEAN to get 25% off your first order. Riverbend Ranch Riverbend Ranch has been around for 35 years, selecting cattle that have higher marbling and tenderness than any other beef. You cannot get this beef in your grocery store. Riverbend Ranch ages their beef for 21 days and you'll find it more tender and flavorful than even the finest restaurants. So, if you're ready to have the best steak of your life, head to https://www.riverbendranch.com. Use promo code: SEAN to get $20 of your first order. Beam For a limited time got 40% of Beam's Dream Powder. Dream Powder with Reishi, Magnesium, L-Theanine, Apigenin and Melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. Just head to https://shopbeam.com/SPICER for 40% off. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1️⃣ Subscribe and ring the bell for new videos: https://youtube.com/seanmspicer?sub_confirmation=1 2️⃣ Become a part of The Sean Spicer Show community: https://www.seanspicer.com/ 3️⃣ Listen to the full audio show on all platforms: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sean-spicer-show/id1701280578 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/32od2cKHBAjhMBd9XntcUd iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-sean-spicer-show-120471641/ 4️⃣ Stay in touch with Sean on social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/seanmspicer Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanspicer Instagram: https://instagram.com/seanmspicer/ 5️⃣ Follow The Sean Spicer Show on social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/seanspicershow Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanspicershow Instagram: https://instagram.com/seanspicershow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
President Trump is set to sign his "big, beautiful bill" on Friday after the House passed the legislation in a 218-214 vote, with two Republicans joining Democrats to oppose it. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stalled the final passage Thursday in a record-setting speech that lasted nearly nine hours. CBS News' Robert Costa joins "CBS Mornings" to break down what's in the legislation. An effort by some states to protect children from gun violence has hit roadblocks. The new laws require gun owners to lock up their firearms at home or face prosecution. However, implementing the law has presented its own set of challenges. CBS News' Scott MacFarlane reports. Millions will gather across the U.S. for the dazzling sights of fireworks to mark the Fourth of July, but the tradition relies almost exclusively on China. The Asian country makes nearly all of the fireworks that are used in the U.S. It's causing problems for fireworks retailers, many of them small businesses, because of the uncertainty of President Trump's tariffs. CBS News' Ian Lee reports. Renowned underwater archaeologist James Delgado joins "CBS Mornings" to discuss his new book "The Great Museum of the Sea" and reflect on his decades-long search for historic shipwrecks, including the Clotilda. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
President Donald Trump secured a major legislative win on Thursday as his numerous phone calls and meetings united Republicans behind his tax and spending bill. The bill is set to become law on July 4. Trump has invited all members of Congress to the signing ceremony at 4 p.m. ET.The nation's capital is hosting a series of events to celebrate Independence Day, including the National Independence Day Parade, the Washington National Cathedral Concert, and more activities at the National Archives. NTD will bring them to you live.
President Trump is getting exactly what he wanted this Independence Day, signing his mega MAGA bill into law at a huge celebration. His tax cuts got extended. He got more money for defense and immigration. But will Republicans pay a political price for Medicaid and SNAP cuts? Plus, two top politicians join us with two totally different takes on the big beautiful bill. Republican Congressman Mike Lawler calls it a historic tax relief bill. Democratic. Governor Wes Moore says it's a heartless assault on the American people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Sanctuary cities are now targeted because we do NOT keep track of the illegal immigrants. As a result the illegal citizens get to vote simply because they are residents. This is the key problem! They are not American citizens yet they are voting! This is a master stroke in deception by the deep state Democrat regime. The DEMS cannot boast about merit or successful performance. As a result they must try to control the immigrant vote. (a/k/a; 'Vote the way I tell you and I will give you more free things!'). What a way to build a political party. Sounds like Communism to me! Ironically, immigrants are not dumb. They see the deceptions upon them from the luring, demonic, and flirtatious Democrats. As a result track the number of Democrats and legal immigrants who are becoming Republicans! Stunning.Sanctuary Cities Failed Illegal Immigrants! Now What?!Gene Valentino on Newsmax Wake Up America WeekendORIGINAL MEDIA SOURCE(S):Originally Recorded on June 14, 2025America Beyond the Noise: Season 5, Episode 592Image courtesy of: Newsmax➡️ Join the Conversation: https://GeneValentino.com➡️ WMXI Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/NewsRadio981➡️ More WMXI Interviews: https://genevalentino.com/wmxi-interviews/➡️ More GrassRoots TruthCast Episodes: https://genevalentino.com/grassroots-truthcast-with-gene-valentino/➡️ More Broadcasts with Gene as the Guest: https://genevalentino.com/america-beyond-the-noise/ ➡️ More About Gene Valentino: https://genevalentino.com/about-gene-valentino/
This week on I Told You So, Tiffany and J.M. talk about the challenges of staying connected with friends when you’re a busy adult. We talk about doing the Bare Minimum and the problems with strip clubs. 033 I Told You So Podcast Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and AMAZON too!
Simon's weekly chronicle of events in the United States for Tom Swarbrick's Friday night drivetime programme on the UK's LBC. Listen live every Friday at 5:50pm or find it on catch-up here afterwards.
On this Fourth of July edition of The Daily Herold, Jon Herold delivers a thorough, unflinching look at Trump's massive “Big Beautiful Bill,” examining the last-minute concessions and hidden provisions that sparked frustration across the conservative base. Jon breaks down everything from the $85 million relocation of the Space Shuttle Discovery to new taxes on gamblers, commercial space launches, and Alaskan whaling expenses. He questions why Republican leadership weakened measures against illegal immigration and stripped out promised long-term defunding of Planned Parenthood. Jon also highlights Trump's surprising proposal letting farmers vouch for long-time undocumented workers, sparking a debate over priorities and enforcement. The show touches on the President's quiet call with Putin, Russia's formal recognition of the Taliban, and plans for a UFC fight on the White House lawn to kick off America's 250th birthday celebrations. Capping off the episode, Jon reflects on how patriotism and skepticism can coexist, reminding listeners it's possible to support Trump's mission while demanding accountability from Congress.
In this episode of The Everyday Bow Hunter Podcast, we tackle three big stories every bowhunter should care about:
Sean "Diddy" Combs is acquitted of the most serious charges against him, convicted of the rest, and denied bail by a judge who cited the defense's own admissions of Combs's violence. What that means for Combs's sentencing. Plus, President Trump's sprawling policy bill stalls for hours, as Republicans try to round up votes from within their own ranks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Congress has passed President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" after back-to-back late nights for both the House and Senate. The massive spending bill now goes to President Trump's desk to be signed into law just on time for the Fourth of July deadline that was set. The passing of the bill is victory for Speaker Mike Johnson and for the president himself. Fox's John Saucier speaks to Jared Halpern, Fox News Radio White House Correspondent and podcast anchor, who says its another victory for President Trump and the Republicans, and shares with us the atmosphere in the capital during Independence Day. Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The big, ugly bill is gonna pass. And the wealthy will get huge tax breaks, and working class Americans will lose health care and food assistance, immigrants will be cruelly harassed, and the debt will increase by trillions. Republicans must pay a political price in 2026 for what they're doing right now. But it will be up to Democrats to make that case. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Trump's megabill heads to final vote after Republican divisions nearly derail it, what will gas prices be like for drivers this Fourth of July, and get ready for the $80 popcorn bucket.
