Conservatives “love” the Constitution the same way they love the Bible, by cherrypicking the parts they like and ignoring the rest.
One big part of it they don’t like? The First Amendment. A pretty big part!
Let’s watch Trump goons hating the First Amendment on the Sunday shows.
Todd Blanche
Current attorney general and sad Roy Cohn impersonator Todd Blanche was on ABC’s This Week with Martha Raddatz, and they talked about Trump’s media ban.
He threw a bunch of shit at the wall, just to see what would stick.
First, he tried outright denial.
BLANCHE: Well, the president hasn't denied access. That's not the right way to describe it.
Then he shifted to whining about journalists being mean.
BLANCHE: [T]he president has said is that he is sick and tired of certain media outlets just refusing to report accurate news.
Then he landed on affirming Donald Trump’s fundamental misunderstanding of who the White House belongs to.
BLANCHE: [L]ook, it is a — it is a privilege — it is a privilege to be in the White House for anybody. […] There's still obviously litigation going on, but the important thing, Martha, is to know that that being in the White House is a privilege. It's not a — it's not a right.
It is not a privilege for the press to be in the president’s workplace in a functioning democracy. The White House is the People’s House, not Donald Trump’s. Despite all his gaudy destruction of it, it is not his house, and it never will be.
Blanche shifted to the made-up excuse they’re using in court (national security) to legally Zamboni this autocratic move, only to get upset when Raddatz pointed out Trump himself undoing the argument with his public statements.
He then had a meltdown when Raddatz noted the juxtaposition of this curtailing of the free press while rolling out the red carpet for China’s President Xi and allowing the famously “free press” of China to cover the White House.
Blanche was also asked about AI:
Now why would a corrupt administration that hates facts, is deferential to social media/tech billionaires, and has a loose grasp of legality be so hesitant to regulate a technology that can be used to generate fake media and disseminate misinformation?
We guess we’ll never know.
Mike Waltz
UN Ambassador Mike Waltz made dual appearances this week on CNN’s State Of The Union and NBC’s Meet The Press. We’ll focus on CNN.
Waltz’s schedule was probably pretty open, considering there’s no real need for a UN ambassador when your boss threatens to annihilate countries in front of the UN General Assembly.
Host Jake Tapper asked Waltz about AI and China. He wasn’t reassuring.
TAPPER: [T]here was mounting pressure for the US to strike a deal with China to regulate artificial intelligence. I know part of the summit resulted in a hotline established to discuss if there’s some sort of horrific disaster and a hotline for the risks related to AI. Was anything else agreed to regarding artificial intelligence?
WALTZ: Well, it’s not just -- we’re going with super intelligence now, Jake.
He was more concerned with Donald Trump’s pathetic attempt to rename AI as “super intelligence.” There are no adults in the room.
Tapper pressed Waltz about Trump banning media outlets that report facts that hurt his ego.
TAPPER: [Y]esterday, the White House barred CNN from fulfilling our pool assignment on behalf of the five major television networks. As you know, we all pool coverage, and all of our affiliates and subscribers. And I would just ask if you could please convey to President Trump to let CNN back in the pool.
Wait, did we say “pressed”? We meant Jake Tapper gently asked, while adding a false equivalence from his time as White House correspondent.
TAPPER: It was not OK when President Obama tried to freeze Fox out of the pool back in 2009. And I don’t think we want a world where presidents decide who gets to cover them.
Did Barack Obama do to Fox News what Donald Trump is doing to CNN, MS NOW and Politico? He did not.
But anyway, way to speak “truth to power,” Jake Tapper. What a scathing rebuke.
Waltz exhibited empathy for the real victims of all this.
WALTZ: Well, I hear you, Jake, but I think we need fair and objective and well-sourced reporting. And I could tell you, as having been the victim of a lot of this nonsense …
Like, the actual journalism about Mike Waltz in the Signal chat with the Atlantic reporter who was there because he put him there?
Waltz continued to try to find ways this isn’t a violation of the First Amendment, but Tapper followed up with Trump’s own words:
TAPPER: President Trump specifically said that there’s something wrong with a country where people are allowed to report things that are purposely negative. That’s his language, not mine.
Journalists have a right to report things that are truthful, yet unflattering. It is newsworthy, for example, if a national security advisor, like a dumbass, endangered national security by adding a reporter to a classified military strike chat group on Signal. That it offends Mike Waltz or Todd Blanche or the wannabe despot he reports to doesn’t change that right.
Have a week.
Follow Michael Mora on Threads, occasionally on Bluesky (and if you are still on Twitter, I’m also HERE).
You can subscribe to Michael Mora’s Substack, The Diasporican Writer, for additional thoughts and topics!
"You cannot be asking that!" feels very much like "I was promised a softball interview"
National security forbids anyone from asking about national security.