If there were still any questions that PBS is a liberal network in need of defunding, Friday’s News Hour removed any remaining doubts. In a wild segment, host William Brangham preferred the words of the “nonpartisan” League of Women Voters over an anti-Trump law professor who stated the country is not in a constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, New York Times columnist and supposed conservative David Brooks promoted his recent article where he essentially quoted The Communist Manifesto and urged, among other things, Americans to go on strike to protest Trump.
Brangham wondered what Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart thought of the whole thing, “Jonathan, what do you think about that? I mean, we had Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck on the show. He says, we're not quite there yet, because the Trump administration has not yet formally blown through, overtly ignored a direct court order yet.”
At the same time, “we also heard from the League of Women Voters, the nonpartisan organization, who this week — I'd like to read you this quote. They said — quote — ‘It has now been 87 days since the start of the Trump administration. From the flagrant disregard for congressional authority and governmental checks and balances, to defying Supreme Court orders to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home, one thing is abundantly clear. Our country is in a constitutional crisis.’”
The joke that the media views politics as a battle between the right-wingers and the non-partisans was clearly seen in Brangham’s framing, which was one Capehart agreed with, “I am glad you read that, because I was shaking, I was nodding in agreement with the League of Women Voters.”
Capehart added, “So, I know there are these formal definitions of what a constitutional crisis is, but from where I sit in my Schoolhouse Rock! knowledge of how our government is supposed to work we are in one. We have a president of the United States who on a daily basis blows past the guardrails, pushes as far as he can get to test the system.”
Later, Brangham recalled to Brooks, “Well, you offered a prescription, David, in your column in the New York Times for this moment that we are in. And you called for a civic uprising.”
After Brangham asked how that would come about, Brooks replied:
Yeah, the core argument is that Trump is really about amassing power. And anything that might potentially restrain his power, he will destroy. And that includes the court systems and anything part of that livens humanity. It includes the universities, the scientific community, the truth, the media. And so far, we have responded to all these things, NATO, in separate lanes. We think the Fed is different than NATO, which is different from the universities. But my point is, this is all one thing. And if institutions and even sectors try to respond to this individually, they're doomed. Even Harvard, with $52 billion in this endowment, you can't do it alone.
Brooks was especially fixated on the Harvard case, “That was a crucial turning point because it changed the minds of everybody in every university I have talked to since then. They said... A lot of them [universities] beforehand were like, ‘Well, Columbia made a deal, maybe that's right for us.’ Once Harvard came out, I talked to a couple of university presidents who said, ‘Oh, this is where we need to be,’ because the Trump administration made it impossible for Harvard not to say no."
Getting back to the idea of a general uprising, Brooks claimed, “The point I tried to make is, all these different sectors have to get together and inform one big civic movement. And it can't be political. It's not Democrats versus Republicans. It's not left versus right. It's institutions versus the destruction of our institutions of civilization.”
Brooks then got examples of what he would like to see, “And if you look down through history, there have been social movements, these kinds of civic uprising that have succeeded. They have banded together across sectors. They have a clear, simple message that appeals to a lot of different people. They use things like lawsuits, protests, boycotts, all sorts of things, strikes, anything they can do.”
In his column, Brooks concluded with a bit of Marx, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
While Brooks may have an overinflated view of how many people throughout the country agree with him, the workers of PBS have definitely united in their quest against Donald Trump.
Sign the petition to help us defund another MSNBC in PBS and NPR at defundpbsnpr.org.
Here is a transcript for the April 18 show:
PBS News Hour
4/18/2025
7:34 PM ET
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Jonathan, what do you think about that? I mean, we had Georgetown Law Professor Steve Vladeck on the show. He says, we're not quite there yet, because the Trump administration has not yet formally blown through, overtly ignored a direct court order yet.
But we also heard from the League of Women Voters, the nonpartisan organization, who this week — I'd like to read you this quote. They said — quote — "It has now been 87 days since the start of the Trump administration. From the flagrant disregard for congressional authority and governmental checks and balances, to defying Supreme Court orders to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home, one thing is abundantly clear. Our country is in a constitutional crisis."
Where do you come down on that?
CAPEHART: I am glad you read that, because I was shaking, I was nodding in agreement with the League of Women Voters.
How can you say that the president hasn't defied court orders? You have got Judge Boasberg, who is threatening to — says yesterday that there's probable cause to charge the government or lawyers arguing on behalf of the government with criminal contempt.
Why? Because the president of the United States and his administration ignored his order to not deport those folks to El Salvador. So, I know there are these formal definitions of what a constitutional crisis is, but from where I sit in my Schoolhouse Rock! knowledge of how our government is supposed to work we are in one. We have a president of the United States who on a daily basis blows past the guardrails, pushes as far as he can get to test the system.
And what has heartened me this week is hearing from Judge Boasberg and the judge who ruled yesterday in that beautiful seven-page opinion, where they are not just saying, this isn't the right thing to do. They are pushing back just as aggressively from their respective federal benches. And I think we will be better for it.
…
BRANGHAM: Well, you offered a prescription, David, in your column in the New York Times for this moment that we are in. And you called for a civic uprising.
You said in this column, I want to read a bit of this, saying that the attacks that we have seen on institutions — quote — "are not separate battles. This is a simple effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trump's acquisition of power."
So how would that civic uprising form?
DAVID BROOKS: Yeah, the core argument is that Trump is really about amassing power. And anything that might potentially restrain his power, he will destroy.
And that includes the court systems and anything part of that livens humanity. It includes the universities, the scientific community, the truth, the media. And so far, we have responded to all these things, NATO, in separate lanes. We think the Fed is different than NATO, which is different from the universities.
But my point is, this is all one thing. And if institutions and even sectors try to respond to this individually, they're doomed. Even Harvard, with $52 billion in this endowment, you can't do it alone.
BRANGHAM: Though that was a signal moment.
BROOKS: That was a crucial turning point because it changed the minds of everybody in every university I have talked to since then. They said—
BRANGHAM: Oh, really?
BROOKS: Yeah. So—
BRANGHAM: Post-Harvard, they’ve all said—
BROOKS: Right. A lot of them beforehand were like, “Well, Columbia made a deal, maybe that's right for us.” Once Harvard came out, I talked to a couple of university presidents who said, “Oh, this is where we need to be,” because the Trump administration made it impossible for Harvard not to say no.
And that's what we're dealing with here. And so the point I tried to make is, all these different sectors have to get together and inform one big civic movement. And it can't be political. It's not Democrats versus Republicans. It's not left versus right. It's institutions versus the destruction of our institutions of civilization.
And if you look down through history, there have been social movements, these kinds of civic uprising that have succeeded. They have banded together across sectors. They have a clear, simple message that appeals to a lot of different people. They use things like lawsuits, protests, boycotts, all sorts of things, strikes, anything they can do.
But, basically, if you're head of a law firm or a university, any of these institutions, you're dealing with administrations, it's just about raw power. So the question you have to ask yourself is, how do we amass power so they're not dividing us, so we're dividing them? And that is a mass uprising.
And the one turning point, if you look even at the civil rights movement, when you do a nonviolent protest and the people on the other side attack you with violence, that tends to weaken them. And then suddenly you're dividing them, some, obviously.
And so this is the kind of way we have to think, that it's time not just to think, well, maybe he will look at the other guy. It's time we're all involved, we're all in this together, and we're going to amass power together.
