Friday, July 4, 2025

The Real Zohran Mamdani Is Completely Different From the Endless BIG LIES Being Told About Him And What He Represents And Embodies As Human Being, Grass Roots Activist, and Public Official Running For the Office Of Mayor of New York City

 
Why Are National Democrats Attacking Zohran Mamdani?
It’s Not Because He Threatens Jews. It’s Because He Believes Palestinian Lives Matter.

June 30, 2025


Every week I link to the GoFundMe page for Hossam and Mariam Alzweidi, who live in Gaza with their four children and have been injured by Israeli bombs and displaced ten times since October 7, and are trying to leave. I know putting up a Go Fund Me for one family is totally inadequate given the scale of the horror in Gaza, and the millions of people there who need our help— and most of all, need an end to this monstrous slaughter. Still, it’s something.

On June 24, Hossam sent the following message:

Today, I had the heart-wrenching experience of carrying my injured son, Mu’ayyad, through the rubble-strewn streets to the Ministry of Health headquarters. With the bombings intensifying around us, even reaching the building felt like a small miracle.

At the Ministry, the head of the Overseas Treatment Department examined Mu’ayyad. His words shattered us: Mu’ayyad’s injuries are extensive and life-threatening. He urgently needs surgery and specialized care that are simply not available here in Gaza.

While others in our family were also injured in the blast in 2024 and need medical attention, Mu’ayyad’s condition is far more severe. When the bomb hit, he was standing closest to the window—facing it—while the others had their backs turned. He absorbed the full force of the explosion, and his body bears the deepest wounds.

Yet in the midst of despair, there is a glimmer of hope. The department has arranged for Mu’ayyad—and another child in serious condition—to meet with a specialist doctor. This appointment is critical. The doctor’s assessment will help determine whether we can complete Form No. 1, required to seek urgent treatment abroad.

My wife, Miriam, our children, and I are holding on to this hope with all that we have. We are waiting to hear the appointment date, God willing. Each day, I reach out to everyone involved, praying for positive developments that could lead to a brighter future for Mu'ayyad. It aches to see him enduring these terrible injuries, and I pray that God grants him the strength and patience he needs during this incredibly tough time. Your support means a great deal to us; it fuels our determination to keep moving forward. Your presence inspires us as we strive to overcome this tragedy and seek the medical help that we urgently need.

Please considering helping.

Friday Zoom Call

This Friday’s Zoom call, for paid subscribers, will be at our regular time, 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Brad Lander, the Jewish City Comptroller of New York, and mayoral candidate, who cross-endorsed Zohran Mamdani and helped propel him to victory. In my opinion, Lander’s behavior modeled what a decent Jewish politics in America might look like. We’ll talk about Mamdani, the responses of Jewish New Yorkers to his victory, and why Lander did what he did.

Cited in Today’s Video

Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Democratic members of Congress Eric Swallwell and Laura Gillen attack Zohran Mamdani.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with.)

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Mari Cohen details how, across the US, support for Palestinian freedom became considered a hate crime.

For the Jewish Currents podcast, I talked with Arielle Angel, Mari Cohen, and Alex Kane about how Zohran Mamdani defeated the pro-Israel machine.

For the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Occupied Thoughts podcast, I interviewed Iranian-American journalist Negar Mortazavi.

Muhammad Shehada on the ISIS-related gangs Israel is backing in Gaza.

See you on Monday and Friday,

Peter


VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So, what’s been really depressing to me about the response to Zohran Mamdani’s victory kind of in mainstream media discussion, particularly on TV, is not the response of Republicans. I mean, many Republicans have been kind of blatantly Islamophobic. But in the era of Donald Trump, why would anyone be surprised, you know, by that? It’s really the response by Democrats, and the kind of the conversations between Democrats in mainstream, not right-wing political anchors, on TV that I find really most dispiriting. Because the only thing that they’re interested in when it comes to the subject of Israel is Mamdani’s, you know, statements about globalize the intifada.

Now, again, if you do an interview and you only talk to people about Mamdani’s, you know, record about New York, I think that’s legitimate. I mean, the guy ran on making New York affordable. But if you’re going to ask Democrats about things having to do with his views on Israel, right, how on earth is it justified to have the only thing that you ask about, his claim about globalizing the intifada? For the record, I don’t think his answer in that Bulwark interview on globalize the intifada was a good answer. The thing about intifada is that it’s an ambiguous term. It can mean non-violent uprising. It can mean violent uprising against soldiers. It can mean a violent uprising against civilians, which is a war crime, a violation of international law. Mamdani doesn’t know how other people are using the term. He should have just said that the term can be inverted in, you know, that’s not my term, here’s what I believe, and talk about his belief in nonviolence and his belief in inequality.

But to claim that Zohran Mamdani represents a threat to Jewish New Yorkers, is just ridiculous, right? I mean, if you just listen to what the guy has said in any kind of good faith, he’s again and again and again and again said he wants to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe. He’s talked about how serious antisemitism is as a problem. He talked about increasing funding to fight hate crimes by 800%, right? So, yes, there’s anti-Semitism. But Zora Mamdani does not pose a threat to Jewish New Yorkers, and most Jewish New Yorkers actually really know that, which is part of the reason why Mamdani’s actually done pretty well, according to polls among Jewish New Yorkers.