For more on how Republicans, even those who were staunchly opposed to the so-called "One Big, Beautiful Bill," have since come around, William Brangham spoke with Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist and publisher of The Bulwark. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
The so-called "One Big, Beautiful Bill" overcame thin Republican majorities and weeks of tense negotiations, just meeting the president's self-imposed Independence Day deadline. Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins takes us through the policy and politics of the GOP's signature bill. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders
The Republican's Cynical Ploy to Give Billionaires Tax Breaks Immediately While Delaying Cuts to Medicaid and Food Assistance Until After the Midterms | In Spite of Ratcliffe's Spin to Please His Boss, the CIA Report Finds That Putin Did Help Trump and Hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Election | US Contractors Shoot Gazans For Sport as Hamas Approves the US Plan for a Hostage Release backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia bsky.app/profile/ianmastersmedia.bsky.social facebook.com/ianmastersmedia
On today's UNCOVERED Ron and Anthony discuss Trump's corrupt spending bill, Musk's threats, GOP fallout and the facts about the true cost. Plus, migrants dying in ICE detention, the offensive Alligator Alcatraz concentration camp in Florida, Trump's new fragrance and much more! Fatty 15: Get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to https://fatty15.com/UNCOVERED and using code UNCOVERED at checkout. Former Federal Prosecutor Ron Filipkowski and British journalist Anthony Davis expose the epidemic of false propaganda pushing Republican politics to the extreme far-right. A new episode every Wednesday. Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Trump’s Big Beautiful has been sent back to the House as Republican leadership insists it will be passed by July 4th. New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a total Marxist nutjob. // Josh Hammer unpacks the implications of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling striking down nationwide injunctions and why Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is a joke. // Conservatives scored several parental rights victories during this year’s Supreme Court term.
Ken and Frank break down Mamdani's policies and how it will destroy jobs in NYC. How is Frank making out, as he is pushing to make parts of New York better as the City Councilman. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Ken and Frank break down Mamdani's policies and how it will destroy jobs in NYC. How is Frank making out, as he is pushing to make parts of New York better as the City Councilman.
Curtis Sliwa, Republican running for Mayor of New York City, joins Sid live in-studio to discuss his campaign and his alignment with the blue-collar working class, contrasted with incumbent Mayor Eric Adams' connections to wealthier constituencies. Sliwa addresses key issues like cost of living, public safety, and quality of life, asserting that he is the only candidate genuinely advocating for improvements without driving residents out of New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Republican hold-outs on the Big Beautiful Bill are expected to fall in line after they were summoned to the White House for a meeting with President Trump. They just found out who their daddy is.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Democratic Illinois lawmakers have slammed their Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate for passing President Trump's tax and spending plan. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has named a new running mate. Meanwhile, Chicago alderpersons are scrutinizing the Chicago Police Department for its response to a recent ICE raid. Reset goes behind those headlines and more in our Weekly News Recap with WBEZ city politics reporter Mariah Woelfel, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Mitchell Armentrout and WCIU reporter/anchor Brandon Pope. Note: this conversation was recorded before the House passed the tax and spending bill. For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.
Jen Psaki looks back at how Democrats made Republicans pay for their efforts to kill Obamacare by making that a central focus of House races that ultimately flipped the House to Democratic control. Donald Trump's budget bill is so wildly unpopular that Democratic candidates are already preparing to run against the bill and anyone who supported it. Republicans, in the meantime, are busy trying to distract Americans from what they're doing.
The House of Representatives began debate on President Donald Trump's sweeping spending bill following a late-night shift as key Republican holdouts threw their support behind the measure. Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) stepped out of an hours long speech from Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) to fill CNBC's audience in on the broader implications of the legislation. Microsoft will lay off about 9,000 employees, just under 4% of its global workforce. CNBC's Steve Kovach and fellow tech journalist Michal Lev-Ram discussed the role of AI in the cuts and the future of tech's labor force. Meanwhile, U.S. payrolls increased by 147,000 in June, President Trump continues to put pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates, and OpenAI is issuing a warning about Robinhood's “tokens” in the company. Ro Khanna - 15:28Steve Kovach & Michal Lev-Ram - 23:03 In this episode:Rep. Ro Khanna, @reprokhannaMichael Lev-Ram, @mlevramMelissa Lee, @MelissaLeeCNBCAndrew Ross Sorkin, @andrewrsorkinCameron Costa, @CameronCostaNY
After a marathon session on Wednesday night, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives are poised to pass a massive tax and spending bill which President Trump has said he wants to sign on July 4. On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed their version of the bill after a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance. The bill passed by the Senate is expected to add $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while making steep cuts to Medicaid benefits to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts. In Oregon, roughly 1 in 3 residents get their insurance through Medicaid. According to Oregon Health Authority’s Medicaid director Emma Sandoe, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Oregonians could lose their Medicaid benefits under the bill. On Wednesday, Gov. Tina Kotek and former Gov. John Kitzhaber, the architect of Oregon’s state Medicaid program, urged U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz of Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District to vote against the bill. Bentz is the sole Republican member of Oregon’s Congressional delegation and roughly 40% of the residents in his district are enrolled in the Oregon Health Plan. Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District is a pulmonary and critical care physician by training who testified against the bill on Capitol Hill and introduced amendments to it which were blocked by Republicans. She joins us to talk about the impacts of the Medicaid cuts for Oregonians and the new work and recertification requirements for Medicaid enrollees. “Think Out Loud” also made multiple attempts to request Rep. Bentz to participate in this conversation.
In these two segments, the hosts expose a sweeping pattern of institutional corruption and media complicity. First, they unpack bombshell revelations confirming the Russia collusion narrative was a deliberate hoax orchestrated by top Obama-era intelligence officials—John Brennan, James Comey, and James Clapper—who handpicked analysts, suppressed dissent within the CIA, and selectively leaked discredited claims from the Clinton campaign to engineer a societal delusion that crippled the Trump presidency. Next, they detail how left-wing judges are defying Supreme Court precedent to block Trump's border enforcement, effectively ordering open borders to restore Democrat-aligned human trafficking networks and set up a “dictatorship” narrative if Trump defies their rulings. Newsbusters' Curtis Houck joins to discuss the mainstream media's ongoing efforts to cover for radical socialist candidates while losing public trust, as Trump's popularity surges past Ronald Reagan's among Republicans. Together, these stories illustrate a constitutional crisis and the media's collapse as Americans increasingly reject manufactured narratives.
