Leftist journalists and celebrities have dialed up the crazy to 11.
The Nation’s Elie Mystal declared America to be the “bad guys” on the world stage and called for sanctions. ABC’s (now fired) senior national correspondent Terry Moran insulted presidential advisor Stephen Miller, as he labeled him a “world-class hater” who was the “brains behind Trumpism.”
This past month also saw former MSNBC host Joy Reid claim that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was rounding up “brown people” to put into his “concentration camp.”
The likes of Lawrence O’Donnell spun the L.A. protest as calm with the MSNBC host insisting there was no “violent mob” and they were all “peaceful.”
Celebrities went loony as well. ABC’s The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg asserted that being black in America was worse than living in Iran today. Actor Mark Ruffalo vented that “King” Donald Trump was “trampling on our rights.”
The following are the most obnoxious outbursts from journalists and celebrities from the past month:
America Needs to Be Sanctioned, “We Are the Bad Guys”
“Our country needs to be sanctioned, we are the bad guys on the world stage. We are a menace to not only free people everywhere, but we are a menace to peaceful people everywhere.….We have to be stopped through the same kind of means that we have that our country and others have used to rebuke a North Korea or a China or name a rogue state, we are the rogue state, and other countries need to start treating us like that.”
— The Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal on The Joy Reid Show podcast, June 28.
“World-Class Hater” Stephen Miller is the “Brains Behind Trumpism”
“The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”
— June 8 X.com post by then-ABC senior national correspondent Terry Moran. Moran was later fired by ABC News.
Ron DeSantis Is Rounding Up “Brown People” To Put In His “Concentration Camp”
“We tried to forget about him, but Ron DeSantis is still governor of Florida. He took the Comfy Couch hosts on a tour of the concentration camp that he’s building in Florida in order to round up people, brown people, and throw them in a camp because he doesn’t want them in Florida.”
— Former MSNBC host Joy Reid on The Joy Reid Show podcast, June 28.
End of USAID Could Lead to “14 Million Deaths”
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hailing the end of USAID, the nation’s largest foreign aid agency, even as a new analysis finds that its closure could contribute to some 14 million deaths in the next five years.”
— Anchor Boris Sanchez on CNN News Central, July 1.
Republicans Are Afraid That “Being Human” Will Get Them on Wrong Side of Trump
“There’s been silence, crickets, because they’re [Republicans] afraid of doing the right thing, of being human, will get them on the wrong side of the President of the United States. Folks should be very concerned about that.”
— Washington Post associate editor/PBS contributor Jonathan Capehart on PBS’ News Hour, June 20.
“No Mandate” For Trump’s “Proto-Fascism”
“You had on the one hand, the military parade that wasn’t, there was no goose stepping, none of that. And then you had 5 million people in demonstrations around the country against what President Trump is doing. What it brought to mind to me was a number that, that Joe Scarborough mentioned earlier, 1.5%. That was the margin between the 77 million votes that Donald Trump got and the 75 million that Kamala Harris got. And it’s not this overwhelming mandate for proto-fascism.”
— MSNBC analyst Eugene Robinson on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 17.
Conservative SCOTUS Triggering “Chaos” Across the Country
“This [Supreme Court limiting lower courts’ ability to issue nation-wide injunctions] sounds like a giant win for the Trump administration and could likely trigger chaos now, across the country.”
— Host Ana Cabrera on MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera Reports, June 27.
Trump Wants to Suspend Elections
“He [Keith Ellison] brought up on his own the rumor that the president was going to pardon Derek Chauvin. And the attorney general said that the president might do that as a distraction to larger goals….To create the conditions that would allow the president to invoke the Insurrection Act. And once the president invokes the Insurrection Act, all sorts of powers are handed to the president, you know, suspending elections, and other things once you open that box.”
— Washington Post editor/PBS contributor Jonathan Capehart on PBS’s News Hour, June 13.
Worried About Donald Trump and Stephen Miller “Monkeying Around with the Midterms”
“Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country?...This is scary shit.”
— Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta to former Bill Clinton strategist James Carville on The Jim Acosta Show podcast, July 1.
Jim Acosta’s Conspiracy Theory: Trump Wanted to “Crack Some Skulls” at Parade
“This feels like the beginning of something that is building in this country, and Donald Trump, he laid this trap, he set out this mouse trap, he put the bait on it. He was hoping that protesters would show up [at parade honoring the U.S. Army] and that there would be a confrontation and that they could go in there and crack some skulls because that’s what he wants. He wants those images playing on Fox and in conservative media and by and large it seems the protesters did not give Trump what he wanted.”
— Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta on The Contrarian podcast, June 16.
Trump’s “Kim Jong-Un Birthday Parade”
“The President of the United States is a danger to this country. Full stop….Even people from the Republican party were afraid to show up at his birthday parade, the dictator Kim Jong-Un birthday parade that he tried to have….One of the images I took away from the weekend that really stayed with me were those military veterans....who had fought in World War II who said, ‘we defeated fascism the last time. I’m here to do it this time.’”
— Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta at C-SPAN Center for American Progress Event, June 17.
ICE Should Raid Mar-A-Lago
“Where are the ICE raids at the Trump properties, you know, Mar-a-Lago?...Can somebody call ICE on the Trump golf course in Virginia? You’re telling me there’s nobody in there that is undocumented or has some kind of squirreliness going on with their paperwork….How many immigrants has he married? He’s got one buried at his golf course in New Jersey. Isn’t she buried by the first hole or the second tee or something like that?...Immigrants, always doing the jobs that Americans don’t want to do.”
— Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta on The Contrarian podcast, June 16.
Trump “Hates” America
“The question I would ask [Donald Trump] is this, ‘Why do you hate the Hispanic people of this country? Why do you hate the Latino people of this country?’...He actually hates what America is becoming. And if he hates the fact that we’re becoming a more diverse, more loving, more together country, then that I think is at the heart of where we are right now and that’s what we’re up against. We’re up against somebody who hates the future of America.”
— Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta on The Contrarian podcast, June 16.
KABC Reporter On L.A. Riots: “Just a Bunch of People Having Fun, Watching Cars Burn”
“It could turn very volatile if you move law enforcement in there in the wrong way and turn what is just a bunch of people having fun, watching cars burn into a massive confrontation and altercation between officers and demonstrators.”
— KABC anchor Jory Rand during live coverage of Los Angeles riots, June 8.
L.A. is “Pretty Quiet, Festival-Like,” Except for Those Flashbangs!
“So the scene here has been pretty quiet, almost festival-like, for the last hour or so. We just heard a flashbang. We just heard another one. This is kind of how it's been going. This is what we saw last night. Of course, we mentioned some looting, but, in general, last night was pretty nonviolent standoff”\
— Special correspondent Marcia Biggs on PBS’s News Hour, June 10.
Lawrence O’Donnell: There is No “Violent Mob” In L.A.
“There is no vicious and violent mob in Los Angeles. The National Guard troops are doing absolutely nothing. The Marines are invisible and obviously doing absolutely nothing. And peaceful protesters have been peacefully submitting to arrests in small numbers to make their point of protest against what Donald Trump is trying to do in their city.”
— Host Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s The Last Word, June 10.
L.A. Riots Are Just “Gatherings” That Require Less Security Than The Oscars
“These gatherings, to be clear, although there are some dramatic moments in footage, just by the scale, and we’ve covered this and we have our reporters on the ground there, these gatherings are not anywhere near Los Angeles’ largest security challenges, from championship celebrations to the city’s Oscars or the Grammys.”
— Host Ari Melber on MSNBC’s The Beat, June 10.
Juan Williams Compares Federal Agents in L.A. to “Gestapo”
“I don’t think the protestors should wear masks and I don’t think anybody with federal authority representing the American people should be in a mask. That reeks of a – you know - Gestapo-type authority.”
— Senior political analyst Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday With Shannon Bream, June 8.
Celebrating U.S. Army’s Birthday Is Something North Korea and Russia Would Do
“The optics at issue too for an American democracy. Military pageantry like this typically seen in places like North Korea and Russia.”
— Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell on parade honoring the United States Army’s 250th birthday on NBC Nightly News, June 13.
There Was a “Friendliness” To Iranians Who Chanted “Death to America”
“I remember, Dana, at one point being in Tehran years ago and they’re chanting death to America all around me, even as I say, ‘Oh, I’m an American, reporting for CNN.’ And they were happy to speak to me, so those two sort of jarring realities of the chant and yet, the friendliness have existed together.”
— Erin Burnett on CNN’s Inside Politics with Dana Bash, June 24.
Bob Costas: There Aren’t Two Sides To Every Story, See Trump
“There really isn’t two sides to much of what Donald Trump represents….If someone is contending that the earth is flat. In order to appear objective, you are not required to say, ‘Well, maybe it might be oblong.’ No it’s not. Certain things are just, true and regrettably, something that’s true in America right now is that the President of the United States has absolutely no regard, and in fact, has contempt for basic American principles and basic common decency.”