The people whose lives are in grave threat, who are threatened by a state, right, are Palestinians in Gaza, right? It’s not on the front page of the news anymore, but Palestinians continue to be slaughtered, actually an escalating numbers, right? The slaughter goes on and on, the bombing goes on and on, it’s just more and more hellish. It becomes more and more hellish every single day. So, how on earth, if you are a Democratic politician, like these Democrats who were asked about Mamdani, like Jefferies, and Gillibrand, and Swalwell, this Congressman from California, this Congresswoman from Nassau County on Long Island, how on earth can you justify making your one comment about this question, about Israel, being the question of kind of attacking Mamdani for globalize the Intifada, right?

And if you’re a news anchor, right, because the Democratic Party claims to believe that human lives are equal, right? It’s not like the Republican Party. It claims to believe that human lives are equal, right? And if you’re a mainstream news anchor who, again, also supposedly operates within some kind of broadly liberal framework, how can you justify having the one question you ask which relates to Israel and Palestine be this question about global the intifada, when you have an active slaughter going on, which has now been ruled a genocide by both of the world’s most prominent human rights organizations in different ways, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Again, I’m gonna keep repeating this, because it doesn’t seem to get through, right? I mean, like, in mainstream media. And basically, by most of the international legal scholars who focus on this. The Dutch newspaper NRC basically went out and interviewed a whole bunch of them, including Israelis. They all said it’s now a genocide.

If you believe in human equality, how could you possibly justify asking about globalize the intifada and not asking about this catastrophic, genocidal starvation and slaughter. What it suggests is an assumption, right, which is so hardwired that I guess these people, these politicians, and these media figures are not even thinking about it, right, that Jewish lives matter infinitely more, right, than Palestinian lives. And that’s a racist assumption, right? It’s also an assumption that fundamentally violates my understanding of Jewish tradition, which starts with the recognition that all human beings, all human beings, irrespective of religion, race, ethnicity, anything, have infinite value because they’re created in the image of God. And these democratic politicians should face some consequence, some political cost, for engaging in what is this fundamentally supremacist, racist discourse, which imagines that Palestinian lives don’t matter.

And these media anchors should really have to wrestle with their consciences about the fact that they are participating in this. No one is forcing them to have the only question they ask which deals with Israel and Palestine and Gaza, be a question about globalize the intifada. Again, if you asked four questions about what’s actually happening to Palestinians, and one question about globalizing Intifada, fine. But to not ask anything to politicians who are actually in Congress, who are in a position to do something about it, about America’s role in providing weapons in an act of genocide, right, it’s just fundamentally immoral. And it’s so depressing to see how this just perpetuates itself on, kind of, mindless autopilot, as if all of this death, all of this killing, all of this starvation, it just doesn’t register, it doesn’t matter because the lives of Palestinians are not considered to matter. And this is part of the reason Zohran Mamdani is different, and he broke through, is because he actually acts as if they did matter. I just wish we had a Democratic Party and a mainstream media that agreed.
 
Democrats Are PANICKING Over Mamdani's Win (w/ David Sirota)



Veteran journalist, founder of Lever, & former Bernie 2020 speech writer David Sirota returns to Bad Faith to confront a quickly emerging consensus among centrist politicos: "we were right all along." Now that the energy is behind a charming Socialist mayoral candidate, the Pod Save bros, Abundance Libs, & MSNBC "progressives" are all rushing to offer explanations for why Zohran Mamdani won that downplay his substantive politics, and elide the fact that for years, they've supported candidates that are the antithesis of Zohran while claiming that a move to the center is the only way to win. Sirota, who has long been an advocate for more adversarial politics, pushes back against efforts by the center-left to co-opt Zohran's win, and breaks down how it happened with Briahna Joy Gray. 

Subscribe to Bad Faith on YouTube for video of this episode. Find Bad Faith on Twitter (@badfaithpod) and Instagram (@badfaithpod). Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands)
 

Zohran Mamdani BASHES ICE, Trump, and Cuomo


June 18, 2025 
 

 
Just days away from New York City’s mayoral election primary, the socialist underdog who could win it all, Zohran Mamdani, joins Mehdi Hasan in a livestream on YouTube and Substack to answer questions from Mehdi and Zeteo subscribers on the state of the race. This video was first livestreamed to Zeteo subscribers, then published earlier on Zeteo.com. If YOU want to ask questions to Mehdi and exciting special guests at our next Town Hall Q&A, be sure to subscribe to our Substack: https://zeteo.com/subscribe Mehdi and Mamdani discuss the different factors at play in his race for mayor, including what he calls “Islamophobic campaigning” by former governor and Democratic frontrunner Andrew Cuomo. “To go to the extent of designing a mailer that artificially lengthens a beard, it is just part of a larger record that Andrew Cuomo has where he refused to visit a single mosque in the more than 10 years he led this state.” Watch the full video to hear Mamdani’s response to criticism from The New York Times, whether he’ll run as an independent if he loses the primary, if he would endorse Cuomo, and his reaction to the arrest of New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander by masked ICE agents.

Subscribe to Zeteo to support independent and unfiltered journalism: https://zeteo.com/subscribe 


 
 
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Thursday, July 3, 2025

FASCIST AMERICA 2025: How the Criminally Corrupt, Deeply Unhinged, and Violently Pathological Trump Regime in Collusion With Massive Corporate Institutions Is Systematically Destroying the Country With No End in Sight

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/us/politics/justice-department-rioter-weaponization.html

Pardoned January 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.

The pardoned rioter, a former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol, is a counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called weaponization committee.