In this broadcast, the host breaks down a series of dramatic developments: a federal judge—appointed by Barack Obama—issues a nationwide injunction to halt Donald Trump's border enforcement, effectively re-opening the border to illegal crossings and potential criminal networks. Despite the Supreme Court's recent ruling against such sweeping injunctions, lower court judges are defying precedent, creating what the host calls a constitutional crisis designed to provoke Trump into defying orders so the media can brand him a dictator. The conversation also explores the media's surface-level fascination with New York City's self-described democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani (“Comrade Mamdani”) while ignoring his radical Marxist views. Finally, Newsbusters managing editor Curtis Houck joins to discuss how the mainstream media's declining credibility and obsession with attacking Trump have fueled record popularity for the former president, eclipsing even Ronald Reagan among Republican voters.
How has the media distorted Israel's response to the October 7 Hamas attacks? In this powerful conversation from AJC Global Forum 2025, award-winning journalist and former AP correspondent Matti Friedman breaks down the media bias, misinformation, and double standards shaping global coverage of Israel. Moderated by AJC Chief Communications and Strategy Officer Belle Etra Yoeli, this episode explores how skewed narratives have taken hold in the media, in a climate of activist journalism. A must-listen for anyone concerned with truth in journalism, Israel advocacy, and combating disinformation in today's media landscape. Take Action: Take 15 seconds and urge your elected leaders to send a clear, united message: We stand with Israel. Take action now. Resources: Global Forum 2025 session with Matti Friedman:: Watch the full video. Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: Untold stories of Jews who left or were driven from Arab nations and Iran People of the Pod: Latest Episodes: John Spencer's Key Takeaways After the 12-Day War: Air Supremacy, Intelligence, and Deterrence Iran's Secret Nuclear Program and What Comes Next in the Iranian Regime vs. Israel War Why Israel Had No Choice: Inside the Defensive Strike That Shook Iran's Nuclear Program Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Transcript of the Interview: Manya Brachear Pashman: I've had the privilege of interviewing journalism colleague Matti Friedman: twice on this podcast. In 2022, Matti took listeners behind the scenes of Jerusalem's AP bureau where he had worked between 2006 and 2011 and shared some insight on what happens when news outlets try to oversimplify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then in 2023, I got to sit down with Matti in Jerusalem to talk about his latest book on Leonard Cohen and how the 1973 Yom Kippur War was a turning point both for the singer and for Israel. Earlier this year, Matti came to New York for AJC Global Forum 2025, and sat down with Belle Yoeli, AJC Chief Strategy and Communications Officer. They rehashed some of what we discussed before, but against an entirely different backdrop: post-October 7. For this week's episode, we bring you a portion of that conversation. Belle Yoeli: Hi, everyone. Great to see all of you. Thank you so much for being here. Matti, thank you for being here. Matti Friedman: Thanks for having me. Belle Yoeli: As you can tell by zero empty seats in this room, you have a lot of fans, and unless you want to open with anything, I'm going to jump right in. Okay, great. So for those of you who don't know, in September 2024 Matti wrote a piece in The Free Press that is a really great foundation for today's discussion. In When We Started to Lie, Matti, you reflect on two pieces that you had written in 2015 about issues of media coverage of Israel during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. And this piece basically talked about the conclusions you drew and how they've evolved since October 7. We're gonna get to those conclusions, but first, I'm hoping you can describe for everyone what were the issues of media coverage of Israel that you first identified based on the experience in 2014? Matti Friedman: First of all, thanks so much for having me here, and thanks for all of the amazing work that you guys are doing. So it's a real honor for me. I was a reporter for the AP, between 2006 and the very end of 2011, in Jerusalem. I was a reporter and editor. The AP, of course, as you know, is the American news agency. It's the world's largest news organization, according to the AP, according to Reuters, it's Reuters. One of them is probably right, but it's a big deal in the news world. And I had an inside view inside one of the biggest AP bureaus. In fact, the AP's biggest International Bureau, which was in Jerusalem. So I can try to sketch the problems that I saw as a reporter there. It would take me seven or eight hours, and apparently we only have four or five hours for this lunch, so I have to keep it short. But I would say there are two main problems. We often get very involved. When we talk about problems with coverage of Israel. We get involved with very micro issues like, you call it a settlement. I call it a neighborhood. Rockets, you know, the Nakba, issues of terminology. But in fact, there are two major problems that are much bigger, and because they're bigger, they're often harder to see. One of the things that I noticed at the Bureau was the scale of coverage of Israel. So at the time that I was at the AP, again, between 2006 and the very end of 2011 we had about 40 full time staffers covering Israel. That's print reporters like me, stills photographers, TV crews. Israel, as most of you probably know, is a very small country. As a percentage of the world's surface, Israel is 1/100 of 1% of the surface of the world, and as a percentage of the land mass of the Arab world, Israel is 1/5 of 1%. 0.2%. And we had 40 people covering it. And just as a point of comparison, that was dramatically more people than we had at the time covering China. There are about 10 million people today in Israel proper, in China, there are 1.3 billion. We had more people in Israel than we had in China. We had more people in Israel than we had in India, which is another country of about 1.3 billion people. We had more people in Israel than we had in all of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. That's 50 something countries. So we had more people in Israel than we had in all of those countries combined. And sometimes I say that to Jews, I say we covered Israel more than we covered China, and people just stare at me blankly, because it's Israel. So of course, that makes perfect sense. I happen to think Israel is the most important country in the world because I live there. But if the news is meant to be a rational analysis of events on planet Earth, you cannot cover Israel more than you cover the continent of Africa. It just doesn't make any sense. So one of the things that first jumped out at me– actually, that's making me sound smarter than I am. It didn't jump out at me at first. It took a couple of years. And I just started realizing that it was very strange that the world's largest organization had its largest international bureau in the State of Israel, which is a very small country, very small conflict in numeric terms. And yet there was this intense global focus on it that made people think that it was the most important story in the world. And it definitely occupies a place in the American political imagination that is not comparable to any other international conflict. So that's one part of the problem. That was the scope, the other part was the context. And it took me a while to figure this out, but the coverage of Israel is framed as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conflict is defined in those terms, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and everyone in this room has heard it discussed in those terms. Sometimes we discuss it in those terms, and that is because the news folks have framed the conflict in those terms. So at the AP bureau in Jerusalem, every single day, we had to write a story that was called, in the jargon of the Bureau, Is-Pals, Israelis, Palestinians. And it was the daily wrap of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So what Netanyahu said, what Abbas said, rockets, settlers, Hamas, you know, whatever, the problem is that there isn't an Israeli=Palestinian conflict. And I know that sounds crazy, because everyone thinks there is. And of course, we're seeing conflicts play out in the most tragic way right now in Gaza. But most of Israel's wars have not been fought