The Media Hall Monitors repeatedly tell us that CBS’s New editorial direction is Trump-adjacent and “MAGA-friendly.” This is, of course, a shameless exaggeration most recently belied by a weird Sunday Morning report that injected climate change into the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.
Watch as climate reporter David Schecter and glaciologist Eric Steig close out the report by speculating about what Washington might say upon returning to the Delaware River in 2026, before CBS beats you over the head again with a still image mourning President Trump’s repeal of the EPA endangerment finding.
Further proof that the Media Hall Monitors' breathless incantations of CBS News being "MAGA-aligned" is absolute nonsense: a Sunday Morning item linking George Washington's crossing of the Delaware with climate change pic.twitter.com/DpOYkNEcIl
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 15, 2026
ERIC STEIG: You're breathing a little bit of the air that George Washington breathed.
DAVID SCHECTER: Those bubbles contain carbon dioxide, a gas that helps regulate Earth's temperature. And for 800,000 years the carbon levels found in ice cores have gone up and down, but never above this line- not until around 1800, when they started to take off.
What changed at that point to make that spike?
STEIG: We began burning fossil fuels, and we're doing it really fast.
SCHECTER: Since the Industrial Revolution, which began around the time of the American Revolution, our cars, factories, and power plants have been burning oil and gas and emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide. That has led to warmer temperatures, which can intensify extreme floods, droughts and fires.
STEIG: Seems to me it's good for people to understand things have changed, and will continue to change, and have an understanding of what to expect going forward.
SCHECTER: So, it turns out, around the time Washington looked out on the icy Delaware, there were two important pictures coming into focus: One, the story of America; the other, the beginnings of climate change. And both continue to shape our world.
I kind of like to think about George Washington showing back up in 2026 and saying-
STEIG: What have you done?
SCHECTER: Because it was pretty different!
STEIG: Yeah. He would. You pluck somebody from that time period, they would see things having changed quite dramatically.
This is the conclusion arrived at after about five minutes of very weakly linking Washington to climate change. The unspoken premise hanging over the report is, of course, that Washington would’ve not caught the British by surprise had the Delaware River not been iced at the time of the famous Christmas crossing: a weirdly-framed “what-if.”
But Washington did not have the luxury of wondering what the Delaware River might look like two hundred and fifty years after crossing it. Washington did not have the luxury of speculating how climate change might affect his military strategy a quarter of a millenia after the fact.
No commander does, but this is the rhetorical duct tape and bailing wire with which CBS injects climate propaganda into our observance of America’s 250th birthday. For all the talk about editorial changes at CBS, there is still a long way to go.
Click “expand” to view the full transcript of the aforementioned report as aired on CBS Sunday Morning on February 15th, 2026:
JANE PAULEY: 250 years ago George Washington made his daring crossing of the icy Delaware River, turning the tide of the Revolutionary War. But all these years later, would Washington even recognize the river he crossed? On this Presidents' Day weekend, environmental correspondent David Schecter has a tale of these United States- then and now.
DAVID SCHECTER: Spend some time staring at the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, and you can't miss the ice. It's everywhere.
How did cold weather become part of the strategy of that night?
ALEX ROBB: It does a lot to impede the crossing and endangers the whole operation, but it actually becomes our shield."
SCHECTER: Alex Robb is an educator at Washington Crossing Historic Park outside Philadelphia, which marks the anniversary each year. Robb says at the end of 1776, after a string of losses, Washington's army was on the verge of collapse. But on Christmas, with ice forming in the Delaware River, the enemy assumed it was too dangerous for the Americans to cross.
They were wrong. And the cold weather handed Washington the element of surprise. His victory at Trenton was a sign that the war could still be won.
ROBB: Looking back, had the weather proven more mild, they most definitely would've encountered resistance outside Trenton. A few minutes can really make the difference between winning and losing a battle.
SCHECTER: And a few degrees, too, probably.
ROBB: And a few degrees. Absolutely.
At the time, Americans were used to colder winters. We know that from things like Thomas Jefferson's meticulous, handwritten weather records. But since then, winter has gotten warmer.
JEN BRADY: Ever since Washington was here, there has been a steady increase.
SCHECTER: Jen Brady is a data analyst at the science non-profit Climate Central. Their research shows that average winter temperatures in the Philadelphia area have gone up and down over the years. But overall, they are now 5.5 degrees warmer than they were in 1970.
Today is cold and it's snowy, right.
BRADY: It’s cold, yeah.
SCHECTER: How can we say that things are changing when it looks like winter?
BRADY: It will continue to snow. There will continue to be cold in cold places. But there will be less of it.
SCHECTER: The best evidence of our changing climate comes from ice cores – long tubes of ice extracted out of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. Eric Steig is a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
ERIC STEIG: This piece contains 1776, and probably a little bit of 1775.
SCHECTER: Really? So this ice basically goes back to when Washington was around?
STEIG: Yup.
SCHECTER: Amazing.
Inside ice cores are perfectly-preserved air bubbles. The deeper you drill, the older the bubbles.
STEIG: It's this sort of magical way of going back in time. It's a time machine.
SCHECTER: The white dots are air bubbles.
STEIG: Yeah. So, like, you're breathing a little bit of the air that George Washington breathed.
SCHECTER: Those bubbles contain carbon dioxide, a gas that helps regulate Earth's temperature. And for 800,000 years the carbon levels found in ice cores have gone up and down, but never above this line- not until around 1800, when they started to take off.
What changed at that point to make that spike?
STEIG: We began burning fossil fuels, and we're doing it really fast.
SCHECTER: Since the Industrial Revolution, which began around the time of the American Revolution, our cars, factories, and power plants have been burning oil and gas and emitting massive amounts of carbon dioxide. That has led to warmer temperatures, which can intensify extreme floods, droughts and fires.
STEIG: Seems to me it's good for people to understand things have changed, and will continue to change, and have an understanding of what to expect going forward.
SCHECTER: So, it turns out, around the time Washington looked out on the icy Delaware, there were two important pictures coming into focus: One, the story of America; the other, the beginnings of climate change. And both continue to shape our world.
I kind of like to think about George Washington showing back up in 2026 and saying-
STEIG: What have you done?
SCHECTER: Because it was pretty different!
STEIG: Yeah. He would. You pluck somebody from that time period, they would see things having changed quite dramatically.