Listen to this article · 4:41 minutes

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The selection of Jared L. Wise means a man who had urged violence against police officers on Jan. 6 is now responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable. Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times

by Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman
July 1, 2025
New York Times

A former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers has been named as an adviser to the Justice Department task force that President Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies.

The former agent, Jared L. Wise, is serving as a counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, according to people familiar with the group’s activities.

Mr. Martin, a longtime supporter of Jan. 6 defendants, was put in charge of the weaponization group in May after Mr. Trump withdrew his name for a Senate-confirmed position as the U.S. attorney in Washington. His nomination faltered in part because of the work he had done as an advocate and defense lawyer for people charged in connection with the Capitol attack.

Even in a Justice Department that has often been pressed into serving Mr. Trump’s political agenda, the appointment of Mr. Wise to the weaponization task force was a remarkable development. His selection meant that a man who had urged violence against police officers was now responsible for the department’s official effort to exact revenge against those who had tried to hold the rioters accountable.

It remains unclear exactly what role Mr. Wise will play as Mr. Martin’s adviser. But one person familiar with the working group’s activities said that Mr. Martin was proud to have Mr. Wise on his team, adding that there was no better person to serve on the weaponization task force than someone who had experienced the federal government being weaponized against him.

If “we could genetically design an adviser” to Mr. Martin, the person said, he would look like Mr. Wise.

Mr. Wise was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers. Credit: Department of Justice

When federal prosecutors initially charged Mr. Wise in May 2023, they accused him of telling the police outside the Capitol that they were like the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s feared secret police. As violence erupted, his charging document said, he told other rioters who were attacking law enforcement officers, “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

Mr. Wise then raised his arms in celebration after breaching the Capitol in a face mask, prosecutors said, and escaped through a window.

The case against him was dismissed on Mr. Trump’s first day back in office as part of the sprawling grant of clemency the president gave to all of the nearly 1,600 people who took part in the Capitol attack. Mr. Trump’s act of mercy came at an especially significant moment for Mr. Wise: When his indictment was thrown out, he was in the middle of his criminal trial in Federal District Court in Washington.

Mr. Wise worked on public corruption and counterterrorism matters at the F.B.I. field offices in Washington and New York. He was briefly detailed to Israel, where he worked with the Palestinian Authority, and to Libya, where he helped agents investigate the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Mr. Wise left the bureau after his supervisors in New York became unhappy with his work, and his career had stalled, a former senior F.B.I. official said.

Mr. Wise later joined the conservative group Project Veritas under the supervision of a former British spy, Richard Seddon, who had been recruited by the security contractor Erik Prince to train operatives to infiltrate trade unions, Democratic congressional campaigns and other targets.

At Project Veritas, according to a former employee with direct knowledge of his employment, Mr. Wise used the code name Benghazi and trained at the Prince family ranch in Wyoming with other recruits. Mr. Wise was among a group of Project Veritas operatives assigned to infiltrate teacher unions in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Kentucky, according to the former employee. Mr. Seddon oversaw the operation.

The Weaponization Working Group was created in February, not long after Mr. Trump returned to the White House, purportedly to root out “abuses of the criminal justice process” by local and federal law enforcement officers.

But as its name suggested, the investigative body was also an example of how Justice Department, under Mr. Trump’s leadership, planned to weaponize its expansive powers to investigate and perhaps take legal action against people who had run afoul of the president.

According to a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi, one of the group’s missions was to look into the “improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions” arising from the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the Capitol attack. 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.

Adam Goldman writes about the F.B.I. and national security for The Times. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.

See more on: U.S. Politics, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Justice Department, Donald Trump, Pamela J Bondi


The Latest on the Trump Administration:


Trump and the Supreme Court's War on Birthright Citizenship ft. Sherrilyn Ifill | The Joy Reid Show



The Joy Reid Show

July 1, 2025

#ImmigrationTruth #RufoHypocrisy #UndocumentedVoices

VIDEO: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQf5m74NFPQ


Joy Reid’s explosive breakdown exposes how the Supreme Court’s latest ruling cracks open the door for Donald Trump to strip citizenship on a whim — and it’s all rooted in the same white nationalist playbook. A Tennessee Republican wants a naturalized citizen deported over rap lyrics. A Texas man, born on a U.S. Army base, is shackled and dumped in Jamaica — a country he’s never even seen. And now, thanks to a right-wing court gutting nationwide injunctions, Trump’s push to kill birthright citizenship just got real.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/january-6-rioter-justice-department-jared-l-wise

US Capitol attack
 
Former January 6 defendant now advising justice department’s ‘weaponization working group’

Jared L Wise, who allegedly called for police to be killed at US Capitol, had his case dropped in Trump’s clemency order

US politics live – latest updates


Trump supporters riot at the US Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images US Capitol attack

by Rachel Leingang
2 July 2025
The Guardian (UK) 

A former FBI agent who allegedly shouted “kill ’em!” at law enforcement officers during the January 6 insurrection is now advising a “weaponization working group” in the Trump justice department, a sign of the elevated role rioters are playing since they were granted clemency by the president.

Jared L Wise has been named an adviser or counselor to Ed Martin, the advocate for January 6ers who was previously acting as US attorney for Washington DC and is now leading the weaponization working group, the New York Times and ABC News reported on Tuesday. The contours of Wise’s role are not clear.

The move is a further embrace by the Trump administration of those who stormed the US Capitol in 2021 seeking to overturn Trump’s electoral loss and shows how fundamentally the justice department has shifted on January 6 since Trump won last November, tailoring itself to his retribution agenda.