against Palestinians. Israel has unfortunately fought wars against Egyptians and Jordanians and Lebanese and Iraqis. And Israel's most important enemy at the moment, is Iran, right? The Iranians are not Palestinian. The Iranians are not Arab. They're Muslim, but they're not Arab. So clearly, there is a broader regional conflict that's going on that is not an Israeli Palestinian conflict, and we've seen it in the past year. If we had a satellite in space looking down and just following the paths of ballistic missiles and rockets fired at Israel. Like a photograph of these red trails of rockets fired at Israel. You'd see rockets being fired from Iraq and from Yemen and from Lebanon and from Gaza and from Iran. You'd see the contours of a regional conflict. And if you understand it's a regional conflict, then you understand the way Israelis see it. There are in the Arab world, 300 million people, almost all of them Muslim. And in one corner of that world, there are 7 million Jews, who are Israelis. And if we zoom out even farther to the level of the Islamic world, we'll see that there are 2 billion people in the Islamic world. There's some argument about the numbers, but it's roughly a quarter of the world's population. And in one corner of that world there, there are 7 million Israeli Jews. The entire Jewish population on planet Earth is a lot smaller than the population of Cairo. So the idea that this is an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where Israelis are the stronger side, where Israelis are the dominant actor, and where Israelis are, let's face it, the bad guy in the story, that's a fictional presentation of a story that actually works in a completely different way. So if you take a small story and make it seem big. If you take a complicated regional story and you make it seem like a very small local story involving only Israelis and Palestinians, then you get the highly simplified but very emotive narrative that everyone is being subjected to now. And you get this portrayal of a villainous country called Israel that really looms in the liberal imagination of the West as an embodiment of the worst possible qualities of the age. Belle Yoeli: Wow. So already you were seeing these issues when you were reporter, earlier on. But like this, some of this was before and since, since productive edge. This is over 10 years ago, and here we are. So October 7 happens. You already know these issues exist. You've identified them. How would you describe because obviously we have a lot of feelings about this, but like, strictly as a journalist, how would you describe the coverage that you've seen since during October 7, in its aftermath? Is it just these issues? Have they? Have they expanded? Are there new issues in play? What's your analysis? Matti Friedman: The coverage has been great. I really have very I have no criticism of it. I think it's very accurate. I think that I, in a way, I was lucky to have been through what I went through 10 or 15 years ago, and I wasn't blindsided on October 7, as many people were, many people, quite naturally, don't pay close attention to this. And even people who are sympathetic to Israel, I think, were not necessarily convinced that my argument about the press was right. And I think many people thought it was overstated. And you can read those articles from 2014 one was in tablet and one was in the Atlantic, but it's basically the two chapters of the same argument. And unfortunately, I think that those the essays, they stand up. In fact, if you don't really look at the date of the essays, they kind of seem that they could have been written in the past year and a half. And I'm not happy about that. I think that's and I certainly wrote them in hopes that they would somehow make things better. But the issues that I saw in the press 15 years ago have only been exacerbated since then. And October seven didn't invent the wheel. The issues were pre existing, but it took everything that I saw and kind of supercharged it. So if I talked about ideological conformity in the bureaus that has been that has become much more extreme. A guy like me, I was hired in 2006 at the AP. I'm an Israeli of center left political leanings. Hiring me was not a problem in 22,006 by the time I left the AP, at the end of 2011 I'm pretty sure someone like me would not have been hired because my views, which are again, very centrist Israeli views, were really beyond the pale by the time that I left the AP, and certainly, and certainly today, the thing has really moved what I saw happening at the AP. And I hate picking on the AP because they were just unfortunate enough to hire me. That was their only error, but what I'm saying about them is true of a whole new. Was heard. It's true of the Times and CNN and the BBC, the news industry really works kind of as a it has a herd mentality. What happened was that news decisions were increasingly being made by people who are not interested in explanatory journalism. They were activists. Activists had moved into the key positions in the Bureau, and they had a very different idea of what press coverage was supposed to do. I would say, and I tried to explain it in that article for the free press, when I approach a news story, when I approach the profession of journalism, the question that I'm asking is, what's going on? That's the question I think you're supposed to ask, what's going on? How can I explain it in a way that's as accurate as as possible? The question that was increasingly being asked was not what's going on. The question was, who does this serve? That's an activist question. So when you look at a story, you don't ask, is it true, or is it not true? You ask, who's it going to help? Is it going to help the good guys, or is it going to help the bad guys? So if Israel in the story is the villain, then a story that makes Israel seem reasonable, reasonable or rational or sympathetic needs to be played down to the extent possible or made to disappear. And I can give you an example from my own experience. At the very end of 2008 two reporters in my bureau, people who I know, learned of a very dramatic peace offer that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had made to the Palestinians. So Olmert, who was the prime minister at the time, had made a very far reaching offer that was supposed to see a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, most of the West Bank, with land swaps for territory that Israel was going to retain, and a very far reaching international consortium agreement to run the Old City of Jerusalem. Was a very dramatic. It was so far reaching, I think that Israelis probably wouldn't have supported it. But it was offered to the Palestinian side, and the Palestinians rejected it as insufficient. And two of our reporters knew about this, and they'd seen a map of the offer. And this was obviously a pretty big story for a bureau that had as the thrust of its coverage the peace process. The two reporters who had the story were ordered to drop it, they were not allowed to cover the story. And there were different explanations. And they didn't, by the way, AP did not publish the story at the time, even though we were the first to have it. Eventually, it kind of came out and in other ways, through other news organizations. But we knew at first. Why were we not allowed to cover it? Because it would have made the Israelis who we were trying to villainize and demonize, it would have made Israel seem like it was trying to solve the conflict on kind of reasonable lines, which, of course, was true at that time. So that story would have upended the thrust of our news coverage. So it had to be made to go away, even though it was true, it would have helped the wrong people. And that question of who does this serve has destroyed, I want to say all, but much, of what used to be mainstream news coverage, and it's not just where Israel is concerned. You can look at a story like the mental health of President Biden, right. Something's going on with Biden at the end of his term. It's a huge global news story, and the press, by and large, won't touch it, because why? I mean, it's true, right? We're all seeing that it's true, but why can't you touch it? Because it would help the wrong people. It would help the Republicans who in the press are the people who you are not supposed to help. The origins of COVID, right? We heard one story about that. The true story seems to be a different story. And there are many other examples of stories that are reported because they help the right people, or not reported because they would help the wrong people. And I saw this thinking really come into action in Israel 10 or 15 years ago, and