— Sportscaster Bob Costas at Syracuse University’s 2025 Mirror Awards, June 9.
Promoting George Clooney’s “Red Scare” Play to Attack Trump’s “Climate of Fear”
“CNN is airing the first-ever live Broadway play, Good Night and Good Luck. Actor George Clooney plays legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow. And this is when Murrow took on Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led the Red Scare, that time when Americans were accused of being communist sympathizers or doing things they didn’t do, often without evidence. And some of that feels familiar in this time when universities, law firms, yes, even newsrooms, have been targeted in very specific ways.”
— Host Audie Cornish on CNN This Morning, June 6.
“The parallels are downright eerie. We are talking about the exact same themes today that [Edward R.] Murrow was experiencing in the 1950s. Journalistic courage in an age in a climate of fear, corporate leaders, perhaps being timid, not sure how to handle government pressure, whether to stand up or back down.”
— CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter before CNN’s airing of George Clooney’s Broadway play “Good Night and Good Luck,” June 7.
Whoopi Goldberg: It’s Worse to Be Black in America Than Live in Iran
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin: “I think it’s very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is in Iran.”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “Not if you’re black!”
— ABC’s The View, June 18.
ICE Agents Are Just “Following Orders” Like Nazis in “1938”
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin: “I think it’s very important to remember it’s a commander-in-chief that’s made these decisions. They’re following the orders.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “Yeah. Think back, y’all. Where have you heard that before?”
Co-host Joy Behar: “1938!”
Goldberg: “‘I’m just following orders. By my commander-in-chief.’”
— ABC’s The View, June 11.
Trump’s “Fascism”
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg: “Are we about state’s rights? Are we about keeping people in or out? Are you out because you got here in a different way because you fled the nation you lived in and maybe you were able to get in and now you’ve been trying to stay and doing it right and you’re still getting thrown out? So what is it? Is this just pure fascism that's happening? Is this what’s going on?
Co-host Sunny Hostin: “Well, there are indications of fascism.”
— ABC’s The View, June 9.
“Like Many Dictators” Trump Wants “State-Sponsored Television”
“I think he [Donald Trump] is much more comfortable — like many dictators and many authoritarians — with state-sponsored television. When you go to a place like Russia, and I’ve actually been to Russia, you watch television, you watch television in mainland China, you can’t trust what you’re hearing. And I think he is much more comfortable in that kind of space.”
— Co-host Sunny Hostin on ABC’s The View, June 26.
Diego Luna: I Don’t Understand How Trump’s “Hate Speech” Took Root In This Country
“I have never been able to fully understand how it is that someone like Donald Trump is able to acquire this level of power. I always struggle to understand how his hate speech can take root in a country whose nature has always been a welcoming one.”
— Actor Diego Luna substitute hosting on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, June 23.
Kathy’s Crackpot Conspiracy Theory
“I do not think Trump won in a free and fair election. I believe there was tampering. I don’t know if it was the Elon [Musk] connection. I don’t know if it was just a few good old boys in the South.”
— Comedian Kathy Griffin on The Don Lemon Show podcast, June 7.
“King” Trump Is “Trampling On Our Rights”
“Donald Trump and the administration of billionaires, crackpots, and ICE brigades have taken over. We have a king and his court and his beige henchmen, and they’re trampling on our rights and our laws and our freedoms, making themselves richer with taxpayer dollars and making us less safe with their love of other kings and dictators and the likes of [Vladimir] Putin and [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Kim Jong Un of the world.”|
— Actor Mark Ruffalo at “No Kings” protest in New York City, June 14.
Jon Stewart Calls ABC a “Joke” For Firing Terry Moran
“They [ABC News] shouldn’t have fired him [Terry Moran]….Every day on Fox News, they’re taking stuff out of context, or their people are saying utterly vicious things about Democratic politicians and all kinds of other things. The entire thing is because ABC clings to this façade that they somehow exist in a bubble outside of all of this. It’s a joke. They’re a fucking joke.”
— Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s The Weekly Show podcast, June 12.
George Clooney: “McCarthyism” is Worse Now, Under Trump
Actor George Clooney: “What’s fun about the play [Good Night and Good Luck] is, although McCarthyism was bad, it wasn’t anywhere near as pervasive as it is right now. The kind of fear that you see kind of stretching through law firms and universities.
Host Anderson Cooper: “You think it’s worse now than McCarthy’s time?”
Clooney: “I do think it is worse now.”— CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, June 3.