The justice department’s prosecution of Wise was under way when Trump took office in January, so it was one of many cases that were dismissed before a verdict. He had been charged with two felonies and four misdemeanors, and he had pleaded not guilty.

On his first day in office, Trump granted clemency to all who were convicted or charged for their roles in the January 6 riot, including those charged with violent acts.

The justice department, under the Biden administration, had identified Wise in footage inside the US Capitol and engaging with police among a group of protesters outside. Video footage from a Metropolitan police department body camera showed Wise saying to police officers: “You guys are disgusting. I’m former – I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can’t see it … Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

The department’s press release on Wise notes that once violence broke out against law enforcement officers in front of him, Wise said, “Yeah, fuck them! Yeah, kill ’em!” and then, in the direction of people who were attacking the police line: “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

Before attending the January 6 riot, he was an FBI special agent and supervisory special agent from 2004 to 2017, according to the justice department. He was also an operative for the rightwing media outlet Project Veritas, where he was “assigned to infiltrate teacher unions in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Kentucky”, according to the New York Times.

The justice department’s weaponization working group was set up in February to analyze instances in the previous four years in which “a department’s or agency’s conduct appears to have been designed to achieve political objectives or other improper aims rather than pursuing justice or legitimate governmental objectives”, according to a memo announcing it. This includes the investigations into Trump, prosecutions of January 6 defendants, anti-abortion protests and supposed anti-Catholic bias.

Martin, whose nomination to become the US attorney for DC was withdrawn after it became unclear how he could secure confirmation, is a vocal and frequent advocate for January 6 defendants. Stanley Woodward, who had defended people involved in the insurrection and many others in Trump’s orbit over the years, is now in the No 3 position in the justice department, associate attorney general.

Explore more on these topics

US Capitol attack
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Paramount to Pay Trump $16 Million to Settle ‘60 Minutes’ Lawsuit

President Trump had sued over an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. The company needs federal approval for a multibillion-dollar sale.

Listen to this article · 7:48 minutes

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President Trump sued Paramount for $10 billion last year, claiming that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in order to interfere with the election. Credit: Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

by Benjamin MullinMichael M. GrynbaumLauren Hirsch and David Enrich

July 2, 2025

New York Times


Leer en español


Paramount said late Tuesday that it had agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over the editing of an interview on the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” an extraordinary concession to a sitting president by a major media organization.

Paramount said its payment included Mr. Trump’s legal fees and costs and that the money, minus the legal fees, would be paid to Mr. Trump’s future presidential library.

As part of the settlement, Paramount said, it agreed to release written transcripts of future “60 Minutes” interviews with presidential candidates. The company said the settlement did not include an apology.

The deal is the clearest sign yet that Mr. Trump’s ability to intimidate major American institutions extends to the media industry.

Many lawyers had dismissed Mr. Trump’s lawsuit as baseless and believed that CBS would have ultimately prevailed in court, in part because the network did not report anything factually inaccurate, and the First Amendment gives publishers wide leeway to determine how to present information.

But Shari Redstone, the chair and controlling shareholder of Paramount, told her board that she favored exploring a settlement with Mr. Trump. Some executives at the company viewed the president’s lawsuit as a potential hurdle to completing a multibillion-dollar sale of the company to the Hollywood studio Skydance, which requires the Trump administration’s approval.

After weeks of negotiations with a mediator, lawyers for Paramount and Mr. Trump worked through the weekend to reach a deal ahead of a court deadline that would have required both sides to begin producing internal documents for discovery, according to two people familiar with the negotiations. Another deadline loomed: Paramount was planning to make changes to its board of directors this week that could have complicated the settlement negotiations.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team said in a statement that the settlement was “another win for the American people” delivered by the president, who was holding “the fake news media accountable.”

“CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle,” the spokesman said.

The size of the settlement, $16 million, is the same sum that ABC News agreed to pay in December to settle a defamation case filed by Mr. Trump against the network and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos. Paramount’s board was concerned that paying a higher amount to settle the case could increase the company’s exposure to potential legal actions from shareholders accusing it of bribery.

The sale of Paramount would end the Redstone family’s decades-long control of CBS News and Paramount Pictures and put them in the hands of David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, a tech billionaire who has backed Mr. Trump.

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has said the president’s lawsuit against Paramount was not linked to the F.C.C.’s review of the company’s merger with Skydance. Paramount has also said the two issues were unrelated.

Within the CBS newsroom, a prospective settlement was seen as a low moment in the near-century-long history of a network that once housed Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, whose famed rebuff of McCarthyism in the 1950s was recently depicted on the Broadway stage by George Clooney. “60 Minutes,” which pioneered on-air investigative reporting, recently completed its 51st consecutive season as the country’s most-watched news program.

Mr. Trump sued Paramount for $10 billion last year, claiming that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in order to interfere with the election.

The transcript of the interview showed that Ms. Harris gave a lengthy answer to a question about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. About 21 seconds of that answer aired in a preview of the interview on “Face the Nation,” another CBS News show. A different seven-second part of the answer aired the next day in a prime-time episode of “60 Minutes.”

Mr. Trump said in his lawsuit that CBS’s actions amounted to “news distortion” that was aimed at tipping the scales in favor of the Democratic Party. Paramount disputed that characterization.