unfortunately, it's really spread to include the whole mainstream press scene and really kill it. I mean, essentially, anyone interested in trying to get a solid sense of what's going on, we have very few options. There's not a lot, there's not a lot out there. So that's the broader conclusion that I drew from what I thought at the time was just a very small malfunction involving Israel coverage. But Israel coverage ends up being a symptom of something much bigger, as Jews often are the symptom of something much bigger that's going on. So my problems in the AP bureau 15 years ago were really a kind of maybe a canary in the coal mine, or a whiff of something much bigger that we were all going to see happen, which is the transformation of the important liberal institutions of the west into kind of activist arms of a very radical ideology that has as its goal the transformation of the west into something else. And that's true of the press, and it's true of NGO world, places like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which were one thing 30 years ago and are something very different today. And it's also true of big parts of the academy. It's true of places like Columbia and places like Harvard, they still have the logo, they still have the name, but they serve a different purpose, and I just happen to be on the ground floor of it as a reporter. Belle Yoeli: So obviously, this concept of who does this serve, and this activist journalism is deeply concerning, and you actually mentioned a couple other areas, academia, obviously we're in that a lot right now in terms of what's going on campus. So I guess a couple of questions on that. First of all, think about this very practically, tachlis, in the day to day. I'm a journalist, and I go to write about what's happening in Gaza. What would you say is, if you had to throw out a percentage, are all of them aware of this activist journalist tendency? Or you think it's like, like intentional for many of them, or it's sort of they've been educated that way, and it's their worldview in such a way that they don't even know that they're not reporting the news in a very biased way. Does that make sense? Matti Friedman: Totally. I think that many people in the journalism world today view their job as not as explaining a complicated situation, but as swaying people toward the correct political conclusion. Journalism is power, and the power has to be wielded in support of justice. Now, justice is very slippery, and, you know, choosing who's in the right is very, very slippery, and that's how journalism gets into a lot of trouble. Instead of just trying to explain what's going on and then leave, you're supposed to leave the politics and the activism to other people. Politics and activism are very important. But unless everyone can agree on what is going on, it's impossible to choose the kind of act, the kind of activism that would be useful. So when the journalists become activists, then no one can understand what's what's going on, because the story itself is fake, and there are many, many examples of it. But you know, returning to what you asked about, about October 7, and reporting post October 7, you can really see it happen. The massacres of October 7 were very problematic for the ideological strain that now controls a lot of the press, because it's counterintuitive. You're not supposed to sympathize with Israelis. And yet, there were a few weeks after October 7 when they were forced to because the nature of the atrocities were so heinous that they could not be ignored. So you had the press covering what happened on October 7, but you could feel it. As someone who knows that scene, you could feel there was a lot of discomfort. There was a lot of discomfort. It wasn't their comfort zone, and you knew that within a few weeks, maybe a month, it was gonna snap back at the first opportunity. When did it snap back? In the story of the Al Ahli hospital strike. If you remember that a few weeks in, there's a massive global story that Israel has rocketed Hospital in Gaza and killed about 500 people and and then you can see the kind of the comfort the comfort zone return, because the story that the press is primed to cover is a story about villainous Israelis victimizing innocent Palestinians, and now, now we're back. Okay. Now Israel's rocketing hospital. The problem was that it hadn't happened, and it was that a lot of stories don't happen, and they're allowed to stand. But this story was so far from the truth that even the people involved couldn't make it work, and it had to be retracted, but it was basically too late. And then as soon as the Israeli ground offensive got into swing in Gaza, then the story really becomes the same old story, which is a story of Israel victimizing Palestinians for no reason. And you'll never see Hamas militants in uniform in Gaza. You just see dead civilians, and you'll see the aftermath of a rocket strike when the, you know, when an Israeli F16 takes out the launcher, but you will never see the strike. Which is the way it's worked in Gaza since the very end of 2008 which is when the first really bad round of violence in Gaza happens, which is when I'm at the AP. As far as I know, I was the first staffer to erase information from the story, because we were threatened by Hamas, which happened at the very end of 2008. We had a great reporter in Gaza, a Palestinian who had always been really an excellent reporter. We had a detail in a story. The detail was a crucial one. It was that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and were being counted as civilians in the death toll, an important thing to know, that went out in an AP story. The reporter called me a few hours later. It was clear that someone had spoken to him, and he told me, I was on the desk in Jerusalem, so I was kind of writing the story from the main bureau in Jerusalem. And he said, Matti, you have to take that detail out of the story. And it was clear that someone had threatened him. I took the detail out of the story. I suggested to our editors that we note in an Editor's Note that we were now complying with Hamas censorship. I was overruled, and from that point in time, the AP, like all of its sister organizations, collaborates with Hamas censorship in Gaza. What does that mean? You'll see a lot of dead civilians, and you won't see dead militants. You won't have a clear idea of what the Hamas military strategy is. And this is the kicker, the center of the coverage will be a number, a casualty number, that is provided to the press by something called the Gaza health ministry, which is Hamas. And we've been doing that since 2008, and it's a way of basically settling the story before you get into any other information. Because when you put, you know, when you say 50 Palestinians were killed, and one Israeli on a given day, it doesn't matter what else you say. The numbers kind of tell their own story, and it's a way of settling the story with something that sounds like a concrete statistic. And the statistic is being, you know, given to us by one of the combatant sides. But because the reporters sympathize with that side, they're happy to play along. So since 2008, certainly since 2014 when we had another serious war in Gaza, the press has not been covering Gaza, the press has been essentially an amplifier for one of the most poisonous ideologies on Earth. Hamas has figured out how to make the press amplify its messaging rather than covering Hamas. There are no Western reporters in Gaza. All of the reporters in Gaza are Palestinians, and those people fall into three categories. Some of them identify with Hamas. Some of them are intimidated by Hamas and won't cross Hamas, which makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't want to cross Hamas either. So either. And the third category is people who actually belong to Hamas. That's where the information from Gaza is coming from. And if you're credulous, then of course, you're going to get a story that makes Israel look pretty bad. Belle Yoeli: So this is very depressing. That's okay. It's very helpful, very depressing. But on that note, I would ask you so whether, because you spoke about this problem in terms, of, of course, the coverage of Israel, but that it's it's also more widespread you talk, you spoke about President Biden in your article, you name other examples of how this sort of activist journalism is affecting everything we read. So what should everyone in this room be reading, truly, from your opinion. This is Matti's opinion. But if you want to you want to get information from our news and not activist journalism, obviously The Free Press, perhaps. But are there other sites or outlets that you think are getting this more down the line, or at least better than some, some better than others? Matti Friedman: No, it's just The Free Press. No. I mean, it's a question that I also wrestle with. I haven't given up on everyone, and even in publications that have, I think, largely lost the plot, you'll still find good stuff on occasion. So I try to keep my eye on certain reporters whose name I know. I often ask not just on Israel, but on anything, does this reporter speak the language of the country that they're covering? You'd be shocked at how rare that is for Americans. A lot of the people covering Ukraine have no idea what language they speak in Ukraine, and just as someone who covers Israel, I'm aware of the low level of knowledge that many of the Western reporters have. You'll find really good stuff still in the Atlantic. The Atlantic has managed, against steep odds, to maintain its equilibrium amid all this. The New Yorker, unfortunately, less so, but you'll still see, on occasion, things that are good. And there are certain reporters who are, you know, you can trust. Isabel Kirchner, who writes for The New York Times, is an old colleague of mine from the Jerusalem report. She's excellent, and they're just people who are doing their job. But by and large, you have to be very, very suspicious of absolutely everything that you read and see. And I'm not saying that as someone who I'm not happy to say that, and I certainly don't identify with, you know, the term fake news, as it has been pushed by President Trump. I think that fake news is, you know, for those guys, is an attempt to avoid scrutiny. They're trying to, you know, neuter the watchdog so that they can get away with whatever they want. I don't think that crowd is interested in good press coverage. Unfortunately, the term fake news sticks because it's true. That's why it has worked. And the press, instead of helping people navigate the blizzard of disinformation that we're all in, they've joined it. People who are confused about what's going on, should be able to open up the New York Times or go to the AP and figure out what's going on, but because, and I saw it happen, instead of covering the circus, the reporters became dancing bears in the circus. So no one can make heads or tails of anything. So we need to be very careful. Most headlines that are out there are out there to generate outrage, because that's the most predictable generator of clicks, which is the, we're in a click economy. So I actually think that the less time you spend following headlines and daily news, the better off you'll be. Because you can follow the daily news for a year, and by the end of the year, you'll just be deranged. You'll just be crazy and very angry. If you take that time and use it to read books about, you know, bitten by people who are knowledgeable, or read longer form essays that are, you know, that are obviously less likely to be very simplistic, although not, you know, it's not completely impossible that they will be. I think that's time, that's time better spent. Unfortunately, much of the industry is kind of gone. And we're in an interesting kind of interim moment where it's clear that the old news industry is basically dead and that something new has to happen. And those new things are happening. I mean, The Free Press is part of a new thing that's happening. It's not big enough to really move the needle in a dramatic way yet, but it might be, and I think we all have to hope that new institutions emerge to fill the vacuum. The old institutions, and I say this with sorrow, and I think that this also might be true of a lot of the academic institutions. They can't be saved. They can't be saved. So if people think that writing an editor, a letter to the editor of the New York Times is going to help. It's not going to help. Sometimes people say, Why don't we just get the top people in the news industry and bring them to Israel and show them the truth? Doesn't help. It's not about knowing or not knowing. They define the profession differently. So it's not about a lack of information. The institutions have changed, and it's kind of irrevocable at this point, and we need new institutions, and one of them is The Free Press, and it's a great model of what to do when faced with fading institutions. By the way, the greatest model of all time in that regard is Zionism. That's what Zionism is. There's a guy in Vienna in 1890 something, and his moment is incredibly contemporary. There's an amazing biography of Herzl called Herzl by Amos Elon. It's an amazing book. If you haven't read it, you should read it, because his moment in cosmopolitan Vienna sounds exactly like now. It's shockingly current. He's in this friendly city. He's a reporter for the New York Times, basically of the Austro Hungarian empire, and he's assimilated, and he's got a Christmas tree in his house, and his son isn't circumcised, and he thinks everything is basically great. And then the light changes. He notices that something has changed in Vienna, and the discourse about Jews changes, and like in a Hollywood movie, the light changes. And he doesn't try to he doesn't start a campaign against antisemitism. He doesn't get on social media and kind of rail against unfair coverage. He sits down in a hotel room in Paris and he writes this pamphlet called the Jewish state, and I literally flew from that state yesterday. So there's a Zionist model where you look at a failing world and you think about radical solutions that involve creation. And I think we're there. And I think Herzl's model is a good one at a dark time you need real creativity. Belle Yoeli: Thank God you found the inspiration there, because I was really, I was really starting to worry. No, in all seriousness, Matti, the saying that these institutions can't be saved. I mean the consequences of this, not just for us as pro-Israel, pro-Jewish advocates, but for our country, for the world, the countries that we come from are tremendous. And the way we've been dealing with this issue and thinking about how, how can you change hearts and minds of individuals about Israel, about the Jewish people, if everything that they're reading is so damaging and most of what they're reading is so damaging and basically saying there's very little that we can do about that. So I am going to push you to dream big with us. We're an advocacy organization. AJC is an advocacy organization. So if you had unlimited resources, right, if you really wanted to make change in this area, to me, it sounds like you're saying we basically need 15 Free Presses or the new institutions to really take on this way. What would you do? What would you do to try to make it so that news media were more like the old days? Matti Friedman: Anyone who wants unlimited resources should not go into journalism. I have found that my resources remain limited. I'll give you an answer that is probably not what you're expecting or not what you want here. I think that the fight can't be won. I think that antisemitism can't be defeated. And I think that resources that are poured into it are resources wasted. And of course, I think that people need legal protection, and they need, you know, lawyers who can protect people from discrimination and from defamation. That's very important. But I know that when people are presented with a problem like antisemitism, which is so disturbing and it's really rocking the world of everyone in this room, and certainly, you know, children and grandchildren, you have a problem and you want to address it, right? You have a really bad rash on your arm. You want the rash to go away, and you're willing to do almost anything to make it go away. This has always been with us. It's always been with us. And you know, we recently celebrated the Seder, and we read in the Seder, in the Haggadah, l'chol dor vador, omdim aleinu l'chaloteinu. Which is, in every generation, they come at us to destroy us. And it's an incredibly depressing worldview. Okay, it's not the way I wanted to see the world when I grew up in Toronto in the 1990s. But in our tradition, we have this idea that this is always gonna be around. And the question is, what do you do? Do you let other people define you? Do you make your identity the fight against the people who hate you? And I think that's a dead end. This crisis is hitting the Jewish people at a moment when many of us don't know who we are, and I think that's why it's hitting so hard. For my grandfather, who was a standard New York Jew, garment industry, Lower East Side, poor union guy. This would not have shaken him, because he just assumed that this was the world like this. The term Jewish identity was not one he ever heard, because it wasn't