Even before its resolution, Mr. Trump’s lawsuit — and Ms. Redstone’s apparent willingness to entertain a settlement — had engulfed CBS News in turmoil. Tensions within the network over how to handle the president’s legal attacks contributed to the resignation of the “60 Minutes” executive producer, Bill Owens; the CBS News president, Wendy McMahon, was later forced out.

Watching the case with Mr. Trump unfold, many CBS journalists believed the long-term credibility of “60 Minutes” was at stake. Scott Pelley, the veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent, said last month that any settlement would be “very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the reputation of those companies.”

Executives at CBS and Paramount applied more scrutiny than usual to segments on “60 Minutes” that could be construed as critical of the Trump administration. CBS News has not killed a story because of the pressure, but Mr. Owens, when he resigned in April, said he “would not be allowed” to make independent journalistic decisions. Ms. McMahon said when she left that it had “become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”

Ms. Redstone told the board that she was recusing herself from its discussions of how to handle the Trump suit, given that her financial stake in the pending Skydance deal is so much greater than the stakes of other shareholders, whose interests the directors are expected to represent. This spring, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and has recently been receiving treatment.

Even before her diagnosis, though, she told board members that she wanted the company to explore a settlement with Mr. Trump. Ms. Redstone has said she wants to avoid a protracted legal war with the president that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardize other divisions that have business with the government.

Ms. Redstone has also told confidants that she harbors concerns about the editorial judgment of CBS News. She has acknowledged being troubled by some of her network’s news coverage and on occasion has raised those concerns publicly and spoken to corporate leadership.

Senators like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont have warned that any payment by Paramount to Mr. Trump could be construed as a bribe, and they said they would consider holding a congressional hearing about it.

The prospect of being accused of bribery, and perhaps facing legal action because of it, had vexed Paramount’s directors, who had to weigh the corporate benefits of a settlement against the perception that they were greenlighting a deal to secure an unrelated merger.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a First Amendment group, has said it planned to file a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders against Ms. Redstone and the Paramount board in the event of a settlement; the group has retained the prominent litigator Abbe Lowell for its effort.

Paramount is planning to make changes to its board on Wednesday. Judith McHale, a long-serving director, is leaving, and the company is planning to add three new directors: Mary Boies, counsel to the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner; Charles E. Ryan, a co-founder of Almaz Capital; and Roanne Sragow Licht, an adjunct professor at Boston University.

Tyler Pager contributed reporting.

Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at benjamin.mullin@nytimes.com.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS:


Michael M. Grynbaum is a media correspondent at The Times. He is the author of "Empire of the Elite," a cultural history of Condé Nast magazines.

Lauren Hirsch is a Times reporter who covers deals and dealmakers in Wall Street and Washington.

David Enrich is a deputy investigations editor for The Times. He writes about law and business.

See more on: U.S. Politics, CBS News, Federal Communications Commission, Paramount, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/business/media/trump-paramount-cbs-60-minutes-lawsuit.html
 
For ‘60 Minutes,’ a Humbling Moment at an Uneasy Time for Press Freedom

After an astonishing concession to a sitting president, the country’s most popular television news program faces the prospect of new ownership and a chilled environment for the First Amendment.

Listen to this article · 8:02 minutes

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CBS and its parent company, Paramount, agreed to pay a $16 million settlement to President Trump to resolve a left-field lawsuit brought by the president against the news program “60 Minutes.” Credit: Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
 
by Michael M. Grynbaum and David Enrich
July 2, 2025
New York Times

For many veteran correspondents at “60 Minutes,” paying even $1 to settle a left-field lawsuit from an aggrieved president seemed too high a price.

At stake, they believed, was the long-term credibility of the country’s most decorated and most-watched television news program, a journalistic institution since 1968 that prided itself on holding elected leaders to account.

Late Tuesday, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, concluded differently. It agreed to pay $16 million so President Trump would drop a lawsuit that essentially boiled down to a politician’s gripe: that “60 Minutes” had edited an interview with his 2024 opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, in a manner that he did not like.

Many legal experts called Mr. Trump’s case frivolous and unwinnable, running counter to long-established First Amendment protections for the American press. On Wednesday, many journalists and First Amendment groups expressed dismay at the outcome.

“Today is a dark day for press freedom,” said Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation. He called Paramount’s decision “spineless” and “an invitation” for the president to target other news outlets. Two Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden, referred to the settlement as a bribe and called for an investigation and possible criminal charges.

But Paramount’s leader, Shari Redstone, viewed the situation differently and encouraged her board to explore a settlement. She was in the midst of a multibillion-dollar deal to sell Paramount to a Hollywood studio, Skydance, and the Trump administration needed to sign off.

Paramount said its decision to settle was unrelated to the Skydance sale, and the company did not issue an apology to Mr. Trump. George Cheeks, a Paramount co-chief executive, said on Wednesday that a “settlement offers a negotiated resolution to allow companies to focus on their core objectives rather than being mired in uncertainty and distraction.”

The lawsuit centered on a lengthy answer Ms. Harris gave to a question about Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. About 21 seconds of that answer aired in a preview of the interview on “Face the Nation,” another CBS News show. A different seven-second part of the answer aired the next day in a prime-time episode of “60 Minutes.”

Mr. Trump claimed that CBS’s actions misled viewers and were aimed at tipping the scales in favor of the Democratic Party. A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team said the settlement “holds the Fake News media accountable for their wrongdoing and deceit.” As part of the settlement, CBS said that “60 Minutes” would release transcripts of future interviews with presidential candidates.