an issue or something that had to be taught. So if I had unlimited resources, what I would do is I would make sure that young Jewish people have access to the riches of Jewish civilization, I would, you know, institute a program that would allow any young Jewish person to be fluent in Hebrew by the time they finish college. Why is that so important? Why is that such an amazing key? Because if you're fluent in Hebrew, you can open a Tanakh, or you can open a prayer book if you want. Or you can watch Fauda or you can get on a plane to Israel and hit on Israeli guys. Hebrew is the key to Jewish life, and if you have it, a whole world will open up. And it's not one that antisemites can interfere with. It does not depend on the goodwill of our neighbors. It's all about us and what we're doing with ourselves. And I think that if you're rooted in Jewish tradition, and I'm not saying becoming religious, I'm just saying, diving into the riches of Jewish tradition, whether it's history or gemara or Israel, or whatever, if you're if you're deep in there enough, then the other stuff doesn't go away, but it becomes less important. It won't be solved because it can't be solved, but it will fade into the background. And if we make the center of identity the fight against antisemitism, they've won. Why should they be the center of our identity? For a young person who's looking for some way of living or some deep kind of guide to life, the fight against antisemitism is not going to do it, and philanthropy is not going to do it. We come from the wisest and one of the oldest civilizations in the world, and many of us don't know how to open the door to that civilization, and that's in our hands. And if we're not doing it, it's not the fault of the antisemites. It's our own fault. So if I had unlimited resources, which, again, it's not, it's not going to happen unless I make a career change, that's where I would be putting my effort. Internally and not externally. Belle Yoeli: You did find the inspiration, though, again, by pushing Jewish identity, and we appreciate that. It's come up a lot in this conversation, this question about how we fight antisemitism, investing in Jewish identity and who we are, and at the same time, what do we do about it? And I think all of you heard Ted in a different context last night, say, we can hold two things, two thoughts at the same time, right? Two things can be true at the same time. And I think for me, what I took out of this, in addition to your excellent insights, is that that's exactly what we have to be doing. At AJC, we have to be engaging in this advocacy to stand up for the Jewish people and the State of Israel. But that's not the only piece of the puzzle. Of course, we have to be investing in Jewish identity. That's why we bring so many young people to this conference. Of course, we need to be investing in Jewish education. That's not necessarily what AJC is doing, the bulk of our work, but it's a lot of what the Jewish community is doing, and these pieces have to go together. And I want to thank you for raising that up for us, and again, for everything that you said. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you. Manya Brachear Pashman: If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in as John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, breaks down Israel's high-stakes strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure and the U.S. decision to enter the fight.
On this week's Political Breakfast, Republicans are mostly a united front and in support of President Donald Trump's so-called 'big, beautiful' massive tax and spending bill. Georgia Democrats say there's nothing beautiful about it, claming the bill will strip away people's healthcare and increase poverty while creating tax breaks for the rich. Democratic strategist Tharon Johnson and Republican strategist Brian Robinson and host Lisa Rayam react to the latest as lawmakers debate the bill in the U.S. House. Trump says he wants to sign the bill by the July 4th holiday. It's sweeping tax cuts are estimated to add trillions more to the national debt. It also boosts spending on border security and defense, makes massive cuts to programs like Medicaid and shifts more responsibility for food assistance to the states. It would also slash clean energy tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act, that helped propel solar and electric vehicle manufacturing in Georgia.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
House passes tax cut & spending cut Budget Reconciliation "One Big Beautiful Bill", 218-214, sending it to the President to be signed into law, after a dramatic all-night session to convince enough Republican holdouts to vote yes, and after a record-breaking 8 hour, 44 minute speech against the bill by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY); June jobs report: 147,000 jobs created, unemployment rate falls to 4.1%; Fourth of July fireworks on the National Mall security preview; DC Mayor & Police Chief talk about the fatal shooting of an Capitol Hill college student intern from Massachusetts; First Lady Melania Trump meets with young patients at National Children's Hospital; President Donald Trump speaks by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin after reports the U.S. is pausing some weapons shipments to Ukraine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich joins me today. Newt's new book Trump's Triumph is a New York Times best seller. Newt documents President Trump's greatest comeback in political history. Despite a 9 year effort to destroy him, President Trump won popular and electoral votes and became the first president to be nonconsecutively re-elected since President Grover Cleveland. Now that the big, beautiful bill has passed the Senate, President Trump is one step closer to fulfilling his agenda and the promise he made on the campaign trail. If President Trump can keep the House in 2026, the MAGA revolution will be fully institutionalized and set the base for Republicans to win the general election in 2028. Featuring: Speaker Newt Gingrich 50th Speaker of the House of Representatives Host | Newt's World https://gingrich360.com/ Get your copy of Newt's NYT best selling book here: https://a.co/d/caJU795 Today's show is brought to you by these great sponsors: Beam For a limited time got 40% of Beam's Dream Powder. Dream Powder with Reishi, Magnesium, L-Theanine, Apigenin and Melatonin to help you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. Just head to https://shopbeam.com/SPICER for 40% off. Riverbend Ranch Riverbend Ranch has been around for 35 years, selecting cattle that have higher marbling and tenderness than any other beef. You cannot get this beef in your grocery store. Riverbend Ranch ages their beef for 21 days and you'll find it more tender and flavorful than even the finest restaurants. So, if you're ready to have the best steak of your life, head to https://www.riverbendranch.com. Use promo code: SEAN to get $20 of your first order. ------------------------------------------------------------- 1️⃣ Subscribe and ring the bell for new videos: https://youtube.com/seanmspicer?sub_confirmation=1 2️⃣ Become a part of The Sean Spicer Show community: https://www.seanspicer.com/ 3️⃣ Listen to the full audio show on all platforms: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sean-spicer-show/id1701280578 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/32od2cKHBAjhMBd9XntcUd iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-sean-spicer-show-120471641/ 4️⃣ Stay in touch with Sean on social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/seanmspicer Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanspicer Instagram: https://instagram.com/seanmspicer/ 5️⃣ Follow The Sean Spicer Show on social media: Facebook: https://facebook.com/seanspicershow Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanspicershow Instagram: https://instagram.com/seanspicershow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
US President Donald Trump's huge budget bill is heading for a final vote in the US House of Representatives. Democrats warn it includes the largest cut to Medicaid in US history, while Republicans argue it will spark economic growth. We hear from a US based green energy company about the impact of the bill on the country's renewables industry. Leaders from across the globe have been meeting in Seville to discuss the growth of world debt. A new UN-backed Borrowers' Forum promises to give developing countries a united voice to tackle mounting debt. But why are critics saying it's not enough?Plus, Sam Fenwick asks could Elon Musk's Starlink revive Lebanon's crumbling Telecom sector?