The humbling of a muscular journalistic organization — arguably the best-known brand in broadcast news — might have been unthinkable eight months ago, when Mr. Trump filed his $10 billion suit against CBS days before the presidential election.

But Mr. Trump has now brought several major American institutions to heel. Ivy League universities and wealthy law firms have capitulated to a president who wields the levers of government as vehicles of retribution. Even before Mr. Trump took office, ABC News agreed to pay $16 million to settle a defamation case that the president filed against one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos.

Jeff Fager, a former CBS News chairman who ran “60 Minutes” for 14 years, said in an interview on Wednesday that the settlement “is a shame, and it’s a mistake.” He said he was concerned about how a new corporate owner might oversee his former program.

“What matters is how far they are going down the road to curtail what ‘60 Minutes’ covers, and when they air it,” Mr. Fager said.

Ms. Redstone, who inherited Paramount from her mogul father, Sumner Redstone, told her board that she was recusing herself from formal discussions on how to handle Mr. Trump’s suit. She told confidants that she wanted to avoid a protracted legal war with the president, and she has expressed her own concerns about the editorial judgment of CBS News, particularly the network’s coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Whether or not it affected her view of Mr. Trump’s lawsuit, Ms. Redstone was also eager for the Federal Communications Commission to approve her company’s sale to Skydance.

Paramount’s market value has fallen since Ms. Redstone struck the deal; if the sale falls through, she may struggle to find a new buyer.

The F.C.C. has not yet commented on the fate of Paramount’s sale; its chairman, Brendan Carr, has said previously that the regulatory review and the president’s lawsuit were unrelated. Skydance is run by David Ellison, whose father, the tech billionaire Larry Ellison, is a Trump supporter. Last month, Mr. Trump said the younger Mr. Ellison would “do a great job” as the owner of Paramount’s media assets.

One F.C.C. commissioner, Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said on Wednesday that Paramount’s settlement “marks a dangerous precedent for the First Amendment, and it should alarm anyone who values a free and independent press.”

Several media lawyers echoed that sentiment.

“A cold wind just blew through every newsroom,” said Bob Corn-Revere, a lawyer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who is defending an Iowa pollster in a separate Trump suit. “Paramount may have closed this case, but it opened the door to the idea that the government should be the media’s editor in chief.”

Within CBS’s news division, the lawsuit had already taken a toll.

In April, several months after Mr. Trump filed his suit, the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” Bill Owens, abruptly resigned. The president had been regularly complaining about segments on the show, and Mr. Owens said that CBS had installed new layers of oversight on his program that encroached on his journalistic independence.

His departure prompted Scott Pelley, the veteran correspondent, to deliver an unusual on-air rebuke of CBS’s parent company, telling “60 Minutes” viewers that “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways.”

None of this year’s segments on “60 Minutes” were axed by CBS or Paramount executives. In May, though, CBS forced out the news division’s president, Wendy McMahon, who acknowledged in a memo that “it’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”

Ms. McMahon had been under internal pressure after her overhaul of “CBS Evening News” led to a ratings decline, and Ms. Redstone had criticized her handling of some Middle East coverage.

In the days before she was forced out, Ms. McMahon had resisted an idea from Mr. Cheeks, the Paramount co-chief executive, to pre-empt the season finale of “60 Minutes” with an unrelated sports special. The finale had been set to include a segment, reported by Anderson Cooper, about a Trump administration order for large-scale firings at the Internal Revenue Service. The idea for a special was not pursued.

On Wednesday, Ms. McMahon’s successor, Tom Cibrowski, addressed the settlement during his newsroom’s morning call. He emphasized that Paramount had not apologized to Mr. Trump, and he thanked the staff for “blocking out the noise” as the lengthy settlement talks progressed.

It’s time “to lock arms and do your jobs,” Mr. Cibrowski said.

Lauren Hirsch and Benjamin Mullin contributed reporting.


ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 

Michael M. Grynbaum is a media correspondent at The Times. He is the author of "Empire of the Elite," a cultural history of Condé Nast magazines.

David Enrich is a deputy investigations editor for The Times. He writes about law and business.

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2025 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘60 Minutes’ Faces Chill From a Deal With Trump.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/us/trump-education-funds.html

Trump Withholds Nearly $7 Billion for Schools, With Little Explanation

The money, which was allocated by Congress, helps pay for after-school programs, support for students learning English and other services.

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The move is likely to be challenged in court and has already been criticized as illegal by Democrats and teachers’ unions. Credit:  KC McGinnis for The New York Times

by Sarah Mervosh and Michael C. Bender
July 1, 2025
New York Times

The Trump administration has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training and other services.

The money was expected to be released by Tuesday. But in an email on Monday, the Education Department notified state education agencies that the money would not be available.

The administration offered little explanation, saying only that the funds were under review. It gave no timeline for when, or if, the money would be released, saying instead that it was “committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president’s priorities.” The frozen funds are unrelated to the millions of dollars in cuts included in the domestic policy bill that squeaked through the Senate on Tuesday.

“It’s catastrophic,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, a group that works to expand after-school services for students. She estimated that the federal dollars for after-school and summer-school programs — about $1.3 billion annually — support 1.4 million students, mostly lower income, representing about 20 percent of all students in after-school programs nationally.

The move is likely to be challenged in court and has already been criticized as illegal by Democrats and teachers’ unions, who emphasized that the money had been appropriated by Congress and was approved by President Trump in March as part of a broader funding bill.

“This is lawless,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

The administration has taken an aggressive approach to cutting back the federal government’s role in education, including plans to eliminate the Education Department entirely. Though only Congress can abolish the department, the Trump administration has taken an ax to education staffing and funding more broadly as it seeks to whittle down the department.

The administration has suggested that it may seek to eliminate the nearly $7 billion in frozen funding. Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week that the administration was considering ways to claw back the funding through a process known as recessions. The administration would formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.

“No decision has been made,” Mr. Vought said.

The withholding of dollars on Tuesday threw school district budgets into uncertainty, with only weeks to go before the start of school in many parts of the country.

Heidi Sipe, the superintendent in Umatilla, Ore., a low-income, rural district, said her district’s after-school program has traditionally gone until 4:45 or 5:30 p.m. and was fully funded through federal dollars.

She recently sent a note to parents urging them to make backup plans, though few exist in her community, where she said there is no Y.M.C.A. or similar alternatives.

In Omaha, Nicole Everingham, who helps manage after-school funding for programs at 42 public schools, said a loss of funding would force her group to consolidate the number of schools that can offer after-school care, and also mean fewer slots for students, because of staffing reductions.

“It completely puts us in flux,” said Ms. Everingham, the development director for Collective for Youth, which helps coordinate after-school programming for about half of Omaha public schools.

Even if the money comes through after a delay, she said, it could disrupt the ability to hire staff by the start of school in mid-August, creating chaos for working parents who depend on after-school programs.

Many school districts also rely on federal dollars to help non-English-speaking students and families, including training teachers and hiring translators.


“Without this outreach, families who do not speak English could be cut off from schools and the support system they need,” said Ana DeGenna, the school district superintendent in Oxnard, Calif.

Several of the federally funded programs have been in place for decades. The 21st Century Community Learning Centers, which support before- and after-school programs, were created in 1994 by federal legislation, and expanded six years later with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. Both measures, the first passed during a Democratic administration and the second under a Republican president, were approved by broad bipartisan majorities.

One of the newest programs, known as Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants, has been in place for a decade, supporting many services for issues like mental health and school technology. That law that authorized those grants received broad bipartisan support, including from Representative Tim Walberg of Michigan and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, both Republicans who are now chairmen of the education committees in their respective chambers.

But criticism about cutting funding for these programs has largely been limited to Democrats.

“Every day that this funding is held up is a day that school districts are forced to worry about whether they’ll have to cut back on after-school programs or lay off teachers instead of worrying about how to make sure our kids can succeed,” Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat who is the vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
 
 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
 

Sarah Mervosh covers education for The Times, focusing on K-12 schools.

Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering President Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections.
 
 


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FASCIST AMERICA 2025: This is the Doctrine and Practice Of White Supremacy On Steroids and Its Vile, Lawless, Tyrannical, and Unconstitutional Assault On Education in the United States

The Objective As Always by The Rapacious Fascist Regime Masquerading As the Federal Government is To Utterly Dismantle and Destroy the Human, Constitutional, and Civil Rights of African Americans and All Others Who Would Presume to Respect, Protect, and Defend These Rights and Freedoms. 

More on Education in (Fascist) America:
 
University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

The Justice Department had demanded that James E. Ryan step down in order to help resolve a civil rights investigation into the school.
 
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James E. Ryan, the University of Virginia’s ninth president, speaking to supporters on Friday. During his seven years in the job, Mr. Ryan developed a reputation as a champion of diversity. Credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

by Michael S. Schmidt and Michael C. Bender
June 28, 2025
New York Times
 
[Michael S. Schmidt and Michael C. Bender have been covering the Trump administration’s clash with Harvard and other colleges for months.]


The Trump administration on Friday secured perhaps the most significant victory in its pressure campaign on higher education, forcing the resignation of the University of Virginia’s president, James E. Ryan, over the college’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The extraordinary wielding of federal power to oust the 58-year-old college president showed the unusual lengths the administration would go to pursue President Trump’s political agenda and shift the ideological tilt of academia, which he views as hostile to conservatives.

Mr. Ryan’s resignation also presents new challenges for other colleges negotiating with the government, including Harvard, whose officials have been repeatedly attacked by Mr. Trump and his allies. While the administration has stripped billions of dollars from universities in pursuit of Mr. Trump’s policy goals, Mr. Ryan’s departure marks the first time a university has been coerced into removing its leader.

The reaction to Mr. Ryan’s resignation was immediate and emotional on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. Faculty leadership held an emergency meeting to adopt a resolution opposing the change, and hundreds of students and faculty members gathered for an impromptu march to Carr’s Hill, the college president’s residence.

Mr. Ryan emerged from the residence after a few minutes of the crowd chanting, “We want Jim,” and “Death to tyrants,” a rough version of the state motto, sic semper tyrannis.

“I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your support,” Mr. Ryan told the crowd. “And regardless of my role, I will continue to do whatever I can to support this place and continue to make it the best place it can be. And I would ask that you all do the same.”

Mr. Ryan informed the board overseeing the school that he would resign after demands by the Trump administration that he step aside to help resolve a Justice Department inquiry into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The New York Times reported on Thursday evening that the Justice Department had demanded Mr. Ryan’s resignation as a condition to settle a civil rights investigation into the school’s diversity practices.

In a letter sent on Thursday to the head of the board overseeing the university, Mr. Ryan said that he had planned to step down at the end of the next academic year. But “given the circumstances and today’s conversations,” he wrote, he had decided “with deep sadness” to tender his resignation now, according to one of the people familiar with the matter who was briefed on the letter’s contents.

Mr. Ryan’s exact departure date was unclear. He said in his letter that his resignation could be effective immediately but “no later than Aug. 15, 2025,” according to the person briefed on the letter.

Demonstrators protesting Mr. Ryan’s resignation at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on Friday. Credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times


In an email to alumni on Friday confirming his resignation, Mr. Ryan said that he was “inclined to fight for what I believe in,” but that he could not “make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.” Credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

A spokesman for the university did not respond to a message seeking comment.The people briefed on Mr. Ryan’s resignation spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Harmeet K. Dhillon, who has overseen the investigation as assistant attorney general for civil rights, said in a statement that she welcomed “leadership changes that signal institutional commitment to our nation’s venerable federal civil rights laws.”

“When university leaders lack commitment to ending illegal discrimination in hiring, admissions and student benefits — they expose the institutions they lead to legal and financial peril,” Ms. Dhillon said.

The Justice Department had targeted the University of Virginia for at least the past month. But 10 days ago, government lawyers tasked with enforcing federal laws issued a stern warning to the board overseeing the University of Virginia that the school needed to act quickly. The department informed the college of multiple complaints of race-based treatment on campus, and of the government’s conclusion that the use of race in admissions and other student benefits were “widespread practices throughout every component and facet of the institution.”

“Time is running short, and the department’s patience is wearing thin,” the letter, dated June 17, said.

The letter was signed by Ms. Dhillon and Gregory W. Brown, the deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights. Both are graduates of the university. Mr. Brown, as a private lawyer, had previously sued his alma mater, and Ms. Dhillon overlapped with Mr. Ryan during their time as students at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Some members of the school’s board had pushed for Mr. Ryan’s ouster, fearing that if the university failed to comply with the Justice Department's demands, the Trump administration would follow through on its threat to strip the school of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. The university received at least $355 million in federal research grants in 2023, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

Board members have also expressed concerns that under Mr. Ryan, the school had not properly dismantled the school’s diversity initiatives despite a 2023 Supreme Court decision doing away with affirmative action and Mr. Trump’s executive order aimed at eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs.


Supporters of Mr. Ryan on Friday. Board members opposing his leadership had expressed concerns that under Mr. Ryan, the school had not properly dismantled the school’s diversity initiatives. Credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

In recent days, members of the board appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, had talked to senior Justice Department officials to learn what could be done to resolve the situation, and were told Mr. Ryan had to go. In response to those discussions, members of the board had been anxious to demonstrate to the Trump administration that Mr. Ryan would indeed step aside, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.

In a email sent to alumni on Friday afternoon confirming that he had resigned, Mr. Ryan said that he was “inclined to fight for what I believe in,” but that he could not “make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job.”

“To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld,” he wrote.

He was “heartbroken,” he said, to be leaving the university this way.

The University of Virginia has been considered among the top five public universities for more than two decades, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings, and has maintained that position during Mr. Ryan’s tenure. This year, the Princeton Review ranked the university as the second-best value among all public colleges. Last year, Time magazine ranked the college as the fourth-best public school at producing future leaders.

Mr. Ryan, the university’s ninth president, has held that post since 2018 and was unanimously approved for another contract in 2022. During his seven years in the job, Mr. Ryan developed a reputation as a champion of diversity. He encouraged community service and helped drive an increase in the number of first-generation students.


Mr. Ryan returning to his home after greeting supporters, accompanied by his chief of staff. Credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

He summed up his philosophy as one aimed at making the university “both great and good,” describing his goal of striving for academic excellence in a manner that would benefit society. But that rankled conservative alumni and some Republican board members, who accused him of imposing his own ethics and values on college students.

“The overt commitment to social equity clearly accelerated on Ryan’s watch,” said Jim Bacon, a journalist and conservative commentator who co-founded the Jefferson Council, a group of university alumni who have been critical of Mr. Ryan. “Pursuing social justice, as opposed to focusing on the core mission, means that instead of educating kids, he’s indoctrinating them.”

Before becoming the University of Virginia’s president in 2018, Mr. Ryan served as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was praised for his commitment to D.E.I. programs. Harvard has been one of the Trump administration’s chief targets since it began its assault on higher education.

Ann Brown, a co-chairwoman of the advisory council of Wahoos4UVA — a group of students, alumni, faculty and staff committed to “viewpoint diversity and U.V.A.’s independence from political interference” — said that after The Times’s report on Thursday, there had been a surge in support for Mr. Ryan.

She said Mr. Ryan’s removal would be “extremely damaging” to the university.

“But this also isn’t about one man,” Ms. Brown, who graduated from the university in 1974 and its law school in 1977, said in a text message. “It would be a symbolic surrender of the university’s autonomy and commitment to free inquiry that, if allowed to stand by the Board of Visitors and Virginia’s elected officials, would send a chilling message: that public universities in Virginia serve political agendas, not the commonwealth.”

Jackson Landers and Andrea Fuller contributed reporting.
A correction was made on June 28, 2025

An earlier version of a photo caption misidentified the woman walking alongside the university president after he spoke to supporters. It was his chief of staff, not his wife.
 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.

Michael C. Bender is a Times political correspondent covering President Trump, the Make America Great Again movement and other federal and state elections.
A version of this article appears in print on June 28, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Pushes College Leader Out at Virginia. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper


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