36:43- Congressman Mike Haridopolos, Republican representing Florida's 8th Congressional District, joins Joe Piscopo to discuss the latest in the House of Representatives following the vote on Trump's “Big Beautiful Bill.” Topic: House vote 48:28- Scott Jennings, host of "The Scott Jennings Show" on the Salem Radio Network beginning July 14th, CNN contributor, and the author of the upcoming book "A Revolution of Common Sense: How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization" Topic: His new radio show, Big Beautiful Bill, and other news of the day 57:49- Hans von Spakovsky, Manager of the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow at the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, joins Joe Piscopo to discuss the recent buzz in the U.S. Supreme Court. Topic: Bryan Kohberger's guilty plea, other legal news of the day 1:26:58- Dr. Rebecca Grant, national security analyst based in Washington, D.C., specializing in defense and aerospace research, founder of IRIS Independent Research, and Senior Fellow at the Lexington Institute, joins Joe Piscopo to discuss the effects Trump had on the recent discussions with NATO. Topic: Edan Alexander to meet with Trump, "Trump lit a fire under NATO, but more needs to be done to contain the Russia-China axis" (Fox News op ed) 1:35:38- Arthur Aidala, former Brooklyn Prosecutor, star criminal defense attorney, and host of "The Arthur Aidala Power Hour" weeknights at 6 p.m. on AM 970 The Answer, joins Joe Piscopo to dig deep into the Diddy case for a complete understanding. Topic: Sean "Diddy" Combs verdict 2:02:15- Miranda Devine, columnist for the New York Post and the author of "The Big Guy", joins Joe Piscopo to discuss the CIA review of the Trump-Russia collusion report as well as the latest with Russia. Topic: "Obama’s Trump-Russia collusion report was corrupt from start: CIA review" (New York Post op ed) 2:13:31- Gordon Chang, Asia expert, columnist, and author of "China is Going to War", joins Joe Piscopo to discuss the latest in the U.S.-China trade war and what to expect from it. Topic: Latest in the U.S.-China trade war, Chinese nationals arrested for allegedly spying on the U.S. NavySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When Hobbs was elected in 2022, she pledged to bring sanity over chaos. But the Democratic governor has tried to navigate working opposite a Republican-controlled Legislature over the last three years. This year's session was no exception. Hobbs vetoed 174 bills this year, a new single-year record that surpasses her 143 vetoes in 2023. But her vetoes aren't the full story, even if they are record-breaking. She also signed 265 bills into law this year. This week on The Gaggle, a weekly politics podcast, host Mary Jo Pitzl and guest host Stacey Barchenger are joined by Gov. Hobbs in-studio for a sit-down interview. Email us! thegaggle@arizonarepublic.com Leave us a voicemail: 602-444-0804 Follow us on X, Instagram and Tik Tok. Guests: Governor Katie Hobbs Host: Mary Jo Pitzl, Stacey Barchenger Producer: Amanda Luberto Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How does being a Christians affect one's public service? And what can Southern Baptists do to influence the public square? During SBC25 in Dallas, ERLC President Brent Leatherwood spoke with Ambassador designate Mark Walker, President Trump's appointee for the Office of International Religious Freedom, Congressman Nathaniel Moran from Texas, and Sen. James Lankford from Oklahoma about being a Christian in Washington, D.C.Before being named as the Ambassador designate, Mark Walker represented North Carolina's 6th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015 to 2021. Congressman Nathaniel Moran serves the first district of Texas, and is one of five Republicans appointed to the Ethics Committee, the body which upholds the House Code of Official Conduct. Lastly, Senator James Lankford served four years in the US House of Representatives for central Oklahoma, until he was elected to the US Senate in 2014.
0:00 Trump's ‘big, beautiful bill' expected to pass House, head to POTUS's desk | RISING 8:43 Megyn Kelly goes off on Diddy verdict: ‘F—ing ridiculous' | RISING 16:41 Elon Musk admits wielding chainsaw at CPAC ‘lacked empathy' | RISING 23:36 Trump, Mamdani beef after POTUS threatens to arrest him | RISING 33:23 'Dem congressman slams Republicans, sparks outrage during hearing | RISING 41:54 Sabrina Carpenter's album cover sparks backlash | RISING 46:46 Vivek Ramaswamy opponent defends against attacks over her Covid-era policies | RISING 1:01:17 Penn eliminates Lia Thomas's records, titles, bans transgender athletes from women's sports | RISING Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are on track to pass the big tax and spending bill by their deadline of July 4. The bill extends tax breaks from President Donald Trump's first term and eliminates taxes on tips. It also cuts federal funding for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In Minnesota and 10 other states, county governments manage these programs. St. Louis County estimates that the cost shift to St. Louis County will be more than $10 million for SNAP and $6.4 million for Medicaid.St. Louis County Board of Commissioners Chair Annie Harala joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about the impact.
The Senate passed President Donald Trump's spending bill on Tuesday after Vice President JD Vance arrived to break a 50-50 tie. The bill is now headed back to the House where Republican Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose three members and still pass the bill by a party line vote. To learn more about what this means for Republicans' big beautiful bill and the looming July Fourth deadline, we spoke with Nicholas Wu, a congressional reporter for Politico.And in headlines: President Trump tours "Alligator Alcatraz," Florida's new migrant detention center, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says Trump's tariff wars pretty much stopped it from cutting interest rates, and the Trump-Musk feud is reignited.Show Notes:Check out Nicholas's work – www.politico.com/staff/nicholas-wuCall Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday
Congressman Burgess Owens joins to discuss the big, beautiful bill making its way through Congress, which encompasses various aspects of President Trump's agenda, including tax cuts and immigration enforcement. One of the significant provisions is the school choice tax credit, aimed at empowering parents and enhancing educational options for their children. Congressman Owens passionately advocates for middle-class families, emphasizing the importance of choice and accountability in education. He also addresses the recent Supreme Court ruling on parental rights in education, highlighting the growing frustration among parents regarding public school curricula. Mike Howell, President of the Oversight Project, discusses the recent revelations from a trove of documents obtained through a FOIA request. Howell sheds light on potential conflicts within the DOJ regarding Hunter Biden's legal issues and the alleged insider dealings of the Biden administration. Finally, AMAC spokesman and a Republican candidate for governor of Maine Bobby Charles joins for his weekly segment and shares his insights on recent Supreme Court decisions affecting immigration policies, the challenges of border security, and his vision for revitalizing the state. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Alicia Menendez – in for Nicolle Wallace – on Republicans scrambling to get support for Trump's megabill, Paramount agreeing to pay $16 million to settle with Trump, and the latest on the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial.Joined by: Rep. Madeleine Dean, Mychael Schnell, Mara Gay, Marc Elias, Alexis McGill Johnson, Kristy Greenberg, Tim Heaphy, Tim Miller, Basil Smikle, Juanita Tolliver, and Russ Buettner.
The Trump administration's plans to strip funding from PBS and NPR is the latest in a long line of Republican fights against public broadcasting. The House has already voted to take back over a billion dollars it had previously agreed to pay. Will the Senate sign off on it next? Guest: Brian Stelter, chief media analyst at CNN. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices